The Grail Guitar

by Chris Adams

  We know that Noel was gigging sporadically with the Mattress in August, but Trevor spent the summer in the leafy village of Aldington. It has to be said that this was a very pleasant place to be; set in the sparsely populated Romney Marsh, it was a bucolic idyll, very much in keeping with the trend that the seminal band Traffic had created by moving from the crowded city to a country cottage in deepest Berkshire. There in their Arcadian bubble, Messrs. Winwood and Mason had recorded some very unique music, and inspired by this sudden spirit of pastoral togetherness, soon everyone in the upper reaches of the rock elite was at it—or everyone with a manager rich enough to keep a band fed and watered for months on end. For Trevor, now drinking nightly at the Walnut Tree Inn, no such inspirational output ensued, but strangely, the next phase in his career would involve this same “country cottage” syndrome, though it actually began with a trip up to London and a chance meeting with an old friend, Alan Jones, sax player with the lately defunct Amen Corner.

  This band had been one of the jewels in Don Arden’s pop crown, and Val Weedon had told us how they actually owed their big break to the Lonely Ones, for back in ’66, playing a gig at the Bournemouth Pavilion, Trevor and his mates had been hugely impressed by the unknown Welsh support band and had gone back to Galaxy raving about their potential. Don Arden had followed up on their recommendation, and a string of top-ten singles then ensued, so now Alan Jones was about to repay that big favor in spades. It seemed he had a buddy in Arden’s employ who had persuaded the pop impresario to fund a version of that other late sixties phenomenon, the supergroup, in this case, the much-hyped Judas Jump.

  Alan’s buddy was a man by the name of Wilf Pine, who happens to be the subject of a 2003 biography by John Pearson, called One of the Family. At this point, Pine was indeed living in Don’s mansion in Wimbledon and being treated very much as one of the family, but it is not the Ardens to which the title refers, as the book’s strapline makes clear, for it reads, “The Englishman and the Mafia.” Now how a lad from the Isle of Wight was taken into the bosom of the Genovese family makes fascinating reading, but for our present purposes, all we need know about Wilf is that he had a hard upbringing, and the survival skills he picked up during it were put to good use by Don Arden as a fixer of problems that sixties pop managers often had to face, like preventing rival managers from stealing your star bands.

  As a promoter on the Isle of Wight, Amen Corner was one of Wilf’s regular acts, but by the time they broke up, Alan Jones had had quite enough of screaming girls and wanted a go at being a serious muso, so together they persuaded Don to bankroll an outfit from the ashes of the Corner and another of his former hit bands, the Herd. The plan was for them to “get it together” in Wilf’s own quirky take on the country cottage, namely, a unit in the Warner Holiday Camp on the Isle of Wight. While Arden wasn’t totally sold on the idea, the out-of-season deal was cheap and Wilf had been an invaluable servant, so he let him have his way.

  Judas Jump refers to the alleged suicide of the man who took the forty pieces of silver, and there was something strangely prophetic in their choice of name. The nucleus was Jones with keyboardist Andy Bown and drummer Henry Spinetti from the Herd, all men who had tasted the froth of pop stardom and wanted something more artistically satisfying. On bass was a young Charlie Harrison, later of Poco, while their singer Adrian Williams was gigging in Hamburg with the Welsh band Pieces of Mind when he got the call. To avoid confusion between the two Williamses, the promo material referred to him as Adrian with no surname, and for seasoned musos intent on earning rock credibility, alarm bells should have started ringing at this point. However, a weekly retainer is a powerful gag, and they obviously chose to ignore the subtext in this PR move, which betrayed the fact that despite the burgeoning heavy rock movement, Arden’s organization was still firmly stuck in an early sixties pop mindset.

  The stint at Warner’s, dubbed “Stalag Wilf” by Spinetti, was meant to lick them into shape, though seemingly not much work was done, but with Arden’s hype machine grabbing them a front cover of the New Musical Express in February ’70, what did that matter? That month they appeared on the TV show Disco 2, BBC’s predecessor to The Old Grey Whistle Test, and were soon being tipped as the next hot thing. But tellingly, Pine decided they should make their debut in Belgium, far from the lizard eyes of the British music press. When this went well, they began playing gigs such as the Plumpton Festival headlined by Ginger Baker’s Airforce. Months of “getting it together” looked like paying off, and after a spurt of gigs, they headed into the studio to lay down an album, provocatively entitled Scorch.

