Lee Brilleaux

by Zoe Howe

  Lee had been going to the Zero 6 club near Southend airport to check out musicians at the venue’s weekly jams, and it was there he bumped into old schoolmate Phil Mitchell who was now playing bass with Mickey Jupp and Lew Lewis. By all accounts, Phil approached Lee and expressed that, if he ever wanted to get a new band together, he would love to work with him. Before long, Phil was called up to make good on his offer. Hard-drinking drummer Buzz Barwell was invited back into the fray, and finally Lee rang up a young guitarist who had auditioned after the departure of Gypie, losing out to Johnny Guitar. Gordon Russell had been working with Geno Washington (enjoying a renaissance thanks to the Dexy’s Midnight Runners hit ‘Geno’ in 1980), his playing had impressed and Lee hadn’t forgotten him. The addition of Russell would not only inject a real vitality into the group, it would introduce a strong new songwriter.

  Lee would subsequently explain in an Australian TV interview, a nervous Russell by his side, that ‘when I auditioned him, I felt he was a little bit too young’, adding warmly and not a little paternally that ‘when the job came up again, I got on the phone quick because I was frightened I might have lost him to somebody else. I just got him in the nick of time.’

  As true as it was, Lee also wanted to build Russell’s confidence and make him feel safer in a stressful situation. ‘He was just a really sensitive guy,’ said Russell. ‘Thank God Lee was there during that interview. I was so shy … He really helped me, right from the beginning, but it was also, you know, “Come on, this is your life now, off you go!” He could handle himself in any situation. Even now, I often think, what would Lee have done?’

  Once the new line-up was announced, Lee had to take on the inevitable tsunami of press. The media had plenty questions, the main one being along the lines of: ‘Did you not consider throwing the towel in when Sparko and Figure left?’ Lee was prepared, and admitted that he had, ‘but have you seen what they pay down the dole office? It was very daunting putting a new band together, but I realised there were so many people who want to still play R&B, it wasn’t that hard.’

  The world loves a definitive line-up, however, and there would never be an original Feelgood reunion in Lee’s lifetime. Dr Feelgood were now, to many people, ‘Lee and whoever else’, as one journalist rather bluntly put it.

  ‘The early 1980s were pretty bad years for Dr Feelgood,’ Lee would later concede. ‘It was a combination of factors: there was bad morale, we lost the original rhythm section, it was quite demoralising to find new musicians, and the other thing was that musical fashion was completely at odds with our own way of looking at things. Most bands in that position would have quit, but we [himself and Chris] decided to carry on. We’re just very persistent.’

  Less straightforward was the mission of persuading Shirley to come back, but she would, eventually, return. ‘I was so angry when I left, it took six to eight months of not being around him [to want] to try and make it work again,’ she said. ‘I went back for a number of reasons, but it was also the realisation that I couldn’t hang out in New Orleans and drink and play for the rest of my life. Lee was calling me and asking me to come back. I missed him, I loved him.’

  Lesser marriages might not have survived such a protracted break, but Shirley Brilleaux’s return to Southend would actually mark the beginning of their happiest years together. ‘I think we grew up a lot,’ admits Shirley, who adds that, while she was originally irked by Lee’s frequent absences, they would ironically prove to be the key to their relationship’s longevity – his ‘aggression’ largely being released during the shows. Lee was inclined to agree. ‘I think it’s a positive,’ he said. ‘If you’re there day in, day out, you start to take each other for granted. I think in my case it might be an advantage to my marriage – the fact I’m not there half the time.’

  The Brilleauxs would flourish at The Proceeds, which was, incidentally, the perfect party house, playing host to many a gathering ranging from civilised to downright uproarious. But it was also the perfect family house, and one year after Shirley came back to Lee, they would have their first child, Kelly Elizabeth, in November 1984. This would temper the Brilleaux lifestyle, for Shirley at least, if not Lee. ‘I cut way back because I had to, for the sake of my baby,’ said Shirley. ‘But it didn’t slow Lee down, not that much. There was still all that going on, but I became more of a bystander than a participant.’

