Chapter 11 “RESPECT the BOARDS!” December 1970 to July 1971
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Chapter 11 “RESPECT THE BOARDS!” December 1970 to July 1971 In which we Rock On at Olympic; Beanie-Cake meets Hector the Humping Dog; we learn a lesson from Sophie Tucker; and we rock the Fillmore… but have to rescue the mix; and we get buzzed and buzz around with the Who. Being home again was very strange: it was the first Christmas without Mum, and I moved into the farm over the same holiday period. I was deter- mined to put together a crew to do the work on the farm that was made up entirely of guys I grew up with, most of them from the old Waltham Cross Mods, who were at their height a ferocious team, to say the least. I wanted to use people I could trust, and I achieved that with no problem. To a man, these lads were the best at what they did, and, just like before, when Angus and I had our various bands, they were extremely protective and conscien- tious about taking care of their little mate. By now, I’d become a bit of a Waltham Cross legend in a “local lad does good” sort of way. The farm screamed out for a horticultural makeover, and, as gardening had become Dad’s main hobby, it was the perfect job for him. I gave him the reins to do entirely as he wished. He was also the ideal man to oversee the house rebuild, and he did a superb job on that, too. His other job was fending off all the local widows, as he had become quite the catch from their point of view—not that he was rich or anything, but he often borrowed the Rolls- Royce, and the effect that car had on women young and old was amazing. Rolls should have taken advantage of this phenomenon in their ads—“Having trouble with your love life? Young or old, buy a Rolls and get laid!”—but they never did. I can’t think why, although I suppose they would figure that if you’ve got the cash to buy a Roller, you should be able to get laid anyway. On Boxing Day, Rick Wills and Lynny Parfitt came to visit for a while, and a wonderful thing happened: it snowed. The farm was beautiful; it had 143 BestSeatInTheHouseGutsREV2.indd 143 8/16/11 8:38 AM Best seat in the hOuse that pretty chocolate-box look about it. We decided to take the Rolls for a ride up to Cambridge to visit Lynny’s parents and catch up with some friends—and, of course, show off with the car a bit, how you do. Our first task was to drive into the nearest village to fill the car up with petrol. We stopped at the village store / petrol station, and Mr. Newell, the dear old man who owned it, came out and asked how much gas I needed. Naturally, I told him to fill it up. As he collected the five pounds, he started to fawn all over me about the car, telling me how incredible it looked. I said something like, “Ah yes, I know, but you see, this is a very special Rolls,” implying in a really flash-little-git sort of way that I had made sure to buy the best they had to offer. Then I went to turn the key… and the car wouldn’t start. Talk about instant karma! This incident taught me very quickly that bragging about one’s wealth can prove to be a treacherous enterprise. The next step for the band, and therefore me, was to record our second A&M album. We were to use Glyn Johns and Olympic again, which was a joy to look forward to. We would record the whole album at Olympic, with the exception of “Strange Days,” which we’d recorded nine months earlier (as the B-side of the “Big Black Dog” single) at Chris Blackwell’s brand-new Island Studios. Humble Pie almost got in the history books by being the first band to record a full-on session at there; unfortunately, Free took that honour by recording “All Right Now” there the night before. The material we had ready for this record was a combination of things we had been doing on the road for a while; newly written songs by Steve, Peter, and Greg; and some group-written material. There was a lovely tune by Steve and Peter called “Sour Grain.” We had already nailed “Strange Days” (music by the group and lyrics by Steve) at the Island session, bring- ing on one of those “Come and listen” moments from Glyn. We were very happy with the results and didn’t want it to die a death as the B-side to a flop single, so we decided to put it on the album. Steve had a little gem called “Red Neck Jump” that eventually was edited together with “Strange Days” as a perfect yin-yang close to the album, with “Red Neck Jump” having all the humour and “Strange Days” all the severity. Peter had written a couple of gems of his own—“Shine On” and “The Light.” I remember thinking that if we were a singles-type band, “Shine On” would fit the bill. Fortunately, I had not written anything on my own, so I could not be humiliated a second time by being told to sing my own song in that awful falsetto voice of mine. Finally, we had some group-written material we had been doing on the road for a while. One song in particular, “Stone Cold Fever,” was a strong 144 BestSeatInTheHouseGutsREV2.indd 144 8/16/11 8:38 AM ChAPTeR 11 favourite live. It was built around a middle passage custom-made for one of Peter’s long guitar solos, and also featured him and Steve doing a lot of call-and-response soloing. “Stone Cold Fever” ended up being the reason Glyn declined to make a third album with us and, curiously, at least part of the reason why Peter, barely six months later, decided to leave the band. I say “curiously” simply because it was in large part Peter who wrote it. Only a few months hence, that song, “Rollin’ Stone,” and “I Don’t Need No Doc- tor” were used as examples of where the band’s musical direction was going, causing Glyn to opt out and Pete to decide to leave. For some reason that I can’t for the life of me remember, we chose not to record studio versions of “Four Day Creep” and “Doctor.” If memory serves, we did try them in the studio, but they just didn’t cut it and re- mained in the live show only. We had again left our equipment in the States for economic reasons, which meant that, just as with the Entwistle sessions, I had to hire a kit. This time I got lucky: I was able to hire a kick-ass little Ludwig Red Sparkle kit. It sounded great, and we got our best drum sounds yet out of it. Steve was on fire on the piano during these sessions, but, for some reason, Peter and I played piano together on Steve’s “79th and Sunset.” I played the left-hand part, while Pete played the right. I don’t have any idea why, considering how well Steve was playing, but it was indicative of the way we were all getting on during this period. I’ve heard many so-called rock ’n’ roll historians and even some of Steve’s old musician mates, not least of all Ronnie Wood, go on about how Steve lost it once he left the Small Faces, or that as a guitar player he was “just a strummer,” but I beg to differ. Whilst he did lose a certain degree of his natural abilities later in life, he had by no means done so at that early stage of Humble Pie. His lyrics were spot on then, and I defy anybody to find me a lyric by Mr. Wood that is any better than those that our Steve was producing at the time—not to mention his melodies, chord sequences, lead and rhythm guitar work, fabulous piano playing, remarkable harmon- ica skills, and sense of rhythm and harmony. Add to these his abilities as a studio sound engineer and his onstage showmanship, and I would say the only things that Ronnie had in abundance over Steve were a few inches in height—hell, everybody had that over him—and hair, which Steve was al- ready starting to lose. Now that I’ve got that rant out of the way… Glyn brought in Bobby Keys on saxophone and Claudia Lennear on back-up vocals… and eye candy. Claudia was an absolutely gorgeous black lady whose recent claim to fame was as a back-up singer, along with Rita Coolidge and others, on Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour. She 145 BestSeatInTheHouseGutsREV2.indd 145 8/16/11 8:38 AM Best seat in the hOuse was enlisted, along with Doris Troy and P.P. Arnold, to do the back-up vocals on Steve’s “A Song for Jenny.” Bobby, of course, had been working with the Stones, and had been part of the brass section on the Cocker tour, along with Jim Price. He played a sax solo on a song by Greg called “Big George.” When we recorded “Shine On,” I was proud to be able to help Peter arrange the song—not to any huge extent, just enough to feel better about myself and get a much-needed confidence boost.