On the Road with George Melly Read online

  On The Road With George Melly

  For:

  Lisa Bridgey

  My Half-Dozen

  Jack Higgins

  (without whom it would never have happened)

  Diana Melly, his nearest,

  and, of course, for

  George.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter One: Meeting Mr Melly

  Chapter Two: All Those Years Ago

  Chapter Three: The Road to Harlech

  Chapter Four: Getting on the Record

  Chapter Five: Travelling Shoes and Blues

  Chapter Six: Ronnie’s and Beyond

  Chapter Seven: Ribs, Gags and Rows

  Chapter Eight: Blues for Watford Gap

  Chapter Nine: On the Road and Radio

  Chapter Ten: Back in the Groove

  Chapter Eleven: The Madness of King George

  Chapter Twelve: Slowing Down for Sure

  Chapter Thirteen: Sadness in Great Ones

  Chapter Fourteen: Farewell Old King

  List of Illustrations

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  He Knew All About It!

  George Melly knew I was writing this book. ‘With or without the help of Dr Smirnoff’s’ he twinkled – aware that mutual ingestion of our favoured drinks (mine Smirnoff’s vodka, his Jameson’s Irish whiskey) occasionally – though never permanently – tempered our feelings of firm mutual affection.

  I loved George of course. And writing this book about his last years – which at one point I was going to title Winding Up – was one way of returning a cherished favour. Back in 1965, while still a junior assistant in Southend on Sea’s Central Library, I read his first volume of autobiography Owning Up – that now-legendary account of his fourteen youthful years on the road with the uproarious, unrepentant Mick Mulligan band – and, until I turned jazz music into my profession twelve years later, the book became my behavioural vade-mecum; a raver’s primer. Owning Up to Winding Up; well, it seemed reasonable.

  In the intervening years I’d read most of his other volumes of autobiography as well. These included a comprehensive and conscientious account of his early life in Liverpool (Scouse Mouse) in which his gift for microscopic recall of every tiny detail of people and things around him turned the pages ablaze with local colour. Then there was Rum, Bum and Concertina (probably inevitably an account of his Navy days) and then of course Owning Up. Another one – now long out-of-print – was Mellymobile; a series of articles written for Punch magazine which (unlike George) I adored, as they seemed to me to encapsulate two of his greatest qualities; a sublime receptivity to – and celebration of – humanity.

  Then, after we started to travel the jazz roads regularly together in 2003, I was aware that he was conscientiously cataloguing the trials and challenges of gathering old age (in Slowing Down published in 2005). It was – and remains – a humorous, brave and deeply touching account of a convinced iconoclast shouting defiance at the reaper. It seemed almost as if George would welcome the chance to write a full account of his final departure from the world; a definitive full stop, dictated from above.

  But in this last vivid chronicle of the processes and indignities of ageing, many stories of an irreplaceable cultural icon and jazz singer and his collaboration with Digby Fairweather’s Half-Dozen – scandalous, touching, regularly hilarious – remained untold. And inside these pages are what I remember of them over the six tumultuous years from 2002 to 2007.

  Need I say that I loved his singing and that the chance to work and collaborate with him musically from 2002 was an opportunity I seized, then cherished? Hopefully not. But like many of the rest of his world, I loved George as a human being too. As people we were different, yet similar; both middle-class, with concomitant middle-class rebellions close to our surfaces. Regularly in our early days we would discover mutual enthusiasms and re-enthuse over them; Noel Coward, the diaries of George and Weedon Grossmith’s Nobody and E.M. Delafield’s Provincial Lady. Of course we both enjoyed writing too; an intellectual commitment, shared but seldom discussed. However, regularly I was aware of a deeper mental communion between us; seldom expressed – partially because of the barring clause that was his deafness – but which allowed me, in scattered statements, to recognise a friend and fellow thinker with whom I would have valued much more conversation time earlier on in his life.

