Mysterious Travelers 

Leaving nothing untouched in their wake, the cultural revolutionaries of the sixties spawned many movements in art and music.  Shortly after the marriage of Pop and Blues gave birth to Rock, Miles Davis, the high priest of post-bop Jazz, took the key elements of the infant music form and created what was respectfully referred to as Fusion or sometimes more pithily as Jazz-Rock. 

Other traditional music forms, too, switched on the electricity and began to rock out – Folk and Blues being obvious examples.  However, Miles and his followers did more than just plug in a bass, mike up the drum-kit and hire a pianist for whom the Fender Rhodes meant a road-friendly portable instrument.  They created a new form of music that was born in 1969 with the release of the seminal In a Silent Way (1969) and attained its early majority with the release the following year of Bitches Brew (1970).    

The hallmarks of the new music’s fast developing vocabulary stemmed from the harmonically complex pieces that Miles had developed on albums such as Filles de Kilimanjaro.  In addition to Joe Zawinul’s compositional genius - he wrote the title track - In a Silent Way added amplification, layers of keyboards and, most significantly, a departure from the theme-improvisation-theme format that had dominated jazz for the previous forty years.   

Just as their biblical predecessors scattered to spread the message to all those who would listen, it was not long before Miles’ original electronic disciples rapidly created their own diaspora.  Alongside John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever and the Mwandishi and Crossings line-ups of Herbie Hancock, Weather Report was one of the first of those who did not just take the new language literally but who developed its own dialect and subsequently begat its own musical progeny. 

Weather Report was established in the latter half of 1970 by Austrian-born keyboardist, Zawinul, and tenor and soprano sax player, Wayne Shorter, a long-time Miles collaborator.  In the band’s first incarnation they were joined by Miroslav Vitous (basses), Alphonse Mouzon (drums) and Airto Moreira (percussion).  Together they recorded the band’s eponymous first album in March 1971.  Eschewing the populist, indeed almost obligatory, contemporary requirement for an electric guitar – irrespective of the musical genre, Weather Report’s continually evolving personnel nevertheless remained rooted in the same instrumental line-up though, in later years, often reduced by the absence of a percussionist to a quartet. 

The direction that Weather Report’s musical journey would take had been clearly signposted during Zawinul and Shorter’s orientation with Miles.  Nevertheless, the new course charted by their debut Weather Report album featured acoustic bass and no synthesizers.  Not long after the release of the album, Mouzon and Moreira departed and were replaced by Eric Gravatt on drums and Dom Um Romao on percussion.  It is this line up, responsible for an altogether earthier sounding offering, that went on to record the band’s sophomore release, I Sing the Body Electric.  Before Mouzon’s departure the band performed a set for groundbreaking German TV show Beat Club that was made commercially available on DVD about two years ago.  A client of mine had discovered the buried treasure in the vaults of ARD in Bremen, a German television station.  Knowing of my admiration for Weather Report, he asked if I would like to write the sleeve notes.  When I readily accepted, I didn’t realise quite how complex a task he had set me.  This Blog is based around those sleeve notes so, apologies to those who already have the DVD and find most of this familiar.

Picking up any one of the sixteen front-line albums released by Weather Report is like getting together with an old friend who hasn’t been around for a while.  There is much that is familiar but always something new to discover.  As exciting and as different to each other as those albums remain, none compare to the experience of seeing the band live and the memories of those gigs.  I was fortunate enough to have caught the band in concert on two occasions – once in the 70s and once in the early 80s.

In a 1972 article, Zawinul talked about the band's live performances: "Right from the start, [playing together] was just a very natural thing. But I can't really talk about the music.  None of us can.  We don't know what's happening.  We have our tunes and lines, which we always play differently. What's happening up there is just composing, and when it's right, it's magic. There's a certain chemistry in the band which amazes me-and which makes it very consistent, also."   

What was consistent about Weather Report’s live performance was the sound dynamic, the virtuosity and the symbiotic interplay between the musicians.  This was always true notwithstanding the constantly evolving constitution of the rhythm section.  Additionally, whenever the band played live, it always looked at each of its compositions through different angles of its musical prism.  The Beat Club set was performed only a few months before the band’s landmark concert at the Shibuya Philharmonic Hall in Tokyo.  In terms of Weather Report’s evolutionary time-scale, a few months was a long time as listening to the two sets back to back will demonstrate. 

Extracts from each of three concert-length pieces played on the Tokyo set were originally released as side 2 of the vinyl release of I Sing the Body Electric.  Although the entire concert was released as a double album in Japan, by the time it was made available globally in 1977 as Live in Tokyo the band’s rhythm section had regenerated several more times, iconic bassist Jaco Pastorius had been recruited and Weather Report’s biggest selling album, Heavy Weather, had provided their first hit on the singles chart with the enduringly popular and oft-covered Birdland.

