You don’t know like I know.
John Stratton 2013 Oil & Acrylic

Blog # 14

A painting bearing memories, but a safety warning. My memory can slip and slide. I cannot attest to all of the following recollections. Some I feel confident about, others are vague, perhaps personal myths.

But we won’t let that get in the way of a good story.

Early days are indeed vague. It’s all started, inevitably, with the Beatles. I guess it did for most Baby Boomers.

1964 A Youth Club dance in Morriston Swansea. Me with a blue crew neck jumper, not exactly streetwise. All of us twisting, gyrating on the spot. The music, again inevitably, Twist and Shout, Shake it up Baby. The Beatles.

Later, a date, to see that frantic caper movie, A Hard Day’s Night at the Globe Cinema in Clydach, who with I can’t remember. Maggy, my sister, somehow managed to purchase the album. We played it incessantly on a converted radiogram which formerly had a windup turntable, a crank handle inserted into a Bakelite hole. The turntable turned at 78 rpm. Fortunately our dad converted it into a more suitable electric turntable, turning at 33 rpm, on which we were allowed to repeatedly play a Hard Day’s Night.

Other music started to figure. Thursday evenings, payday of course, and regular visits to a ballroom, peculiarly above Burtons the Tailors in Swansea. Inside dark, expansive, with a small stage, lonely, at one end. I remember Manfred Mann and was envious of his beard. I remember the Swinging Blue Jeans as they had astonishing hip belted trousers. Hipsters. The evenings dancing was always preceded by numerous Gin and Black drinks at the Griffin Bar and was always followed by Steak Supper at the Grand Hotel in the High Street. What torture!

For a while I was a roadie for a band wonderfully named The John Smith Committee. They played a kind of English, Welsh ? soul music with a small brass section, quite unusual for the time. I was the dogsbody, loading and unloading all the equipment two or three evenings a week. I’ve no idea how I managed this as I was always late for my bed from the road and then I had to be at my day job at 8 o’clock in the morning. Such is the ability of youth! I also managed to build a set of flashing coloured lights for their shows. The lamps created weird shadows of the band that overlapped with rainbow edges. Little did I know that psychedelia was soon to hit the music business.

1966 Things had become a little clearer, led by John, Rob and Alf and sometimes Muz. The Boys.

We dived deep into Soul Music, mainly the USA variety, it dominated our lives and thoughts, along with girls of course. Some of us more successful than others at this game !

Otis Redding, the Temptations, the Impressions, Sam and Dave and the Four Tops. They became an obsession for us. The painting at the top of the blog remembers this time.

18th of February 1967. A precarious journey, the Boys crowded into the little green Austin A40 Van to the California Ballrooms in distant Dunstable. A journey into the unknown somewhere near London, totally unprepared. The mission, to see the Equals, the first major interracial band in the UK, playing a subtle mix of energetic Pop, Solid Soul, R&B, Ska and Blue Beat. Interracial had little significance for us back then.

It came as a bit of a surprise to find that the backup band were the Pink Floyd, not the Boys favourite, in fact they retreated to the bar. They caught my imagination however. Onstage psychedelic projections covered the band and the backdrop with an ever moving array of slimy colours, they reminded of my simple attempts at heightning the mood with light.

Syd Barrett, wayward Syd Barrett, was still hanging onto his place in the band. He certainly was half crazed and often attempted to sing with his microphone firmly in his mouth, sometimes successfully in that his sound seemed a perfect partner for the music of Pink Floyd. I thought him magnificent. He was soon thrown out of the band. Wayward Syd.

Fourth of November 1967. A pilgrimage to the Capitol Theatre Cardiff to experience the amazing energy of Sam and Dave. Sweaty, high energy, an American soul and R&B duo backed by the full brass lineup, always swinging and always in step. Heaven.

I had a personal Soul favourite, that unusually was not from the USA, but rather originally from Jamaica, but now resident in the UK. Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, the New Religion. They felt like that to me, a religion.

Jimmy James came to the UK in 1964 and with him a dance band that regularly got booked in West Indian clubs. Their dynamic performances which combined Soul and Ska quickly gained a sizeable British fan base, especially with the Mods of the period and me, desperately trying to be a Mod.

