bought them for me for £1 6 - and I've
still got them! Unfortunately, somebody
"repaired" one pickup by hammering a
nail through it, but it still works -and the
treble's like a Stanley knife. The Tuxedo
was followed by a Futurama from Snell's
Music in Swansea, and I ordered a beige
Vox AC30.' Taff still owns this collectors'
gem, but it's no longer beige; alas, his car
mechanic vocalist persuaded the band to
spray their amps blue.

The guitar Taff has used most
throughout his playing career is his 1962
Strat, and he was lucky to get it. 'We
bought it new in Barretts in Cardiff when
Dave Edmunds and his brother were
working there,' he explains. 'I was in a
band called The Neath Mustangs ... we
had to call ourselves that because there
was a rival band called The Port Talbot
Mustangs! I was playing my Futurama
and the other guitarist, Melvyn Davies,
just had an acoustic with a pickup, so he
needed a guitar more than me and we
used band funds to buy him the Strat.

'However, our singer, Wyndham Rees,
decided that we couldn't have the lead
guitarist playing a Futurama and the
rhythm guitarist playing a Strat, so we
swapped on the condition that we buy
him another guitar. At the time Melvyn
had been fancying these Gretsches so he
ended up with a '63 Country Gentleman.
Later he decided to pack it in and get
married; there was £ 50 hire purchase left
on the Gretsch so I agreed to pay it off if I
could keep the Strat.'

Although he was serving an
apprenticeship as a carpenter, Taff
Williams didn't have much choice about
turning pro. 'The boss came in one day
and caught me using a piece of his best
sapele to make a Les Paul. He was good
about it but he just said "I think your
head is elsewhere", and on balance I
think he was right.'

With singer Gary Pickford-Hopkins and
keyboard player Phil Ryan on board, Eyes
Of Blue found themselves touring with
the likes of Georgie Fame, The Animals
and Chris Farlow. Many musicians stayed

at the Madison Hotel in Sussex Gardens
when playing in London, and that's
where Taff met blues aristocrat Freddie
King. 'He used to wear this stocking over
his head to stop his hair getting fuzzy,' he
recalls with a chuckle. 'We never jammed,
but I got to play cards with him ...'

Eyes Of Blue recorded three albums
and some movie soundtracks. 'We did the
score for Connecting Rooms with Bette
Davis and Michael Redgrave, and Quincy
Jones used us for The Toy Grabbers.
Quincy was amazing. I've never met
anyone quite like him -a true genius.

One night Elton John was on keyboards with Leo Lyons from Ten Years After on bass and Mitch Mitchell came up to play drums. Leo told me, "Whatever you do, don't listen to Mitch -just count four to yourself!" Mitch would chuck in a bar of five then a bar of four and a bar of three and throw you every time.'

Taff inevitably crossed paths with Jimi Hendrix, and he still owns the Selmer
Stereomaster amp that Hendrix played
through at The Speakeasy on New Year's
Eve, 1968. 'We'd finished our set and Eric
Burdon from The Animals asked if it

'Jimi Hendrix grabbed hold of Peter Green's guitar and played Auld Lang Syne like The Star Spangled Banner'

would be okay for some of the guys to get up and jam. Georgie Fame was on keyboards with Rick Gretsch on bass, and Peter Green came up to play with his own Les Paul. Burdon called Hendrix up and and he grabbed hold of Peter Green's guitar, spun it round left handed andplayed Auld Lang Syne like he played the Star Spangled Banne. I wonder if Gary Moore knows that Hendrix once played the guitar he now owns!

Like many guitarists, Taff has a lost love that he still misses. 'I did an album with

Fortunately, Taff has a few other Gibson solidbodies at his disposal. 'I bought the SG Custom on eBay. It's an '86 but I prefer my new Les Paul Standard. Gibson are making nice guitars again ... this 1970s Les Paul Custom can't compete. I bought the L-55 up the Rhondda; I do use it on gigs, but loads of people don't know what it is.'

After Eyes Of Blue split, Taff played with The Neutrons, Piblokto and Ian Gomm before he was approached to join Bonnie Tyler's band. 'She was doing quite well with Lost In France and we rehearsed It's A Heartache down in Swansea before going up to record it in Factory Studio. I ended up playing my Country Gent on Top Of The Pops but I actually recorded the solo on my '62 Strat.'

