STRAT! – The Charismatic Life & Times of Tony Stratton Smith by Chris Groom

The photograph on the front cover says it all – a jovial looking, round-faced gent with a double chin whose shirt is stretched rather too tight across an ample belly, a loud, polka-dot tie, a drink and a customised “Charisma” Union Jack in one hand, an oversized, joke top hat in the other, a packet of Benson & Hedges protruding from his jacket pocket, hair that could use a trim, a cheeky grin on his face, a full bookshelf in the background, pens and pad on the desk in front of him, a scene abundant in mirth. 

Who was he? That’s the question with which Chris Groom wrestles in this biography of the man who founded, and somehow funded, Charisma Records, in the process discovering Genesis which made him a fortune. But Tony Stratton Smith remains elusive. There was something of the Will-O’-The-Wisp about him, his fingers in many pies, not all of them harmonising; and though his friends were many and all of them knew something about him, none of them seem to have known everything, so the author’s dogged persistence in interviewing and/or seeking assistance from no fewer than 207 named individuals in pursuit of the man still leaves a few questions unanswered. Which is how Strat, as he was universally known, probably wanted it.

Time to declare an interest. The manuscript for this book, all 268,898 words of it, landed on my desk at Omnibus Press about seven years ago. I declined to publish it, partly because it was far too long and partly because I knew from experience that books on music industry figures never sell anywhere near as well as books on music industry stars. Fast forward a few years and Chris Groom rings me up to say that he has found a publisher who requires the book to be cut by over 100,000 words, a task beyond him. Could I help? So, Chris crossed my palm with silver and early last year I reduced it to 154,000 words, eliminating repetition and rewriting large chunks in the process, tinkered with the chronology, followed a lead or two of my own, restructured and retitled the chapters, and added an index. This seemed to satisfy Wymer, the publishers, and the book finally saw the light of day at the beginning of this month.

Having thus contributed considerably – so much so that the author has seen fit to add my name to the cover, alongside that of Peter Gabriel who has written a Foreword – I can hardly review it in the customary sense. Suffice to say that although Tony Stratton Smith – the Stratton was adopted early on to differentiate him from a work colleague with a similar name – somehow manages to confound the author as regards the full picture of himself, I defy anyone to pull together a more comprehensive picture of this extraordinary man.

“Well, I never knew that about him,” was repeated to me several times by persons I spoke to for clarification on certain issues as I worked on the manuscript. This certainly confirms that those who knew – or thought they knew – him as well as anyone will find something to surprise them in the book. 

Strat was a journalist, sports writer, author, traveller, music publisher, concert promoter, manager of rock bands, record company boss, film producer, wheeler and dealer, gambler, racehorse owner and, finally, a tax exile. There were rumours, unconfirmed, that he might have worked for the British secret service. He was gay, a borderline alcoholic, overweight, addicted to risk and spoke with a posh accent that belied his humble upbringing in a suburb of Birmingham. Born out of wedlock, he never knew his father. He was befriended by millionaires and paupers. He was generous to a fault and might have been defrauded by persons who saw him as an easy mark. He died, quite suddenly, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage attributed to pancreatic cancer, aged 53, and left no will. 

        As the head of Charisma Records, Tony became known as a generous patron of talented musicians whose work was not necessarily in line with commercial trends, an attitude that endeared him to many in the industry but may have ill-served him as regards Charisma’s balance sheet. His legacy was a label that defies logic in today’s terms. Best known for Genesis and Lindisfarne, it was also home to such disparate talents as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Sir John Betjeman, Julian Lennon, The Nice, John Arlott, Vivian Stanshall, Bert Jansch, Price Far I, Peter Hammill and many more. 

What everyone agrees on is that Strat was a joyful, carefree man of the world, often to be found propping up bars in Soho, glass in hand, when he should have been working. Fortunately, his staff – many of whom went on to become leading figures in the music business – covered for him, though they could be forgiven for rolling their eyes at some of the boss’s more unrealistic ventures. I knew him briefly and can confirm he was splendid company. That he was loved dearly is clear from the testimony of so many friends and business associates in this book. Most will be saddened to read about his final months as a tax exile in Las Palmas where he seemed to be rudderless, rarely sober and lacking the support of genuine friends. 

        “Ultimately, what he really cared about were the people,” writes Chris Groom, “the creativity, about imagination, inspiration and risk, and the sheer joy to be had in bringing all those elements together, lighting the Charisma-pink touch paper and standing back, glass in hand, to watch what might happen when the sparks began to fly.”

ROCK’N’ROLL FANTASY: THE MUSICAL JOURNEY OF FREE AND BAD COMPANY, by David Roberts

Time was when Genesis Publications, the Guildford-based company founded by George Harrison’s friend Brian Roylance, had the monopoly on expensive limited-edition rock books but they were joined a few years ago by Rufus Stone Limited Editions in Newbury, which specialises in hard rock. Now there’s another new kid on the block: This Day In Music Books, an offshoot of the website run by musician, PR and editor Neil Cossar which, as you might expect, lists music-related events on any particular day of the year. Yesterday, June 21, the day I began to write this, Columbia Records in 1948 in New York launched a new vinyl disc that spun at thirty-three and a third revs per minute. Caught on didn’t it?

        TDIM Books have already published several conventionally priced music books but this is their first foray into the luxury book market. Rock’N’Roll Fantasy: The Musical Journey of Free and Bad Company, compiled by uber-fan David Roberts, is a full-colour 400-page large format book printed on art paper that in its £75 top-of-the-market edition is hard-cased with an accompanying bag of goodies like replica concert tickets, what looks like home photos and artwork prints. You can get the book on its own for a penny shy of £40. 

        And very nice it is too, though I must declare an interest since my reports for Melody Maker on Free and Bad Co occupy several pages within. Indeed, my arrival on MM in the summer of 1970 coincided with ‘All Right Now’ topping the UK charts, thus confirming Free’s ascendency to rock’s high table, at least until instability, competing egos, poor management and hard drugs forced them apart. I thus found myself covering them fairly closely, interviewing them and seeing several shows. Best of all was one in Sunderland on June 26, 1970, at the local Top Rank Suite. ‘Freemania broke out in Sunderland on Friday,’ I reported somewhat sensationally in one of my earliest MM concert reviews, which can be found in the book. Over 50 years later I can still recall the euphoric scenes as Free, on the cusp of greatness, triumphed on the singer’s home patch. 

        The truth is I loved Free. They weren’t naturals on Top Of The Tops miming to ‘All Right Now’ but they were naturals on stage: Paul Rodgers, an expressive, soulful, confident and sexy vocalist (1); Paul Kossoff, a tasteful guitar player who unlike many in his trade knew not just what to play but also just what to leave out; Andy Fraser, a bassist with an elastic style all of his own; and Simon Kirke, tough as old rope, solid and unfussy at the back, a handsome devil too. They had a spring in their step in those early days, the best young band of the year in my view, and I was massively disappointed they didn’t stay together for longer.  

        The rise and fall of Free occupies the first half of Rock’N’Roll Fantasy, with the rest of the book largely devoted to Bad Company aside from a few pages given over to other projects involving those former Freemen, like Fraser’s Sharks, Rodgers’ Peace, Kossoff’s Back Street Crawlers and, later, Rodgers’ solo work and his adventures with Jimmy Page and Queen. It is heavily illustrated with pictures of all the bands, record sleeves and miscellaneous memorabilia, and due tribute is paid to those members of the groups who have passed on.

        The text is largely made up of long quotes from fans, friends and a few industry insiders, some famous, most simply devotees, stretching back from Rodgers’ early life in Middlesbrough to the present day. I was particularly amused by one quote from a fan who was arrested for fly-posting. In reality he was trying to remove a poster of Free from a wall so he could hang it in his bedroom. Since the book is authorised by Rodgers and Kirke, they contribute extensively throughout.

        I was never as enamoured of Bad Company as I was with Free. I acknowledged that they were a solid, hard-rocking, hard-working four-piece band whose success was more or less inevitable, given that they included Rodgers and Kirke, along with Mott The Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and wild card bassist Boz Burrell, and were managed by Led Zeppelin supremo Peter Grant. Despite their success, I felt there was something predictable and rather formulaic about their music; as if – much like Queen – it was designed on a drawing board where essential requirements for success were ticked off according to market research. Still, they made it big and their fans loved them, as can be seen from the citations from the many admirers who have contributed to this book.

A spread from the book showing Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers on stage. 

        I saw Bad Co several times, the most memorable in New York’s Central Park on September 4, 1974, when Jimmy Page, watching from the side-lines, hopped up on stage to jam with them on their closing number, much to the horror of Foghat whose unenviable task it was to follow them. My review of that night is also in the book, as is my report from California when they performed two nights at Winterland in San Francisco and a night later at the LA Forum, where once again members of Zep stepped up on stage to boost the excitement to fever pitch. A picture taken that night made MM’s front page the following week. 

