Paperback Book There Must Be A Better Way with extract from the book



What the set contains

Price : £ 12.95

Quantity :


You may have the book signed and dedicated by Wendy Bannister and Henrietta Bannister in memory of the late Freddy Bannister, who promoted the festivals.
On ebay and Amazon this book is for sale for between £69 and £79

The book tells the story of Freddy Bannister, a promoter in the UK during the sixties and seventies, the golden years of pop and rock when he worked in small ballrooms with literally hundreds of bands, from Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, his first booking, through The Beatles, Kinks, Small Faces to The Yardbirds, Pete Greens, Fleetwood Mac, and John Mayall's Blues Breakers, before working with such heavyweights as Cream, The Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Who The Jimi Hendrix Experience using Led Zeppelin on one their very first gigs when they were billed as 'formerly known as the Yardbirds' attracting an audience of less than two hundred to the Pavilion Bath, before he and Zeppelin both moved on to bigger and better things. In 1969 and 1970 he organised the two Bath Festivals of Blues and Progressive Music, after which he found Knebworth and ran the first seven festivals there before quitting the music business after the great Led Zeppelin debacle.

Throughout his career he specialised in working with American Bands and the 1970 Bath festival featured, alongside the British bands that included amongst others Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the largest array of US talent ever assembled in the UK for one event with Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, The Byrds, Santana, Johnny Winter, Steppenwolf, Canned Heat, Country Joe, Hot Tuna, Flock, It's a Beautiful Day and Dr John The Night Tripper on the bill.

He was also the European representative for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and also Grunt Records The Jefferson Airplane label which included Hot Tuna, Jack Bonus and Black Kangeroo etc

The book is full of stories about the famous and sometime idiosyncratic bands, how a steward laid out Roger Daltrey, how a nude girl inspired Led Zeppelin, how Cpt Beefheart saved Freddy from a beating and how Jefferson Airplane had their equipment trashed by irrate German fans. It also explains the difficulties organising mega events, the problems with local authorities, the do-gooders like the vicar who felt the promoter should provide, after the event for everyone arriving at the main London train terminus, individual taxis to their homes, The Rolling Stones' manager, who feeling a little neglected the night before the festival, played a recording of the Damn Busters March through the main PA system at 2.00 a.m., just to get Freddy's attention, waking up the whole area in the process. It also describes for the first time the trouble he had with Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant whilst promoting the two 1979 Knebworth Festivals.

The book also contains 85 rare illustrations - set lists from the Bath, Lincoln and Knebworth Festivals and a virtually complete list of the Bands that played for him over a seven year period at the Pavilion Bath that has to be seen to be believed