Seize the Day

by Mike Read

  We marched around the country, taking in places like the cavernous Sunderland Empire, Manchester Opera House and the Derby Playhouse. We could have kept touring the show year in, year out, but the producers, and I guess the cast to an extent, were wooed by the prospect of a West End run. The Prince of Wales was due for refurbishment, but there was a three-month period free prior to that. The deal was done and initial ticket sales were excellent. Then two things happened. The congestion charge was announced, with the prophets of doom predicting that it would herald the death of the West End, and there was an escalating terrorist situation with the media reporting expected attacks on London. The capital was so empty at times that you could have roller-skated down Piccadilly. Well, you could if you had roller skates. I remember signing programmes after the show and ladies saying things like ‘My husband was so worried about me coming to London with all the bomb threats’. Those two factors seriously affected our ticket sales and the producers panicked. We had the option of going to another London theatre at the end of the run, but they decided against it. As people got used to the congestion charge and the threat of terrorism diminished, sales picked up again, but it was too late to find another theatre and the Prince of Wales closed for refurbishment.

  In the provinces we got good press. In London we got mixed reviews. The piece, however, was written and tailored to suit the audiences, not the critics. The Evening Standard devoted the whole of page three to the show, saying that it was OK if you were the sort of person who liked a cup of hot chocolate and a biscuit before you retired early. It was meant to be a barbed comment but actually hit the nail on the head. We were catering for a specific audience. If it had been sharp and edgy and had made the public feel uncomfortable, we would have been aiming at the wrong demographic. In fact we had it right. The Daily Mirror let its hair down, the banner headline proclaiming, ‘Effervescent, irresistible and sure to be a success. Sod it, this is FUN.’ The Daily Express was also jolly decent: ‘The show is a total hoot. The music sounds great, the girls are gorgeous and a superb band doubles for the Shadows … it’s Cliff-tastic.’ Quite.

  The writers of a show normally get paid their percentage at the end of the week, but I was asked if I minded getting it in one lump at the end. Actually that quite suited me. I was getting paid as an actor, so that would be a lovely bonus at the end of the run. I didn’t get it. On several occasions I sat in the office of one of the producers, who was spending a fortune on other things, and politely asked for my money. I heard a heck of a lot of lame excuses, but learned a sharp lesson. Take the money when they need you, because you stand less chance of getting it when they don’t. I’ve always called it the ‘pied piper’ syndrome, you know, where the mayor of Hamelin promises the piper 1,000 guilders to rid the town of rats. After the job’s done, the mayor has no more use for the piper and tries to fob him off with a derisory fifty guilders. You know the rest of the story, but I had nothing to bargain with, nor power to wield. In the end I let it go as it’s a small industry, but I haven’t forgotten. Every now and again, producers and backers show an interest in getting the Cliff musical back on the road, so who knows.

  Just about here I had another bad car smash. I was en route to see a friend for lunch, when a Polish lorry driver nodded off at the wheel. The M3 was pretty busy, with those on the inside and middle lanes doing 70 mph and those on the outside lane a tad more. I could see the great truck veering towards me, but with continuous traffic on my right I had nowhere to go. He smacked me amidships and spun me in front of him. I found myself travelling sideways at high speed, wrestling with the wheel. If I hadn’t been in a Porsche with a low centre of gravity my vehicle would have rolled. No question of that. All four tyres actually wore right through crossways. I kept thinking ‘He must have seen me,’ but he was so high up and possibly not even awake, so I don’t think he did. I had a damn good close-up of his grill for a few hundred feet … and then he came again, crushing the passenger side and inching towards my side. Eventually the madness stopped. The M3 ground to a halt. Amazingly, I stepped out of my car completely unscathed. A fellow motorist ran up and said, ‘You drove your way out of certain death.’ Instinct, I guess. I was bloody determined not to die. I was standing on the grass verge when the police arrived. The sergeant’s first words were, ‘You were bloody unlucky in the jungle.’

