Ginger Geezer (Vivian Stanshall)

When I first went to work at Radio 1, I must confess to having been a little bit startled. Radio 4, where I was working simultaneously was like a hive-full of eccentrics, each going about their own business in their own idiosynchratic way. When I turned up resplendent in my punk-chic garb few of them batted an eyelid and I was simply welcomed to the throng of what had once been the Home Service, as if it was my birthright. As I continued my career in Radio 4, I found that as long as you were good at what you did people would dismiss all but the most appalling indiscretion. Radio 1 was a completely different kettle of fish.

It was like the management were secretly embarrassed that Radio 1 had come into being and that many of them tried their best to adhere to the Light Programme blueprint wherever possible, without openly admitting they hated everything about pop and particularly rock culture. Most of the DJ’s were incredibly bland and their producers ultra-conservative. Needless to say the bulk of them treated my arrival like I was some virulent pesticism sent to spread disease in their happy, good time radio station. I got the impression that many of them were pleasant to my face but just waiting for a chance to stab me in the back and hoping that the opportunity came sooner rather than later. I’ve touched on unfounded allegations against me elsewhere in this journal, but I’m sure these were just part of an underhand campaign to stop the young upstart in his tracks. I’ve always suspected that the main protagonist was a man called Ron Belchier, the producer of one of the daytime shows. He was ex-forces, old school, light programme and not very happy about the way things were going and I feel he saw me very much as the enemy. All this aside, Ron would be in the company at The Yorkshire Grey on Langham Street most days and would always buy me a drink as I would he. As Machiavelli always believed you keep your friends close and your enemies closer!

One day when we were at the pub Ron turned to me and said

 “Richard, you’re a pretty switched-on guy. (his actual words!)  We played that Lou Reed record on the programme today and I was wondering if you knew what ‘giving head’ was?”.

At first I thought he was winding me up, but then I realised he really didn’t know, so blushingly I explained. The record in question, in case you don’t listen to lyrics, was Walk on the Wild Side and I found it amazing that the powers that be would play such a sexually explicit record on a family station, when they had banned Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols, simply because it dissed the establishement; What price rational and reasonable behaviour?

I had expected Radio 1 to be full of radical people who loved music and were united in their efforts to bring a bigger and better slice of the musical pie to an ever-hungry, young audience. In reality they were a bunch of grey men more worried about furthering their own careers than anything else. There seemed a great reluctance to rock the boat under any circumstances which seems a trifle ironic, bearing in mind the fact that the film about Radio Caroline, from where most of the DJ’s originated, was called The Boat That Rocked! There were however a small number of exceptions. On the DJ front there was John Peel (Kenny Everett had gone by this time) and on the production side there was Peel’s producer John Walters and the then producer of The Simon Bates Show, Malcolm Brown. I never really spent any time in Peel’s company but got to know the other two and would imagine they were the only two people in Radio 1 who actually liked me.

John Walters I got to know well and admired very much. He was an ex-musician who’d played bass with The Alan Price Set and I think he sussed very quickly that I had more in common with musicians than my colleagues in Radio 1. I got the impression that he and Peel suffered from the same malaise and Walters confided in me that Derek Chinnery, Controller of Radio 1 was trying his best to get rid of John Peel, moving him farther and farther away from the mainstream in the hope he would get fed-up and jump ship (not literally this time!). Chinnery was an headmasterly type who liked his presenters to be intelligent, but on the understanding that they only used that intelligence to further his own ambitions for the station. All complied apart from Peel! Both Peel and Walters are no longer with us and I for one, feel that the world is a much poorer place without the pair of them.

Where Walters was eloquent and ebullient, Malcolm Brown was the opposite. He was laid-back, dry as sandpaper and would only speak when absolutely necessary (usually to order a pint of Guiness). He was a shortish, wiry man with red-brown (not technically ginger but more of that at the end of this chapter!). He lived in darkest Surrey and played the organ in church at the weekend. In many ways Malcolm was unlike anyone else in Radio 1. He was thoughtful, intelligent and actually knew quite a lot about music.

One day I was standing in the queue at the cash office, where freelances went to get paid, when Malcolm came up to me and said;

“Richard there’s too much dead wood in Radio 1”

I nodded in agreement without having a clue what he was talking about. He went on to tell me that he admired my passion for music and found it refreshing that I knew quite a lot about all different types of music, not just pop and rock. He told me to get a couple of hours of music together and said that he would book a studio and produce a demo of me presenting, with a view to taking it to Chinnery and asking him to give me a show. We went in a studio shortly after that and produced what I thought was a fairly good demo. Malcolm called me up the following day and told me he had arranged for us to see Chinnery with the demo.

My only indirect dealings with Chinnery, up until that point had been through his assistant Deadly Doreen, or Doreen Davies as she was known to her mum! I wanted to include aforementioned ‘Anarchy in the UK’ in a show we were doing about punk music, but when I got a copy from the BBC library it came complete with a sticker saying under no circumstances play it without consulting the Controller’s office. When I rang, Doreen asked me why I wanted to play that ‘awful’ record. I told her that whilst I knew it had been banned, I felt it was an essential ingredient for any credible programme about punk. Doreen chastised me advising that the BBC didn’t ‘ban’ records, they just chose not to play certain discs on grounds of merit. She then told me that she didn’t think it was a very good record and would not be happy if I included it. Driven by a burning ambition to join the top ranks of the Diplomatic Corps, I included it! This did not bode well for my imminent meeting with the fat controller.

When Malcolm Brown and myself entered Derek Chinnery’s office he looked twitchy from the off. He was dressed in a dogtooth check, summer weight suit, with Tattershall checked shirt and woollen tie; hardly cutting edge gear whichever way you cut it! He sat us down and ordered coffees, extremely uncomfortable in his attempts to put us at our ease or more accurately, off-guard. He looked at me through his horn-rimmed spectacles and said; “Well Richard, I’ve listened to your demonstration tape and I must confess I was surprised; it was very good.”

I was on my way!!!!        Or was I? Sounded like he’d hoped it wouldn’t be very good.

“ Having heard quite a lot about you, I was expecting someone who sounded loud and arrogant when in fact you’ve got a very nice, laid-back radio manner.”

Breakfast show here I come!!!    Well maybe some time after eight in the evening.

“In fact, in my opinion you could have a very bright future with Independent Local Radio.”

Independent Local What!!!!

I asked Derek what he was trying to say. He stuttered in an indefinable brogue which came from somewhere on the west side of England, that he’d been asking around and whilst there was nothing specific, he didn’t feel I was a ‘Radio 1 type of person’. Rather than prolong my humiliation I thanked him for his consideration and took my leave. Malcolm followed about five minutes later. I asked Malcolm where he’d been. He told me he’d been having a go at Chinnery over what he’d said. He felt that Chinnery’s problem with giving me a break was that he would be getting ‘another John Peel’ in that I was likely to play stuff that I thought was good, however off the beaten track and with no regard for playlists and the poptastic factor. In other words he too regarded me as an enemy in the camp and wished to shunt me off without even allowing me to get started. Problem was Chinnery was right, but I always wonder did he do what was best for the station; I like to think he didn’t.

I thanked Malcolm for his time and effort and we remained friendly until I left Radio 1 for TV. Since then our paths have never crossed and I often wonder what became of him.

‘Ginger Geezer’ is a track from the wonderful album ‘Teddy Boys Don’t Knit’ which deserves the title minor classic. It was produced by the very Malcolm Brown referred to above.

Dusty (John Martyn)

 

In 1978 I managed to wangle an invite to the Nationwide Rock & Pop Awards which were named after the long-running BBC TV evening news magazine and were forerunner to The Brits. The invite hadn’t been sent to direct to me but to my senior producer David Winter, but he thought that I and ultimately the department, would derive more benefit from my attendance than his. Tickets were like gold dust, even for people who worked for the BBC, so I felt pretty fortunate to be attending the do at London’s prestigious Café Royal.

 

When we arrived at the venue, which is situated at the bottom of Regent’s Street, our black London Taxi dropped us off at the red carpet which had been laid at The Café’s entrance and which was sectioned off with silk-roped crowd barriers designed to keep the smelly hordes away from the blue-blood celebrities like me!!!. Seriously there were a lot of fans there hoping for a glimpse of their idol(s) or at the very worst a Radio 1 DJ and I’m not sure most of them were very impressed to only be ‘glimpsing’ the likes of me, although I was asked for my autograph by at least two people who didn’t know me from Adam, but hoped that I might be someone famous (bad luck!)

 

 

When we arrived at the large restaurant we were shown to specific tables, where I think some effort had been made to mix bona-fide pop-stars with equal measures of media presenters, media hacks and music business bigwigs and notsobigwigs. Being pretty new to all this sort of thing none of the names at my table meant anything to me, apart from that of Gerry Rafferty who had recently topped the chart with Baker Street which featured the epic sax-playing of Raphael Ravenscroft, son of obscure British Mystic Trevor Ravenscroft and author of Spear of Destiny a very dark book exploring the myth and legend of the spear of Longinus and it’s place in the lore of the Third Reich. I think Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies may have been at the table too but I honestly can’t remember. I was a longstanding fan of Gerry and had records by him in my collection dating back to the sixties, when he played solo and in The Humblebums with comedian but then singer-songwriter Billy Connolly. The Humblebums made a single Shoeshine Boy which became a cult classic, but made little impression on the charts. Gerry’s next group Stealer’s Wheel, who’s bass player De Lisle Harper I had first met in the early seventies when he played with Graham Bond, fared rather better and produced the perennial classic ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’ which has featured on the soundtrack of several well-known films. Baker Street was Gerry Rafferty’s big break as a solo artiste and although he followed it with a couple of minor hits, it remains the song for which he is best remembered, although many people would suggest that Raphael’s sax-playing is far more memorable than Gerry’s singing!

