Category Archives: Song Stories

The Evolution Of A Song

The Steve Thompson Band Posted on by
I was a big fan of the Searchers in the sixties so it was a pleasure to work with them in the early 80’s. Now not many people know this but the song they recorded was originally a “Cowboy Song”. Yes, the first demo demonstrates this both in the lyrics and in a short intro by a guy called Ken Black. Ken was a retired policeman and used to come round the studio a lot. For some reason that escapes me now, I had Ken record an intro to each song in the batch of demos. I explained the story behind the lyric as an imaginary western where a bad hombre was hiding away in a backwater one-horse town. The vocals on this track are by Phil Caffrey + Peter + Paul = The Caffreys. I played everything on that demo including drums which I’m not very good at by a long stretch

My publisher of the time, Brian Oliver called me and suggested if I were to take a verse from another of my songs (I’ve long forgotten which song) and the chorus from this one, re-write the lyrics then I’d have a hit on my hands. Always willing to oblige I did as he said and you can hear this version next on the audio collage. On this version, it’s just Smithie on drums and me on everything else (plus, of course, the Caffreys) In the early 80’s I was signed to MCA music and my mentor was Pete Waterman. Pete got the song to The Searchers who decided to cut it as their next single and the producer was to be Peter Collins (Gary Moore, Bon Jovi, Air Supply, Alice Cooper, Rush, Nik Kershaw, The Cardigans etc) Waterman was at the time Peter Collins’ manager. The next version you hear is the Searchers but this is not the mix that got released. This is an unreleased version
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It’s possible that this mix was a bone of contention between Waterman and Collins and may have lead to the breakup of their partnership. Collins thought that the raw rocky mix was a good representation of the modern day Searchers. Waterman disagreed because, as always he had his sights on the charts. He wanted all the bells and whistles and Collins obliged. The is the next version you hear and the one that was released. The single entered the lower region of the UK charts but it charted and went gold on a K Tel compilation album. Later the Searchers recorded another of my songs “Innocent Victim” and both tracks feature on their 30th and 40th Anniversary albums as well as various other compilations.

The Searchers were performing at Castles in Catchgate (Co Durham UK) which is near where I was raised and where my old band Bullfrog used to rehearse so I arranged to go along (by now I was living in Whitley Bay) When I got to the gig I went into the dressing room and introduced myself to the band. It was a great show and it was quite a blast to hear my song in the midst of all those classic tracks. What made it even better was that John McNally (or was it Frank Allen) introduced the song and said: “this song was written by a guy who used to go to school around here and he ‘s standing at the bar over there, Steve Thompson”. I got a big round of applause & it felt great.

How I Gave Venom The Devil

The Steve Thompson Band Posted on by

This story is taken from a piece I wrote ages ago called “Remembering the Eighties”. The 80’s story was originally commissioned by a website called “Metal Godz”. The site is long gone and my eighties article remains unfinished and unpublished.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

During all the recording sessions for Neat Records, we had the assistance of Conrad Lant. Conrad was a good tape op and got on well with everyone. He was always going on about his own band. It seemed that they saved up for about 3 months until they could afford enough pyrotechnics to blow up half a city and then they had a major blow out and had to save up to do another show. Conrad said very little about the music, it was mostly about the explosions. One day he informed me that the bass player had quit and he was being called upon to play bass. A gig was imminent so I loaned him my Gibson EB3 I still had from my own early career. (apparently, this fact is now ingrained in folklore as the moment “Black Metal” was born)

Conrad could barely contain himself seeing all these bands make recordings. He wanted his band committed to tape too. We had a slack day coming up so I relented and said he could bring his band in during downtime. Again I loaned him the bass. I produced three tracks with them but the only title I remember was “In League With Satan”. I taught the guys a musical trick sometimes called “The Devil”. The video below explains this.

