Hello, my real name is Adrian Stevens but I have always been called Ada (my mum wanted a girl!). I am 53 and have been playing guitar in various bands for 37 years. Originally from a charming village in London (Brixton), I moved to Brighton in the summer of 69 where "I bought my first real 6 string" and formed my first Band, BOILER.

As we got more and more gigs and we became pretty popular, so we went on a 1 year tour around the UK. I gave up my career as a funeral director (yeah I know all the jokes about stiffs!) and just played for a living.

After Boiler came WOODBINE who were even older than I was! I still play a few gigs a year with those guys. Woodbine kept going for about 26 years and were sexist, drunk, and all round good fun!

I formed Woodbine by persuading the ex- T-bones and Shelly guys Stu Parkes and Winston Weatherill to join for a one off gig.  They had had quite a career in the 60s and Gary Farr & T-Bones were resident at the Gomelski's Crawdaddy Club for a long time.  They did a Ready Steady Go and played a lot at the Marquee.  They had only one or two very minor chart successes but were well known for backing more well known people such as Chester Burnett (Howlin Wolf) and Julie Driscoll etc.

The T-Bones lineup was..

Gary Farr                       Vocals
Wince Weatherill            Lead Guitar
Stu Parkes                     Bass
Keith Emerson                Hammond Organ
Andy McKechnie              Harmonica & Guitar
Brian Walkley                 Drums

While I was playing with Woodbine I still had to earn a living, so during the week I worked as a guitarist at the local Top Rank Suite in an excellent disco covers band with the infamous Bobby Sansom. This contract lasted till 1981 and I had a great time there. I still miss the frilly shirts and the platform boots (and the money!).

While we were working there I got to back several well known players and did a small amount of session work (getting very boring now!). There might be a picture or two of interest HERE.

About 25 years ago I teamed up with Tony Savva, who is an excellent vocalist and bass player from London. He has played with shed loads of top names, and he's a really nice geezer! (I had to say that cos I know he will be reading this).  Read up about Tony on www.samuelprody.com

This was a duo that was probably one of the only duos at the time that actually played really heavy stuff. Oh, I nearly forgot, the name of this band was THE SAVALOY BOYS! This whole website used to be called Savaloy.net as my tribute to the great times we have when we play together down in CYPRUS when I go there on holiday.
 

So I was playing with both bands, pretty much all though the mid 70s to the mid 80s with Tony and just with Woodbine after he left to live in Cyprus in 1986

During this time when I hit 30 I decided to get into the software development business. I have since worked for various corporate companies designing image processing software for client server systems.

I worked as a consultant for many years and for the last 10 years at American Express in Brighton. This is the European Headquarters and I often got the chance to travel around Europe, Australia and the States (I might add a few revealing pictures of my 'business' trips sometime) and I retired at the end of 2005.

Anyway, you must be definitely bored to death by now!   Enough already!

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