About John Stax

I first got interested in music when I was about 13. We had an old banjo at home which I managed to get a tune out of. I was instantly hooked and together with my mates played endlessly. Looking back I think the sounds we made were pretty awful but I’m sure we thought we sounded great!

In the sixties in the UK there were bands starting up everywhere. It was as though a musical virus had swept through the whole country. It was natural for us to start a band of our own. We didn’t do covers of anything in the top 40 but being ‘Purists’ we only played Blues / Rock’n’Roll / R&B. We listened for hours on end to Jimmy Reed, Slim Harpo, Chuck, Bo, Howlin’ Wolf, Billy Boy Arnold and a host of guys that had that sound and feel that gets it right into your soul!

We formed the Pretty Things in 1963 and within a few months of starting the band we had landed a recording contract with Fontana Records. After a lot of grief with the A & R man about songs and arrangements, we finished the first album ‘The Pretty Things’. That album and the next one ‘Get The Picture’ became the bands’ most pure and popular albums. Very collectable now. I left the band in 1967 and in 1970 emigrated to Australia. I started building a mud brick house in 1985 in which I now live with my family.

I began making guitars in 1995 including solid electric and acoustic guitars and mountain dulcimers and now I am heavily in to Cigar Box Guitars.