 

 

Being a bit of a fan then, I tried to engage Gerry in conversation, but this didn’t prove easy. To be honest it was like trying to get blood from the proverbial stone and after several stilted attempts, I gave up and joined in the general banter which was going on around the table. Although I can’t remember who else was there they must have been reasonably accomplished bon viveurs as I don’t remember there being any deafening silences. When the meal had concluded the waiters brought out the brandy and cigars. Being new to the lifestyle of the idle rich I thought I would celebrate with a Romeo Y Juliet corona, as touted by all self-respecting entrepreneurs, media personalities and impresarios. The waiter came over and opened the humidor so that I could choose one. I was relatively new to the art of smoking fine cigars but being  a willing student of the ‘good life’ I had read up on it a good deal and knew all about clipping them and making sure you lit them with a taper, which was held below but not onto the cigar itself. Picking up my chosen corona I gave it a subtle pinch and discovered it to be very dry. I tried another, then another and found they were all the same. I pointed this out to the waiter who argued most indignantly that the cigars were fine and had been kept in a humidor at the correct temperature, with all the age old guidelines for correct cigar storage having been observed. I removed the lid from the tank in the humidor and surprise, surprise, it was bone-dry. I was more than surprised to discover that a revered establishment like the Café Royal didn’t seem to know one of the fundamental principles of  a seasoned art. I passed on their stale offerings, preferring instead to light up one of my good old Everyman’s Henri Wintermann’s Café Crème, at least knowing it would be reasonably moist, having only been purchased that morning. So much for the good life!. Still there was always the brandy, which was my very favourite Martell five star cognac. Whilst I was swilling this around in a rather ostentatious balloon, I sensed a body hovering to my right. I turned to find a rather animated Dusty Springfield trying to attract my attention.

 

 

Dusty was back in this country after a lengthy sojourn in the USA and I had recently caught her shows at London’s Drury Lane Theatre. The first night had presented me with a bit of a dilemma as Kate Bush was appearing at Hammersmith Odeon on the same night. Kate had proven herself to be the brightest young talent to emerge for many a year and this was, I believe, her first major live appearance in the UK. Something told me though that Dusty, of whom I’d been a big fan for many a year, might well just deliver something very special, as this was her first UK live date for a long long time. After much deliberation I plumped for Dusty as I believed the chances to see Kate Bush in the future would be a lot more numerous. I was not disappointed and the show Dusty put on was fantastic. Yes it was real showbiz, rather than credible rock, but I’ve never minded that when the artiste in question is so good at what they do. Dusty was charming, personable and obviously extremely happy to be performing in front of a house full to the rafters with her adoring British public. Her singing was better than ever and she was called back for about five encores by an audience which simply didn’t want to let her go. My then girlfriend Annabel loved the show even though she was only seventeen and was only around four or five years old when Dusty was at the peak of her popularity.

 

When I got into the office the next day I rang Bix Palmer, one of the promotions men at Phonogram, Dusty’s record company and asked if I could get tickets to the other two shows at Drury Lane. He told me it may prove difficult as the dates had sold out and all press tickets had been allocated, but he’d see what he could do. Bix turned up trumps but with hindsight I bet there was a pair of very disgruntled Phongram minor execs who didn’t get to go to the ball! I met Bix a few days after the third date and thanked him for the tickets, still singing Dusty’s praises. He told me he’d been there and thought she was great too but that she had been a nightmare to work with from their point of view, in that she didn’t seem to acknowledge that she wasn’t the big star she had once been and had run up some eyebrow raising bills on her expense account. He also told me that whilst the shows in London had been a major success in terms of attendance and critical acclaim, the story had been very different in the provinces, where all but her show in Manchester had had to be cancelled as a result of poor ticket sales. Phonogram were not confident that they could get Dusty back anywhere near where she had been in terms of popularity and were extremely worried that even if they did, they probably couldn’t afford her lifestyle.

 

Anyway back to the Café Royal, where Dusty was still trying to attract my attention, although I hadn’t a clue why. Maybe she’s spotted me in the audience at Drury Lane and wanted to personally award me with a gold star for attending three nights on the trot!. Hedging all bets I responded with a polite “Hello”

 

“Hiya” was the response and then in a hybrid, mid-Atlantic accent she proceeded to tell me that it was years since we’d last seen each other. I responded in the only way I could by looking completely bemused. She then told me that it must have been at least ten years since we’d last seen each other and that as far as she remembered that was when we had both appeared on the same US TV show. I felt my bemused look turning into one of complete mystification as I turned and said that I couldn’t ever remember meeting her. She hinted jokingly that maybe by memory had been fogged by a combination of recreational herbs and pharmaceuticals but assured me that we had met on many occasions previous to that. She then told me that she had even recorded one of my songs; surely I hadn’t forgotten that!

 

I asked Dusty whom she thought I was and she replied confidently

 

“Oh stop being silly I know you are Donovan!”

 

I discretely informed her that it was definitely a case of mistaken ID and although she looked a bit confused, she embarrassedly accepted her mistake. I told her whom I really was and explained what I did and said that it would be nice to get together at some point for an interview to which she readily agreed. I also told her that I was a fan and that I had witnessed all three nights at Drury Lane, expressing my great admiration for her performance. She seemed genuinely moved and gave me a luvvy kiss before returning to her table. I immediately retired to the lavatory, plonked myself in front of the mirror and examined my Donovan credentials. I realised Dusty had a point, same shaped nose, same colour eyes, similar ‘soft’ appearance and before going radically short I had had brown shoulder length hair, which fell in natural ringlet curls. Shame he wasn’t current or else I could have put myself up as a lookalike.

 

‘Der Doppleganger’ syndrome was to revisit me on several ensuing occasions, most enduring of which was my likeness to ‘Not the Nine O’clock News’ member Gryff Rhys Jones, who even managed to fool my own sister! Other dead ringers were ex-Nottingham Forest winger John Robertson and more recently and far more worryingly Jeremy Clarkson!

 

I was always a fan of Dusty but have become an even bigger fan as I’ve grown older and I would now say, without hesitation, that she is the best ever English female popular singer. (I claim her as English even though I know she’s really South African). She eventually made a much deserved return to the charts, in collaboration with Pet Shop Boys with songs like Nothing Has Been Proved and In Private, before dying far too early.

 

 

 

 

‘Dusty’ is taken from John Martyn’s second Island album, The Tumbler. I have been a fan of John’s since the very early days and whilst he has always been extremely well regarded by his professional peers, he was criminally neglected by the record buying public. Even those who rated him highly seem only to have listened to Solid Air but for me he made several records which were at least as good, if not better, including Tuesday’s Child, Grace and Danger and One World. The Annabel mentioned in the story above lived in a flat with her parents on the edge of Hampstead Heath, in North London. When said parents retired to their country seat in Surrey at the weekends, I would take up temporary residence, fleeing the coup around Sunday teatime having destroyed all the ‘evidence’ of my occupation. The two records we played most there, were Spirits Having Flown by The Bee Gees and One World. Certain Surprise was the track from the latter which we both favoured. I love it to this day and it brings back many happy memories of more innocent days. After a lifetime bedevilled by an excess of alcohol and other things it was then with a Certain Surprise, that John Martyn departed this life aged sixty on 29/01/09, the day upon which I wrote the above.

 

Gone but never forgotten.

Born to be Wild (Steppenwolf)

 

1975 was the year of the Muswell Hillbilly. In The Kinks album some five years earlier Ray Davies, the true poet of the sixties had forecast the Americanisation of English society with his usual astuteness and sure enough London and its environs were full of dudes dressed in checked shirts, cowboy boots and Stetson hats and few of them had ever been farther west than Ealing. There was even a chain of shops in London and maybe elsewhere (I never really went ‘elsewhere’ in those days) called The Westerner which sold mainly cowboy related clobber. Alongside of this was an explosion of country rock music spearheaded by Eagles, but owing it’s recent tradition to The Byrds and related members of that musical family. One of the members of Eagles Bernie Leadon had been a founding member of The Flying Burrito Brothers, the creation of Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, both ex-members of The Byrds. GP had a dream of creating Cosmic American Music, incorporating all the best elements of rock, psychedelia, folk and of course country. As often happens with dreams, the venture came crashing around his head after two brilliant, but commercially unsuccessful albums and Gram jumped ship to team up with Emmylou Harris and achieve his ideals, again with little commercial success in the albums GP and Grievous Angel. Just when the world was beginning to listen Gram Parsons died of a heart attack at the ripe old age of 27 undoubtedly brought on by an excess of drugs, booze and life itself. It came as no surprise then that in the wake of the country-rock phenomenon, the aforementioned Burrito Brothers decided to reform for a European tour, although the line-up bore little resemblance to the original article in terms of personnel and ambition. Nonetheless any tour by an almost bona-fide country-rock group was interesting to me as an early devotee of the genre and as one of a handful of people who’d been familiar with their work in the late sixties/early seventies. The band had signed to CBS and so I called up my friend John Tobler to see if I could fix up an interview with them. He arranged for me to interview them at their hotel in Notting Hill Gate from where I would travel with them to see a live show in Guildford.

 

Unusually when I got to the hotel I was presented with the entire band consisting of original member Chris Ethridge and early cohort, pedal-steel guitar legend ‘Sneaky’ Pete Kleinow. The rest of the band was made up of Joel Scott-Hill, ex-Byrd Gene Parsons and Cajun fiddler Gib Gilbeau. Normally you would have one or maybe two band members who did the interview but it seemed like the reformed brothers were an egalitarian unit!

