Song Book Comes Alive

“All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe” is a song I first loved in 1974, when it reached No. 2 in the UK charts and No.6 in the USA.

Dodgy miming by The Hollies here: -

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Then in 2008 I had one of those rare moments where all was well in my little bit of the world with my pal on a Portugese cliff top with swallow tailed butterflies, blue sea, blue sky, spring breezes and my pal sings “Peace came upon me” a line from the same song.

Fast-forward to February 2012 where I’m asked if I’d like to tour manage Albert Hammond’s first tour for 30 years! He wrote ”All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe”

“Yep. Of course, I’d love to” I said.

Here’s Albert:

In April this year Micky Greeney and team are filming a video at Highbury Studio.

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I tell Micky that I’m working with Albert Hammond. “He wrote ‘All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe” says Micky “I was here at the studio with Bob when Allen Clarke who sang it with the Hollies came by.

May 5th 2012 and Albert and Daniel Serrano Gimenez and Carlos Solano Sevilla, two very handy sidemen from Madrid, well Daniel is from Madrid but Carlos is a Rock lifting Basque who has stopped more ladies in their tracks then anyone I’ve worked with for a while, pop into Highbury Studio for dinner at the start of the tour.

May 10th and I’m in Kendal at the fine Brewery Arts Centre. At the end of the 2 hour show, Albert is so moved by the crowd chorus that he asks them to sing ”All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe” again and then leaves the stage with the audience singing his song. He has to leave through the audience so I quickly borrow a phone with a torch from someone and point it to show Albert the way, but as we get to the rear exit from the hall with the audience still singing he turns to wave goodbye and I hold the torch above him lighting him for the audience.

Suddenly, Manchester, Portugal, Madrid, Gibraltar, Birmingham, Los Angeles and Kendal all come together for me in a glorious celebration of the power of a great popular song and I’m so loving holding that torch. This was my Pop Music Olympics. Better than any of the mimed ‘tosh’ you are going to see on your screens this summer.

Albert, who also wrote for Johnny Cash, Jefferson Starship, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Julio Iglesias, The Carpenters and many more is at The Glee Club, Birmingham on Wednesday 16^th May. I’ll be running around with a torch and a big smile.

There’s a chance that you need to be over 40 years old to get this, but if you are a budding pop songwriter try not to miss one of the masters.

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Tags: albert hammond, all i need is the air that i breath, birmingham, Birmingham UK, glee club, Highbury Studio, John Mostyn, The Hollies, tour

Wakeup Call From Australia

Had an early morning surprise call from Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio on Tuesday this week.
Would I go live via phone on their drive time show in an hour to talk about Life In The European Theatre?
Woke up and agreed to do it on my way to Pilates.
We touch on their ‘drive time vinyl compilation album of the week ‘Life in the European Theatre’, Anti Nuclear Campaign, EP Thompson The Beat, Fine Young Cannibals and Inner City.

Not often that I’m heard to speak in the morning so here it is!

Moseley Memories

Met writer Nick Toczek yesterday at the funeral of an old friend. More on the life of Chris Edwards when we remember him musically in a couple of months time but thought a few old Moseley types might enjoy Nick’s recollections of upstairs at The Fighting Cocks in the early 70′s…

Hi John,

great to meet you again – albeit in such very sad circumstances – found your site and been reading about you…  my part in the history of the upstairs room in Ivor’s Fighting Cocks is that – before he had a proper stage built – I made the temporary one from bricks and planks stolen from a building site plus dozens  of beer crates ‘donated’ by Davenports Brewery (slogan: beer at home) after giving a fiver to the night watchman in exchange for a van-load of crates. That was for the first Moseley Festival back in 1973, which I jointly founded with Tom Sorohan and John Dalton.

Reciprocally, in running Big Ears, you gave a regular early platform for dozens of performers…. among them not just the utterly brilliant John Dowie whom you mention, but also  – if memory serves me right – Victoria Wood, Kay Russell (who had a big chart hit with The Susan Fassbender Band – ‘Twilight Café’ –  which she wrote and played/sung on), Jim Cleary (who should’ve been bigger than anyone out of Brum),me (check out my incomplete wikipedia site), God knows how many musicians – including Ruby Turner (managed by Gather Owen) all of Robert Plant’s post-Zep Honeydrippers – plus ex-Move luminaries, some ace folkies, etc,… not forgetting others like the now-legendary cartoonist, then scriptwriter, Hunt Emerson, plus the playwright (but since established as a major children’s poet) Gareth Owen, plus John Row (of Stereo Graffiti) who’s now a leading player on the storytelling circuit…. and many more if I stopped to think about it.

What I’m saying is that your blurb about Big Ears is too modest… by far. It was an astonishing phenomenon.

Nick Toczek

What happened?

A long time since a post but there’s not a lot to say about the chaos of moving house after 30 years. All best kept to oneself.

So goodbye Moseley, Goodbye Custard Factory and now; new home, new office, all tucked in one building in Kings Heath which also houses a rehearsal and analogue recording studio. Have a look, I love it.

Rural fun

We worked at the lovely Firefly Festival near Ludlow at the weekend.

