Sometimes if John fancied it we used to go out and drop in unannounced on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in their squalid little flat, and brighten up their monochrome existence at their place up on, believe it or not, Shoot-up Hill, near Kilburn, a very Irish part of London. I liked going out to that part of town because I was infatuated with a girl who lived just up the road from the two Stones. I thought, great, because when they all get so stoned that they won’t notice I could nip out and go and see her, maybe stay the night. Sometimes I was gone for a couple of hours and they never missed me.
On the way up to Kilburn in the limo, John got onto the subject of country music, a topic that often came up. The Beatles’ recording engineer, Norman Smith, had been winding John up—which wasn’t too hard—telling him to keep the hits coming or he’d be on the EMI scrap heap. As an example of how quickly things could change, Norman told John about when he was asked to record Frank Ifield’s big hit, “I Remember You,” which came just in time to stop EMI from dropping Frank for being a no-hit turkey. The Beatles had toured with Frank, an amiable Australian. Harmonica had figured prominently on “I Remember You.”
“If you’re in need of a quick hit, John,” teased Norman, “there’s no better way than with a country song and a blast or two of the old sea-salt harmonica.”
John said, “No, we write our own stuff, Normal, you know that.” But just the same, John loved country music.
The Beatles had also toured with Bruce “Hey Baby” Channel who brought harmonica player Delbert McClinton along. In the limo purring up Shoot-up Hill, John mused, “Normal’s fookin’ right, Tone. That song we did on Ed Sullivan. ‘Act Naturally’? That’s a Buck Owens song for Christ’s sake and about as country and western as you can get. And people love it.” He was working up a head of steam, but enjoying every minute. The Stones, whose case he was looking forward to getting on, had a smash number one with Bobby Womack’s song, “It’s All Over Now.” They were supposed to be part of all this big so-called blues explosion that was going on, but there was a lot of country blues about as well, and a lot of straight country which nobody bothered to mention. Country was considered hick and uncool. But in Liverpool one of our favorite local bands had been Johnny Sandon and the Remo Four whose set consisted of instrumental hits—like Shadows’ stuff—and Johnny did a lot of country.
By now we had arrived at Mick and Keef’s flat, in one of those tall, flat-fronted, redbrick terraced houses with a few steps up. It was owned by an Indian man, and I think the rent was ten or fifteen pounds a week. By this time the Stones had taken off with a bang and were very successful, so this was cheap living—but they were rarely there and just wanted a private scruffy place to crash or to bring birds back to. They were either on the road, or at home with their mums and dads. Yes, like our Liverpool gang who felt homesick for ages after heading south, and returned home at every opportunity, the Stones were as sentimental as they come and homebodies at heart. After months on the road, sleeping in a succession of strange places, they loved getting into their childhood suburban beds and waking up to the smell of their mums frying breakfast—or even bringing them early morning cups of tea with digestive biscuits to dunk. Instead of having their boys lug their laundry to a Laundromat, the generic rock star “Mum” would do it in the old kitchen boiler and hang it outside on the washing line, so it would smell of fresh air.
The shared hall in Kilburn was as scruffy as any other unloved and little-used areas in bedsit land. It was a place to park bicycles and collect the post. Steep stairs led up to the two or three flats above. I call them flats but they were really glorified bedsits. Mick and Keith’s pad was on the first floor. There were two bedrooms, a kitchenette, a bathroom and a living room all carved out of the two rooms that had originally been on that landing. The living room furniture was awful. It consisted of modern G-plan beech tables, chairs and sideboard and ghastly uncut moquette sofa and chairs in a kind of sludgy green-brown. I also have a vague recollection of net drapes and chintz curtains strung out over the windows on wires. (It was nothing like the exotic rooms Keith later decorated with scarves and velvet wall hangings.)
We’d just slob out on the furniture, legs dangling over the arms or up on the G-plan coffee table with spiky legs, while Mick or Keef would pour us generous dollops of Scotch and Coke (there was never any ice; in fact, there wasn’t even a refrigerator) in regular tumblers, none of which matched and we’d talk about music.