 

We got down to the task in hand and I realised that things were not quite how they may have seemed. Chris Ethridge was stoned out of his mind which meant that the only person qualified to talk about the more interesting early days was ‘Sneaky’ Pete and he downright refused to answer any questions containing the words Gram or Parsons, excusing his refusal on the basis of that was then, this is now and now is where we’re at man! Joel tried to inject a bit of colour an humour but I quickly realised that a non-interview or one without any real substance was the best I could hope for.  We went through the motions extremely politely but I got nothing that was remotely usable for a freelance, as the sort of piece I could write would be bland and could easily be done by any staff-journalist, so why would an editor buy in a piece from me? I decided I would make the most of things by just hanging out, in the hope that I may be able to pick up enough scandal by the day’s end to make the venture worthwhile. We had a few drinks and smoked a bit of grass before jumping on the band bus and heading for Guildford. En-route I chatted more to Joel who it turned out was an extremely nice guy and also met Gene Parsons’ wife Shirley who was also very friendly and personable. When we got to Guildford I headed off for a local hostelry whilst the band did their sound-check. After an hour or so I was joined by some of the crew and bass player Ethridge who immediately headed for the fruit machine and commenced pumping money into it with seemingly little interest in whether he won or lost. Sometime after this we were joined by someone who was introduced to me as Phil and whom I soon realised was the legendary Gram Parsons road manager Phil ‘Lefty’ Kauffman. Phil had achieved rock infamy when he had snatched the deceased Parsons from an airport and taken his body for a ritual ‘cremation’ at their favourite hang-out, Joshua Tree Inn, in Arizona. It turned out that the two had a pact which stated that whoever died first agreed to that particular end for their mortal remains. Phil had been subsequently arrested and given a substantial fine which he paid by using the proceeds of a paying wake for Gram, where the attendees bought and array of Gram Parsons Wake memorabilia, including such exotica as Old Gram Bourbon and ‘original’ Flying Burritos souvenirs which had been quickly produced a couple of days before the Wake. All of the above events were eventually documented in the film Grand Theft Parsons which was ironically a far bigger commercial success than any of Parsons’ musical outpourings.

 

Phil was an extremely charismatic character who talked like a machine-gun and was always the centre of attention. Not particularly tall but quite portly, he sported an enormous handlebar moustache which was more than slightly attention grabbing. He told me story after story about anybody who was anyone on the LA music scene and I spent the entire time just wishing I’d had the foresight to bring my tape recorder to the pub instead of leaving it in the dressing-room. It was getting towards showtime so we all went back to the venue and were about to enter the auditorium when one of the road crew enquired if anyone had seen Chris, as he seemed to have gone missing. I told them I had an idea where he might be and raced back to the pub where I found the zombie-like Ethridge still pumping money into the one-armed bandit. I explained the situation and set about dragging him back to the venue, when I noticed a rather large bulge in his jacket pocket. Having heard about these whacko LA types I was worried that he may be packing a rod so I politely asked him what it was. He told me it was nothing man, just a little hash, upon which he pulled out what must have been at least half a kilo of Lebanon’s finest. I told him to put it away quickly and explained that the authorities over here weren’t particularly open-minded about such things and made sure he gave it to a member of the road-crew when we got back to the theatre.

 

The gig itself was pretty lacklustre and only made bearable by the fact that Shirley Parsons continually fed me on smuggled-in orange juice which had been heavily laced with brandy and Kauffman continued to bedazzle us with colourful tales from his even more colourful past.

 

When the gig was over I faced the rather daunting prospect  of a trip back to mega-city one on the band bus. Suddenly Kauffman piped up and asked me if I fancied a lift back on his Harley. The reason he was in London was that as an ardent motorcyclist, he had somehow managed to wangle a job doing PR for Harley Davidson motorcycles and part of the deal was that they gave him one of their awesome machines for his personal use. I didn’t need asking twice and enjoyed one of the most exhilarating pillion rides I’ve ever experienced feeling, for the most part like I was an extra in the film Easy Rider. When we got back to Phil’s apartment in Bayswater we had a few drinks and he asked me if  I felt like hitting the town. I said why not but there was, it turned out, a small problem. Phil was temporarily without funds as he waited for the month end and his ship to come in. As we had never met before, he told me that he wouldn’t dream of asking me for a loan but knowing I was a GP fan, would I be interested in purchasing a unique artefact of Parsons memorabilia? He then produced the t shirt ‘which Gram died in’. it was a red t shirt with ‘Flying Burrito Bros’ emblazoned across the chest in sequins. It was a bit faded but I recognised it immediately as I had seen Gram wearing the same t shirt in several press photos. Phil asked for £20.00 and I offered £10.00 as £20.00 was all I had on me. We settled on £10.00, which we then proceeded to spend in various bars around Notting Hill (£10.00 went quite a long way in those days!), before I headed home with my much prized acquisition.

 

Over then ensuing years I found I was one of at least five people I knew who owned ‘the t shirt which Gram died  in’ but to be honest I’d guessed as much immediately. Although we vowed to stay in touch I’ve never seen Phil Kauffman again but he’s not the sort of guy you ever forget.

 

 

Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf was featured in the soundtrack to the film Easy Rider and is one of the most evocative records from the whole of the late sixties rock canon and is one of the reputed sources of the term Heavy Metal.

Girl Don’t Come (Sandie Shaw)

 

Probably the biggest coup of my career in the world of entertainment was persuading Dionne Warwick to appear on

 

 

Pebble Mill at One. I had been given an advance copy of the album Heartbreaker and was convinced it was going to

 

 

catapult Dionne right back there into the big time. Record company Arista’s regional promotions man Mike Perry had

 

 

told me that Dionne was coming into Europe, so I asked him if he could get her for the show. He  

 

 

was back within twenty-four hours with an imperative no! I asked him if he would ask again and he said he would but I

 

 

didn’t hear back from him for about a week and this time it was still an imperative 

 

 

No!

 

I asked Mike if he could arrange for me to speak to her direct at which point he seemed to get a bit annoyed and asked

 

 

if I was of the impression that he hadn’t really tried to get her. I told him that of course I believed him but I just wanted

 

 

one last try. He said he would see what he could do. I later got a call from Arista UK chairman David Simone who

 

 

assured me that they had tried to get Dionne but she was adamant that she was only doing radio promotion whilst she

 

 

was over and would not be doing any performances. He said he would try and arrange for me to speak to her in her

 

 

agent’s office but he didn’t see that it would do any good. A couple of days later I got some good news. Well sort of

 

 

good news! Dionne would speak to me but was still adamant that she would not be appearing on the show.

 

 

I called at the appointed time and when her agent answered, I explained who I was and got passed over to Dionne. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked her if she knew why I was calling. She explained that she did and Arista had asked her twice, but she was just coming into Europe to do some radio promotion and some shopping and wouldn’t have time for any performances. I pleaded with her but she said she would be coming back for a tour if the album was successful and would certainly consider doing the show then. I thanked Dionne and asked her if she thought I’d done my job properly. She seemed rather bemused and asked what I meant. I asked her if she felt that in my role as a music producer, I had conducted myself properly and tried my best to get her on the show. She said yes but was clearly a little puzzled by my behaviour. I then asked her if she had any idea as to why I really wanted her on the show. She said well no! I then explained that as a child of just turned nine, I had been on holiday in Scotland with my parents in 1964. My step-father worked as a salesman at a Mercedes concession and we were touring around in a big black saloon. I was still small enough to be able to stretch out along the entire back seat and frequently did this as I started to get tired after jaunts all over the Cairngorms and the like. After a particularly tiring day I was stretching out when a record came on the radio with which I immediately fell in love. I pestered my step-father the next day until he bought me a copy of the record and couldn’t wait until we got back home so I could wear it out!! I further explained that I had bought every subsequent record that artiste had released (and it was true!) and did Dionne have any idea what the record was. She told me she had a sneaking suspicion it may have been her version of the Bacharach & David song Walk on By. I advised her that she was correct and that quite simply the real reasons why I wanted her on the show were purely selfish. I wanted her on the show because I believed she had the greatest female voice in the history of pop music and it had been  a lifetime’s ambition to work with her. Dionne unusually, seemed lost for words and then gathering herself together said

“Richard you are obviously one of my biggest fans and my fans mean more to me than any TV producer  I’ll do your show”

 She then went on to explain that when she said she would do the show she meant live with an orchestra and no lip-synching!

 

Lip-synching is the technical phrase for miming and Dionne explained that unlike many artistes she would not entertain the idea of conning her fans in that way. She told me she had been offered £10,000 each by the peak-time shows ‘Wogan’ and ‘The Late Late Breakfast Show’ presented by Noel Edmonds, but she’s turned them down for the same reason she had originally given me and because of the fact they wanted her to lip-synch to a backing-track. I told her the orchestra would be no trouble and the fee would be nothing like £10,000. She laughed and said that didn’t matter. I told her she would definitely be singing live with not a track in sight. It was the policy of the show to be live wherever possible and I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to hear my favourite singer performing live about ten feet away from me! It was at this point that the enormity of what I’d achieved started to sink in. I went to inform Pebble Mill Editor Peter Hercombe of the good news, but he was sceptical from the word go. Dionne had a fearsome reputation for being ‘difficult’ and it was well-known she would walk out of a recording for any given number of reasons. At that point it was about ten years since she’d appeared on UK TV, although she had NOT appeared on a number of occasions during that time, if you know what I mean. 

 

As the date of the performance approached I liaised with Dionne through Arista over line-ups and repertoire etc. Dionne would be bringing her own five-piece band which I was augmenting with nine other musicians to make a small studio orchestra. Pebble Mill MD Harold Rich had the job of copying parts for the musicians I was providing. I had decided with Dionne that she would sing Take the Short Way Home, Yours and the title track from the Heartbreaker album together with a special request for me in Walk On By.

 

During this period I had to constantly reassure Peter Hercombe that the show was still very much on, but he remained convinced that she wouldn’t turn up. At the production meeting the day before the show, he announced that we would have standby music on VT (videotape) to back-up the expected no-show. This was the only time such a measure was taken during my tenure at Pebble Mill. I can’t say I was exactly inspired by his lack of belief in me, but possibly it was a lack of belief in Dionne.

 

 

Dionne had requested that I had dinner with her the night before the show, so that we could discuss the mechanics of the her appearance, so after I had finished in the office I headed off for the Holiday Inn, where she was staying. I was met by David Simone and Mike Perry who took me up to Dionne’s suite. David knocked on the door and it was opened by a butler or similar, who was sorting out the dinner. He invited us in and David introduced me to Dionne. Realising that she was open to flattery, I had taken the step of arriving with a massive bunch of roses, which went down a treat. David announced that he and Mike would be leaving. I must have looked startled because he then explained that Dionne had expressly stated that she wanted to meet with me and just me. I turned to the table and sure enough there were just two places laid. It was Deborah Harry all over again (see Up All Night) but this time it was even better, I was going to have dinner with my favourite female artiste of all-time and it was just me and her.