        What I didn’t mention in MM at the time, for obvious reasons, was that on Bad Co’s Viscount jet from SF to LA I was sitting minding my own business when one of their roadies came down the aisle and whispered in my ear, “Peter wants to see you.” It was like being summoned to face the judge. I made my way to the private room at the back of the plane where Peter Grant was holding court with some of the band. On a table in front of him was a big mound of cocaine. Peter offered me some and I partook. “Did you enjoy the show?” he asked quite pleasantly. 

        “Er, yes Peter.” 

        “Well, mind you say so in that paper of yours. You can go now.”

        There was a big smile on Peter Grant’s face but the hint of menace he conveyed is as memorable today as that night all those years ago in Sunderland with Free.

******

(1) One day in 1972, during one of his periodic bouts of dissatisfaction with Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore confided in me that he thought Paul Rodgers was the best young singer in the UK and wanted to form a band with him. “Can you have a word with him?” Ritchie asked, knowing that I knew Free. I never did. 

THE REMARKABLE TALE OF RADIO 1: THE HISTORY OF THE NATION’S FAVOURITE STATION 1967-93 by Robert Sellers

Unwelcome, misunderstood and barely tolerated by the hierarchy at the BBC, Radio 1 was for many years the Corporation’s unloved bastard child. Its parents, loathed to an even greater extent, were the pirate radio ships that took to the UK airwaves between 1964 and 1967, chucking egg in the faces of the stuffy old Beeb as pop fans throughout the UK disdained the fogyish Light Programme and tuned in their thousands to Caroline, London and all the rest.

        So, when the Labour Government of the day brought in the Marine & Broadcasting Offences Act to sink the pirates, it was clear to the BBC that since the nation’s appetite for non-stop pop was here to stay they had better to do something out it, albeit very reluctantly. Their solution was Radio 1 which, in its own way, continued to chuck eggs in the same direction by becoming the country’s most popular station, proving the rule of thumb that you cannot legislate against something people like – if that wasn’t the case the “War on Drugs” would have been won 50 years ago. 

        So it was that on the morning of 30 September 1967 the “cheery” DJ Tony Blackburn, a refugee from Caroline, launched Radio 1 and, like it or not, it’s been the country’s premier pop station ever since. Its struggle for survival in the early days, its ups and downs, and its heroes and villains, are covered extensively in Robert Sellers’ The Remarkable Tale Of Radio 1: The History Of The Nation’s Favourite Station 1967-93.

        According to this book, the reality is that Radio 1’s existence has been a constant battle between the traditionalists on the one side and the progressives on the other, with each step forward resisted by the established powers, not only those at the top of the BBC itself but also the Musician’s Union, who viewed the playing of records as a danger to their members’ jobs. It’s hard to believe that for years the playing of records in the top ten on the radio was monitored by upholders of archaic cultural values, the sort of people who write letters to The Daily Telegraph from Tunbridge Wells and like to blame everything they don’t like on those with progressive ideas. The ongoing crusade is an almost endless theme of the book, tapering off somewhat after the two-thirds mark at which point it becomes less interesting, and it’s a given that after 1993, the point where the book ends, things finally loosen up.

        We hear from all the relevant sources, executives, programmers, producers and, most of all, the DJs, some of who are in it for the music, others for the glory and opportunity to move on to TV, fame and fortune. Invariably they are the less likeable. No one likes the odious Jimmy Savile, which is a relief, and John Peel comes across someone the establishment would love to dump but can’t because he’s so popular. Blackburn, on the other hand, is a bit of a prima donna.

        Sellers has done his research well, talking to all the right people and his book will certainly go down as a definitive history the nation’s ‘favourite’ radio station. Then again, there hasn’t really been that much competition has there?

THE WHO AT WOODSTOCK

Eight days after I first saw The Who in person on August 9, 1969, at the Plumpton Racecourse near Lewis in East Sussex, they appeared at Woodstock, an epic performance played out in the most dreadful of circumstances that in many ways sealed their reputation as the greatest live band of their or any other era. 

        For reasons related to the 50-year copyright lapse, it is now possible to buy The Who’s full Woodstock set on a CD of questionable legitimacy advertised freely on the internet, as I did last week. Universal Music, which recently acquired The Who’s entire back catalogue in a deal worth a reputed $50 million, would be justified in taking legal steps to curtail such releases but seem disinclined to do so, probably because no sooner had they stamped on one pirate copy than another would crop up elsewhere.

        In my book Tommy At 50, published in 2019, I was asked by the publishers to write a small feature on the Woodstock performance that was separate from the main text. “Most estimates suggest that as many as four hundred thousand were in attendance,” I wrote, “but disorganisation meant the band’s appearance occurred eight hours later than planned, and, in the meantime, they had inadvertently sipped drinks laced with LSD. The delay, the acid, and the difficulty their tour manager had experienced in extracting the balance of the group’s fee [$11,200] in cash from the promoters meant they were all in a foul temper. Finally, at around 4 a.m., they took the stage.”

        Until I acquired the CD on the London Calling label (illustrated above) from Amazon last week I hadn’t heard The Who’s Woodstock set in its entirety which, according to the sleeve, was ‘broadcast on WNEW-FM’, the inference being that the recording is taken from the broadcast*. This, of course, is untrue. No act’s set from Woodstock was broadcast, not at the time anyway, though the entire festival was recorded on 8-track by the noted engineer/producer Eddie Kramer. We can therefore assume that the CD comes from Kramer’s tapes. 

        Originally, all that could be heard of The Who at Woodstock was ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, included on the triple Woodstock LP released by Atlantic in 1970, and ‘Sparks’, ‘Pinball Wizard’ and ‘See Me Feel Me’ (ie, the coda of ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’) on The Kids Are Alright double LP released in 1979. Additionally, I included what we called ‘The Abbie Hoffman Incident’ on the 1994 4-CD box set 30 Years Of Maximum R&B, which I think my co-producer Jon Astley found among Pete’s tape collection. Hoffman barged on stage in the middle of Tommy to express his disgust at the jailing of MC5 manager John Sinclair on drug charges. Pete dispatched him into the pit with a wave of his guitar, an action he later regretted. In 2019, however, The Who’s set was made available on Woodstock - Back To The Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive, a very expensive 38-CD collection that was limited to just less than 2,000 copies, but those who’ve heard the disc with The Who on it claim the sound mix is poor, not an issue with the CD I bought.

        So, what’s the CD like? It begins with an easily identifiable twang from John’s bass before the announcer, Chip Monck, speaks, somewhat profoundly. “Will you please warmly show your appreciation… a group that came to us specially for this festival… please warmly welcome The Who,” and without hesitation they crash into ‘Heaven And Hell’, the regular set opener during this run of shows. They sound like they mean business too, with John’s vocal ringing out loud and clear, Pete’s guitar wafting in and out of the mix until it settles and Keith exploding at the back. There’s a two-second delay before ‘I Can’t Explain’, a sharp, angry, needle-fine version that puts to the sword any ideas about this festival being about peace and love. I doubt that any performer could have taken Woodstock by the scruff of the neck like The Who did at four am that morning. 

        After ‘Explain’ the group embark on Tommy with no introduction, opening with ‘It’s A Boy’ as the ‘Overture’ wasn't played until later in the year. By now The Who had performed Tommy almost 50 times, in both the UK and US, and what follows over the 17 linked songs is as fluent a chunk of Who live musicianship as you would expect after such training. ‘Amazing Journey’, a bit faster than usual, bursts out; ‘Sparks’, already heard elsewhere, opens with a distorted rumble from John and screaming feedback guitar from Pete through the endlessly repetitive opening section before sliding into the lighter octave drops and surging peaks, Keith skittering around his kit, as towering a version of this Who staple as you’ll hear anywhere; ‘Eyesight To The Blind’ sees Roger, Pete and John singing in perfect unison; and ‘Christmas’ features Pete roaring ‘Tommy can you hear me’ before Roger replies ‘See me, feel me…’ for the first time. When Pete repeats his lines, he sounds truly deranged. 

        By now it’s clear the group are on a roll, the indignities of earlier in the day forgotten in the rush of their performance. ‘Acid Queen’ fairly zings along, followed by the intricate ‘Pinball’ strum, again a bit faster than usual, and in the final verse John conjures up a drone of feedback for Roger to sing over. With this momentum having been achieved it’s no wonder Pete angrily dismissed Abbie Hoffman who intrudes before ‘Do You Think It’s Alright’. On this recording, however, there are edits that weren’t there on 30 Years…. The word “shit” (Hoffman) is edited out, while Pete’s “Fuck off my fucking stage” is so low in the mix as to be unheard unless maximum speaker volume is applied. 

        Tommy continues at this frenetic pace until the end, the already released ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, with ‘I’m Free’ another vigorous workout. Finally, there’s ‘See Me Feel Me’, commented upon by Roger in the eight-page pamphlet accompanying the disc. “Shortly after 6 we got to ‘See Me Feel Me’ and the bleeding sun came up. Right on cue. You couldn’t have topped it. After all the shit we’d been through, it was perfect. It was extraordinary. It was one of those moments you couldn’t ever recreate if you tried. Once in a lifetime.” 