“Hey Mick! How’s it goin’ then? Listen. I’ve decided that your smash hit, ‘All Over Now’ is straight country,” John said as soon as Mick opened the door.
Mick grinned. “Course it is. Come in. Sit down, have a drink.”
“Yeah,” said Keef, trying in vain to sit up. “We used to play with Cyril Davies at the Marquee or somewhere, didn’t we Mick?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Cyril did this song called ‘Chicago Calling.’ Great song. And another harmonica thing called ‘Country Line Special.’ ” He paused and lit a cigarette with a twinkle in his eye. “Course, he could actually play it, not like you and Lips here. He played it properly did Cyril. Is he still alive? Mick?”
“Don’t ask me, you cheeky bastard. I’m a pop star now.”
Warming to the theme, John said, “I like a bit o’ country, I do.” Sipping his warm Scotch and Coke, he said, “If you lot ain’t got any money, I’ll lend you fifty quid so’s you can get a fridge.” Nobody bothered to answer because John never had any money on him. He said, “So the Stones have gone country, have they?” He picked up a guitar, began to play the opening riff to “It’s All Over Now,” and launched into as much as he knew of the song. It was obvious he liked it but took time out to mimic Mick’s antics on stage, which amused Keef no end.
Keef finally managed to sit up straight, leaned over and literally wrestled his guitar back from John. “Country is cool. We’ve been experimenting. Taking a bit o’ straight country and giving it a bit of an’ offbeat.”
A lot later, when we got up to leave, John said, “Can I tell the boys that you’ve gone cowboy and are no longer a threat?”
Keef said, “Tell ’em what you like, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Mick had the last word as we went out the door, but Mick often did. “I always thought ‘Love Me Do’ was a bit country. All that harmonica. Did Delbert teach you all that stuff?”
A couple of years later, a piece of harmonica-driven music called “Stone Fox Chase” was used as the theme tune for the Old Grey Whistle Test, a great, somewhat cultish music program on BBC TV. The name of the program originated from the “Old Greys,” who swept up at EMI’s pressing plant where folklore had it that if the Old Greys could hum a new song, it was a hit. “Stone Fox Chase” was by an obscure Nashville band called Area Code 615, the area code for Middle Tennessee. Paul recorded in Nashville many years after that, and stayed at the Loveless Motel—deep in the heart of the Tennessee countryside—that was famed for its sausages and grits.
Another day, John and I were sitting in the Shakespeare’s Head in Carnaby Street when John said, “Come on, Tone, let’s go and see if Mick and Keef are in.” But this particular night they were all so stoned chez Stones that John and I had a few Scotch and Cokes and left. John was always pretty merry after two drinks and it was getting late. I never knew what he wanted to do until he said. Maybe he would want to go somewhere else, do something else. With him it really was the Magical Mystery Tour. As we left the Stones’ pad I realized neither of us had any money for the return cab into the West End. We got on the tube at Kilburn and at first, alone in a carriage we reminisced about our life and how fast things had changed.
Back in 1957, like rock ’n’ roll, John was about to grow up fast and acquire some attitude. I was ten, a well-behaved schoolboy, but as the Everly Brothers began a run of nineteen hits with the fantastic “Bye Bye Love,” I’d gotten seriously with it. The Everlys strummed their acoustic guitars like there was no tomorrow, and hit the kind of raucous bittersweet harmonies
I realized later that only kin or family seem able to achieve. They were copied by everyone from John and Paul to Simon and Garfunkel—who were called Tom and Jerry at that time and barely known.
On the truly raucous wrong side of the tracks, Elvis was “All Shook Up,” and Little Richard was screaming about this sexy chick called “Long Tall Sally.” John told me during one inebriated trip around the London Underground that when he first heard it he was in hog heaven. “See,” he mumbled, “it’s got a John.” I knew what he meant. The John in “Long Tall Sally” was an Uncle John.
In that strange, twilight mood when anything makes sense, we debated whether the line about Sally being built sweet and being everything that Uncle John would need, had started out not as an Uncle John, but as an “Ev’ry John.” Sally sounded like one bad girl, and as Dolly Parton said when her ma pointed out the bad, painted, red-lipped and rouged girls in town, and called them trash, “Ma, I wanna be like them trashy girls.”
