RICHARD MACPHAIL – The Glue That Held Genesis Together

News reached me yesterday of the passing of my friend Richard Macphail, whose memoir My Book Of Genesis I ghost-wrote for him in 2016. He visited our house many times over that summer to tell me all about his life, focusing mainly on his role as tour manager for Genesis and Peter Gabriel, to whom he remained close. Peter wrote a foreword and four of them – Phil Collins was detained elsewhere - turned out for its launch at a bookshop in Holland Park. 

        As is explained on the back cover of his book, Richard was the singer in Anon, the Charterhouse school group that included Mike Rutherford and Anthony Phillips, which would merge with Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks’ group The Garden Wall to become Genesis. Thereafter he became their one-man road crew, shepherding them from gig to gig, providing a cottage where they could live and rehearse and offering much-needed support when it was most needed. When Peter left, Richard went with him, acting as his tour manager for two years, then took on a similar role with several others, among them Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen, before quitting the rock trade and making a career for himself in alternative energy. 

        His was a great story and I was pleased to be able to help him set it down on paper. On one of his visits to our house we headed off in his car to Christmas Cottage, the small dwelling his parents had owned on Sheephouse Lane at Wotton, about three miles away. The current owner let us look inside, even upstairs where the lads kipped. “Living there were Peter, Tony, Mike, Ant [Anthony Philips], John Mayhew [first drummer] and myself, all of us together in this three-bedroom cottage,” wrote Richard in his book. “What had been my parent’s room had three mattresses on the floor for me, Ant & John. Mike had the little bedroom next to that and what had been my bedroom when I lived there with my parents, which had twin beds, was where Peter and Tony slept.” 

        An enterprising man, Richard published the book himself, selling well over 7,000 copies on the internet or at Genesis fan conventions where tribute bands performed. One or two of them even asked him to mix their stage sound, just as he had done for Genesis in years gone by. The fans looked on Richard as a hero, the sixth member of the group. 

Here we are at the book launch, left to right: Peter Gabriel, Richard, CC, Mike Rutherford, 

Tony Banks and Steve Hackett. 

        It’s my contention that before rock’n’roll tours were conceived, even before those package tours back in the fifties and sixties when anything up to eight acts played on the same bill, the travelling circuses and funfairs of the day relied on men like Richard. Roustabouts, they used to call them. They would tend to the animals, put up the big tops, dodgem rides and waltzers, grab as much cash from the punters as they could, ravish the town’s daughters, then take it all down again and head for the next city. It was a rough, tough, old sort of life, forever on the move, but there was a sliver of romance about it that was hinted at in movies like That’ll Be The Day, with David Essex and Ringo as leery fairground lads on the make, nowhere to hang their hats but plenty of scope for quickies in a filthy caravan. The rock’n’roll road crews of Richard’s era followed the same byways as these circus and fairground roustabouts, inheritors of a proud tradition, bringing pleasure to the masses and fleeing before anyone could catch up with them. 

        That was then. Nowadays the high end rock’n’roll tour industry runs as smoothly as an Olympic figure skater. Concerts are announced anything up to a year in advance, tickets sell out months before the gig, the money banked long before the band has played a note. The acts fly from gig to gig in private jets and employ an army of roadies who travel by luxury coach while drivers – who do nothing else but drive – transport their equipment in huge lorries, all of it packed snugly into flight cases with foam linings. 

        You don’t have to be a fan of Genesis, or even like them very much, to appreciate how men like Richard laid the foundations for today’s multi-billion pound rock tour industry. In 1967, when Genesis started out, they had just one roadie, and that was Richard. Night after night he was first in and last out; he drove, he carried, he cooked, he fetched, he set up the gear and he took it down again, he strung the guitars, he mixed the sound, he fixed the amps, he counted the cash, he jostled, he criticised, he cheered, he watched as the spark became a flame, all the while blowing on it until it became a bonfire.

RIP Richard. 