        The Tommy presented here is certainly on a par with the live versions from Leeds and Hull now circulating (or any others for that matter). This, of course, is a much earlier reading – perhaps the earliest on record – which finds The Who performing their opera long before they became weary of it. It shows too. Despite the arduous circumstances surrounding the Woodstock festival, there’s a spring in their step, a sure sign they’ve lost none of their enthusiasm for Pete’s first magnum opus. If it had been available to me, I’d have included ‘Amazing Journey’ (as well as the ‘Sparks’/’Underture’) on 30 years…

        But the show wasn’t over yet. After the 8-minute 46-second climax to their opera The Who lurched into a brutal ‘Summertime Blues’ (as seen in the movie, split screen too) and, without hesitating, ‘Shakin’ All Over’. Both are played ferociously, as good as Leeds. “Ladies and gentleman, The Who,” says Monck, a bit of an understatement, as the crowd cheer. Pete returns. “Thank you very much indeed,” he says, sounding quite humble. “We’d like to play a song which, kinda, is our… we knew we were gonna come back and do it… this is kinda our hymn. It’s a song about you and me, we’re getting a bit old now, it a song called ‘My Generation’.”

        The bass solo never sounded better, and neither had Roger though the backing vocals – ‘Talkin’ about…” – seem a bit strained which isn’t surprising considering the trial they’d endured before. ‘My Generation’ ends suddenly, followed by loose chords from Pete that morph into the licks that would eventually wind up as the chorus of ‘Naked Eye’. Roger is largely frozen out, and a fairly tight jam breaks down after about three minutes when Keith and Pete lose the plot, only to reconnect moments later. Then, as seen on film, the Gibson SG that Pete used gets some abuse and is thrown into the crowd. 

        As I wrote in 50 Years Of Tommy: “The ovation they receive was long and loud, still ringing in their ears as they hopped aboard a helicopter that took them to New York City. The performance onstage and in the subsequent film of the event turned The Who into superstars, brand leaders of the stadium rock explosion waiting just around the corner.

“Later, though, all of The Who, especially the guitarist, would say how much they hated Woodstock. ‘Fucking awful,’ was their most common observation. 

        “The next show The Who played, on August 22, was at the Market Hall in Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England, where the capacity was just short of one thousand.” 

_____

*Indeed, a note in the accompanying booklet states that all London Calling releases feature “FM radio broadcasts from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s”. 

DYLAN, VAN MORRISON & JOHNNY ROGAN: THE LAST EMAIL FROM MY OLD FRIEND

Two days before my friend Johnny Rogan passed on January 21 this year I received an email from him drawing my attention to an article by Niall Brennan in Untold Dylan, a scholarly Bob Dylan fanzine, published in July 2020. In it the author posits the theory that Dylan’s song ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’ from Rough And Rowdy Ways was inspired by a passage in No Surrender, Johnny’s Van Morrison biography. 

        In his email to me Johnny wrote: “I’ve just been sent some scholarly articles, one in the Dylan academic zine Isis, and another below. Both make mention of the theory that Dylan’s song ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’ on his last album Rough And Rowdy Ways was inspired by my Morrison book No Surrender. Read on. What do you reckon? Anything that connects me with Dylan is just all right by me...”

        “That’s fantastic,” I responded. “Good on you. Hope to get together soon when the Covid restrictions are relaxed.” 

        I never heard back from Johnny. 

In his piece Brennan writes about the song ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’, offering a brief biog of Reed before analysing the song and, finally, drawing attention to the passages in Johnny’s Van Morrison book that bear a remarkable resemblance to some of its lines. Below is the relevant passage. 

July 13, 2020

‘GOODBYE JIMMY REED’, HELLO VAN MORRISON

One of [the] new songs is of a quite different nature to Jimmy Reed’s city blues. ‘Key West’, the stately, paced, gorgeous meditation on time, nature, and happiness that closes the first record contains a multitude of beautiful lines and imagery. One in particular struck this listener on first hearing.

I’m searching for love and inspiration

On that pirate radio station

Coming out of Luxembourg and Budapest

        Aside from the fact that Radio Luxembourg was not a pirate radio station, both it and Radio Budapest feature in Dylan’s fellow music expeditionary Van Morrison’s song ‘In the Days Before Rock and Roll’ from his 1990 album Enlightenment. In these lines, narrated rather than sung by Irish poet Paul Durcan, the speaker is on his knees,

At those wireless knobs

Telefunken, Telefunken

And I’m searching for

Luxembourg, Luxembourg 

Athlone, Budapest, AFN

        When Durcan finds the station he and Van need, the song proceeds in a most Morrisonesque manner deep into Proustian reverie, namechecking such heroes as Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Little Richard, Ray Charles and so forth, in a remarkably similar cathartic fashion to Dylan’s invocation of his cultural heroes, via the legendary DJ Wolfman Jack, that closes the majestic ‘Murder Most Foul’ on the second disc of his new album.

        Thus we find Dylan and Morrison, two old soldiers, raised on the old records, paying homage with the help of old radio stations and late DJs to the crackling sounds that first alerted them to the world outside their northern homes. Touching that dial, turning that wireless knob just a little brings us back to those Dylanesque incongruities the listener might skip over on first hearing in his Jimmy Reed homage. But as with much of Dylan’s work, with a little diligence, secrets can be uncovered.

        Considering the first verse of ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’, the very Northern Irish derogatory word for Protestant, ‘Proddy’, made this listener think of Belfast soul man Morrison again. This lead to a search through Johnny Rogan’s magnificent 2005 biography Van Morrison: No Surrender, and aside from an entire chapter entitled ‘Are You A Proddy?’, uncovered several further references, some oblique, some quite precise in the lyrics of Dylan’s ‘Jimmy Reed’ song. An initial study revealed the following (page numbers are noted in parentheses). 

        ‘I live on a street named after a Saint’, Dylan begins. Rogan quotes Morrison directly in this childhood memory: "Catholics all went to schools named after saints and Protestants went to schools named after streets" (40). Further down the same page Rogan describes the volatility that existed between young Catholics and Protestants in the Belfast of Morrison’s youth, and the various ways respective faiths could be identified from afar. In the same way 20th century blues musician Reed could never fully escape the societal divide brought about by a century of American history, the struggling musicians of Belfast similarly had to walk a careful line, keeping their distance in a very literal societal divide. ‘I can tell a Proddy from a mile away’, Dylan continues, as later on the same page of his biography Rogan quotes a childhood friend of Morrison’s: ‘you could tell by looking at somebody if they were a Protestant’ (4). The contents page of Rogan’s book tells us of a later chapter’s title: ‘Are you a Proddy?’, referring to an incident years later when comedian Spike Milligan would query the more elderly Morrison on the nature of his tribe. But is this sufficient evidence that Bob Dylan might have shoehorned the word ‘Proddy’ into a tribute to one bluesman as a wink to a second? 

        Reading and listening further, the second verse begins: ‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory’, Dylan intoning some of the Lord’s Prayer, and on the same page of his biography, Rogan writes: ‘Protestants add[ed] an extra line “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory”, omitted from the Roman Catholic version’ (40). Dylan’s verse continues: ‘tell it in that straightforward puritanical tone’ as Rogan refers to Morrison’s ‘puritanical upbringings’ (43). Little is known of Reed’s youth, and the effects, if any, that faith had upon his life and work, but even a casual listener recognises the immense importance of religious belief and writings in both Morrison’s and Dylan’s work.

        In the next verse, Dylan’s accounting of the young Reed’s first attempts at playing to an audience is remarkably similar to Rogan’s account of Morrison’s early band, the Monarchs. ‘You won’t amount to much the people all said, because I didn’t play guitar behind my head’, Dylan sings of Reed, while Rogan tells how ‘the Monarchs enlivened their stage act ...playing guitars behind their heads’ (42). And again, Dylan: ‘never took off my shoes and threw them into the crowd’ and Rogan: ‘the famous Morrison trick of taking his shoes off on stage’ (44). 

        For those who know Belfast, the world-renowned Crown Saloon has been a favourite watering-hole for generations, but given the more complete cliche used by Dylan in ‘I’ll put a jewel in your crown’, reading the opening few pages of Rogan’s book we find, in referring to the boyhood Morrison’s educational opportunities, his area ‘included a number of inner city schools in the scheme with Orangefield [Morrison’s school] regarded as the jewel in the crown’ (25).

        So,did Dylan have Rogan’s book to hand when composing this song for the late Jimmy Reed? Has he at the same time crafted a tribute to his friend and fellow Reed fan, Van Morrison? We could suppose further. Perhaps Reed’s butcher’s hook is not only a reference to his time at the Chicago meat plant, but also a darker reminder of the so-called Shankhill Butchers, a Protestant gang who spent their nights getting high and kidnapping Catholics to torture and kill. Killing floor indeed. 

        But there is one further moment, from late in Rogan’s book, and later in Morrison’s life. He has found love with former model Michelle Rocca, and in the throes of love, Morrison has written and recorded one of his lesser works. The song is called ‘Perfect Fit’, which in Rogan’s opinion is ‘a transparent paean to [Morrison’s girlfriend] Rocca’ (434). Morrison’s love song contains the line ‘see that dress you’re wearing baby suits you right down to the ground’. Dylan’s song, of a different hue, goes: ‘transparent woman in a transparent dress, it suits you well I must confess’. Let the listener and the reader judge for themselves what Dylan might be referring to here.

