The Grail Guitar

by Chris Adams

  One thing did quickly emerge, however. He could remember much more about the ladies in his life than he could about the guitars. There was Marina in Rome, Nora in Munich, Lillian in Geneva—this one pulled me up short, for though Andy had mentioned the politically suicidal affair with Sam’s wife, I hadn’t expected Trevor to simply come out with it like that. But the blatancy with which he admitted it had a sense of hapless innocence, as if he just couldn’t help himself and you shouldn’t stop liking him for his little peccadilloes. In fact, it seemed he had also been carrying on a liaison with Lillian’s best friend, a Belgian beauty with a pilot’s license.

  “She used to take me up in the plane,” he said, “and we’d fly down to France.” There was a little sigh as the memories came floating up. “Chris, back then I was a playboy!”

  But never one to be blown off course by an unexpected wind, I dragged him back to the mundane matter in hand. Just what could he remember about buying the guitar from Noel?

  “I didn’t buy it, Man. I swapped it.”

  “Do you remember what for?”

  At this point he couldn’t but said that Noel had actually covered this in his book.

  “You mean the famous two-pickup Gibson?”

  “That could have been it, yeah.”

  So was it possible that Trevor had bought such a Gibson after Ian Taylor left the Lonely Ones and then swapped it for the Tele? The sound of distant surf came down the line, so I tried another tack. Did he remember the night that Noel appeared to borrow it back for the Olympic session?

  “Oh yeah, I knew he wanted it for Jimi.”

  So this was the actual horse’s mouth urtext. Being on a relative roll I asked if he could recall who had painted it. Negative. In fact, he wasn’t even sure that it hadn’t already been painted when he got it, but as this flew in the face of everything we’d learned, I quickly moved on. Did he remember staying with Noel at his house in Aldington?

  “Oh yeah, after the Joint broke up; I remember I was left with a tenner.”

  There was a clue here for future conversations. Money matters might just jog his memory. So had he had the psychedelic Tele in Aldington? This brought the boom of yet more faraway white horses, but through it came a clear memory of playing the white Les Paul SG bought for him by Sam, whilst back in London with the Joint.

  “That was a lovely guitar!”

  I caught a whiff of subtext: was it possible that the Tele hadn’t been a luxurious-enough item for him to recall its going?

  “So is it possible that you traded the Telecaster in for it?”

  “No way, Man. I bought it in a secondhand shop in Zurich. I remember the neck had been damaged and it had been repaired.”

  “So did you still have the Tele when you moved in with Noel at Aldington?”

  He thought about this for a moment.

  “It’s feasible, Man. But I can’t say for sure. I’ve had so many guitars in my time. I’ve had Burnses and Rickenbackers and Gibsons . . .”

  I decided to take a different tack.

  “So do you remember NuNu?”

  “Of course, the drummer. Haven’t seen him for years.”

  We moved on to Judas Jump and the Disco 2 appearance. This got a more promising reaction. It seemed he even had a photo of the session, with him playing guitar and singing. He would look it out. So here we had a possible lead, because if Adrian Williams was right and he wasn’t playing the Tele at this point, it meant he must have got rid of it during the Aldington period. I ticked “Disco 2” and moved on to the next item.

  “So how about the Isle of Wight Festival?”

  “I think I might have been playing another Gibson, Man, but the fact is, I just don’t remember any details. It’s all gone.”

  We spent the next fifteen minutes talking about his present circumstances, which he himself termed “a battle with the bottle,” having split up with his most recent partner because of it, and in that context, he would throw in little tidbits of his post–Judas Jump life: a country album recorded in Texas with some of the Allman Brothers Band sessioning; a Scandinavian producer who absconded with the tapes; and an injunction that prevented its release. And all the while, he was seemingly traveling round the world: the States, Australia, and Europe. So now, understandably, he was just worn out. He summed it up succinctly in a line that Andy had also used: “Guys like Rick Davies and Keith Bailey were in it for the music, Man, but we were just in it for the fun and the crumpet (women).” And it sounded as if he’d had a great deal of both.

