Peter "Ollie" Halsall was born on March 14, 1949.  He grew up in Southport, England, which is a short distance north from Liverpool.  His nickname, Olly or Ollie, came from his surname ('alsall, 'ally...).

Early Years

Thanks in part to the influence of his older sisters, young Ollie became a fan of the likes of Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore (Elvis' guitarist), The Four Seasons, and Johnny Ray.  Ollie was a keen Beatles fan and actually attended some of the group's shows in Southport before Beatlemania exploded [in the 70's, Ollie recorded some Beatles cover versions with Tempest and Boxer].  Ollie also had an appreciation of jazz, which he eventually would say he preferred generally over rock music.

At the age of seven, he first tinkered around on a guitar, which was owned by one of his sisters.  He also played a little piano in his early years.  The drums, however, would be the first instrument that Ollie took up seriously.  He began playing for various Southport groups beginning with Pete and the Pawnees and then The Gunslingers.  He started playing semi-professionally circa 1962 when he was 13 with a band called the Music Students.  Then there was Rhythm & Blues, Incorporated.

Take 5: Have Vibes Will Travel

In 1965, he went professional after getting out of art school at the age of 16.  Future Timebox/Patto bandmate Clive Griffiths asked Ollie to come to London to be part of a group called Take Five, or Take 5.  But instead of playing drums, he was to be their vibes player!  

Accounts vary as to when Ollie taught himself to play vibes, but as Ollie said in a 1972 Melody Maker interview, "Clive Griffiths, the bass player, asked me to play vibes, which I’d never played before. I practiced on strips of paper until I got vibes, then I listened to Milt Jackson records and copied solos."  In characteristic fashion, Ollie became competent on the instrument quickly and headed to London sometime in 1965 to begin his professional music career.

Take 5 played their own material and tunes by the likes of the Modern Jazz Quartet.  Ollie called it "neo-quasi jazz."  Imagine a 16 year-old Ollie showcasing the vibes during an MJQ number!  They played regular gigs at the Whisky A-Go-Go in London, but things were not exactly taking off for the group.

Timebox

The band changed their name to Timebox, and soon Ollie would find himself singing and playing guitar.  

In early 1967, they began their recording career on the Piccadilly label with a single featuring John Henry, a US AWOL GI, on vocals.  Soon the MP's took John away, and Ollie became, in his own words, "...a seventeen-year-old, vibraphone-playing, singing twit."   However, their second and final single for Piccadilly consisted of two instrumentals.

Soon, Mike Patto would step in to assume the role of lead vocalist, but then their guitarist, Kevan Fogarty, quit the band.  Ollie, who had been messing about with Kevan's guitar anyway, decided to take over the guitar duties along with vibes.  Ollie's first guitar was a customized Fender Telecaster.   Ollie was finally focused on the instrument that deep down he  always knew he was born to play.  

The final lineup of Timebox included Mike Patto (vocals), Ollie Halsall (vibes, guitar, vocals), Clive Griffiths (bass), Chris Holmes (keyboards), and John Halsey (drums, percussion).  The band switched to the Deram label and released a series of singles.  The most successful was a cover of the Four Seasons' "Beggin'" in the summer of 1968, which peaked at #38.  

Ollie sang lead on the first Deram B-side, "Walking Through the Streets of My Mind".  In 1968, Deram permitted the group to begin releasing its own compositions.  "Gone Is The Sad Man", strangely placed as a B-side to the inferior "Girl Don't Make Me Wait", was the first Patto/Halsall original to be released.  It is arguably one of the best Timebox recordings and one of the most historically recognized, appearing on various compilations of 60's British music over the years.

The final singles are notable for the increased role of Ollie's guitar.  "Poor Little Heartbreaker" features some of Ollie's more notable early guitar playing.  The 1998 "Deram Anthology" CD release included some other previously unreleased great examples of Ollie's growth as a guitar player, such as the track titled "Timebox".  

Despite their lack of chart success, they established a cult following in London with their shows that included a mix of rock, jazz, and rhythm and blues.  They also began developing their humorous on-stage antics known as "looning."  Chris Holmes left the band after the last single was released in 1969.  More information on Timebox can be found in the Timebox section of this web site.

Guitar Hero: Patto and The Blue Traffs

In 1970, the band renamed themselves to Patto.  Ollie was 21 and had become a fantastic guitarist.  It is incredible how far he had progressed on the instrument in just three years.  At some point he had switched to playing a white Gibson SG Custom, which he loved and would play almost exclusively until 1976 when it was supposedly taken from him due to being in debt.

Compared to Timebox, Patto played a heavier mix of rock and jazz styles.  Their first album for the vertigo label, "Patto", was released in late 1970.  "Patto" is perhaps the heaviest album the band released in terms of playing raw, in-your-face rock music with lots of great rock and jazz-inflected guitar work.  The Patto/Halsall writing partnership was maturing.  Every song on the album is strong.  There are many catchy riffs and vocal lines, "Hold Me Back" being a great example.  Ollie burns up the fretboard on "Red Glow", and "Money Bag" showed his ability to improvise in a free-form jazz mode.  Ollie's vibes also help give the album a jazzy character.

Their second album for Vertigo, "Hold Your Fire", was released in late 1971.  Virtually every song on this album captures what is arguably the finest guitar playing that Ollie ever committed to tape.  His legato soloing technique had been perfected by this time.  The soloing in "Give It All Away" is simply incredible.  Ollie's guitar playing was imaginative, fluid, and fast.  He was technically years ahead of his time, but he was also musically crafty and knew how to step outside the boundaries of typical scalar patterns and make it all seem to work.  Photo by Lucy Piller.

Ollie also showed he was a respectable keyboardist on "Hold Your Fire", but his vibes were only utilized on "Magic Door".  Ollie would sometimes do a Keith Moon impression with his vibes at the end of gigs.  One night he got a little carried away and smashed them into an unplayable heap.  Maybe that's why the vibes weren't heard again on later Patto recordings.

The album also featured the first three tunes credited solely to Ollie.  The jazzy "Air-raid Shelter" showed Ollie's tendency to be a bit obtuse lyrically.  Ollie's writing ability was greatly respected within the band as Mike said in an 1972 interview for New Musical Express:  "Take Olly’s tunes, he doesn’t fill them with fashionable rip-offs from other people’s material neither are his guitar solos in the current fashionable trend. Olly is an individual, and I feel that a great deal of our success hasn’t been because of my visual antics out front...but because of Olly’s great songs'"

He garnered a lot of respect from the the fans and the musical community.  He didn't seem to think much of the guitar hero label that was being placed on him.  He thought the praising attention was strange, and he remained shy and humble about it all.  In fact, Ollie played guitar on less than half of their next album, favoring the keyboards.