Judged the winners of our One More Dream contest from the hundreds of entries, The Monarchs Blues Band are now busy rehearsing for their recording session at AIR studios.

The band are pictured at rehearsals above, together with Mike Batt who'll be producing the song - plus Chris Spedding who was on hand to help. Chris's career spans more than 50 years - a highly sought after guitarist who's worked with the best, from Paul McCartney to Bryan Ferry, Joan Armatrading and Roger Daltrey.

They'll soon be set for the recording and release of their chosen track!

Dave – sax and clarinet

Dave recalls hearing the great rock and rollers when he was 17 in Liverpool. Whilst his friends wanted guitars, he wanted a saxophone but couldn’t afford it. He made do with a clarinet until his mother swapped her sewing machine for his first much-loved sax.

Now, away from music, Dave enjoyed success as a writer, penning a novel and scripting theatre productions plus three plays for Radio 4.

Martin – guitar and founder

Martin hails from Chester and it  was from his first pay packet aged 16 that he bought his first guitar, although he confesses he wasn’t particularly musical as a kid – preferring art and drawing.

Music aside, these days Martin helps to run a Tai Chi Group and has been teaching it for over twenty years.

Ilbert – double bass

Ilbert began playing guitar in his med-teens when his door neighbour showed him a few chords - but his first public performance was as bass player at school “because they didn't have anyone else”. The double bass was added to his range just three or four years ago.

Ilbert is also to be found cycling, spending time in the garden – and loves poetry.

Madge - drums

Madge was born in a village just north of Liverpool. It wasn’t until what she describes as a "mid-life crisis" that she took up drums, aged 47, when her husband bought her a kit.  She says it was always “rhythm and percussion that did it for me rather than melody”, dating right back to when her parents played a record called Persuasive Percussion when she was four or five years old.

Madge’s other passion is horses - and her little black and white Gypsy Cob is, she says “an absolute angel”.

Les - vocals and guitar

 Liverpool was Les’s birth place, although he’s been in Cheshire about 20 years. As a  child, he’d draw pictures of guitars until his parents relented and bought him one for his 14^th birthday. Influenced by the records his dad played on their radiogram, it was a guy who lived nearby who taught him how to tune his guitar and play a chord. He recalls having to catch two buses into Liverpool City Centre to buy strings.

Les writes music and has also written fiction and poetry.