  Sadly the most original thing about it was the cover, which featured shots of the band sprayed with gold paint. We searched these photos for a glimpse of Trevor’s Tele, but no joy. All the shots were moody poses, no doubt because Arden was still catering for that frenetic female fan base. Two formulaic singles then undermined their credibility with the heavy rock scene, but the tenacious Wilf had an ace left up his sleeve, for being a “local band,” he had landed them a spot as the opening act for that year’s Isle of Wight Festival.

  The year 1970 was seemingly the best-ever bash, with a lineup including Jethro Tull, Free, and the Who, but sadly for Judas Jump, they played on the Wednesday, so while they were battering out “Jumping Jack Flash,” most of the audience was still out on the road, hitching to the hallowed ground of East Afton Farm. And of course, the biggest headliner, who closed the show five days later, was the man from Seattle, now using that black Flying V. So here you have the highs and lows of rock music, two ends of the fame spectrum: Trevor opens, Hendrix closes. In no time, Judas Jump was a goner, but for Wilf Pine, they were but the first rung on a ladder that would eventually lead to the Genovese family, for after they split, he left Arden’s employ and soon after took under his wing a then unknown Birmingham band called Black Sabbath.

  So the question was, had Trevor been playing the “Purple Haze” Tele during this period? Neither Jones nor Spinetti could help me when I contacted them, but then I found an online article in the South Gwent Times reporting the reunion of sixties Swansea band Pieces of Mind, whose singer was one Adrian Williams, ex–Judas Jump front man. A call to the news desk got me through to reporter Andy Worthington who gave me the number of their guitarist John Reardon, and he in turn passed on Adrian’s e-mail address. It seemed that back then, Arden’s daughter, Sharon Osbourne, had been smitten with him, and as a variation on the “son-in-law also rises,” Adrian had gone into the music biz, first in the employ of Don, and then later with Sony, where he rose through the ranks. Now retired and living in Spain, he got right back to say he’d never seen Trevor with a Tele, as he’d always played a Les Paul. So there it was. It seemed the window of opportunity for Trevor divesting himself of the “Purple Haze” Tele now came down to that brief three-month period in ’69 after the Joint split and before he joined Judas Jump, in other words, those Arcadian days in Noel’s house in Aldington.

  But leaving aside the ongoing Quest, our researches had thrown up another strange little coincidence, for just twenty-four hours after Trevor did the Isle of Wight gig, it seemed that two more ex–Lonely Ones entered the same heady arena, though only one of them actually appeared onstage. The other, Andy Andrews, was at the sound desk mixing for the outfit that he and Sam had helped to phoenix from the ashes of the Joint the year before, and on keyboards was the man he’d recommended on that post-Marquee taxi ride, whose band was called Supertramp. (Remember the interesting footnote on the Kentgigs website? Well this is it.) In that letter Sam had written to his lawyer after the Marquee debacle, he says that Rick Davies is by far the most musically talented member of the band, and for that reason, he intends to back him in a new venture.

  Now given David Llewelyn’s offhand comments about Rick being an okay drummer with a one-handed keyboard style, this may come as a surprise; but in life it’s not always the most gifted people who get to the top but rather those who are prepared to do whatever it take
s to get there, and Andy and Sam had obviously seen this quality in Rick. That said, it’s one thing to invest huge amounts of time and money in a band that’s close to being the finished article; it’s quite another to finance someone who plans to create one from scratch by putting an ad in the Melody Maker. So although the Supertramp story is not strictly part of our Quest, it’s such a fascinating tale that I hope you’ll indulge me whilst I take a brief detour.

  Auditions at the Cabin in Shepherds Bush, London, in August ’69 lasted several days, and the chosen guitarist, Richard Palmer, said that when he saw the queues, his first thought was that 10 percent of Londoners must be unemployed musos. The drum stool would have more bums on it than the beveled steps of the National Gallery, but it was with the recruitment of the bass player that Rick showed his acuity. Roger Hodgson was a guitarist with a distinctive high voice, but he was also a songwriter, and for Rick to recognize that two of this breed is better than one shows a real lack of ego. It has to be said that Rick made an inspired choice, for with contrasting styles, he and Roger complemented each other perfectly, giving their albums just the right amount of light and shade, sonically and architecturally.