I had no idea these tracks would come out as a single, I just produced it as a favour. Now Conrad was convinced he was on the way to mega-stardom and in need of a bass so I let him talk me into selling him my Gibson EB3. I explained the history of the instrument and made him promise it was going to a good home. The next time I saw my old bass it had holes drilled in it and an upside-down crucifix nailed crudely to it. My bass was now a mess and Conrad had become Chronos!  Years later he told me the EB3 had “died” in Los Angeles (he gave it a burial at sea)

Going Solo

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It was 1983 and I had just signed an exclusive songwriting deal with MCA Music. Record Producer, Gus Dudgeon wrote to MCA complementing them on their wisdom in signing me and urged them to get me cracking on some songs for the new Elkie Brooks album. I’d worked with Gus a few times up to then but over the years I was to work with him a great deal. I thought it was really generous of him to write to my new publisher like that. To non-musicians, Gus may not be a household name but the artists he produced are certainly well known: David Bowie, Elkie Brooks, Joan Armatrading plus the majority of Elton John’s output. He also produced a slew of North East acts: Lindisfarne, Chris Rea, John Miles.

Obviously, I was definitely going to take up the Elkie Brooks challenge but I also knew how pernickety Gus was about songs, and so I devised a cunning plan. I figured the best way to get a cut on the next Elkie album (Gus had produced Pearls and Pearls ii) was to invite him to write it with me. As it turned out I was wrong, I figured he would just let me write the song and toss in the odd comment and earning himself 50% of the song as he did so. He had never written a song before but as it turned out he did not plan on being a passenger in the writing process and was determined to play a full part in the collaboration. To be fair the concept for the lyric was Gus’s idea. A songwriter working late at night when their partner/lover detects something strange in the lyrics. Gus also declared that what would be great for Elkie was a Doobie Brothers groove. I must say it all turned out to be quite an adventure.

Me and Gus

The writing sessions started out at MCA’s offices. The MCA staff were really excited about this and they had a removals firm come in to move a grand piano out the MD’s office into a large open area. Our songwriting began right there but it was kinda odd as people kept stopping by to take a peek. Gus declared that the next day should be different so he had MCA rent a whole rehearsal room complete with a stage and a PA. Talk about overkill !

So the next day just after noon we turned up at Nomis Studios in West London for the next phase of the writing process. I neglected to mention that the man who signed me to MCA and was my mentor there was Pete Waterman. Pete managed a producer called Peter Collins who was also starting to record a lot of my material. We borrowed an acoustic guitar and drum machine from Peter Collins for the writing session.

Gus and I were ready to begin writing session part 2 when all hell broke loose, There came a thunderous noise from next door and various parts of the room were shaking. When it stopped we went through and, lo and behold it was Motorhead having a little rehearsal with the amps turned up to 11. I think Gus knew the guys and we had a little chat. Lemmy said they would be going off to the pub soon. After a couple more songs, sure enough, they did just that, never to return. Gus and I continued to work on our song and just like any session with Gus it went on and on and on. Gus’s approach to production is to push the artists to the limit of their ability. Always more, “give me more”. What works for production may not be the best approach to songwriting because what we ended up with was a tough song to sing.

The first bit on the audio/video is me singing the half-completed song. That’s me playing an acoustic with a pickup through the PA and singing my guts out. I must have had some bottle in those days because there I am performing solo in front of the man who produced Bowie’s Space Oddity. You can hear Gus joining in here and there and the odd interjection. It’s great to hear his voice again because, like many of the people in these song stories, Gus is no longer with us.

Peter Collins

The next bit is a bit of a blur. Either we worked really late or else had dinner but my memory kicks back in as we are driving around London in Gus’s Aston Martin quite late at night. I pointed out that we’re supposed to return the guitar and drum machine to Peter Collins and it’s getting late. As we approach Peters street, Gus decides to call him. This is him being flash – nobody else I know had a phone in their car in ’83. Peter answers, “Hi, it’s Gus, we’re going to drop your kit off – just making sure you’re up”. Peter asks how long it will take to get there. Gus says, “two minutes, we’re turning into your street”. Looking back now realise this may have had something to do with Peter’s demeanour because when he answered the door he was in his dressing gown, his eyes were wide and he was very nervous. He invited us in and gave us coffee. Gus rolled a huge spliff and started to tell us some ripping yarns from his music production career. Terrific stuff with many twists and turns but he always returns from the tangents every time without losing his thread. Eventually, Gus says to Peter “I’m sorry old chap, we’re keeping you from your bed”. Then Peter says, “no problem, YOU ARE MY BIGGEST HERO”. I was Gobsmacked. Peter had enjoyed a zillion hits that year and at that moment in time was hotter than Gus. I’m talking about, Gary Moore, Bon Jovi, Billy Squier, Rush, Air Supply, Nik Kershaw, Tracy Ullman, the list goes on.

