Legends of South African Rock: The A-Cads

Interview

Roadrunner (b-side of 'Hungry for Love' - written by Elias McDaniel,better known as Bo Diddley) had a unique sound for 1965. Richard'sguitar playing on this record reminds of the skill associated with JimiHendrix a few years later.

"I always liked the song's groove (I recorded it with two bands) and Ijust played what came next without thinking how progressive it mightbe. It was either musical evolution or devolution, depending on yourviewpoint."
-- Richard Laws

The band's last two single releases were quite unique as the b-side oftheir penultimate single was used as the a-side of their final single.Only their record producer, Derek Hannan, or the record company will beable to explain why this had happened! The band signed with Teal recordcompany and eventually the Teal masters were acquired by Gallo.

"I can't remember if we had recorded more than twelve tracks for thealbum. We definitely recorded everything ourselves and no sessionmusicians were used for any of our recordings. We used Vox AC 100amplifiers and I used a Gibson 345 stereo guitar almost exclusively,occasionally switching to a Telecaster. The 'Hungry for Love' solowas done with the Tele. The 'Sha-La-La-La-Lee' solo was played with aGibson Birdland which I had bought just before the session. We did allour recording work at Teal's in-house studio on (I think) BreëStreet, Johannesburg. I have never seen the sheet music for 'Hungryfor Love'. We cut that record from memory (mine, actually). I thinkit had a whopping four chords in it."
-- Richard Laws

Richard's amp and guitars

Les Goode's name was omitted from the line-up mentioned on the back ofthe album cover, and credit for lead guitar was given to Louis McKelvy.

"I can claim credit for lead guitar and Les definitely played bass(still the best around!). The more I think about it, the more I becomeconvinced that the album featured only the five original A-Cads (eventhough Louis McKelvy was on the cover). I don't remember him being inthe studio at all. I'm pretty sure I was on all the album cutsand three of the singles."
-- Richard Laws

And what are you doing now?

"I play guitar, surprisingly. I live in Los Angeles and write software forthe Macintosh operating system in the solitude of my home office, butthat's just a semi-retired 53-year-old trying to keep his left brainfunctioning. It appeals to my keen sense of logic, which I think is rarein a musician. Usually we're such cosmic flakes..."
-- Richard Laws, December 1999