  All the same, it wouldn’t be long until Brilleaux started to embrace and develop other dimensions in his character, and the slow but steady process of turning sartorially into something of a ‘country gent’ was soon to begin, once the band started earning a little more wedge anyway. As Kelly would later explain, the 1980s was when Dr Feelgood really ‘became like a job’ for her father, but the other elements of his life were opening out, the colours heightening in direct proportion to the comparatively workaday reality, in some respects, of his career. Lee’s interest in food would blossom to the extent that he started experimenting in the kitchen himself, scribbling notes and his own diagrams inside the cookery books he worked with, collecting wines and growing produce in the garden, the latter appealing to his thrifty streak.

  Rather less thriftily, the famous Brilleaux suits would soon become more expensive, tailored by Soho’s famous Mr Eddie of Berwick Street. To my mind, one can almost split the Lee Brilleaux story down the middle, or at least the story of his adult life: the first half consisting of, basically, full-on rock’n’roll pandemonium, and the second seeing the gourmandising gentleman Lee Brilleaux come to the fore, all Telegraph crosswords, well-cut suits, Bacchanalian dinner parties and boozy Yuletide festivities.

  Larry Wallis remembers spending a particularly Joyeux Noël at The Proceeds munching on homemade pork pies (complete with chutneys made by Brilleaux himself), ‘crying with laughter over Squire Haggard’s Journal by Michael Green – his favourite book,’ he told Will Birch. ‘I referred to Lee as Squire Haggard – very English, fond of a decent brandy,’ his preference being ‘the Spanish brandy Cardenal Mendoza,’ Lee’s old friend Keith Smith told Will Birch. ‘If you were dining at The Proceeds, you knew you were in for a very late night when Lee announced it was time for the Cardenal.’ Indeed, a flask of the stuff would be kept on hand at all times.

  Work-wise, the situation still wasn’t quite right, and one thing was abundantly clear: they needed a new drummer. Gordon Russell’s first show with Dr Feelgood was in Monte Carlo, and, as he remembers, ‘The Big Figure came and played drums because Buzz couldn’t do it.’ The reason Buzz had to go, paradoxically, was because he had a drink problem.

  ‘The trouble with Buzz,’ explained Lee, ‘was that he used to drink gin at ten o’clock in the morning. Now, nobody likes to drink more than me, but I did say, “Look, wait until six o’clock, just be sensible.” He did it one time too many and I had to say, “I’m sorry, Buzz, but you can’t be in the band any more.” I sacked him.’ Kevin Morris, a former Pigboy Charlie Band member (and schoolfriend) and now an in-demand drummer working with the likes of Sam and Dave, would be his replacement. Little did he realise he’d still be in the group more than thirty years later.

  Lee wanted to rebuild Dr Feelgood, and this meant almost non-stop live work at a grass roots level. This was a personal mission for Lee and Chris, but from the point of view of the rest of the group, the promise of being a musician in constant work was irresistible. After a handful of rehearsals, they fuelled up and went for it, promoting Fast Women & Slow Horses with an almost entirely different band.

  ‘We worked very hard and very professionally,’ Lee told Blues Bag. ‘We worked in Europe while times were dodgy in this country. We’d do seven nights a week in clubs out in Germany and Sweden, Spain. It wasn’t my favourite sort of work but it kept us ticking over.’

  The venues might not have been as big as they once were, but Lee was pragmatic, and, he insisted, that ‘while my manager would prefer it if I played bigger venues and earned more money … for the feeling of the music, it’s better to play in
a small house.’ R&B was thriving in the more intimate nightspots, which suited Lee just fine, even if he did find himself having to work considerably harder to maintain his lifestyle. Still, when he wasn’t having to put on a gracious front in interviews, it was sometimes a challenge to remain cheerful during the laborious 1980s.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you that four people in a band together, sitting in the same van for hours … it’s not always easy,’ said Gordon Russell. ‘Lee could be difficult at times. I saw the darker side, of course – he could explode. He’d get fed up with one of us, or all of us, or something else … he’d take it out on us, but then he’d realise and be really sweet to you and apologise in his own way, and off you go and you’re mates again.’