  We ended the conversation on the basis that I could phone him again, and I rang off with the impression that toward the end of our chat, he’d actually been warming to the task, as one vague memory evoked the next, like a series of toppling dominoes. Then, a few days later, I got a call from Andy, and the news he brought of Trevor was not good. It seemed that he’d been mugged on the way back from the pub one evening and had the contents of his wallet stolen. When I phoned Andy again in mid-May, Trevor was now in hospital, this time due to a drink-related fall. There were no broken bones, but he was badly shaken up, though we both agreed that a spell in care might be just what he needed. And so it turned out, for next time Andy spoke to him, he was off the “sauce” and seemingly sounding much more like his old self. I waited a few days before phoning him, hoping that the alcoholic clouds that had been affecting his memory were now lifting.

  It was obvious from the outset that this was the case. He was much more lucid and happy to talk about events such as the electrocution in Rome and the scar that he still bears on his thumb where the bottom E string burnt right down to the bone, describing how it began to bleed continuously when he started trying to play again. As for the ensuing trip over the Alps, he recalled vividly the story of how he had repaid the debt to Martin: “I remember I was lying back with my feet up and the guys were all sleeping; then I suddenly realized that Martin’s head was beginning to droop, and I screamed at him. Just as well, or we would have been over the edge!”

  So as we were on a bit of a roll, I brought up the subject of the Tele and asked if he could remember how and when he’d disposed of it. Immediately he responded to the prompt: “I remember being in a club one night with Noel watching Ginger Baker, and we swapped guitars. I gave Noel the Tele, and in return, I got a Fender Jazzmaster, which wasn’t much of a guitar.”

  So was this round about the time he stayed with Noel in Aldington?

  “It would be, Man, ’cause it was after the Joint broke up.”

  Knowing that this was another vital piece of the jigsaw, I asked if he had had the psychedelic paintwork removed before this, but that was a bridge too far, for the clouds that had parted so briefly now closed, occluding the bright orb of memory. But the main thing was, we now knew for certain that the “Purple Haze” Telecaster had returned to its original owner, and this could mean only one thing, namely, that Noel had taken the Tele to sell on, most likely to a source that would appreciate its merits.

  Here it’s vital to remember that Noel had always been the fixer in the Experience. He and Gerry Stickells were still mates, and in his book he actually says that Gerry called him after the Isle of Wight gig to ask if he’d be interested in coming back on board. Naturally the answer was in the affirmative, for Noel was desperate to get his old job back, and during this exile period he needed reasons to stay in touch with members of the Hendrix camp on a regular basis. Most importantly, Jimi Hendrix had used this same guitar before, and the results he had got from it spoke for themselves. For all these reasons, I believe that sometime in the spring of 1970, Noel Redding sold the psychedelic Tele on to the Experience road crew.

  Chapter 23

  Lonely Intersections

  A few weeks after Martin Vinson’s death, I received sad news about David Llewelyn. In the final analysis, it wasn’t unexpected, for the last time I’d phoned him, to tell him about Martin, he was actually breathing with the aid of an oxygen mask. But even so, he had exuded such an air of vitality tha
t it was hard to believe such a force of nature had simply been snuffed out. Everyone we’d talked to had remarked upon his boundless enthusiasm, and Andy Andrews had told me how he would often conduct the band in the studio, as if they were a symphony orchestra, painting this image of the young composer standing in front of Keith Bailey’s drum kit, eyes closed, and arms flailing away in an attempt to convey some hidden percussive emotion.

  But while Keith and Steve Joliffe had cited him as a pivotal influence in their musical development, Martin had related a very un-PC story of David walking into a Munich restaurant and giving a salute, which might have been commonplace in such an establishment in the midthirties. Even after four decades, you could hear the embarrassment in Martin’s voice as he relived the event; and it was this Rubik’s Cube of contradictions that defined David as a fearless eccentric. We’d never met face-to-face, but I felt as though I knew him from our phone calls and that video excerpt with the famous Russian pianist, when totally unfazed by the younger man’s celebrity, he had agreed that one specific passage was indeed wonderfully written but would sound even better when it was played properly!