The Beat Club DVD arrived at my office on white label.  As I played it I rapidly realised that my first task was to identify each of the pieces that the band had played.  There was no label copy, no track-listing.  An uncharacteristic lack of German efficiency had even omitted on-screen text naming each piece performed.  Even with my knowledge of the band’s early repertoire and given that Weather Report had been released but a short time prior to the Beat Club gig, the music had already begun to be repurposed, recast and interpreted.  The fluidity of the band and their easy familiarity meant that they were not so much improvising or even interpreting as they were composing or, perhaps, re-composing as each piece unfolded.  After many hours of listening and cross-referring to the original studio versions I was satisfied that I had done the band justice, unpicked the threads of each piece and identified it accurately.

On the DVD, the sparsely lit, propless studio with plain, black backdrop focuses the attention on the musicians and what they play.  Unsurprisingly much of the repertoire that is recognisable is culled from, or at least based around, pieces from Weather Report.   Launching into an extended reading of ‘Umbrellas’, the band’s playing explains Zawinul’s elliptical comment that ‘everyone soloed and no-one soloed’.  The energetic climax takes the music by degrees into a segue with Orange Lady.  This is the first recorded example of the technique of blending one piece into another that became a Weather Report trade mark.  How many of their segues were rehearsed and how many were spontaneous responses by the musicians to the impulses of their collective performance is never easy to determine.

Zawinul’s haunting theme, Waterfall, defined on the Fender Rhodes and underpinned by Vitous’ hypnotic bass playing, shows the strength of the band’s melodic and harmonic capacity; it also provides a contrast to the almost modal improvisation of the opening cuts as Shorter’s soprano leads the band around the melody.   By the time the set reaches the disjunctive opening of Seventh Arrow, the feel with which the band is exploring the music has loosened to the point that, although what each of the musicians plays may be easily identified, it is the homogeneity of the musicians’ vision and their respective ability to express it that seduces and excites.  A percussion feature acts as a bridge into a truncated rendering of TH.  Morning Lake provides an impressionistic reading of the original studio recording that demonstrates how the skeleton of a composition may be fleshed out to create something altogether different from its original iteration.

A funked-up medley draws the set towards its finale.  It features an unlikely soul-strained vocal from Mouzon.  The anonymous piece betrays those elements of Weather Report’s sound that would become more prevalent in the overall mix of styles as the band evolved.  Seemingly largely improvised, elements of what would become Dr Honoris Causa conclude the proceedings.

Looking back on it from a distance of nearly 40 years, experiencing a Weather Report live set in the early seventies was like standing at the summit of a mountain.  In the far distance one could only imagine what the eye couldn’t see; looking back there was a steep path and a climb that had been both challenging and rewarding.  With Zawinul’s classical European roots and the dues he had paid playing with the likes of Maynard Ferguson and Cannonball Adderley and Shorter’s more conventional East Coast jazz upbringing, Weather Report’s musical expedition had been well prepared.  The vista of its future investigation of the contemporary musical landscape that ended in 1986 opened up a vast panorama of innovation and excellence.  Fortunately, there is much that survives on record and will ever remain worth the effort of exploration.

Miles Davis: ‘In a Silent Way’ is a vinyl album released in 1969 by CBS; I also have the CD releases in 2002; Miles’ ‘Bitches Brew’ is the double CD reissue of the album that was originally released by CBS in 1970.  ‘Filles de Kilimanjaro’ is a Contemporary Jazz Masters digitally remixed CD reissue of Miles’ 1968 album. ‘Weather Report’ the band’s first album was released on vinyl in 1971 followed by ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ in 1972; I have CD reissues of both.  ‘Heavy Weather’ is also a vinyl release from 1977; all are on the CBS label as are the other Weather Report albums in my collection being ‘Sweetnighter’ (1973: CD reissue) ‘Volcano For Hire’ (vinyl 1982), ‘Black Market’ (1976: CD reissue), ‘Live and Unreleased’ is a collection of various live recordings made between 1975 and 1983 and was first released as a double CD in 2002 by Sony.  ‘The Collection’ is a CD compilation released by Castle Communications in 1990.  Weather Report ‘Live in Germany 1971’ is a DVD released by Gonzo Media Group in 2010.  The performance was first aired on 9^th August 1971 from Bremen on Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen, the national public TV channel of the ARD.  This Blog substantially reproduces my sleeve notes for the DVD.

Sounds of the Sahara 

Three, maybe four, years ago, my son gave me a couple of CDs of music that he had heard while travelling in North Africa.  One of them was by a long time favourite, Baaba Maal.  ‘Djam Leeli’ contains recordings that were made around 1984 and feature Maal with long time collaborator, Mansour Seck, another Senegalese.  The blind Mansour’s first known sound recordings were believed lost for a number of years before their first release in 1988.  The simple sound is instantly engaging, the acoustic guitars of the two principals augmented by an electric guitar, percussion and a balafon – a species of African xylophone. 

