The Revolution will not be televised

There's an irony to these words in the year of the Arab Spring and the youtube revolutions.
I was really saddened to hear that Gil Scott-Heron had died at the unfeasibly young age of 62. He was only 20 when he wrote and recorded The Revolution will not be televised.
I have a good memory and can usually recall details of concerts I've been to - in fact it's the intensity of the memories and the recall of detail that inspired me to start this blog. With Gil Scott-Heron I'm not so sure. I believe I saw him at the International in Manchester in the early 80s. In a way it's his death that has made me doubt myself - I can't believe I saw such an amazing performer at that time and in such a venue.
There's a website that lists the acts booked there, but it starts in early 1985 and I know it must have been before then. I came back from working in Morocco in 1981, and was pregnant with my first child in 1984, so it was somewhere in those years between.
Around the same time I saw Curtis Mayfield and Bo Diddley at the same venue ( different nights! - that would be too much!)
For those concerts I can recall where I stood, who I was with, who I bumped into at the bar, but seeing Gil Scott-Heron has a vaguer, dreamier quality to it. I can't blame drink or drugs - maybe it was a more intense experience. I was drawn to his name as well as his music - like a little poem in itself..
If someone told me I'd imagined it all, and that he didn't play Manchester during those years, I'd accept that I'm under a delusion, but I'd also be really impressed by my ability to conjure up a Gil Scott-Heron performance in my dreams.

This one's for Gerry

Back in 1967 I was sent to boarding school, with my sisters, because my parents went to live and work in the Far East. Overnight we lost friends, home and parents, and had to adapt to a very different way of life. I still haven't recovered from the shock. As a young teenager in Manchester I had started going to see groups, mostly on the package tours that were in their hey day then.I had seen the Kinks, The Beach Boys, the Walker Brothers and the Small Faces by the time I was 13, with Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison and Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich and others thrown in. Simon Dupree and the Big Sound ( remember 'Kites'?) and Terry Reid singing with Peter Jay and the Jay Walkers.
When I got to boarding school there was another new girl from Manchester, Gerry. We became friends and are still in touch. I know she reads this blog. She was more sophisticated, more aware than the rest of us. Not so much in appearance and behaviour, but in attitude. She was intelligent and articulate, with a hint of a drawl in her accent. She had lived in Canada and Ireland. She had plans, ideas and opinions and a great sense of humour. Ours was a hugely important friendship for me. I would have lost my Manchester links if it hadn't been for her, and her family's hospitality at half terms and school holidays.
Most people who are interested know that Top of the Pops was first recorded in a converted church on Dickenson Rd in Manchester. The BBC had another former church studio they used for radio shows, somewhere on the derelict borders between Hulme and Moss Side, before redevelopment. Dave Lee Travis was the compere. the BBC Radio Orchestra played the hits of the day and there would be performances from actual pop singers. It may even have pre dated Radio 1. One school hoilday we went to queue to become part of the audience. After the show we headed across the wasteground to the last pub standing where everyone gathered. Excited girls hung out in the car park area, waiting for autographs. Somehow we got into the pub ( aged 14 remember) and got into conversation with Kiki Dee and her manager Vic Billings, who had also been Dusty Springfield's manager. I know I was much more of a listener and observer than a participant in those days, but Gerry had ambitions to be a record producer and was very savvy about the music scene. We were invited to meet up with them at the Midland Hotel the next day to continue the conversation. All absolutely above board - they must have seen the spark in Gerry. This was before Kiki Dee had her big hit with Elton John.
It was one of those times when you realise adults are treating you with interest and respect - we didn't get a lot of that at school or from our parents in those days.
We tried to go to concerts in the holidays - I remember seeing Peter Frampton and the Herd at the Odeon with her. I wonder how we bought tickets - no access to a phone, no cheque books even.
Then she discovered Roger Eagle's Magic Village, took me there the next chance we got, and for me the rest is history.
We are making tentative plans to start to go to some concerts together again, and I can't wait!

Vini Reilly and Durutti Column

Many years ago, when I was working at On the 8th Day in Manchester, my friend Tony Wilson came in and told me about his new band. They were named after an anarchist movement, The Durutti Column aka the movement of the 24th January. I was thrilled, as that was my birthday!
A couple of years later my boyfriend at the time was their roadie, and a couple of other friends played in the band.I'm not sure if I ever actually saw them play, but I certainly went with them to where they should have played.
Life moved on - friends moved to other bands, including a Simply Red connection.
In the early 80s I moved to a house in West Didsbury.Bruce Mitchell lived in the next door adjoining house with his family and Vini. Vini's room was the other side of the shared party wall from my bedroom. My daughter was born at home, in that room, to the sound of Vini playing his guitar. He had no idea of what was happening on my side of the wall. The midwife was very impressed as her son was a big fan.
Years later, I shared this information with my children when they discovered Vini's music.
They have been to see him with me a couple of times.
Last Saturday I took my youngest son, now 17, to see Vini and Bruce at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.
It was a difficult concert for Vini, as he is going through a difficult relationship break up, made all the more poignant by the beautiful photos of Poppy that were part of the performance. She also played on stage with him. Photos of Tony Wilson, and Bruce and Jackie were also part of the display.
It was very raw and quite miserable, but we stuck in there with him.
After the interval he came back and did some old favourites, including Otis. Bruce Mitchell is still the best drummer in the world for me, and Charlie loved the performance.