  The gig would often be the turning point: the adrenaline, the gin, the crowd and, most importantly, the music allowing Lee to somehow ‘reset’ himself. As he’d always maintained, rock’n’roll was his release, a way of working out his anger. ‘After the gig, he’d always be all right,’ said Gordon. ‘And then he’d go, “Tomorrow I’m going to have a really good lunch,” and that would cheer him up too. He was just the happiest person alive sitting at the table having lunch. First glass of wine of the day … He’d always like to meet the chef too, he’d shake his hand and say, “Excellent meal, thank you so much.” A big part of touring was lunch, basically.’

  Copious amount of beer and many, many slap-up meals were, to be fair, starting to have an effect on Lee’s once lithe physique. At over six feet tall, Brilleaux could get away with gourmandising for a little longer than his more diminutive associates, but while the early 1980s saw the weight pile on, Brilleaux couldn’t care less. ‘Oh, [we’re] supposed to be young, handsome pop stars,’ he sneered. ‘We’ve never put across a glamorous image, that’s not the appeal we’ve gone for – getting the little girls excited and stuff like that. So it doesn’t matter how old I get, how fat I get, if my hair falls out or my teeth drop out, I don’t think that’s going to affect our popularity.’ Garçon, the dessert trolley, if you’d be so kind.

  Sheer love of food aside, the promise of tastebud-pleasing new discoveries would be instrumental in enlivening tour after tour. This, a good book, a radio and the promise of meeting some choice new characters were vital elements of Lee’s road-tested psychological First Aid Kit, and they would become more important by the year. But when even they weren’t enough, Lee would just think of Howlin’ Wolf. Provocative stage act aside, Chester Burnett would inspire Lee on a deeper level when all else failed.

  ‘I like to think his spirit … you know, if ever I feel a bit down,’ Lee pondered. ‘Or, “Oh, I don’t really fancy playing tonight”, I think, well, that’s not how the Wolf would have handled it. The Wolf’s a big man, he’d have gone out and done it.’

  It must have occurred to Lee that when he and Chris saw Howlin’ Wolf when they were still schoolboys, the man onstage was no longer at his peak, playing for smaller audiences in rundown pubs, and yet those shows proved to be a lifelong inspiration to them, Lee in particular. This must have been one of the reasons Lee’s commitment was so enduring and so absolute; even if a promoter failed to publicise a show, resulting in only a handful of people turning up, Lee would never pull out. ‘He dug deep and he never short-changed anybody,’ said bass player Dave Bronze, who would work with Lee in later years. ‘[It] was extraordinary.’

  After this intensive live stint, it was time for the new Dr Feelgood to record their first album together. The residential Chipping Norton Studios in Oxfordshire were booked, Mike Vernon was called in to produce (having worked well with the group on Let It Roll), and, in the early spring of 1984, the Feelgoods set to work on what would become the authoritative Doctor’s Orders. This record would include a number of original compositions by Gordon Russell, who was hitting the ground running, but the guitarist noticed how shy, even now, Lee was when it came to writing material.

  ‘Lee was very humble,’ said Gordon. ‘He used to say, “I’m not really a songwriter”, but he used to write really good lyrics. A couple of the songs I got credit for, he really did have a few good ideas on how the melody should go. But then he’d go, “No, no, that’s your song.” He had ideas in his head but was too modest to put them out there. I saw some of those ideas come through and there are a few credits on albums with his name on, not loads, but I don’t think it bothered him. He just was happy to be the singer, that’s what I felt. Obviously he had to sing the songs and be comfortable with them; he knew how he wanted to hear things, but he didn’t want to get in the way of anybody else’s creativity.’ ‘Close But No Cigar’ – written by the group with Larry Wallis – would be selected as the opening number, and the closing track, ‘Dangerous’ – featuring the ubiquitous mean women, dodgy dealings and city lights – was written by the same songwriting team. But in the main, Doctor’s Orders would be light on original material; rather Lee would use it as an opportunity to pick an abundance of vintage covers including Louis Jordan’s ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’, the paranoid ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’, ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and ‘Neighbour, Neighbour’ – a bundle of classics Lee had always wanted to sing.

  The finished record would be the most polished Feelgood album yet. It was slower paced and had the overall feel of, basically, a strong, well-rehearsed pub band. To those who sniffed at the fact that the Feelgoods still played R&B, Lee had this to say: ‘People don’t talk about an orchestra and say, “Oh, are you still playing that fucking old Beethoven stuff?” Why should they say the same to us?’