        Dylan’s song concludes with him meeting a friend, a brother, seeking out the resting place of their mutual ancestor: ‘God be with you, brother, dear’, Dylan invokes once more, and one can’t help but recall the 1989 BBC Arena documentary that brought both of these singers together on the Hill of the Muses in Athens, to sing each other’s songs for a while in the setting sun.

        One hopes that Jimmy Reed might have approved, from down in his metaphorical Virginia.

BOB DYLAN: ROLLING THUNDER

To mark Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday, here’s my on-the-spot report of his two Rolling Thunder concerts at Springfield, Massachusetts, from November 6, 1975. At almost 4,000 words, it’s far and away the longest show review I ever wrote for Melody Maker. I even kept the ticket, below. The footnotes are all that I’ve added from the original story, as printed over three pages of MM, issue dated November 15. 

You need more than a weather man to know which way Bob Dylan blows on what is being called, somewhat nationalistically, his bicentennial gesture to the musical heritage of America.

        Like the will o’ the wisp he is, Mr Dylan has astounded observers by embarking on a fly-by-night tour of the north eastern states, playing halls of modest proportions at short notice accompanied by an entourage of up to 15 musicians in various combinations.

        It seems as if Dylan is deliberately denouncing the ballyhoo that surrounded his 1974 tour of America with The Band, a tour that visited baseball arenas throughout the country and enabled hundreds of thousands of fans to watch his first advertised public appearances since the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969.

        Many artists have expressed a desire to return to the intimate club or small hall, but few have gone ahead. Dylan has done just that.

        In the past week he has played to stunned audiences in Massachusetts, some of whom found it difficult to believe that up there on stage was Bob Dylan, often treating them to an a la carte dinner in surroundings more suited to a ham sandwich and half of bitter.

        A great deal of secrecy surrounds this tour. Not even the musicians themselves know where they are playing next, and none of the concerts are booked more than five days in advance, a precaution designed to minimise the risk of ticket touting, box-office hysteria and extensive publicity.

        Similarly, the tour is billed as the “Rolling Thunder Revue”, playing down Dylan’s star role and giving equal importance, on handbills, to other musicians on the tour like Joan Baez, Bob Neuwirth and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, or New York beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

        The tour opened last week in Plymouth, Mass, a town that likes to call itself ‘America’s Home Town’ as this was the spot where the pilgrims landed from the Mayflower in 1620. Whether this town was chosen deliberately is, like many of the myths that surround Dylan, a matter of conjecture, but it seems appropriate for this historic trek around New England. 

        At Plymouth, Dylan and his entourage played two concerts before an audience who had bought their tickets with a certain amount of scepticism. From there the tour moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where the concerts were held in the largest hall the tour will visit – a 10,000-seater auditorium that played host to two shows, both on the same evening.

        One concert began at 5pm and the second at 10pm. Future plans include visits to Stockbridge (which gained in notoriety as the setting for Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’), Burlington, Waterbury and New Haven. There is at least one day’s break between shows and changes are likely to occur at short notice.

        The inspiration for the Rolling Thunder Revue has come directly from Dylan’s recent unofficial musical activity in Greenwich Village clubs and cafés, notably the recent reopened Other End. 

        Throughout July, Dylan was living in the Village in a loft on Houston Street and by night he could be seen shuffling around the clubs that spiral outwards from Bleecker Street – the singer’s old stomping ground in pre-superstar days.

        His most regular port of call was the Other End, a club that holds just 250 people, and on July 4 – Independence Day in the USA – Dylan joined his old friend Bob Neuwirth on stage (somewhat reluctantly) for a jam session.

        Dylan only sang harmony that night, but the ensuing week brought out many of the musicians on the current tour: Rob Stoner on bass, Steve Soles on guitar, and Mick Ronson, as unlikely a musician as anyone can imagine, who happened to drop by with his (then) running mate Ian Hunter. 

        Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was another who joined in these unofficial sessions, one of which reportedly went on until 6am when the police moved in to break things up. (New York closing time is 4am.)

        It was during this week that Dylan suggested everyone tour together, although no one took him seriously at first. During August, Dylan went into the studio to work on his next album (1), as yet unreleased, and September was spent in California. 

        He returned to New York in October determined to undertake the proposed tour. Next, he called up personnel, swearing them to secrecy, to handle bookings, and turned to Stoner to organise the band. It was at this point that Dylan called up Joan Baez, who was keen to join in, while Stoner contacted various others who would he interested. 

        Rehearsal time was booked at Studio Instrument Rentals in Midtown Manhattan and various personnel who came from out of town checked into the Grammercy Park Hotel at the bottom of Lexington Avenue. 

        In late October, Dylan and some of the cast of thousands turned up to catch David Blue at the Other End and various other musicians were conscripted, among them Ronee Blakley who plays violin and who had a starring role as a country singer in the movie Nashville, and Roger McGuinn, who played guitar to Dylan’s piano and Allen Ginsberg’s singing, when the club shut. Ginsberg, too, was add to the line-up.

        The following night the entire crew showed up at Folk City, another Bleecker Street club, and jammed away.

        Three more days were then spent on intensive rehearsal before the crew climbed aboard a Greyhound bus and headed out to Plymouth where the Memorial Hall had been booked for a Joan Baez concert. According to reports the hall cost just $250 to hire per night. That’s about £125 (2), and is actually $100 (about £50) more than the regular rate, a sum negotiated by the hall management after the Dylan entourage assured them that the Rolling Thunder Revue was capable of filling the balcony as well as the floor seating.

        Tickets at the 1,800-seater hall cost just $7.50 (about £3.75). At Madison Square Garden, where Dylan played with The Band on January 31, 1974, the top ticket price was $9.50.

        The $7.50 price is standard throughout the tour which means nobody will make a great deal of money from the concerts, which are expected to last a month give or take a few days.

        Even so, $7.50 is a steep price to pay in the small towns on the itinerary where bar bands play for free and an artist with as much as a recording contract would be pushing things at five dollars. But Bob Dylan… well he’s setting a huge precedent by appearing in the first place, let alone by raising the standard of living for the fortunate fans who realised he was appearing in the first place.

* * *

The record shop in the centre of town seemed a likely place to discover just where Bob Dylan was playing in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Thursday evening. The oldish guy behind the country looked puzzled.

        “Bob Dylan? Is he playing here tonight?”

        He turned to his friend, another fellow of mature years.

        “Yeah,” said shop assistant number two. “Bob’s playing the Civic Centre tonight. Bob Dylan and Joan er… no. Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin (3). That’s right. They’re playing here tonight.”

        Springfield is one of the biggest towns in Massachusetts, second only to Boston and, like the capital, it is a college town, population 169,000 – enough people, you would assume, to sell out a couple of Bob Dylan shows at their 10,000-seater Civic Center. 

        But no. Two hours before the Rolling Thunder took the stage for their 5pm performance there were still seats available for both that and the 10pm show. In the lobby of this modern auditorium a small line of kids queued for the remaining tickets. 

        Outside the building a giant sign advertised the Rolling Thunder package, but inside the venue the advertising was more specific. “Dylan and Baez” tickets read the notice over the box-office window.

        These tickets had been on sale for almost a week and hadn’t all been sold, a situation that is barely credible when one thinks back to the hysteria that surrounded the business of acquiring tickets for Dylan’s concerts with The Band at Madison Square Garden last year. 

        There was no hysteria and no inflated prices offered by touts outside: it could have been any middleweight group appearing at the Civic Center, the kind of band where audiences leave the final decision about going to the last minute, depending on such variable factors as the weather, cost and money available. 

        I waited in line and bought two tickets (4) for the 5pm show at $7.50 each. In front of me were two girls wanting tickets for the 10pm show who changed their minds when the ticket-seller told them no good seats were available. Better seats were to be had, in fact, for the early concert. 

        Outside the hall I bought two tickets for the second show, good seats that were offered at $10 each by a guy with about a dozen to sell. He even had a floor plan so he could show his potential customers exactly where they would be sitting.

        To put all this into some kind of perspective, this guy was making $2.50 profit on his tickets – or about 33% profit. At Madison Square Garden tours would consider business bad if 200% profit wasn’t obtainable with an artist of Bob Dylan’s stature. 

        I bought my tickets in the firm belief that that a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush, especially after having driven for four hours (5) to see as much of Dylan as possible. Before each concert some tickets were actually being offered at less than their face value, or so I heard later.

        The first concert at Springfield did not sell out entirely – there were about 300 vacant seats at the very back of the floor and up in the remotest balconies. The second show did sell out, about two hours before Bobby Neuwirth and his band shambled, unannounced, on to the stage.

        It is quite possible, of course that fans stay away because of the unlikelihood that tickets will still be available on the day of the show. 

        Certainly, in the annals, of modern-day tours by artists of Dylan’s magnitude, there has never been a a situation parallel to this series of concerts.