  So both he and Martin had joined the ranks of those no longer with us, and it occurred to me that if Eric Barnett hadn’t goaded me into starting this Quest, much of what we’d learned over the past two years might have died with them. Had we waited just a few more months, many of the trails we’d followed would have hit dead ends and the studio photo of Trevor playing the “Purple Haze” Tele would never have surfaced. So even though I’d waited all of forty years to follow up that chance remark in Sound City, it seemed we had started just in time to rescue this little piece of rock history for posterity, which just goes to show that it’s not only the world of crime fiction that can provide neat endings.

  But in all decent detective stories, the quality of the tale owes as much to the lives of the participants as to the process of gathering clues. In the course of our researches, we had hooked up a number of people in the Lonely Ones saga, for the once-close band of brothers had gone their separate ways and spent the next four decades in pursuit of their own dreams and ambitions. We knew that of the six young men who played David Llewelyn’s “game of fame” in Munich in ’68, only Rick Davies had achieved stardom, but while Andy had lived a happy, prosperous life, Trevor Williams had never really emerged from the rock ’n’ roll dream and was now intent on drowning his demons. But what of the other two in that 1967 Blaises lineup, Keith and Martin? How had they spent the intervening years?

  If you recall, Martin was the first to quit the band, but the music bug never leaves you. It’s like malaria. You think you’re cured, sickened by the meager returns for so much spiritual pain, and then you go to a gig and that old creative energy sweeps through you. In Martin’s case, the outlet was songwriting, and by 1977 this had led to the involvement of a character from an earlier chapter, the former Stones manager, Andrew Oldham. He liked Martin’s songs and got him a publishing deal with Karlin Music; then when a gig came up in Rome backing the Italian folk singer Francesco de Gregori, he invited him to come along and play session guitar. Now if you remember, the Eternal City had certain connotations for Martin. He had spent his twenty-first birthday there, watching snow fall in early May, and of course, it was here that Trevor had been electrocuted, grasping the psychedelic Tele. But no self-respecting muso turns down a session, so off he went, and when he arrived, who should the drummer be but Mitch Mitchell!

  So here were two musos whose lives had gone in different directions. For Martin, this was a big event, whilst Mitch was simply back to being a journeyman. Of course, had Jimi Hendrix lived, there’s no way Mitchell would ever have had to do this kind of session. After Hendrix’s death, he was much sought after in the progressive scene, and he worked with the who’s who of seventies rock, from Jack Bruce to Jeff Beck. This was all top-end stuff, a fusion of heavy rock and jazz, so artistically it was demanding, but financially it was not rewarding, for without the magic Hendrix name on the hoardings, there were no big bucks. All of which explains why he was in Rome to back the Italian Bob Dylan and, for that matter, why two of Jimi’s Teles had already fetched up in Soho shops.

  And what of the man who could have had the Hendrix drum seat, Keith Bailey? Well he was only twenty when Sam stubbed out the Joint, and while Trevor was crashing with Noel Redding in Aldington, Keith’s savior was a buddy from Swindon, who put him up in his London flat. “I had helped Ray perform his peculiar ‘Gilbert O’Sullivan’ thing in a video we made in Munich for German TV so he was grateful to me, as this was his first recognition. He was a friendly ‘older’ brother, full of encouragement. We watched the moon landing together.”

  So while Neil Armstrong was stepping out of the capsule, back on Earth, Keith was trying to decide what to do next. But as the last summer of the sixties passed in this haze of reflection, it was Ray Walton who got him to reengage with reality. “He got me to check the Melody Maker for any openings. Eventually there came an advert that Graham Bond was back from the States and looking to form a new band. Ray encouraged me to apply for it, which I did.”