THE FIRST EVER BEATLES FAN CONVENTION

This week sees the annual Beatles fan convention in Liverpool which closes after the August Bank Holiday weekend. It’s been running, on and off, since 1977 but the first one ever was held 50 years ago in July in America, in Boston, the second two months later at the Commodore Hotel in New York. I was there, reporting on the event for Melody Maker, and what I remember most about it was bumping into May Pang, John Lennon’s partner at the time, whom I knew because she was present when I’d interviewed John in LA the previous year. John has sent May along to buy stuff for him but she didn’t know what John would want and when she saw me she asked my advice. I steered her in the direction of a few bootlegs because John had told me liked them, and since money was no object May bought several. 

I also suggested May buy some prints of photographs taken of The Beatles in Hamburg when they were playing there before they became famous, among them one of John in a doorway in a leather jacket with his hair quiffed up like a rocker. This had been taken in 1960 by their friend Jurgen Volmer who was at the event. We chatted with Jurgen and May bought a print of this same picture. The next time I saw it was on the cover of John’s 1975 LP Rock ‘N’ Roll. 

This was probably the first time fans had witnessed a Beatles tribute act, or any tribute act for that matter, which gives the feature I wrote for Melody Maker a rather archaic tone in the light of today’s tribute band world. Here’s what I wrote for the September 14, 1974, edition of MM: 

Ten years on and you can’t keep a good band down.

Last weekend New York plunged back into the days of Beatlemania. A two-day convention for Beatle fans brought on all the nostalgia for the four mop tops in an overdose of enthusiastic sentimentality that occasionally bordered on the ridiculous.

The loyalty of American Beatle fans is quite frightening. But more frightening still is that in ten years of progressive rock music no other artist or group has had anything like the impact on popular taste that The Beatles had when they exploded into our lives in 1963. (For US readers change that to 1964 – the convention was planned as a ten year anniversary celebration.)

Ironically Beatlefest ’74 – the second such event in the US this year, following the first at Boston a couple of months ago – occurred in a year when all the box-office records that The Beatles set up were well and truly shattered by the likes of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or Eric Clapton. Even more anonymous American acts like Grand Funk, Chicago and Three Dog Night have probably eclipsed Beatles sales figures too. 

Beatlefest ’74, the brainchild of one Mark Lapidos, a 26-year-old assistant in a record shop and devoted Beatles fan, was the ultimate nostalgic celebration, offering convincing proof that no matter what people say or think, The Beatles, despite the fact that they’ve split up, remain the biggest rock act in the world. 

“I first had the idea of the festival last November, but it wasn’t until I ran into John in Central Park earlier this year that I decided to do something about I,” Mark told me. “He really liked the idea and put me in touch with people who’d be able to help. From that point on, it was on the road.”

Clearly, Lapidos had put much work into organising the event. It was a labour of love and profits went to Phoenix House, the drug rehabilitation centre in New York, a charity approved by The Beatles themselves. 

A raffle raised most of the money, prizes being guitars donated by John and Paul, a tabla from George and drum sticks from Ringo. In addition, John had autographed books which were auctioned, and 10% of all the new items sold in the market room went directly to charity. They raised $3,000.

The two days of Beatles fun included a host of attractions. There were showings of A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be, along with more obscure promotional films loaned by Apple and private collectors. 

There were Beatles cartoons (pretty dreadful, actually), and talks given by people who were associated with the group, including Sid Bernstein, the promoter who brought them to Shea Stadium, disc-jockey Murray The K and Pete Bennett, the notorious Apple promotion man in New York.

Bernstein’s talk preceded the showing of the excellent Shea Stadium movie. Tinged with emotion, he told the assembled gathering how he negotiated with Brian Epstein (a huge cheer went up every time Epstein’s name was mentioned and when his face appeared on the screen) to promote The Beatles at Carnegie Hall on their first US appearance, February 13, 1964.

And when the film was shown these Beatle freaks reacted like a live audience, screaming, clapping and yelling as each motop went through their paces. It happened during the Dick Lester films too: whenever Paul shook his dark head or John grinned his absurd ear-to-ear smile, the cheers could be heard a mile along the street. In other rooms there were lectures and panel discussions on The Beatles, an art exhibition, continuous unedited Beatle interviews and swopping and dealing in Beatles merchandise.