* * *

Both shows began with songs by Neuwirth and his efficient little back-up bad that, of course, included Mick Ronson of lead guitar.

Ronson may have forgotten his past in the delirium of playing with Dylan and friends – he’s been quoted recently as saying, “Everything I did before is bullshit compared to this” – but he still looks like the archetypical British lead guitarist with well-kempt blonde hair and an arrogant stance that contracts with the happy-go-lucky attitude of the surrounding folkies. 

But he’s a great asset to this band and other combinations of musicians that appear during the three-and-a-half-hour show. He seems to be the only ‘electric’ guitarist in the bunch, and his cutting solos are a constant and necessary factor in the success of the Thunder Revue. 

The opening routine was identical at both concerts and it wasn’t until Dylan appeared, after about an hour, that the show loosened up.

Apart from Ronson, Neuwirth’s band comprises “Rockin’” Rob Stoner on bass, T-Bone Burnett on guitar, David Mansfield on steel guitar and violin, Steve Soles on guitar, and two drummers Howie Wyeth and Luther Rix. 

Each member of the band gets at least one chance to solo before the appearance of Dylan. First it was Neuwirth singing ‘Good Love Is Hard To Find’ and a trucking song of uncertain title, then T-Bone with a gimmicky piece called ‘The Werewolves Of London’ (6), and finally Stoner with a rocking little ditty about the New York Yankees baseball team called ‘Catfish’, which included a nifty bass solo. 

Ronson’s solo spot was ‘Is There Life On Mars’ – not the David Bowie song but a completely new tune written by Rosco West. Either way, it contrasted sharply with the rest of the material, featuring spacey lead guitar and rumbling vocals not unlike the pre-Young Americans Bowie. 

After Neuwirth introduced the band, Ronee Blakly waltzed on in a bright blue top and duetted with Neuwirth on a song about the death of Hank Williams. Next Ronee played an unannounced song of her own at the piano, a rather doomy piece that interrupted the momentum of the show, but Neuwirth quickly brought the concert back into focus by singing a Kris Kristofferson song about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott before brining on the man himself. 

Elliott then sang two songs, both folksy finger-picking pieces and then called the band back for a bluegrass number. The band was now enlarged to include Roger McGuinn on banjo and Scarlet Rivera, who’s been playing with Dylan in the studio, on violin.

        Ramblin’ Jack rambled off and from the left of the stage appeared a shortish guy in a wide-brimmed hat carrying a sunburst acoustic Gibson guitar. The audience erupted as the band kicked in on cue and Bob Dylan, grinning slightly but not acknowledging the ovation, began the words to ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’.

The song was sung gently, and Neuwirth duetted with Dylan on the chorus lines. Dylan, wearing faded jeans, a light shirt and dark brown waistcoat, pushed hard at his guitar, holding the instrument away from his body like a rifle and forcing the song along with a perpetual motion between his right foot and right arm. At the end Neuwirth said simply “Bob Dylan”, and everyone went bananas once again.

“He’s so small,” said someone in the row behind me, and indeed he was, crouching and delivering with all the urgency of his last tour with The Band. But on this show the voice seems deeper and fuller, with less rasp and throat.

He’s singing clearer, sharper and with the same bite, but the relentless tempo that The Band has set Dylan in the past has been exchanged for a mellower approach from the musicians on this tour. 

The result is a more relaxed Dylan, as reflected in the second concert on Thursday night when he kidded about on stage with Neuwirth and spoke to the audience between songs. What he said was vague enough but it was a welcome change from the mute approach of 1974.

“Go away from my window, leave at your chosen speed,” and Dylan was into ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ before you had a chance to recover. Here the band joined in on the choruses and Ronson came forward for a note perfect solo, playing alongside Dylan as if the pair had worked together since Newport. To end the song Dylan played some willowy blues on the mouth-harp which prompted another howling ovation.

The Mexican-sounding ‘Romance In Durango’ – which Dylan dedicated to Sam Peckinpah – came next, a fairly lightweight sing-along interlude before the first half closed with a new song, ‘Isis’. This long song tells a wandering story about Egypt, pyramids and tombs – an urgent, spooky reminder that brought back the tension lost momentarily on ‘Durango’. 

This picture was shot by Bob Gruen in Springfield on the night, 

and was used to accompany my story in Melody Maker. 

Dylan and Joan Baez opened the second half together singing ‘Baby, You Been On My Mind’ before the curtains were raised. It’s quite apparent they retain a marked sympathy for each other: they dress alike, almost in some brother and sister combination, and Baez frequently rests her arm on Dylan’s shoulders. 

Together they sang a new, unidentified, Dylan love song (7) and then ‘I Shall Be Released’ which was dedicated to the Band’s Richard Manuel. (8)

Baez’s solo spot came next, beginning with her song to Dylan, ‘Diamonds And Rust’ which, by the nature of the event, assumed an eerie significance. 

Unaccompanied, she sang ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’ before the band returned and backed her up on ‘Long Black Veil’, the traditional song covered by The Band on their first LP. Baez’s solo spot closed with ‘Please Come Back To Boston’ before she introduced Roger McGuinn for his solo spot on ‘Chestnut Mare’.

McGuinn, playing his 12-string electric Rickenbacker, recreated the jangling effect of The Byrd’s sound and turned to Ronson for vocal help on the choruses. 

Next Baez returned for a sing-along version of ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’, encouraging the audience to join in, which they did.

For the next half hour Dylan re-emerged in the spotlight, firstly on his own and later accompanied by a small group comprising Neuwirth, Rivera, Stoner and Wyeth. This was the most crucial part of the evening, featuring both old songs and new, as yet unheard, material that will comprise Dylan’s next album. It also changes from night to night.

At the first show Dylan opened with ‘I Don’t Believe You’, huddled over his acoustic guitar and perched on small stool. His voice sounded mellow and rounded, but again the bite was there in his harp playing at the end of the song. The band joined him for a new song entitled ‘Little Sister’, one of several romantic ballads he has been writing recently. 

Next, he sang his new single, ‘Hurricane’, a very lengthy protest about the imprisonment of former boxing champion Rubin Carter, punctuated with insistent violin riffs between verses and delivered at a ferocious pace. (One also feels impressed at the way Dylan remembers the lyrics.)

Two more new love songs followed, the first titled ‘One More Cup Of Coffee Before I Go’ and the second, obviously written about his wife, called ‘Sara’, which he pronounced “Say-rah” throughout.

This song is perhaps the highlight of the whole evening, a huge insight into Dylan’s relationship with his wife, and it included some beautiful lyrics. There are lines about “sitting in the Chelsea hotel writing ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ for you”, and little couplets of tender, descriptive details about playing on the beach at Malibu with his children…

“Sara, Sara, sweet lover of my life

“Radiant jewel, mystical wife,

“Fabulous virgin with arrow and bow,

“Don’t ever leave me wherever I go.”

The tension is relaxed when the whole band return for Dylan to sing ‘Just Like A Woman’, dragging out the choruses and rasping on the word “g…i…r…l” at the end of each stanza. Ronson again takes a solo before the song segued into ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’, a harsher version than on the single.

Finally, everyone arrived back on stage, including a hitherto unseen Allen Ginsberg, portly and bearded, to join in on Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’, with each soloist taking a version and Dylan, weaving and gnomelike beneath his absurdly large hat, leaving stage mid-song.

“There will be no encore as we are running very late,” shrieked Baez in her ‘organising’ voice as the house lights were turned up and the band lurched into the last chorus of Woody’s alternative American anthem. Then the curtain fell and it was all over.

* * *

Between shows I grabbed a pizza across the street in a sleazy little Italian café filled with Dylan fans. ‘George Jackson’ was playing the jukebox but this was soon overtaken by a live tape of the show recorded on some guy’s Sony portable. He upped the volume and the whole café listened to a poor-quality recording that could well turn into a bootleg of the show we’d just seen. (9)

Back in the hall, the second show varied considerably from the first, with all the musicians, and Dylan in particular, in a lighter mood throughout. The result was a more relaxed concert during the lighter passages and a more atmospheric mood during the stronger moments. Dylan’s solo efforts were especially brilliant this time, holding the audience in breathless anticipation and admiring silence during his new numbers. 

Arlo Guthrie provided the first surprise, coming on after Ramblin’ Jack’s two songs and yodelling his way through ‘Got A Feeling Called The Blues’ before Dylan sung his first song again (again ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’). 

He included ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ during the first half and, after the interval, reappeared with Joan Baez singing ‘The Times They Are A Changing’ instead of ‘Baby, You’ve Been On My Mind’. 

Baez included her ‘Joe Hill’ song during her solo spot, and Dylan began his second half routine with ‘Simple Twist Of Fate’ instead of ‘I Don’t Believe You’. 

Those may be the facts but the music can’t be reduced to statistics. Perhaps it was because the second show audience seemed older and more reverent, but the musicians were inspired by the occasion and they handled the songs with more energy and respect for the star of the show. 

