Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Ray Norman
MANX HERITAGE FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT
‘TIME TO REMEMBER’
Interviewee: Mr Ray Norman
Date of birth:
Place of birth:
Interviewer: David Callister
Recorded by: David Callister
Date recorded: No recording date
Topic(s): Joining the Army Cadet Band Island Music Shop Working as a butcher National Service Compère at The Prospect The Norman Combo Band The Texas Bar at Onchan Head Playing at The Casino Tony Christie and Tom Jones Boat racing and Round the Island Races Playing in The Continental Kelly’s Records Backing Vera Lynn at The Adelphi Hotel Liverpool Playing at Rushen Abbey and The Empress Hotel
Ray Norman - Mr N David Callister - DC
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Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Ray Norman
DC This interview is with Ray Norman, presumably Raymond Norman when you were born, as it?
Mr N That’s right, yes.
DC Middle name?
Mr N Oh, Thomas.
DC Raymond Thomas Norman.
Mr N Well, Thomas Raymond actually, I hate Thomas, I don’t like Thomas.
DC So did you get Ray at school, did you, I suppose?
Mr N Yes, I was called ‘Spider’ at school.
DC Well, we all had nicknames, didn’t we?
Mr N Well, I had a big chest and skinny legs, you know.
DC But we’re here really to talk mostly about your music and your career in music, but obviously there must be early, very early influences that sort of got you into music, were you sent to learn music?
Mr N No, I wasn’t, I was in the Army Cadet band, you know, as a drummer, and I think I went from there really, you know. Because before then I used to get the old biscuit tins out and I’d be playing the biscuit tins.
DC Well, was the drummer the easiest musician’s job, then, was it, or not?
Mr N Well, I tossed up guitar or drums when I decided I wanted to be a musician and drums won.
DC Drums won – made the most noise.
Mr N It took my about a year playing the drums and singing at the same time.
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DC And then you moved onto guitar after that, did you?
Mr N No, I didn’t, no ...
DC Never did?
Mr N ... stayed on drums, yes, stayed on drums.
DC Yes, so you always stayed on drums then.
Mr N Always drums and lead singer, yes.
DC Did you go to a wind instrument of any kind or not?
Mr N No, Dougie was the wind instrument.
DC So drum kits in those days then, presumably, I mean they wouldn’t be as expensive, certainly as they are now, would you have to save up for a long time to afford them, or what?
Mr N No, not really, because I had Island Music [Shop] at the time and I used to do deals with, like Holner, and stuff like that and get drum kits for free or drum kits at really rock bottom price, you know, so I could afford all the best.
DC So that got you going really?
Mr N Oh, yes, I’ve had Ludwigs, Slingerland, I’ve had Premier, all sorts.
DC And is there a kit of drums that’s better than any others, that you – like a Rolls Royce kit.
Mr N Well, Premier, I think, is about the best in the world, now.
DC And what does it consist of, a band drummer, what are the drums, I mean tell me what they are in sequence, sort of thing.
Mr N Well, there’s a bass drum, snare drum and tom toms, surrounded by an array of cymbals, I use the Swiss cymbals, Paiste, as against the Turkish ones. 3
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DC Where do you learn the skills for drumming then, do you listen to other drummers or do you just, sort of, build it up for yourself, because you can’t go to a drum teacher, can you?
Mr N Well, you can, yes.
DC Can you?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, you can get lessons on drums, but I only had one.
DC One lesson?
Mr N One lesson and I decided I could do better on my own, so.
DC But you’ve got to have an instinct for rhythm, haven’t you?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, your feet are doing one thing, you know, your arms are doing another, and then to sing at the same time was quite difficult to start.
DC Well, that was the technique you had to learn, really, wasn’t it?
Mr N Yes, absolutely, yes, it’s very difficult.
DC Well, this got you – what year would be talking about now and what age would you be when you started all this then?
Mr N Oh, I was mid 30s when I went pro.
DC But before that, I mean when you first started playing drums and first, with any kind of organised group, when would that be.
Mr N I’d be in my late ‘20s, late ‘20s.
DC So you were a late developer into it, then.
Mr N Absolutely, yes.
DC Okay, so what were you doing before that, let’s get that down, I mean you were 4
Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Ray Norman
butchering, weren’t you?
