Legend

"Legend (Red Boot)" 1970

Southend's Mickey Jupp:
In the early 60s The Paramounts were the most popular band in the Southend area. Another popular band was The Orioles, led by Mickey Jupp. They played the same kind of R&B, but while The Paramounts got a record contract, The Orioles didn't. The band broke up in 1966, but Jupp returned in 1969 with a new band, Legend, who, as the first English band to get a contract with Bell Records, recorded one album, Legend, in a session that lasted only eight hours.

They followed that with one gig at Staines, Middlesex and broke up just before the album's release. The album was an acoustic pop / R&B album with Jupp on vocals, guitar and piano, Chris East on vocals, twelve string guitar & harmonica, Steve Geer on string bass (on some songs played with a bow) and vocals and Nigel Dunbar on drums . The "unplugged" album stills sounds fresh today.

Jupp still had a record contract, but no band: he got some help from the Procol camp. David Knights, who had just left Procol Harum, became Jupp's manager. With help from some old friends from Procol Harum, he recorded a single as Legend. The song is called Georgia George (Part One) and is a primitive rocker close in style to some of the rawest Paramounts tracks. [See here for Frans Steensma's authoritative additions to this account]

The story of Legend then continues when Jupp came to put together a new band. The new Legend had Jupp on vocals, guitar and piano, Bill Fifield on drums, Mo Witham on guitar and John Bobin on bass. They recorded an album called, once again, Legend, for Vertigo in 1971: it is known as 'The Red Boot Album' because of the red boot on the cover. It's a very good album, produced by Tony Visconti for David Knights Productions. Bill Fifield then left to join T Rex as Bill Legend. At his home page, Tony Visconti says: 'Bill and I had worked together when he was the drummer in the group Legend, a superb rock and roll group headed by Mickey Jupp, from Southend. Bill played great on Hot Love and Marc made him an offer he couldn't refuse.'

CD Cover: Front, Back, Inside
Sample pic: 1, 2


"Moonshine" 1971

The second and last album by Legend was called Moonshine, also on Vertigo (1972). Bill Fifield had been replaced by Bob Clouter. The album was not as good as its forerunner, but the contributions from Procol continued. Once again it was produced for David Knights Productions, but by the band themselves this time. Matthew Fisher arranged strings on three songs. Legend Mk III (Jupp, Bobin, Clouter, Witham) broke up in 1971. Now, the story goes as follows (a conversation Paul Moules -of the Mickey Jupp homepage- had with John Bobin). "We played a gig somewhere in the north of England and was driving down to Dover to catch the ferry to drive across to Italy (MJ didn't fly at this stage of his life). They were trying to think of ways of getting out of doing the gig, in the end John rang the promoter and said they couldn't make it, thinking that they were one of several bands doing the gig. They ended up going across to Italy as they found out they were the only band booked at this venue. On their return, Bob and John left the band which spelled the end of Legend.