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Comments

Marco Faustinelli @ 11:21am 02-10-2012
After a few years of reading about Ollie, last month I could eventually lay down my hands on a copy of "Hold your Fire". MY GOD, what I have missed so far! Gonna catch up, though.
Regretting this interesting human being is no longer with us...
Frank Moran @ 11:18am 02-10-2012
I see someone on Ebay UK is selling a copy of the Guitar mag is the Terry Theise article on Ollie.
Phil Mangham @ 11:17am 02-10-2012
It was the same reaction I felt on hearing of the death of John Lennon when I first heard of Ollie's demise;absolute shock and total body numbness !!
I followed the exploits of Patto whenever they appeared at the Black Swan in Sheffield (or tried to). The then compere Terry Steeples(?) always introduced the band as THE Patto.
Why oh why hasn't a TV documentary ever encountered their contribution to the 1970's ?
Stefan @ 11:17am 02-10-2012
Many thanx for keeping Ollies memory alive!
Juan Javier M. Donce@ 11:16am 02-10-2012
I was lucky enough to do professional work with him in the summer of 1991. We did the Callejones' «Al pié del Cañón» album, and I learned a lot from him. He produced the album and played some guitars, piano, keyboards and backing vocals. I did drums for the whole album.

In a few days I will send to the archive some pictures of that sessions, together with a tiny diary, something really short that tells the best moments we had.

Cheers,
Juan Javier Martínez.
Drums.
Mike Shefrin @ 11:15am 02-10-2012
Ollie and I did a bunch of gigs in a jazz band we formed together in Mallorca. I still have a photo of us playing at a club in Palma. He was an immensely gifted person, and also great fun to hang out with. I sure miss him. He was my friend
René M Finkler @ 11:15am 02-10-2012
Just listening to Monkey's Bum right now. Ollie is immortal !!
Danny Chang @ 11:14am 02-10-2012
My band was booked to open at the legendary Paget Rooms in Penarth, South Wales. The band we were
to support was the little known act Patto.

“We shared the dressing room with the band, they let us use their pa. Clive Griffiths the bass player watched our set from the side of the stage giving us great encouragement. I had never heard of Patto before. They were touring with the album Hold your Fire and we went out front to catch the band.”
“From the very first opening bars I realised that as a sixteen year old guitarist I was either going to lay the guitar down and never play again or be inspired, fortunately for me it was the latter. It’s funny how these four guys would never know how much they influenced my musical outlook”.
I am currently doing a documentary on the venue The Paget Rooms and would like hear from anyone who remembers Patto at the venue.
Phil McCarthy @ 11:09am 02-10-2012
"Admiral" Halsey has some great stories about their band. Regard's Phil McCarthy
graham parkes @ 11:09am 02-10-2012
spent many happy hours at the black swan sheffield watching timebox then patto. remember fat terry steeples. beer always lousy but music great
Steve@ 11:08am 02-10-2012
Loved the site, I've got just about all of the shop bought from Ollie and associates so its good to get a few more things to enjoy.
Brilliant guitarist, never quite sure where he's going sometimes (obviously he did!), always stands out from the pack. Also love the humour that's there behind the music.

Thanks Barry for all your work

Steve
Jeff Greensmith@ 11:07am 02-10-2012
Great site. Saw Ollie Halsall a couple of times of times in the 70s, including once (I think) playing in a marquee at a memorable private party at Manor Studios at Woodstock around 74.
Incredible player, melodic, effortless, made it all look so easy, but never showy for its own sake.
I moved to Spain in 86 and always loved Radio Futura and their guitar sound. But I had no idea that ever Ollie played with them.
Qué en paz descanse.
Roger Fitton @ 11:05am 02-10-2012
I'm old enough (52) to remember the first Patto album (the one with the yellow cover and psychadelic nightmare faces) coming out. Someone I knew at school bought it; I heard it and that was that...
In about 1972, I went to an all-night gig at the Kings Cross Cinema where Patto were supposed to be supporting Roxy Music. The latter superstars never turned up; no refunds were offered and the management compensated by repeatedly playing the Mothers of Invention with the Turtles at a million decibels: to this day, Billy The Mountain has the capacity to reduce me to a gibbering wreck. So when Patto finally took to the stage, they got a very bad reception from lots of morons in the crowd who clearly blamed them for being ripped-off. It was ugly, ugly, ugly - just a few badly-chosen words away from a full-scale riot. But the band simply turned the situation on its head: John Halsey doing the Mummy stuff and then playing the washboard as the band sang My Old Man's a Dustman and the four of them delivering one of the best live performances I have ever personally seen. Ollie Halsall's guitar playing was phenomenal; the vibes and keyboard stuff he did made Patto sound so much more than a four-piece.
Tracks like Government Man and Singing the Blues on Reds - which I personally think is what they were all about with the light and shade and time changes in the middle - stand-up even today. They should have been famous - but they were probably ahead of their time. I like John Halsey's quote from the Warts and All cd: our motto was to Act Top Of The Bill... follow that you @#%$!! The night I saw them, Roxy Music weren't there to do so. I doubt they could have. But there again, not many other bands would have been able to do so either...

Roger Fitton 13.10.06.
carlo @ 11:04am 02-10-2012
grande sito, per chi, come me, ollie non riesce a dimenticarlo.
Steve Norris @ 11:04am 02-10-2012
Having visited Majorca the other week, I felt compelled to pay my respects to Ollie and made the drive from Porto Pullenca with my wife & two daughters across the mountain road to Deia. what a drive, wrong side of the road, twisting , turning, well worth the effort, On the way up to the church we past three people in the court yard, a grey beared man, ( pesumably european/english ) a thin dark haired man and a young woman chatting together outside one of the side buildings. We passed and went on to find Ollie's Stone, Once found I turned his volume control up and as some kind person had left a sea shell on top of his stone I felt I needed to leave something, my daughter suggested a cigarette butt, although he was a smoker I did n't think it was very fitting, after a few seconds I realised what It needed to go with the volume/tone control and input socket was a plectrum, so I removed a 2mm thick purple plec from my pocket and left it on top, I hope it remains there or is joined by more.
on leaving the cemetry we walked down through the courtyard down past the church and was met by the sound of a Harpsichord, cello & violin playing very nice what seemed like baroc music. It was quit sereal but very fitting for the moment. We then drove down to the Cove and had a swim, the three musicians later passed us on the beach the thin dark haired man nodded in acknowledgement as if he knew exactly why we were there and what we had done. Strange but there it is! I'm now finding time to read Tuning up at Dawn ( very interesting.)
Keep up the great work Barry, Steve.

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