 

We chatted whilst Dionne finished ‘getting ready’ and then were seated by the butler who proceeded to serve dinner. We chatted about what would happen the next day and enjoyed an extremely good dinner although I can’t remember what we had as I wasn’t really wasn’t concentrating on the food. Although Dionne was technically old enough to be my mother, she was extremely attractive and I’m absolutely sure she knew that I thought so. Once dinner was over, the butler left us with the wine and Dionne became a bit less formal in his absence. She thanked me again for the

 

 flowers and told me that if she’d not been a married woman then she may have been tempted into asking me to stay

  

 the night, as she described me as one of the most charming men she’d ever met. I’m sure this was just flattery but you

 

 never know! I told her about Peter Hercombe’s resignation that she would walk out or even just not turn up. She told

 

 me she couldn’t give a hoot (well not her exact words) about my editor but she would not be walking out whatever

 

happened, because she wouldn’t do that to me. Did I feel good?

 

 

 We finally said our goodbyes which included a slightly overlong hug and I went back to my flat, but I slept little that

 

 

night. Dionne turned up about five minutes late for a ten o’clock call, but she turned up. For most of the rehearsal,

 

 

which went ok, Hercombe was pacing up and down the catwalk at the back of the studio area, still convinced she was

 

 

 going to do a runner. At one point my heart was in my mouth and I thought he may be right. Dionne had been

 

 

rehearsing Take the Short Way Home and not happy with the foldback, she had screamed into her mic

 

 

“The sound sucks!”

 

 

She was absolutely right, the sound often did suck, but I was not allowed to say things like that because

 

 

although I had an excellent pair of ears and knew a lot about sound-mixing, the only way I could complain was by way

 

 

of line-mangers and forms in triplicate. Being a live programme, you could safely say the moment would be long gone

 

 

before anything was done about it. When I’d worked in radio, some of the sound people who normally worked on talk

 

 

programmes would admit their failings on the musical front and let you rig and balance the sound yourself, but this

 

 

never happened in television where people were far more conservative and quite frankly precious. When an artiste like

 

Dionne says something like that though, sound-men tend to listen and within seconds the sound improved dramatically.

 

 

Dionne simply turned and smiled in my direction, by way of reassurance. Hercombe was still having doubts to the

 

 

level that he actually rehearsed the VT standby music, something I never recall being done when we had anyone else

 

 

on the programme. As Dionne promised me though, she did not walk out. She gave an amazing performance of the

 

 

four songs and a fifteen minute interview during which she positively sparkled. In the green room after the show,

 

Peter Hercombe thanked her for doing the show. Without hesitation she told him that he should be thanking me

 

 

because had it not been for me, she would not have been there. Aw shucks!

 

 

 

 

 

Heartbreaker went on to be a massive success going double platinum and spawning several hit singles. Dionne was

 

 

right back there at the top of the tree. She came back a few months later to tour and I went to see her at the Coventry

 

 

Apollo. When I went backstage, with the customary bouquet, I was asked to wait at the back of the room as she was

 

 

being ‘presented’ to the BBC regional top brass who were there in their droves, monkey suits and wives attached.

 

 

 I was extremely low in that particular pecking-order. I must admit to feeling a bit pissed off at being so far down the

 

 

line as I felt partly responsible for helping create the whole thing. Suddenly with a whoop  Dionne screamed

 

 

“Richard”,

 

 

 

completely  ignored the next in line and came running over and flung her arms around me. She turned to the gathered

 

 

throng and told them that I was her favourite Englishman and that I was so sweet and always brought her flowers. You

 

 

could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Dionne knows who matters and couldn’t give a fig for the faceless ‘suits’.

 

 

Ttheir appreciation of protocol though was deeply ingrained and I got the distinct impression they weren’t impressed

 

with me.

 

 

 

 This was confirmed when former Editor and now Network TV Editor, Jim Dumighan pulled me aside the next day. He

 

 

told me that my ‘little escapade’ hadn’t gone down at all well and he wouldn’t be surprised if there were

 

‘repercussions’. I told him it was not ‘my little escapade’ and that Dionne had simply preferred to greet someone she

 

 

knew and felt had played a part in revitalising her career, rather than  bunch of people she’d never met before nor was

 

 

likely to meet again. I told him that he could hardly blame me for that, but I felt he thought that somehow I had stage-

 

 

managed the entire event.

 

 

 

 

 

I also went to the show at The Apollo, Victoria in London and to the party afterwards at Maunkberry’s club near

 

 

Piccadilly, where years earlier I’d had an encounter with Grace Jones! At the party Dionne introduced me to another

 

 

hero of mine, Isaac Hayes. I’d always imagined Isaac to be about eight foot thirteen and built like a battleship. I’d also

 

expected him to be mean, moody and magnificent. When he came over he was maybe a half-inch taller than me and

 

 

 was grinning his face off. He turned out to be a really nice guy. We got on extremely well and met up several more

 

times after he settled in Notting Hill Gate for a while. I was extremely saddened when I heard of his death last year.

 

Although he will be remembered by a whole generation as the voice of Chef in South Park, I and many others will

 

always regard him as one of soul music’s major innovators. I can also thank Isaac for helping me get the odd young

 

lady ‘in the mood’ on dark winter nights! I celebrated our meeting the next day by having a t shirt printed with the

 

legend ‘I’ve Rapped With Black Moses’ (Hayes aficionados will understand!).

 

Last time I saw Isaac was when we met in a completely random manner, on the front in Cannes where I think he was a

 

guest at The Festival for the South Park film.

 

 

 

 

I worked with Dionne again a couple of years later but I hope for reasons that are obvious, this was the encounter I

 

remember best. Her appearance that first time cost me just £175.00 as I managed to dig out an old contract for an

 

‘illustrated talk’ which of course it was after a fashion. The producers of the other two shows who tried to book her

 

must have wondered where we found the budget to book her, bearing in mind their superior offers plus their having

 

audiences about ten times the size of ours; well now they know!!!

 

 

 

 

Girl Don’t Come was one of many top ten hits for another great singer Sandie Shaw. Sandie and I were good friends

 

for a while (I am still friendly with her ex-husband, designer Jeff Banks). Unfortunately I got horrendously drunk at an

aftershow party for her (there were genuinly mitigating circumstances) and behaved obnoxiously putting the mockers

on our friendship. Any chance of being forgiven Sandie?

Jackson (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood)

 

In 1977, when I interviewed Michael and Tito Jackson, the Jackson brood were just coming out of a long period in the relative doldrums. The Jackson 5 had become one of Motown’s most well known acts initially charting with I want You Back in 1969 and being the first band ever to have their first four singles top the American charts. They continued to produce many more hits until they seemed to run out of steam in 1973. Michael was always the focal point of the band and during their successful career as a vocal group, he had taken time out to have solo hits like Ben, Got to be There and She’s Out of My Life. A label switch to Philadelphia hadn’t really solved the problem of the band’s decline, but a subsequent move to Epic seemed to have done the trick. When they came into the UK for a promotional tour, Let Me Show You the Way to GO was already flying towards the number one slot.

 

When they arrived in the self-op they were accompanied by an elderly white lady who wasn’t introduced to me. Although this was some time before Michael became quite possibly the most successful artiste in pop history, he was very much the head brother and if felt like Tito was there more or less, as a stooge. Michael was unrecognisable from the physical person he would eventually become. He had a shortish afro and all the standard physical attributes of a late-teenager of African extraction. If you’d been able to put that Michael next to the Michael Jackson of the Bad period then you would have struggled to realise they were the same person. We did introductions and voice levels and I began to ask the questions. My interviews were not the standard Radio 1 fodder of ‘nice to see you, what’s your favourite colour, are you enjoying your visit to the UK etc’. I liked to get more inside people and find out what made them tick. I began by asking Michael about his childhood. He wasn’t very forthcoming. It’s obvious these days why that would be a difficult subject for him, what with all the subsequent revelations of alleged abuse by his father, but this was way before those stories surfaced, so I wasn’t to know. Anyway Tito saved the day by chiming in and giving me a few stories about schooldays in Gary, Indiana. I then went back to Michael and asked him about his family life and how it must have been quite strange being in such a showbiz family from, what was for him, a very early age. Obviously that was way out of his comfort zone but again how was I to know. Michael stared at me quite menacingly and muttered that he couldn’t remember. Once again Tito answered for Michael in a lively but not particularly enlightening manner. I then asked about the situation with Michael’s solo career and rumours that he was once again going to flee the nest and pursue a path away from his brothers. At this point Michael quite petulantly asked me why I was asking all these dumb questions. Why wasn’t I just talking about the record, which is why they were there. I explained that I liked to get context and background in my interviews so that the listeners would feel they had got closer to the artistes and the artistes would feel like they were more than just chart statistics. Michael hissed at me

 

“You’re just weird!”

 

I carried on as if I hadn’t heard and asked more questions not about the record. Michael’s response was to sit there with his arms folded staring into space and seething. Tito continued to play the go-between trying his best to keep the interview going with light hearted banter about nothing in particular, but it was easy to see for both parties this was going nowhere. I turned to Michael and said that if he wasn’t prepared to answer my questions then it was pointless to continue wasting each other’s time. He said that he would only answer questions about the record. I didn’t feel inclined to let an interviewee dictate the terms in such a manner. Sometimes when agreeing to do an interview artistes would stipulate ‘no-go areas’ usually to do with their private lives which was fair enough, but I’d never had anyone making such specific stipulations before. I turned around and rather melodramatically switched off the tape machine before turning back to Michael and Tito and saying that I thought it was best if we just stopped there and they left the studio. The white lady came across and protested that I was treating her charges badly but I pointed out that they were there to answer questions and if Michael wouldn’t do that then there was no point prolonging the agony. She gathered up the brothers and led them out of the studio. As they were leaving I thanked Tito for his co-operation and told him that I hoped there were no hard feelings. He turned and grinned at me, put his hand out and said

 

“Hey”

 

Michael wouldn’t even look at me, let alone say goodbye.

 

Within a couple of days I had an official letter of complaint from a CBS UK bigwig. I phoned and spoke to someone in the promotions department and asked them what they were thinking of, complaining about me! They had sent me an artiste for interview who refused to answer questions and had completely wasted my time. I suggested if we were going to continue working with each other they ensure this didn’t happen again and banged the phone down.

