Video Saturday – Joe Cocker

You see, I was still convinced that Joe Cocker appeared on, and won, for several weeks, Hughie Green’s “Opportunity Knocks” despite the fact that the rest of the world seems to have no recollection of this event.

So last week I borrowed Joe Cockers biography from our local library (aren’t public libraries great) and I’m halfway through reading it now…

No mention of  “Opportunity Knocks” or indeed of dear dead Hughie.

This is Joe Cocker on the 1970 tour of America from which the live double album and feature length film “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” was taken, resulting in over $2 million sales in the USA of which Joe saw little, mainly due to the huge entourage that the tour attracted.

Not that he wanted a huge entourage, when the tour was planned he was to take his regular British “Grease Band” with him, mainly consisting of mates from Sheffield but a few weeks before the tour was to start he decided that it wasn’t going to start and sent his mates home to England telling them that the band was now defunct, and so was he.

His American management had other ideas though and with a three month tour sold out wouldn’t hear of a cancellation, with four days to go they took him into a studio where Leon Russell (piano, tall hat) was jamming with friends, Joe was a big fan and when Russell mentioned that they would tour with him he jumped at the chance – over the next four days their rehearsals int he studio attracted musicians from all over New York, most of whom were invited on the tour, it blossomed like a teenagers birthday party invitation list and when they finally took to the road Joe found that his band had at least three drummers (one of whom was Jim Capaldi) a large brass section, and eight female backing singers (one of whom was a young Rita Coolidge).

By the end of the tour Joe had taken an intense dislike to Leon Russell who had self-appointed himself as musical director and took centre stage as often as he could, they would never speak again and Russell refused to be interviewed for the biography – of the $10,000 that Joe was personally promised for the tour (1970 prices) he eventually received $869 after “miscellaneous expenses” had been deducted – the chemical suppliers to the tour possibly expending most of the money, see if you can spot an un-stoned person on stage on the vid.

Its a fantastic book of 1970’s rock and roll excesses, an ex-gas fitter from Sheffield for whom £8 a night for a gig was decent money was suddenly being presented with cheques for $107,000 for royalties in the first year of the “Mad Dogs” album, a cheque that he never cashed because he didn’t “do” money.

Wonderful stuff.

“…its all these bloody forriners love…”

Exerpt from the first chapter of “The Tomato Dip”, a novel written by…

…me

Its the story of a plumber who buys a cafe hoping for it to turn into his gold mine, only to find that one day it does, quite literally. Set in 1968 this tranche discusses the thorny issue of immigration and the new “I’m Backing Britain” campaign that seemed only to encourage the racism that was unashamedly present in all tiers of society…

View from Edinburgh Castle

Now this one I like, I wish they’d all turn out this way.

Taken from three seperate photos that Jodie took on her phone while we were visiting Edinburgh at New Year this is the view standing on the drawbridge of Edinburgh Castle facing across the parade ground towards the top of High Street (The Royal Mile).

The First Record Player

We always had music playing in the house, always. From the minute he got out of bed and walked into the living room our dad had the radio playing so my very early recollections of being a young child were of music.

The Dave Clark Five for instance, I hear “Bits and Pieces” and I’m in the living room of the house on Beechwood Cresent with the music belting out of the huge yellow bakelite radio, proper valves and everything it had, took five minutes to warm up.

The Beatles in their very early days, Adam Faith, all of the chart music of the time played on The Light Programme courtesy of the BBC and it played all day and every day in our household.

But we never had a record player.

Should I have intervened ?

So there I am on Sunday morning, I’d driven into Leeds to deposit both daughters and one of their friends in the centre for a day of work (for one) and a day of shopping (for t’other) and I’d also brought my camera with me for a photographic reference of Park Square – a painting I’m doing, more later.

Park Square in Leeds is a city square, with a park in the middle, so no surprise there then, built at the start of the 1800’s in the fine Georgian style to the edge of what was then the city, these large perfectly proportioned houses were intended for the rich merchants of the borough, arranged on four sides of a grassed area, very pleasant, very refined, you can just imagine a BBC costume drama taking place there, or Oliver Twist awakening to the cries of “who will buy this beautiful morning”…

My Columbian Supplier

There was a time, just a few short years ago actually, when I had regular parcels sent direct to me from my supplier in Columbia, big padded bags with Air Mail stickers and Columbian postage stamps all over them, all addressed to me personally.

And because the parcels were always too bulky to go through the letterbox our postie would leave them over the road with the neighbours, a nice couple who were rather too keen on walking their Weimaraner dogs all day long, whenever a parcel would arrive I’d come home from work and within minutes the neighbour would be knocking on my door with my Columbian parcel and a slightly suspicious look on his face.

I honestly didn’t know at the time that he was a retired policeman.

Cornish Harbour

I confess to blagging this scene shamelessly from a book, it being more than thirty years since I last went to Cornwall, its Polperro, apparently.

Gave me a chance to use my new little block of Paynes Grey watercolour

Video Saturday – The Who at Woodstock

The Who perform My Generation at Woodstock, Sat August 16th 1969, take a look at the full set list right here and then go and buy the dvd “Woodstock 1969″ or “Woodstock, three days of peace and music”, (its been re-issued several times under different names), you won’t be disappointed.

There is a story that I’d like to believe that The Who were a last minute inclusion in the set (believeable, most of the acts seemed to have booked at the last minute) and literally flew out of London the day before with no time to pack up any instruments, the story goes that they arrived at the site with just Keith Moons drumsticks and that they used the set-up left on stage by the previous band (who seemed to have been Sly and the Family Stone) – its a nice story and of course it means that the guitarist from Sly’s band would have been searching high and low for his instrument later that night.

I went to see The Who in Sheffield just before John Entwhistle died, they had Zak Starkey (Ringo’s lad) on drums in a carbon copy replica of Keith Moon, two and a half hours of incredible energy they played better and raw-er that night than in the 1960’s, bands like The Who are for listening to live you just don’t get the whole picture from a recording.

The Great Yorkshire Bike Ride

This article is written as a warning to other people in Yorkshire, you know, around Huddersfield for instance, who may at this very moment be considering the purchase of a bicycle, for if you do then this could be you…

So just how good a cyclist were you, I hear people ask the question all the time when I declare that I have a couple of bikes and once rode one of them to Copenhagen, well, nearly all the way to Copenhagen anyway.

I reply in this way…

The Wily Dwarf

One last Bruce the Dwarf story before we leave him in peace, until next time.

Bruce the Dwarf and Ned would play squash every week at the same squash court, it may sound incongruous that a person of such short stature could play a competitive game against another non-dwarf-type person but this was Bruce the Dwarf that we speak of, a determined bloody minded little man who gave no quarter and expected none back in return.

One particular week they found their regular squash court fully booked, but no worries, Bruce the Dwarf rang around and found a vacancy at another squash club close by.