  By July ’69, they had moved to their own country cottage, Botolph’s Bridge House, in the rural bliss of West Hythe in Kent. Across the road was the local pub whose Irish landlady would phone them up to complain if they rehearsed after 10:00 p.m., and behind them was a hill with a Saxon Castle where Roger would go with his guitar, often returning with two or three new songs. This location came courtesy of Andy, who as a local boy knew the area well, though he was unaware that Trevor was staying with Noel nearby in Aldington. Andy was now acting as general factotum, sound mixer, and personal manager, and like the rest of the four piece, receiving the sum of £9 per week, though with bed and board, this was less frugal than it sounds. They had inherited the Binson PA together with that white Gibson SG-type Les Paul Custom—only it had a damaged neck, and though Palmer seemingly tried to get it repaired, in the end it proved unplayable.

  In December ’69, they played the Club Etonnoir in Geneva and, while there, recorded the demos that landed them a recording deal with A&M. At this point, Palmer was the lyricist for most of the songs, and he came up with their name, inspired by the memoirs of the Welsh hobo, William Henry Davies, entitled Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. Palmer would leave in 1970 and go on to write lyrics for King Crimson, but when the band played their big gig at the Isle of Wight, things were on the up, with their first album just out. Coincidentally, Tony Burfield, the booker who landed the Lonely Ones that deal with Galaxy in ’67, was in the A&R department and took a proprietary interest in his old clients.

  The band then moved into Tir-Na-Nog, a house in Surrey, and while the name exuded the hippy ideal of eternal youth, it seems the carpets were permanently damp and the vibes not good. Only Rick and Roger were left from the first lineup, so yet more auditions took place, and replacements found, but the original spirit had dissipated, and by the end of 1970, Andy was running on empty. The exit door opened when Sam told him he was awarding him 10 percent of the management company, which he was happy to hear, till he discovered that Sam’s tax advisor and music publisher were both on 20 percent. After all the work he had done, this smacked of the sort of ingratitude he had seen in the Joint at the Marquee, and much as he loved Rick and Roger, he decided it was time for him to quit.

  At first, Rick tried hard to dissuade him, but Andy had had enough and headed to Munich where he made an album’s worth of material with Richard Palmer. But even after his departure, the deep-pocketed Sam remained true to the dream, and so a third incarnation of the band released a second album, entitled Indelibly Stamped. Incredibly, this new lineup also disintegrated, and another set of members arrived through the revolving audition door. But even now, four years and God knows how many thousands of Sam’s pounds into the process, success was still over the horizon, and with no end in sight, their patron finally pulled the financial plug. Forgiving all the debts the band had run up, he quit in October ’72. Luckily, A&M had a huge amount invested in the band and still had faith in them, so they stepped into the breach, taking over management. However, it would be two years before Rick and company made it big with Crime of the Century.

  So there you have the rollercoaster that is the ride of fame. A few stay on, but by the law of averages, the vast majority will fall off, and just a tiny quirk of fate can make the difference either way. My band was on the circuit at the same time as Supertramp and had been riding a real high up to that moment when my E string snapped, but as I said at the beginning, hubris was waiting in the wings. Just a month earlier, we had flown from that New York debut to share the bill with Lindisfarne at Charisma’s German launch in Hamburg, and after a successful gig, the distributors Phonogram threw a lavish party in a luxurious villa on the shores of a light-streamed lake. Then, returning on the ferry to Newcastle, we teamed up with Lindisfarne’s road crew and drank the bar dry of cider and champagne. All in all it had been a very good year!

  But a couple of weeks later, just the other side of our Christmas break, on that fateful night when the Marquee gig fell apart, hubris finally caught up with me. Still stinging from the humiliation, I got pissed in Soho and, staggering out of the taxi, decided to gain entry to our terraced house in Tottenham by punching the glass panel out of our front door. The doctor in the emergency room sewed up the gash on my plectrum thumb without any anesthetic and told me the self-inflicted injury would rule out playing for at least a week. I lay for seven days in a bedroom heated by an electric convector, with the proverbial sore digit throbbing merrily away, and who knows, maybe I dried out the atmosphere in there so much that the next stage of my descent into hell was virtually guaranteed.