  Bond was a legend on the London blues scene, a Hammond player whose previous outfit had included Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and John McLaughlin. At the time of the MM advert, he was temporarily domiciled in Cambridge, to keep him away from old drug haunts in the capital, but during his two-year stint in the States, he had been working with the likes of Harvey Mandel and Dr. John, so young Keith was nothing if not ambitious.

  “At the audition, bassist Steve York showed up, and the three of us just played and played. Eventually we finished, and Graham said the gig was mine. I was overjoyed, as he’d already tried out dozens of drummers!”

  But the virtuoso Bond was also heavily into “magick,” and for anyone familiar with the esoteric, that extra k can mean only one thing, to wit, Aleister Crowley. Space and context prevent a description of this extraordinary individual, but suffice it to say this was the start of Keith’s change of lifepath, with the appropriately named Graham Bond Initiation.

  Graham was a very enlightened person, and we became very close. He introduced me to the spiritual approach to music, which he had done for the likes of John McLaughlin. I had been always questing the deeper mysteries of sound and its relationship to spiritual teachings, and Graham provided the key. I remain grateful to him for his teaching. He and I used to sit up to all hours on our gigs and in hotels, and he would fill my little head with wonders.

  Keith’s comments may seem opaque, but at the higher end of the energy spectrum, language is all but useless, so by teaching the art of such expression through music, Bond was obviously intent on creating a different kind of ladder. “That earlier period of life experience informed every move I’ve made since. Just as Graham was a catalyst for John McLaughlin, he was also that for me. We have gone different ways, but John’s period with the Tony Williams Lifetime and with Miles Davies was perhaps his most fruitful period of expression and all thanks to Graham! This cannot be denied.”

  Bond was to die under the wheels of a London tube train in 1974, at age thirty-six, and though clean of drugs, seemingly he’d become obsessed by the notion that he was Crowley’s son. Certainly he never knew his parents, having grown up in an orphanage, so maybe the blank page of genetics was now being filled by his subconscious desires. But as Bond moved ever deeper into darkness, Keith headed upward from his initiation into light and, as we shall see, would one day achieve a unique outcome inspired by these teachings.

  So as we’re in the throes of reflection, what of my own fleeting flirtation with fame? Well as it happens, our band had one more shot at the big time through the classic route of the 45 single. If you recall, after hearing our Gothic album, The Machine That Cried, Charisma owner Tony Stratton Smith (“Strat”) had decreed that we must demo all our songs, no doubt to find the elusive hit that would transform us into his latest shining stars. But by mid-1973, I was starting to feel like a pawn in his mendacious ga
me, a notion that did not sit comfortably with my persona of dedicated artist. So when we hit Glasgow in July and got a break from the grind of touring, the song that popped out of my subconscious could not have been more apposite.

  We demoed “The Game” in a studio owned by a friend of mine called Brian Young, and everyone agreed that the chorus was infectious. In keeping with the music-biz truism that says, “Sell the hook as often as you can,” I repeated the chorus line “It’s a Game” ad infinitum. I also discovered that using a combination of the Tele and the Epiphone produced a rich, dark texture, which Graham offset with a bowing technique called automatic spiccato, an effect that lent the track an insistent rhythmic edge. Back in London, Strat liked the demo and told us to get right into the studio. But there was a problem. It seemed our producer Shel Talmy was on holiday on a Greek island. Undeterred, I persuaded Strat to let us go into IBC Studios by ourselves, with our regular engineer, Damon Lyon Shaw.

  Using the captured-performance technique that Shel favored, we started the session at noon, and six hours later the track was in the can, in this case not just recorded and mixed but also mastered. This last stage was crucial in getting the finished product to sound as close as possible to the final mix as it involved cutting a master disc, and IBC were one of the few studios with this facility in house. Things can go badly wrong at this stage, as Hendrix had found when he sent his master tapes of Electric Ladyland to the Warner Brothers cutting room and got back a nasty-sounding acetate with “Electric Landlady” scrawled on the label.