The Tories

Musicians 1963-1964

The Tories at Schützenhof

The Tories at Schützenhof 1964 - Photo: NN 

previous page

The first cast list of the Berlin based Beat Band "THE TORIES" named Michael "Micky" Zeitner (g), Hagen-Detlef "Hucky" Dürre (g), Reinhard "Bokens" Bock (b) and Reinhard "Ede" Winter (dr). It was founded on initiative of Hagen Dürre.

Hagen worked at a cleaning shop in Spandau's Klosterstraße and he used to talk on band issues with Michael, who lived in the same building. At this time Reinhard, Michael and Ede Winter had formed some kind of a group, but only used to play in private flats using a real adventurous sort of equipment like cheap acoustic guitars, having simple single coil pickups taped to it, and being somehow boosted by japanese transistor amps, while Ede was furiously hammering on a pair of bongo drums - further more they were lacking money and time.

Hucky Dürre then took up the role of the pacemaker, the driving force. As manager and promoter he provided the band with the first decent equipment at the end of 1963 and fixed the first public appearances for spring 1964. He implemented the band's standard dress code in black and kept close contact to fan groups. Finally, he bought a Volkswagen Samba mini bus to always keep the troup together before and after the gigs.

In the beginning Micky Zeitner and Bokens defined the musical direction by bringing in their skiffle and blues repertoire from earlier band formations. Hucky Dürre pleaded for a move toward a harder edge: Via bands like "The Rolling Stones" or "The Animals" a bluesy Rock'n'Roll had reached out for Berlin, jointing white rock with black blues to that tantalizing Rythm'n'Blues. At the same time in England beat music, the forerunner of pop music, aroused the youngsters. Both lines were combined by the TORIES in their repertoire.

<< - Deutsche Version - >>


© Design & Texte 2020 by R. Bock
CSS Programmierung Lothar Wiesweg
English translation by Susan John