The Fabs had their share of trashy girls in song. They were amused by that sort of smut. She’s a “big” teaser in “Day Tripper” was not the word they sung when they rehearsed it. I think what John was really saying in his insecure, introspective mood was that most of the records that came out in 1957 had become iconic. He was wondering if the songs he and Paul wrote would ever achieve that cult status.
“Dunno, John,” I said, and fell asleep. In the morning we ended up at the end of the line where all the trains went to sleep in sidings after a long day. If a train cleaner found us and threw us out, we’d find a café and have breakfast if I had any money—John never carried any. But a week or so later, there he’d be again, by my desk, hovering.
“Hi, Tone. What’re you doing?”
“Whatever you want, John.”
10
I don’t think Brian ever slept. At a period when the sky was the limit in the music industry in the U.K., he worked overtime to catch up with America, his wonderfully fertile mind continuously thinking up innovative ideas and then worrying about them—laying out a business scenario, then agonizing over whether it was smart or foolhardy. Some of his best deals came about when he discovered that Equity and work laws insisted that no British act or musician could perform in America unless an American act appeared in the U.K. It was tit for tat. Brian immediately saw a way he could use the leverage of his booming stable of talent to make money promoting American groups.
Through NEMS, in January 1964, Brian bought an off-the-shelf company named Suba Films, which I virtually ran. It was way ahead of its time, the only independent company in England making music videos. I learned my craft from the best, like veteran television producer Vyvienne Moynihan, and top pop producer Jack Good, who produced the successful Six-Five-Special and the innovative Ready Steady Go, as well as the Beatles’ first TV spectacular, This Is the Beatles. Brian always tried to get the best. He hired Vyvienne, who worked for Rediffusion, the first independent TV station in England, as a consultant, to help put packages together and read scripts to see if any had potential as vehicles for the Beatles to star in. She took a shine to me and often asked me to the Rediffusion studios to direct the odd number on Ready Steady Go. She would be on hand to show me the ropes.
There was a folk boom going on, so the New Christy Minstrels with Barry McGuire and Kenny Rogers was Brian’s first exchange (or reverse) band that came over. To satisfy government requirements, all we had to do was to book them for one night at somewhere like the Scotch of St. James, the hot new club in town. But I also worked quite hard to launch their careers in the U.K., with some success. I found that American stars were treated with awe and respect, almost hero-worshipped. As Jack Good had found with P. J. Proby (an American who was practically unknown in the States), all you had to do was say the magic words “Top American singing sensation” to break them in the U.K.
Quickly, Brian gained confidence and organized some wonderful exchanges. We’d sit and discuss who was big, who we wanted to meet. It was like being able to pick the best candy in the candy store.
“What about the blues?” I said one day. The Beatles and the Animals were into the blues; the Yardbirds with Eric Clapton (the best blues guitarist outside Chicago) had made the blues into a white art form after the Stones had reinvented them. The blues were very much a “now” genre among real musicians.
Brian’s training in his record stores ensured that he knew all the names and he knew who sold, even those on a cult level. When I mentioned a few of my favorites, acts I knew the Beatles were into as well, he nodded. “Good, very good. Let’s arrange it.”
So the greatest blues stars in the world, black performers like Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Fats Domino came over and were feted as heroes, great originals. (This was before Stevie Wonder and Otis Redding really took off.) When Ray Charles, a blind black man with an unbelievably soulful voice and a drug habit to match, came over to appear on television in July 1964, he was considered the “king”—and I was given the job of looking after him. It was a huge honor. The title of the show, The Man They Called Genius, summed up how Ray was regarded.
Rediffusion was one of the oddest places I have ever been. Everyone who worked there was ex-admiralty. Probably someone hired all his mates when they closed down a submarine base after the war. Or maybe they had all been in the Naval Intelligence film unit, with Ian Fleming and Graham Greene. They even called the executive floor “The Bridge,” where pink gins flowed like water from a tap. It was as if the government had said, “Right, you chaps, set up this TV company as a front for MI5.”
