Chapter 6 1985 to 1986
Back in England in 1985, I went to a songwriting class in London and our homework was to do a song based on the 12-bar blues sequence of chords – this led to Be-bop-a-lula Hop. I played the class some more stuff including The Road To Babylon and I Need A Man. One of the class, Michael Servadei, played saxophone. You can hear him in Walking In The Rain, I Need A Man and Go Away. He was a lively character, and once when I was asked to play the song with the “manic saxophone player” I wasn’t sure which one he meant. It turned out that he was referring to Alabamie Mammy.
The class were given the chance of doing a song in a music studio and I went there with Pip Walter, a guitarist I’d found from an ad in Melody Maker, and Olly Kirkland. We recorded Poor Suzanne.
I did 2 songs at a recording studio in Hampshire, and more at 4-track studios in London, including Read Between The Lines, Dream Machine, Falling In Love and Good Morning Maria. I contacted Patrick McWilliam from the Cherry-Tones who put me on to Pino’s 8-track studio in Palmers Green. Pino was a good musician and I did about 10 songs with him in 1986. I then bought a second hand 8-track which was set up at Linden Harley’s house in Bounds Green. She was a singer I got from an ad in Loot. Pino came over and transferred his recordings on to my tape so that we could add backing vocals. Linden was a very good backing singer and harmoniser, as was Pip.
I met Cindy Birdsong who was staying at Pip’s house in Notting Hill for a week. She used to sing in a world famous group called The Supremes, with Diana Ross and Mary Wilson. She looked at my songbook, and gave me some lyrics for a song called Tell Him which I put to music (I sent it to her New York flat but heard no more! – maybe I didn’t achieve the right Tamla Motown sound). I became a godfather to Pip’s daughter, and wrote Bubble And Squeak when her mother gave us some bubble and squeak.
Then I set up with Olly in Wood Green and we jointly entered Radio Love in Eurovision, and I separately entered Something Special. To enter Eurovision I had to be a music publisher. So I pretended to be a music publisher – I had some letterheads printed in the name “Song City”. I was invited to be one of the judges for the short list. There were twenty of us (19 of which were genuine music publishers), and we sat round a table to listen to a cheap cassette recorder playing songs from all the hopefuls. We were not allowed to vote for our own song!
Both songs were sung with help from a girl singer I found called Lorna Pierre, who also sang Primrose Hill.
In November 1986, I got a second-hand van and took it over to Germany to visit some of the people I’d got to know. Pip and Linden came along for the ride. The van broke down, and the other two went on to Holland, while I waited for a new engine to be sent over from England. I went to a concert and saw a student band. Then I heard on the radio that a toxic cloud had come over from Switzerland and would pass quite near to where I was (sleeping in the cold van).
I included this in the song Say No, imagining it being sung by the student band.
I had a long wait for a cheque to clear so that I could pay for the new engine which they had put in. I think I wrote to the local bank along these lines:
Some of my songs are typical country-and-western, like The Story That You Told Me, Cool Lady, I’ll Be There, Gentle With Me, Goodnight Maria, Rolling Along, Love Me A Million and my own version of Pick A Bale O’ Cotton. People said I should go to Nashville with them. I had the right voice.
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