If you are a member of the baby boom generation and are also a rock music fan, you may recognize the band name ‘Child’. Along with bands like Bighorn, Jr. Cadillac and the Bean Barry Delights, Child lived and played fruitively along with literally hundreds of other bands that have come out of the Northwest region during the years between 1970 and 1980.

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This was the decade when Led Zeppelin ruled local rock radio airwaves and every bell-bottomed, blow-dried, limo-riding, platform-shoe-and leather-jacket-wearing rockstar wannabe was pitching their best songs to promoters, tavern and club owners and anyone else who might listen all over the Puget Sound area, hoping to get a shot at a record contract, or at the least a bit of cash and a good time.

During their run for the gold ring, Child played the big shows and the small clubs and while they did not break out to enjoy the success of brethren groups like the Steve Miller Band or Heart, falling into a gap between Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, Child most certainly made some cash and had a good time to boot.

Along with a coterie of rock players who spanned the region and years, including Heart drummer Michael Derosier, Jeff Kathan (Montrose, Paul Rodgers) and Rick Randle (Bighorn, Randle-Rosburg), Mick Flynn played guitar in the band after his first band ‘Meatball’ morphed into Child. After Child grew up and left home, he formed his own ‘Mick Flynn Group’ which had popular appeal overseas.

Mick Flynn was born in Berkhamstead Hertfordshire, England in 1950, the son of an English munitions maker and a USAAF glider pilot stationed at RAF/Bentwaters in Woodbridge. Growing up, young Mick was exposed to the british music scene early on by a cousin was in a band (Lee Walker and the Travelers) that played with the Beatles. “Dez taught me my first chords, I was twelve years old, 1962.”

The onset of English rock music migrating ‘across the pond’ happened at the same time that Mick’s family moved to the states.

“I always felt like the British invasion followed me here,” thusly cementing the need for the seminal influences of the genre in his life. “We moved to Lynnwood that first year, and then to Des Moines in ‘66.” Micks father soon opened Dale’s Appliance in Des Moines and Mick attended Mt. Rainier High School, graduating in 1968.

The Northwest music scene, aside from the tremendous effects of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, had it’s own style and attendant standout bands. ‘I used to walk up to the Spanish Castle, I saw Merrilee Rush (and the Turnabouts), the Sonics, the Kingsman, the Bumps, Paul Revere and the Raiders and George Washington and the Cherry Bombs.”

Flynn smiles, “I was prejudiced for where I came from…these groups trying to be as good as the English bands.” Was it the Beatles that set the standard? “I was more of a Stone’s fan.”

At the tender age of twelve, Mick’s sister obtained a backstage pass at a Stones show, returning to give her little brother an official autographed 1968 Gaumont Theater Rolling Stones Tour Programme. That is a good sister.

Mick’s first guitar was a borrowed Stella from his neighbor, Billy Bird. With just one string, little Mick learned his first song. You guessed it: The Theme from Peter Gunn.

Flynn meets us at the front door of his tidy south Seattle home with his pretty blonde wife and neat-as-a-pin garden.

Inside are a number of examples of collectible guitars, from a Fender Esquire (a Telecaster variant) to a full size Martin Acoustic and including a pair of very rare, 1930’s Audiovox Lap Steel guitars, one of them in an original tweed case.

If not for the Beatle boots and the standard rocker-issue tight black jeans, Flynn’s gentle demeanor and attention to eye contact makes him seem more like a college professor or shrink.

Next to Mick sits Barry Kennelly, a good friend who has fronted the popular Northwest Band, the Bean Barry Delights since the early seventies.

A statement made about the Delights in the past tense ruffles Barry’s composure, ‘you mean IS not was,’ to clarify that the the band is still alive and kicking.

During the headier days of fame with Child, Mick played big venues like the Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane, opening for Aerosmith, BTO and Journey as well as being the first act before Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner and Robin Trower at the Seattle Arena.

The tavern and school circuit is the common route for all rock n’ roll bands, and Mick explains, “We played at My Place, The Embers, and the Target Ballroom in Burien, we played Highline and Green River college and EVERY high school.”

But along the path to fame, like any performance artists, the band had to endure dingier stages like Digby’s Tavern in West Seattle, and the infamous Flame Inn on Ambaum Boulevard. Laughing out loud, Flynn verifies, “We played lots of dingy gigs!”

Asked if the band did much practice between gigs, Mick demures, “No, we never practiced” This elicits a comment from friend Barry, “I think they spent more time having pictures taken..”

Child stood out from other club-circuit regular because of the higher percentage of their own material and also because of the unusual line up of three guitarists all playing odd-looking Gibson Flying V’s or matching, angular Firebirds.

But what seems to stand out to this day for Mick Flynn is an abiding love for the historical and technical minutia of vintage rock music paraphernalia, as well as the anecdotes that go along with the musicians that used them.

Among the most prized possessions musical instrument collectors can own is the Gibson Les Paul. In 1970, a Les Paul Standard in good, playable condition could be scored second hand for around $250 dollars.

Today that guitar has increased in value well over a thousand fold, selling (depending on condition) anywhere from $4000 to $400,000.

There is a resurgence in interest in Les Pauls, and according to Wikipedia’s page on the subject, ‘In 1964, The Rolling Stones Keith Richards obtained a 1959 sunburst Les Paul.

The guitar, outfitted with a Bigsby tailpiece, was the first "star-owned" Les Paul in Britain and served as one of the guitarist's main instruments through 1966. In 1966, Eric Clapton also recognized the rock potential of the late '50s Les Paul guitars (particularly the 1958–1960 Standard sunburst models), and gave them wide exposure.

He began using Les Pauls because of the influence of Freddie King and Hubert Sumlin. Soon artists such as Peter Green, Mike Bloomfield, Mick Taylor, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page began using the Gibson model.’

‘My 1959 Gibson Les Paul Burst. I bought this from Seattle guitarist Ned Neltner for $750. Most people thought I was crazy for paying sooo much for a used electric guitar!’

Listening in as Flynn and Barry Kennelly relive high spots of their years of brushing elbows with rock luminaries is fun.

Barry explains (complains) about how a $90 dollar Tweed Fender Twin amplifier he found at Ben’s Loans in Renton ended up in the hands of Stone’s guitarist Keith Richards and Mick chuckles through an anecdote about sitting between Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck at the Four Seasons Hotel lounge and being mistaken by a fan as the famous one of the trio.

During the late seventies and early eighties Mick ran his own vintage guitar store in West Seattle and was known as the go-to guy by the big rock acts that toured through the state for rare and necessary guitars and amplifiers, at one time selling out of six selected axes for the band The Who in one fell swoop.

Nowadays, Flynn will play guitar onstage on occasion, but concentrates his energies on buying and selling vintage guitars and on maintaining his website ‘GuitarArcheology.Com’ with his cousin Kelly Flynn, where they post photos and information on guitars and amplifiers up for auction, as well featuring historical anecdotes about rock and roll mainstays like the Stones, Jimi Hendrix and the Who.

The website touches on the bands and their relationships to the use and development of machinery like the coveted Sunn and Vox amplifiers.

Visit www.guitararcheology.com’ for more.

You can contact Scott Anthony through kenr@robinsonnews.com