For me Jimmy James was the pinnacle of full on and heart rendering Soul music. A master. My regret is never seeing him live.

1968 What a year, what a year for Pastures New in Brighton.

Live music for me then was in a rapid forward trajectory. Jethro Tull, Yes, The Yardbirds still hanging onto Jimmy Page, all seen in a small, intimate arts venue. I think it was called the Combination, who knows with my memory. We all sat on the floor in veneration and simply let go. Planets rather than Pastures New indeed.

At this time however, most important to me, was the new Beatles White Album. The plain white sleeve in direct contrast to the vivid colours of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. An omen perhaps of change.

Change yes. I was becoming caught up in the unfamiliar world of politics and action, protest and demonstrations, it was 1968 after all, becoming involved, so too was John Lennon.
As he drifted away from the Beatles, with Yoko Ono holding his hand, John began to see the world in a different way. So did I. New words; society, class, economy, history. New categories and new understandings. John Lennon became something of a hero to me.

1970 Another important change, another important word. Education, and music too. My range widened and I discovered cutting edge sounds, exciting and original.

Well, in this instance, perhaps not so new, I had experienced them previously. The Pink Floyd were now beginning a more sophisticated push against the borders of popular music.

Atom Heart Mother, the title track, covered the entire side one of the album, nearly 24 minutes! Druggy, mind expanding. A rock band, a full orchestra, weird sound effects and a choir. Music moving forward as I did. This was the beginnings of a search for innovation and originality.

Enter Frank Zappa.

Unquantifiable, certainly crazy, a cacophony of sounds. Sounds that took some understanding, ‘a movie for the ears’

The opening track on Hot Rats is Peaches En Regalia. We may call it an instrumental jazz fusion but Frank Zappa lived in so many musical worlds that it seems impossible to categorise. The track has a lot more to do with jazz and classical elements than it does rock ‘n’ roll. In its mellow melody line you can hear piano and double speed guitar, flute, saxophone, baritone guitar and synthesiser . Let’s not forget the magnificent keyboards of Ian Underwood that glues everything together. More combinations in one song than you might hear in an entire pop album, brought together with Franks amazing arrangeing skill. It has remained with me, my ‘go to’ track. So has Frank Zappa. Boy is he missed

As if in the opposite direction to Mr Zappa I stumbled across Steeleye Span. Following on from the lead given by Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span fused the instruments of rock ‘n’ roll with the deep history and outlook of folk ballads. The mix worked, it involved you, it brought you into another new world. Modern, yet with a deep genealogy. I played the album incessantly and learnt all the words. After seeing Steeleye Span with the singing of Maddie Prior at a local concert, I fell in love with her immediately.

1972 Now in the new world of higher education I felt the need to widen and advanced my musical tastes. Such naïveté!

I saw a poster about a local gig for somebody I had never heard of, Lol Coxhill. Why not ? A small intimate place, severe, rows of wooden chairs and an obviously learned audience. At the front another wooden chair, alone.

Out comes Lol, accompanied only by his soprano sax. Lol sits, silence, and then

What I am about to play you may not understand

You bet. Bursting out of the solo saxophone, much honking, tooting, hooting, perping and screeching. Music? Yes, but different. In its own idiosyncratic way it was full of hilarity, never taking its self too seriously. I learned to appreciate and then admire. Part of a new vocabulary.

In the local High Street a specialist record shop, an oasis for the committed. Flicking through the albums . .

Weather Report, a combination of jazz titans in much the same way as Cream was a combination of rock titans.

A choir, an African tone, a Djembe drum, a regular run through bass and sax lines, military drums and evocative sound effects. Lament, haunting, always a surprise. A strong feeling of a story crowned by a welcome tune, you could always follow it, a rhythm and a hook.

My music education was jumping through hurdles. I later learned that of course nothing is new and that Weather Report were part of a journey in the shadow of Miles Davis and he in the shadow of Duke Ellington.

1975. . . Another step, Tennessee USA. Culture Shock, Country Music. By this time Country Music had gone syrupy and was now in its most sentimental, commercial and mawkish phase centred on the Grand Old Opry in Nashville. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson decided to make a break for it and become The Outlaws. Together they struggled for more creative control over their recordings, which they felt had been hampered for years by the conservative style of Nashville. They saw themselves as the bad guys and wished to do their own thing. The Outlaw way. The album popularised a coming together of rock ‘n’ roll, old-style country and rebellion. Now everyone wanted to be an outlaw and a cowboy.

