The Jets get set to celebrate 50 years with headline Northampton gig

Brothers Bob, Ray and Tony Cotton have spent the last half a century gigging together and playing across the world.

On September 21st, they will be marking the milestone at The Black Diamond in Northampton.

Despite the landmark gig, singer and double bassist Bob admits it wasn’t initially something on their minds to do.

“It was something our sons said to us last year – ‘you’ve got to do something for your 50th’,” he explains.

“It’s not something we've been building up to - other than in the number of years we've been playing together.

“We thought, ‘It’s just another year and we’ll do some more gigs’, but they said ‘you’ve gotta do an anniversary gig - 50 years is a big deal’.

“We thought about it and realised we really should.

“For us, we've never really taken a break - apart from during covid when even then we were working behind the scenes putting out CDs and DVDs.”

The Cotton brothers started playing together in 1974 – originally in a band called Brad.

“Brad was me, Ray and someone called Andy and someone called Dave who were school friends – our initials spelled the word Brad,” says Bob.

“Gradually we replaced the bass player and then the rhythm guitarist left.

“Tony, who when we started was eight, used to get up and bang a tambourine, or scrape his fingernails or a stick up and down a washboard and sing a couple of songs.

“That’s how we initially started in ’74 when we were all involved in it.”

It was in 1978 the three brothers then came together as The Jets, with Ray on lead guitar, Tony on drums and Bob on lead vocals and double bass – the line-up which remains to this day.

Bob admits music was initially a way of keeping out of trouble as a 13-year-old.

He was playing in a folk group at school and then in 1974, while in The Boys Brigade, the brothers had to do something for an open evening.

“We thought, we can play three chords, let’s learn six songs and it all went from there,” Bob says.

“We never envisaged 50 years. We didn't envisage any gigs after that first show.”

Things took a more serious turn for the brothers when they were invited to Caister on Sea near Great Yarmouth to play a 50s rock and roll festival which was attended by around 2,000 people.

At the time, Bob was 20 while his brothers Ray and Tony were still teenagers, 17 and 13 respectively.

“We’d hardly learned to play our instruments,” admits Bob, “We went down an absolute storm because we were so young and we were a three piece when all the other bands had four or five people.”

From that date, The Jets started to get bookings, with their parents driving them across the country as they were unable to get insurance at their age to drive a van.

It was at a gig in Luton they were spotted by a label rep and ended up signing a record contract.

“When they said, ‘Do you want to record a record’, our question was ‘What’s it gonna cost us’ - they said, ‘Nothing – in fact, we’ll pay you’, explains Bob.

“We thought, ‘We’ll have a bit of that’. In those days, you couldn’t just record a whole song on your phone with an app or do it all from home. It was unbelievable to us.”

It was the band’s 1981 and 1982 singles ‘Yes Tonight Josephine’ and ‘Love Makes The World Go Round’ which were their biggest hits.

The tracks reached number 25 and 21 in the UK Singles Chart.

EMI released their 1981 debut album Jets and its successor 1982’s 100% Cotton – which reached number 30 in the UK Albums Chart.

Further singles followed with nine tracks featuring in the Guinness Book of Hit British Singles.

Prior to signing to EMI, The Jets were signed to Soho Records, an independent which also included one of Shane McGowan’s early bands on its roster.

They also worked with Lightning Records with who they recorded an album which Bob explains was then licensed to EMI.

“It was a really exciting, nice time,” he says.

“Driving down to London and going into EMI’s offices, bumping into people like Queen, The Police or Cliff Richard.

“We couldn’t help thinking, we’re three lads from Jimmy’s End, who lived in terraced houses - we’re in EMI mixing with all these stars.

“We ended up staying in posh hotels and spending time in the major cities. We were lucky enough to play the Royal Albert Hall which was a gig to do with The Prince’s Trust.

“When we were promoting ‘Yes Tonight Josephine’ we got a tour that was all the major venues.

“We played the likes of the Birmingham Odeon, the London Dominion Theatre, Liverpool Empire – all those sorts of places which were the 1,000 to 2000 seater types.”

During that early era, the band also supported Shakin' Stevens, again playing some of the UK’s major venues.

Following their time signed to EMI, The Jets signed to rockabilly label Nervous Records.

“We almost went back to our roots and cut out the poppy stuff that we were almost being cajoled into doing,” explains Bob.

“After we’d done three albums we thought, ‘you know what, we could probably put these out ourselves rather than go to another independent label’.”

The band started Krypton Records through which it has been releasing albums since.

The genre rockabilly is among the earliest styles of rock and roll. It dates back to 1950s America and melds genres such as bluegrass, country and rhythm and blues.

When asked about his own influences and what led the three brothers to form a rockabilly band, Bob admits it was acts like Showaddywaddy, explaining he probably saw them performing on hit TV show Opportunity Knocks.

He adds: “Our uncle, who was into Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles had a Fender Stratocaster and showed us two or three songs and chords.

“We had an album called something like 25 Rock and Rolling Greats which we bought from (former high street chain) Woolworths and we learned the songs off that.”

Despite being a genre with its roots in the mid-1900s, rockabilly has a worldwide appeal and scene which remains popular today. It’s one which has taken the Cotton brothers across the world.

“We've been to Brazil, Japan, Las Vegas three times, Australia, all over Europe, Scandinavia and Moscow in Russia,” says Bob.

“It had a revival in the late 70s, early 80s, with acts like Shakin Pyramids, The Polecats, Shakin’ Stevens, Matchbox and ourselves.

“There’s always been an underground rockabilly scene which has gone in lots of different directions.

“The word rockabilly kind of puts everything into one hat to a certain extent.

“What we found was you could go off in a tangent, off towards the RnB and doo-wop side of things where acts like The Drifters came from.

“We used to take a bit of that, it’d also go to the country direction which was country hillbilly rockabilly.

“The RnB side was more John Lee Hooker, the guitar, bluesy side of it and then you’ve got the jive swing Glenn Miller 1940s type of big band rock'n'roll, which Bill Haley scaled down coming from the country side and tried to create that same type of thing.

“For us, we went into all different styles but always trying to add our own thing.

Closer to home, The Jets have played psychobilly festival Bedlam Breakout – held annually at the Roadmender – three times.

Turning to this weekend’s gig at The Black Diamond, Bob explains they’ll be doing all they can to please the few hundred inside the venue.

“We do such a cross section of gigs,” he says. “We do gigs to what we call ‘the purist’ rockabilly fan who just want hard hitting rockabilly where it’s rammed at the front.

“Then there’s gigs where all people want to do is jive and do their dancing.

“Then, you’ve got people that don't know anything about rock'n'roll – so we'll play some classics that they will know.

“The main set will be a mixture of all those types of thing.”

For the anniversary gig, The Jets have fans coming from across the UK including label reps from the early 1980s.

Not wanting to spoil what’s in store, Bob remains tight lipped about the set they’ll be playing but says there will be some surprises on the night.

The Jets play The Black Diamond in Lower Harding Street on Saturday, September 21.

For ticket availability call 07877346630 or visit Vintage Retreat which is in the same building as the venue.

For more information, visit www.thejets.co.uk