Godfather in a lift

For some reason been looking back again. I’ve been working recently with some of the funkiest folk that I’ve ever met in the shape of  Jon Cleary and Earl Thomas and the musicians playing with them. Jon’s chaps are the finest sidemen from New Orleans and Earl’s for some years were Ike Turner’s  backing band now resident in California.

Had the treat of driving Earl Thomas who’s song ‘Get Me Some’ was recorded by Tom Jones past Tom’s birthplace afer a gig at the delightful Mumbles Blues festival and chatted with Doug; Jon’s drummer about playing with Willie Nelson in the end credits shot of the Dukes of Hazard movie whilst gazing over the Tyne from The Sage. Good Criac.

But through the funk an image from ten years ago has kept recurring. One morning I was alone facing the lift on the ground floor in Polydor Records, thoughts quite elsewhere, stepped forward as the doors opened to be faced, from the lift, by Mr James Brown at the front of his large retinue. My immediate reaction was to take a step back and salute, not just any salute but the three fingured salute of the Boy Scouts where I’d last had occasion to salute anyone in 1964. Mr Brown nodded and gave me a “Huh” as he walked by. Perfect.

Here is a most strange version of “This Is A Man’s World”

“Look you f..king idiot”

Prompted by the death of Malcolm Mclaren I share this tale particularly with Midge_UK and Sharl

Spring 76  and after five years in Brum  I’d spent a couple of years as a roadie and a couple being a sales rep for the wonderfully niche Transatlantic Records. It was time to find a new music related challenge.

Since I’d seen 100′s of venues around the UK this agency business – finding gigs for artists – sounded interesting with less driving for sure.

There were 2 that caught my eye in town – Jim Simpson’s Big Bear agency for one but I didn’t fancy that since they’d recently booked my mate James Langstone’s band to play on the Isle of Man ferry. In the storm that they sailed through as the band were playing the power supply varied as the ship’s propeller came out of the water causing James’s vocals to vary in pitch  an octave or so during just one vocal line. People subsequently paid a lot of money for this effect but it didn’t work when unplanned.

The other agency that I’d noted – Endale Associates didn’t really appeal as I knew of Dave Corke’s Juda Priest connections and I’d never bought into that bit of metal but the company had promoted some good gigs too so I called him anyway. I went to see him in an office up a few stairs in the Jewellrey Quarter on the afternoon of December 1st. An amaimable fellow, Corky figured that my experience was just the ticket to be a useful booker so it was quickly agreed that I’d start the next day. Corky explained that he was going to be out of the office in the morning so gave me a set of keys with instructions to “Answer the phone” until he arrived around  lunch time.

I didn’t see the Grundy interview from Granada Studios that went out Nationally that night and caused the media furore led by the Daily Mirror but travelling on the No 9 into my new work place that morning and reading the Mirror I did wonder what the day might have in store.

I let myself in to the office at 9.00am and both phones were ringing. Neither stopped for the rest of the day. The first calls were from 2 of the Universities that had dates on the upcoming Sex Pistols tour which Endale had booked – cancelling the shows. Then the BBC looking for comments, then more cancellations followed by press from Europe as it’s press woke up to the story. Different people from the BBC and ITN called – no one could reach Mclaren  or Corky’s mate Bernie Rhodes  and most of the people calling from the media didn’t know the difference between an agent and a manager anyway so the calls just kept coming and by the time Corkey arrived in the office at 1.oo pm I had four sheets of A4 with numbers for him to call back and felt like I’d spoken to every journalist in Europe. Certainly the UK.

He hadn’t seen the TV the night before or read the morning’s press so a cheery “Alright. How are things?” from him led me to pass over a copy of the Mirror and explain that every date on the tour had been cancelled plus it seemed like every journalist in Europe had been on the phone. Corkey wasn’t phased and set about trying to find Mclaren or Rhodes. Failing at that he turned to getting the dates re-instated. “No problem Kid” he says. “Just watch this”

He called the first venue which I think was Stafford Uni and they weren’t having any of it. The date was cancelled and that was that. He called a couple more and got the same response. By the time he got to the fourth – Colchester Uni he took a different line and asked the Social Secretary who’d booked the date what the problem was. “It’s not us” says the Sec “It’s the Dean. He called up this morning and said we couldn’t do it after seeing the Grundy interview last night”. “Give me his number” says Corky.  He calls The Dean. I could only hear one side of the conversation but that went something like this: “Good afternoon Dean I’m calling as the agent for the Sex Pistols who have a show contracted with your University  later this month…. No hold on a minute you don’t understand they are really nice young men who’ve been misrepresented… Look they are lovely chaps, I know them well and this behaviour is totally out of character. I’ve met their Mums and Dads – lovely people. No! No! you are wrong, what you saw wasn’t really them…. Now will you listen to me or not? …. Look you f..king pillock”

… and the Dean was gone and so was the whole tour.

I left Corky with the 4 x A4 sheets of numbers and wondered out into the December chill musing on what I might do next. I didn’t see Corky again but I did hear from a friend a few years later who had seen him hiding behind a newspaper in the lounge of a Dublin hotel during a music biz conference when he realised that 2 a&r guys from 2 different record labels that he’d just signed the same band to were about to meet at the bar.

A couple of years later I had a quiet smile when working with the brilliant Mr John Dowie & The Big Girl’s Blouse and the NME described them as “Making the Sex Pistols look like babies farting in the bath water.”