Starman

by Paul Trynka

  Born Richard Penniman, the most controversial, genre-busting early rock ‘n’ roller would make a potent touchstone. Many of David’s contemporaries, like The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, would cite Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry as their heroes; they represented authentic blues, forged deep in the Mississippi Delta. Little Richard was a city boy: he had made his name in New Orleans, studying outrageous performers like Guitar Slim and Esquerita, hanging out in a camp, cross-dressing scene where fur-coated queens competed to deliver the best impressions of Dinah Washington or Sarah Vaughan. His records were a far cry from Muddy’s deep, soulful songs of yearning or sexual bravado: they were mini-explosions of sound, cranked up using the city’s best session men and designed to pack in the maximum thrills possible within the two minutes and thirty seconds allowed by the South’s jukebox operators. Richard Penniman didn’t only rely on his innate musicianship, or thrilling voice: he packaged his music in outrageous showmanship and brightly coloured suits. Later he would come out as gay; eventually he would find God; much later, David Bowie’s wife would buy one of Richard’s suits for her husband. Throughout all those years, David Jones would treasure the first Little Richard records he bought, on Bromley High Street. Elvis Presley would be another idol – all the more so when David discovered he shared a birthday with the ultimate white rock ‘n’ roll icon – but Little Richard would be the cornerstone of David’s musical identity.

  Little Richard’s primacy was confirmed when he became the first American rock ‘n’ roll star to be beamed into the homes of British television viewers, on 16 February, 1957, when the BBC unveiled its momentous Six-Five Special, a TV show aimed at teenagers which included segments of classical music, dance competitions and a short extract from the movie Don’t Knock the Rock, with Richard performing ‘Tutti Frutti’. Over the next few weeks the programme would feature more Little Richard, British rockers Tommy Steele and Adam Faith plus, tellingly, Lonnie Donegan.

  Like many British teenagers, David Jones and George Underwood idolised Little Richard, but copied Lonnie Donegan. Today Donegan’s music is comparatively neglected, but the influence of his DIY ethos lives on in British music from The Beatles to the Sex Pistols. Donegan’s take on American performers like Lead Belly was gloriously naive – his music was made on the simplest of instruments and his technical deficiencies were part of his charm. It could take a schoolboy years of practice to emulate Little Richard or Chuck Berry, but you could attempt Lonnie’s brand of skiffle after a few afternoons. Donegan’s home-grown skiffle signalled the end of the UK’s outdated dance culture and inspired a generation of British rock ‘n’ rollers, among them the eleven-year-old Jones and Underwood. For all the kids raised in post-war austerity, this was a moment they’d somehow anticipated, for years. ‘We’d waited and waited for something fabulous to happen,’ says George Underwood. ‘And it did happen. That was the catalyst. And from then on, music was the one thing we talked about constantly.’

  At Burnt Ash, there were a couple of kids who’d become known as rock ‘n’ roll fans – Ian Carfrae, later of the New Vaudeville Band, was admonished by the headmaster for bringing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ into 1955’s Christmastime ‘gramophone-listening’ sessions. But while David eventually became the better-known, it was George Underwood who got his rock ‘n’ roll act together before everyone else. He’d already bought a huge Hofner acoustic guitar and formed a duo with a family friend by the time he met David, who owned a ukulele and had a burning desire to be in a band. Roughly a year after they’d first met, the two travelled down to the 18th Cub Scouts Summer Camp on the Isle of Wight, in the summer of 1958. ‘We put a washboard bass in the back of the van, and David’s ukulele, and between us we managed to conjure up a couple of songs around the camp fire. And that was our first public performance. Neither of us had any claim to virtuosity – but we wanted to sing.’