  ‘Luckier here, though.’ I’m glad it was that way round.

  That evening I was giving a talk at the English Speaking Union. I’m sure many speakers’ opening gambit involves something along the lines of ‘I’m delighted to be here’ and ‘It’s good to see you all.’ Never had the lines been more apposite.

  My girlfriend Eileen Johnston and I had been spending Christmas 2004 with my friends Ros and Paul in Sussex with the usual bouts of banter, Monopoly, tennis and a few other seasonal pursuits. I knew them well enough to have rapped their wedding speech in a near-the-knuckle style wearing an inappropriate wig and to have been unceremoniously dragged feet first from their house and dumped in the drive when they considered I’d overstayed my welcome. Anyway our festivities hit the buffers on Boxing Day when the images of the Indian Ocean tsunami first flashed up on the TV screen. They had friends out there and had not long returned themselves – there but for the grace of God etc. There was talk from the news reporters that these wounds and memories would take a long time to heal, if ever, and they spoke of the grief of those who’d lost relatives and friends. The following day it dawned on me that a song I’d written, ‘Grief Never Grows Old’, echoed the emotions and pain I’d subsequently heard from people interviewed on the television. I wondered whether it might be put to some use with regard to this situation and the subsequent devastation that was unfolding before us by the hour.

  The Disasters Emergency Committee welcomed the idea of releasing the song. I did point out that it might well raise an irrelevant amount compared to the tens of millions pledged by countries like the United States. They countered with the fact that the record, especially if I had major names on board, would create profile and awareness, so it wasn’t necessarily about the money. It was also mentioned that pledges didn’t always materialise, as new needs and events often overtook and superseded the previous crisis. Their third point was that within a month the media would have left and the focus would have shifted elsewhere. The news crews would only stay for a finite period, but a suitably apposite song would hopefully keep the needs of the stricken communities in people’s minds.

  I headed to a café on the seafront at Worthing, armed with my mobile, pen, notepad and a hell of a lot of determination. I wanted real singers. Singers that were instantly recognised. Cliff Richard had just gone to his house in Barbados, having completed a tour and over-stretched his voice. Only a week earlier he told me that he was looking forward to relaxing and not singing a note for some while. Because of that I was slightly reluctant to ask him to participate. Five minutes and one positive phone call later I had my first singer. No hesitation. He was happy to do his bit for those less fortunate. What a trooper. Fortified by his response, another tea and more toast, I ploughed on. Robin Gibb, the most generous of souls when it came to helping others, also committed instanter. Then his brother Barry came on board. Within a couple of days I had a pretty unbeatable list of singers, including Boy George, Russell Watson and Jon Anderson, with members of America, the Beach Boys and Celine Cherry from the Honeyz agreeing to do the backing vocals. Brian Wilson then agreed to join the line-up. Things were moving. Sky News had me on talking about the project and even played my demo.

  The following day I was on a mission for top musicians who were on a par with our vocalists. I called Bill Wyman. His immediate response was, ‘When do you want me?’ He’d seen the piece on Sky and knew exactly why I was calling. Rick Wakeman, the only keyboard player with four arms and four hands, agreed, even though he normally steered clear of charity records, and producer Steve Levine, who’d also been heavily on the case, brought in Gary Moore on lead guitar. Kenney Jones
agreed to provide any percussion that was needed. There was no getting away from it, they were a quartet you couldn’t buy. Just before we started recording I had a call from Steve Winwood asking if he could contribute. Are you joking? Yes please! What a lovely gesture. Steve Levine’s studio in south-west London was buzzing as singers and musicians milled around and did interviews with various TV crews while waiting to record. Calmly and with technical precision, Steve oversaw recording artists like Cliff, Boy George, Barry Gibb, Jon Anderson and the backing vocals from assorted members of The Beach Boys and America live from different parts of the United States, sometimes conversing with them via Skype.