As if having an international number one single wasn't enough, in 1979 Taff experienced one of the highlights of his life. When working with Deep Purple's Ian Paice and Jon Lord, George Harrison dropped by for a visit, and after a visit to the pub, Taff and the guys ended up jamming. 'It was a wonderful experience playing Beatles songs with a real Beatle,' Taff assures us.

He also worked with singer Miriam Makeba, the world-renowned African artist who has a hit with Click Song. 'There's a funny story,' Taff laughs. 'Miriam would often forget our names when she introduced the band at the end of the set. We were playing the Paris Olympia and she was looking stunning in these flowing African robes. She introduced the drummer and bent over in front of the drum riser to dance as he played a solo, but unfortunately the drums jumped forward and the bass drum spikes pinned her robes to the floor. She was stuck, and in desperation she reached out to the keyboard player who had his back to all this and tapped him on the arm. Thinking she had forgotten his name, he turned round and shouted "Phil Ryan!" and then carried on playing. It was like something out of Spinal Tap.'

Over the years Taff's '62 Strat has seen a few changes. 'It started out Lake Placid Blue, then it was gold, then it went psychedelic to match the purple suit I had bought from Take 6 on Wardour Street! When I got fed up with all that I stripped it all down to natural, then I decided to stain it a translucent blue. When I worked with David Essex on the Silver Dream Machine tour everything was silver or red, so I painted it the colour it is now.'

Taff is also keen on Japanese Strats. 'I think they're great!' he enthuses. 'I never liked CBS Strats because they were heavy and awkward, but the '80s Japanese Strats were more like Leo's.' He has even assembled his own; 'I loved the ash blonde Mary Kaye Strats, so I put a translucent finish on a body and a local luthier Steve Owen made me a birdseye maple neck. I put it together myself with David White Old Glory pickups.'

Do Taff's large number of semiacoustics reflect his interest in jazz? 'Yes - my then girlfriend's brother Howard played bass, and in his record collection I found The Incredible Jazz Guitar Of Wes Montgomery and it just blew me away. Then I got into Joe Pass. I met him at

'I got the ES-350 in London. It's got
the wrong scratchplate and the fretboard
has been replaced w~thon e with a longer
scale so the br~dgeh ad to be moved
down - but I got it for the right price. It's
a '58 or '59, and the pickups are original.
The Byrdland is from the '70s with a
lovely slim neck; the ES-I75 is a '54 but
the P90 has been replaced with a
humbucker. I bought it in Louisville,
Kentucky while touring with Ian Gomm
with the money I had saved out of my
per diems. It cost me about f 150.' Last
Christmas Taff's partner Lil bought him a
'mini me' 1956 ES-l40T 314 to go with it.

Taff's '55 Hofner Committee proves not
all jazz boxes are American. 'I bought it in
Burnham-on-Sea. There's no "Hofner" on
the headstock, which means that it's one
of the very early ones. Tommy -
Steele played one that was identical. Mine has a patch repair where the owner's wife put a stiletto heel through it during an argument!
There's no truss rod and the neck's like a double bass, but I do play it quite a lot.

Although many of Taff's guitars have
proved to be good investments, a recent
acquisition might be the biggest bargain of all. 'Lil and I often go down to this local auction. Usually it's just furniture and crockery, but one time there was a guitar case at the back. I opened it up and this battered Firebird was in there. There was no truss rod cover, missing binding, no nut or tremolo. I thought it was a copy but I decided to go up to
£100 on it - I ended up getting it for £8.'

Although he knows his Fenders, Taff is less sure about Firebirds. 'I was getting really excited so I got in touch with Gibson who supplied me with a truss rod cover, and Steve Owen fixed it up. I'm pretty sure it's the real thing because of the through-neck and banjo tuners, but I did feel terrible about it because the guitar had obviously been repossessed.'

Of course there are still guitars that Taff would like to own; top of the list is a Gibson L-5, but he was L happy with a recent find. 'I was tracking a 1907 Martin 1-28 on eBay and Lil said she'd buy it for my birthday. It cost f 1300 but it didn't need a nything doing to it.' Despite the number of' vintage instruments in his

'The guitarist in my nephew's band
owned a purple one but he came off his
bike and broke his arm. So he offered me
his but I said I didn't need it because I
had all these Fenders. He told me to try it
for a week, and it bowled me over, In
fact, I retired my '62 Strat and bought two more!'