Lee Brilleaux

by Zoe Howe

  ‘We’d had strict instructions from Lee that we were to go home before the last number because of the rush – he reckoned we’d get trampled to death getting to Hammersmith station. And my husband said, “We’re staying. I’m seeing them right to the end.” Outside the theatre there were four cardboard cut-outs of the Feelgoods, [some fans] stole them and they were in our carriage – Collie, the old big mouth, said, “That’s my son!”

  ‘We were so exhilarated, there’s no way of describing how we felt. We couldn’t stop talking about it.’ And it wasn’t just parental pride – they really had just seen the Feelgoods at their best.

  As the various acolytes and journalists staggered off to the Tube, the latter already constructing ecstatic reviews in their over-stimulated cerebra, Shirley made her way backstage thanks to a little help from Fred Barker. The promoter of the show had dismissed her as a chancer (‘an immediate blow to my ego’), but Fred recognised her and ushered her straight to the dressing room where it seemed like ‘a million’ people had managed to squash themselves in. ‘There was a party back at the hotel around the corner,’ says Shirley. ‘They had this huge suite, amazing food and booze, and everyone I got to know later on from Canvey seemed to be there. It was a big deal. They were a big deal.’

  After the party, Lee whisked Shirley away in his Jaguar, and before she knew it they were flying down the A13, with industrial East London, the foggy, spectral Essex marshes and ultimately the flaming tower at Coryton Oil Refinery whizzing by as Shirley kept ‘pressing an imaginary brake. I was so tense because I was on what I considered to be the driver’s side … He’s driving, overtaking on the other side of the street, it was crazy. But we finally get to Canvey Island, still alive.’

  Shirley was charmed by her first moments on the Island, although it’s worth bearing in mind that it was very dark when she arrived. Once the sun rose on Oil City and a bleary-eyed Suds eventually got up and peered out of the window, her impression of Lee’s stomping ground would be a little less romantic.

  ‘He takes me to this tiny bungalow on Rainbow Road which had belonged to his grandfather. It was adorable. I was like, “Oh my God, I’m in England, this is amazing!” The next day I get up and look out the window, and there’s a roundabout and a playing field, all these little ticky-tacky houses, the refineries in the distance … I’m thinking, where am I? What is this place? It was flat and bleak and marshy. Actually it looked like Southern Louisiana – there’s a place upriver from New Orleans, a refinery town called Norco. I thought it looked a lot like Norco.’28

  All the same, Shirley would be absorbed into the Feelgood way of life almost instantly, and a significant part of that would be hanging out at the Admiral Jellicoe. The Feelgoods might have been the stars of the hour, but their everyday habits were more like those of a group of boozy old geezers than a bunch of cool young dudes with a hit album. Shirley soon realised that the daily routine, if the band wasn’t gigging, was: get up, have breakfast, make a cup of tea and then go to the ‘Jellie’, shoot some pool and hang out with the various characters who happened to be in that day.

  Shirley ’Suds’ Alford, soon to become Mrs Brilleaux, brings some Southern glamour to Oil City.

  Suds and Lee, Canvey’s golden couple.

  an early 1980s shot of Shirley, pianist John Denton and Lee in the Grand, Leigh on Sea, Lee Brilleaux’s ‘home-from-home’.

  Buzz Barwell (who would join the Feelgood line-up in 1982 on drums), John Denton and Lee.

  The presence of the glamorous Shirley with her Southern belle accent would be novel in any 1970s old man pub, but she was the honoured guest of Canvey royalty and would be treated with respect (with the exception of a few times when the occasional patron would enquire as to why she was in the pub with Lee, rather than at home cooking dinner). Shirley paints an evocative portrait of an average day at the Jellicoe, bearing in mind it was not your average pub (‘people would ride their bicycles straight into there,’ remembers Pete Zear. ‘Mad things. Lew would be playing harmonica into a beer glass, somebody would come in with a chicken and throw it up in the air …’)

  ‘My first visit to the Jellicoe, I was like, “OK …”’ said Shirley. ‘I liked to drink, and I’m from New Orleans, so you know … but I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of the band’s habits. I remember people asking me, “How do you like it here? Have you been down the seafront?” Sparko was killing himself. He was like, “Oh yeah, because Canvey seafront really makes the California coastline look like shit. Once you’ve experienced Canvey Island you’ll never go back to California.”