  That tentative first show, with David strumming and George singing, was not the only rite of passage that year. The previous autumn David had sat his 11-plus, the crucial exam that would determine his future school. The Burnt Ash pupils were well prepared, and under the gimlet eye of David’s respected and feared teacher, Mrs Baldry, David and most of his friends passed. The rigid pecking order of schools in the area started with Beckenham and Bromley Grammar at the top, followed by Bromley Technical School – which had opened in 1959 and was aimed at future commercial artists and engineers – with Quernmore Secondary Modern languishing in the rear. Later in life, David would advise one of his closest friends to ‘do the contrary action’ and he first did that himself at the age of eleven. Though David’s results were good enough for the grammar school, against all expectations, he opted for Bromley Tech, and talked his parents into supporting his decision.

  Some of the inspiration for this precociously unconventional move undoubtedly came from George Underwood, who was also heading for Bromley Tech. The Tech’s links with the nearby Bromley College of Art also meant that he would join a wider community, of the art school kids who would ultimately come to define post-war Britain. Contemporaries and near neighbours, like the Stones’ Keith Richards and The Pretty Things’ Dick Taylor – ‘the war babies’, as Richards would describe them – were already embarked on the same course. The notion that a generation of kids could make a living via art was novel, born of the radical reworking of the British educational system in 1944. The art college system provided the foundation of Britain’s future influence on art, advertising, publishing, movies and fashion. As countless former pupils point out, art college taught them that, rather than working in an office or factory, youths could make a living with merely ‘ideas’. This freedom was all the more powerful for being combined with an unrelenting post-war work ethic. ‘We understood then,’ says David’s friend, Dorothy Bass, ‘that after your two years at art college, you would have to pay your dues.’

  Bromley Tech had moved to a new site alongside Bromley College of Art just one year earlier, and with its airy concrete-and-glass building, it seemed modern and forward looking. Yet its structure aped the English public school, with pupils organised into houses, and some teachers dressed in capes and mortar boards for formal assemblies, to which Catholic or Jewish pupils were not invited. Every morning, David and his friends sang Victorian-era hymns like ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and murmured ‘amen’ in response to prayers for the Royal Family and other pillars of the establishment.

  For all the formality of Bromley Tech, the quality of teaching was variable – with the exception of the art department, which was housed in a custom-designed building with north-facing windows to give better natural light for painting. Owen Frampton, the head of the department, was undoubtedly the school’s best-liked teacher. He was enthusiastic – David describes him as ‘an excellent art teacher and an inspiration’ – but no pushover. Owen, or ‘Ossy’, not only had a superb eye for art, but could also unerringly spot mischief, says John Edmonds, a student who recalls he once threw a snowball at a teacher, unobserved, only to learn later, when pulled out of class, that the beady-eyed Head of Art had seen the incident. ‘I did gain a respect both for his eyesight, and his skills with the slipper,’ he recalls, ruefully.

  Frampton was a man of eclectic background and tastes: he had served in the Royal Artillery in wartime; designed wallpaper for the Sanderson company; could explain, in inspiring terms, both classical and modern art (David would mention him as the source of his interest in the painter Egon Schiele) and also played guitar, as did his son Peter, who enrolled at Bromley Tech in 1961. Peter, David and George soon became well known around the school. George and David found a spot in the stairwell which had a natural echo and used it as an informal practice space: ‘My big hero was Buddy Holly and although David wasn’t a big fan we used to do Buddy Holly numbers,’ says George. ‘David was a great harmoniser, so we used to work on a lot of that material together, by the stairs.’ Peter used to sit on the school steps with a guitar, showing kids how to play Shadows or Ventures riffs,
and started calling himself Paul Raven.

