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.