The other album was by a band of which I had not then previously heard.  Tinawiren is a group of Tuareg-Berber musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali.  Legend has it that the band was formed while its members were refugees in Libya, escaping from a civil war in their home country.  The cover of their 2007 album ‘Aman Iman’ was enough to intrigue me.  In the foreground of a lustreless black and white photo of an overcast desert landscape, seven musicians stare defensively at the camera.  Clad in ankle length robes and head dress, three carrying guitars, the group of unlikely stars wear expressions suggesting that a private colloquy had been interrupted.  There is no indication of the source of power for their instruments, yet Tinawiren’s music is propelled by a battery of electric guitars.  The instrumentation is completed by simple percussion, hand claps and a good old bass guitar. 

The band’s sound is quite different from that of other guitar led Malian combos known to European audiences for a longer period.  It’s altogether earthier than the sound produced by the ubiquitous Ali Farka Toure who, as long ago as 1994, was accorded the accolade of making Talking Timbuktu, an easy-on-the-ear blues influenced album, with world music polyglot, Ry Cooder.  Tinariwen also eschews the poppier feel and western tinged rhythms embraced by the likes of Amadou and Maryam.   The uniqueness of Tinariwen is hallmarked by the unison vocals that sweep over the backing instruments like a sonic Sirocco. 

Last Thursday at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Tinariwen played a wonderfully well paced set that enabled each of the individual talents time and space to shine.  As leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib let each of the other guitarists take turns at lead, rhythm, bass and lead vocals, a red fender Strat was passed from hand-to-hand – or more accurately hands-to-hands.  Held by each as if it were a sacred artefact possessed of magical qualities, the Strat was reserved for those numbers that included ever more exquisitely played solos.  The vocal section also features back-ups from Alhassane Ag Touhami, the sole female in the group, who also contributes atmospheric ululation.  Touhami dances, but it’s percussionist/vocalist Said Ag Ayad who steals the limelight with his exotic hand movements and joyous jiggling, sometimes reminiscent of Eric Idle’s haggling market trader in ’Life of Brian’. 

Playing older pieces from their repertoire as well as others from their most recent album, ‘Tassili’, Tinariwen mixed up their self-defining Saharan electric sound with some mellower acoustic music.  The set built up subtly, almost imperceptibly, as the audience was continually invited to augment the relentless handclaps.  The rhythms became increasingly complex and eventually too much for all but the most able of the Empire crowd to follow.   

Tinawiren’s albums are worth listening to but they don’t quite capture the uplifting magic of the band’s live performance.  The night was made even more memorable following the inevitable encore as the band received its Songlines World Music award for best group.   

Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck’s ‘Djam Leeli’ is a CD released in 1989 by Rogue Records.  ‘Aman Iman’ by Tinawiren is a CD released by World Village in 2007.  ‘Tassili’ by Tinawiren is a CD released by V2 in 2011.  Talking Timbuktu Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder is a CD released by World Circuit in 1994. ‘Wati’ by Amadou and Maryam is a CD released by Sunnyside Communications in 2002, their ‘Greatest Hits’ CD was released in 2005 by Universal Music.

Blog Rules – OK? 

Have You Heard? has been running for 11 weeks.  A few days ago it passed 2000 page views.  Although more than half of those have been from readers in the UK, its audience extends to Qatar and Ethiopia, Colombia, France, Germany, Israel, China and a healthy contingent in the USA.  Thanks to all of you who continue to log-in; it suggests that I’m not writing in a vacuum.  Even if you don’t want to join the ranks of registered followers, feedback is always welcome.  You can send email to haveyouheard2013@gmail.com  If you don’t want your comments quoted, then just say so.  Confidentiality will be respected.

The Blog was initiated to address a task that was set by a friend.  Over the last dozen years the relationship between music lovers and their collections has begun to change, in some ways quite radically.   I was asked to consider what I thought may have been lost in the present era by those who download MP3s and don’t line shelves with a collection of physical records and CDs.  I was challenged to listen to my entire record collection over a year, engage in a dialogue with the music and write about it.  I was charged with teasing out the memories, the significance of different records and relationships between different pieces.  In doing this I decided to try and put them into their respective social and cultural context and talk about them from my own personal point of view.

Whether or not the Blog has succeeded in meeting the challenge is a matter of opinion.  Not every entry meets the criteria set out above – either wholly or in part.  Some entries have been concerned with the early years of my interest in music during my school days in Portsmouth.  My son tells me that he has enjoyed these particular Blogs the most.  The stories tell of events that are associated with particular records and artists, those artists and their records engender memories of particular events and periods of time.  While writing I have played the records quoted and used them as prompts.  As one sentence setting out a thought leads onto the next, I have been able to extract more and more details from the back of my mind.  Other Blogs have been inspired by recent gigs that I have attended.  Attending live performances continues to add musical memories and provides an ongoing source for new material. 

There is seemingly far too much to write about in Blogs that were originally planned to run to no more than 1000 words per entry.  Fortunately, no-one has yet complained about that.  Cue: an inbox full of email making such complaints. 