  The Sky news piece had caused a bit of a stir in Sri Lanka, which led to the most fantastic group of young female singers from that country, Soul Sounds, and their musical director, Soundarie David, contacting me to ask if they could participate. All the vocal parts were spoken for, but I asked them if they’d like to record their own version which we could use as a bonus track on the CD. Thankfully they agreed and recorded a very different but equally moving version.

  The National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain were also keen to be involved and although I wasn’t quite sure how they’d fit in, I instinctively felt that it would be right to include them in the project. Again, I suggested that they might like to record an orchestral stand-alone version. I was delighted that their musical director, Roger Clarkson, was keen on the idea, but wondered how to go about finding a suitable studio. ‘Aim high,’ I thought, so I talked Abbey Road into letting me have the studio for nothing. They couldn’t have been more helpful. Only by actually watching the video would anyone know that it was a children’s orchestra. It could have been the RPO or the LSO. They were fabulous.

  I called the boss of Universal, who was holidaying in Barbados, persuaded him to release the record and then set about purloining tsunami footage for a video. I made my presence felt at Sky, ITV and the BBC until I had several hours of visuals. Working through the images with Robert Garafalo at Classic Pictures, Shepperton Studios, I found much harrowing material that was far too disturbing for a video so I had to be judicious and cautious. We intercut and dissolved the footage with the artists, as tastefully as possible, weaving our way through the appropriate and inappropriate news items, some of which hadn’t even made it to the TV screens. For the front cover I had no hesitation in selecting a photograph taken two weeks after the disaster of a man clinging to the remains of a coconut tree in the middle of the ocean. He later revealed that one by one his family and friends had weakened and slid away into the water. Against all odds he survived and against all odds he was rescued, a tiny dot in a vast ocean.

  Just as we were beginning our press campaign, Sharon Osbourne announced that she was organising something similar. Names like Eric Clapton and Elton John were bandied about. I spoke with Sharon on the phone and agreed that anything that helped or raised awareness could only be positive, but proposed that she might hold their release back for a week or two, which she graciously consented to do. The press suggested that maybe people should wait for that CD, as the song that they intended to release was a version of Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’. A great song, there’s no denying. There’s no question that it diluted our sales, especially as the other single never happened. No recording, no Elton, no Eric, no release.

  I gave the artists on our record the collective name of One World Project. Heaven knows why, as I’ve never been too keen on the word ‘project’ when applied to music. It sounds a little pretentious. Even so, the media were talking of it being a possible number one. It was just about the time of the thousandth UK number one, so we were in with an outside chance of making history as well as raising the profile of the cause. In the end, that accolade went to Elvis Presley, although Woolworths had our single at number one above Elvis on their in-store chart. Robin Gibb and I did a signing session at HMV and the buzz was good. I even found myself back at TV Centre presenting Top of the Pops, alongside groups including McFly, introducing the section of the show that featured the video for ‘Grief Never Grows Old’. It had been a while since I’d done it, but it felt very natural although unexpected.

  On 5 February 2005, the single went straight to number one in the Independent Singles Chart and straight in at number four in the National Singles Chart. A great result – we may not have made the thousandth number one, but who could deny Elvis that position (with a re-release of one of his finest hits, ‘It’s Now or Never’)? Within an hour of the chart being announced, I had calls of ‘condolence’ from the press. ‘Wasn’t it a pity that it failed to get to number one … You must be distraught … Do you I feel deflated?’ No I bloody well didn’t. I was delighted on every level. We’d made a great record, the Disasters Emergency Committee were happy, it was helping to raise awareness and we were sitting up at the top of the chart with Elvis Presley. I projected myself back yet again to being a kid and never daring to imagine that I’d learn to play the guitar, let alone write songs or make a record. Being in the chart was unthinkable. Being in the chart with Elvis was as likely as a day trip around Venus.

