One of the major formative influences on Huddersfield’s bebop and jazz scene, Dennis ‘Denny’ Morris, has died aged 85.
He was well known in Huddersfield’s clubs in the 1950s and 1960s as the frontman for Denny and the Witchdoctors.
His infectious enthusiasm and charismatic personality endeared him to many.
His friend from school days, Graham Rushworth, of Thongsbridge, said: “He lived in Crosland Moor and after school became a dustbin man.
“At that time in the 1950s there was precious little musical scene in Huddersfield. If you went into the town centre there were pubs for entertainment and that was about it.
“Denny opened a bebop club above what is now McDonald’s in the town centre in the mid 50s and got to know all kinds of people from Trinidad and played the bongos and conga drums.”
Later he formed Denny and the Witchdoctors, an eccentric group that combined touches of the circus with 50s rock and roll.
It was an extremely popular and visual act with Denny, in his early 40s, dressing in leopard skins and performing a fire-eating act while he sang and played the banjo.
Graham said: “Denny left the UK in the 1960s to go to France as Denny and the Witchdoctors and later ended up in Beirut for several months playing in a hotel.”
The Witchdoctors played the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1963 and once played for petrol money at a concert organised by a Paris gangster.
They recorded for the French Barclay record label.
The band enjoyed a long association with Honley-born Richard Hartley who went on to be an award-winning Hollywood composer .
Graham added: “Dennis was a great mentor and improviser. He never stopped laughing though he could also make you cross sometimes!
“He would tell exaggerated stories and a lot of what he said you had to take with a pinch of salt.”
Dennis went to live in Thailand for the last years of his life and Graham said there were no plans for his remains to come back to this country.
