Warwick Alan "Wally" Nightingale (3 January 1956 – 6 May 1996) was an English guitarist. He founded the band that went on to become the
Sex Pistols.
Early life
Nightingale was born in
West Kensington
West Kensington, formerly North End, is an area in the ancient parish of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) west of Charing Cross. It covers most of the London postal area of W14, includ ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. He attended
Christopher Wren Boys' School, in
Shepherd's Bush, where he met
Paul Cook
Paul Thomas Cook (born 20 July 1956) is an English drummer and member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. He was also called "Cookie" by his friends on the punk music scene.
Early life and career
Cook was raised in Hammersmith and atte ...
and
Steve Jones, who were also pupils.
[Jones & Cook interview, 'There'll Always be an England', Julien Temple, Freemantle Home Entertainment (DVD), 2008.]
The Strand and The Swankers
In 1972, at the end of their school years, Nightingale told Cook and Jones they should start a band.
[Jones & Cook interviews, '']The Filth and The Fury
''The Filth and the Fury'' is a 2000 British rockumentary film directed by Julien Temple. It follows the story of punk rock pioneers the Sex Pistols from their humble beginnings in London's Shepherd's Bush to their fall at the Winterland Ballr ...
'', Julien Temple, Film Four (DVD), 2000 The three called themselves The Strand, after
Roxy Music's song "
Do the Strand"; Jones was the singer, Nightingale played guitar, and Cook was the drummer.
Jones and Nightingale stole high-quality instruments and equipment from professional headline musical acts (including
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
,
Rod Stewart, and
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
) by breaking into venues where they were due to perform.
The band began rehearsing at Nightingale's home in East Acton during the day when his parents were out at work. They soon added Del Noones (Paul Cook's brother-in-law) as a bassist,
as well as a couple of Steve Jones's friends from Christopher Wren Boys' School, Steve Hayes
[http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/news/entertainment/2008/06/17/life_and_times_of_the_sex_pistols ] and Jimmy Macken. They briefly had a
conga player named Cecil as well.
By late 1974, the band had begun rehearsing at one of the
sound stage
A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...
s of
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.
Having closed for redevelopment i ...
where Nightingale's father was working.
Noones was fired from the band for not attending rehearsals; he was replaced by
Glen Matlock
Glen Matlock (born 27 August 1956) is an English musician, best known for being the bass guitarist in the original line-up of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. He is credited as a songwriter on 10 of the 12 songs on the Sex Pistols' only albu ...
, a part-time shop assistant at
Malcolm McLaren's clothing
shop
Shop or shopping refers to:
Business and commerce
* A casual word for a commercial establishment or for a place of business
* Machine shop, a workshop for machining
*"In the shop", referring to a car being at an automotive repair shop
*A wood ...
, where Jones and Cook had begun socialising.
During this period Nightingale wrote the music for "Did You No Wrong", a song which eventually became the B-side of the Sex Pistols' single "God Save the Queen".
By this time,
Bernie Rhodes
Bernard Rhodes is a designer, band manager, studio owner, record producer and songwriter who was integral to the development of the punk rock scene in the United Kingdom from the middle 1970s. He is most associated with two of the UK's best kn ...
had shown an interest in managing the band (which was now called The Swankers), but their only public performance was in early 1975 at a birthday party for one of Cook's friends in
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
. At the short three-song gig, the line-up consisted of Jones on vocals, Nightingale on guitar, Matlock on bass and Cook on drums.
Jones, who was impressed by McLaren's prior involvement with the
New York Dolls, repeatedly requested that McLaren become the band's manager, and in mid-1975 he agreed.
['Malcolm McLaren: Artful Dodger', television documentary, ]British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
, 2010. However, McLaren thought Nightingale did not fit the image of the band he had in mind, and told Jones and Cook he would only manage them if they fired Nightingale.
Jones, who did not feel comfortable in the singer's role, had been covertly working hard for several months to learn to play guitar.
Nightingale was informed that he was being fired upon his arrival for a rehearsal.
The Sex Pistols
With Nightingale gone, the band changed its name to ''QT Jones & his Sex Pistols''
at McLaren's suggestion, but the name was soon shortened to ''The Sex Pistols''. McLaren began looking for a new
singer
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...
, and settled on
John Lydon, who frequently hung around his shop. ''The Sex Pistols'' played their first gig on 6 November 1975, six months after Nightingale's departure. In a later interview Nightingale recalled watching them perform at the
100 Club in
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
, commenting that his old bandmates Jones and Cook: "wouldn't even talk to me. In hindsight I suppose I'm proud to have been involved in the punk scene, though I don't go around telling everyone of it. After I left (the band) Steve and the others slagged me off in the music press really badly. I never really knew why, I never did them any harm."
However, with regard to his views in retrospect on McLaren's part in removing him from the band, in the same interview Nightingale stated: "McLaren was devious and clever. He'd see things which other people didn't see, and I suppose that's what gave him his edge. Malcolm made the Sex Pistols."
Later life
After being forced out of the band, Nightingale continued to pursue a music career, but with limited success. He co-founded a band named Key West in 1981, and a demo of four songs was submitted to
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
, who initially showed interest. The band performed shows, had an
MTV video filmed and aired, and recorded some demos at Fastbuck Studios in
Chiswick. Key West ultimately failed to earn a recording contract and disbanded after two years.
After his father's death in 1981, Nightingale developed an addiction to
narcotics, and was subsequently imprisoned in the early 1980s for six months for a conviction associated with it.
Nightingale's subsequent public musical appearances were rare and sporadic. He appeared as a one-off guest guitarist with the
Brentwood punk rock band Beat of the Beast in 1989. In November 1995 he played guitar on the song "Rich Girls" on Mat Sargent's ''Sex, Drugs & HIV'' album.
During the same month he also performed live with the HIV charity awareness project band the Rock'n'Roll Gypsies.
Death
Nightingale died on 6 May 1996,
of a drug-related illness at the age of 40.
Song writing credits
The band that went on to become the Sex Pistols played mainly cover versions of other bands' work, and wrote only two original songs before the arrival of Glen Matlock and John Lydon. One was called "Scarface" (with music by Nightingale and lyrics written by Nightingale's father, according to Glen Matlock)
which was never released. The other song was "Did You No Wrong", for which Nightingale composed the music and Jones wrote the original lyrics.
Jones' lyrics to the latter song were subsequently rewritten by John Lydon in 1977, but Nightingale's musical arrangement remained unchanged, and the song was commercially released as the b-side to the Sex Pistols' second single “
God Save The Queen
"God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, bu ...
”. It was later included on the compilation album ''
Flogging a Dead Horse
Flogging a dead horse (or beating a dead horse in American English) is an idiom ascribed to Anglophones which means that a particular effort is futile, being a waste of time without a positive outcome, e.g. such as Flagellation, flogging a dead ...
'', and was regularly performed live by the band during their reunion tours in the 1990s and 2000s. Performing Rights societies databases recognise Nightingale as the song's co-author, with Cook, Jones, Lydon and Matlock.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nightingale, Wally
1956 births
1996 deaths
Sex Pistols
Drug-related deaths in England
20th-century English musicians
English punk rock guitarists
English male guitarists
People from Kensington
Musicians from London
English electricians
Lead guitarists
20th-century British guitarists
20th-century British male musicians