  Even so, Melly-truths – expressed as part of his on-stage, and off-stage show – regularly rang profound bells within me. An example? Well, here’s just one. ‘Jelly Roll Morton,’ he would say, ‘was the biggest liar in jazz. But sometimes lies can express a truth more clearly than the truth itself.’ How true indeed. Very often too I was aware of a different sort of subliminal mental link between us. During our performing years together George and I both drank, sometimes heavily. And even amid an onstage mist I knew what he was about to do or say; when some piece of business might be inadvertently missed or other long-forgotten ad lib triumphantly restored to his presentation. It was as if we moved, in some strange way, along semi-recognised parallel mental lines of communication.

  So this is the story – regularly outrageous, as was Owning Up – of our years together. The laughs and spats. The good music and the chaos. The gentle considerations (George was a kind man) and occasional drunken disregards. It’s a small return for that 1965 primer and for an artistic and personal collaboration which I shall value until the day I, in turn, complete that ‘slowing down’ process and stop for good.

  And who knows, perhaps thereafter? George wouldn’t have liked that slipped-in phrase. He always professed certainty that once life was done that was it, although once avowing – in a semi-acknowledgement of some sort of misty (if less than sanitary) afterlife – that if anybody came to his funeral wearing black he would look down from above and shit on them from a great height. Well I suppose that’s something. I remain more cautious, remembering the wistful words of P.G. Wodehouse: ‘we’ll just have to wait and see!’. But wherever he is, I hope that George can take delight in this book and laugh with all of us at the memories it contains.

  Thank you, George.

  Digby Fairweather

  CHAPTER ONE

  Meeting Mr Melly

  It was on a sunny day in July 2002 that the telephone rang in my office.

  ‘Jack Higgins here!’

  The words sent a frisson through my head, and my stomach – as usual – tightened. Speaking, or more accurately barking, to me in his usual fighting-fit mode was Britain’s most powerful and respected agent for jazz music. By now I had got to know him quite well. Since 1994 Jack had represented the Great British Jazz Band which I had co-led with Pete Strange and also the Best of British Jazz in which I had replaced Kenny Baker since 2000. Jack was equally capable of laying one hand on every top act in Britain from Humphrey Lyttelton to Jools Holland, and handing them a hearty slap with the other if they didn’t come up with the goods. His reaction to day-to-day events was similarly realistic, down to earth and tough. One day, shortly after the traumas of 11 September 2001 had shaken the world, the subject came up between us during a telephone conversation.

  ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’ I offered.

  ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ roared my full-time colleague-to-be. ‘Bloody Americans! We had all that all the way through the Blitz and we’re still here. What’s the matter with the weak-kneed bastards?’ It was impossible not to like this straight-talking tough guy.

  Jack evinced mingled respect and apprehension in all his clients. His temper if roused (which it easily could be) was legendarily fearsome. And his verbal contracts with clients – never issued in print, or signed – were b
ased on a lifelong verbal ability to bully any subversive into meek submission.

  ‘Jack! Good morning! What can I do for you?’ I said.

  ‘Now, my friend. How would you feel about working with George Melly? The Feetwarmers are disbanding at Christmas and he needs a band.’

  The Feetwarmers putting their feet up after thirty years? This was news indeed and I caught my breath. ‘Well, of course . . .’

  Jack cut in. ‘You may be required for a concert in Harlech. Establish the band’s availability next month – Sunday, 25 August – and let me know. Immediately.’ The phone went dead.