We finally said all goodnight and I stayed over at Gus’s place in Cobham and the next day I headed home. The next step would be to produce a rough demo and then a full demo which Gus declared he would come to Newcastle to produce.

And so, the next piece of audio on the collage is my rough home demo. The lyrics aren’t finished and the arrangement is not settled. As you can hear, it’s a struggle to sing. I’m not the world’s greatest vocalist, far from it but this song would tax any singer as it had such a sweeping range.

Next on the tape/video is a version with Phil Caffrey singing. I think it’s Barrie Spence on bass, Paul Smith on Drums and me on Guitar and keys. I hear my Cassio keyboard in there.

So, Gus planned to come to Newcastle to produce the ultimate demo. I booked Lynx studios in Shieldfield and had John Cook on keys, Frankie Gibbon on bass, Paul Smith on Drums and I brought Maureen Harold (Mo Scott) in on vocals. This is the next recording on the tape/video. We worked at it and at it and at one point Gus wanted to edit the 2-inch 24 track master tape. I explained to him “Gus, have you any idea how much a reel of 2-inch tape costs? We don’t cut it up in demo studios.” Eventually, Gus threw up his hands and declared that he didn’t know how to produce a demo. He said he was going home and asked me to finish it the recording. I booked in the following week and did just that. John Miles came round at the end of the session and picked up the finished master tape as he was working with Gus himself the following week. And so the demo of “Going Solo” headed South for its date with Elkie Brooks.

Not long after Gus got the finished song demo he had a date to go to Elkie’s home in Cornwall and discuss the proposed next album. Gus had produced her last two albums Pearls 1 and Pearls 2 and both had been hugely successful. Obviously, at some point, he would introduce our song into the proceedings and propose it for the album. When Gus got back home he called me to tell me the outcome. I waited on the other end of the line with baited breath. Then Gus tells me what had happened that weekend at Elkie’s place. Over dinner one evening she fired him as her producer. There would be no next album, not one produced by Gus anyway. The format with the two Pearls albums was to cover other artists songs. A highly successful formula as it happens. However, Elkie was tired of that format and wanted to do an album of her own material.

So all that effort (enjoyable though it was) came to nothing and the song remained on the shelf to this day. However, several years later Elkie did record two of my songs but it was totally disconnected to Gus and the Going Solo episode. I’d been pitching songs her way and one day Elkie called me out of the blue and said she wanted to use my song “One of A Kind” (co-written with Tommy Morrison) on her next album. Guess what? The album was to be called “Pearls 3”. I asked if there were slots for any more songs and she said yes, they were still looking for a track to use as the first single. So I sat down and wrote another song especially for her. This was “The Last Teardrop”. A few days later I got another call from Elkie, she loved “Teardrop” and what’s more, provided it worked out in the studio, she thought it could be the single she had been looking for. (and it was eventually the single) In all of this, I never did mention “Going Solo” in case it was a taboo subject.

You can hear both of my songs Elkie Brooks eventually recorded at my next gig with my six-piece band at The Georgian Theatre, Stockton on March 25th. It’s an afternoon gig at the newly refurbished Georgian. Come along and here all the songs as well as the stories behind them.

Please Don’t Sympathise

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This song dates from 1981. I had quit as house producer at Neat Records. I had begun to realise that I was largely helping other people build careers whilst mine was on hold. I was becoming bogged down in Heavy Metal and whilst there’s no doubt I’m a bit of a rocker, I really wanted to pursue the path of a songwriter first and foremost. Production might come into it somewhere along the line but I wanted that to be a sideline, not my main gig.

So I walked away from Neat just as the buzz was growing. This may seem a little precipitous but I was young and it just seemed to be the right thing to do. What I didn’t realise at the time was that I had walked away with a pocket full of hit songs. That fact would emerge a little later. For now, I was penniless. More to the point I’d walked away from the facilities of a fully equipped recording studio. All I had now was a cassette recorder, a cheap Cassio keyboard and a very early and basic drum machine, a Roland DR 55 Dr Rhythm. I also had my red Cimar acoustic guitar (the one that appears in all my posters and social media stuff) and my 1970 Stratocaster which I still have to this day. However, the majority of my composing took place on that Cassio keyboard.

