Dave played fiddle in this country-and-western band for a while, as a replacement for their original fiddler (whose name I forget, even if I ever knew it. Sorry!). Cripple Creek was based in Coventry, and were led by an Irish singer. And the lead guitarist was a fine player, I think he played a Gibson ES-335 or some such expensive instrument. Can't remember either of your names, sorry!
I did several gigs with the band. They used to pick me up in the band's van from the tumbledown cottage in Avon Dassett, where I was living at the time. One Cripple Creek gig was as far away as Basildon in Essex, where I had grown up. My main memory of this gig is a strong smell of cordite as the audience fired their guns when we started playing. And once, on the way back from another gig, the van broke down. This was in the early hours of the morning. I decided to leave the others and walk home, with my fiddle. It took ages.
Some time after I had left Cripple Creek and moved to Brighton to play in Tricks Upon Travellers, the singer phoned me and asked me if I would like to do some more with them. I had to decline, but I was glad that they had remembered me.
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