Is this 1964 ad for The Muleskinners an early Barney Bubbles design?
++ Full-page ad, The Griffon, December 1964. Courtesy Michele Whitby/Eel Pie Musuem ++
Michele Whitby, who runs the Eel Pie Museum, which is dedicated to the pop cultural history of the tiny island to the west of London, has sent this advert for a 1964 performance by local r&b group The Muleskinners, and wonders whether it is a Barney Bubbles design.
++ Front page, The Griffon, December 1964. Courtesy Michele Whitby/Eel Pie Musuem ++
The full-page ad appeared in The Griffon, the paper published by students of Twickenham College of Technology, a copy of which was donated to the museum by a former student. Twickenham Tech, of course, was also attended by Barney Bubbles, then Colin Fulcher.
++ Ticket for performance by The Muleskinners, 1963. © Barney Bubbles Estate. No reproduction without permission ++
Fulcher had deep associations with the college’s in-house band The Muleskinners. They included his friend, keyboard-player Ian McLagan, later member of the Small Faces and The Faces and contributor to performances and releases by a host of artists including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Paul Weller.
//Student sketch of The Cherokees, 1963. © Barney Bubbles Estate. No reproduction without permission ++
Fulcher had designed the intriguing Cyrillic script ticket for The Muleskinners’ Christmas 1963 performance on the island, and the same year sketched earlier line-up The Cherokees, with McLagan playing guitar.
++ Knockout R+B Here Tonight poster designed by Colin Fulcher 1964. © Barney Bubbles Estate. No reproduction without permission ++
And ‘Knockout R+B Here Tonight’ – Fulcher’s poster for The Muleskinners’ performances – was to win him national recognition when it received a British Poster Award.
By the time of the group’s 1964 Christmas concert on Eel Pie, Fulcher had left Twickenham Tech for full-time employment at central London design studio Michael Tucker + Associates, though still associated with friends from the college such as McLagan and Lorry Sartorio, his girlfriend who modelled for the Knockout R+B poster.
And The Griffon makes plain that its contents are produced by students at the Tech, though, again, it is conceivable that Fulcher contributed the ad. It’s certainly very clever, and much in the style of the hard-edged Pop graphics of the period.
We’d welcome any more information as would Michele. Check out the Eel Pie Museum here.