 

This little hiccup didn’t seem to damage Michael’s ambition any as The Jacksons entered another period of chart success with records like Can You Feel It and Shake Your Body Down to the Ground, before Michael went off to do the rumoured solo career, commencing with the album Off the Wall. He enjoyed global success on a level not experienced by any other artiste but then the well-publicized ‘weirdness’ crept in and eventually took over, causing much of his fan-base to desert him. he is now rumoured to be broke, but just what does broke mean when you are talking about someone whose royalty cheques were once bigger than the GDP of many a small country?

 

I suppose the one thing I can take from all of this is having had the privilege of Michel Jackson calling me ‘weird’!

JOURNEY (Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come)

Late summer/early autumn 1973 there was an all night gig at the old Queens Hall in Leeds. There was a big line-up featuring a three-ring circus, The Welfare State, Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come and top of the bill was Hawkwind. Yes you are correct in thinking this was an absolute orgy of late UK hippydom and it happened just before the big bland-out of the mid seventies.

Having ingested an awful lot of pharmas and a large amount of Bradford Black, I remember not an awful lot about that particular night, although I do remember feeling extremely loved-up and spaced out at the same time. I also remember a face-painted Hawkwind saxman Nik Turner coming up to me and my buddies and saying that if we had any gear left we ought to stash it as the place was crawling with pigs (yes they really did used to speak like that in those days daddio!). I remember being there with Plug Kaye. It is possible that any of Kirby, Slek, Jacko, Ice and Linda, Spud Wood, Spike, Max and Pete Townsend were there as well but I really can’t remember. I can remember I was wearing red and yellow tie-dyed cords with massive flairs, a yellow t shirt and topped this all off with a shiny green PVC raincoat. my hair was naturally red-highlighted and shoulder -length in thos days and fell in perfect ringlet curls which were the envy of all of my mother’s perm-addicted friends.

Arthur Brown played stuff from his ‘Journey’ album which I still love and was familiar with as I’d seen him in Bradford the previous week. As the name implies the album, a lose concept-album, took you on a journey through the darkest worlds of moog-influenced worlds of mime and dance. Arthur Brown has always been on the edge of the music mainstream since he first caught the public eye with his brilliant chart-topping hit Fire in 1968. I don’t think any of us who witnessed his live performance on Top of the Pops, will ever forget the black & white image of the shaggy-haired and bearded Arthur writhing about the TOTP studio surmonted by a two foot high flaming head dress. His debut album The Crazy World of Arthur Brown is timeless compared to many of its contrivedly psychedelic contemporaries and although I’ve never heard anyone else say this, I believe it to be one of the greatest blue-eyed soul albums of all time, notwithstanding the remarkably psychedelic Spontaneous Apple Creation. Arthur has been far more influential than people, inclusing himself, realise and it is people like him who should be given public awards for services to entertainment rather than folks like Mick Jagger who only ever served themselves.  Hawkwind were well…………………just Hawkwind! Over forty years after they first came together Hawkwind are still touring led by founder member Dave Brock and continue to operate in a unique self-created genre much to the delight of their many fns the world over. Liquid Len and the Lensmen turned in a brilliant light-show as usual, full of oil-wheel projections and other stuff to aid and abet the huge amounts of acid which had been ingested by the audience. Hawkwind were also joined onstage by the tall, beautiful and very large-breasted Stacia who danced exotically, wearing nothing but body-paint and an occasional smile.

The gig ended as dawn was breaking and we shuffled out into the just awakening streets of Leeds. We enjoyed playing all sorts of the silly games you play when you are as high as kites, like ‘kick the pair of socks over the moving double decker bus’ and other delights.

We then went into Woollies café and had coke floats, so Ice and Linda must have been there because they introduced us all to them. We all started to come down from our variety of highs and all the dopeheads began eating biscuits and chocolate to combat the munchies. From there we broke up and made our way to our various homes. I shared a bus with Plug Kaye, who had recently moved to Manchester to do a hairdressing course at the Vidal Sassoon school. He told me all about life in Manc and it seemed far more exciting than my humdrum existence in little old Birstall. It was decided I should flit to Manchester and stay with him in his bedsit (zilch catswinging room!), until I could cobble together the few quid needed for a place of my own. I went home and told my mother what I was doing. She helped me pack (she was that desperate to hang on to me) and I left for Manchester that afternoon with Plug. I had fifty pence in my pocket and thirty pence of that was for the bus fare!

Up all night (The Records)

 

 

Blondie is still one of the best known names in the history of pop music and when I arranged to interview them, they were at the zenith of their chart-topping powers. I’d first seen them support Bruce Springsteen in 1975, but they didn’t make a massive impression on me. It was the maxi-single containing X-Offender, Rip Her to Shreds and In the Flesh which really grabbed my attention. They were floated on top of the Punk phenomenon but they were about as punk as Coco the Clown. What we had here was potentially the greatest powerpop band ever. Their first album from which the above tracks were taken didn’t fare that well, but a label switch from US owned Private Stock to UK’s Chrysalis seemed to do the trick and the next single Denis from the first official Chrysalis album Plastic Letters charted top ten and was quickly followed by I’m Always Touched by Your Presence Dear.

 

Blondie and in particular singer Deborah Harry, were the first genuine pop-phenomenon to come along since The Monkees and Top of the Pops audience figures soared, whilst they rode high on success as every red-blooded male over voting-age stayed in on Thursday night to drool over the platinum blonde.

 

It was the release of the album Parallel Lines in 1978 which really cemented Blondie’s permanent place in the pop music psyche. When I first heard the single Heart of Glass I felt It had number one smash stamped all over it and I believe I was the first person to play it on Radio 1. This  made me even more popular with the powers that be as there was an unwritten/unspoken rule that no one played an advance copy of a single, until it had been on the programme Round Table, the new-release show; but what did I care the rule was unwritten and unspoken, so I ignored it. Advance copies were normally given to radio stations a couple of weeks before a single’s actual release. The idea was that fans would hear the record on the radio and place an order or buy the record on the very first day of release hopefully ensuring that all-important high chart placing the first week of issue. Heart of Glass was an extremely clever record in that it maintained the power pop laced with a touch of Spanish Harlem feel, but also managed to incorporate a disco-synth beat which meant it would get played in the more serious clubs,

 

Blondie were doing a UK tour to promote the album and I arranged to interview Clem Burke and Deborah Harry after the Hammersmith Odeon show. For some reason I can’t remember, I didn’t go to the actual show but arranged to meet them at their hotel The Montcalm, just by Marble Arch.

 

I arrived there as arranged at 11.30 pm and was soon met by drummer Clem who explained that Deborah was exhausted and sent her apologies, but didn’t feel up to the interview. Talk about gutted!! It was disappointing from a professional point of view as everyone knew Deborah as the focal point of Blondie so I felt I was getting short change. It was even more disappointing from a personal point of view as I was definitely a red-blooded male over voting-age! We decided to do the interview in the hotel lobby, as it was extremely quiet. Clem Burke is an incredibly articulate man though and far more intelligent than your average rock drummer, so we did an interview which was very strong on content and the all important soundbites. As we were concluding I noticed Deborah crossing the floor out of my eye-corner. She waited for me to switch my Uher tape machine off and then leaned over and apologised for her no-show. She said she’d had little sleep and was extremely tired. She was also, she told me, worried that her voice would give out. We carried on chatting whilst Clem headed off for his room and a good night’s sleep; very rock and roll!!! It was pretty plain that she was very tired, but she still managed to be charming and humorous in a very laid-back fragile kind of way. She yawned several extremely sensual yawns during our conversation, which had my pulse quietly racing.

 

After about ten minutes she asked me if I knew anywhere she could get anything to eat. I told her I was sure room-service could provide. She said she had already checked and she didn’t fancy either ham or cheese sandwiches! These were the late-seventies and complete service culture hadn’t hit the UK’s capital yet; there was still very much an attitude of be thankful for what you are given, amongst the hotel trade. Even though this was the capital there was little on offer after midnight apart from a few places, so I said that I was confident she could get something in Chinatown which was only a short cab-ride away. She told me she didn’t fancy anything so spicy and did know anywhere where she could just get a decent American-style hamburger and French fries. Not such a tall order in London you may think but remember this was 1978, just three years after the first UK MacDonalds had opened and decent hamburgers were hard to find, especially after midnight. I told her of the one place I knew which was Up All Night in Fulham Road, about 15 minutes away by car at that time of night/morning. She asked me if I was hungry and did I want to tag along, so realising I hadn’t eaten all day and feeling a bit peckish I said why not. Deborah asked me to wait in the lobby whilst she organised a car. After about ten minutes Deborah came back and said are you ready? I asked her where the rest of the guys were and to my absolute startlement she told me it was just me and her. Me and her!!!! Me and the current Queen of Pop, going off to dine alone together in the early hours. Oh my god wasn’t life truly grand!!!

 

We went outside where the proverbial big black merc with tinted windows awaited and commenced the short drive to Fulham Road. Deborah didn’t speak much in the car and I made no real effort to engage her in view of her decidedly fatigued state. When we got to Up All Night, the driver parked close by in a side road. Deborah was wearing a big black coat over jeans and her eyes were covered with the trademark black Ray-Bans. I had on a pure wool drape coat with rolled lapels and fold-back cuffs in brown velvet. I was also wearing the ubiquitous tight blue jeans and brown high-heel boots. Ever so much the archetypal rock and roll couple! As we approached the door a couple of paparazzi sprang out and started snapping. Because Up All Night was one of the few places open this late these photographic parasites always hung around on the off-chance some rock celeb might show and tonight they were in luck. Deborah did the hand over the face bit but her look was so recognisable that any attempt at anonymity was futile. We went in and sat down and were seriously fussed over by the waiters who’d recognised her immediately. The paparazzi kept on snapping through the window but soon got what they needed and went back to lurking in the shadows. All the patrons of the restaurant kept staring at us rather indiscreetly. Obviously they knew who she was but they were probably wondering who the guy was sitting opposite her, as her relationship with Blondie member Chris Stein had been heavily publicized and Chris and I weren’t exactly identical twins.