The market room, in fact, was the eye-opener of the festival. Collectors were swopping and dealing in Beatles bric-a-brac long since off the production line. There were Beatles badges, Beatle mugs, Beatles dolls, Beatle trays, Beatle jog-saws, Beatle board games, Beatle wigs, and Beatle everything else. Of course, there were records and posters, some old, some new.

The most prized item, it seemed, was a good condition copy of The Beatles’ Yesterday And Today album. This, of course, was never released in Britain though the songs that made up the album were available on other LPs. What made it special, though, was the original sleeve design depicting The Beatles with chopped up baby dolls, which this was hastily deleted. It was re-issued with a different sleeve soon after. 

A mint condition album with the original sleeve was selling at one stall for $225 (about £90). Another stall sold a copy for £175. Singles in picture sleeves were selling at up to ten dollars (£4) and some of the older Beatles badges were selling for a similar amount.

It was a question of shopping around the various stalls to get the best deal. My only purchase was a badge an inch and a half in diameter with a black and white photo on the front with a brass surround. On one stall the badge was selling for $15 and on another for $10. Five minutes bartering and I got it for $7.

I still have the Beatle badge I bought that day. 

The most unusual attraction was a group called Liverpool, a Toronto outfit whose repertoire consists entirely of Beatle songs, mostly latter-day stuff which , of course, was never performed live by the real thing. Dressed to the nine in Sgt Pepper military costumes, the group stunned everyone with almost perfect imitations of Beatles music. 

It was their first New York appearance and they couldn’t have had a more sympathetic audience. Each song was greeted like an old friend and their hour-long set on each of the two nights developed into an emotional sing-along. To hear a thousand people singing ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ brought a tear to many eyes, but their rendering of the medley of pieces from the second side of Abbey Road was the most impressive feature of their set.

They didn’t resemble The Beatles in the slightest, and one observer remarked that they looked more like the Grateful Dead out to fool everyone. A pity their bass player wasn’t left-handed – and he really ought to have had a Hofner Violin bass instead of a Fender. The drummer, however, had a perfect nasal voice, just like Ringo’s.

None of The Beatles turned up which was wise decision. Lennon, in town that weekend, had expressed a wish to go but, realising that he’d probably be torn limb from limb, decided against it and sent an emissary, his new girlfriend. Tony King, boss of Apple, was wandering round enjoying himself.

There was a Beatles quiz that was so difficult no one got all the questions right, though two enterprising fans managed 39 correct answers out of 40. There was a look-alike contest and a sound alike contest, the latter won by a youth who went up an sang ‘Yesterday’ accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and sounded every bit like Paul.

Price of admission was $10 which entitled you to 24 hours solid Beatling. Everyone got their money’s worth. 

“A splendid time is guaranteed for all,” said the programme. Quite right too.

HOLLYWOOD DREAM – The Thunderclap Newman Story by Mark Ian Wilkerson

With a foreword by Pete Townshend and a bold claim on the cover that Thunderclap Newman symbolise the Birth of British Indie Music, Hollywood Dream is a labour of love by an author who has spent years clearing up the details to an unfathomable project tangentially connected to The Who. Nevertheless, there’s good reason to heed the call: of all the one hit wonders that reached number one in the UK during the 1960s none were more enchanting than ‘Something In The Air’, recorded by an ad-hoc group assembled by Townshend to record a song composed by their singer, John ‘Speedy’ Keen, who also happened to be his chauffeur. 

        With a wistful lyric that celebrated revolution at the same time as John & Yoko were knee-deep in their own activism, ‘SITA’ wedded youthful optimism to a persuasive, lilting melody and tumbling guitar figure, its even production and feel-good vibe interrupted by an incongruous barrelhouse piano solo that set the scene for a soaring, climactic final verse. It’s always been a favourite of mine, filed away amongst my Who records as I consider it a sort of ‘honorary’ Who single; produced by Townshend, who also played bass on it, and released on Track, the label run by their co-managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp.

This is my own copy of 'Something In The Air'.

Note that Keen is wrongly spelt with an 'e' on the end. 