  Unbelievable news indeed, but good for me. Despite good reviews, stable talented personnel and even a successful album Twelve Feet Off The Ground for the Carlisle-based Flat Five Records back in 1998, my band, Digby Fairweather’s Half-Dozen, had been struggling for eight years now to establish itself in small clubs and cut-price gigs at London venues. We had formed first in 1994, fulfilling a new ambition for me – to work with younger players, play a far wider variety of material than I had been tackling hitherto and, most particularly, to have a vocal group within the band. I adored classic vocal ensembles from the Four Freshmen back to Six Hits and a Miss and beyond and deeply wanted to re-examine the genre. So new colleagues and confrères were necessary. First I’d approached the multi-talented Julian Marc Stringle, who not only played glorious clarinet and saxophones but also had – I was soon to discover – a voice of choirboy quality. He also looked like a young Marc Bolan, ran the London Marathon for several years and covered seven more miles a day just to keep in trim. With a young and gifted trombonist-singer Malcolm Earle Smith and brilliant emergent pianist Craig Milverton, we had debuted our close harmony vocals at the Clacton Jazz Festival 1997, after a round-the-piano rehearsal in the auditorium of the Prince’s Theatre. Our repeated rendition of the touching ballad ‘Time Was’ had evinced our first public critique from its longtime stage manager George, on duty early one morning and already full of his favoured brew, Pusser’s Rum.

  ‘Oh no!’ said George after our sixth try. ‘Not that bleedin’ thing again!’

  But luckily, in the sun-soaked afternoon where we sang on open-mike to a lazy, happy crowd basking in deck chairs, the reaction was more positive and we knew that something musically good was taking shape.

  It was a year later – at Clacton again, and thanks to Julian’s ever-generous introduction – that we were joined by a young and sensational guitarist, Dominic Ashworth. And by 2002 – after Malcolm had left to join rock star Brian Ferry and Julian had taken over the lead-vocal chores – our band had permanently stabilised to include, besides Julian, a fine and under-valued jazz trombonist Chris Gower (whose CV included work with Shakin’ Stevens, Suzi Quatro, Graham Parker, Jess Roden and Sir Cliff Richard as well as numerous premier-league big bands), Craig, Dominic, legendary bassist Len Skeat and drummer Bobby Worth (both highly experienced and deeply skilled jazz-based sessionmen). We were rehearsed to the nines and had an act that was crying out for wider exposure.

  Joining George Melly – one of Britain’s most celebrated humanists, singers, art connoisseurs, authors and all-round cultural icons – would, I knew, be a huge step up in terms of exposure and prestige. And, I couldn’t help thinking too, it would open stylistic doors and avenues for George that had been impracticable within the small traditional quartet format of John Chilton’s Feetwarmers. After all, I reasoned, we carried an all-electric rhythm section, a vocal group of four singers, and three horns. My mind was already flying ahead.

  But then a thought occurred to me. What about John Chilton? What had really happened? Was this legendary partnership of thirty years really coming to an end at last? I rang John to make sure.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know all about this. And I think it’s true. You don’t have to worry, Dig. Go ahead!’ And in the post, a day or so later, came a comprehensive typed list of George’s current repertoire complete with keys. Kind yet methodical, John was, as ever, true to his word.

  Then one August Wednesday soon after, in a café just outside Manchester Piccadilly station, my mobile phone rang. ‘Higgins here!’ roared the voice. ‘Don’t fuck about! I’m busy! Get a pen and paper.’

  ‘Hang on just one second, Jack,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ I had seldom heard more angry volume poured into a single word.

  ‘I’m in a greasy spoon,’ I stammered, ‘in Manchester. And some of the grease is on the paper.’ Which it was. But by leaning my full weight on a discarded daily, and willing my biro not to give in, I was ready to take down the barked instructions that followed.

  ‘Right! You’ll need to meet George as soon as possible. Here’s a list of numbers. Take them down. George’s first – though he seldom answers. If you want to make any plans, you’ll probably need to speak to Diana, his wife. Here’s her London number and her country number; they’ve got a second place in Bagnor. No, not Bangor! Bagnor – near Reading. There’s a fax number; here it is. George can see you all day this Friday, Saturday or Sunday. And after that 20 to 22 of August. Have you got that? Well, get to it.’ Click.

  A day later a charming, twittering voice came on the phone. ‘Hello, Digby! This is George’s secretary here, Shirley. And he’d like to meet you. When would be convenient?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, scanning my diary, ‘how about Saturday, 17 August? Jack Higgins told me he was free that day. Around midday perhaps?’

  ‘That sounds fine,’ said the obliging Shirley. ‘And George is here and he’d like to speak to you.’

