test email

test

Saturday 21 November 2009

Ages since I wrote anything. Am sitting here listening to the Shirley Bassey album of songs by current writers. She still has a great voice but also that same tendency to be a bit histrionic in her performance which of course her fans love and looks good in performance. My musical tastes have always been very varied and I think that is rather typical of people who grew up in the 50's as there was very little choice in radio and music was not divided into categories as it is today. A friend of mine wants to start a radio station that plays everything and I hope he succeeds as it's really needed.

It's gloomy outside and since I last wrote the autumn has come and all the leaves have more or less fallen. There are a few late stayers but they should be gone soon and then we go into Christmas and after that what somebody once called "the bare bones of winter" when the trees are mere skeletons against a wintry backdrop. It's at this time that I make my search for the first snowdrop or the first sign of daffodils poking through the ground. Spring begins for me when this happens and then I just watch for each new development. There is always a little melancholy attached to this time of the year and then a little lift when the New Year comes around and the light starts to change.

I have been asked to do a radio special next year of my years in the business in the 60's and the people I worked with. I hope it happens and the idea has been shortlisted at Radio 2 so we will see. It will be fun to do and maybe it will open a few new doors. I have a feeling that changes are on the way next year so maybe this will be a part of them. Let's see what happens.

Sunday 27 September

Beautiful day here in London. A real Indian summer day in fact and I took myself off to to Westfield the huge shopping mall in Shepherd's Bush which is very impressive. During the time I have spent on the road with The Rolling Stones I have seen the inside of many shopping malls because quite often that's all there is if you are staying in Buckhead County just outside of Atlanta for instance or in Milwaukee where the have The Mall Of America which is the largest in the world and rather overwhelming in it's layout. I was really surprised by this one as it was so easy to get around and was airy spacious and bright. It has great stores of all descriptions and in the clothes it ranges from High St to Designer which are in a part known as The Village. I wandered around quite happily and bought a couple of things. One item of clothing and a couple of cushion covers for my home. I normally find malls to be soulless and depressing but this was anything but.

Last time I wrote about my early work years and one thing I remember was that when I first started I could not wait to spend my money on clothes for myself. Right behind Decca House was The Lambeth Walk where you could get all kinds of mod things as that was the style at the time. My hair was somewhat of a rocker type style and then I found a hairdresser in Soho who gave the mod haircut which was known as the college boy. It was on Frith St and I took the bus one lunch hour to get it done and remember the sight of prostitutes standing on the street corners in fur coats with their winter breath as it was very cold. I was so absorbed to see this as I had only read about it in books and I was already quite curious sexually. I had in fact read a lot of Tennessee Williams plays in the local library and empathised with their underlying sexual message so I was already some fascinated by this world and it dovetailed nicely with my love of rock'n'roll as both of these things were somewhat outlaw expressions at the time. In fact one of the first live artists I ever saw was Jerry Lee Lewis at the Kilburn Granada who the day after had to quit Britain as he was exposed in the News Of The World as marrying his 14 year old cousin which was pure Tennessee who many years later when I was living in New York I saw arm in arm with Andy Warhol and Truman Capote strolling past St Patrick's Cathedral after a very jolly lunch. They all looked like they were having a high old time and it was a moment. There have been a lot of those!

Wednesday Afternoon

Dentist over and done. Phew! Amazing how you can be in such a bad mood before you go in the state of anticipation and then the sheer relief afterwards plus the very welcome cup of tea!!

Not sure what I am using this blog for except that it's a way of talking about my life in the music business which started many years ago when I was sixteen. I lived in Eastbourne at the time and would commute every day to London and home again in the evening such was my love of pop music as it was called at the time. All for the princely sum of £6 per week two of which would be handed over to my mum and £1 a week for the season ticket so I had three left for myself but believe me in the 1950's that seemed like a lot of money and I can remember very quickly buying clothes (my other love at the time) and even going on an Italian holiday to the Riviera and Rome where I saw the famous Pope John in a public audience at his summer residence. To be honest I felt quite rich after my school days. I should mention that I left school early and did not take my GCE's at the time incurring the wrath and disdain of my headmaster at the Grammar School

I started out as an office boy "chasing progress" on the printing of album covers, or long players as they were called then. The good thing about this job was that it got me around the Decca building to get approvals from various label managers and within 6 months I was offered three jobs and took the one for London Records as Assistant Label Manager. Not bad at all as this was the hippest label in England at the time having artists like Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers and all of the Phil Spector artists. I was in heaven and got a lot of free test pressings and singles all of which were bought last year by Kevin Patrick mentioned in a previous blog. It was a very happy time even though all the travel was quite tiring. Had to be up at around 5.30am and did not get home until 8.45pm at the earliest and a lot later in the winter months when the line froze over. The whole point is that I loved the music so much that it was well worth it and it was the very beginning of what was to become a very interesting journey.

Saturday afternoon........Sending out 50's music to a friend in the fashion world in Paris who wants to know what my early influences were. The whole feeling of rock at that time was just so innovative and new. We had been raised on saccharine pop in the years after the war and all of a sudden along came early rock 'n' roll with the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and of course the early Elvis who seemed such an exotic creature at the time.......Even his name was something else and the first album with that famous photo was so iconic......years later copied by The Clash on London calling. It's impossible to overestimate his influence especially as to many people he became the overweight and Vegas figure....but the early man was really special. Check out The Sun Sessions and of course his early hits before he went in the army and lost his mojo in the process.

Blog

This is my first attempt at blogging. Not so much to say except I sold
some good old 12" dance stuff from the late 70's to Jazzy B. this week
and he was really pleased with them. Have been unloading some of my
old vinyl. Last year I sold my singles to an American collector named
Kevin Patrick who is somewhat obsessed. Here is his website http://www.somanyrecordssolittletime.com/
It's worth looking at as he is such an interesting character. If you
enter my name in the search part it will bring up references to my
collection which goes under my name. OK..send!

test3

On tour in kentucky