  ‘There’d be working boys, labourers, people on the dole, a lot of old men with their little peaked caps hunched over their pints, and Albert, this old pot-man, who would shuffle around with a biscuit tin emptying ash trays and complaining about the weather. Bernie behind the bar, he was hilarious, muttering things about people under his breath … and then there were people who started showing up when they worked out it was the Feelgoods’ local. Lee was such a gentleman. He’d sit down and talk to them, buy them a beer. He’d never turn anyone away if they came looking for him – not without reason anyway.29 There were people he told where to go, but they would be people who turned up to give him a hard time – there were plenty of those too.

  ‘For far too long, I tried to keep up with the drinking. Thank God Lee wasn’t there all the time, because I’d probably be dead by now. They were so famous, they were facilitated at every turn by the record company, the media. Everyone was talking about these “hard-drinking lads”. It was part of the legend, and I bought into it as much as the next person. We were all really drunk a lot of the time.’

  Winter was looming, and Shirley’s return ticket to San Francisco was starting to burn a hole in her pocket, but it was clear that her original plans to stay in England for ‘a couple of months’ vacation’ had long since been abandoned. ‘Basically I went home with him in October and never left.’

  Larry Wallis, Lee, Tommy Montegut (a friend of Shirley’s from Louisiana) and Shirley celebrate Christmas in The Proceeds, the Leigh on Sea home they would move into after leaving Canvey Island in the early 1980s.

  hanging out on tour and looking cool (even when he was taking the piss). To Lee’s right is Kursaal Flyer and longtime pal Will Birch.

  Photographer Chalkie Davies took this picture of a crazy-eyed Lee chomping into Shirley’s elegant hand in an ironic tribute to the cover of the Rolling Stones album Love You Live (released September 1977), which featured an image of Jagger biting a woman’s hand.

  11.OIL CITY BLUES

  ‘Most reprehensible’

  Lee Brilleaux on drinking outside pub opening hours (to Shrink Wrap, Melody Maker)

  Domestic bliss might not have been the ideal term for what Lee Brilleaux was now enjoying – Lee and ‘Suds’ were both strong characters – and quarrels, smashed household items and even the odd period of full-on estrangement would not be uncommon, but he had the perfect partner in crime, a fellow adventurer who was, like him, fiery, intelligent and not a little mischievous.

  Lee was keen to take Shirley away from damp, chilly Canvey for a breather, but there were still a number of dates on the Feelgood calendar in this, the band’s biggest year so far. The most significant of these would be 19 December at the Hammersmith Palais, a historic gig for various reasons, not least because it would be the Feelgood’s last live show with Wilko Johnson – not that they knew that then.

  The white jacket was back, lapels tinged with requisite filth, and there was a noticeable but thrilling increase in the nervous energy onstage. Lee was especially fierce that night, although that may partly have been because he was channelling his temper into the show after a row with Shirley at the Portobello Hotel, where they’d been staying.

  ‘We were just heading out to the cars to go to the venue,’ recalls Wilko, ‘and there was a ruck between Lee and Suds. Somebody threw a telephone. I remember thinking, fucking hell, fancy smashing about like that just before a
gig. I didn’t realise I would have my turn at all of that, of course.’

  While the Feelgoods were always mean onstage, tonight there was also a little humour in the show. As an acknowledgement to the growing wave of punk that was about to push the Feelgoods, the Kilburns and almost every other associated act aside (after a bit of looting in the style and attitude departments), Lee had had a huge safety pin made and wore it ‘like it was going right through him,’ said Wilko. ‘That was us satirising punk.’ Admittedly, a bunch of snotty kids who weren’t very good at playing their guitars didn’t seem like that much of a threat. Lee was more interested in going on holiday than worrying about punk. The band had a new album to record, more tours in the book, and 1977 was already shaping up to be a non-stop year.

