The year was now 1970 and having moved into London from Berkshire, Kellie was actively looking for the songwriter who would form the basis of his next career move.
In the meantime he was recording with various artists; George Harrison, Traffic, Peter Frampton among others and shared the drumming with Kenny Jones on The Jerry Lee Lewis London sessions album. He was also summoned by Pete Townsend to perform on a couple of songs for the soundtrack to Ken Russell’s film of Tommy.
In 1974 he joined Johnny Hallyday, the french ‘Elvis’ for the annual summer tour of France. Having been part of the studio band Johnny used to record his cover songs for the French market it seemed a good idea to take Kellie on the road following the departure of long time English drummer Tommy Brown.
Kellie’s Spooky Tooth colleague Gary Wright along with Peter Frampton with Pat Donaldson on bass were all members of the studio band. Recordings were done at Olympic studios in Barnes and engineer Chris Kimsey called Kellie one day to ask him if he would enjoy playing with Johnny for the summer. It was 1974. Kellie remembers the time fondly…’it really was like being on tour with Elvis and the all-French band really did ‘cook’.
We had a fantastic standard of living but I confess that I allowed my ego to become inflated and we parted company after one tour. I learned an important lesson that year ! …
