AMBERLITES, THE

Lead Vocals: Bruce Moodie

Guitar: Lou Moodie

Guitar: Mike Rollo > bass

Bass: Lynne Moodie am

Drums: Perry Rollo

The band was made up of two sets of brothers who also happened to be cousins. Lou Moodie recalls the beginning of the band, “We were all into music because our dads played in bands. We played our first gig on 7th June 1969, performing at a talent contest in the morning at the ABC Playhouse and then at the Colchester Lexden British Legion Club in the evening.”

The youngest member of the group at the beginning was just nine years old. “The band went through a few changes during its time. We didn’t have a bass player to start with so Lynne, another cousin, joined on bass and we were The Amberlite 5, later we disband for a while but then the original four got back together with Mike switching to bass,” added Lou.

In 1973 the band entered The No6 Players Talent Contest held at The First Floor Club in Ipswich but were disqualified when the organisers found out that some of the band were under 18. Lou said, “The eventual winners of that competition were Showaddywaddy. We turned professional between 1978 and 1981, our agent John Randolph Sutton had us booked into the summer season circuit with Pointins at Hemsby and Pakefield, we also played many of the regional airbases and in Spain and Sweden.”

The band split around 1984.

Discography:

7” Newsflash! EP

Get Back / Teddy Bear b/w  Lets Stay Together / Albatross

Ambersound Records AMB100 (EJR615) released ??/??/78

Sources: SBA/45cat / Lou Moodie