Mr N Yes, I was, I worked for Bert Gray’s, pork butchers, and used to carry the sausages and the pies on my head through Strand Street.
DC In a container, I hope.
Mr N On a tray, yes, on a tray.
DC Why did you carry them through Strand Street?
Mr N Well, I had to, to take them to the shop.
DC Oh, you were going out from the factory to the shop, were you?
Mr N That’s right, yes, yes.
DC So you were trained as a butcher then, obviously.
Mr N Yes, well, as a cook really, yes. I do all the cooking now.
DC Oh, right, yes, yes. What was Bert Gray like then?
Mr N Bert Gray? He was all right, he was quite old when I went there, you know, and he was a nice guy.
DC Was he still working in the shop?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, yes.
DC It was different in those days for people, the butcher’s shop now has moved into the supermarket, hasn’t it, I suppose, mostly?
Mr N That’s right, oh, yes, yes. Bert Craine then took over from Bert Grey, do you remember Bertie Craine?
DC Vaguely, yes.
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Mr N He was a singer, like Bert Gray.
DC Oh, yes, Bert was a great singer, wasn’t he?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, and he died. I worked for Bertie and I left and went to Mylchreest’s Motors as a ‘grease monkey.’
DC That was a bit of a change, a big change really.
Mr N I just wanted to get out of the food, the catering.
DC Did you?
Mr N Yes, because you know, you finish work, say at 5 o’clock and then you’ve got to clean everything up, you know, so you had another couple of hours and it was always left to me because I was the youngest.
DC Oh right. And what were you cooking? You were cooking the meat in various forms, were you?
Mr N That’s right, yes.
DC What, sausages and stuff?
Mr N Sausages, making sausages, making pies, cooking legs of pork and stuff like that.
DC It didn’t turn you into a vegetarian or anything, did it?
Mr N No, I still love it.
DC So then you jump off from cooking into a garage, totally different then?
Mr N Yes, well, no, to be honest I made a mistake there, I went from Bert Gray’s, or Bertie Craine’s, to the army.
DC Oh, yes, that would be National Service, would it?
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Mr N National Service, yes, and then I came out, I went back then, and then I left after a few months, went to Mylchreest’s Motors then.
DC So a point came then, with your musical work that it was building up to the extent that you knew you were going to become a professional, did you?
Mr N I didn’t at the time, I used to go to The Prospect and I used to get up and sing and all the rest of it and then one night the compère hadn’t turned up so they asked me to compère the whole show and I loved it, I really did, you know, getting people up to sing and singing with them, it was great. And from then on I formed a little trio and the rest is history.
DC So what was it, your own trio and your own name on it, initially, before it became The Combo.
Mr N It was always called The Combo.
DC Always The Combo?
Mr N Oh, from the start, because I thought Combo, I can add or delete, you know, oh, yes, The Norman Combo could have been three, four, five or whatever.
DC That’s it, exactly, yes. So that was a good move. So who were the fellows that would be with you in those first days then?
Mr N In The Prospect was a pianist called Eddie Humphreys, he used to be up at the old cowboy thing up at Douglas Head, Onchan Head.
DC Oh, Onchan Head, yes.
Mr N The Texas Bar, yes, he used to be up there and he came down and joined me, and myself and a guitarist, and I can’t remember his name.
DC No, no. So that would be a couple of nights a week or every night, or what?
Mr N That was every night in the summer, yes.
DC And a packed pub I suppose, in those days? 7
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Mr N Oh, they used to be queuing to get in there, yes.
DC What sort of stuff were you playing then, I mean, what repertoire was it, as such?
Mr N Oh, mainly ballads, and ‘Ghost Riders’ and stuff like that was all – everything that was in the charts.
DC The popular stuff of the time, so we’re in the ‘50s there, virtually.
Mr N Sure, yes, yes.
DC Well, that was a good time when you could still have recognised a tune, wasn’t it, really?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, yes. I remember all the words and everything because when I went in the band as a drummer, when I went to form the band, I used to put the words up on a little book, you know, in case I’d forgotten any of them, but at The Prospect, none of that, all memory.
DC All in your head.
Mr N Yes, yes, of course as you get older you lose it, don’t you?
