About the Band
History of
THE UK LEGENDS
and
THE UK ROCK LEGENDS
__________________
THE LINE-UPS
Back in 2006, before the UK LEGENDS and UK ROCK LEGENDS shows were created, early members of the first UK Legends line up were performing under the name of Lieutenant Pigeon which was a very popular band in the UK.
At this same time Polish promoter Marian Knapczyk of Santana Promotions was looking for a
British band that could perform the hits of Smokie on his corporate shows in Poland and he approached them
to see if they would be interested.
The Lieutenant Pigeon band members agreed and they performed a show at the Spodek Arena in Katowice under their keyboard player's own band name of 'The Legends'. The line up of the Lieutenant Pigeon band performing as The Legends were Gary Moberley, Simon Van Downham, Geoff Hammond and Martin Bland.
Unfortunately Gary Moberley's Legends band only lasted for this one show in Poland due to an altercation between Martin Bland and the keyboard player Gary Moberley. This resulted in Animals' keyboard player Steve Hutchinson (Stevie Hutch) joining the Lieutenant Pigeon band in December 2006 for a Xmas show at Skipton in England.
In January 2007 the Legends keyboard player Gary Moberley made the claim that he held the historic rights to the name 'The Legends' that they had used for the show and he informed his former band members that he would legally stop them from using this name if they were to any further shows as The Legends.
On 7th January 2007 Marian Knapczyk and new keyboard player Steve Hutchinson (Stevie Hutch) were aware of the ongoing conflict between Gary Moberley and Martin Bland over the use of his name 'The Legends' for the proposed shows so they both decided they would create a brand new band with a brand new name for their future shows. The theme for the new band would be to perform the hit songs of legendary British bands from the UK to the Polish audiences.
The names LEGENDY ROCKA (ROCK LEGENDS in Polish) and BRYTYJSKIE LEGENDY (BRITISH LEGENDS) were both considered at this time but Steve and Marian both finally decided upon the much simpler name of UK LEGENDS and they established this as the new name to use for all their future shows. The descision to use this particular name was due to the fact that 'UK LEGENDS' could be easily translated into any language.
On 13th January 2007 Steve Hutchinson officially registered the name 'UK LEGENDS'. This was to avoid any future conflicts over the ownership of the name and so he could commence the investment of his own time and money into his promotion of the new UK LEGENDS show in other territories of the world outside of Poland. Steve designed and printed all of the promotional material for the new band as well as creating the website for the band at his own cost.
In Poland Marian
Knapczyk set about advertising the band and establishing contracts for the shows as well as investing in
backline for the band and providing a specially modified splitter bus for the transportation of the
band and the equipment.
As each of the band members had a long history of working in other bands, some of which were internationally famous, they were able to put together a show that would consist of the hit songs of the bands, and musicians, that the band members had all previously performed with. At that time this would include songs from The Animals, Smokie, John Miles, Joe Cocker, Bee Gees, Thin Lizzy, and Dire Straits just to name a few!
On 5th March 2007 the new band played its very first concert in Poland under Steve Hutchinson and Marian Knapczyk's brand new show name of :
In the following years Marian Knapczyk continued to promote the UK LEGENDS show throughout Poland using his vast experience and knowledge of the Polish market while Steve Hutchinson also promoted the UK LEGENDS as a separate show throughout the rest of the world undertaking all of the
band's administration, website creation and management, poster designs, media advertising and bookings for his shows.
In 2015 Graham Hunter left the UK LEGENDS / UK ROCK LEGENDS band to work with members of the late Gary Moore's band and was replaced by previous Animals and Saxon rock vocalist Tony Liddle and the previous Tygers of Pan Tang guitarist Steve Lamb.
In 2015 the highly respected drummer Mickey Mad Dog left the band after a dispute with Martin Bland and Paul Elliott rejoined the band.
In 2017 guitarist Graham Hunter left the band after a further dispute with Martin Bland and was replaced by the Tygers of Pan Tang guitarist Steve Lamb.
In 2017 drummer Paul Elliott left the band after a further dispute with Martin Bland and Mickey Mad Dog rejoined the band again.
In 2019 trouble started brewing in the band over the underselling of the UK LEGENDS shows by Martin Bland into bars and small venues around the UK resulting in Steve Hutchinson refusing to perform on his undersold shows. Not wanting his band members to miss out on potential income Steve gave them permission to teporarily continue performing without him using his registered UK Legends band name. This was on one of the provisos that Steve Hutchinson would still continue to perform on all of his correctly marketed UK Legends shows and the band would always remain a minimum of a four-peice, so Bernie Lowery was brought back into the band to make up the numbers.
In 2019 drummer Mickey 'Mad Dog' left the band following a further dispute with Martin Bland over long distance travelling and was replaced by the drummer George Defty.
In 2021, due to an irreversable dispute between Steve Hutchinson and Martin Bland over many issues including Martin Bland's miss-selling of Steve's UK LEGENDS and ANIMALS III band, Steve Hutchinson revoked the old band member's permission to continue using any of his registered band names and replaced all of his UK LEGENDS, ANIMALS III, and SONGS OF SMOKIE band members with new band members.
In 2021 Steve Hutchinson set about rebuilding the reputation of his registered UK LEGENDS, UK ROCK LEGENDS and ANIMALS III bands by bringing in new professional band members to return the shows back into the credible high level shows that they had previously been.
The new replacement band members in 2021 for Steve's registered UK LEGENDS, UK ROCK LEGENDS and ANIMALS III shows are Howard Baker on vocals and White Heat drummer George Waters, with Steve also teaming back up with previous 1990's Animals bass player Graham Hill, and
previous UK Legends / Animals III / UK
Rock Legends original guitarist Graham Hunter.
Footnote
Clarification of Band v Bandname
Use of the term ‘band’ is of no importance in Intellectual Property law. A band is simply a collection of musicians who have come together to perform under a designated 'name'. The musicians who perform in that 'band' (or orchestra) are also irrelevent in IP law and performing in the 'band' does not give any rights to ownership of the performance 'name' in particular where that performance name has been previously registered by another person for the puposes of a providing the show, unless the performance 'name' had been jointly registered or agreed in writing by all of the band members.
The band's ‘name’, whether used for live performances, recordings, or in media, will always belong to the person who holds the earliest historic record of name registration or earliest proof of use of that name (provided that person can also prove continuity of use in the name since registration and also its use within the past five years). That person retains the perpetual legal right to re-use that name as so wished even for an entirely different ‘band’ (or orchestra) of musicians, and that person also holds all legal rights to stop any other party from using that same registered name for similar purposes.
There is no law or ruling that can grant any other person the rights to use another person’s registered name without the consent of the registered holder of the name.
If a person becomes disassociated with the owner of the name they automatically lose any rights to continue to perform under that name unless the registered name holder allows it.
In brief: A band is simply a collection of musicians who come together to perform. This does not give the musicians in the 'band' any ownership rights to the ‘name’ that they perform under, regardless of how long those musicians may have been using that name, and in particular where the 'name' of the performance has been previously registered by another person.