  Of course, it could have had something to do with the deep breath that I took when I accidentally drenched my privates with ice-cold water on the morning that I finally emerged from the desiccated bedroom. Either way, the pain that began to creep slowly up my lower back told me I had done myself a mischief. Coincidentally, I had had these same symptoms described to me over Christmas by a friend who had suffered what he termed a “spontaneous pneumothorax” (collapsed lung), which had gone undiagnosed for some time. Forearmed, as they say, I set out for the same hospital where my thumb had lately been sewn up, only to sit around for an hour in the emergency room. Finally, fearing for my immediate future, I grabbed a passing nurse and uttered the magic phrase “spontaneous pneumothorax.” This medical abracadabra soon had me in front of a doctor. He percussed my chest and declared my prognosis correct.

  “Are you a medical man?” he asked.

  I said no and explained the coincidence, whereupon he set out the alternative remedies. Basically I could convalesce and let the lung reflate by itself, a process that would take a month, or they could bore a hole through my chest and let the trapped air escape through a tube into a bottle of fluid. Either way, the lung would repair itself, but the latter process might take a week or so less. The choice was mine. I told him we were opening for Genesis at the Rainbow in three weeks time, so there was no contest. He smiled and arranged for me to have the procedure done on the ward. Minutes later I walked unaided into the men’s ward and got into a bed, whereupon a team arrived, pulled the curtains shut, and took out what appeared to be a common or garden wood drill with a quarter-inch bit. They needed my cooperation, they said, so it would only be a local anesthetic. Fine, I said, and lay back as two doctors, one male, one female, began to take it in turns to bore a hole through my chest.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were still at it. I tried to keep the mood light by cracking jokes, like how Errol Flynn had never had this trouble. One thrust of his trusty blade was all he needed. The team, and the medical onlookers, who now numbered about ten, all laughed, as the female doctor bore down through the flesh, her knee up on the mattress to get more purchase. Then suddenly she was through, to a gasp of relief from the onlookers, and withdrawing the drill bit, she began insert
ing a rubber tube into the hole, at which point it stopped being funny. I screamed in agony as the end of the tube touched the wall of my ruptured lung, and to quell the wailing, they decided I would benefit from a shot of morphine.

  A few minutes later they opened the curtains, and perhaps not surprisingly I now found the other patients on the ward staring wide-eyed at the sight that greeted them. Remember, I had walked in seemingly healthy, only thirty minutes ago; the curtains had then closed, and there had been a good deal of laughter, then a piercing scream, and now here I was, a delicate shade of grey, covered in sweat, with an orange tube running from my chest into a large bottle on the floor. If they were freaked out, you can imagine how I felt.

  “Oh,” said the doctor to a nurse, as he turned to leave. “Make sure the cleaners don’t lift the bottle up above the height of the bed or the patient might drown!”

  I remember thinking that this little off-the-cuff remark should have totally wiped me out, but strangely it didn’t seem to impact me the way it should have. Perhaps I was now past caring, and it was at this precise moment as I tried to weigh these two disconnects that I became aware of the morphine kicking in, and as I sank oh, so slowly into a wonderfully warm inviting sleep, suddenly I realized why my old buddy Brian Dempse had got himself registered.

  Chapter 14

  The Hendrix Expert

  So let’s pause for a moment to ask ourselves what all the participants in this tale, including the millionaire Sam, were chasing. After all, he had a gorgeous wife, a house on Lake Geneva, and more money than the rest of us could ever hope to earn, yet like us, it seemed he was in pursuit of something beyond the mere physical.

  In the end, the answer had to be another sort of Holy Grail, which in rock business terms would translate into attaining fame. But though most of us who entered that race were talented, resourceful, and ambitious, we could not all succeed, any more than a gambler can. Many were called, but few would be chosen, for in the end, the odds were against us. But just as the gambler is addicted to the adrenalin that the fear of losing creates, it seemed we were all afflicted by a gene that wouldn’t let us live with the idea of being a nonentity. And this gene had obviously blinded us to the sad fact that we were spending our young lives in pursuit of something so ephemeral that it might well slip through our fingers even as we grasped it.