Casey Jones & The Governors - Casey Jones & The Governors (2003)

Casey Jones & the Governors were a British beat band of the 1960s.

Brian Cassar was initially a chef before founding the band Cass & the Casanovas in 1959. They initially interpreted folk repertoire, but quickly turned to the more promising beat music. After Cassar split up, the remaining band members continued playing as a trio, now under the name The Big Three with a harder sound as “one of the loudest bands on the Mersey”. Guitarist Adrian Barber was later stage manager at the Hamburg Star Club, and drummer Johnny Hutchinson occasionally helped out with the Beatles.

Meanwhile, Cass became “Casey Jones” and his new backing band was now called The Engineers – both allusions to the relatively well-known story of the American train driver of the same name in the Anglo-Saxon-speaking world. Members at times included musicians such as Eric Clapton and Tom McGuinness. After the end of this equally short-lived line-up, Cassar's musical career was put on hold for some time because he was discovered for television and appeared in front of the camera in a number of Maigret episodes.

When the series was filmed, Cassar looked for new teammates. The resulting quintet called itself Casey Jones & the Governors and quickly gained an excellent reputation as a spirited beat band. The five musicians not only toured successfully through England, but also through Germany and celebrated great success in the Star Club.

However, his recording career lasted little more than a year with recordings in Munich and Frankfurt/Main. Their best-known track Don't Ha Ha was recorded in Munich in October 1964 and originally came from Huey "Piano" Smith; for him and his "clowns" it was called Don't You Just Know It (July 1958). The party classic was covered by, among others, Mr. Ed Jumps the Gun (April 1996) and DJ Ötzi (July 2001).

In 1966 the band changed their name to Gaslight Union, stayed in Germany and received a record deal with Electrola before disappearing into obscurity in 1968. David Christopher John Colman worked as an editor and disc jockey at WDR in 1969 and got his own Dave Colman Show there. Casey Jones worked as a DJ in a discotheque in Löhnberg (Hesse) in the mid-1970s. In 1974 he ran his own discotheque in Bassum. He organized various live acts there, including with the Scorpions.

As part of the oldies boom, Jones performed again (with new musicians) in the 1980s and 1990s. Casey Jones later lived in Unna and occasionally performed with the oldie band Here Comes Johnny. He died on December 25, 2022.