TRIBUTES have been paid to one of the oldest drummers in the British Isles, who died recently at the age of 102.
Alfred “Honky” Hall, who was a fixture in Jersey’s music scene for over seven decades, passed away this month while surrounded by his family.
Over the years, Mr Hall played with dozens of bands, groups and orchestras, and even performed in front of Winston Churchill while playing with an army band when he was 21.
With three children who all play at least one instrument, Mr Hall has passed on his love of music, which he developed at an early age after joining a choir in school.
Mr Hall, who was the youngest of ten siblings, grew up in rural Cheshire before his family moved to Manchester.
As a young boy, he joined the Manchester Cathedral Choir, where he developed a deep appreciation for cathedral, organ and classical music.
When he later decided he wanted to play the drums, he made his own kit out of potato barrels, empty tins and a foot pedal made of Meccano.
After leaving school, Mr Hall was snapped up by an ensemble orchestra and began touring the UK.
And during the Second World War, he played drums in factory bands while working as an engineer on Lancaster bombers in his early 20s.
At the time, jazz was all the rage and it was then that, in keeping with the American habit of giving band members nicknames, he was dubbed Honky.
His nickname was earned for playing long solos during a song called the Honky Tonk Train Blues, which was very difficult to play.
After years of touring with big bands across the UK and USA, Mr Hall first visited Jersey for a holiday in 1949 and immediately fell in love with the Island.
In 2021, the drummer told the JEP: “I’d seen a film with Tahiti in it and thought I’d love to live like that and eat coconuts rather than playing drums in the snow and the cold. Then I came to Jersey on 12 April 1949 and went for a swim in the sea, and that was it.”
He quickly became a regular in Jersey’s music scene, performing at hotels and venues like the West Park Pavilion, the Opera House, Hotel L’Horizon and the Blue Note Bar.
He explained that by the time the Beatles and pop music began taking hold in the early 1960s, work began to dry up for big-band musicians.
“Everything went haywire in Jersey,” he said in 2011. “Most musicians left to go back to the UK. Things got a bit stiff and we weren’t getting the work.”
Despite the changing industry, Mr Hall stayed in the Island and carried on playing. His holiday visit led to his ideal lifestyle, in which he worked in the mornings as a delivery driver, spent the afternoons on the beach and played drums in the evenings.
And it was on one of these beaches that Alfred met his future wife, Mary.
Together, they raised three children: Jean, Jon and Jane, each of whom inherited their father’s passion for music.
Jean is a music teacher, Jane plays the cello and Jon runs a charity called Outside of Music that uses music therapy to help people in acute care.
Jon Hall, speaking to the JEP, described his father as “a force of nature” who was not only a remarkable musician but also a captivating storyteller.
“He was able to weave fascinating stories of his life as a jazz drum soloist and boy chorister at Manchester Cathedral with stories of love and adulation for his hero, the legendary drummer Buddy Rich.
“If you’d have ever met him, you’d have probably thought, ‘When is he gonna shut up!’ It was incredible.”
Throughout his life, Mr Hall remained passionate about music and continued to perform well into his 90s and 100s, playing regularly for the Eastern Good Companions Club and entertaining fellow residents at Joseph’s Residential and Nursing Home.
“He was obsessed with music, in a way,” Jon reflected.