 

After a couple of coffees Deborah became a lot more lively and we got on very well, her telling me what it was like living in New York (she said she kept trying to remember as she rarely got back there anymore!!!) and I telling her about the nuances of living in London. She said she would love to go places like Camden Town’s Dingwall’s, but it was really not possible because she would just get hassled all night. We stayed there for an hour or so and then decided to leave. The paparazzi emerged for one last splurge and we headed off back to The Montcalm. Deborah, mindful of the hour, very kindly instructed the driver to take me home. As she decamped at Marble Arch she leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek and said she’s had a nice time. To this day I still occasionally touch that place in wonderment!

 

When I got to work the next day I was amazed to discover, when a couple of people drew my attention to the tabloids, that there were a couple of pieces about Debbie Harry being seen on the town with mystery man and partner Chris Stein nowhere in sight!!! I wanted to scream from the rooftops that I was that mystery man but discretion got the better of me and I just went into an aw-shucks there’s nothing in it mode, when anyone else mentioned the story. Of course I wanted them to think that there was everything in it!!!!!

 

After the success of Parallel lines and subsequent records, Blondie became a household name but as most bands do, they started to develop internal difficulties and began to implode. In 1981 Debbie released a solo album Koo Koo in a blaze of publicity. It was produced by Chic main-man and old acquaintance of mine, Nile Rodgers and it promised an entirely different experience to Blondie. Far more dance orientated than the Blondie canon, the album cast Ms Harry in the role of ultra-chic disco diva, pre-dating Madonna by at least a couple of years. A massive UK launch for the album was arranged at The Sanctuary health club in Covent Garden. Obviously I was looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with Deborah but I was also intrigued that normally The Sanctuary was a women-only venue and I was eagerly anticipating glimpsing inside this upmarket ladies’ version of the Fortress of Solitude.

 

The night of the launch came and I arrived to find a lot of familiar faces there. I think my friend Denis Hegarty then of the group Darts was there. I think also present was drummer John Bradbury and a couple of other Specials. The Chrysalis promotional staff were there too including Chris Peters whom I’d known from my days in Radio 1 and I think Phil Long. I am pretty sure that Chrysalis regional promotions person Chris Griffin wasn’t there, although I may be wrong on that one. There was a lavish buffet of fresh crabs, lobsters, king prawns and oysters on display, as well as a selection of exotic salads. I say on display and I mean on display because I could see no evidence of hammers or anything with which to tackle the food, but they would probably bring all that on later.

 

I moved into the inner sanctuary and it was pretty hot and steamy but the champagne was flowing so who cared. I looked to see if I could spot Deborah anywhere but she was nowhere in sight. No doubt she would turn up later too. Perhaps she was bringing the lobster hammers!!!

 

We all did the things you do at such receptions as in drink a lot. We would have eaten a lot too but the seafood was still an impenetrable fortress! It was getting hotter and steamier as more people arrived so as you may expect, a lot of people were stripping down to their shirts etc. and some were perspiring a lot more than others. The most significant perspiree was promotions man Chris Peters, also known as The Perennial Student, the reasons for which I never discovered. The cause of Chris’s excessive sweating was mainly to do with an excess of alcohol compounded by the fact that he was gyrating around the dance-floor like a hybrid of Norman Wisdom and Mr Bean, in an effort to impress his dancing partner whom it has to be said, looked singularly unimpressed. Chris’s courtship dance was the main source of amusement, especially as he seemed completely unaware that all eyes were on him. It was now well over an hour into proceedings and still no sign of Deborah. We were all wondering hat the hell was going on as it was extremely unusual to have a reception for an artiste and for that artiste not to be there. All of a sudden a deep hush went around the venue and a spotlight shone against a small archway at the top end of the club. From this archway emerged Ms Deborah ‘Koo-Koo’ Harry bedecked in something resembling a white wedding-dress, an electric-green beehive and some of the highest stilettos I have ever seen. All the press photographers present began clicking away like their lives depended on it. Obviously worried about falling off her heels, she was physically supported by partner Chris Stein as she commenced a ‘walk of honour’, shutters still clicking, before disappearing through another arch at the bottom of the club. And that my friends, was that; we saw neither hair nor hide of Ms Harry or Chris Stein for the rest of the evening.

 

I was shocked more than disappointed at the nature of the failure to renew my acquaintance but that’s rock and roll and just like everyone else, I just got on with enjoying myself. A few of us, including Brad from The Specials decided it would be a bit of a wheeze to play a practical joke on Chris Peters who was still strutting his stuff on the dance-floor and still spouting rivers of sweat whenever he shook his Mr Bean head. We managed to procure one of the dustbins which had been used to chill bottles of lager. The lager had all gone but there was still plenty of ice left. We crept up behind the limboing Mr Peters and tipped the entire contents over his head. All credit to him, after the initial shock wore off he simply gave himself a shake and carried on his idiot-dancing without protest, which must have been quite difficult when you are head to toe soaked to the skin!

 

As the alcohol was beginning to take more of an effect I remembered I still hadn’t eaten, so I went back out to the reception area in order to get stuck into the seafood. I was amazed to find that there was still no way of opening the crabs, oysters and lobsters and the servers admitted they had not brought anything apart from standard cutlery and lemons with them. All that had gone from the display were the king prawns, which had looked a bit jaded in the first place. I spoke to their so-called manager and asked where the scissors and hammers and picks were and he just more or less shrugged his shoulders. Then it dawned on me!!! I quickly got hold of Chris Poole from Chrysalis and told him that I suspected the caterers were scamming them. They hadn’t brought any of the tools needed to eat the food, because they hadn’t wanted anyone to eat the food! It was odds-on that they had imagined no one would work this out, as they’d all be horrendously drunk and they could then flog the whole lot to a local restaurant, meaning that they got paid twice for the food! Chris smiled in complicity as the penny dropped and I’m pretty sure it was Phil Long who went and asked the caterers if they had any carrier bags. They quickly obliged and he began stuffing various crustaceans into the bags and handing them out to the guests. The catering manager came rushing over and protested to Phil, saying that it said in their contract that any food not eaten was theirs to dispose of as they wished. Phil advised him that in that case he should sue Chrysalis and continued packing up lobsters and crabs. I finally spilled out onto the early morning streets of Covent Garden with a haul about four lobsters, three crabs and two dozen oysters! Scant compensation for Debbie’s second effective no-show where I was concerned, but not bad in the great scheme of things. I got some very strange looks, as I made my way down Long Acre and Old Compton Street looking for a cab. There were claws and tentacles spilling out everywhere, but did I worry? Nah!

Up All Night was from the album Shades in Bed by The Records who were another great powerpop outfit who sadly shared little of the success Blondie enjoyed. Founded by Kuraal Flyers drummer Will Birch they turned out side after side of polished, punchy pop but after a couple of lower top thirty hits rather underservedly faded into oblivion.

Dr Feelgood (Aretha Franklin)

 

When I began working at Radio 1, one of the first people I interviewed was Lee Brilleaux from Dr Feelgood. I had been a fan of the band since their early days on the London pub circuit and still think the original band with Lee, Wilko Johnson, Sparko and The Big Figure was the best UK R&B outfit of all-time. When Lee shuffled in to the self-op studio he cut a decidedly dissipated figure who looked like he’d been on the piss all night, before being dragged through several hedges backwards. First thing he did was to offer me a line of coke before snorting up a substantial line himself. Sex and drugs and rock and roll; well on this occasion thankfully without the sex! We chatted about this and that and eventually wrapped the interview. As Lee was leaving he said “ You’re awright you, you want to come over to Canvey for a drink sometime”. Canvey was Canvey Island in Essex where Lee and his fellow Doctors resided. Over the ensuing few weeks we met several more times at gigs and record company bashes and the like and struck up quite a friendship. Every time we parted Lee renewed his invitation to go and sample the delights of his own particular sceptered isle.

 

When the single Milk and Alcohol came out, United Artistes, the Feelgood’s record label held a launch party in the basement of a wine bar, just around the corner from Broadcasting House. The event commenced at 12.00 noon and was being sponsored by Kalhua a drinks company who produced a coffee liqueur. The only drinks on offer were Kalhua cocktails, which consisted of two large shots of Kalhua, two large shots of vodka, loads of ice, topped off with milk and served in pint glasses. Milk and Alcohol; get it? I got stuck into some serious cocktailing and during the course of proceedings met Radio 1 producer Don George who was the producer of kid’s programmes Junior Choice and Playground. After talking to Don for  a while he asked if I would make an appointment to see him as he would be interested in me doing some work for his programmes. That’s what I loved about being a freelance, you could get well-oiled at a record company’s expense whilst still making the most of career opportunities!! Whilst Don and I were chatting we were joined by someone else I’d not met, who shall remain nameless for reasons which will become obvious. This character worked as a Floor-Manager for a well-known TV chart-show, but it seemed he had quite a bit of influence over who appeared on the show. He was telling us that he was just about to buy a rather expensive house in West London and I jokingly commented that, bearing in mind the level of BBC salaries he must have a very rich wife or he’d been saving up the payola for a while. Payola was the name given to bribes that people in radio and TV were reputedly given to ensure on-air exposure for records and artistes. There had been a huge payola scandal at the BBC earlier in the seventies although I’m not sure whether any of the allegations were subsequently proven. When I casually dropped this remark into the conversation, aforementioned Floor-Manager went white and I was pulled to the side by the United Artistes Head of Promotion. He asked me how I had heard about the bungs that Mr Floor-Manager had received. I told him that it was simply a joke but quickly got the impression that certain parties were not amused. I told him I thought that that sort of thing had all stopped with the earlier scandal. He told me not to be so naive and asked how I thought another Radio 1 producer, whom he named, managed to live in a house worth £250,000 when his BBC salary was around £12,000. He then went on to explain how I could join the same loyalty scheme and told me what were the rates of reward. He even named a specific record which he could use a little ‘help’ with. For reasons of historical accuracy I can tell you that the record in question was ‘Remember Russia’ by Fischer Z and not surprisingly it did get exposure on a certain TV chart-show.