And the star was in virtuoso form, even talking to his audience in vague asides: after ‘Masterpiece’ he sashayed up to the mike and announced in a deep voice: “Thank you everybody out there. I hope you make it to the West Indian islands.”

And later, before ‘Durango’, he silenced the crowd with a wave and told us all that “raw lust does not hold a candle to true love.”

He also made a rare political statement. Just before breaking into ‘Hurricane’ during the second half, Dylan stated: “I hear Massachusetts is the only state that didn’t vote for Nixon. Is that true?” After the cheers died down he responded, “Well, neither did we.”

His control of the audience during the two love songs was complete, especially on the highly personal ‘Sara’, which prompted the guy next to me to clutch his girl very tightly and announce to all within earshot: “That’s the best fucking song I’ve heard in my life.”

I couldn’t have agreed more. (10)

Again, the show ended on ‘This Land Is Your Land’ with each soloist taking a verse and Ramblin’ Jack taking more than anyone else because he knew the words better than anyone else. 

And again, Joan Baez announced that there wouldn’t be an encore, which there wasn’t even though the second show crowd clapped on for a good ten minutes and had to be told to leave twice. 

At the end of the concert I saw at Madison Square Garden last year, Dylan received a similar ovation after which he reappeared on the stage without The Band, changed from his dark suit into an ice-hockey jersey. Obviously moved by the crowd scene he turned to the mike, hesitated, and finally said, “Thank you. See you next year.”

I, for one, never expected that promise to be kept. But Dylan has kept it after all.

Notes: 

(1) Desire

(2) Yes, there were two dollars to the pound in 1975.

(3) He was evidently unaware that Janis died in 1970. 

(4) The second for photographer Bob Gruen who accompanied me. 

(5) About 150 miles, but speed limits and traffic held us up. 

(6) The Warren Zevon song, as yet unreleased.

(7) Subsequently identified as 'Never Let Me Go'. 

(8) Rick Danko sang the same song at Manuel's funeral in 1986. 

(9) In the caféI met Larry Sloman who would write a book about Rolling Thunder called On The Road With Bob Dylan. 

(10) At that moment anyway. 

ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES 2021

If this year’s list of acts to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is anything to go by, my skill at picking winners is getting better. Three of those for whom I voted – Tina Turner, Carole King and Todd Rundgren – made the cut, alongside The Go-Gos, Jay Z and Foo Fighters. The other two for whom I voted but who lost out were The New York Dolls and Dionne Warwick, though I have no doubt they’ll make the grade in the fullness of time; hopefully – in the case of the Dolls – while David Johansen, the last surviving Doll, is still with us.

        It’s taken Todd many a long year to get in, though Tina and Carole have long been there in diverse modes, Tina as one half of Ike & Tina since 1991 and Carole with her former husband and composing partner Gerry Goffin in the songwriters’ category since 1990. Jay-Z and Foo Fighters get in at their first bid, it being 25 years since both released their debut albums, the minimum period to qualify for nomination. Unless I’m mistaken, The Go-Gos haven’t been nominated before, even though their debut LP arrived in 1981.

        These acts make it into the performers’ category, the main one, but I’m gratified to note that Kraftwerk, denied induction for years despite my eternally loyal support, have won an ‘Early Influence Award’, which is certainly justified. It’ll be interesting to see if any of them turn up to claim it or whether the concept of the Rock & Roll of Fame is simply too indigestible for Ralf Hütter’s delicate anti-Rock sensibilities. 

        Among the losers this year are a couple of Brits from the opposite ends of our musical spectrum, Iron Maiden and Kate Bush. The former did well in the popular vote whereby anyone can go on to the R&RHoF website and nominate one of the acts but no doubt fell down due to the nominating committee’s traditional antipathy towards metal acts. Kate fared poorly in the popular vote which isn’t surprising as she’s a bit too quirky for American tastes, and if she had got in it’s likely there would have been an issue over her performing at the ceremony. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti actually came second in the popular vote (after Tina) but wasn’t nominated, which suggests that who fans vote for holds little sway with the final judgement. 

        Being a voter for the R&RHoF is an ‘honorary’ position. We’re not paid and no favours are granted beyond an opportunity to listen to selected works by the nominees via a link to their website. It could be argued that if you need to listen to an artist’s music before casting your vote, you really ought not to be voting in the first place, but despite getting a bit long in the tooth I was familiar with the work of 14 of the 16 acts nominated. The other two were rappers (Jay-Z and LL Cool J) whose genre as a whole is not to my taste. 

        Each year I vote I ponder over whether or not I’m getting too old for the job but I keep going nonetheless. If I do resign I’ll do so as a protest against Richard Thompson and Slade never having been nominated, let alone inducted. Every year for as long as I can remember I’ve banged on about the injustice of this but no one has taken a blind bit of notice. However, if I did resign I wouldn’t even be able to vent my spleen on this issue, so I beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, as I read somewhere. 

CAT STEVENS – NEW MASTERS

By the summer of 1967 Cat Stevens was an established name on the British pop scene but the scene was changing fast. On June 1 The Beatles released Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album now widely acclaimed as the zenith of their career. According to the Encyclopedia of Popular Music published by Oxford University Press, Sgt Pepper “revolutionised, altered and reinvented the boundaries of 20th century popular music, style and graphic art”, and over 50 years later its place at the heart of the Swinging Sixties remains unchallenged. The Beatles in the UK – and Bob Dylan in America – were leading the charge of young musicians determined to develop their work into an art form way beyond the disposable pop that in the past had done little more than provide accompaniment for ballroom dancing or cause teenage girls to scream their heads off. 

Cat Stevens found himself stranded between the two stools. 

On the one hand he was a handsome young pop star promoted by his advisors to appeal to young girls, traditionally the strategic market for singers of his age and demographic. A Fan Club had been launched, of which Cat was President, and its magazine Pause – a pun on the word paws, as in cat’s paws – was crammed with trivial information designed to appeal to teenage girls for whom Cat’s olive Mediterranean complexion was as key to his success as the records he made. The August 1967 issue includes a list of members seeking pen pals, all but one of whom are girls aged between 13 and 18. One member, Dee Rider, reports on a visit to the flat above his parents’ restaurant, The Moulin Rouge in Shaftesbury Avenue, where Cat still lived. In closing her report, she breathlessly recounts how at the end of her stay Cat, “leaned over and kissed my cheek. ‘Don’t tell the club members that,’ he said. Mr President, Sir, you must be joking. I couldn’t possibly keep that to myself.”

On the other hand, Cat Stevens was a gifted and unusually prolific songwriter with a mind of his own that was beginning to question the milieu in which he found himself. In some respects, the only other singer-songwriter with whom the Cat Stevens of 1967 could be compared was his Deram label-mate David Bowie. Both were earnest young singers who composed their own material and both were seeking to develop their own musical niche in this rapidly changing environment. In the fullness of time both would discover that niche and become as massively popular as they were esteemed for the merits of their work, but for differing reasons they would have to wait until the golden years beckoned. In the meantime, while the Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd could be found exploring the limits of psychedelia at the UFO Club on London’s Tottenham Court Road and Procol Harum – another Deram act – topped the charts with the deeply enigmatic ‘Whiter Shade Of Pale’, that year’s Eurovision Song Contest was won by Britain’s Sandie Shaw singing ‘Puppet On A String’, a song that would not have been out of place amid the chirpy repertoire of Fifties hitmaker Alma Cogan. 

This dichotomy is best illustrated by the list of artists who topped the UK charts during 1967: Tom Jones, The Monkees, Petula Clark, Engelbert Humperdinck (twice), Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy, The Tremeloes, Procol Harum, The Beatles (twice), Scott Mackenzie, The Bee Gees, The Foundations and, in December, Long John Baldry whose maudlin ballad ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’, far removed from the rootsy blues for which he was best known, seemed fabricated to make Baldry appeal to pensioners. Meanwhile members of The Rolling Stones were in and out of jail on drugs charges and ‘A Day In The Life’, the closing track on Sgt Pepper, now widely regarded as the greatest song The Beatles ever recorded, was banned by the BBC for including the line, ‘I’d love to turn you on’. 

In this uncertain climate Cat Stevens played his manager and record producer what many consider to be the finest song he wrote during this early part of his career. Mike Hurst was stunned when Cat unveiled ‘First Cut Is The Deepest’; doubly so when Cat told him he didn’t want it as his next single. Instead he wanted to record a newer song, ‘I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun’, which reached number six in the charts in April. 

        An element of controversy surrounded Cat Stevens’ third single. ‘I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun’ had its first public airing in March on Juke Box Jury, then the most popular televised pop programme in the UK. A feature of the show was to invite artists to appear but to keep their presence secret until after their record had been played. While the jury commented on their efforts the camera would focus on the subject of their remarks – invariably seen biting their fingernails or grinning sheepishly – behind a screen and invisible to the panel. “He was sitting behind the curtain and all these people were making stupid remarks about guns,” recalls Hurst. “He was almost in tears, ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said to me, and I said, ‘I know you didn’t but other people are obviously seeing it.’ I never thought of it like that either.”