And so I set about composing the song that is the subject of this song story: Please Don’t Sympathise. I remember strumming the first 2 chords on acoustic sitting on the edge of the bed, humming a melody and thinking “nice, but the next chord has to go somewhere different”. I’ll talk a little about the song structure later.  The collage at the foot of this story starts with my own doodlings with that primitive equipment in my flat in Tynemouth. As always apologies for my vocals. The next stage in this song’s development has become a missing link. A missing recording that so far I have been unable to find. To tell that part of the story I need to morph briefly back to Neat Records with a piece of Heavy Metal History that has evaded the books and blogs.

For a brief period, I joined the heavy metal band, FIST ! Singer and guitarist, Keith Satchfield had his eye on some of my songs as potential commercial material to help take the band to greater heights. I said fine and gave him 3 pop/rock songs. He said, “no man, you have to join the band before we can do your songs”. So I replaced Dave Irwin and we cut the three songs. Sadly I don’t have any of the recordings. Then Keith took it a stage further and brought in a vocalist called Glenn Coates who impressed me a great deal. I’ve no idea where these recordings are either. Anyway, I was impressed enough to ask Glenn to sing on my next demo session after I left Neat/Impulse. We recorded about 8 songs including Please Don’t Sympathise at Mortonsound in Newcastle. I am unable to locate those recordings and I fear they may be lost forever.

I had just cut a single with the Hollies. One of my songs called “I Don’t Understand You. Bruce Welch of the Shadows was in the production seat for that recording in Odyssey studios, London. One thing led to another and I eventually signed a publishing deal with Bruce. I signed the contract at Tyne Tees TV Studios in Newcastle and Hank Marvin signed as the witness. Bruce selected 4 songs from the 8 song demo session with Glenn and asked me to make some more advanced demos. I could have gone into Neat/Impulse but I still wanted to carve new territory and so I went to Guardian studios in Pity Me, County Durham. I played bass, keyboards and guitar on the session with Paul Smith on drums and I brought my old mate Dave Black in to do vocals. I spent two full days on those four song demos, Bruce Welch was paying and he really wanted me to go to town on the production. Maybe it doesn’t sound like it now when folks have state of the art facilities in their bedrooms but those demos were “hot”. Remember the fact that Guardian Studios were located in a County Durham village quaintly called “Pity Me”. That fact is going to pop up again later in the story in quite a spooky way.

Enter a producer called Chris Neil. Chris and I had just had a massive hit with his production of my song “Hurry Home”. Chris was by now having a bit of a love affair with my material and had asked Bruce to give him first dibs on any new songs that came in from me. Chris was a well known and highly successful producer working with Leo Sayer, Gerry Rafferty, A-Ha, Rod Stewart, Cher and others. He picked up on two of the songs from the four songs I’d just demo’d. One of them he sang himself under the band name of “Favoured Nations” but that’s another story. The recording pertinent to this story is his production of Sheena Easton’s new album “Madness Money And Music” and he recorded Please Don’t Sympathise for that album. The album came out and did very well. It went top 20 in the UK, peaking at 13. It also charted in several other countries and did particularly well in Japan. Sheena’s version follows Dave’s rendition in the video.

And so, you may think, job done, end of story.

But no, a year later another chapter was added. Have you heard the charming story of how Rene Angelil mortgaged his house to produce Celine Dion’s first album? Well, he did so armed with one of my songs. Please Don’t Sympathise to be precise. Celine recorded the song on for her “Les Chemins De Ma Maison” released in Canada. She then released the song as the second single from the album. The single was a massive hit in Canada earning a Gold Disk. Celine then recorded an extended version of the song for her album Du Soleil Au Cœur which was released in France and Switzerland. The albums featuring my song sold 400,000 copies in Canada and 700,000 copies in France.