 

I informed Mr Head of Promotion that I was not corrupt and would not accept bribes in return for such favours. I suppose I should have blown the whistle but I was convinced no one would believe me and that the people involved could probably do me more damage, than I could do to them. All this was rather ironic in that a year or so later I WAS accused of favouring certain record pluggers, suggesting I was in their pockets and receiving bribes. The allegation was channelled through Doreen Davies, PA to then Radio 1 controller Derek Chinnery although I’m pretty sure I know where it originated. My Head of Department, Colin Semper mounted  a seriously heavy rearguard action, pulling out details of all the records I’d been responsible for programming during my time there and proving beyond any doubt that I did NOT favour pluggers in whose company I was frequently seen. Vindicated then, but had it not been for Colin’s absolute belief that I would not do something like that, then my head would have definitely rolled.

 

The reception went on until about 7.30pm when amongst others Lee and I emerged into the fading daylight in an extremely inebriated state and you guessed it, headed off for another bar, clutching bags of free samples of Kalhua.

 

Milk and Alcohol went on to become Dr Feelgood’s highest charting single and Lee and I continued to bump into each other fairly frequently. One lunch time I was walking along Oxford Street when a black cab screeched to a halt beside me. the window slid down and a rather beery-breathed Lee asked me what I was doing later that day. I told him nothing in particular upon which he said “Right yer comin’ ter Canvey for that drink wot I promised”. My protestations were countered by the rather substantial figures of Sparko and Figure who proceeded to drag me into the cab. I continued protesting but to no avail and soon realised it was destination Canvey Island whether I liked it or not. It would probably have been about 5.00pm when we got there and the pubs weren’t officially open but the members of Dr Feelgood had the same privileges as Freemen of Essex whilst on their home patch, so gaining entry to a local hostelry didn’t present a problem. I recall Sparko and Figure stayed til about 8.00pm before sloping off elsewhere but Lee was busy holding court with the odd local so we stayed put. Around 10.30pm Lee asked me if I fancied going on to a club but I told him I needed to head back as the last train was not far off. Lee told me not to worry about that I could stay at his and go back in the morning so I agreed. He said he was just going for a piss and would book a cab for us. I waited for him to come back. And I waited….and waited! At about 10-45pm I went out to look for him. We were both pretty drunk by this time and I was worried that he may have fallen over in the gents or something. I went in the toilets but there was no Lee in sight, so I headed back to the bar. After another ten minutes I went out again but still no Lee, so I went and asked the Landlord if he knew where he was. He told me that Lee had ordered a cab and gone off somewhere else but hadn’t a clue where. He also told me that the last train to London had just left. There I was stranded on Canvey Island with little more than my train fare back to London (holes in the wall were pretty rare in those days and only the very wealthy held credit cards).

 

I explained my predicament to the Landlord and he laughed suggesting this sort of thing wasn’t unusual where Lee Brilleaux was concerned. He kindly offered me a room for the night and said he would get Lee to pay for it when he next saw him. I slept soundly and headed off home, early the next morning. When I next saw Lee a couple of weeks later he was extremely apologetic and very sheepish. He explained that he was so pissed he had simply forgotten I was there, which is why he had not collected me when he went off to the club. He kept on apologising and buying me drinks and I’m sure he thought that was it as far as Dr Feelgood getting any exposure from me was concerned. That wasn’t the case at all and I saw the funny side of things and continued our occasional friendship until I went to work in Birmingham in 1980.

 

Lee Brilleaux was another of rock music’s family who passed on way too early. Lee died on April 7 1994 at the age of 41, not from the ravages of a rock and roll lifestyle as we may have expected, but from the ravages of that diabolical disease Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Lady in Red (Chris de Burgh)

One of the things which I am very thankful for is that I got the opportunity, during my career, to work with lyricist Don Black on several occasions. Don is for my money one of the best old school lyricist going and he is certainly the best this country has thrown up. His credentials are endless; Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, James Bond title songs, Ben for Michel Jackson, To Sir with Love to name but a few! It remains a travesty that the musical Dear Anyone, which he wrote with There’s a Kind of Hush composer Geoff Stephens and playwright Jack Rosenthal, closed after a very short run. I was lucky enough to see it more than once and can honestly say it was head and shoulders above every other UK produced musical, over the last 40 years. I can remember going to the preview where I met Jack for the one and only time. We were introduced and I was very surprised to discover that he knew who I was. On enquiring as to how he told me that I was the person who’d employed his wife Maureen Lipman on a TV show and was responsible for her getting back to London hours late and in an exceptionally inebriated state but that, as they say, is another story. The only good news for Dear Anyone was that one of its songs I’ll Put You Together Again was a massive hit for Hot Chocolate, which is unusual for a musical which failed at the box office.

 

Don is also one of the nicest people I have ever met and I enjoyed several afternoons in the company of Don and his wife Shirley, when they used to have a flat in Basil Street, just behind Harrods. I remember vividly being at their flat when the Irish terrorist bomb went off in Harrods in the eighties. It was a bit nerve wracking for me as I had left my girlfriend and her mother there just a half hour before the bomb went off. It took me two or three hours to establish that they were ok and that they had left the store to go elsewhere shortly after me. (remember no mobiles in those days!) On one occasion I was at Don’s one time when Whacko Jacko himself rang and suggested that they should work together again. That would have been in about 1985, when he was at the height of his popularity and before he turned into a complete fruitcake.

 

Don introduced me to West-End singing star Marti Webb, whom I think he may have been managing at the time, although I also remember her being managed by a gentleman with the rather brilliant name of Brian Brolley. Exact roles lost in the mists of time! Marti was typical of the sort of performer who had grown up on the West End stage, in that she was a great all-round musical performer with a far better voice than most people imagined. Marti had a lovely, if somewhat scatty personality and always seemed to fall in love with the wrong man. I can remember her describing herself as being ‘on the shelf’ on numerous occasions, in a light-hearted humorous way, but I always got the feeling that she may have thought that was a case of ‘many a true word spoken in jest’. I can’t understand why she felt like that; she was beautiful and successful and should have been able to have her pick of eligible men, but I suppose just because someone is very confident on the stage, doesn’t mean they are anything like as confident in the real world. From what I recall she did enter into a brief marriage after I knew her, but the fact it was brief does suggest it wasn’t particularly successful in normal parlance.

 

As a sort of follow-up project to Tell Me On a Sunday, which Don had written for Marti with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don came up with a further vehicle for her called I’m Not that Kind of Girl, which again was a themed project written with composer and producer David Hentschel who has worked with Genesis, Elton John and Frank Zappa amongst many others. It was a sort of thirty-something’s Bridget Jones’ musical diary before its time and contained titles like;

 

Seven Outside Mr Chows (the famous Knightsbridge Chinese eatery for those without metropolitan experience), What Would Jane Fonda Do?, Shampoo and a Miracle Please and Dear Janet Reger.

 

Myself and director Roger Cassells decided it would be a nice idea to feature the entire album over the course of the week at the rate of two songs per day plus a set-up interview with Marti and Don on the first show.

 

Our contracts department wanted to treat each daily show as a separate event, which would have cost a fortune on the budget. I managed to track down some ancient contract which had really been designed for radio but could be employed for TV appearances and this was done on a ‘weekly engagement’ basis which made the whole thing a lot cheaper as far as we were concerned. As the whole thing was an excellent promotion vehicle for the album Polydor, the record company, agreed to make up any shortfall on artiste’s fees etc. This sort of thing went on all the time but people pretended it didn’t. My attitude had to be what a record company agrees with its artistes is between the two of them, as long as it didn’t come about as a request from me. The Musician’s Union were very powerful at the time and had very strict rules as to what and what you could and couldn’t do. Had we stuck to those rules, in conjunction with the creativity of our contracts department then it’s doubtful we’d have ever managed to get any artiste worth having. Contracts  were far too respectful of artiste’s agents for my liking. I understand they have to earn a living, but when they actively stop their artiste from working because their cut isn’t big enough then that is wrong. I was criticised on numerous occasions by contracts for speaking to artistes directly. When I did this all I wanted to know was if the decision not to do our show had come from them or their agent. 99% of the time the artiste in question, knew nothing about the show and were more than happy to do it for the fee on offer. Artistes understood the power of  a TV appearance in promoting their careers and ultimately upping their earnings, from which their agent would ultimately get their cut. Old school artiste’s agents could rarely see beyond the fivers they used to light their cigars.

 

For a change this appearance was scheduled quite a long way up front, which gave me a bit of time to work on finessing it. Some of the songs required little set dressing but we decided it would be great to go to town on the Dear Janet Reger number. Janet had been famous for designing beautiful silk lingerie but had gone out of business several years before. Roger and I decided it would be great to get Marti and her backing singers Vicki Brown, Helen Chapelle and Kay Garner to perform the song in the best Janet Reger could offer (well we would wouldn’t we?!!!).

 

With the Janet Reger marque no longer in operation, this proved rather difficult, but I managed to track down the lady who had been responsible for her PR. Ironically she was based just a stone’s throw away from BBC flagship headquarters Broadcasting House, in London’s Portland Place.

She told me she still had a few Janet Reger items on hand and I was quite welcome to borrow them for the show if I wished. We made an appointment and I turned up to her offices a few days later to see what I could salvage. When I got there I was amazed to be shown a complete rail of the most exotic lingerie. I asked how much I could use and I was invited to take the lot as there was no longer any real use for it. Fortunately Portland Place is quite close to the headquarters of the London Rag Trade, so the looks I got as I loaded my car with naughty knickers weren’t as disapproving as they might have been elsewhere!

 

Marti and her entourage turned up early on the Monday morning and we discussed what we would be doing throughout the week. When we got to the part about the Dear Janet Reger section, I explained rather nervously what we had in mind, expecting some resistance. I couldn’t have been more wrong; Marti and the backing singers went positively dewy-eyed when I showed them the array of sexy underwear in which I wanted them to perform. There then became the most enthusiastic, but friendly, cat-fight over exactly who would wear what. On the day of the Janet Reger performance I met them all and was told it had been decided that Marti would perform in a beautiful knee-length red silk camisole and the singers would wear various risqué silk bits and bats. I must say that talking to them in the dressing-room before the show had me feeling rather hot under the collar and extremely blessed. The show went very well, as indeed did the whole week’s pieces. In the green room after the show Marti collared me and sheepishly asked if the camisole had to go back Already knowing what was coming I said well yes, but I could have a word. I was then approached by Vicki Brown who was the wife of cockney rocker Joe Brown and mother of future European star Sam. Vicki asked the same thing, as subsequently did Helen and Kay. When I phoned the PR and she said we could keep the stuff I became the most popular male in TV land. As I had said previously, there was far more stuff than the girls had worn on the show so I became even more popular when I distributed the rest of the gear around the girls in the office. I reckon I was more than responsible for injecting a bit of spice into a few jaded relationships that week!