The offices and basement studios were in Rediffusion House, on the corner of Kingsway and the Aldwych. I’d been going there regularly for some time, but it wasn’t until the Ray Charles’s episode that I came across the entertainment suite, known as the “Green Room.” I learned that they had green rooms on ships for the crew to relax in—no doubt painted a Ministry of Works green—but Rediffusion’s green room had a long bar and was full of people. Despite the overwhelming “shipshape and piped aboard” feel, the atmosphere was as jolly as a sailor’s hornpipe, so much so that when we did the top new teen pop show, Ready Steady Go, I was allowed to operate one of the big cameras, as if I were taking my turn on the firing range. This week: “The Rolling Stones”; next week: Sink the Bismarck and The Cruel Sea. As I considered this, it occurred to me that Billy J. Kramer’s backing group, the Dakotas, had recorded the theme song from The Cruel Sea. It made the top ten in August 1963.
Everyone was in awe when Ray Charles walked in. He had presence. He was big, wore shades, and had a grin fixed on his face as if in on a secret only he knew about. During rehearsals—and there were days of rehearsals—practically everyone in the building and possibly the Aldwych, where the rival BBC had offices, came by to stare at him. He had his own minder, an American from Tangerine Records who must have been suffering from jet lag. He was tired and couldn’t cope. It was obvious that he needed help with this brilliant but erratic star he was assigned to look after.
The TV critic Elkan Allen, who was head of light entertainment at Rediffusion, said, in his posh, plummy voice, “Tony, will you look after our Ray Charles for us in the afternoon, you know, between takes?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’d be delighted.”
“He’s a blind chap,” Elkan continued.
“Yes, I know,” I said.
“Well, he’s in the Green Room,” Elkan added. “Keep an eye on him.”
Sure enough, that was where I found Ray Charles, the center of attention, consuming cucumber sandwiches and drinking pink gins with gusto.
“Have a sandwich,” Ray offered, after I had introduced myself. “And some of this pink stuff that tastes like shampoo. Not that I can see the color, but they tell me it’s pink. Bottoms up, old chap.” He’d gotten into the naval lingo, as well as the gin, very quickly. “Plymouth Ho! Down the hatch!” he shouted, tipping down another half pint of pink gin.
We sat down for an hour or so and I must admit that after
a while, it didn’t matter what color the gin was. By then, probably my eyes matched it and no doubt, so too did Ray Charles’s, behind those dark glasses. I don’t know when I noticed that he had disappeared. At first, I was quite relaxed as I sauntered about looking for him. He must be in his dressing room. No. In the head? No. Is he in makeup? The sound booth? We searched the whole building, offices, cupboards, the roof. He was nowhere to be found. He had slipped the net entirely.
People started panicking. “We’re on air!” That was when Elkan’s mellifluous tones deserted him.
“We’ve got to do this bloody program!” Elkan shouted. “He’s gone AWOL. Get the press gang! Track him down. I’ll have him in the brig next time, not the bloody Green Room.”
What nobody actually said, but everybody thought, was that Ray Charles was a junkie. He had been busted for heroin a couple of times—he’d even written a song called “Busted”—and they were terrified that he would be busted again while in Rediffusion’s care. Even a sympathetic judge in the U.S. had warned Ray that “next time” meant prison. He’d leaned over the bench and said, “Blind or not, Ray, I can’t help you. One more bust and you’re penitentiary bound.” Meanwhile, he’s on the lam in London.
Some of the others expected to find him dead, and said so. We searched again, combing every possible corner. Finally, they had to postpone the taping. A day or so later, Ray was run to earth in the Waldorf Hotel, just across the way. This wasn’t the hotel where he was staying. We had already looked there. To this day I don’t know how it happened that a crazy, doped-up hooker, who may have had friends with her, had managed to breach the security of the Green Room, Ray’s minder and me—all of us sighted human beings—long enough to haul a blind man off for drugs and nookie. When we finally found Ray Charles, he was lying on the bed, pumped full of whatever drug he’d been given, with a big smile on his face. I just shook my head. I couldn’t help but smile.
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