THE CHARACTER OF LORD SUTCH

The eccentric singer was born at New End Hospital, in Hampstead, North London, on 10th November 1940 and was named after 'David Copperfield' from Charles Dicken's novel.
Brought up by his devoted and resourceful mother, Dave Sutch was an admirer of the entertainer Max Miller and an eager theatre-goer.
"My mother used to take me to the Metropolitan Theatre in Edgware Road to see the big illusionist acts. I was intrigued and, from then on, I was always dressing up in magicians' cloaks and top hats. She also took me to Punch and Judy shows. I was so smitten, I made my own little horror puppets".
He therefore began his career of entertainer with puppet shows as a very young child.
Later, he entered a talent contest at Butlins Holiday Camp in Clacton-on-Sea and and won a clockwork mouse with his rendition of Patti Page's 1953 Hit "How much is that doggy in the window".
By 1956, he left school and started to work as a sheet metal worker in a factory in Hanger Lane, Willesden. Soon after he became a plumber's apprentice for a while and then ended up as assistant mechanic in a garage.
From October 1957 to February 1958, Dave Sutch had Worked for the Dayton Cycle Company from where he had picked up a weekly pay of £6 ¼ d at the end of the term prior to running a window-cleaning business (See last chapter).Meanwhile he had developed a real passion for american Rock'n'Roll listening to his new idols, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry or Little Richard, on Radio Luxembourg. In March 1957, he even attended Bill Haley & his Comets' concert in Brixton during their unique European Tour. He had the occasion to see Jerry Lee Lewis twice in May 1958, at Kilburn State Theatre and at the Dominion Theatre, in Tottenham Court Road, London.
Like most of great fans of Rock and Roll, he and his friends spent a lot of time at various Coffee Bars where they could listen to their favourite music such as the Ace Cafe, the Cannibal Pot Coffee Bar in Harrow and the Two I's Coffee Bar in Soho.
At that time, Dave Sutch met up with Pat Newman whose brother Pete was sax player with the Fabulous Freddie Heath Band (a band fronted by a singer later most known as “Johnny Kidd”) prior to being part of one of the very first line ups of the Savages during 1960. Pat brought Dave from Cricklewood Rollin Skating Rink.
There are variations on the derivation of Screaming Lord Sutch’s title. According to Carlo Little, founder member of the Savages "Sutch got his name because he used to run up and down the Underground trains screaming. When he and his mates used to go out on Saturday night in the late Fifties, he used to be the life and soul of the party, and he always had on his top hat, which made him look a bit like a lord, by a stretch of the imagination."
But Pete Newman recalled his sister Pat telling him, “All You can do is scream, Dave: how about calling yourself Screaming Sutch?” Later he turned up at rehearsal with a top hat and I said, “Hey, Dave, you look like a lord”.

Indeed inspired by illusionist Max Miller, Dave Sutch was always dressing up in magicians' cloaks and top hats (read the previous chapter).
He actually met drummer Carlo Little, fresh out of the army, at The Cannibal Pot Coffee Bar in Sudbury, Harrow, on February 6 1960. They got a Rock & Roll group together which was initially planed to be an instrumental band whom Sutch would be the manager. Soon after, Carlo Little suggested Sutch to be the singer of the band while Bernie Watson played a 12 bar rock and roll jam with Dougie Dee & the Strangers at the Oldfield Hotel, Greenford.
When Watson got a screeching sound out of his guitar and Sutch started leaping around and screaming. As a result,
the band decided that Sutch should be the singer though he couldn't sing and he then adopted the name Screaming Lord Sutch.

Carlo Little
"At the Oldfield Hotel, Greenford, David Sutch was dancing to the live band, Dougie Dee & the Strangers. Bernie Watson played a 12 bar rock and roll jam with them.
Excited by Bernie's playing who screamed his guitar loudly, Sutch shook his head, letting his hair fall down and all over his face, then screaming his head off, 'Yeah, man!'... He looked unusual enough to do a stage act..."

In those days, Dave Sutch discovered another act from America: the eccentric black singer "Screaming Jay Hawkins" who started his shows by coming out of a coffin in flames, always accompanied with a flaming skull named Henry and whose biggest tune “I Put A Spell on you” (later covered by the Alan Price Set), released on OKeh Records in late 1956, was banned from radio stations across the USA, deemed cannibalistic. He also spotted Wee Willy Harris singing Neil Sedaka's "I Go Ape" at The 2 I's and television dressed as a caveman.

In June 1960, the band that backed Screaming Lord Sutch was renamed the Savages after The Shadows’ hit “Apache”, according to Pete Newman (1) . However the latter only worked with Sutch when his band The Midnighters from Whetstone, North London, became the new Savages a few weeks later and The Shadows released “Apache” on Columbia records in late July 1960.

The first photo of the Savages was taken at a school in Wembley, in June 1960, where they were rehearsing.
The new name of the band can be seen cartooned on Carlo's drumkit.

Could there be another origin of Savages' band name such as "The Wild Ones" from the movie starring Marlo Brondo or from another instrumental number: "Comanche" by Link Wray & The Wraymen, shouting "like Savages" in the intro?

(1) The Shadows released a number intitled “The Savages” in late 1961.


His Lordship never slept in a palace in those days
According to promoter Bob Potter: "Screaming Lord Sutch used to sleep in the bath, his fur coat around him to keep warm He asked an elderly chemist for pills to thicken his hair. When le left me I knew he’d never have a hit record - A great live act doesn’t always make for hit records"
Playboys' pianist Alan LeClaire remembers that during their first tour of Devon and Cornwall, "Sutch slept in the back of the van to save on expences."
Jess Conrad recalls:
"During The "1961 All Stars" in February 1961, Screaming Lord Sutch was living in a horsebox - sleeping on straw in the back."