DC Well, you do lose it, yes, but you must, I mean you must have known a few hundred songs, if not thousands, I suppose.
Mr N Absolutely, yes.
DC Did you ever, well, of course with a Combo you can cover up a bit if you’ve lost a word or two, can’t you?
Mr N Oh, yes. Always used to blame a girl coming in, in the bar, you know, ‘Oh, sorry, I’ve lost my words.’
DC And those days then the closing time would be, what 11 o’clock, I suppose.
Mr N Elevenish, yes, yes. 8
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DC Right, how many hours would you play a night?
Mr N About two or three hours a night.
DC Really?
Mr N In The Prospect, you’re talking about, yes, yes.
DC So that’s a fair stint, I mean, every night, because you were working as well during the day.
Mr N That’s right yes, well I was young and healthy then.
DC Well, a lot of people did that, of course, they were second jobs – you had a second job that was like something you enjoyed doing I suppose.
Mr N Absolutely, yes, absolutely, yes. And we used to have all the waiters, they used to all get up and have a turn, you know.
DC And you’d be getting holidaymakers up singing and so on, did you, as well?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes.
DC That was a different world from what you’d find in The Prospect or almost any pub now, I suppose.
Mr N Oh, absolutely yes, it’s all changed now and there’s hardly any live music, is there?
DC No no. Okay, well then you get to the stage somewhere when you’re going to become a professional.
Mr N That was when we went to the casino, yes.
DC What happened, how did that all come about?
Mr N Because, as we played there every night, you know, you couldn’t do the two jobs, really, without some fatigue coming in so we decided we’d go pro, you 9
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know, asked all the boys, and they said, yeah, yeah, give us thirty quid a week and we’ll ...
DC So thirty quid a week would be more than a working wage then?
Mr N Oh, yes, at the time, yes.
DC A fair bit more, I suppose.
Mr N Yes, yes.
DC And The Palace Company, as it was then, were happy to pay that, were they?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, well Bob Wilkinson was the manager.
DC Bob was a good fellow to get on with.
Mr N Oh, he was a lovely fellow, yes, lovely fellow.
DC Tell us about your first nights there then, I mean what were you – it was dancing you were playing for really, was it?
Mr N Yes, just dance band, yes, just played all the stuff and we used to play five hours non-stop.
DC Five hours non-stop?
Mr N Five hours non-stop with the two bands. We’d play a change-over number which was the St. Louis Blues, and the trio would then come out and the drummer would take over from me without stopping and the pianist would come and take over from Jimmy and that was great, you know.
DC And who was the other band that took over then?
Mr N It was a trio ...
DC Your musicians, was it?
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Mr N Sure, absolutely, yes.
DC Non-stop music, was it.
Mr N Non-stop music, five hours a night, yes.
DC Really. Whereabouts in The Palace was this then?
Mr N This was in the, I think it’s all changed now, the front lounge, I think, you know. On a Sunday night they used to put couches in and the cabarets and all that, you know, it was great.
DC Because they used to engage, didn’t they, professional singers over there at some times?
Mr N Every week they had a different …
DC So were you backing them?
Mr N Oh, yes, we were backing them.
DC Who will you remember from those days?
Mr N Ah, you’ve got me.
DC I remember Tony Christie.
Mr N Tony Christie, yes, I remember Tony Christie.
DC Because he was there quite a lot, I think, wasn’t he?
Mr N Yes, he was, yes. Tony Christie, Tom Jones.
DC Tom Jones?
Mr N Yes, Tom Jones, he was in – he didn’t do a dinner dance but he was the cabaret and I got the blame because the band was too loud, that was his musicians.
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DC He blamed you, did he?
Mr N No, no, the punters. Because we had it down to a nice balance for the dinner dances and of course he brought his own musicians and they used our equipment and they blasted the place out.
DC Oh, I see, so they blasted it out but you got the blame?
Mr N I got the blame, yes, the band was too loud.
DC Can you imagine that today, Tom Jones doing a cabaret.
Mr N No. I remember him in The Lido and he was announced and he came out and the mike wasn’t working, all you could see was his mouth going. Anyway, fuming, he was, and he went off the side and got another mike and they got that going and he said, ‘It wasn’t like this at rehearsal,’ but I got on well with him, yes.
