birds with one stone. Elyea writes simply, and
without sentimentality, “The petrol station (a
new version of it, anyway) is still at the corner,
and underneath it are the rotting remains of
dozens of the most historically significant Vox
amplifiers ever made.”
There are other such stories, as Elyea relates:
“I recall Jack Jennings, Tom’s brother, telling
me about his saving the ledgers in which he
logged out every amplifier that was shipped
from JMI. I then listened in horror as he told
me of saving them for so long, only to give
up and throw them away a half dozen years
before I met him.”
When I asked Elyea to describe how he was
able to get so much information from former
JMI employees, his response was, “back to
back sessions in a corner table at the Bull and
Vic pub in Dartford. There was one trip in
the late ‘90s where everyone I talked to had
fantastic stories, and every tidbit was golden.
VOX AMPLIFIERS:
The JMI Years
With so much great information coming so
fast and furious, I barely had a chance to
grab a bite to eat before the next interview
started. I was in heaven.”
Most of them were glad, he told me, that
someone was finally interested in something
that they had spent so much of their time
with. Quite a few of them had never been
interviewed about their Vox experiences
before, and many of them had very much to
say. Since so many years had passed, Elyea
informed me, it took him a lot of time and
multiple interviews to get the story, with all
of its details, straight. Dick Denney avoided
being interviewed for years, but Elyea didn’t
quit. “I was finally about to set up a mini-reunion of him, two other JMI engineers,
and two friends of mine, Robert Stamps and
Brian Kehew, at Dick’s daughter’s house,” he
says. “After just a few minutes, he realized he
was among friends, and warmed up. Before I
knew it, we had been talking for 15 hours.”
