Ain't Bad for a Pink (44 page)

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From International Musician and Recording World February 1977.

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Guitar & Bass, February 2006.

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Guitar Magazine, vol.7, no 8. June 1997.

By 2005 the edginess of my life had been amplified by circumstances which pressurised me materially, creatively and emotionally. I was hard up, the music scene had dried up and my hands were fucked up. Zoe wanted us to sell up. Sell up and cast our fates to the canal waters in a less than viable boat.

For quite a while I was immobilised on a metaphorical verandah: finger picking tunes, drinking cider and assessing. I’ve come to the conclusion that the three main things that have sustained me have been music, friendship and sex. Of these, music has been the most important because it has been the constant factor. The other issues: wealth, fame, hard work, taking risks, having fun, innovating, learning have all contributed in varying degrees and at various times.

Wealth was important to get things moving but I was never taken in by wealth
per se.
It facilitated things; it bought experiences but it didn’t make me happy. Having it in abundance did me an unexpected favour – it taught me that it was worthless! But it did leave me in the enviable position of having bought that, been there and done that whilst I was still young enough to enjoy it all so I have no lingering aspirations to make me feel dissatisfied. And I have enough to get by. Meeting some of my musical heroes has meant more to me than anything money could buy and developed my economic and political views as well as my musical vision.

I had no romantic notions of starving in an attic for my music either; there was no need.

I never achieved great fame, though a lot of people know me and I have been praised for my work by good musicians and by people who share my musical tastes. There’s a photograph of me with two of the most successful and esteemed guitarists in the business: Woody Mann and Bob Brozman, taken at Lichfield. One time at my Acoustic Night at Square One in Mill Street, a tall silent man sat through my first set without taking his eyes off me. He then congratulated me on my work and it turned out that he was also familiar with the work of Mann and Brozman. “But you’re better,” he said. Praise is nice, though not essential. Whilst in Georgia I received fulsome praise. Hearing my radio interviews on WRFG, fans travelled long distances to see me. Many asked me to put my hands on their guitars – some brought two or three – and one man asked me to sign his. I declined. It would have been almost sacrilegious.

But fame doesn’t impress me in myself or intimidate me in others. One night I was gigging at Alexander’s Jazz Theatre in Chester. The place was full of actors who had just finished their last night and they were making a noise. I spoke to them: “It may be your last night but it’s my first night and it’ll be my last night if this row doesn’t stop.” It stopped. I spoke to one of the actors – Gerald Harper – at the end of the evening. I didn’t know him but it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had. As actors they would expect their audience to be respectful. The fame that comes from being an entertainer seems trivial and it only sustains you in the moment.

I’ve had the good fortune to have friends. My friendship with Whitty was based on music and on his good company – when he wasn’t too pissed. He was a loveable, creative and intelligent man and we shared a sense of humour and many a convivial time, and I was prepared to look after him – feed him, keep him from getting too drunk – in order to preserve that. We never had to discuss things conventionally; our communication was intuitive, musical and direct. Whitty was a soulmate. I tried to minimize his self-destructive tendencies, believing that there was enough light in him to dispel his demons and just as this was happening – his letters from Australia were so full of hope – the bastard died. I lost more than a friend. There was no way of replacing that precious musical compatibility we had. It transcended everything else.

I’ve never got over the loss of my musical brother.

But I’ve been sustained by the company and efforts of many people over the years. Bert Bellamy opened doors to the world of blues where I made some inspirational musical friends and I’ll never forget the musical help I had from Son House. People with generous hearts like John Billington and Keith Bellamy appreciated my music and helped me financially. Others like Graham Roberts and Tom Jackson helped further my professional standing. I had an extended musical family: Melvyn and Deanie and Plum and Moggsie and Bootie and JD and Dave and Shep and Slim that made up for the depleted home life of my younger days. Keith Brammer and Count Bartelli were sporting companions. Both of my brothers could be counted on in survival situations. My mother was an enormous support to my musical success and my father became one of my role models, the others being Eugene Van De Hoog for his zest for life and Mike Slaughter for his courageous quirkiness.

My friendship with Des is more balanced than the one with Whitty and has endured for over thirty years. I’m used to looking after people and I used to try to look after Whitty but this is a friendship where I have been the one looked after. Des helped me get through some bad bouts of depression, especially when I was worried about my hands and he has recklessly confronted me to make me see sense. It’s been reciprocal – I’ve been there for his bad times too.

This friendship isn’t so strongly based on musical compatibility, though we do admire one another’s musicianship and we do perform together so the compatibility is there. Des still says he’s the apprentice! We have different approaches to preparation and performance. He plays it by the book whereas I favour a more fluid, intuitive approach. I find it difficult to compromise what I do to accommodate him and he must find it equally difficult. I can’t relax into the music and lose myself; I can’t spontaneously change the verse order or introduce an alternative ending as I could with Whitty. I am aware that Des is someone else whereas with Whitty we were the same. The banter between us is spontaneous but the songs are worked out and I don’t blame Des for that. With Des there has been an enduring love more than a musical compatibility.

My relationship with Des is based on shared values and there is a sense of easiness between us, an acceptance of each other, a social compatibility that means we can sit in silence.

It’s a spiritual bond if you want to so-call it. Pete has kept me away from the rock ‘n’ roll machine. We’re actually an odd couple Pete and I. We shouldn’t be friends at all.

Des Parton.
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We’re best mates. The best.