        In fact, neither Cat nor Hurst had even considered the possibility that they could be accused of spreading violence but when the record was played on the show, the now disgraced DJ Jimmy Saville, posing as a paragon of virtue, launched into a duplicitous attack on records that encouraged violence. “At the end of Jimmy Saville’s sermon all the jury still voted the record a hit,” adds Hurst. 

        In hindsight, Hurst would admit that his stewardship of Cat Stevens’ career was hitting a rocky patch. “In retrospect, of course, I can see all the things I did that were wrong, as much as I can see all the things that I did that were right,” he says today. “‘I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun’ was, to me, nothing to do with guns really, as Cat always said. He was using the imagery of the gun for someone who is in a bad temper, ‘I’m gonna fix this and I’m not gonna back down’, all those things. What I heard in the song was nothing to do with any of that. It was the sort of Hollywood type movie soundtrack that lent itself to that song. It was like an early Ennio Morricone movie score. So, I threw the kitchen sink at it.”

        ‘Throwing the kitchen sink’ at the songs of Cat Stevens was a strategy that would soon backfire for Hurst, pitting manager against client in a creative dispute that saw them go their separate ways before the year was out. ‘I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun’ would be the last Hurst-produced top ten hit he would enjoy and as it ascended the charts during April, Cat embarked on his first and last pop package tour.

* * *

INSERT SEPARATE FEATURE RE WALKER BROTHERS TOUR

* * *

During May of 1967 Cat Stevens formed his own production company, Cat Stevens Productions Ltd, for the purpose of recording other artists performing his songs and a second company, Doric Productions, for handling the management of artists signed to the first company. The first singer to be signed was Canadian-born Peter Horgan who recorded under the name of Peter Jane. Friends from their childhood days, he and Cat had started learning the guitar around the same time and had met through their older brothers, both of whom were in the clothing trade, and a shared a love of Dylan and bluesman Leadbelly. Cat’s production of Jane’s ‘Emperors And Armies’ on CBS made no impression on the charts, however, but in an accompanying press release Cat was quoted as saying: “I see this as the first step in the direction I want to go – toward more singing, more writing and more production work.”

        The only other artist Cat produced was Rangoon-born Sasha Caro, aka Rick Minas, but his recording of ‘Grade 3, Section 2’ on Decca was another also-ran, and Sasha/Rick left music to become an accountant. Cat also signed a Birmingham group called Yellow Raincoat to his Doric production company, using them as a backing band on isolated live appearances, including a 48-hour ‘Love In’ at the Palais Des Sports in Paris on November 15, 1967, when he shared the bill with Johnny Hallyday, France’s number one rock star. He was also reported to be planning to write the score for a stage musical entitled A Mexican Flower but like many subsequent involvements in stage musicals, it never came to fruition.

Far more successful was P.P. Arnold’s recording of ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’, the song that Mike Hurst felt ought to have been Cat’s third single in preference to ‘I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun’. Although it reached no higher than 18 in the UK charts, it was widely seen in the music business as a significant statement from a rapidly maturing songwriter. “It’s probably the greatest song he’s ever written,” says Hurst today. “He played me ‘First Cut’ after the first album was out. And I listened to it and said, ‘Bloody great. Do you want to do it as a single?’ ‘No, I got better stuff coming,’ he replied.”

Hurst not only knew a great song when he heard it but knew also that it had immense potential as a vehicle to promote Cat Stevens as a songwriter above and beyond his success as a singer. “So, I’m sitting in my office thinking, ‘What am I going to do with this song’ and I get a telephone call from Andrew Oldham and he says, ‘I’ve got this girl singer from The Ikettes, Ike and Tina’s Turner’s girls, P.P. Arnold is her name and I’m looking for a song. Have you got anything? I’d love a Cat Stevens’ song.’”

Andrew Oldham, of course, had just relinquished his management of The Rolling Stones to the controversial Allen Klein and, with his business partner Tony Calder, established Immediate Records, one of the first truly independent labels in the UK. 

“I spoke to Steve,” continued Hurst. “I asked him whether he was absolutely sure he didn’t want to do ‘First Cut’ as a single. ‘No,’ he said. I said, ‘OK, I’m going to take this in to Andrew Oldham for this girl.’ He said, ‘OK.’ He wasn’t very excited about it. Andrew loved it immediately. I said there was one stipulation. I wanted to produce it. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna do that.’ So I said nope, you don’t get the song unless I produce it. We control it, Steve and me. So he agreed finally.”

Hurst was surprised that Cat failed to attend the P.P. Arnold session at Olympic Studios in Barnes. “He had no interest, and for this session at Olympic I had a massive wall of sound, like Phil Spector, two drummers, two keyboard players, two bass players, fantastic and I ended up with this record which again, strangely, like ‘I Love My Dog’ wasn’t a huge hit, but everybody I’ve ever spoken to ever since loves that record.”

‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ would go on to become a standard, thus validating Hurst’s initial impression of the song. Recorded by many artists over the years, Rod Stewart took it to number one in the UK charts in 1977, as one side of a double A-sided single with ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’, and in 2003 Sheryl Crow’s version stayed on the US Billboard charts for 36 weeks. Others who have recorded it include Jamaican singer Norma Fraser, Britain’s Keith Hampshire, whose version was number one in Canada in 1973, and Swedish rap artist Papa Dee. 

Although Cat Stevens made an early demo recording of the song for Hurst, he didn’t record a full band version until October of 1967. Playing alongside him in the studio were ‘Big’ Jim Sullivan, every UK record producer’s first choice on guitar, Herbie Flowers on bass and Chris Hunt on drums. It appeared on his second album, New Masters, released the following December.

Clearly a song written from the point of view of a jilted lover, ‘First Cut’ lives on in the pantheon of truly great ‘heartbreak’ songs, but Mike Hurst was never under the impression that Cat wrote it as a result of some personal experience. “I think that like a lot of great songwriters, he can conjure things up out of nowhere. To the best of my knowledge that song was not written from any personal experience. He was too young. I know it doesn’t preclude it but I just think he is one of that unique group of people who can churn out these songs. He’s just an on-the-money songwriter, like going back to the Brill Building. Steve is in that league.”

* * *

In some respects, New Masters can be seen as something of an anti-climax to this first phase of Cat Stevens’ career. Nevertheless, it includes ‘First Cut’ and a number of other songs that demonstrate Cat Stevens’ versatility, prolificacy and vivid imagination. Rather than being conceived as a proper album, New Masters was more a collection of songs that were compiled by the record company to capitalise on Cat’s popularity but, as a rift between Cat and his producer developed during early 1968, his label seemed to lost heart with the result that it failed to chart and is now unjustly cast aside as little more than a footnote in its creator’s illustrious career. It didn’t help that the album was recorded in an atmosphere of impending gloom with the artist and his producer having to adjourn the sessions in order to attend meetings with lawyers to resolve business issues between them. 

Notwithstanding the problems that clouded its production, hiding amongst tracks that might otherwise have been consigned as B-sides are a handful of songs that signpost the promise that awaited Cat Stevens in the next decade. Alongside ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ was ‘Blackness Of The Night’ which, absent of strings and an increasingly busy arrangement, could happily sit alongside many of the songs of his next three, more acclaimed, albums. A gentle, pleasingly melodic ballad, accompanied at first only by Cat’s arpeggiated guitar, it talks of looking towards the future after present struggles have been overcome and the ‘bad bad world’ – not unlike the ‘wild world’ he would sing about on 1970’s Tea For The Tillerman – left behind. ‘Here Comes My Wife’, which would be released as a single in October 1968, long after Hurst’s relationship with Stevens had ended, boasts a fine pop melody and the lyrics about the impending arrival of an annoying spouse can be seen as an allegory about the deterioration of their association.

“The trouble with the second album was that before a note was even struck or sung it was all going horribly wrong,” concedes Hurst. “One was palpably my fault, and the other wasn’t. The one that was my fault is that he wanted to be something else. It was 1968, and he wanted to be what he eventually became. He wanted to be a proper singer songwriter, pouring his soul out, just him and a guitar. I couldn’t see that because I wanted to do the bigger arrangements. I was wrong and I’ve always admitted that. I was totally wrong. Which is why I don’t feel that bad about what happened.”

        “I was trying hard to write the next hit song but showbusiness wore me down and my records weren’t selling so much anymore,” Cat would admit in a subsequent interview. “I felt lonely out there and I began to drink and smoke heavily. I needed at least one bottle of brandy or wine to get me up on stage and I was staying up late and chasing after girls... the life of a star. I became dangerously ill and the result was tuberculosis.”

        A fourth single ‘A Bad Night’ was released in July. “Because the other singles had such a lot of energy and unusual arrangements ploughed into them, the ideas were running out by this time,” continues Hurst. “‘A Bad Night’ was totally outlandish... we went over the top. That record has three tempo changes and three different arrangements played by three different sets of studio musicians. It was so complicated that people just weren’t interested in it. It didn’t hit them right between the eyes as the others had done. It was very much a showbusiness record. People in the industry liked it but that’s typical of a common mistake that people make. It was a musicians’ record and not a record for the public.”