In order to meet the challenge – or at least as much of it as might be possible in a year - I originally intended that no record would be mentioned in more than one Blog and that, perhaps, when reaching a particular artist I would cover all of his/her/their records that I have in the collection in one go.  Amongst the 130 albums and 30 singles mentioned to date, there is already more than one that has had a couple of mentions.  While all of the records by Family were referred to in a reminiscence of an early gig (Savoy Browns and South Parade Blues: Part 1; published 22^nd April 2012), to date there has only been one record mentioned that features Pat Metheny (THE Duet live at the Barbican: published 15^th April 2012; check the discography if you don’t believe me!)  The collection includes 43 albums that feature Pat as leader or co-leader and another 20 on which he appears as a guest artist.  There are also about 15 DVDs including 10 of various performances from the Montreal Jazz Festival that have never been commercially released that were given to me by someone in the industry who knows of my passion for Pat’s music.  In all honesty, it’s difficult to know where to start with Pat; not only are there more of his records than any other artist to address, I have also seen him play live on more occasions than anyone else.  

‘Have You Heard?’ with its obvious connotation, was named for one of Pat’s pieces, first recorded and released as the opening track on the album ‘Letter from Home’.  Playing any track from that album ignites an instant Pavolvian response, and particularly the sweeping majesty of the piece entitled ‘5-5-7’.  In 1989 while on a riding holiday in Utah en famille, we were caught in flash flooding on rugged terrain outside of Moab.  Our horses were spooked by lightning that hit the ground not more than 30 yards from where we were trying to shelter from the storm.  My then seven year old daughter was also spooked and dismounted.  The rest of us followed suit much to the chagrin of the hapless wrangler who had led us out on an evening when the gathering clouds were an indication that he should have known better.  After leading the horses back to the ranch through the most intense storm I have ever experienced, there were four very muddy pairs of cowboy boots that needed two longish afternoon sessions to clean and polish.  While I sat on the porch of our wooden cabin in the shadows of a large mesa with a beer or two I listened repetitively to ‘Letter From Home’ on my Walkman.  Along with the other albums recorded between 1978 and 2005 under the name of Pat Metheny Group ‘Letter From Home’ contains an intoxicating expression of Jazz based on powerful melodies the sounds of which are imbued with influences from many other genres, Latin, Oriental, Electronica, Fusion, Rock Choral and Classical.  ‘Letter From Home’ is one of the albums I recommend as a starter pack to those not yet familiar with Pat’s music.

The starting point for this Blog has not yet been considered in anything more than a cursory reference.  Simply stated, will the 16 year old music fan of today who downloads an Adele recording – legally or illegally – and who never buys a CD, still feel the same way about that track in 25 years time?  Let’s take a simple example.  There must be a million stories of particular pieces of music being indelibly associated with the rawness of feelings of first romance.  Imagine a sixteen year old experiencing first love today to the sound of ‘Set Fire To The Rain’.  Let’s also suppose that like many teenage romances it eventually runs its course and ends with much emotion but no long term negative feelings.  Will our 2012 teenager-in-love have the same feeling of attachment to a digital file as her mother may have to a 45 vinyl single of Whitney Houston’s ‘Saving All My Love For You’ that she received as a Valentine’s gift from the boy she met at the school gates?  Perhaps personally inscribed with handwritten references to the lyrics, the gift from across the years will be as much a part of the memory of a seminal life experience as the music it contains.  Flipping through records on a shelf – or in a box of bric à brac when it emerges from the back of a cupboard – arguably adds a physical dimension to the experience of recorded music that is totally absent when calling up a file on a computer or shuffling tunes on an iPhone. 

In terms of the shift in the nature of the relationship between music lovers and their music, the rise of the MP3 is having a potentially even more far reaching effect – but that’s for another time.  After all, there are no rules to this Blog and even if there were I’ll make them up myself and they will evolve as the Blog develops. 

‘Letter From Home’ by Pat Metheny Group is a CD released by Geffen in 1989.  Whitney Houston’s ‘Saving All My Love For You’ is a vinyl single released by Arista in 1985.  I don’t own Adele’s records but I like what I have heard and imagine that many of her songs will become enduring to the generation that is now falling in love to and with them. 

Next Posts 

The next three posts coming soon: (1) Blog Rules - OK? (2) Sounds of the Sahara: Tinawiren’s Thursday night gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire reviewed (3) Mysterious Travelers - a lost 1971 Weather Report performance rediscovered

Savoy Browns and South Parade Blues: Part 2

The flames that engulfed the South Parade Pier in 1974 effectively signed its death warrant as a sometime music venue.  It wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last of the Portsmouth venues at which I first enjoyed live music to vanish.

Directly opposite the Pier once stood Savoy Buildings.  Built in the late twenties, there was little to suggest any art deco influence that steeps many other landmark buildings of that era with instantly recognisable architectural features.  There were two separate but contiguous structures.  The top four floors of the eastern section contained apartments that offered an unobstructed sea view.  At street level was a parade of shops and eateries that continued along the eastern section, on the upper level of which was situated the Savoy Ballroom.  Before and after the war, the Ballroom hosted dance bands and, for a time in the forties and fifties, the Savoy Café.  

