The Band

The Shakedowns are four blokes who just love playing music which is rooted in the blues with a bit of an edge. Andy fronts the band on vocals, Clive on bass, Bruce on guitars, and Vaughan, the human rhythm machine, keeps them all together. They've each been playing in various bands for a fair old time, and the current line-up has been together since 2012.

NB Disclaimer - not everything below on this page is necessarily, absolutely, totally, factually correct!!

 

Andy Shakedown

Andy has sung with a multitude of bands over the years. He started out as a backing singer on Frank Zapper’s 1982 tour, where he met his wife Sue. He and Sue performed backing vocals for the likes of Booker T and the MG’s, Wilson Picket and Jeff Beck. Sue and Andy became the go-to backing vocal outfit around Memphis throughout the mid 80’s, until one of the “suits” from the record company said they should abbreviate their name to “Sandy” – which was fine until Ms Shaw stole their thunder with a re-release of her smash hit “Puppet on a String”. In 1991 Andy decided to go solo and formed The Mighty Ass Whoppers, a Blues / Rock band who enjoyed much success on the Northern Soul Circuit.

Clive Shakedown

Clive the bass player started his musical career in 1965 as a winner of the TV show Opportunity Knocks. He played Purple Haze on the spoons. After seeing this on TV, Jimi Hendrix was moved to record his own version. Although moderately successful, Clive felt that Jimi’s version never quite captured the integrity and energy of the original.
Clive got the bass bug at the age of 24, but he made a full recovery and went on to open a cake shop with his brother Gregg in 1975. After this failed, Clive took up the bass guitar more seriously. Clive’s favourite bass is a Westone, which he swapped for a CB radio in 1976. Clive reckons it’s got that really special “bassy” tone because it’s made of wood. 

Bruce Shakedown

Bruce left university in 1979 with a degree in elephant gynaecology. This led to a number of jobs in zoos and animal health centres around the world.  Bruce achieved some short-lived celebrity status from the infamous 1992 YouTube clip where an elephant keeper is pushed against the wall by a huge bull elephant and the keeper’s head is forced into the unfortunate animal's bottom. He never retrieved the baseball cap. Bruce’s first guitar had six strings – and he continues to use six-stringers to this day. He plays with fairly heavy gauge “11’s” on his guitars, not because they give a better tone, but because it makes him seem hard.