The first two recordings in this section, "Beginning yet another day" and "Life" were the first recordings I made in, I think, 1962. I was 15 at the time and it was written and recorded with my great friend George Hart, the best guitarist to come out of 60's Hartlepool where we were brought up. Sad to say he died last year, 2008, and one of the reasons for setting up this section of the site is for people to hear him again. The recording is pretty awful being made on an old (even at that time) domestic grundig reel machine in a dissused garage. The remaining tracks were written and recorded on my own using multitracking techniques on a B and O 1800 tape deck with a fender strat and hofner bass - I still have all the equipment and even the B and O tape deck still works perfectly. The 1962 strat is worth now the cost of a new car.

These four tracks were recorded on a Ferrograph machine in George Hart's front room in the early 60's. The Hartbeats were H'pools premier band in the 60's. I don't know exactly who is playing on these recordings as the personnel in the band changed a lot. George Hart, John Hart, Roly Thompson, Kenny Officer and Derek Allan is my best bet. Derek Allan sings the lead on Good Morning Sunshine and Oh Lucky Me, George takes the lead on As Time Goes By and We Have Got Something Going (where he is joined by Olive Hart). These recordings and songs are 45 years old but still sound fresh today.

Most of the songs in this section were written by George and I for his daughter Julie, aged about 8. The other Hart McGurk songs are sung by George. George and I play all the instuments. When older Julie eventually joined the band.

These songs were written for and are taken from the Hart Family's Album 'Hart to Hart'. Four are Hart McGurk songs - Georgy Porgy was written by George alone.

The album was recorded at the mid Wales sound studios at Castle Caereinion in 1976. I joined the Hart family on the recording session playing keyboards, guitar and glockenspiel!

I played in the Geoff Phillips Band for 7 years in the late 70's/early 80's and was resident at the Eden Arms Hotel at Rushyford, County Durham. We played for dinner dances every friday and saturday most of the year. The band was Geoff (guitar and vocals), Ron Herdman (piano and accordian) John Snowball (drums) and myself on bass (and the odd vocal). We received an invitation to do a half hour broadcast on the radio for a program called the Music Makers and this is the recording of the program.

These are recodings made with the Geoff Phillips Band where we were resident at the Eden Arms, Rushyford during the late 70's.

The band started life as the Geoff Phillips Quartet in the mid 70's - see the previous section, with Ron Herdman on piano and accordian. When he left the band I switched from Bass to an electronic keyboard with bass pedals, which I found surprisingly easy to play and which sounds good on the recordings, made by Geoff simply placing a couple of mikes at the front of the band stand. I reverted to bass guitar for the pop numbers. The atmosphere of the dinner dance crowd comes over well.

These are the last four Hart McGurk songs written and recorded by George and myself. They were recorded on my B and O 1800 tape deck in my house in Esh Village, County Durham. George plays guitar and sings. John Hart plays bass. Alan Yates plays drums. I play keyboards.

Those of you particularly interested in memorabilia regarding the town where I was brought up, Hartlepool, and local groups from the 60's can go to a site dedicated to this - www.stanlaundon.com.