By 1963, the dance bands had been replaced by what were then known as ‘beat groups’.  Seven nights a week, groups from up and down the country were booked.  During the early and middle sixties everyone appeared at the Savoy from the Beatles and the Stones down to some lesser known local groups who went on as support acts.

In the 1960s, Portsmouth and Sunny Southsea, as it was nationally promoted, was still a destination resort for one and two week bucket-and-spade holidaymakers from all over the UK.  From Easter until the first week in September, Southsea’s seafront hotels and boarding houses, many tucked away in residential streets, were busy.  Human traffic in search of beachside fun peaked in July and August.  The eventual decline was heralded by the impact of packages to the Med that became increasingly popular with the arrival of budget air travel at the end of that decade.  

In 1964, my parents took a lease of one the shops on the Savoy Parade.  They called it ‘Beachwear’.  It was probably no more than ten feet across and maybe sixteen or seventeen feet deep.  Beachwear was stuffed full of just about anything you might need when spending two weeks at the English seaside: buckets and spades, tiny plastic windmills on wooden sticks, plastic footballs and blow up balls, sunglasses, straw hats and sun cream, paperbacks, flip flops, swimming costumes and towels, t-shirts and knick-knacks such as brass ornaments and even miniature china potties with feathers.  In response to the Gonks, 1964’s stuffy fad, my mother designed and handmade vast quantities of Buncers.  Imitating the Gonks’ Mac (a kilt wearing Scot) and Fred (cloth-capped and suspenders) they sold at half the cost of the real thing and my Mum couldn’t turn them out fast enough.

My parents’ shop was half way along the parade that also included a chemist’s, Pompey’s first Wimpey Bar, a large gift shop whose presence proscribed my parents selling souvenirs, a cavernous café with entrances either side of Beachwear and the ubiquitous rock shop.  For my overseas readers thinking that at last the musical element of the blog has been reached, this type of ‘Rock’ is an English confection made largely of sugar and sold in inch wide sticks between six and nine inches in length.

Notwithstanding our relatively young ages - I turned 12 in 1964, my sister was 9 and my brother not yet 8 - at weekends and from time to time during that summer’s school holidays we all worked alongside my parents in the shop.  My brother, in particular, was a big hit with the old dears as they sought refuge from August rains and invested in umbrellas and pacamacs with all-in-one hoods.  My brother has an extraordinary facility for mental arithmetic which he first showed at a very young age.  Thus, counting up the prices of three and more items that nearly all ended in 11d (eleven old pence) and calculating the change from a one pound note in seconds, he was often worth the price of an extra purchase and even picked up small tips!

The few bob Dad paid us was earned though.  Standing for hours in a shop is not that much fun, especially during lax periods.  Fortunately, the shop was generally busy, often manically so.  Apart from the general melee that was imbued with my father’s whacky sense of humour - an idiosyncratic mix of the physical and verbal - what made the day go by were the sounds of the juke box from the café next door.  At the time of starting the business, the juke box backed directly onto the rear wall of Beachwear, not much more than a stud-partition.  The boom of the bass and its vibrations through the shop got to be too much for Dad who eventually persuaded the café manager to move it.  To my ears this had the added advantage of improving the audio quality of the treble end of the records and enhanced the listening experience.

The hits of that summer – and from the previous few months - became so familiar that, even now, I can more or less identify any of them from a note or two.  Some made their way into my collection, others didn’t; the sounds of summer ’64 included: 

‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ by The Beatles; the former showcased a sophisticated edge to the Fabs’ composing skills that re-entered the charts for a second time after its original release earlier in the year; the latter was the title track to their third album and soundtrack of their first feature film for which we queued in the rain on its opening day at the Southsea Odeon; 

‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks, a revelatory record whose opening chords signalled the first battle-cry of riff based rock; 

‘Here I Go Again’, that summer’s showpiece for the effervescent harmonies of The Hollies;  

‘The House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals, the repeated playing of which from the cafe I‘m sure led to my mother banning me from listening to it at home within her earshot;

‘My Guy’ by Mary Wells, pretty much the first Motown production to hit the charts and which famously shot up almost overnight from the bowels of the hit parade to number 5 and then, amazingly, the following week accelerated in the opposite direction to number 30; only in later years did I question how it go to number 5 at all;

‘It’s All Over Now’, the first record I bought by The Rolling Stones and their first self-penned number to make the charts; this was the single that defined the distinctiveness of their two-guitar sound.  It made us all realise that there would be life beyond The Beatles.  I played it incessantly;

‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ by Manfred Mann, claimed by the Portsmouth Evening News as a local band (two out of five of them were local) and big favourites in the city.  The song’s use of original language as the hook of the chorus enabled my Dad to ascribe an apparent lack of intelligence to its composers; whenever it came on the juke box he would vocalise that chorus in a mocking tone.  When pressed on the subject he wouldn’t admit that it was one of the great three minute teen symphonies of the era;

‘I’m Into Something Good’, the debut record by Herman’s Hermits that spent at least one week at number one.  Promoted as the English ‘surf’ sound.  My sister thought that Herman (ne Peter Noone) was adorable;

’You’re No Good‘ the best record that The Swinging Blue Jeans made, one that I still play and one that would probably be in contention for my top 100 tracks of all time.  The SBJ’s eventually were swallowed by a change in musical trends and, I suspect, an inability to pen good material themselves.

