Elkie Brooks is one of the finest female rock singers the UK has ever produced and in 1981, her album ‘Pearls’ became the biggest selling album by a British female singer in the history of the UK charts. (You’ll find Elkie’s bio, together with some early live footage, elsewhere on this site.) She continues to record and tour; check out her website, www.elkiebrooks.com, for further information.

The Sixties were not a very pleasant time in my life, because I never had any real musical direction as such until I met up with my first husband Pete Gage. We formed a band called Gaga in ‘69 and we were going up until ‘71 when we formed Vinegar Joe out of that band with Robert Palmer.

If it’s a time in your life when you’re kind of treading water, your memories tend to fade into the distance and it’s hard to remember them, so it’s all a bit of a blur. I never had very much money, so I couldn’t go down Carnaby Street and get all those fabulous things.

I used to go to the Flamingo Club on Wardour Street where Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames used to play and also the Scene Club where the Animals played, and so did John Mayall, who also played at the Flamingo Club. I didn’t perform there professionally; I’d just get up and jam with the band, with people like John Mayall and Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds.

My memories of the Marquee are from when we did a residency there with the Vinegar Joe band - every Wednesday night, I think it was. It was a very, very heavy rock band and I had a heavy microphone stand at the time. The Marquee stage used to have glass footlights and my most memorable time there was when I was banging the microphone stand up and down and smashed the footlights. My foot went into the stage and I fell right down on my arse and cracked my pelvis - it’s never been right since. So thank you, the Marquee! I suppose nowadays you’d be able to sue them and get compensation, but of course then, you never did. I just got up and carried on singing.

The manager of the Marquee, Jack Barrie, was always good fun and kept the bar open for the band for quite a few hours after the gig. The other memorable time I had at the Marquee was when I was drinking Southern Comfort there one night with a few friends - I’ve never drunk it since! Dreadful drink - I don’t know how Janis Joplin used to keep it down.

We had great fun at the Marquee. I would say it was one of our best gigs.

Did you see Elkie perform at the Marquee with Vinegar Joe? Were you there the night she put her foot through the stage?!

Share your memories