No-one is sure exactly when it happened but some time during the sixties (lets face it, there was a lot going on at the time). A band was formed. The Vision, as they were known then, comprised of three exceptional musicians. Rob and John Carroll and Tim Kik. The photo on the left shows Tim (left) and Rob (right) at one of the first gigs of The Vision. They were actually horrifically unpopular at that stage as they could only get gigs at old peoples homes and could get no-one to take pictures of them (even the old people, they all had arthritic fingers) so John took this picture.
Later on, after gaining some popularity, they were joined by (Big Bad) John Knight and (not so big or bad) Cory Bogtrotter (It was later rumoured that Cory learnt to drum alongside Ginger Baker who went on to form Cream with Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton). John played keyboards and some mean elecctric Mandola while Cory beat out the rhythm for the group on the drums. At this point, they changed their name to Stormcro and under this name, played various concerts and get-togethers around the world - their biggest triumph being Woodstock, where, on the last day (Sunday) they were the main act (see Woodstock tickets below).
In January of 1974 they renamed themselves Gentleman Soldier and, in a radical move away from their rock roots, began to play folk music. Many of their fans who enjoyed their rock music continued to listen to the world famous band, and they picked up many new followers from the folk scene but to this day, no-one knows why they made this change.
On Thursday April 4th 1974 tragedy struck. Cory Bogtrotter, the drummer of Gentleman Soldier died of a strange injury after a drugs and drink binge.
After that, they were taken to court over the suspected murder of their former drummer and the resulting wave of media coverage propelled their career to new heights. Their promotion manager was quoted saying "Damn, you can't buy publicity like this" and figuring that he wouldn't lie to them, they sacked him tellnig him that his work was done.
Christopher Guest approched Gentleman Soldier after they won their court case and asked them if he could write a film about all that had happened. The group weren't interested in any more publicity after the time it had taken for the whole Bogtrotter case to blow over so Guest then asked if he could use part of their story in another film idea he'd had so Spinal Tap was born in 1982. The actual Bogtrotter scenario was never used out of respect for the band although Guest managed to concot a number of original ways for a drummer to die.
Before the tragedy of Cory Bogtrotter, Gentleman Soldier (known as GS to their fans) played at many different venues around the world. As you already know, they played as special guests at Woodstock; but they have also played at the famous Glastonbury Festival. Above, you can see the stage erected for them at the festival of 1973.
With a turnout of 500,000 at Woodstock and playing the most popular British festival of all time you would think that Gentleman Soldier had got as far as they could go; but you would be wrong. They have also played at Central Park, in New York (right), and the attendance was the largest ever recorded at an open air concert, which was even more than their audience at Woodstock.
Going back again to Woodstock, here are some pictures taken at that time.
The first is a picture of the famous 'Stormcrow' tour bus. They drove this
all the way from England in order to play at Woodstock. It's a good job the
Bering Strait was frozen over.
As you can see, in the early days they let people walk all over them (or
at least, their mode of transport). This is the only known photo in which
Cory Bogtrotter appears apart from the one when his body was found (he was
always too far out of his head to appear in the group photos). In this one,
you can see him dressed in camouflage trying to get the people off the
bus, and not doing a very good job. He was, of course, completely stoned at
the time.
As you can see in the photo on the left, the Sunday on which Stormcrow
played at Woodstock was hell for anyone wanting to drive into the festival.
Many people abandoned their vehicles miles from the site and came in on foot!
The attendance on that last day was the highest recorded at the Woodstock
Festival; and the fans would not let Stormcrow leave the stage until they had
done seven encores.