  During the Christmas break, Lee took Shirley to southern Spain with Chris Fenwick and his then girlfriend Linda for some time away and, hopefully, some winter sun. One might assume an airport was the last place Brilleaux would want to see, but some distance was required. While Canvey and the Feelgoods were inextricably linked – ‘he was intensely passionate about the Island,’ said Shirley – that link was starting to show signs of wear. Being recognised had long been par for the course, but the Morrissey song ‘We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful’ gives a hint of the feeling, at times, on home turf (Wilko would soon move off the Island altogether, opting for a home in Westcliff over the water, unfortunately creating an even bigger, and now physical, gulf between himself and the rest of the group). Lee needed a chance to relax, preferably somewhere with few Feelgood associations.

  The two couples stayed in Chris’s parents’ villa in Almeria, close to where Sergio Leone shot his spaghetti westerns, and David Lean filmed scenes for Lawrence of Arabia. From there they would take a flying visit to Tangiers, load up on pastis and spend New Year’s Eve ‘playing Canasta drunk in the hotel, it was just the most bizarre experience,’ said Shirley.

  Almeria was, in Lee’s opinion, ‘a pretty funky sort of joint’, and the Brilleauxs would holiday there with the Fenwicks for many years, taking their children there in the 1980s and 1990s. But back in the 1970s, it would be on one of these trips that Lee and Chris decided to purchase a pig farm as an investment, and also (Lee will surely have been jesting when he said this) as a place to rehearse for tours. The idea came to them when Lee nearly won a pig farm in a game of cards. Just another day on Planet Feelgood.

  It was also during one of these visits that Lee announced that he desired a fez, but an authentic fez, as in from the town of Fez. Thanks to the efforts of Spanish Feelgood comrade and sometime road manager Jerome Martinez, a boat trip was organised and Lee’s wish would be granted.

  By the time Lee and Shirley returned to Rainbow Road, 1977 was still looking deceptively innocuous, but plans in Camp Feelgood were already afoot. It had been decided that two weeks at Rockfield Studios were in order, as a fourth album was urgently required. On the other side of the Atlantic, executives at CBS had had their enthusiasm for the Feelgoods revived by the phenomenal success of Stupidity. They insisted it was time the band tried their hand in the States again with a new album – a second bite of an exceptionally rare, sweet and occasionally poisonous cherry.

  CBS wanted the next Feelgood album to be a slicker affair with an American producer at the helm, so Lee and Wilko were invited back to the States for another convention, this time in Atlanta, to meet the man they had in mind. Lee was keen to make sure they hadn’t earmarked ‘some arsehole sort of geezer’. Fortunately, the producer in mind was not an arsehole at all, but the soul producer Bert de Coteaux, who had worked with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Martha Reeves and BB King. But it was his work with Stax legend Albert King that would convince Lee that de Coteaux and the Feelgoods could be a good fit.

  ‘Yeah, Albert King’s last album [Albert] was the one,’ Lee rhapsodised (in his way) to Nick Kent. ‘There’s a parallel [with the Feelgoods] ’cause he’s always had a rough sound, very straightforward. [On Albert] he sounded modern, but still had all the bollocks of yer old Albert King. And I thought [Bert de Coteaux] could do it for us in the same way.’

  Lee and Wilko flew out to Atlanta, and while, at this stage, the idea of these two individuals having to spend time together in the very place that had tipped the Feelgoods over into all-out toxicity may have seemed like a bad one, the pair appeared to be rekindling their affection for each other. ‘In reality things were really good down there,’ Lee admitted. ‘I mean, comparatively …’

  ‘We were getting on, we had a couple of laughs there,’ said Wilko. ‘I remember Lee bursting up to Boston – we’d never heard of them but they were huge – he stalked up to them in the corridor asking if they had any cocaine, and they were fucking frightened. They were like, “Ooh! Er, we’ll have to ask our roadie for that.” I’m standing there watching Lee, and they’re wondering who these Englishmen are, coming over and frightening everyone. Good times.

