"If you really mean it, it all comes round again" is part of the lyric to "Meet on the Ledge", Fairport Convention's anthem from their seminal album from 1968. More on Fairport another time, but suffice it to say that they have been one of the biggest influences on my music since I started playing properly back in 1968.
This tale comes from 1971-2. I was in a rcok band at the time. We started off calling ourselves Sessantanova (Italian for 69 and yes, it has the same meaning), but by the time we entered that year's Melody Maker Battle of the Bands contest at Acton Town Hall we'd changed our name to Mother Denton's Diary. We won the first night and were invited back later in the week to the area final. Alas, we were blown away by the band that went on to win the contest outright. They were called "Listen", a six piece, jazz fusion/prog rock style outfit with a male and a female lead singer. I'd seen them a few times at the Greyhound in Fulham Palace Road and they were good. Very good. Too good for their own good to be honest. I saw them a year or so later playing cabaret in a small pub in North Kensington. It was the only way they could make a living.
(Mother Denton's Diary in about 1971.Me, Trevor Denton on drums and Pete Jones on bass)
Anyway, and moving on....Mother Denton's Diary only played a few shows. Most of the time we set up in Trevor and Pete's flat on the Goldhawk Road in Shepherd's Bush and jammed and jammed and annoyed the neighbours. None more so than one evening when the government was having to instigate power cuts to various parts of the city because the power generation workers were on strike. We looked out of the window (the flat was upstairs) and across the road was darkness. The petrol station was closed, the pub was closed, the shops were closed, the side streets were in darkness. But in the upstairs flat in Goldhawk Road, the lights were on- all of them, the amps were all on 11, and we were rocking!
Les was first of all a drinking friend. He was also the most talented musician I have ever played with. Guitar or piano- he could play anything. He was entirely self taught and he should have had a future in the music business. However, he had one weakness- he liked a drink. A good pint was more important to him than a job. Jobs were plentiful back then. If the Labour Exchange got on to him he'd get a job and last maybe two weeks before he'd had enough and sling it. Allied to the drink and his uncertain employment history was the fact that he'd been blacklisted by every hire purchase company in the land. He'd join a band but needed a guitar and amp. He'd get one on HP, pay a couple of installments and fall behind. Eventually the guitar was repo'd.
When we met up he'd managed to buy an old strat and an AC30. Both were a bit beaten up but he didn't pay much for them, and at least they wouldn't get repossessed.
Boy could he play. He could play anything after he'd heard it once. He had great style, great feel, taste and a superb vibrato and sustain. He had all the licks and tricks. So why hadn't he made it?
It turned out that he'd been a member of a fairly successful blues band in the mid 60s. The band shared management with another up and coming band named Savoy Brown. Eventually the management decided to put all their efforts into pushing Savoy Brown, and in true time honoured fashion the first my friend knew about it was when he read in the music press that Savoy Brown had just signed a big record deal and were off to the States to tour. Did that drive him to drink, or was his drinking part of the decision making process? We'll never know, but that's how he ended up with my band.
We had a gig at a working men's club in Watford. We hired a van, loaded the kit and sat around for hours waiting for him to show up. When he did eventually turn up he was drunk as a skunk. Anyway we drove to the venue where Les discovered that the lager was half the price he usually paid, so that was it. He managed to stay upright and not pass out, sitting on his amplifier, but that was the sum total of his contribution that evening.
We didn't get rebooked. Loads of reasons, mostly to do with our lack of suitable songs and being too loud for the venue.
Around this time I left home and moved into a bedsit a few hundred yards away, in Minford Gardens, just behind Shepherds Bush Green. There were loads of pubs fronting the green, some with Irish Showbands and one on the corner of Goldhawk Road next door to the BBC TV Theatre that we'd frequent, partly because the beer was drinkable, partly because they had live bands, and partly because they had a stripper every Sunday lunchtime. They also had a small theatre upstairs, and many of the performers from the BBC TV Theatre would also drink there. I recall standing next to Bruce Forsyth and his then wife Anthea Redfern as he held court.
No, I didn't speak to him. I was far too cool (shy more likely) to do that.
At the other end of the green there was a large roundabout and next to it was a small pub called the Duke of Clarence. I'd played there a few times a couple of years earlier when I played in a duo with my guitar teacher, but the pub had changed hands and character when I visited it again.
I walked in and what I heard changed my life forever. There was a bunch of musicians sitting in the centre of the room, around a table. Around them were a bunch of people who'd sing along, and maybe add a song of their own. I'd discovered a session. I loved it. I loved the way they ignored the stage in the corner and sat with the people. I loved the music they played.
By now my favourite band Fairport Convention had embraced traditional folk music and had almost single-handedly created folk-rock. Perhaps that influenced me more than I cared to admit. Anyway, a couple of weeks later I plucked up courage and asked if I could sit in. Some weeks there were only five or so, but most weeks there were at least a dozen musicians playing, so one more guitarist (albeit one who didn't know anything about the music, how the songs went, nothing), one more guitarist just added a different flavour to the mix. After a few more weeks, something had to give.
To be honest, I'd grown bored with the rock band. Even though we prided ourselves on our spontaneity as we improvised pieces lasting up to half an hour in length (as was the fashion at that time), to my ears it was getting a bit predictable. I felt I had nothing more to give. I had reached the limit of my ability on electric guitar and it was time to try something new. My friends were fed up about it. i tried to tell them about my new love, but they wouldn't have it. Musical differences is how they describe band break-ups, and that fitted us to a T.
Within a couple of months of throwing my lot in with my new found friends I was camping at the Cambridge Folk Festival and enjoying the craic. The band set up in the beer tent and we ran a session from early morning until late at night. We even took a turn on the main stage but I was too drunk to remember anything about it.
For the next couple of years we played about six nights a week around West London. We played for beer mostly. We played for the craic. We had a nucleus of five people- George was the singer; Rod played flute and sang some of his own songs; Willie played Anglo Concertina; Finn played guitar and I played mandolin- yes- mandolin.
More about that next time.
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