Without a guitar or a band, Ollie apparently laid low until the early Summer of 1977 when Neil Innes asked him to be a Rutle. The Rutles was a Beatles parody group born out of a sketch on the Rutland Weekend Television show, starring Neil Innes and Monty Python's Eric Idle. A clip of the Rutles sketch was shown on Saturday Night Live when Idle hosted in October, 1976, and the response from fans was so great that Lorne Michaels offered to be the executive producer for what became a hilarious full-length television special, titled "All You Need Is Cash". Neil Innes was commissioned to write the songs and put together the musicians for the recordings. John Halsey and Ollie were drafted as well as Ricky Fataar (Beach Boys, Boz Scaggs), who Eric Idle had met on holiday in Barbados. Sometime around July, the band finished rehearsing and recording the songs in just two weeks. A tape of some of the rehearsals has been bootlegged. Ollie played guitar and keyboards on the recordings and provided the vocals (slightly sped-up) of the Paul character, Dirk McQuickly. Unlike Neil, John, and Ricky, Ollie unfortunately did not get to play one of the Rutles in the film. Being a lefty, he would have been perfect for miming the parts of Dirk, but the producers wanted Eric to play the role instead. Eric looks so hilarious in the role that the movie is probably funnier the way things went. Ollie instead became Leppo, the fifth Rutle from the Hamburg days who mainly stood in the back (like Stuart Sutcliffe) and was never seen again after crawling into a trunk with a small German Fräulein (unmarried woman, or governess). The film was shown on television in the US in March of 1978. Ollie was given just a couple of seconds of screen time in a still photo. In 1996, The Rutles put out another album called "Archaeology", which features several tracks with Ollie from the original 1977 rehearsals and recording sessions. It is an outstanding album that sadly received very little promotion. Article: Guitar (UK), January 1977 Terry Theise's Electric Guitar Top Ten Otway and The "Caves" Demos Ollie borrowed guitars from the likes of Bernie Holland and Gary Glitter (star-shaped!) and started doing some sessions again. He played on Kevin's "Rainbow Takeaway" LP in 1978. The album didn't fare so well with the punk movement in full swing and all, and Kevin went back into retirement for nearly two years. |
In 1979, Ollie played on John Otway's "Where Did I Go Right" album. The two really hit it off, recorded various demos together, and did a duo tour accompanied by a drum machine. A tape exists of one of these shows. |
In 1979-1980, he also did some recording for Neil Innes' "Off The Record" LP, though he doesn't play on much of the album. Ollie did eventually appear on Neil's "Innes Book Of Records" television program playing guitar and singing backup on a humorous punk version of Neil's "Catch Phrase" song along with John Halsey on drums. |
Article: Ptolemaic Terrascope Summer 1992 Nick Saloman's obituary for Ollie which includes a poem Ollie wrote in 1986. 1997 Rutlefest Stories John Halsey and Neil Innes remember Ollie. |
Peter "Ollie" Halsall was perhaps one of the most underrated guitarists ever. It amazes me that so few people (especially guitarists) seem to know about Ollie -- and that it took so long for a guitar head like me to hear his playing. I try to turn friends on to his playing whenever I can. |
His guitar work was so unusual, fast, and fluid that it could make you laugh. He could also make it sing very movingly given a gentle tune. If the world made any sense, he would be way up there on the guitar hero list with Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, etc. But he never really cared much about being a guitar hero. He was blessed with an incredible gift for music, and he was a thoughtful musician, not just a flashy guitar lickster. I will close this short and terribly insufficient bio off with a list of some words that those who knew him use in their reflections of the man: musical freak, brilliant, one-off, funny, underrated, amazing, warm, extraordinary, shy, humble, absurd, gifted, insane, musical acrobat, unfathomable, daring, missed. For a complete discography and other great information on Ollie, I recommend that you visit Barry Monks' Ollie Tribute web site. See the Links page of this web site for a link to Barry's site as well as Martin Wakeling's "Why Are We Sleeping?" Kevin Ayers site and other places that have more information on Ollie. |
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