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He was initially heavily influenced by Les Paul—not just his playing, but also the more
technical aspects of his sound. The teenaged Gatton slowed his records down to
33rpm to work out the solos, and rigged up two tape recorders in order that he could

duplicate the echo he heard on those records by making one recording, and then
another exactly the same, but very slightly behind the beat - a very difficult thing to
do. In fact, he was a lifelong “modder” - always making modifications to his guitars
and amplifiers, often with the assistance of close friend Joe Barden, who custom made

pickups for him.

He formed a band in 1956, called The Thunderbirds, and the following year joined
another band called The Lancers. In 1959, at the age of 14, he auditioned for an
established band called The Off Beats, and got the job! A year later he was featured

on a single called ‘Beggarman’ with the
same band, and soon after they
merged with another band called The

Downbeats. Three bands in less than
2 years - that’s some going!

His father was of the opinion that a

career in music was far too insecure,
and encouraged the young Danny to
take up a trade, which he did, as a
metalworker - as was his father. In fact,

he met his wife Jan (in 1964) whilst
doing his apprenticeship at the
National Science Foundation, where

they both worked - although I don’t
think she was doing the same
apprenticeship! However, he wasn’t
too keen on routinely hitting his

fingers and thumbs with a hammer,
and vowed after their wedding to
pursue music as a career after all.

Although metalwork wasn’t to his
taste as a career, it did assist with his
lifelong love of tinkering with cars -

particularly Fords and hot rods (much
like his contemporary Jeff Beck). The
career in music included running a

guitar repair shop for a while. Indeed, he was very skilled at working on both guitars
and cars.
In order to pay the bills he worked with Roger Miller (remember ‘King of the Road’?)
and rockabilly star Robert Gordon, but really did not wish to be constrained by the

music of other people, and decided to plough his own furrow…