There were, of course, many other big songs that summer, three of which had another significance.  My Dad got to know all of the other folk who worked in and around the Savoy including George Turner, a dapper man in his forties, who booked the groups for the ballroom. In conversation, Dad apparently mentioned that I was a total pop music nut and enquired whether I could watch some of the groups from the balcony above the dance floor.  Licensing laws prevented that.  However, on three occasions, Mr Turner took my brother, my sister and me into the ballroom to listen to soundchecks and, what was even more exciting, to meet the groups all of whom we had seen on telly.

Brian Poole and the Tremeloes had already spent many weeks in the charts and I already had a few of their singles, one of which I discovered when writing this Blog of which I had virtually no memory, ‘Twelve Steps To Love’.  I have yet to play it again and may resist the temptation to do so.  I still have the group’s autographs on a piece of notepaper stuck on the distinctive orange Decca cover of ‘Twist and Shout’.  Brian Poole eventually left the music scene to work in his family’s butcher shop in Essex.  A couple of years ago I advised clients to whom Poole sold various of his copyrights.

The Honeycombs was the first British pop group of the sixties to feature a female drummer, none other than Honey Langtree.  They were touring at the time of their number one hit ‘Have I the Right’.  I remember thinking how small Honey was and how nice they all were when they were introduced to us.  I am fairly sure I bought that single a day or two afterwards.

The best of the bunch with whom we brushed shoulders were The Nashville Teens.  I had already bought and played to death their updated version of John D Loudermilk’s ‘Tobacco Road’.  By the time we got to the ballroom, the ‘Teens were already set up and about to run through two or three numbers.  They played ‘Tobacco Road‘ twice.  Awesome! 

I eventually made it to a couple of live shows at the Savoy.  The first was just before Christmas 1967 and was headlined by Amen Corner who had not yet fully mutated from their original blues orientation into the pop-soul fusion that brought them a string of hits.  The brass section was terrific and they rocked a tightly packed crowd.  Local soul band, The St Louis Checks, opened the bill.  By this time I had seen them on previous occasions.  The bill was completed by The Action a very loud rock band who will be featured in a future blog about the most famous of Portsmouth’s lost venues, The Birdcage.

In ’68 or ’69, I saw the most successful of all of the wholly local groups of the sixties at the Savoy.  After their first few soul-influenced singles flopped nationally, Simon Dupree and the Big Sound eventually hit big with ‘Kites’ an ethereal, quasi-psychedelic fusion complete with mysterious sounding come hither recitation in Chinese by actress Jacqui Chan.  Portsmouth’s blue-eyed soul kings never disappointed on stage though I can find no trace of the date of this gig.

In the seventies, the Savoy Ballroom went disco and, at one point, it was called Nero’s, apparently complete with pseudo-columns and toga clad staff.  Within the last ten years it finally closed, the apartments were emptied and the shops boarded up.  Ripe for redevelopment, Harry Rednapp, then manager of the local football team, bought the site and commenced demolition just as the property market went into freefall in 2008.  Funds ran out and the once proud Savoy Buildings remained half up and half down while arguments raged about changes to planning permissions.  The structure mysteriously caught fire during the night of the summer riots of August 2011.  There were no riots in Portsmouth and no cause for the fire has yet been determined.  A second iconic music venue that played a significant part in the musical history of the city had been engulfed in flames.  What was left was subsequently demolished altogether leaving a bare, brownfield site licking its wounds and quietly abiding in its memories.

Unless otherwise stated all of the following records referred to in this Blog are original vinyl released in 1964: The Beatles ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ is a 45 rpm single and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ is included in the album of that name both released by Parlophone; ‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks is a single released by Pye and is also included on a Pye compilation ‘The Golden Hour of the Kinks’ released on vinyl in 1971;  ‘Here I Go Again’ by The Hollies, originally released on Columbia, is included on an EMI CD ’20 Golden Greats’ first released on vinyl in 1978;  ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals is a single released by Columbia and is also included on an early EMI vinyl compilation ‘The Most of the Animals’ originally released in 1966; ‘My Guy’ by Mary Wells is included in a 3CD set ‘Classic Songs of the Motown Era Volume 1’ released by EMI Music Publishing in 1997 for promotional purposes only; ‘It’s All Over Now’ by The Rolling Stones is a single released by Decca and is also included in ‘Forty Licks’ a 2CD compilation released in 2002 by ABCKO; ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ by Manfred Mann is a single released by HMV and is also included in the ‘Manfred Mann EP Collection’ released on vinyl in 1988 by See For Miles.  ’You’re No Good‘ by The Swinging Blue Jeans is included in ‘The Ultimate Sixties Collection’ a 2CD set released by Castle Communications in 1996; ‘Twist and Shout’ (1963), ‘Do You Love Me’ (1963), Someone, Someone’ and ‘Twelve Steps to Love’ (and I really didn’t remember that last oneuntil finding it on the shelf!) are all singles by Brian Poole and the Tremeloes released by Decca; The Honeycombs ‘Have I the Right’ is a single released by Pye Records; ‘Tobacco Road’ by The Nashville Teens is a single released by Decca and is also on the Castle ‘Ultimate Sixties Collection’; ‘Kites’ by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound is included in a vinyl compilation of that name released by See For Miles in 1986.accelerated