At this time Celine was singing exclusively in French and so Rene’s longtime collaborator, Edi Marne did a French adaptation. This is not a translation nor a co-write, it’s called a local adaptation. I’ve done English adaptations of foreign songs myself for the UK market and you get a 12.5% cut for this. The trick is to get something that sings well and is very similar to the original in lyrical intent if not a literal translation. And so Celine’s version of Please Don’t Sympathise is Ne Me Plaignez Pas. Now, here’s the spooky fact: remember, I cut the demo about two years earlier in a studio in a village called Pity Me: Well, “Ne Me Plaignez Pas” means “Don’t PITY ME”. (Cue spooky music)

I guess you would agree that this is a pretty successful song. But cast your mind back to the start of the story and the first part of the video. I was using pretty rudimentary equipment. The success of this and other songs helped me change that situation and I eventually had my own recording studio. However, it may just be the case that my best work was produced when I had very little equipment. There may be a moral in that tale.

As to the construction of the song: This is really just a pop song, nothing deep about it at all. But it has a groove and feel to it that people seem to like. I often set the chorus to my songs in a higher key to the verses and this is the case with this particular song. I’m not talking about a “123 here we go” key hike. I use a more subtle approach that listeners may not notice at all except that they know the general vibe has “lifted”. To make this work subtly and avoid jarring shifts takes hours of exploration and experimentation and this applies to the modulation from the chorus back down to the verse too. I know all the theory to these modulations but in practice, it takes a lot of graft to make it seamless. So for this song, I set it in G for the verses and Bb for the choruses. But I took it a stage further. The Verses slip in and out of G and Bb quite a bit before finally settling into Bb for the choruses. One other thing perhaps noteworthy is the 3 note run up on the bass guitar at the very beginning. That was present in every demo I made and I do take pleasure to note that every recording of this song by far more accomplished bass players includes this motif.

You can hear my band perform our version of this song in our Songs Stories and Multimedia show. The next one is at  The Georgian Theatre, Stockton – March 25th. Although the song has been cut by two pretty big time female recording artists, we do the male version. I chose to do this in memory of my friend Dave Black. It has been the passing of friends that has encouraged me to take this show on the road after all these years. So, Terry Slesser takes the lead vocal on this one. However, expect the unexpected when Jen Normandale steams in with a verse in French that would make Ms Dion proud.

I hope you enjoyed this song story. I will be delving into my memory bank for another one quite soon.

One Of A Kind

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This song was co-written with Tommy Morrison. Elkie Brooks released this a single in Germany and France and then worldwide on the Pearls 3 album and then later on her Greatest Hits CD.

The video takes you through the various stages of the song. Naked song alert !!  – the mix-up starts with my rough “dooh be doo be dooh” rendition. All I had was the title and the melody. I gave this to Tommy to develop a lyric and next there is a version sung by Tommy when he’d done the lyrics.

Next, there is a version sung by Phil Caffrey that I used to pitch for covers. This version can be heard in full on the Caffrey Morrison Thompson album, “Sleepless Nights” released by VainGloriousUK.

Next, you’ll hear the Elkie Brooks version. Finally, there is an updated version I started to work on about a year ago. Maybe I need to finish this?

This song means a lot to me as Tommy is no longer with us. One Of A Kind was played as we said farewell to him at Sunderland Crematorium on a cold January day in 2014. Tommy’s funeral in 2014 as we bid farewell to him. I’m sure he’d be delighted to know that my band are still performing this song. Come and see us perform it at The Georgian Theatre on. March 25th. The amazing Jen Normandale takes the vocals on this one in the show.

For those with an interest in such things a few words about the construction. From my simple beginning, I had a title, a melody, a feel and an emotion. I discussed all this with Tommy and he came back with the perfect set of lyrics. This is not a simple pop song lyric – “I’ve spent a lifetime, or so it seems, moving in circles, dealing in dreams”, pure Morrison Magic. My approach was one that I’ve heard Paul Simon discuss. To present oneself with a musical conundrum that you then set about trying to solve. I was aiming to produce a song that emulated an era without sounding Retro. This is a sixties song written in the nineties. I could not be too experimental because I wanted the song to be recorded by someone. Writing a song for other artists is not the same as writing a song for your own band. The artist will invariably be writing their own songs and so you have to hit them with something that surpasses those songs. Something that is structured so very singable that they want to do it so badly they put their own songs aside in favour of yours. I managed this twice on Elkie’s “Pearls 3” album! Anyway back to the construction: The opening two chords are fairly standard. There are a few obvious choices that the third chord could move to but I chose none of them. Nothing outrageous but I went to a place, not 100% expected. I also did this with the opening two chords in the choruses too. What I worked on hardest with the song were the feel and emotion. I simply cannot describe this, it comes from within. Elkie added a few lyrics “I’m so glad you’re mine, you’re one of a kind”. My original rough version contained lots of “dummy” words but I asked Tommy to leave the line “Whoa whoa whoa whoa, you’re one of a kind” as it was when he worked on the lyrics. Elkie said she felt that it sounded like we were unable to come up with words at that point. Both Tommy and I agreed that our “whoa whoa whoa whoa” meant a whole lot more than Elkie’s “I’m so glad you’re mine”. The Tommy/Steve version is the one my band performs – sorry Elkie!

