Gerry Robinson, who has died aged 76, had a tantalising brush with fame in the late 1960s as a mandolin player and guitarist with the Purple Gang, briefly darlings of the British underground music scene during the first “Summer of Love”.
The band, of which I was a fan, released an album, The Purple Gang Strikes, in 1968, and played in London at the UFO club, where they jammed with Jimi Hendrix, and at the 14-hour Technicolor Dream concert at Alexandra Palace, which also featured Soft Machine, Pete Townshend and Denny Laine.
They later appeared on the student circuit in the 70s with a spectacular live act based on Gerry’s soaring electric mandolin, playing with, among others, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, the Moody Blues, Love and Yes. When the original lineup of the band called it a day in 1973, Gerry, who was a talented artist, moved into a career as a graphic designer.
Gerry’s real first name was David, and he acquired his alternative moniker at school in Hyde, Greater Manchester, because of his supposed resemblance to the comedian Jerry Lewis. Born in Hyde to Bill, who worked in manufacturing, and Margery (nee Ward), a housewife, he went to Greenfield school, followed by Stockport Art College. In 1967 he moved to London, where he lived in a battered camper van as a 19-year-old member of the Young Contemporaries Jug Band.
That quintet’s quirky style, loosely based on American jug band music, featured Gerry on mandolin and harmonica and his bandmates on jug, kazoo, guitar and washboard. They attracted the attention of the successful young producer Joe Boyd, who became their temporary manager, giving them a new image and a new name – the Purple Gang.
Boyd recorded the first Purple Gang single, Granny Takes a Trip, the day after producing Pink Floyd’s Arnold Layne in the same London studio. John Peel championed the single on pirate radio and called it “one of the all-time great records”, but it was banned by the BBC on the mistaken assumption that it contained drug references, and it failed to make a wider impact.
Gerry started his other career in printing. In the late 70s he moved to a small graphic design company in Manchester, and in the late 80s he joined Gardiner Caldwell Communications in Macclesfield as an account manager and director. He retired around 2000.
Despite Gerry’s later focus on graphic design, he never lost his passion for music, performing in local folk sessions around Greater Manchester with the band Werneth Low, and in a duo with fellow Purple Gangster Joe Beard. Their final gig, with other former Gang members, was at the Cavern Club in Liverpool in November 2023.
A lovely, funny guy, he liked sports cars and dogs, especially terriers and lurchers, and lived in Stockport in what is said to be one of the oldest and most haunted properties in the area. He never saw any apparitions, but did hear them, and was occasionally visited by groups of people on ghost tours, one of whom claimed to have seen the ghost of a small boy in Victorian dress climbing the stairs.
Gerry was married and divorced twice, first to Judi Brown, then to Shirley McCarron. He is survived by his siblings, Pamela, Barbara and Pete, six nephews and two nieces.
