05-07-2025
Video reveals air guitar was born in Hampstead, not Woodstock
According to lore, air guitar was invented in 1969 when Joe Cocker played at Woodstock.
Cocker plucked an invisible instrument during the opening bars of With A Little Help From My Friends, a performance that has gone down in history.
However, a newly unearthed video has revealed the first recorded air guitar performance was given by a little-known band called Rupert's People, in a film taken on Hampstead Heath in 1968.
The group had not been asked to bring their instruments – so the director asked them to improvise.
The footage has been inspected by Juha Torvinen, the world's most senior air guitar judge, who said: 'This must be the first known recording of a person playing air guitar. This discovery gives a whole new perspective to the phenomenon of air guitar.'
Rupert's People were a psychedelic pop band from North London consisting of Rod Lynton on vocals and lead guitar, Ray Beverley on bass, John Tout on keyboards and Steve Brendell on drums.
In 1968, they were preparing to release a song titled I Can Show You and met up on the Heath to record a promo.
Steve Brendell recalled: 'The director brought along his 16mm camera and a reel-to-reel tape deck to blast out the song to make sure we were in sync. But the plans changed because we didn't bring any of our instruments. We just turned up, dressed in our stage outfits.
'It was all, 'Hey, man,' very laidback in the 1960s. The director said, 'Fine, why don't you just mime in that case?' So we did – and air guitar was born.'
The moment was captured in the black and white, two-minute film.
Rupert's People never hit the big time, although they didn't leave the music business. Brendell went on to work for the Beatles as a film and tape librarian – on his first day at work in 1969, he doubled for Ringo Starr in the test shoot for the Abbey Road album cover.
After the Beatles broke up in 1970, he went on to work as an assistant to John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the UK and New York, accompanying Lennon on anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
Three members of the band played on Lennon's track Imagine. Lynton became an executive with Atlantic Records, working with the Rolling Stones; Beverley became a commercial artist, and worked on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album cover; and Tout, who died in 2015, joined the band Renaissance.
The discovery of the film was made by Scott and Naomi Jones, the husband-and-wife investigative team who tracked down Sir Paul McCartney's missing bass in 2023. Stolen in 1972 from the back of a van belonging to a Wings sound engineer, it was eventually found in a loft in Hastings, East Sussex.
In the course of their research they interviewed Brendell and watched the film. Scott Jones said: 'It's a fun discovery but an important one. It gives Rupert's People a place in rock'n'roll history.'
Air guitar now has its own world championship, which takes place in Finland each August. The contest began in 1996 and attracts competitors from all over the world, playing their invisible instruments on stage.
The organisers say that air guitar promotes world peace, and use the slogan: 'You can't hold a gun while you play the air guitar.' Juha Torvinen, the lead judge, has inspected the Rupert's People footage and confirmed that it is the earliest known recording.
As for the band, they are ever hopeful of chart success and are re-releasing I Can Show You on Cherry Red Records.
'We always thought Rupert's People would be world famous one day, and it looks like that day has finally arrived 57 years later,' the band said.