SONG STORY: One Of A Kind

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For a while I published “Song Story Sunday”  where I took a song and made a collage of it, going through the various stages of development. Today I’m reviving  this feature for a song called “One of A Kind”. This song was co-written with Tommy Morrison. Just under a week ago I heard this song played as we all bid our final farewell to Tommy. The version we used for that occasion was by Elkie Brooks because Tommy was justly proud that his song had been recorded by a major artist.

Naked song alert !!  – the collage starts with my rough “dooh be doo be dooh” rendition. All I had was the title. I gave this to Tommy to develop a lyric and next there is a version sung by Tommy when he’d done the lyrics. This is not a simple pop song lyric – “I’ve spent a lifetime, or so it seems, moving in circles, dealing in dreams”, pure Morrison Magic. Next there is a version sung by Phil Caffrey that I used to pitch for covers. This version can be heard on the recently released “Sleepless Nights” album by Caffrey, Morrsion, Thompson. Then we hear the version by Elkie Brooks released on her “Pearls iii” CD and also as a single in various parts of Europe. Finally, there is an updated version I started to work on about a year ago. Maybe I need to finish this?

https://soundcloud.com/stevie_t-1/one-of-a-kind-collage

SONG STORY: Merry Christmas

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SUNDAY SONG STORY: This weeks story has a festive theme so I thought I’d bring it forward a day. Back in the 90’s I was producing demo recordings for other songwriters. They would send me their rough efforts and I’d record a polished product with which they could seek fame and fortune. I had a stable of singers on tap to sing these songs including Phil Caffrey, Dave Black, Tanya Rowlands, Mark ‘Busk’ Conlin, Liz Wilson & the infamous Mick Whitaker who features in this story. This group of singers was known as the ST Stable of Singers, the studio was ST Studios, the writers were ST Writers and we had a regular newsletter for this merry band of souls which was edited and produced by one of the writers. Given all this. it seemed only right that we should distribute a special Christmas recording to all these folks and it is the 1998 ST Christmas special that is featured below. That day Mick Whitaker was in the studio. As Mick didn’t drive I used to take him home at the end of sessions but our journey was always impeded by the fact there was a pub (The Coach Inn) in the way between my studio and his home. I’m explaining this to give some context to the track you will hear. It is indeed a live recording I just ran some inane loop and then went into the vocal booth with Mick for some impromptu (well hastily prepared) festive singing. Enjoy!

 

SONG STORY: Empty Pockets

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SUNDAY SONG STORY: The previous two stories have included Toni Haliday and this is the third and final in a song story trilogy. You may have noted in the preceding stories that I was striving to develop material that would work for Toni as an artist. She was young and edgy and I needed material that reflected that. I felt I was getting close with Paris By Air. I also looked around for younger musicians for her to work with as my session guys were decrepit 25-26 year olds!

I attended many scruffy rehearsal rooms auditioning bands for Toni and As I eventually hooked Toni up with Hot Snax who were a cooking young band of the time with quite a large following. We arranged a TV show “Check It Out” where Toni and Hot Snax performed live and she and I recorded an interview to camera in the recording studio for inclusion on the show. The day after the show I got a call from Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. Toni had said in the interview that one of her influences was Annie Lennox. Dave said, The Eurythmics were on tour and although Annie had gone off to Scotland, Toni could meet him for a chat if she wished. I arranged a car and took Toni over to a cafe in Sunderland (Daves home town) where he was holding a kind of royal court. I don’t recall much of this but after a couple of hours I had to head back to the studio in Wallsend to do a session and Dave came with us. I just got on with the session and the entourage went off to the green room.