  David paid rapt attention during Owen’s art classes, sketching with charcoals or simply hanging out in the art department, but year-by-year his interest in other subjects declined, to the point that, in his third year, his school report described him as ‘a pleasant idler’. At fourteen, he had succumbed to the obsessions that would define the years to come: music and girls. He would feed both these addictions after school, in a quintessentially suburban location on Bromley High Street: Medhurst’s department store, a huge Victorian building that sold furniture and other household goods and also boasted one of south London’s best gramophone departments. Housed in a long, narrow corridor, the gramophone section was overseen by a discreetly gay couple named Charles and Jim. Although they stocked the customary chart hits and sheet music, they were also aficionados of modern jazz music and specialised in American imports. David soon turned up most afternoons after school to check out new releases at their listening booth. His interest in music had become an obsession, and as time went on, his tastes would become more and more eclectic – encouraged by Terry, his record collection expanded to include jazz releases by Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus. Soon he gained the status of a regular and Jim, the younger of the two partners, would let him have records at a discount, as would Jane Green, the assistant. She soon ‘took a liking’ to David. ‘Whenever I would pop in, which was most afternoons after school, she’d let me play records in the “sound booth” to my heart’s content till they closed at 5.30. Jane would often join me and we would smooch big-time to the sounds of Ray Charles or Eddie Cochran. This was very exciting as I was thirteen or fourteen, and she would be a womanly seventeen at that time. My first older woman.’

  The Medhurst’s gramophone booth became a prime hangout for many teenagers seeking glamour on Bromley High Street. In this small world, the arrival of an Indian curry house in the early sixties was an event of seismic importance, as was the opening of two Wimpy coffee bars shortly afterwards, one in north and one in south Bromley. The teenagers would hang out in the library gardens, south of the market square, trying to look cool in their mostly shabby clothes: the girls wore black pullovers from Marks and Spencer – the nearest they could get to a Parisian beat look – while David would take trips into town in search of ‘Italian trousers’. These rebels with a cause included David, George Underwood and Geoff MacCormack and they were also occasionally joined by a merchant seaman named Richard Dendy, who brought back obscure records from New York, and Dorothy Bass, who went out briefly with George – their relationship mainly inspired by their shared love of music. George was charming and good-looking remembers Dorothy, and well known around Bromley, ‘but not pushy, not “look-at-me”. Neither was David … really,’ she continues, ‘but he was really driven. David shows the difference between someone who’s good and someone who devotes their life to what they believe in.’

  Nearly all the Bromley Tech pupils from this time seem to recall George and David as a pair, and of the two, George is the better remembered. He was ebullient, lovable, expansive; David was cool – people noticed his clothes, his hair, his possessions, mostly, rather than his personality. In later years, when his first band became known around school, he was kind to younger kids, but several of his contemporaries share the impression of Len Routledge, who remembers, ‘I think I envied him, or resented him, as kids do. Because he had a better lifestyle than us, and a father who’d bring him things some of us could never expect: a full American football kit, the saxophone etc. I genuinely admired what he achieved … but the comfortable circumstances of his life contrasted sharply with me, and many of the other boys.’

  The contrast with the Jones’ previously modest lifestyle was stark. As Haywood progressed in his career at Barnardo’s, the one area where he was generous – profligate, even – with money was David. A few friends remember David’s acquisition of his American football gear, but even more of them noticed David conspicuously brandishing a saxophone around the Tech. Originally he’d wanted a baritone sax, but he had to settle for a Grafton alto, a cheaper, but nonetheless glamorous, cream plastic Art-Deco concoction, which Haywood bought him around 1960. For a short time, David managed to ‘blag’ lessons with baritone player Ronnie Ross, who’d played with the bandleader Ted Heath and other big bands, and lived nearby. Although the musical value of the eight or so lessons was probably negligible, Ronnie’s value for name-dropping purposes was incalculable, and probably helped David score a Saturday morning job at Furlong’s, the record and instrument store in Bromley South. This little music shop, run by a pipe-smoking, trumpet-playing trad jazz fan, was a Mecca in Bromley’s tiny musical landscape, its noticeboard providing a hotline to news of local bands’ formation and dissolution, while David’s new role – of turning customers on to ‘new sounds’ – helped fuel a new credibility in the music community and, just as crucially, with local girls.