Savoy Browns and South Parade Blues: Part 1 

At first sight, Southsea seafront and promenade doesn’t seem to change from one year to the next.  The tide ebbs and flows with seasonal regularity.  Wind blown walks along the near empty pebble beach under steely grey November skies are as exhilarating now as they were forty years ago.  Lone fishermen with thermoses of tea still stare hopefully at the horizon.  Nevertheless changes there have been and not all mark progress and those changes have not been merely physical. 

Some buildings have gone, others have taken their place.  Some of those missing buildings housed live music.  Music is part of the DNA that defines an era.  Although we can’t go back, we can remember.  In the act of remembering, events long past return.  Reliving special moments is part of the human experience that energises and refreshes the spirit.  For those of us who become energised by hearing music played live, the atmosphere at the places from which sounds emerge is an essential part of that experience and at the heart of those memories. 

Growing up within three hundred yards of the beach that forms the southern fringe of Portsmouth, Britain’s only island city, was, itself, a special experience.  From the age of seven, each day during term time, I caught the number 6 bus outside the long ago demolished Southsea Odeon at the top of Festing Road.  A couple of minutes later it would turn right past the Cumberland House Museum and skirt around the Canoe Lake.  Still populated by a game of swans, the rowing boats and canoes of my childhood have long been replaced by naff looking, swan-shaped fibreglass paddle-boats.  The sea was in full view to the left as the bus headed along South Parade.  Two of the landmarks that we passed were to play a part in my musical education.  Both have been destroyed as a consequence of the actions of outsiders.  With the demise of those buildings, it’s not only the physical appearance of South Parade that has been altered.    

The first of these landmarks, the South Parade Pier – or ‘the Pier’ as it is known to locals – was built in the Victorian era.  Indian-influenced, pavilion style towers, elaborate wrought ironwork, a grand music hall and a splendid deck were just some of its original features.  When we were kids we used to play hide and seek around the outside areas and tag on the deck.  When the weather wasn’t so good we repaired to the penny arcade.  The most satisfying of the machines was a primitive football game with static players whose right feet responded to a series of metal levers.  One penny would also operate a ventriloquist-dummy like sailor in a glass case who, somewhat curiously, ‘sang’ ‘The Laughing Policeman’.  The record was originally made in the 1920’s by Charles Jolly (ne Penrose) and includes chorus after chorus of macabre sounding laughter.  It terrified my sister.  The sailor, still in his glass case, still operational and still with his macabre cackle, is now in the City museum. 

During the summers of the sixties, a series of ‘Beat Cruises’ departed from the end of the Pier.  Featuring local groups and costing just a few shillings, battered old steamers edged around Spithead.  Locals and holidaymakers from up north would get pissed on Brickwoods beer, chat each other up and do the Twist, the Shake and the Mashed Potato.  I was too young to participate and, even if I hadn’t been, there would no doubt have been parental proscription against me doing so. 

At the centre of the Pier there was a theatre that originally housed a music hall.  In the early sixties I was taken to summer shows there featuring the likes of Mike and Bernie Winters, The Billy Cotton Band Show and Bob Monkhouse.  It was also used for Speech Day and Prize Giving at my first school, Mayville.  Behind the theatre, there was an open area that jutted out into the sea.  On the 17^th July 1968, the last night I spent in Portsmouth before we moved up to London, it was transformed into an open air venue for a special gig.  Three cutting edge British bands playing new music were coming to town.  Apparently there were 2,500 music fans on the Pier that night, though, even through the misty eyes of nostalgic remembrance that seems to be something of an overstatement.

Opening the bill was a band called Family.  Then relatively unknown, the band was led by Roger Chapman whose strangulated vocals and manic upper body movements suggested he'd been connected to a 10,000 volt charge before taking to the stage.  Along with guitar, bass and drums, Family also included the rasping tenor sax of Jim King and the electric violin of Rick Grech.  Family blew us away as they raced through a set that included numbers taken from their eclectic first album ‘Music in a Doll’s House’.  ‘Winter’, ‘The Chase’, ‘See Through Windows’ and ‘The Breeze’ all made an immediate impact.  Varied tempos, interesting instrumental combinations and Chapman’s unique performance style instantly hooked me.  A few days later with a birthday record token I hurried to the nearest record shop and, minutes after opening time, I was back home with the album under my arm.  I retained my devotion to Family right through University, buying several of their albums and seeing them live on a number of occasions.  Chapman’s movements predicated the rise of ‘idiot dancing’ that was the direct precursor to head-banging; entertaining to watch but less alluring to indulge in. 