I’ve had some good friendships with women too. I did experience the sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll
cliché
, though not to the point of excess. I need women because I lost my mother, because of my libido and because I like them. Without a woman I’m back in the despairing time when life felt empty. I’ve just always loved being loved. There’s a song line: “I’ve never been to bed with an ugly woman but I sure woke up with a few” and I can honestly say this has never applied to me. There were plenty of women: all beautiful and I remember every one of them, no matter how brief the encounter. I’m not a womanizer and although I have been out on the pull there have been many times when women have taken the initiative with me.

As a musician I was always going to live the bohemian life of experimentation but it’s hard to recapture the unique carefree simplicity of those times of sexual freedom we had in the Sixties and Seventies. The disillusionment caused by the withering of Flower Power and the moral panic fuelled by the AIDS epidemic obliterated all that. The Pill separated sex from pregnancy so it could be enjoyed without fear of consequence. Women became more assertive now they were free to experience their sexuality and I met girls who released me from the necessity for pursuit: a thrilling innovation.

I had an important advantage: I was a musician and front man in a locally esteemed band and girls are drawn to performers. They equate your confidence with sexual potency; they’re wooed by the sentimental or sexy songs performed. They are actually relating to a fantasy, not a real human being but often the combination of confidence and fantasy-induced arousal works. As far as I was concerned it would only work if the girl was also intelligent.

Fantasy works both ways, of course. I was having a drink with Des at a pub that brewed its own beer – Sunrise or Sunset – and we were having a good time. I couldn’t help but notice an attractive dark-haired woman and she was noticing me as well. As the drink flowed and we kept looking at one another I began to fantasise about her. She was probably Spanish. Definitely. An
au pair
. I wondered if she would play with my castanets. She leaned forward – I could smell her musky perfume. She leaned forward with her unlit cigarette like someone in a film. This was my moment – she was leaning closer and closer until she was looking in my eyes. Gazing.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell! I thought you were Kenny Rogers!”

I don’t know what deflated me the most: the broad Stoke accent exploding my fantasy or being mistaken for a performer ten years older than me.

A theme runs through my experiences, on stage and off: the other side of dressing up has been dressing down – to the point of nudity. Amongst the women, that is. I’ve been very fortunate: many of my fantasies and fetishes have become reality. On holiday in Germany with my girlfriend, one of her breasts became exposed. This is called a wardrobe malfunction these days. An officious knobhead at another table felt it his duty to point this out: “Excuse me – I think your dress has slipped.” “I’m sorry – is it embarrassing you?” she replied, slowly, very slowly, covering up. The covering up was as sexy as the exposure! It wasn’t embarrassing her. Another time I was out with a girl who was wearing a
basque
and a similar thing happened. Damn it all – these things would just keep on happening. One of our companions mentioned that the tops of her nipples were showing. “Oh! Don’t you like it?” was the reply. Both women challenged a man’s right to make them cover up by handing the embarrassment back to him. I applaud them.

A woman has the right to dress as she wants, as far as I’m concerned. I think a lot of women would like to wear sexy clothes but are in repressive relationships. One of my ex-girlfriends appeared in a hairdressing display wearing not very much see-through chiffon over no underwear. I had bought her the not very much and she provided the rest: you could count the dots round her nipples! It was difficult to focus on the hairstyle. Her soon-to-be boyfriend was in the audience. Fast forward to the wedding photos: she’s dressed like Mary Poppins! I rest my, er, case.

I think my liberal attitude to self expression is unusual for men of my generation. I’m more likely to be upset by sexual infidelity or betrayals in friendship than by exhibitionism. If someone reveals their breasts for fun, or the pleasure of others or just for themselves, what’s wrong with that? Some sexual expressiveness is independent of observers. Perhaps the wild rock chicks exposing their breasts in salute at biker gigs would behave in a more outrageous way than the ‘conventional’ person, though this is not necessarily so. I’ve been to some
very
posh parties, professionally and socially, that ended up with all the women naked in the swimming pool.

I asked one of my partners about the liberated behaviour of my girlfriends. She agreed that it was because I was always supportive and never censorious: “Jealousy pushes a woman away. Men must be afraid you’ll run off if people can see you but it’s the jealousy that makes you go.” I asked my first wife too: “You’ve got to put yourself on the line if you want to have fun,” she said. We used to go to Cornwall in an open-topped sports car and she would enjoy the opportunity to wear unrestricting clothing. She was a political activist and feminist like Zoe and I’ve come to realize that the nudity, especially the discarding of the bra, was an important political act for women. The tabloids trivialised it, of course.

I think Pete wants his women to be something he can be proud of. He’s envious of a woman’s ability to be sexually powerful. He feels they have an advantage in a way men can’t have.

Zoe Johnson.
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I have photographs of my parents on a barge and in a cycling party: evoking a countryside long since diminished and a culture of fresh air and physical training popular in the Thirties throughout Europe. My mother is wearing cycling shorts and riding a bicycle with a cross bar. Apparently, this caused a stir although looking at the photograph it’s hard to understand out of the context of the interwar years. I think this was the equivalent of women in the Sixties discarding their bras. My mother is the prototype for all those girls who wanted the freedom to express themselves by dressing or undressing in a certain way. It isn’t just a question of exhibitionism; it’s a matter of individuality. It’s political. Women I went out with carried on the tradition.

I do believe that what a woman wears should be appropriate to the occasion, though; dressing appropriately is a matter of social intelligence. If a girl is at a cocktail party in non-cocktail clothes and she has a reason and is confident, that’s all right. If her choice of clothing is based on ignorance or lack of intelligence, it’s not all right as far as I’m concerned. If you’re socially intelligent you don’t break the rules but you can as well!