Anyway, afterwards I started to develop the song that is the subject of this weeks story. “Empty Pockets”. This has some elements of “Paris By Air” but is far more edgy. I wove into it some of the things Toni had told me such as the fact she had her handbag stolen at a party. She was bemused that such a thing should happen at a “posh” party. I recorded the track and gave it as much edge as possible even double tracking the snare drum with a dustbin lid. I called Toni to come in and have a go at Vocals but could not raise her after several tries. I then sent a couple of letters which went unanswered. This was frustrating as I believed I now had the track that would achieve what we had been striving for. Then one day I got a call from a Lawyer. He said “do you realise that this girl is below the age of consent to enter into contract”. I just said “yes, I do” and hung up. Everything that we’d done had been done with Toni’s Mothers approval and clearly Toni had desperately wanted every opportunity that had been put her way. However, when an artist decides they want out there is little point in discussion or coercion so I just let it go. From the day I introduced Toni to Mr Stewart I never heard from nor saw her again. Your conjecture about what happened that day will probably be as accurate as mine. I believe she went on to have a fairly successful career but I never received any gratitude for the efforts I made in her formative stages. This was not the first nor the last time this had happened so I did not spend too much time thinking about it.

And what of the track? Well I shelved it because it was very hybrid and not suitable for pitching about to other artists. However, in the studio one day there was a young guy called David Baird and I cajoled him into to singing it. He did a fine job and added a blistering sax. In retrospect, maybe we should have put his version out.

Anyway, here it is after 32 years: EMPTY POCKETS by Rewind. Available for download now (follow the link below). Lets see if we can beat the X Factor to the Christmas number one!

Song Story Paris By Air

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SUNDAY SONG STORY: I mentioned Toni Haliday (CURVE) last week so let’s continue that story. At first I was giving Toni songs to sing that I had lying around but I realised that if I wanted to get her a record deal I needed to write stuff that matched her age and attitude. I was sitting in a London pub with my publisher of the time (1979-ish) and he was giving me tips on where to find inspiration for songs. “Take this pub for instance”, he said, waving his hand around the room “you could write a song called The Duke Of Wellington”. My eyes alighted on a poster and I replied “No, I’m going to write a song called Paris By Air”, (as the poster declared). I then described what the story would be, a young girl trapped in a council estate and a hum drum life longing to escape.

“I walk down the street with time on my hands,
The sign on the walls show far off lands,
But I don’t know a soul in this neighbourhood,
Can afford the fare, I’m stuck here for good.”

I was drawing on some of the things Toni had told me about her life. I always planned the song would be for her. Back home in Whitley Bay I put together the song. The first sequence on the sound file is my rough demo from the time. Toni was young and an unseasoned singer at the time and I put together a very simple melody which revolved mostly around just three notes. The next part of the audio sequence is Tonis demo. I had a bunch of mates record the track with me and I’m on a Rickenbacker 12 string.

Now at this time the house I was living at in Whitley Bay contained various members of The Tygers of Pan Tang. Singer Jon Deverill and also oddly the singer he replaced Jess Cox. I seem to recall this led to the odd bit of tension. Also living there was guitarist John Sykes. John Sykes played his guitar through an old record player incessantly. When I came home from the studio each day he would stop and ask me what I’d been recording that day and been doing and I’d often play rough or finished mixes of tracks. Rocky, the bass player didn’t live there but he must have been visiting on the day I played them “Paris By Air” because I later learned that Rocky had lobbied the band to record the song for a year or so. And so it came to pass that the Tyger recorded Paris By Air for their fourth album, The Cage. This necessitated some changes of lyrics to suit a male singer. For me the lyrics don’t work quite so well in the male context. John Deverill made his own minor changes (misunderstandings perhaps) that again threw the context off. I had Toni sing that she didn’t know anyone in her neighbourhood who could afford the fare so they were stuck there. Jon sang that he didn’t know anyone in his neighbourhood AND HE couldn’t afford the fare so he was stuck there. Subtle, but a world of difference. However, it had no effect on the songs success and it came out as a single and became a minor hit. The album was a huge success and went top 20. The third segment on the audio collage is the Tygers version and the fourth is their live rendition.