Mark Wilkerson, a UK-born former US Army helicopter mechanic, brings to Hollywood Dream the same thoroughness he brought to his biography of Townshend, initially self-published but in 2008 issued by Omnibus Press during my editorship. Leaving no stone unturned, it’s a deep dive, mixing just about every contemporary report printed with much original research, and very rewarding it is too, if, like me, you’re fascinated by small details of Townshend’s almost obsessive creativity during this period of his life. Pre-occupied by the thoughts and philosophy of Meher Baba, he’d just created Tommy and was spending most nights performing it on stage with The Who while writing material for Lifehouse/Who’s Next and coming to terms with being a father for the first time. That he also found time to launch Thunderclap Newman, who took their name from pianist Andy Newman, a post-office engineer and avant-garde piano player, beggars belief. 

But while Townshend plays a prominent role in this book (and has assisted the author in his research), the central story is that of the three men around whom the group was formed: Newman, Keen and pint-sized guitar maestro Jimmy McCulloch. Hollywood Dream charts their lives closely, before, during and after the group, and to some extent it’s a tragedy since all three men are no longer around, Newman the last to leave us in 2016 following Keen in 2002 and McCulloch in 1979 at the tender age of 26. 

        They were an unlikely trio. Newman’s odd, bumpy, piano style made a deep impression on Townshend when he gave a lunchtime recital at Ealing Art College in 1963 and thereafter they stayed in touch, Townshend evidently resolved to record him sooner or later. Newman was an implausible pop star; a man of stout girth, bespectacled, untroubled by any hint of sartorial sophistication and, by all accounts, a perfect gentleman who was straight as a die. Keen, on the other hand, had a mixed-up childhood in the mould best labelled as “we were poor but we were happy” – the pages dealing with it are amongst the most touching in the book – and may have spent time behind bars. In his bearing and outlook, he was the direct opposite of Newman’s orthodoxy. Add Scottish McCulloch, who turned 16 the month ‘SITA’ hit the charts and was already fond of anything intoxicating, to the mix and we have perhaps the oddest group ever to see the inside of a recording studio.

        Most of their recording, in fact, was done at Townshend’s own studio at his home by the Thames in Twickenham where Mrs Townshend was caring for babe-in-arms Emma. All this – the formation of the group, recording ‘SITA’ and their LP Hollywood Dream, and the troublesome touring that followed – is covered in great detail, as is the group’s eventual disbandment, which can be attributed to incompatibility and a lack of focus. Townshend wasn’t around to oversee matters, Track Records was a sinking ship and, put simply, no one knew what to make of them. Though it doesn’t lack humour, Wilkerson’s version of Thunderclap Newman’s tale of woe is as precise an account as you’ll find anywhere of what happens in the pop world when things don’t work out right. 

        The final third of the book is devoted to what happened next for our three heroes. McCulloch went on to join Stone The Crows, a group called Blue and Paul McCartney’s Wings, then died with a whole lot of trouble running through his veins, to borrow Springsteen’s take on Elvis. Keen recorded a well-received solo LP, Previous Convictions, that I recall liking a lot, especially a song called ‘Old Fashioned Girl’. (I also recall that its credits appeared in braille on the reverse, as was the case with The Who’s outtakes compilation Odds & Sods, released a year later. I don’t believe any record label other than Track did this.) Neither troubled the charts, nor did a second solo LP on Island, Y’know Wot I Mean? Thereafter Keen did a bit of record production, lived on a boat and enjoyed an idiosyncratic domestic life, all recounted in glorious detail. When he died following a heart attack aged 56, his only son Robert was not yet a year old while his daughter Trish was in her mid-thirties. 

        And what of Newman himself? There was a solo LP, on Track, entitled Rainbow, but the label’s demise left him penniless and, after a few isolated appearances in the 1970s, he went back to working as an electrician. Not until the early 2000s was Newman encouraged by admirers of Hollywood Dream to resurrect the group, now called The Thunderclap Newman Band, including, amongst others, Mark Brzezicki, formerly the drummer with Big Country. Their final show was at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2012. Chronically overweight, Andy Newman died aged 73 at his flat in Vauxhall, and was buried in the suit he wore on stage. “Andy was a true genius, lost in time between the pop music of the 20s and 30s and that of the 20th century,” wrote Townshend in a letter that was read out his funeral.

        Published on October 1, Hollywood Dream is a fine epitaph for this unlikeliest of chart topping groups. It has 420 pages, a few photographs amidst the text but lacks an index. On Amazon it costs £17.67. 

