Freddy Bannister

Freddy Bannister was a leading promoter during the sixties and seventies and founder of the Bath Festival of Blues 1969, Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 1970 and legendary Knebworth festivals. He started in 1959, promoting in local dance halls with such artists as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Yardbirds, The Byrds, Ike & Tina Turner etc. before running his first festival on the Rec Ground in the centre of Bath in 1969 with Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall, Ten Years After. Led Zeppelin were fourth on the bill.

In 1970, the Bath Blues Festival moved to the much larger Bath and West Showground and attracted an audience between 150,000-200,000. It was one of the best programmes ever assembled in the UK with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Moody Blues, Byrds, Canned Heat, Steppenwolf, Johnny Winter, Santana, Dr John, Country Joe, Hot Tuna, It's A Beautiful Day, Fairport Convention, Colosseum, Keef Hartley and Maynard Ferguson.

He found Knebworth in 1974 and ran the first seven festivals which were headlined in 1974 by The Allman Brothers, 1975 The Pink Floyd, 1976 The Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1978 (June) Genesis 1978 (September) Frank Zappa/Peter Gabriel and 1979 Led Zeppelin.