‘DON’T CALL ME CLYDE!’ - Jazz Journey of a Sixties Stomper - PETER KERR Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 1 25/05/2016 17:35:51 Published by Oasis-WERP 2016 ISBN: 978-0-9576586-2-2 Copyright © Peter Kerr 2016 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the copyright owner. The right of Peter Kerr to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, designs and Patents Act 1988. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library www.peter-kerr.co.uk Cover design © Glen Kerr Typeset by Ben Ottridge www.benottridge.co.uk Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 2 25/05/2016 17:35:51 ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR Thistle Soup Snowball Oranges Mañana, Mañana Viva Mallorca! A Basketful of Snowflakes From Paella to Porridge The Mallorca Connection The Sporran Connection The Cruise Connection Fiddler on the Make The Gannet Has Landed Song of the Eight Winds ABOUT THE AUTHOR Best-selling Scottish author Peter Kerr is a former jazz musician, record producer and farmer. His award-winning Snowball Oranges series of humorous travel books was inspired by his family’s adventures while running a small orange farm on the Spanish island of Mallorca during the 1980s. Peter’s books are sold worldwide and have been translated into several languages. In the early 1960s he was clarinettist/leader of Scotland’s premier jazz band, the Clyde Valley Stompers. The reason for the band’s unlikely demise, at the height of its fame, is revealed for the first time in this enthralling book. www.peter-kerr.co.uk Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 3 25/05/2016 17:35:51 The author in 1960, age 19. Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 4 25/05/2016 17:35:51 INTRODUCTION THE CLYDE VALLEY STOMPERS were Scotland’s premier jazz band and its first ever super group; Caledonian kings of the ‘Trad Boom’ that swept Britain during the late Fifties and early Sixties; creators of a phenomenon dubbed ‘Stompermania’ decades before most of the country’s current pop and rock idols were even born. Yet in 1963, ‘The Clydes’, at the height of their commercial success, disappeared from the scene. Conspiracy theories were rife, but the true reason for this trailblazing band’s untimely demise has never been revealed – until now. Here is the story as told by clarinettist Peter ‘Pete’ Kerr who, in 1961 at just twenty years of age, inherited leadership of the Stompers after they’d moved their base from Glasgow to London. During what had become the most disruptive period in its already turbulent history, the band stormed the charts for the first time the following year with their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, produced by George Martin, soon to sign the Beatles. A frenzy of incessant touring followed, punctuated by frequent network TV appearances in the company of big-star names of the day, like Shirley Bassey, Danny Williams, Brenda Lee, Morecambe and Wise, Dusty Springfield and the Beatles themselves. The Clydes also played the title music for Norman Wisdom’s 1962 movie On the Beat, and appeared soon after in It’s All Happening with Tommy Steele. Then, to the dismay and bewilderment of the Stompers’ legions of fans, the curtain came down – literally. But this is more than just a chronicle of the highlights and hardships, the bonhomie and back-stabbing, the generosity and greed that marked the rise and fall of one of the most iconic British bands of its time. It’s also an affectionate recollection Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 5 25/05/2016 17:35:52 of family life in rural Scotland during the austerity-gripped years following the Second World War, and of how a young lad went all out to realise his dream of one day playing jazz for a living. It’s an account of how friendships forged through a common love of music can develop into bonds sufficiently strong to survive fate’s toughest trials. Well, provided you have a sense of humour to match (or temper!) an indefatigable faith in human nature, that is! And a sense of humour is what carries Peter’s childhood sweetheart Ellie through a seemingly ill-starred courtship into a marriage destined to withstand, not just the rigours of the unpredictable world of itinerant jazz musicians, but also the test of time. For this is a story that lays the foundations of a young couple’s roller coaster ride through life which, in time, will introduce them to adventures and misadventures, to places, people and experiences that they could never have imagined. As such, Don’t Call Me Clyde! is a precursor of Peter Kerr’s bestselling Snowball Oranges series of humorous Mallorcan travelogues, and a companion to their set-in- Scotland prequel Thistle Soup. So, whether or not you have an interest in or knowledge of jazz, this is a story that will entertain, surprise and amuse in equal measure – and will occasionally shock as well! Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 6 25/05/2016 17:35:52 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. DOWN THE STAIRWAY TO THE STARS 11 2. IF THE WOMEN DON’T GET YOU, THE LIQUOR MUST 18 3. FROM JIGS TO JAZZ 25 4. A NAME WITHOUT A BAND 36 5. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 43 6. SCHOOL’S OUT 51 7. AND THAT’S JAZZ? 63 8. EVERY PATH HAS A PUDDLE 74 9. ONLY A MATTER OF TIME 82 10. METRONOMES DON’T SWING 95 11. THERE’S JAZZ IN THEM THAR HILLS 106 12. CROSSING BRIDGES 115 13. THE HOGMANAY TWO-STEP 123 14. OF DANDELIONS AND OYSTERS 130 15. WHEN ONE DOOR SHUTS, OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS 141 16. A LONG DAY IN THE SMOKE 149 17. HITTING THE ROAD 157 18. THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE 168 19. THE LAST POST FOR MY FIRST POSTING 174 20. WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOW? 183 21. SAUERKRAUT AND ALL THAT JAZZ 192 22. MANNHEIM, MEIN HERR 206 23. LEND ME A TOOTHBRUSH 219 24. A-STOMPING I WILL GO 227 25. THINGS AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE 236 26. SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVING IS… UNEASY 243 27. FOLLOW MY LEADER 252 28. A WHIRLWIND OF CHANGE 259 29. CLYDE VALLEY, I PRESUME? 267 Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 7 25/05/2016 17:35:52 30. FOR RICHER, FOR POORER – FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE 275 31. PROKOFIEV SWINGS! 283 32. FROM ABBEY ROAD TO LAND’S END 292 33. DEMONSTRATIONS AND CELEBRATIONS 303 34. SUCCESS BREEDS UNREST 311 35. A TRAD DAD 320 36. IN VINO VERITAS 329 37. THE ALBATROSS GOES CUCKOO 340 38. A GOOD NAME IS SOONER LOST THAN WON 355 39. HEAD NORTH, YOUNG MEN! 363 40. BYE BYE BLUES 370 AFTERWORD 375 Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 8 25/05/2016 17:35:52 “But pleasures are like poppies spread – You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river – A moment white – then melts forever.” (From Tam o’ Shanter – Robert Burns, 1759–96) Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 9 25/05/2016 17:35:52 Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 10 25/05/2016 17:35:52 CHAPTER ONE ‘DOWN THE STAIRWAY TO THE STARS’ ‘THE CAVERN’ – two white-painted words curving above a doorway in a Liverpool back street that struck me as one of the most drab and easily forgettable places I had ever laid eyes on. Yet this was the setting of what was to become an icon as far-famed and instantly associated with Britain as the tower of Big Ben itself. Pasted over the graffiti on a brick wall beside the doorway, a poster announced: __________ Tonight THE CLYDE VALLEY STOMPERS Scotland’s No 1 Jazz Band! (with Support Group) 8pm – Admission 6/- ____________ 11 Don't Call Me Clyde_INSIDES.indd 11 25/05/2016 17:35:53 DON’T CALL ME CLYDE! ‘Where d’ya think you’re goin’, skin?’ the bruiser guarding the door grunted. I was the only other living soul in the street, so I knew he had to be talking to me. I nodded at the poster. ‘I’m with the band.’ ‘Oh yeah? Wot one? ‘The Clyde Valley Stompers.’ He glowered at me with a look that left me in no doubt that he considered himself king of the alley. However humble his domain, he was ready – itching even – to defend it. ‘Honest, I’m the clarinet player,’ I said with as much self-assurance as I could muster. ‘And, ehm, the leader … as well, actually.’ His frown deepened. ‘Yeah, and I’m ’er Majesty the bleedin’ Queen!’ ‘Fair enough,’ I came back, trying not to appear too cowed, ‘you can check with the rest of the boys. They’re in there, setting up.’ ‘Where you been, then?’ I hooked my thumb over my shoulder. ‘Parking the bandwagon.’ ‘You the roadie, then?’ ‘Nah, we don’t have one. I do the driving.’ ‘Thotcha sez ya was the bandleader.’ This conversation was going nowhere, and neither, apparently, was I. The gorilla’s brows lowered still further as his eyes wandered down my right arm. ‘Worra ya gorrin yer ’andbag?’ I was sorely tempted to voice disapproval at having my faux snakeskin instrument case so unjustly demeaned, but my teeth were a vital part of my stock-in-trade, so I kept them clenched.