Wally Nightingale
| Wally Nightingale | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Warwick Alan Nightingale |
| Born | 3 January 1956 |
| Origin | London, England |
| Died | 6 May 1996 (aged 40) |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1972–1975, 1981, 1995 |
| Associated acts | The Strand The Swankers The Sex Pistols Key West |
Warwick Alan "Wally" Nightingale (3 January 1956 – 6 May 1996) was an English musician. He was notable in English pop music history as the founder of the band that went on to become The Sex Pistols.
Nightingale was born in West Kensington, in London, the son of an electrician. He received his formal educated at the Christopher Wren Boys' School, in Shepherd's Bush, where he met Paul Cook and Steve Jones, who were also pupils.
In 1972, at the end of their school years, Nightingale one day suggested to Cook and Jones that they should form a new pop music band, which they agreed to, and subsequently named The Strand after Roxy Music's song Do the Strand, with Jones as the singer, Nightingale on guitar and Cook as the drummer. Obtaining instruments and amplifiers through theft led by Jones with Nightingale in tow from professional headline musical acts, they began rehearsing frequently, mostly upstairs at Nightingale's family home in Hemlock Road in East Acton during the day when his parents were out at work. The early band had a loose line-up to begin with, for a few rehearsals Paul Cook's uncle playing the bass, followed by other Christopher Wren Boys' School contemporaries Steve Hayes (bass) and Jimmy Macken, who played an organ with it from 1974 to early 1975. It also had a Conga player called Cecil briefly.
By the Autumn of 1974 the band was becoming a slightly more serious proposition and had obtained a large professional rehearsal space using one of the sound stages of Riverside Studios (demolished in 2014 for a luxury apartment block) on the North bank of the Thames river next to the Hammersmith Bridge, via Nightingale's father's professional work there, which they had free use of for a year to hone their skills. In late 1974 the band's bass player was Del Noones, but he was kicked out of the line-up (despite being Paul Cook's brother in law) due to his lack of appearance at rehearsals, and he was replaced ad hoc by Glen Matlock, a part-time shop assistant at Malcolm McLaren's avant-garde fashion boutique shop in the King's Road, where Jones and Cook had begun socializing.
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