  ‘After [we came back], Lee would come over to my house with a bottle of tequila. I knew that he was trying to be friends again. I appreciated it. We both knew what we were doing. We seemed to be getting back to a friendship but … well, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.”’30

  From Lee’s point of view, not least the rest of the group, he never quite knew where he was with Wilko. The trip to America had gone well, all told, but the situation could easily turn, and sadly one of the pivotal moments that would seal the end of their relationship – certainly the moment Lee would often hark back to – was just around the corner.

  It had been agreed with CBS that, after the fourth album was released, Dr Feelgood would return to America for a tour later that year. Everyone, with one exception, was looking forward to the chance to take on the States again, but there was trepidation about how the tour would play out with Wilko – whether it would even play out at all.

  Sure enough, back in the UK, shortly after Lee and Wilko’s return from the US, the Feelgoods were driving home from a meeting in London and decided to stop at a café on the A127 to load up on caffeine and bacon sandwiches. It was here that a decidedly agitated Wilko blurted out that he had no intention of going back to America at all. After a moment of shocked silence, Lee ‘just went ballistic’, remembers a friend. ‘For years after, if ever we were driving down the A127, he would point out the café [now no longer there]. “There it is,” he’d say. “That’s where it happened. That’s where it really ended.” Even years later, it upset him.’

  In Wilko’s opinion, he didn’t want to leave the band, he just wouldn’t play ball when it came to America, a country he ‘loathed’. But this announcement marked a major shift, representing possibly the most significant sign yet that Wilko’s modus operandi was starkly different from the rest of the band’s.

  ‘Things were building up,’ remembers Figure, who was often the referee in some of the epic Lee–Wilko battles. ‘Wilko’s ego, and Lee’s ego, had become quite contentious. I was the placater because I’d known Wilko the longest. It was just part of keeping the band together.’ But the rift was doing no one any good, and patching up the rips and attempting to move forward was becoming harder.

  Part of the problem had been that, as always, Wilko was expected to come up with quality new material, but there’d been little time to actually focus on writing, and the resultant stress didn’t make it any easier to get focused and start composing. Given the ‘bad feeling’ between them, for all of Wilko’s previous attempts to encourage Lee to write lyrics, the opportunity for any Johnson–Brilleaux co-writes had now well and truly passed. ‘You’ve got to feel quite close to somebody to sit and write a song,’ Wilko explains. ‘You’ve certainly got to feel friendly.’

  Other songwriters would send tapes of songs written with the Feelgoods in mind, but the band hardly had any time to listen, and when they did, as Sparko recalls, ‘only about two per cent would be suitable’.

  ‘There’d been a lot of pressure on Wilko,’ a
dmitted Lee. ‘He found it very difficult to come up with the goods. Wilko was a great songwriter who demanded a lot from himself. The [situation] caused huge frustration which almost made him ill.’ Just half of the songs chosen for what would become Sneakin’ Suspicion would be Wilko’s compositions,31 the rest would be covers – a marked difference to the Feelgoods’ previous output. It didn’t help that the stakes had never been higher.

  Wilko had been anxious to inject a new flavour into the usual Feelgood style, given that the past three albums, while successful, had been very much of a kind. But Lee was more of an if-it-ain’t-broke-why-fix-it? kind of a chap, and he couldn’t see the point in changing what, up until this point, had been a winning formula. Wilko had written with Lee’s voice and persona in mind, and it had always worked. But some of the songs he was now putting forward were not songs Lee felt comfortable singing (including, famously, the deeply personal ‘Paradise’ which we will come to a little later).

  ‘When he started to experiment outside the Feelgood [remit], that’s when things started to disintegrate between us,’ said Lee several years later. ‘I think Wilko felt under great pressure to come up with something new all the time, whereas me being a very conservative person by nature, I was saying, “Well, why? This is what we wanna do, this is what we’ve been doing, that’s what people want. If it goes out of fashion, too bad.”

  ‘It was all going very, very, very well – and then the trouble starts,’ continued Lee. ‘[We were saying] “Come on, if you don’t provide the songs, we’re going to come up with them,” and this caused some resentment and bad feeling, as it always does. I look back now … if we were all a bit older and saw things a bit more sensibly, we probably could have sat down and discussed it.’