  Lee was proud of Doctor’s Orders. It was, as he put it, ‘very straightforward R&B, the best album [we’ve] done for about three or four years’. ‘Straightforward’ was a Brilleaux buzzword. The more straightforward things were – from the music to the meal to the logistics on the road – the happier he was. For better or worse, freewheeling creative chaos was not his style; Dr Feelgood was now delivering well-played and gleamingly well-produced blues, warm, comforting, familiar. What was increasingly intriguing, however, was Brilleaux’s world behind the scenes.

  ‘We’d go round to Lee’s for these lunches,’ remembers Will Birch. ‘One Sunday, it was the most surreal thing. Shirley said, “We’ve got a guest, he’s a bit shy, he won’t come down.” Suddenly the lounge door opened and Alex Chilton walked in. Alex Chilton of Big Star and the Boxtops in Lee Brilleaux’s house on a Sunday afternoon in Leigh on Sea. Crazy stuff. He was a friend of Shirley’s. I was a bit groupie-ish and asked him about Big Star, and then he walked out and I didn’t see him again. Lee was saying, “I don’t listen to that music, Uncle, it’s poncy, effeminate …” It was a bit of an act he put on. He had that humour down, you had to take it with a pinch of salt.’

  Unusual scenes would also occur at, or at least begin at, the Grand, Lee’s preferred local pub. Pete Zear remembers: ‘Dave Hatfield, who was originally in the Kursaal Flyers, he was into promoting what we would now call Americana. He brought over Flaco Jiménez, a Mexican-American squeezebox player, and his band. It was Tex-Mex music. They’d do strange songs, songs like “Roll Out The Barrel” – turns out it’s a drinking song in San Antonio as well. Anyway, somebody had been putting these guys up while they were here.

  ‘The guy they were staying with came into the Grand and said, “I’ve been drunk out of house and home, these guys have cleaned me out. I’ve never known anything like it.” Lee’s head popped up and he said, “Great. I’ll have ’em round!” He got them round just on the basis of that. There was a little invited audience of about ten people in the front room in The Proceeds, and they played their music in his front room. It was magic. That’s the kind of thing Lee would do.’

  The Grand stood (and still stands, just about)48 at the top of Grand Drive in Leigh on Sea, an impressive Victorian hostelry and a place that famously included Laurel and Hardy as guests of yore when the duo were appearing in Southend. By the 1980s, the slightly grubby Grand was not exactly a destination for Hollywood stars, but it was Lee’s home from
home, mere minutes from Hillside Crescent and a place one could generally find him, quietly sipping his pint and doing the Times or Telegraph crossword if he wasn’t on tour, his daily timetable shaped by the opening and closing times.

  The Grand would also be Lee’s first port of call post-gig, no matter where he’d been in the world. Stopping off there before heading home no doubt gave him a chance to decompress, to enter a kind of mental anteroom (and have a few drinks, obviously) before becoming the ‘other’ Lee, family-man Lee. This behaviour isn’t unusual. Bono’s wife Ali Hewson actually books a week at a hotel for her husband to adjust post-tour before coming home to his family. There’s a certain wisdom in it. Pete Townshend, on the other hand, used to come straight home and, during The Who’s peak, his daughter recalled seeing her disorientated father sitting on his suitcase weeping in the hall as his equipment was wheeled past him by roadies.

  One of Lee’s drinking buddies at the Grand was Colin Crosby (dubbed ‘Colin the Socialist’ by Brilleaux, who was emphatically not a socialist). ‘There were three different bars in the Grand,’ explains Colin. ‘There was the really dirty bar on the left; we used to call it “Gluesniffers”. Your feet used to stick to the carpet.

  ‘Then there was the front bar, which was a bit nicer, and then there was the back bar, where we used to go, which was charming. There was a little stage and people used to play music there on a Sunday. The bell would ring at two p.m., and there was always a race. Lee would buy a round and there’d be about four pints to drink in about fifteen minutes. He could certainly drink a lot.’ (Lee did once tell a wide-eyed Feelgood auditionee in the early 1980s that he was ‘an alcoholic’, but by all accounts he didn’t drink from the moment he woke up, it wasn’t a compulsion, and it was rare to see him out of control. ‘It was something he gave a lot of thought,’ said Shirley.)