I realise the previous stories may a bit name droppy so this one will be a bit of an antidote to that. I have written my fair share of duffers so let’s have a listen to one now shall we. When I quit being in a rock band and decided to concentrate on songwriting it was a whole different ball game, writing and pitching songs to artists than writing with and for a band you’re a member of.
The two demos here represent a couple of firsts on that journey. The opening track is the first time an artist recorded one of my songs locally and the next track is the first time an artist cut one of my tracks for national release. There is a common thread between the two as well and that is that I began to notice that producers were sticking pretty close to my demos. I capitalised on this by being very careful with arrangements and production ideas. I couldn’t compete with the high quality studios they used but I could give them a blue print for their production.
I don’t have the original demo for song one close to hand but it will have been recorded on my Akai 2 track. It’s called “Ways of Making You Talk” and the artists are the Debonaires. What on earth was I thinking of: “When we get right down to the thumbscrews, fix your feet so that you can’t walk, Stick bamboo shoots up your nose, we have ways of making you talk”. The next song is better; Messing Around, the demo sung by the Caffrey Bros followed by the actual Bruce Ruffin version as released by RCA records in 1980.
As last weeks SONG STORY SUNDAY featured the Searchers, how about Mike Pender this week. First you’ll hear “It’s Over” which was a solo single for Mike. I did not write this song but I produced the single as well as paying bass and keyboards on it. My co-producer and I, John Verity gave him one of our songs as the B Side which is what you hear next. It’s a pretty crappy song really but to give Mike his due he did his best with it.
Here is the story behind Hurry Home. The audio collage you can hear below starts with my rough demo. Unfortunately auto-tune had not been invented in those days. The rough demo was laid down after a heavy metal session I recall, everyone had left and there was only me and audio engineer Mickey Sweeney in the studio. I nipped in quickly and laid down a demo. There is a recording in my kitchen that pre-dates this but I can’t find it so you have been spared. This particular demo was recorded next to a taxi office which you can hear. Next, I only made a couple of simple demos, the first being with Paul Caffrey followed by another with Mick Whitaker. Next there is a clip sung by Vikki Clayton (Fairport Convention) and after that a version by Sarah Brightman. We conclude with the big one by Wavelength. Wavelength’s version charted in 1982 and went top 20 staying in the charts for 3 months. Oh, and BTW Sarah B, if you’d like to pay me the royalties from your 100 date world wide La Luna tour of stadiums I’d be happy to accept!
So on to the other part of the story. In 1985 I took part in an event to support the Bradford Football Fire Disaster Appeal. The gig took place at St Georges Hall, Bradford and featured the likes of Smokey, Kiki Dee, Motorhead, Colin Blunstone and of course the Nolan Sisters. I played keyboards with John Verity’s band. John had organised the gig. Top of the Bill was Gerry Marsdon (he of the Pacemakers). There was a big jam session towards the end and I distinctly remember trading keyboard licks with Rod Argent. Jim Rodford and Bob Henrit, respectively bass player and drummer with the Kinks were keen to do a couple of Kinks tunes in the jam so we obliged with “You Really Got Me” – no problem. Next came “All The Day and All of The Night”. The main riff was easy enough to busk but nobody was quite sure of the chords to the bit “The only time I feel all right is by your side” so it kind of fell apart there with just bass and drums really knowing it. The funniest bit for me was when we were doing a blues jam. I looked to the assembled guitarists on stage and noticed they were playing in the key of G (by the chord shapes their hands were making) and so I joined in, also in the key of G (naturally). A few moments later I glanced at Worzel of Motorhead and spotted he was playing in the key of A, blissfully unaware he was the only person doing so! Incidentally this was the gig credited with re-uniting Smokie but that was almost short lived when their drummer Pete Spencer fell backwards off the drum podium and injured himself. Luckily, as well as multiple guitarists we were sporting two drummers (Paul Smith) at the time and so the beat went on. And finally; my singing debut with the Nolans. The last act was Gerry Marsden and the last number was the anthem for the appeal “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Everybody got up and sang this one. There were loads of us so we clustered in groups around several mics. I clustered with the Nolans and that, dear readers is who I got to sing with the Nolans. Sadly there is no picture of this event but I do have the programme (below) strangely the Nolans are not mentioned on it – a strange oversight. ≈