Paris-by-air by Stevie_T

SONG STORY: Looking For Love in a Stranger

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SONG STORY SUNDAY: Back with a story after missing a couple of weeks. This week let’s look at “Looking For Love In A Stranger”. Toni Haliday walked into the studio one day and said she wanted to be a pop star. She eventually had some success with Curve but I recall she was just 14 at the time. She had attitude and a decent voice so I gave it a go. This song was already done (complete with Rickenbacker 12 string) and I put her vocals on it. It’s not really her thing and I later spent some time trying to develop suitable material for her. I later put Mick Whitaker’s vocal on it too . Wayne Bickerton of State Records called and said he’d like to cut this and another song from the same session (She’s a Runaway) as singles with Mick. Wayne said he loved the demos and asked who was playing on them. I told him it was Paul Smith on Drums and me doing the rest. So Wayne said I should come down and play guitar and he’d hire some session musicians for the rest. We cut the tracks at Waynes Odyssey Studios which was pretty new at the time. http://www.philsbook.com/odyssey.html

The single came and that’s the second segment you hear on the audio collage. When I returned to Newcastle, Keith Satchfied asked me about the sessions and who had played on the track. I said the drummer was called Simon and the bass player had an unusual name. Keith said – was the drummer Simon Philips, I said yes. So was the bass player Mo Foster. I said yes that’s it. Keith says F*** me, you’ve only been playing guitar with the Jeff Beck group!!

Unfortunately Micks single did not set the world alight and did not sell well. About a year later I was at Odyssey doing something else and Wayne introduced me to Chris Farlowe. Chris had come in to sing his own version of the song and that’s the third segment on the collage. I don’t even recall if Chris’s version got released or not.

 
Looking For Love In A Stranger by Stevie_T

Song Story Jaws 3D – The Lyrics

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A Love Song for Two Dolphins

In the early 80’s I was signed to MCA Music.  One day I got a call from my mentor there, Pete Waterman. Pete said I there was a big-shot movie producer in town and I was was  urgently needed the next day in London to meet up with him. I flew down and arrived in Pete’s office around midday. Pete introduced me to an American guy who’s name now escapes me. He was one of the producers of the movie, Jaws 3D which was nearing completion.

Anyway, this guy treated me to the story of his wonderful new movie and told me all it needs is a killer song. Apparently it’s a “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl” theme. Except in this case there are no boys and girls involved; the lovers in question are dolphins. He says they have Streisand lined up to sing this yet to be written song. Pete has put me in the frame to write the lyrics and makes his office available to conduct my work. Pete and the American guy went off to lunch saying they will check my progress on their return. As they are leaving the American called back over his shoulder, ( American Accent) “hey kid, gimme a lurve song for two dolphins”

Alone in the office I slid the cassette into the machine.   Shit!!!!! How on earth could  I turn this orchestral pomp into a song. Still I had been charged with the task so I had to try. I spent the next two hours racking my brain and writing one liners and drawing doodles. Click here to see my handiwork.

The guys arrived back and the American says, “OK Kid, whaddyah got?”

I said,  “not much” and passed over the piece of paper and waited to be well and truly spanked. Pete (ever the bullshitter) went into overdrive. “What did I tell you about my boy, F***ing brilliant, just look at this, “sink or swim, I will follow him”, that’s a killer line”. It was just about the only line but Pete was leaving no room for contradiction. He was already on the phone booking a studio for that evening. Then he dashed out of the office and grabed another MCA staffwriter who had a good singing voice. This hapless guy was named Simon Jeffries  and he was going to have to sing this crap. Like me, Simon was not going to say no to the guy responsible for signing his yearly salary cheque (publishers advance).

I was therefore obliged to spend the rest of the day making words fit to soaring violins and trumpets. The pain of this was nothing compared to the recording session that evening. I think we nearly killed the poor vocalist. Unsurprisingly, I never heard another thing about my entry into the world of movie themes and as it happens I never saw Simon again either.

However, like many things in our past – it has ended up on YouTube – this is NOT to be taken seriously.

Song Story – Messing Around

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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.

 Ways of Making You Talk – Messin Around by Stevie_T