Because the Night

Looking through last year's diary for something, I realised it is almost a year to the day since I saw Patti Smith. She came to Sheffield to do a concert as part of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Graves Art Gallery. Tickets for the concert sold out very quickly, but I found out she was doing a lunch time talk in the tiny Library Theatre in the basement of the library and gallery. I took the day off work and headed into Sheffield on the bus. The bus broke down on the outskirts of the city - luckily another one did come along! When I got there the audience was mainly made up of people around my age. She was very late, and some had to head back to their city centre work places. John Robb was booked to be 'in conversation' with her. She was wonderful.
Just Kids had recently been published, and she and John talked about her early career and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. She also spoke of her decision to take a break from her career to raise her family. She was totally inspiring- someone you would love to call your friend. She ran over time, and called her guitarist up on stage at the end. As she sang "Because the Night Belongs to Lovers" we all joined in. What a privilege. If you had ever told me back when I first listened to her records that one day, decades down the line, I'd be in a tiny theatre in Sheffield singing along with her, I would have thought it was pure fantasy. Wish I could do it again.

Something good

I watched Forever Young on BBC 4 on Friday night. Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits was featured. He revealed that he was only 15 when they had the hit single 'I'm into Something Good'. The summer I left my junior school we were all invited to the summer fair at our new secondary school, Adelphi in Salford. The school building is now part of the University of Salford. I think it's their media department. Herman's Hermits were booked to play in the gym and they were fantastic. We were smitten with Peter Noone's boyish good looks! Within a month I was listening to 'I'm into Something Good' on Radio Luxembourg. I think they were from North Manchester. Some years later one of my friends claimed to have been 'sacked' from the band just before their successful first hit.
It's still a song that brings a smile to my face, infectiously optimistic, full of life's promise.

Reggae got soul

BBC 4 has been doing some fantastic reggae related programmes over the last couple of weeks including Reggae Britannia.
My Boy Lollipop was probably my introduction to Jamaican music - we all thought Millie was wonderful, and she wasn't much older than us. Then came the skinhead/ska era, and Desmond Dekker's The Israelites in 1969. I still have an old ex-jukebox copy of a Prince Buster single. Like soul and Tamla Motown it was part of my musical background, but through my later teens I became a bit of a hippy and took to bands like Love, Traffic, Derek and the Dominoes, Captain Beefheart and others too numerous to mention. By 1973, at the age of 19, I was part of a rock n roll revival band in Manchester, and my musical horizons were expanding once more. My friend Tony Wilson ( later of So it Goes and Factory Records fame)told me to go and see a band called the Wailers if I got the chance - he had seen them in London in the late summer of '73. I was about to start an English degree at Leeds University, and as luck would have it, the Wailers were booked to play at Leeds Polytechnic early in the term.
I am so pleased that I saw them at that Catch a Fire moment. Their later success was fantastic for them, but there was something very special about them at that time.
I never got the chance to see them again. Some years later when I lived in Morocco there were always rumours of Bob Marley playing a concert there. Sadly it never happened, and by the time I came back to England he had passed away. He was a truly international artist - Bob Marley and Manchester United were topics of conversation wherever I went in Morocco!
Watching Reggae Britannia reminded me of some of the great musicians I saw in those few years - Culture (2 7's Clash, not Club), Burning Spear (at the Hacienda believe it or not), the Cimarons, Steel Pulse, Aswad,possibly Big Youth and/or U Roy - some of it gets a bit hazy as you might imagine.
I have just heard a bit of Bob Marley's last ever concert on the radio - a number one album in the States at the moment apparently.
Lively up yourself!

Box of Rain and the Grateful Dead

Listening to Bob Harris' radio programme on Friday night, I had fallen asleep to the sound of the wind and rain outside. Wild weather continues this week, though I have just seen the glimmering of a faint rainbow across the valley outside. I woke from my half conscious state to hear him play the Dead's Box of Rain. What a wonderful sound. I was transported back to other half conscious times I'd heard that lovely blend of psychedelic country folk. In fact much of my favourite music now is of that genre - Vetiver and Devendra Banhart come immediately to mind. I know I saw the Grateful Dead twice, but I'm not sure I was really concentrating. Bickershaw Festival in May 1972 was the first time. More rain than would fill a box there. I was working in On the 8th Day's Joe's Cafe. We were pitched between the stage and Caroline Coon's Release tent. A great spot. We were constantly busy serving rice and veg, muesli and hot drinks. There was an element of a disaster area about the site, though it was an amazing festival. I have clear memories of Dr John, Hawkwind and Captain Beefheart - and of course the man who did a high dive into a tub of water!. If the Dead's set really lasted as long as they say on the websites, I probably did a couple of shifts and slept a few hours during the time they were on.
So many friends were Dead heads back in the day . I remember someone's motorbike petrol tank painted with the American Beauty album cover design.
In September 1974, whilst I was at Leeds university, and newly married for the first time, a group of us went to Ally Pally for one of the three nights of concerts. Again, it's a bit of a blur. I do remember the panic on the M6 on the outskirts of Manchester. The conversation had turned to who actually had the tickets in their possession - and of course they had been left at home. We still made it to the concert. Happy days.