DC They’d be staying a couple of nights as well, would they?
Mr N Oh, yes.
DC Would you remember Tony Christie?
Mr N Tony Christie, he used to come in my bar, when I had the guesthouse, you know.
DC Oh, did he?
Mr N Yes. I think he had a disabled son or something like that and ...
DC He was a good ballad singer, wasn’t he?
Mr N Oh, yes, he was fantastic, yes, fantastic.
DC Did you ever learn any of his songs, like ...
Mr N Las Vegas. 12
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DC Las Vegas was it.
Mr N Las Vegas and all that, ‘Avenues and Alleyways.’
DC This would be a different kind of show, a much more disciplined thing for you then, really, when these professionals came in.
Mr N Oh, yes, absolutely, yes.
DC What sort of rehearsal did they need?
Mr N They needed a full day Sunday, you know. They’d come on Sunday and we’d rehearse most of the day, sometimes just finishing before they were due on, you know.
DC So it’s hard work because, I mean, you would be working through the week as well and presumably you’d have to rehearse the band, your band, as well.
Mr N Twice a week, yes, I was a stickler for that. Oh, yes, I wouldn’t play anything that I hadn’t rehearsed.
DC So the boys, did they take to that, or not like it or ...
Mr N Oh, they didn’t mind, they didn’t mind, because it was for their benefit as well, you know.
DC What would be the instrumentation then if you had eight members up there?
Mr N Oh, we didn’t have eight up at one time.
DC Never at one time?
Mr N No, five and three.
DC Five would be playing what, obviously drums, guitar ...
Mr N Jimmy Maddox on piano, Dougie Davidson on sax and flute, bass guitarist which was Stan Hughes, ordinary guitarist, John Alderson, and myself on 13
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drums.
DC Right, and you could do any kind of material, obviously, then, you’d be talking about popular songs, ballads ...
Mr N Oh, yes.
DC ... you’d do rock and roll stuff as well?
Mr N Do rock and roll, everything, yes. We’ve even done – on the album ‘Rondo a la Turk.’
DC I can remember that.
Mr N You remember that?
DC Yes, that’s right.
Mr N Dougie would be blowing his brains out.
DC Dougie is still a very talented musician, isn’t he?
Mr N Oh, yes, absolutely, yes.
DC I mean a mainstay as far as playing the tunes were concerned, was it?
Mr N That’s right, absolutely, yes, excellent, an excellent musician. I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago and he said he couldn’t blow a ‘Rondo a la Turk’ any more.
DC Was the band then earning enough to buy instruments or did the band members have to buy their own?
Mr N Well, they all had their own instruments ...
DC They had them in any case.
Mr N ... had them in any case. In any case, oh, yes, sure, but because I had the music 14
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shop they were getting stuff from me, you know, and they were getting it reasonable.
DC Getting good rates.
Mr N Oh, absolutely, yes.
DC Just remind us where the music shop was, that was in Victoria Street?
Mr N That was in Duke Street there, yes, unfortunately that came a ‘purler’ because of my partner, I had a bad partner and that went down the ‘swannee,’ which was seventeen years of work.
DC Really, yes.
Mr N All gone.
DC Meanwhile, I mean running that and playing and rehearsing, you didn’t have a lot of spare time then?
Mr N No, no spare time, well, I had spare time because I was power boat racing and everything.
DC Oh, yes, of course, you were, weren’t you? That’s right, tell me about that, how you got into that.
Mr N I just bought a boat one day, and somebody from the power boat club said, ‘Why don’t you join the club?’ so I did. Of course I needed a better boat then, and eventually I had a 16 foot Fletcher with 150 Merc [Mercedes] on the back and won everything.
DC Everything that was going.
Mr N Everything that was going, we broke the record from here to Blackpool in the Whitman’s three day race, knocked 22 minutes off Clifford Irving’s record. You remember Cliff?
DC Yes, Clifford was keen on ... 15
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Mr N And John Scott.
DC And John, yes, yes. And was there Round the Island Races as well at the same time?
Mr N Oh, Round the Island Races, yes.
DC How long was it, what was the speed for round the Island?
Mr N Well, my boat was doing 70 miles an hour on water, you know, which was pretty fast.
