Home town: Bulawayo
Circa: 1975
Members:
- Mahesh Yadev – Lead vocals & guitar
- Heather and Deadre (sisters)?? – Vocals
- Andy Demitrious – Guitar, sax, flute and vocal
- Mark Price – Keyboards
- Themba?? – Bass
- Bobby Price – Drums
- “Cowboy” (?) – Drums
- Ray Russell – Percussion
- Pierre de Vos – Trumpet
- ??? Mendenhall – Sax
The band was during the course of 1975 by Andy Demitrious. By all accounts, the name ‘Max Albert’ was a name randomly contrived by the band members with no particular significance or reference to anything. Andy interviewed and auditioned all the musicians, along with some musicians that were kinda established after a short time. It was a big band, so there were many recommendations by other musicians. Andy and Mahesh Yadev were at the Bulawayo Art College at the time.
The band’s repertoire were cover songs by Doobie Bros., Chicago, Tower of Power, Average White Band, Santana, Grover Washington Jr., to name a few. We played at the large and small City Halls in Bulawayo, Jewish Guild Hall, Circus night club, and a few other night clubs in Bulawayo. We also bused it to Salisbury and played, (at the place across the road from the ‘kine’) in Salisbury. Arcadia Hall, Arcadia in Salisbury.
The band was very short lived and did not make any records or TV appearances although they did win the national Battle Of The Bands contest at the Trade Fair Grounds in 1976.
Due to constant military call-ups of the band’s members, the project couldn’t be sustained and the group dissolved.
Most of the photographs of the band were taken in 1976 by photography lecturer “Woody” and were developed in a dark room by one of us. Woody passed away a few years back and would imagine he must’ve had a lot more of those photos. The photos that were taken at that ‘old house’ were used to make band posters to advertise their gigs around town. Mahesh Yadev did the lettering on those posters.
