DAVID ESSEX: A Rock 'n' Roll Dropout Finds His Way Home

It was called the Everons, David Essex says with a helpless laugh, speaking of the blues band he led in the early 60s. “Names are always embarrassing, ’cause they’re so much of an era. They’re so trendy at the time and in a year they become silly, like all those psychedelic names. Yeah, many gigs we’d go and we’d play and the man would come up and plead with us to play something by the Shadows, or something lively, and we’d say ‘No, man, blues is where it’s at,’ and he’d chuck us out, when we’d driven like 50 miles to get to the gig, for no money. But I think we quite liked starving for the sake of the music. I think it was the classic ‘artist in the attic’ image. But then after two years you can have enough of that. It wears off.”