Band of Joy's beginnings remembered

Panel beater Harry Barber today recalled his days ferrying Robert Plant, John Bonham and the Band of Joy to concerts across the country.

Harry, born and bred in West Bromwich, hung up his overalls to join up with the famous flower power group in 1966.

Now the father-of-three has put pen to paper remembering his time spent with the band, in particular the battle of personalities on the tour bus.

Plant is now peforming again with a new version of the Band of Joy, appearing last week at the BBC Electric Proms.

But Harry, who was born on the Tantany Estate, remembers the singer and his contemporaries from their youth in West Bromwich. He said: "We hung out in the same places: The Adelphi ballroom, the Three Horseshoes pub in High Street, and Casa Bambu, the coffee bar opposite the old Kings cinema.

"I was working as a panel beater and their van was damaged. I took them around in my old van.

"I was taking them around the Regan circuit in Birmingham, which included the Old Hill Plaza, Rookery Road Plaza and Handsworth Ritz at first but we went all over in the end."

Harry's book, called The Band of Joy, chronicles his experience with the band, which would last until August 1968.

While lead guitarist Vernon Pereira formed the first Band of Joy, the group's line-up changed several times and his book details how different personalities mixed.

Harry, who now lives in North Wales with wife Roz, said: "I remember we did a tour in Scotland in August 1967 and Robert Plant did not go because he had been sidelined from the group. He had a disagreement with the other members so they went without him."

The band had been playing a gig in the Ship and Rainbow pub in Wolverhampton when the members broke the news. Harry said: "Plant came back on the stage and he said 'all the flowers will wither and die and go away but the plant will be back'."

Plant would later rejoin the band in October 1967, and he would soon meet Bonham, later the Led Zeppelin drummer. Mr Barber remembered the love-hate relationship between the pair.

"We were on our way to RAF Steeford, in Lincoln, and they had been going on at each other the whole way so I stopped the van and kicked them out," he said.

"I told them to sort it out before they got back in. They were always arguing." Though its members would later go on to greater fame, Mr Barber said the Band of Joy blazed a trail for modern music. "It was one of the first bands to have two guitarists, keyboards and one frontman — more like the modern four-piece," Harry said. "They were years ahead of their time."