Singapore 60's Dukes Band Leader Daniel Abidin Behind-The-Scene

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Chatting with Daniel [formerly Zainal] Abidin is like playing facial hide and seek. With his very serious demeanor, since he was a Captain in our local army, the listener will never know if the man is joking or otherwise. 

Yes, we wanna hear behind-the-scene stories.

Here he is, providing unknown insights about his days with his very famous Dukes, one of the 10 top bands from our Singapore 60's music scene. Don't miss reading them. Gems, they are.

Story 1 - Electrocuted On Electric Guitar

 

''During one of The Dukes music practices at my home in Paya Lebar, every member was clapping and cheering me for showing some fantastic movements with my bass guitar. All of them thought I was imitating Elvis the Pelvis. It went on for a while until my brother Jerry Murad realised that I was actually in the process of being electrocuted. Our guitar cables were probably faulty or not properly earthed.

He rushed to the main switch to turn off the electricity. Thank God for his quick action. Otherwise I would have suffered like what John Rostill experienced; the late bass player of The Shadows was electrocuted when he was alone with his bass guitar while in the process of writing a new tune. Luckily, like Rostill, I wasn't hurt. 

During the incident, The Dukes had a line-up where Richard Young was on drums, Safdar Hussein on rhythm and my brother Jerry Murad on lead. Richard's brother Fernando Young was our singer. Later he became the band manager when Bobby Lambert joined the band doing vocals.''

[John Rostill -it is uncertain what he died of.]

First Bend in the River 

The Dukes with Bobby Lambert  

One of the best recordings, personally.

Video YouTube - weng 2c channel

Story 2 - Messing in the Mess - Band  Banned

''In the 70's, there was gig in the British Officers Mess at Fort Canning Centre when The Dukes arrived late as the van transporting the musical instruments broke down during the journey to the Mess. 

They 'punished' the band for arriving late by suspending all of us for three months from playing there. But Fernando Young managed to get the band to play at the same Mess the following week. What did he do?

He changed our band name for that particular gig. So we were not known as The Dukes that evening. And since we had a few sets of different coloured outfits, we did not used the same clothes as we did the previous week. We managed to do the gig without any problem and the evening went well.

Up till today, we never knew if the patrons realised we were actually the same band. Fernando was a clever manager.''

Chatting With Daniel Abidin.

It will continue for some time. 

Watch out for others.

Images/Articles - Copyrights Reserved - Daniel Abidin.