 

I worked with Vicki Brown on many occasions. She was a great singer, a beautiful woman and an amazing bubbly person. Seeing her resplendent in Janet Reger underwear did, I must admit, have me thinking some seriously impure thoughts but thinking of what a big guy Joe was, sort of dampened my ardour a little. It was an extremely sad day when I heard that Vicki had passed away at the very young age of 51 in 1991.

Tell Laura I love Her (Ricky Valance)

 

 

Soon after I arrived in London I met up with John Tobler, a music journalist who has written for many publications over the years. We had started corresponding when I wrote to him about a piece he had written on Rick Nelson in the legendary mag Zig Zag. John was working in the press office at CBS records, in Soho Square at the time, although he was also freelancing for various magazines as well. John was very generous and aware that I was potless, he frequently let me raid his album cupboard and took me out for boozy lunches at CBS’s expense. John also had me as his ‘plus-one’ at many of the gigs for which he got sent tickets and usually managed to get me into the spiritual home of Pub Rock, Islington’s Hope and Anchor, for nothing.

 

John knew of my ambition to be a writer and one day when we were having a lunchtime drink in The Pineapple on Charing Cross Road, John told me there was a vacancy coming up at CBS for a junior to write the trade singles releases and was I interested?

 

Was I?

 

I accompanied John back the CBS, having phoned in sick to work. John introduced me to Elly Smith, who was Head of Press. Elly told me VERY briefly what the job entailed and asked me if I wanted it to which I replied, not surprisingly, yes please. The job would involve one day a week and I could fit that in around my other job where I was working for a firm of solicitors. I told Elly I would start the following week which she was fine with.

 

I arrived at CBS the following week and attempted to try and get down to stuff immediately. Unfortunately I didn’t really have a clue what I was supposed to do, but I sat down and looked at my workload and thought about how to accomplish it. I was under the impression that writing was an honest profession and was incredibly naive with regard to the ‘selling’ element of writing, which is more often how it is employed. My job was simply to ‘flog the product’ to the record shops but I thought I was there to write honestly, creatively and inventively about the singles being released each week. The first record on my pile was by Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge and to say it was bland is an understatement. How could I write anything interesting about that pile of do do? I wrote an honest crit of the required length and moved on to Bugatti and Musker. The only real difference between this and the last one was this was  English as opposed to American bland, so I again wrote accordingly.

I ploughed through about eight singles and apart from one by Sailor, which was ok, they were all tosh. I handed in my ‘work’ to line manager, David Sandison and helped myself to a bunch of albums from the record cupboard before heading home. David phoned me the next day and told me that the stuff I had written wasn’t really suitable and could I have another bash, so I agreed to pop in after work for a couple of hours. Still without any guidance I attempted to rewrite the stuff using more creativity and such as I presumed he didn’t think the writing was colourful enough. I tried again, this time liberally littering the page with alliteration and metaphor but still not really grasping that the only thing I was supposed to be doing was lying through my teeth, so that the stores would buy in records which were extremely iffy. I again stopped off at the record cupboard on my way out, to see if anything new was in there.

 

The majority of space in the record cupboard was taken up by copies of the first two Bruce Springsteen albums Greetings From Asbury Park NJ and The Wild, the Innocent and the E street Shuffle. This was before the ‘I have seen the future of rock and roll’ hype which preceded the Born to Run tour and Bruce was pretty much unknown within these shores. Personally I thought both albums were great, but it was still part of my job to make sure no visitor left without a copy of each album, even if they already had them! We needed to clear some space in the cupboard for the anticipated new releases.

 

One of the only honest bits of writing I got to do whilst I was at CBS was updating Bruce’s biography in anticipation of the upcoming tour. This time I was actually able to write what I believed to be true and that was that Bruce Springsteen was destined to be a major artiste. When Born to Run came out I thought it was a great record and I went to see his first show in the UK at Hammersmith Odeon which was a bit of a disappointment. Bruce didn’t manage to spark the fire on that particular night but an unknown band called Blondie managed to provide a better support than we could have anticipated. Must watch out for them! As everyone now knows Bruce went on to be one of the biggest names in rock music history and as always happens when people I have loved for their obscurity as well as their talent, become popular with the masses, I went off him! With hindsight I feel that he has rarely revisited the quality of the first three albums but I have little doubt he is a phenomenal talent and his title track for the movie Philadelphia still has the power to move me to tears. I have no doubt that this is mainly due to its place in the context of the film, but songwriters with the power to do that are a pretty rare breed.

 

Needless to say my tenure at CBS was extremely short-lived, but I kept in touch with John and occasionally visited his house in Brookwood, Surrey. Like many music journalists, John supplemented his income by selling all the promotional copies of albums he was given, but didn’t want to keep. He was the worst record cupboard raider I have ever seen and would come away from record company offices with so many albums he could have done with a pack mule to carry them. That was to my benefit though because a lot of the albums John wanted rid of were albums I really wanted so at 50p and £1.00 a throw, I wasn’t complaining. Whilst my taste coincided with his in some places, it shot off at serious tangents in most. He didn’t like much soul for example so I was able to relieve him of Look Out For #1 by Brothers Johnson and We came to Play by Tower of Power as well as loads of other great stuff. He did me no better favour though, than when he sold me Smile by Laura Nyro for £1.00.

 

I already had New York Tendaberry in my growing collection but I’d never really listened to it. Like many people of my peer group my knowledge of Laura Nyro was limited to the darkly mysterious Gibsom Street,  a track on the double sampler Fill Your Head with Rock, which had been a must in any serious late-sixties underground collection. I had seen a review of Smile in the NME by (I think) Charles Shaar Murray, who’d sung its praises. The trouble with iconoclastic writers like Charles is that they are often so completely full of shit that you cannot trust them; I mean Charles had said that Marquee Moon by Television was the greatest album on the Elektra label since LA Woman by The Doors when anybody with an ounce of insight about these things, knows that Marquee Moon is the greatest album in the history of rock music, period!

 

Smile doesn’t really qualify as a rock album as it is essentially jazz-rock fusion and before you run away thinking fusion; the worst of all possible worlds, let me tell you that you would be wrong in the case of Smile. It is a beautiful album from start to finish. Smile kicks off with the languidly laid-back Sexy Mama and by the time we get to the end of side one (that’s vinyl my dear!) we have been treated to one of the greatest songs ever written, I am the Blues. It is impossible to convey in words just how great this song is, so I will just say to you, if you haven’t heard it then beg, borrow or steal a copy and you will see exactly what I mean. The song is not about the blues but it is about life and written BY the blues itself.

 

It opens with a line which is just so powerful;

 

‘Cigarettes, I’m all alone with my smoke and ashes’

 

The whole record is an absolute triumph of love over despair and it will always be in my collection. It is hardly surprising that on hearing Smile, I then dug out New York Tendaberry and found that this was a great record as well. Over a very short period I acquired all of Laura’s albums. The reason I did that is because although I am somewhat prone to being a completist, in the case of Laura Nyro I just adored everything she did. Her songs are not of this world and her piano style is so unique as to be instantly recognisable even when she is covering things like Up on the Roof, or Spanish Harlem. Laura may have come to us via the Woodstock Generation but her roots were completely in post doo-wop New York and Spanish Harlem and the marriage of styles and ideologies made for some beautiful music. The last fully-fledged studio album Laura recorded was Mother’s Spiritual. As a whole it wasn’t her best album but the title track is quite simply the most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard in any genre and in case you get the impression from my musings here that my musical taste is limited, I should confess that Johan Sebastian Bach composed a lot of the music I really care about.

 

Laura Nyro may not have been as well known a songwriter as Dylan, Carole King, Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell but for me she was as good as any of them and when she sang her own songs, that haunting voice just blew me away. She was also to my eyes stunningly beautiful; not in a classic way but she had this ethereal quality about her which transcended looks and stuff. Don’t sell her short though, Laura wrote some songs which became very well known in the hands of others, Stony End for Barbra Streisand, And When I Die by Blood Sweat & Tears and Wedding Bell Blues by Fifth Dimension to name but a few.

 

When I started working in the music business I wanted to meet just three people; Leonard Cohen, John Cale and Laura

Nyro. I met the first two but never Laura. When she died on April 9th 1997, the musical firmament lost one of it’s

brightest stars at the relatively young age of 50. It was worse for me though because I lost my metaphysical lover.

 

Ironically once I started working in the media full-time, I saw less of Mr Tobler, but I often read his liner notes on re-issues of just about everything. I was only the other day reading his notes for a Kinks compilation where he said that Ray Davies had probably written the song Victoria about is daughter! Try the late Queen of England me old son, as in Arthur; or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, the album from which it was taken tut-tut!

 

The last time I saw John was at a party in the Bayswater flat of Human League, Heaven 17 and Tina Turner producer fame Martyn ‘Teddy Bear’ Ware. I worked with Martyn on several occasions and we became quite friendly. In fact all the members of Heaven 17 visited my flat in Birmingham in the early eighties for a bit of a chill-out before racing off to their gig in my girlfriend’s newly acquired ice blue Ford Popular. Anyway John was pretty pissed and started insulting Martyn calling him things like electropop ponce and other pleasantries. Not really knowing where to put myself I shrugged at Martyn as if to say I hadn’t a clue what had inspired John’s behaviour and I hadn’t. I discreetly dragged him off to avoid further embarrassment and tried to sober him up outside. I am very grateful to John Tobler for his help but I’m not sure we had an awful lot in common, apart from an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop and rock music and so I think we simply grew apart.