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & ANNE MURRAY IN NEW YORK'S CENTRAL PARK, August, 1974

Just over 50 years ago this week I witnessed an unlikely triple bill in New York’s Central Park that backfired somewhat: Canadian MOR/country singer Anne Murray headlining over Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band with Brewer & Shipley as the opening act. This was precisely 12 months before Born To Run would be released, the third time I’d seen Bruce and I was already a fan. Here’s what I wrote for Melody Maker’s Caught In The Act page, dated August 17, 1974.

Three acts with little in common, Anne Murray, Bruce Springsteen and Brewer & Shipley, were together in Central Park last weekend for another concert in the Schaeffer Music Festival series – an unlikely combination, but one that appeared to satisfy the audience that each artist attracted. If Anne Murray was calm but professional, Springsteen was artistic and inspired, and Brewer & Shipley were dull but competent.

It was Springsteen’s night. Although he was second billed to Ms Murray, he received the biggest ovation and at least half the crowd didn’t stay when he’d finished. The concert was running well overtime but that, I feel, was a secondary factor. He’s all New York, full of songs about the city, while Anne Murray is fresh air and country: the Big Apple is her least likely market.

Springsteen has been deemed the future of rock’n’roll by US critics for over a year now, a burden that’s hard for any man to bear. His Central Park performance was probably his most important show to date and he rose to the occasion, bopping and rocking one moment and romanticising about his youth the next. 

In his vest and black jeans, shades and wispy beard, he’s every inch the New York street kid, straight from West Side Story. He could probably get away with singing ‘Maria’ if he wanted, but his material stands up on its own. The utter helplessness he exudes shines like a light in the darkness and if the tough New York Westsiders could ever cry Bruce would be the man to make it happen. 

If Bruce is unclean but emotional, Anne Murray is clean but unemotional. Bruce could harm but Anne is harmless, a true professional who does a good night’s work for an audience that’s less demanding from an emotional standpoint. 

She’s managed by Shep Gordon, who also manages Alice Cooper, another unlikely combination, and I would question his wisdom in teaming up his client with Bruce. Another noteworthy factor about Anne is the high number of gay women she seems to attract. As the audience filtered down after Springsteen’s set, I couldn’t help but notice the female “couples” who took over the seats at the front. To them, at least, she means as much as Springsteen does to those who were filing out into the night.

Though Anne is aware of this phenomenon, she plays it down. She also ignored isolated, uncalled-for yells of “Bruce” during her set that, when stretched out, sounded like boos. Her songs are fresh and crystal clear, her band (including a string section) polished and professional and her songs are delivered in a heavy, rather deep voice that is more noticeable on stage than on her records.

The girls clapped and cheered and Anne did a couple on encores. When it was all over lots of them were waiting at the back with cameras. Although poles apart, Bruce Springsteen and Anne Murray mean a great deal to a great many.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOHN

This morning I learned from his wife Jane that another of my oldest friends, John Holmfield, died yesterday in my old home town of Skipton. Here we are aged about 18 playing our guitars together in my bedroom in my parents’ house there. So I wrote this for him.  

Teenage boys learning to play guitars somehow find one another. It’s a secret society with its own curious customs, a bit like Masons except much more fun. You’ll find a plectrum among the loose change in their pockets, they listen to records more carefully than most people and never, ever, pass by a shop with a guitar in its window without stopping and staring. 

        John and I found one another through our guitars. It was 1963, the year The Beatles released their first LP, perfect timing because one of the first songs we learned to play together was ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, the first track on side one. When we formed our group, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ was always the opening song at our shows. “One, two, three, f…,” and we were away.

        There were four of us, John, Bob, Terry and myself, four Skipton friends, and we called ourselves The Pandas. John and Bob knew one another because they sang in Skipton Parish Church choir. Bob, Terry and myself all lived up the Raikes, and Bob and I went to the same primary school. John lived across town on Regent Crescent and played bass but didn’t have a real bass, not that it mattered. Bob played drums and he, John and Terry all sang. I was tone deaf, but John especially sang well, though he was a bit withdrawn, never one to push himself forward. I realise now that he was the most musical of all of us, and certainly had the best voice. All we had at first were acoustic guitars and even when we turned electric our equipment wasn’t much good but it was all we had and we made the best of it. When John eventually bought a 30 watt amp, twice as powerful as mine, I was very envious. 