Following Family there was Spooky Tooth.  They didn’t really do it for me, though various of those who passed through the band went on to bigger and better things.  

Topping the bill was Traffic.  Multi-talented, immensely musical, Traffic oozed class.  A fan of Stevie Winwood since his Spencer Davis days, I was familiar with their material and the band couldn’t and didn’t disappoint.  This was Traffic’s original line-up and included the often underrated Dave Mason.  Mason was unable to escape the shadow of Winwood’s giant talent and would leave not long afterwards for the USA from where he has subsequently pursued a successful solo career.  ‘Heaven is in Your Mind’, ‘Dear Mr Fantasy’, ’Paper Sun’ and ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’ were what we came to hear and we weren’t disappointed.  Mason’s tour de force ‘Hole in my Shoe’, however, didn’t make the set list albeit that his much covered 'Feelin' Alright' did.  Stevie Winwood is another of those musicians who I have seen perform live in every decade since – and deserves a blog entry to himself. 

There could have been no better way to have said farewell to my home town than spending a night under the stars on a warm July evening listening to great music from bands who have remained favourites ever since. 

I only attended one more gig at the South Parade Pier; it was a couple of years later during a weekend visit to catch up with old friends.  It was held on a bitterly cold and damp winter’s evening in the theatre.  Topping the bill was, I believe, Savoy Brown, an estimable blues band who were supported by a few others, not all of whom I can now remember.  One of them was a distinctly average three-piece called The Gun, who had then recently had a hit with a catchy riff-based confection called ‘Race with the Devil’.  The bill was opened by an early version of ‘underground’ favourites The Deviants, who were pretty awful from what I can recall. 

Famously, in 1974, much of the Pier burned down during the filming of Ken Russell’s ‘Tommy’.  Some arc lights overheated, exploded then started the conflagration.  Locals were outraged when a short clip of their beloved landmark in flames was included in the finished movie.  Russell’s thoughtless tokenism led the locals to blame the errant auteur personally for the blaze.  Eventually the damages claim was settled by insurers.  

Athough the framework and the forward elevations of the Pier survived the worst of the fire, the theatre and much of the main structure was destroyed.  What was built to replace it looks to be no more than a cheap and nasty 1970’s imitation of the original which, of course, is precisely what it is.  What has also been lost is the atmosphere of Victoriana that pervaded every inch of the old Pier and gave it its soul.  The space that was once occupied by the theatre was subsequently crammed, Las Vegas style, with slot machines.  A bouncy castle or somesuch was amongst the so-called attractions installed on part of the deck; kiosks selling food and drinks were located on other parts.  At some point in the last two years the Pier was closed by the local council for reasons of Health and Safety.  I am not sure if it remains closed.  I don’t have much time for much of the extreme nonsense that is pursued in the name of Health and Safety nirvana, equally I don’t suppose there is anything that can be done to restore the lost soul of the South Parade Pier of my youth.

‘The Laughing Policeman’ by Charles Jolly was a 78 PRM wax disc released in 1922 by Regal.  I don’t own it but it may be heard at    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuPQjdRyXfs&feature=related  Most tellingly, along with ‘Little Wing’ by Jimi Hendrix, this was one of the records that was played at the 2002 funeral of the late Paul Samson, heavy metal guitarist, who I represented for the best part of 20 years.   

‘Music in a Doll’s House’(1968), ’Family Entertainment’ (1969), ‘A Song for Me’ 1970) and ‘Anyway’ (1970) are all vinyl albums released by Reprise; I also have the CD reissues on Mystic Records of ‘A Song for Me’ and ‘Anyway’ as well as those of ‘Fearless’ (1971), ‘Bandstand’ (1972), ‘It’s Only a Movie’ (1973);  there is also a Mystic release of ‘Family Live’ recorded on tour in 1971.  Castle Communications 1993 ‘Best of Family’ includes tracks originally released as singles such as ‘No Mule’s Fool’ and ‘In My Own Time’.  ‘Winwood’ is double vinyl album compilation released in the USA by United Artists in 1972 and includes Traffic’s ‘Heaven is in Your Mind’, ‘Dear Mr Fantasy’, ’Paper Sun’ and Spencer Davis Group’s ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’.  ‘Hole in My Shoe’ by Traffic is a 45 single released by Island Records in 1968.

Savoy Browns and South Parade Blues

The next two Blog entries will be another sentimental return to sixties Portsmouth.  I will be revisiting some classic gigs by more great names from that very special era at two venues long gone but never forgotten