Royston Ellis RIP

[GoldenStreet]

The late 1950s purveyor of 'rocketry' died on 27th February, aged 82.

A quote from his Daily Telegraph obituary...

The Shadows’ lead guitarist Hank Marvin recalled of Ellis: “He had the hair and the beard, which in 1961 was very far out.” Film survives of the Shadows backing him with an uncharacteristic slow blues – “free-form rubbish but fun”, Marvin recalled of their contribution – in front of surprised teenagers at Battersea Town Hall (for such performances Ellis coined the term “rocketry”).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRkaWmI4N5E

Bill

[drakula63]

Sorry to hear this. I've got his Shadows books (the original one and the compilation from a few years back) and they are essential reading. Nice that a clip of him was included in the 2020 Shads documentary.

[Iain Purdon]

Royston Ellis was, in his day, what was termed a “beat poet”, a British version of such as Allen Ginsberg.
He wrote a novel called Myself For Fame, a well observed look at the pop scene of his time, including its seedy side. He worked with both The Shadows and The Beatles.
He earlier ghost-wrote The Shadows By Themselves, a charming paperback portraying them as youngsters hitting the early heights in their careers.