I had the jazz of Weather Report in my head and this kind of country music was some surprise, nevertheless I fell for it.

Don’t ask me about the years I spent out in the rain
About the ones I spent in love or the ones I spent insane
Don’t ask me who I gave my seat to on that plane
I think you already know
I told you that a long time ago
She’s a good hearted woman in love with a good time in man
She loves him in spite of his ways that she don’t understand

The ‘plane’ refers to 1959, when the fast rising star Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Waylon, who played bass for Buddy Holly, refused to get on the wretched plane.

This kind of outlaw country music is lyrical, fond of words, carries a tune and a story. Above all has a history. What is not to like ? The history goes way back, Scottish jigs, Irish laments, German dance tunes, fiddle music, finger picked guitar, duelling banjos and mandolins. Hank Williams and Bob Willis. The progeny of Bluegrass, Honky-Tonk, Clog Dancing, Hokum, and of course the Blues.

A history summed up by the album Let the Circle be Unbroken.

An invocation, songs of praise to a music of the people. The musicians, on the album, came from those wet behind the ears to the wise and mature. Old and young. A heady mix of instruments, a heady mix of well loved songs,. Let the Circle be Unbroken, originally a 1907 hymn, was taken up by the Carter Family, recorded many times and became an anthem for all the generations. Whenever you heard it live everyone joined in the chorus and the emotions became palpable. It wasn’t too long before I too was singing the chorus alongside a group of folks sat under a tree, the barbecue blazing, kids running everywhere, the band in full swing, all doing what they had for as long as they could remember, singing, singing country.

1976 Another jump this time into Film School, the year of Punk and there our objective, to film the most original of the Punk bands, the most aware and the most musical; The Clash.

A punk band making a stand, apparently aggressive but actually a masquerade, creating their own culture. Fashion, songs and idiosyncratic monikers. John Graham Mellor became Joe Strummer, the roadie Rats, their drummer Tory Chimes and I simply became Camera.

We followed them everywhere, performing, hanging out, rehearsing, making clothes and to top it all filming them recording their first album call simply Clash. For my only moment of musical collaboration I jumped up and down on a rickety old door for added sound effects. My only claim to musical fame. The track ? White Riot

Black people got a lot of problems
but they don’t mind throwing a brick
White people go to school
where they teach you how to be thick

The lyrics, straightforward, in your face and eminently memorable.

Again it didn’t take me long to get into the raucous, loud and committed guitars sounds of Mick Jones, the controlled but steady drumming of Tory Chimes and the simple baselines of Paul Simenon, who had only just been taught the rudimentary chords. Up front, Joe Strummer constantly pushing forward. Clearly a leader. Emblazoned on his guitar This Machine Kills Fascists, a statement borrowed from Woody Guthrie.

Not an easy bunch to film, they certainly recognised the importance of getting out there, being seen and recognised. The difficulty was their masquerade of confrontation and their need to be seen to be a bunch of contrarians. Great subject matter but impossible to control. I thought they were the best, dedicated, passionate and unwavering. I cherished their music and their commitment.

That’s 12 years of a musical journey. Different, diverse, often seemingly at odds with each other. All have stayed with me.

A postscript. Going back perhaps to the start of this journey.

I have discovered many musical genres since those early days, but I do have a stand out, shining example of popular music that is dear to me.

The Undertones . .The track . . Teenage Kicks. An all time favourite of John Peel, on the radio he declared . . . . . it doesn’t get much better than this.

For me a perfect example of the spirit of punk with an instinctive melodic knack. It remains an outstanding epistle to the vibrancy of teenage dreams and young love. I was enchanted, I remain enchanted.

Are teenage dreams so hard to beat?
Every-time she walks down the street
Another girl in the neighbourhood
Wish she was mine, she looks so good

I wanna hold her tight, wanna hold her tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night

Your comments continue to give me pleasure and inform me. So please do continue with your thoughts, opinions and ideas. Thanks so much. Richard.