The first of two guest blogs in June comes from our south-west London correspondent Dave Heatley with his tales of a life in rock’n’roll. Enjoy!

First Word

Oh, hello. Excuse me a moment while I screw the top of my head back on. What happened? Well, choosing six tunes for this gig proved more problematical than I thought. It probably would have been easier if Alan had asked me to learn the Souzaphone in four weeks while dancing the macarana. Who thought I ‘d be lying awake at four in the morning (Faron Young obviously had similar issues) worrying about which songs to choose.

Anyway, here I am. I first met Alan back in the mid 80s at Chic Murray’s bar in Bruntsfield in Edinburgh when everyone knew him by his old school nickname Richie – I still do. We soon realised that we had an enduring love of Mott the Hoople and rock’n’roll in general. It’s been a pleasure knowing Richie over the years and he was the first person I thought of when I got tickets for the Mott reunion gig at Hammersmith Odeon in 2009. (Well the Apollo but it’s always the Odeon to me). I am honoured to be asked to contribute my two penneth this week and step into his well worn shoes. So without further ado…

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Telstar – The Tornados (1962)

Produced by Joe Meek and recorded in his flat on the Holloway Road, London this song celebrated the launch of the Telstar satellite in 1962. It features Clem Cattini on drums. Cattini has played on records by Lou Reed, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Paul Weller and er….. Benny Hill. (I think you know the one, about a purveyor of dairy products and his nemesis ‘Two-Ton Ted from Teddington’ ). He was also Bungo in The Wombles, so Clem was a man of many and varied talents.

Telstar, along with Petula Clark’s Downtown reminds me of washing day in the family home in Preston around 1964. My mum standing over the twin tub washing machine flushed from the steam and suds. We had a twin tub of similar vintage when I lived in a flat in Aberdeen in the 80s. This one was possessed and would sashay across the kitchen on the spin cycle to The Smiths How Soon Is Now? and try and escape into the living room. It was also partial to a bit of The Colour Field and Echo and the Bunnymen.

But, Telstar is probably my first musical memory along with The Beatles. Which brings me to my first lesson in disappointment.

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I’m Into Something Good – Herman’s Hermits (1964)

So, at the age of four I loved the Beatles, loved them more than mince and tatties. I would stand in front of the TV entranced when they were on the box. When they bowed at the end of a song I would bow back (I was a polite child). Anyway, my dad had already bought me She Loves You and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, so sometime in 1964 he went off to work promising he’d bring me back the latest Fab Four offering. After a day of wild excitement and expectation, he came back and gave me this Herman’s Hermits 45 on the Columbia label …..Herman’s bloody Hermits! What did I care if it was composed by Gerry Goffin and Carole King? It wasn’t the Beatles!! I still have it, it’s alright but it’s not The Beatles. So listen to this and feel the abject misery of a four year old Beatles fan.

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Nuther’n Like Thuther’n – Willis Jackson (1963)

I first heard this slice of club jazz on a Gilles Peterson compilation in the early 2000s. Willis Jackson was a saxophone player who recorded on the Atlantic and Prestige labels. I know nothing more. Recorded in 1963 for Jackson’s LP More Gravy, it’s made for dancing in a smoke filled, all-night-club in Soho. So comb your hair, straighten your tie and put on your mohair three button suit (remember to button up correctly, always, sometimes, never is the rule) and get on down to The Flamingo and dance with Christine Keeler. Which brings me to…

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Flamingo – Emily Capell & Dreadzone (2020)

Emily Capell teams up with Dreadzone for this short and sweet ska tune worked around Don Drummond’s Silver Dollar ska classic. It’s about the Profumo Affair and Christine Keeler is dancing to The Kinks at The Flamingo.

Emily Capell is a London girl, supports QPR (other London football teams are available) and loves The Clash. Her debut album Combat Frock is worth checking out. Dreadzone were formed by Big Audio Dynamite drummer Greg Roberts and feature the great Jamaican reggae singer Earl Sixteen on vocals. They’re a brilliant live band and it’s well worth spending a couple of hours in their company if you get the chance.

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Starry Eyes – The Records (1978)

April 7th 1980, The Rainbow in Finsbury Park, twelve Jam fans, no tickets, skint. We manage to get into The Jam’s soundcheck and chat to Paul’s dad John Weller. We try and get on the guest list. Mr Weller can only get six of us on. We decide that these places should go to the Scouse contingent who follow the band everywhere. These include my pals Tony and George (they would later join The Farm as their brass section). One lad goes and hides in the gents for the day (later to be seen waving triumphantly from a window in said gents) . We’re 5 tickets short. Standing outside The Rainbow in a forlorn huddle we see a ticket tout, we can’t afford his prices and are about to head home. Robin Hood turns up in the guise of a large, 18-hole Doc Marten wearing skinhead of a philanthropic bent. He knocks down the tout, knocks him out to be precise, and grabs his tickets which he redistributed to a gleeful mob….. We’re in!!

Support for “The Best Fucking Band in The World” (quote from John Weller, I know he’s Paul’s dad but he’s right) were The Records. They were formed in late 1977 by Will Birch formely of The Kursaal Flyers who had a top 20 hit with Little Does She Know. By the by, Will Birch has written a wonderful biography of the great Nick Lowe which I heartily recommend.

So I have chosen Starry Eyes , power pop at it’s very best, in homage to the tout. I went out and bought the album Shades in Bed shortly after on the back of The Records’ set.

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Meet On The Ledge – Fairport Convention (1968)

That Richie fella is now standing at the edge of the stage making ‘times up’ signs and miming ‘get off’. So I don’t have time to tell you how I saved Roy Harper from falling off a wall or how I ended up discussing tough-tackling big-haired George Berry of Wolverhampton Wanderers with Robert Plant at a Rockpile gig. Maybe next time but for now it’s time for the last track this week.

Meet On The Ledge was written by Richard Thompson for the 1968 Fairport Convention album ‘What We Did On Our Holidays. He wasn’t even into his 20s when he wrote it and Fairport still had Unhalfbricking, Liege and Leaf and Full House to come. Thompson left the band in 1971 to pursue a solo career with song highlights too numerous to mention and I have seen him live a few times. The standout gig for me was on his 1000 Years of Popular Music tour at Wimbledon Theatre around 2005 where the songs covered included the early medieval Summer is Icumen In, a host of music hall tunes, and contemporary tracks by The Kinks, Squeeze and Britney Spears. As he has got older he has morphed into a guitar playing Lionel Jeffries.

Meet On The Ledge is always the last song played by Fairport at their annual Cropredy Festival in Oxfordshire, so it’s right that it’s my final song this week. It’s titled after the picture postcard perfect village in the Oxfordshire countryside that it’s held in and it has been going since 1976. I first went in 2005, arriving in my late and much missed pal Gerry’s Routemaster bus (no beds, ticket stubs and empty sweet wrappers included). The Routemaster negated the requirement for four blokes to stand round getting hotter and more and more exasperated at a recalcitrant tent, wondering what the difference was between guy ropes and Guy Garvey. The drawback was that numerous bearded gents came round asking whether the bus had a Cummins engine.

I find this song very affecting for some reason – it’s all about friends and loved ones lost in the highways and byways of life and the hope that you’ll see them again one day. I recall standing in the field at Cropredy a few years back listening to this song, the last song of a great weekend of music, laughs and beers. Standing there next to my little brother Al, arms round each others shoulders and tears in our eyes.

So this is dedicated to my dear old friend Gerry: Meet on the ledge/We’re going to meet on the ledge/If you really mean it, it all comes round again.

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Last Word

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