        Pop singer Anita Harris, reviewing ‘A Bad Night’ in Melody Maker’s Blind Date feature, agreed: “They’ve got a whole variety show here,” she opined. “It’s a lot of fun but I don’t think it’s to be taken seriously.”

        ‘A Bad Night’, the first single by Cat Stevens to be recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes in preference to Decca’s West Hampstead facility, reached number 20 on the singles charts. ‘Kitty’, the fifth Deram single released five months later, rose no higher than number 48 and illustrates perfectly the dilemma that Cat was facing. Like ‘A Bad Night’ it was over-produced to the point of absurdity, with bombastic brass crowding the chorus as it lurches through unsubtle orchestrations and a dated razzamatazz arrangement. For an increasingly sensitive soul like Cat Stevens, ‘Kitty’ steers an unsteady course towards variety entertainment. It appeared as if his professional advisers were determined to turn him into a minor league ballad singer with teenybop aspirations, a sort of cross between Engelbert Humperdinck and Davy Jones of The Monkees. 

Matters came to a head during a business meeting between Hurst, Cat and David, Cat’s older brother who was now taking a growing interest in the career of his musical sibling. With the opposing parties facing one another across Hurst’s desk, David accused Hurst of profiting unduly from his management of Cat, an allegation that Hurst strenuously denied. Heated words were exchanged before Cat and David left Hurst’s office, slamming the door behind them. Their next appointment was with a lawyer. 

        “The final break actually came when the booking agent that Mike had appointed wanted me to go into pantomime over Christmas,” said Cat. “When I refused the agent told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I’m pretty sure it was Cinderella and I was being lined up for the role of Buttons.”

        “It was the same old argument and the finger can be pointed equally at both sides of the equation,” says Hurst. “By this time Steve had been offered fortunes from all over the place and if you were an artist you would probably feel the same way as he did which was to get rid of the people he had been involved with up to now and move onwards. That is exactly what happened in 1968. That year was one long interminable legal wrangle for me.”

        Cat and his brother hired the services of Oscar Beusalinck, an experienced entertainment lawyer who wrote to Hurst claiming that his contract with Cat had been signed before he had reached the age of 21 (which it had), and that being with a minor, it was not binding in law. When Hurst pointed out that the contract had been countersigned by Cat Stevens’ father and mother, Beusalinck responded by claiming that because the former was Greek and the latter Swedish neither could understand English, a statement that Hurst found preposterous. 

        “Our relationship ended with a good deal of acrimony,” admits Hurst. “We did the second album with lawyers actually in the studio. It was horrendous. Steve had to do the album under the Decca contract and Decca insisted that it was recorded at their own studios in order to keep the costs down. They realised it might be their last shot with him because of the contractual problems between him and me. Steve wanted to use Olympic Studios again but Decca wouldn’t let him.

        “The sadness of the whole affair from my point of view was the letter from his solicitors that claimed I hadn’t furthered Steve’s career. I don’t think he would have said that to my face but that’s what was said legally and I blew my top. A year and a half ago he’d been earning ten pounds a week waiting tables at the family restaurant and now he was earning one thousand pounds a week. If that isn’t furthering someone’s career I don’t know what is.”

        Steve, on the other hand, felt that his earnings were being reduced by an unjust amount through expenses that were being charged to him. “I had to pay a percentage to Mike, a percentage to the agent, the office costs and everything else,” he says. “They even made me pay for the advertising of the records in those days.”

        “The lawyers said that his increased income had nothing to do with it,” says Hurst. “Steve was a minor and shouldn’t have signed the contract with me in the first place. There was no argument for me against that because a minor was someone under 21 in those days, not 18 as it is today. That was that end of business.”

        Oscar Beusalinck further claimed that in managing Cat Stevens as well as producing his records and handing his song publishing, Hurst had placed himself in a position where there was a conflict of interest. “That was the reason I didn’t have a leg to stands on,” says Hurst. “That’s why I didn’t go to court. After that this became the norm. No manager was allowed to do all those things. Well it’s all come around again. Look at Simon Cowell. He owns everything!” 

        Released on December 1, 1968, New Masters received little support from Decca in view of the ongoing litigation between Stevens and Hurst. Although the label missed out with David Bowie, another of their early signings whom they dropped from the roster after one album, they soon hit pay dirt with Ten Years After and The Moody Blues, both of whom now occupied most of their time. 

        On the cover of New Masters Cat Stevens is photographed wearing a black Regency-style jacket trimmed with pearls over a white shirt, its lace frill held in place by a diamond broach attached to his collar in the manner of a restoration aristocrat. This time there were no effusive sleeve notes from its producer, but in 2003 the original 12 tracks were augmented by a further 11 that included two subsequent singles and their B-sides. 

        The behind-the-scenes issues surrounding its release were not made public at the time and Melody Maker adopted a kind approach in their review of the album. “The music certainly deserves recognition,” wrote their anonymous critic. “Cat is singing better than ever and his voice has peculiar characteristics which are difficult to nail down. The songs are often beautiful and picturesque.”

        Deram released a sixth Cat Stevens single ‘Lovely City (When Do You Laugh)’ in February which failed to reach the top 50, as did two further singles, ‘Here Comes My Wife’ in October and ‘Where Are You’ the following June. Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees reviewed ‘Here Comes My Wife’ in Melody Maker’s Blind Date feature on October 19. “This guy is beautiful when he sings those songs of his,” he said. “This will be a hit but not as big as ‘Matthew And Son’. It’s very over-arranged. I’d like to have heard a lot more of his voice. I prefer the things he does when the arrangements are not so merry. He’s a very good songwriter though.”

        This brief burst of activity turned out to be false start but there is a little-known postscript to the Hurst/Stevens relationship. In mid-1969, after Cat had been absent from the charts for almost two years, Decca approached Hurst with a view to re-establishing their former relationship. “Decca had somehow secured Steve’s services for a further two years before he went into hospital but had been shocked and probably discouraged by his illness,” explains Hurst. “Their original intention was to carry on recording Steve with another producer but after his illness they called me up and asked me to make another record with him.

        “He came up to my offices and played me a couple of songs on guitar and said he wanted to record them very basically, just him and his guitar and nothing else on the track. I told him to forget it but he insisted that that was the way he wanted to record in future – no big arrangements, just him and his guitar. In the end we compromised and recorded two songs with just acoustic guitar and a small string section. The record was called ‘Where Are You’ and Decca put it out towards the end of 1969. I happen to think it’s a really lovely record. It’s a very thought-provoking record from him. 

        “Nothing happened with it at all. After that, Steve said he knew what he wanted to do and that was to record very simply. I disagreed with him and we decided to go our own separate ways from then on. He was right of course, as his later success proved. And that was the end, all over. I didn’t see him again for years, for years and years.”

        By this time Cat Stevens had acquired a new manager in Barry Krost, whose client list included actors and models, and signed a new record contract with Island Records. Hurst and Stevens duly lost touch with each other, the former to carry on producing records by such diverse artists a Manfred Mann, the Ryan Twins, The Move, P.P. Arnold and Shakin’ Stevens, while the latter went into temporary obscurity while he recovered from a bout of tuberculosis.

        Of Cat Stevens’ subsequent success Hurst remains pragmatic. “You couldn’t miss him, could you?” he laughs. “Those records he made, Teaser and Tillerman, they were fantastic but that was then. What I did in the sixties was right for the sixties. What he did for the seventies was right for the seventies.”

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INSERT SEPARATE FEATURE RE CS CATCHING TB

* * *

The circumstances surrounding Steve’s illness were kept relatively secret – even Mike Hurst wasn’t told until much later – and only a small news item in the music press for the week ending March 9, 1968, indicated that anything was amiss. All the London music papers carried a story to the effect that Cat Stevens had been rushed into the Harley Street Nursing Home the previous Saturday.

        “He had been troubled by a cough for a week and on Friday went to a specialist for X-rays,” read a report circulated by his PR Mike Gill. “When the results were known he was found to be suffering from chronic pneumonia and at once taken to the nursing home.”

        This was to be the last mention of Cat Stevens in the music press for eight months.

        “TB ruined my dream and put a halt to my career,” Cat would say later. “I was back on earth, stuck in hospital and that was a big lesson. While I was in hospital I had a lot of time to reflect. Death was on my mind. This was during the Flower Power/Maharishi period and along with many others I became interested in Eastern religious philosophy. I had a book with me called The Secret Path and it talked about death, the life beyond and the way to achieve peace.”

        In the decade that followed Mike Hurst and Cat Stevens met just once, quite by chance, in an American restaurant in Chelsea’s Kings Road in 1976. “We had a hamburger together and talked about old times,” recalls Hurst.

        “I think there’s one thing that I taught him that stayed with him when he was very famous and which may go some way to explaining the way he is today. I’d always had this thing about how stars should be untouchable to the public and all the way through the two years I was with him I stuck with that theory. I told him not to go out to clubs, not to be seen by anybody unless he was performing. I even hauled him out of a few clubs in the West End until he promised never go to out like that again.

        “I taught him the value of keeping a low profile in public and it seems that he took that particular lesson to heart.”