THERE is no cure for rock'n'roll. Once you are bitten by the bug, that's it.

Music is in your system for life.

That's witnessed by world famous bands such as the Rolling Stones, or local legends Steve Cassidy And The Escorts, who are still going strong.

Those who grew up in the Sixties will never forget being at the hub of a musical and social revolution. Now a group of rock stars from the heady days when every York pub was a live music venue are recreating that magic.

You don't have to wait long to enjoy some Sixties sounds. This Wednesday night at the Ship Inn, Acaster Malbis, musicians from the York scene will play some of the great songs from that uniquely creative decade.

And at the end of next month, a Fifties and Sixties Charity Reunion Concert will see some of the best musicians then and now performing for good causes.

Both the Ship Inn sessions and the concert were partly inspired by Rod Swales, now 60, who lives in Haxby. He can date his musical origins precisely.

"When I was seven years old, I started piano lessons.

"My family have been involved in music and entertainment for generations. The family is riddled with entertainers of one sort or another."

By the time he was 14, Rod was in a skiffle band with schoolmates from Nunthorpe Grammar, styling themselves the Green Corn Boys.

They would play at church socials and local schools.

Only a few years later rock'n'roll happened. Rod joined The Courtiers, who became the resident band at the York Empire, now the Grand Opera House.

He moved on from playing keyboards, first to lead guitar.

"I am also an electronics engineer," he says. "I used to repair the gear for one of the local bands called The Dominoes.

"Their bass player left to be a pilot in the RAF. The drummer asked if I had ever played bass. Before I could answer, my friend said yes.

"I had never touched the bass in my life."

He soon learned to play it though, and joined The Dominoes. That's how it was in those days: people swapped bands all the time.

Sadly it was a series of deaths which brought many musicians from the York Sixties scene together again. The first loss was Dustin Gee, who found national fame as an impressionist, comedian and partner of Les Dennis.

Dustin's real name was Gerald Harrison but in those early days he was better known as the front man of Gerry B And The Rockafellas.

"After his funeral in Fulford, when a lot of the other musicians in York went over the road to the Gimcrack, someone said, 'we haven't got together for such a long time'," says Rod.

Two other funerals followed, one for Barrie Wood and the other for Rod's brother Mike, a professional musician. Out of these tragedies came a desire among the remaining musicians to give something back, and a series of charity concerts began.

The last one was held in 1996, so the new gig, on April 28 at the Tramways Working Men's Club, is eagerly awaited.

About 40 musicians will perform for free at the concert in aid of the National Heart Research Fund, Cookridge Cancer Research Fund and Parkinson's Disease Society.

Among the bands booked to perform are Steve Cassidy And The Escorts, The Alan Carver Set, Legacy and The Envoys.

The Dominoes will play too, with the original bass player, the now retired Squadron Leader Richard Monfort, sharing duties with his replacement, Rod. Another of the band's former members, Mick Mills, will return from his home in Spain to compere and sing.

Murray Addison is helping to organise the concert. Now 60, he started his musical career when he was 17, and played with Gerry B And The Rockafellas.

"Musicians in and around York used to change groups quite regularly. I played with three or four bands," he says.

"It was an exciting time."

Terry Herbert, well known as both the treasurer for York City Supporters' Trust and the man behind York Wine Club, played in several Sixties bands. He started off playing washboard with a skiffle group. Later he played drums with Steve Cassidy and his band, and then the Tycoons.

"It was absolutely wonderful," he recalls. "You know the joke: what do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A drummer.

"At that point I was also playing tenor sax with a big band at the Assembly Rooms. I traversed the eras.

"It was a very liberating experience to be a teenager in the Sixties."

He remembers playing at the Caribbean Club, which became the Boulevard, on the A64 Leeds road.

Someone else who played drums with the Mal Dyman And The Tycoons was Phil Calvert. He had been playing in his bedroom for a couple of years when he saw an Evening Press ad placed by The Scorpions looking for a drummer.

He auditioned in a garage at one of the lad's homes, and got the job. "We played various local church halls and then we got the residency at the Acomb Hotel."

Later he joined the Tycoons and the band started to tour the West Riding, as well as playing around York, and write some of their own material.

"You can always tell when things are getting really good. We used to play a lot of rock clubs, universities and things.

"There were always curtains in those days, with somebody announcing you. Then the curtains would be opened. People wouldn't dance, they would just stand and watch you.

"Then you had got something."

The band auditioned for Stanley Joseph at the Leeds City Varieties. He was impressed enough to offer to take a demo tape to Columbia Records in London.

But one band member was training to be an accountant, another was an apprentice architect and they decided against risking their careers for a shot at fame.

Phil went on to become a court officer, first in York and then Darlington. In more recent years he has played in his own bands, Backtrack then Chameleon, and more recently Legacy, gigging across the country.

Graham Metcalf has never stopped playing music since he began in the Fifties. He was in a school skiffle band at first.

"Soon after I left Nunthorpe School, a little-known band called The Beatles came to the fore, which meant everybody needed a singer.

"So I was pushed into singing, although I didn't want to. And for the next 40 years I carried on singing."

His group was the Pathfinders. They played at the Acomb Hotel and the long-gone White Horse on Coppergate.

Later Graham joined the Morvans and then the Tycoons. He has never stopped performing, and now entertains in York pubs and clubs as a vocalist and in the country duo Wildwood with Karen Pinkney.

Thanks partly to the Evening Press, he was reunited with the original Pathfinders, David Jackson and Graham Robson, and they played together for the first time in 40 years at the Ship Inn's last music night.

As the Ship nights and the charity concert prove, music becomes a lifelong passion.

"If you do something and really like it, it's just in there," says Phil.

The Fifties & Sixties Charity Reunion Rock Concert takes place from 8pm-11.30pm on Wednesday April 28 at the Tramways WMC, York. Tickets cost £4 and are available from Bulmer's in Lord Mayor's Walk and MOR Music, Fossgate

The next Ship Inn musicians' night is on Wednesday (always the last Wednesday of every month), at the Acaster Malbis pub. Music begins at about 8pm

Updated: 09:33 Monday, March 29, 2004