  Even though peers like George Underwood overshadowed David as a musician, his confidence got him noticed. The most celebrated example was when the Tech pupils embarked on what was, for almost everyone, their first foray outside England – a school trip to Spain over the Easter holidays in 1960. Many families couldn’t afford the trip, but David was one of the first, and the youngest, to sign up. The small troupe took the ferry to Dieppe, then a coach all the way to Spain. There, they watched a bullfight, goggled at Franco’s armed militia and moaned about the spicy foreign food. The other kids exchanged smiles, or played football with the Spanish kids; Jones spent much of the day with the local talent, ‘off chatting to the girls,’ classmate Richard Comben remembers. David’s prowess was commemorated in the school magazine’s reference to ‘Don Jones, the lover, last seen pursued by thirteen senoritas’.

  David describes his behaviour once he’d discovered girls as ‘terrible’, a quintessential smooth operator. But as far as Bromley’s female population were concerned, he was anything but, says Jan Powling: ‘He was nice, charming – not at all any kind of show-off.’ She knew David from Burnt Ash Junior and, around their third year at secondary school, David asked her out on a date. As was traditional, he phoned Mr Powling to ask for his permission a day or two before the outing, which at some point became a double date. So it was a group of four teenagers who took the 94 bus to the Bromley Odeon cinema: David’s moral support was Nick, a Bromley Tech acquaintance, while Jan was accompanied by Deirdre, her friend from Burnt Ash Secondary girls school. It was unfortunate, reflects Jan, that Deirdre was one of the most popular girls in her year, with a blonde bob and trendy clothes. By the end of the evening, David departed arm-in-arm with Deirdre, while Jan had been paired off with Nicholas. ‘But I don’t blame David,’ she adds, generously, ‘she was one of the prettiest girls we knew.’

  Not everyone was as forgiving of David’s emerging jack-the-lad behaviour. One example of David’s duplicity would become famous in Bromley Tech folklore, and subsequently in rock ‘n’ roll history, for it would leave David marked out: an outward sign of what was later taken to be his alien nature.

  George Underwood was involved in the celebrated fracas, which is somewhat surprising given that he is the most likeable and mild-mannered of characters. But he was incited to violence by an act of outright skulduggery by his friend in the spring of 1962, when both boys were fifteen. George had arranged a date with a Bromley school girl, Carol Goldsmith, only for David to tell him she had changed her mind and wasn’t coming. Soon George discovered that David, who fancied Carol himself, had lied – Carol had waited in vain for George before going home after an hour or so, distraught that she’d been stood up. David’s plan was to swoop in on the abandoned girl, but when Underwood discovered the dastardly scheme there was an altercation. Underwood, enraged, impulsively punched his friend in the eye, and by some mishap scratched his eyeball. ‘It was just unfortunate. I didn’t have a compass or a battery or various things I was meant to have – I didn’t even wear a ring, although something must have caught. I just don’t know
how it managed to hurt his eye badly … I didn’t mean it to be like that at all.’

  The damage was serious. David was taken to hospital and his school-mates were told he was in danger of losing the sight in his left eye. Underwood, mortified, heard that Haywood and Peggy Jones were considering charging him with assault. With David absent from school for several weeks, George eventually plucked up enough courage to go and see Haywood. ‘I wanted to tell him it wasn’t intentional at all. I didn’t want to maim him, for God’s sake!’ The injury to David’s eye resulted in paralysis of the muscles that contract the iris, leaving the pupil permanently dilated and giving it the appearance of being a different colour from his other eye. His depth perception was also damaged. ‘It left me with a wonky sense of perspective,’ David explained later. ‘When I’m driving for instance, cars don’t come towards me, they just get bigger.’ It was weeks before David returned to Bromley Tech, and at least a month before he talked to George (Haywood, too, would eventually forgive him, but it took some time). The rift meant that David missed out on a momentous event: the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll at Bromley Tech, in April 1962. Owen Frampton was one of the key figures in the talent show, overseeing the lights and the PA system. His son’s band, The Little Ravens, played the first half, sandwiched between a magician and a dance duo. Underwood’s band, George and the Dragons, came on after the interval, a louder, more raucous show than Frampton junior’s outfit: ‘very avant-garde for the time,’ recalls Pete Goodchild, who was in the audience.