Kevin McGinlay - Salvation - The Early Years

THE EARLY YEARS
My interest in music was there from an early age, but I didn’t do anything serious about it until after I had endured almost a year in hospital, spending most of that time confined to bed which got me listening to lots of music, and celebrating my sixteenth birthday.

Around 1964 I started a band called The Strollers with my brothers Jim (bass), Hugh (rhythm guitar) and my cousin Ernie Slater on drums. We played a few local gigs, started a fan club and things looked promising, but about a year later my brother Hugh decided it wasn’t for him and we got another guitarist in but eventually it came to a halt. I really didn’t do anything musical for the next three years or so but got back together again with my brother Jim who had been playing with a couple of other bands during this time. We got the drummer; George Wade from one of these bands The Tardy Host and a guitarist called Brian Denniston and formed a group called Friendly Persuasion.

This band was becoming quite popular and the local band entertainment agency took notice and in June 1970 Pop Supergroup SALVATION was created, with myself on vocals, my brother Jim on bass, Nod Kerr (drums) and Mario Tortolano (keyboards) both from a band called Telephone, and Ian Kenny (Guitar) his previous band I can’t recall. This band took off well and started to build up a large following of fans.

Six months later Ian Kenny departed and I asked Brian Denniston if he would rejoin and he agreed. We continued doing the gig circuit via Music & Cabaret Entertainment Agency and steadily increased our status. I enjoyed a lot of the music we were performing at this period and would say probably, from a music point of view, this was Salvations best line-up. Around May 1971, Nod Kerr departed and joined The Nicholson brothers (The Poets). We then brought in drummer Matt Cairns and continued, later replacing Mario with Robin Birrel on keyboards. After a few months Brian then left and we continued as a four piece with myself taking on the guitar work doing cover versions and a couple of original songs.

I wasn’t comfortable playing guitar but persevered until March 1972, when our agency then thought it was time to freshen the line up and Robin and Matt departed. Jim and I then recruited Billy MacIssac (keyboards) from The Bubbles, Kenny Hyslop (drums) from The Beings, and as I wasn’t keen to play guitar I pushed to get Jim Ure (guitar) from local band Stumble.

After stifling my brother Jim’s main objection, (a bad idea having two Jims in the same band), I suggested we turn his name backwards to become Midge and then Jim relented, so now you know how and why he got the name Midge Ure. We performed our first gig at Glasgow Tech. College on 17th March 1972, and rose quite rapidly to become the top pop band in Scotland with this line-up doing mostly cover versions and a couple of originals thrown in and continued until my last gig on 27th April 1974 when I, Kevin McGinlay departed to pursue a solo career.

The band continued once again as a four piece, doing things I didn’t want to do and changing their name to Slik. I would like to point out that contrary to what other websites are stating, my brother Hugh McGinlay and cousin Ernie Slater had nothing whatsoever to do with Salvation, and also that we did perform original material over the years (I still have the original tape recordings) - on the whole most of what they say is true.

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