        We used to meet and make plans for our group on Friday nights in the bar at the Midland, the hotel opposite Skipton railway station, now called Herriots, where no one seemed to care that we were under age. John and I soon became drinking buddies around Skipton and grew particularly close after Bob and Terry went to Leeds, Bob to the university there, Terry commuting to work in insurance. John worked in Keighley, in a lab at a school, and I worked in Skipton, on the Craven Herald, the local paper. John and I would bring our guitars to each other’s houses and play together, teaching ourselves songs by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Searchers. Then the four of us would get to together so we could all learn them. 

        The lifetime of The Pandas was about three years and in all that time I doubt we played more than 25 shows. Bob kept a tally in an exercise book with an orange cover, long since sadly lost. We played regularly at the RAF Club by the old swimming pool up Shortbank Road and at Skipton Rugby Club at Sandylands where, one night, we carried on until two in the morning. Angry parents arrived in pyjamas to ferry us home. One night at Gargrave Village Hall we supported a far more competent group from Barrow-in-Furness who played Gibson and Fender guitars. John and I begged them to let us have a go on them, which we did, briefly. We played a few private parties, making a terrible racket in the living rooms of houses where our teenage friends danced while we played. Our biggest show was at Aireville School, with about 100 pupils watching us. Our only ambition was to have fun – and in that we succeeded. 

        In 1967 John and I holidayed together in Scarborough, travelling by coach from Skipton bus station and staying at the St Nicholas hotel. We brought our guitars and I remember us playing them on a grassy hillside that overlooked the beach and sea. No one mistook us for buskers. 

        By this time John and I had moved on from the Midland and discovered the New Ship, a small, cosy pub on Mill Bridge, seen above. I can still remember the first night we went inside. It was full of ramblers, very noisy and very smoky. The bar was tiny, like a kiosk, and there was a back room behind it where regulars gathered for afters. The Ship grew in popularity during the second half of the 1960s, becoming one of the busiest pubs in town, at least among the under 25s. From around 1965 we drank nowhere else in Skipton, though when I got a car John and I would drive up the Dales, to the Devonshire Arms in Cracoe and the Old Hall in Threshfield. We talked about girls and guitars and records, and spent a good deal of time assessing the quality of the beer. John was always partial to Youngers IPA. 

        I introduced John to Alison, his first wife. She worked as a secretary in the advertising department at the Craven Herald, and, in fact, I’d made a feeble attempt at courting her myself, soon abandoned when I realised we had little in common. I came up from London for their wedding at Threshfield and visited John and Alison at the house where they lived in Embsay. It saddened me that the marriage didn’t last but I was somehow relieved when John told me they’d parted on good terms and remained so. Later he married Jane and I visited them too. By this time John had a white Strat and I had a sunburst one, Fenders at last but no audience to listen to us. 

        John was the only Panda to remain in Skipton. Bob settled near Hull where he became a solicitor and Terry’s subsequent whereabouts would always be a bit of a mystery. I went to live in London, then America, then London again, and by this time our lives had taken very diverse paths. Nevertheless, whenever I came up to Skipton to see my dad I generally looked in on John. Then, after my dad died in 1997, these visits more or less ceased. 

        Nevertheless, when you become a member of a pop group, even a group as insignificant as The Pandas, there’s a bond that remains always. It’s got something to do with being up there on a stage together without a safety net, knowing that you’re relying on each other to reach the end of the song without making a mistake, all for one and one for all. It’s a bit like playing together on a sports team, or working together on a successful project, a memory that stays with you, warm, nostalgic and comforting. Unforgettable, unbreakable.  

        In 2014, when John and I were told by his wife Yvonne that cancer was overtaking Bob and he wouldn’t last more than a few months, we spent an evening at their house near Hull, playing together again one last time. The first song we played was ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. “One, two, three, f…” and it was 1963 again. RIP John and Bob.  

CC, Bob - now playing bass - and John, at Bob's house in 2014.