  Jon Christos later recorded a version for an album. He played it to his mother but she felt it was too sad, so it was rejected. It has been used at many funerals down the years, so I hope that it may have brought a little comfort to those who were left behind. A couple of years ago Geno Washington put down a great blues version of the song, with Clive Carroll on guitar and Paul Jones on harmonica. Geno is without question one of our greatest soul and blues singers, but he knew the way that he’d recorded it wasn’t exactly how I’d envisaged it. Crazy and hilarious he may be, but he’s a consummate professional and insisted on doing it again. ‘How do you want me to sing it?’ he asked.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘imagine it’s 1927, you’ve sold your soul to the devil at the crossroads, your wife’s left you and you’ve got outside of a couple of bottles of hooch.’

  He became animated. ‘I gotcha, I gotcha, yeah, I know where you’re coming from.’ He dissolved into his trademark manic laugh and then nailed the track in one. Wow.

  I’ve been moved by many people affected by the disaster who’ve said that they felt ‘Grief Never Grows Old’ was so appropriate. Some 170,000 lost their lives and more than 130,000 are still missing, the tsunami and preceding earthquake having brought devastation to ten countries. I spoke to one couple who’d been drinking coffee in a hotel lounge one moment and the next became creatures in a vast aquarium. They subsequently lost each other for several days. Apart from the guy who I featured on the front of the CD and DVD, possibly the most extraordinary tale to emerge was that of an eight-year-old girl who was swept away, only to turn up seven years later.

  In 2006 a Japanese label released a limited-edition CD featuring twenty-four songs from my catalogue, including several singles and some unreleased material. They sold all 1,000 copies pretty swiftly. ‘Big in Japan’, eh? That’s what they all say. I was small in Japan, but at least I was there. The Angel Air label picked the album up for the UK and also re-issued my two Betjeman albums as Mike Read & Sir John Betjeman: The Sound of Poetry. After the Japanese tsunami in March 2011, images uploaded onto YouTube were accompanied by ‘Grief Never Grows Old’.

  It wasn’t all work, by the way. There were a couple of trips to Venice with Eileen, for friends’ birthdays and the like. It certainly lived up to my expectations, with its singing gondoliers, maze of waterways and incredible architecture. The highlight of one visit was an extravagant masked ball, which could have taken place centuries earlier. What an atmosphere. We also dashed up to the island of Bute to take in the Highland games at Rothesay, my first Highland games. I learned that it’s not how far you toss the caber, but how straight it lies having gone over once. The nearer the twelve o’clock position the better. (Make up your own jokes here.)

  In 2003, I had a call asking me if I’d be interested in writing the book for a musical based around the music of the Village People. It’s never wise to say y
es to anything and everything, but I’d always liked the theatricality of the group and their songs and duly scooted off to Paris for a tête-à-tête with their producer and co-writer, Henri Belolo. We got on well. I threw a few ideas at him, he threw a few back at me and after a rather robust déjeuner, I Eurostarred myself back to London bursting with creativity. I was going to enjoy this. ‘In the Navy’ became a major dance number featuring the waltz, tango and cha-cha, while ‘YMCA’ was sung classically as well as in the style that we know and love and to which we do misspelled hand movements. Of course ‘Go West’, ‘San Francisco’ and ‘Macho Man’ were in the mix, as was a humorously staged version of ‘Sex over the Phone’. The storyline worked really well, but I needed a song about the New York police that reflected ‘YMCA’. I had the audacity to write one. I used one of Elgar’s marches, Pomp and Circumstance No. 4, which he’d first performed 100 years earlier, back in 1907.

  I assumed the melody must have had a lyrical setting at some point, although I’d never been aware of one. Calling the song ‘NYPD’, I used the word ‘liberty’ to great effect, only to discover a year or two later that A. P. Herbert had written words to the tune during World War Two, calling it ‘The Liberty Song’. How weird is that? I wasn’t sure how Henri would respond on my next visit to Paris. He’d written all the Village People hits and more. There was a good chance he’d dismiss an interloper out of hand, but he didn’t; he surprised me by embracing the song and agreeing that it’d be good for the musical.