  A rich plummy voice came on the phone. ‘Hi, Digby – George here!’

  ‘How nice to hear you,’ I said, meaning it.

  ‘Come along on Saturday,’ said my hospitable host-to-be, ‘and I’ll buy you lunch!’

  ‘That sounds lovely,’ I said. ‘But you must be secretly feeling that all of this is a damn nuisance.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, having to start all over again with a new band after thirty years . . .’

  ‘Not at all,’ said George Melly. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Bye bye, dear.’

  Saturday, 17 August was the hottest day of 2002. So in a white-shirted defence against the heat and loose slacks I set off to meet my hero. But, careless of Shirley’s carefully expressed instructions, I arrived at the wrong station (there are two christened Shepherd’s Bush) and armed only with an expensive bottle of Chivas Regal, wandered east along Holland Park Avenue to find myself staring bemusedly at Royal Crescent where, I remembered, the great ‘Who will buy’ scene from Oliver had been filmed. But this was no time for movie trivia; plainly I was well off course. Into a taxi then, and back we drove around Shepherd’s Bush Green, before finally arriving at a narrow neat street in which modern flats mixed a shade uneasily with terraced Victorian houses. A bright red gate greeted me – possibly George was publicly airing his left-wing convictions – and beyond it an equally brightly painted front door pinned with a notice demanding the swift departure of hawkers, circulars, fish-sellers, knife sharpeners, Tories, sexist men and related undesirables. I rang the bell but there was no answer.

  Perhaps he’s out, I thought and rang it again several times to an equally persistent non-response. So at last I salvaged my mobile phone from my shoulder bag, rang the newly acquired number and the same rich voice answered the call.

  ‘Digby! Is that you? Where are you?’

  ‘Outside,’ I said, ‘Have I come at a bad moment?’

  ‘Not at all! Exactly the right time. I’ll come and let you in.’

  Clad in royal-blue tank-bottoms, a T-shirt and resplendent purple waistcoat, my host made his steady way to the door and opened it. ‘So good to see you, Sir George,’ I said.

  ‘And you too. Come upstairs.’

  Through a hall fringed with waist-high cupboards we went up some dim brown stairs, past a hatstand blossoming with ornate and colourful headgear; then up again to a lounge in which the sun glanced through the window on to
a table equipped with computer, printer and office accessories. Next to it stood an antique desk with notebooks neatly arranged amid paperweights, ornaments and a penholder. I handed my host the Chivas Regal.

  ‘Oh! That’s a nice present,’ he said. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow, you know. Seventy-six.’

  I had had no idea. But as he unwrapped the whiskey I glanced briefly around his living-room; its walls decorated with abstract art in several dimensions, a circular table well stocked with bottles and glasses, a long bookshelf full of volumes of art at floor level and a deep brown leather armchair on which a now-famous parody of George’s familiar face had been embroidered in loving cartoon detail. George noticed my gaze.

  ‘I had a chiropodist in the other day,’ he observed, ‘and I asked her if she wanted to sit on my face. She was not amused.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘tell me about what’s been happening.’

  ‘Well,’ said George, ‘it had stopped being so much fun with the Feetwarmers; we’d all been getting rather bored. And Harlech this year was a benchmark. John had been getting very tired and our agent Jack Higgins had had a job cancelled just before a one-nighter there. John said, “We don’t want to go all the way over there for a one-nighter! I’m not going, George. And I want you to back me up.” So, I said, “OK.” But when Higgins phoned me and I said “no” he said, “Well, in that case I won’t get you any work at all next year – or ever again.” So I caved in but John would not. And I think he expected that the Feetwarmers would do it with a deputy trumpeter, which they’ve done before when John was ill. But this time that didn’t happen. John was getting very frustrated with all the travelling and routine anyhow. And lately he’s become so stressed. If something goes wrong, it’s like “fuck, fuck, fuck!”.’ George’s eyes were innocently wide. ‘And I said, “John, please don’t keep saying that. It upsets me seeing you like this.” But it didn’t do any good.’