In the early summer of 1977, in the Staines/Ashford area of West London, the band 'French Lessons'  arose from the ashes of 'Blazer' (1975-1977), followiRg an advertisement placed in 'Melody Maker'.

          

French Lessons 1977  (l to r) :

Martin Plumb            Keyboard/vocals

Richard Gleave        Guitar/vocals

Ian Dolphin*               Guitar/vocals

Geoff Coxon               Drums

Dave Gillbe                Bass

*Later Ian Lee-Dolphin

We played mostly original material from Ian & Martin, along with compositions from friends of the band, such as Richard Higgins (an old school and university friend of Richard's) and former members of 'Blazer', Lawrie Wright and Alex Lawrence. These were mixed with a few classic 'covers' of the era from bands/writers as diverse as Racing Cars and Gerry Rafferty.

Over the following years we played gigs mainly in the west of London, such as Chelsea College but we also hit the M1 to remote places like Dunstable Queensway Hall (now sadly replaced by a supermarket) and Warwick University, where our original and sometimes slightly quirky songs went down especially well.

Eventually French Lessons stopped gigging so we separated and worked with other bands over the years, but we never actually broke up.........