DC And that, I mean that was your main hobby really then, I suppose.
Mr N Oh, yes, I loved it, absolutely loved it, yes. Even the big boats could do 140 miles an hour, you know, the big outboards, the big, yes, the ...
DC 140 is some going.
Mr N I’ll say, yes. But they weren’t over here, you know, I’m talking about the big long distance races, you know.
DC So you still hold the speed record here, do you?
Mr N As far as I know I do, oh, no, Frank Bentham broke it by a couple of minutes.
DC Oh, did he?
Mr N Frank, he’s in Spain now – swine!
DC It was always, a lot of people said that you’d gone to Spain, you know.
Mr N Oh, no, no.
DC You never had.
Mr N No. I met somebody in Blackpool and he said, ‘I heard you were murdered in Spain!’ 16
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DC It’s a wonderful place for rumours, this, isn’t it?
Mr N Isn’t it just, I said, ‘That’s my ghost talking!’
DC But you did go abroad though, didn’t you?
Mr N I did, I went to the States. First of all I went to Miami and – for a holiday and an audition and got the audition, passed the audition, English singer with this band, you know, and I loved it, it was great.
DC So you were singing there for some time?
Mr N Singing there for a few months, yes. And then back home and to the band again and thereafter it was just – well the shop went down the ‘swannee,’ in the meantime and I couldn’t go back to the States then because of lack of money then, because I had to fork out all the debts, so I was back to work here on the Island, you know.
DC So back with the band again, then, was it?
Mr N Yes, yes.
DC On long nights and rehearsal days and everything.
Mr N Oh, yes, but it was great though, it was good fun.
DC You’ve seen the holiday industry change over those years though?
Mr N Oh, yes, changed in the early ‘70s, I think, yes, yes.
DC What about all the various places that you’ve played then?
Mr N Oh, God, everywhere, everywhere round Douglas, even at The Grand Island. And the best place, of course, was The Continental.
DC Was it?
Mr N Yes, that was great, we were there for quite a while. 17
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DC Why was that the best?
Mr N It just was, you know, everybody flocked there and it was packed every night. Even packed with locals, you know, not just the holidaymakers.
DC Did you, I mean, you wouldn’t have much time to do anything except arrive there, set up, play and go home afterwards, would you?
Mr N Well, it was set up all the time because we were ...
DC Oh, it was there in any case, yes, yes.
Mr N It was set up there and of course we had to rehearse there as well. Quite often we had to rehearse with visitors in the room, you know, so we had to explain.
DC So they were getting a bit of extra.
Mr N We had to explain to them what we were doing, if we stopped the music, you know, don’t worry about it, you know.
DC So you really were the conductor from the drummer’ seat, were you, in fact?
Mr N Well, I guess so, yes, but, you know, we’d rely on Dougie or by then Jerry Wordsworth had joined us, he was the trumpeter, and we’d rely on him or Dougie, you know, to do the count-ins.
DC Were you always using, playing off sheet music, or not?
Mr N No, no, I couldn’t read music.
DC Well, you didn’t need to as a drummer, I suppose, presumably?
Mr N Well, there is drum music but I didn’t use it.
DC So, sheet music, was it, it must have been used for rehearsals.
Mr N Oh, yes, Dougie and – Dougie used sheet music and – I’m sure.
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DC Right, now then you come round to recording because you made an album at some time, I can’t remember the date of it now, the ‘60s.
Mr N That was ’69, I think, yes. No, ’69 or ’70, one of the two, I can’t remember now.
DC Where was it recorded?
Mr N Kelly’s Studios in Victoria Street.
DC So it was Kelly Records.
Mr N Kelly Records, yes.
DC Terry Clough was in there.
Mr N Terry Clough, yes, yes.
DC How did that sell, was it a good seller?
Mr N I couldn’t tell you that, I don’t know.
DC Terry must have got the answer to that.
Mr N Terry’s got the answer to that, yes. It’s an antique now, isn’t it?
DC Who’s got the master tape to that, do you know?
Mr N They were burnt.
DC Really?
Mr N Yes, the shop went on fire, say no more.
DC So they’ve been lost.
Mr N They were lost, I think, the master tapes.
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DC But there are still copies of the album around. They must be collectors’ items now.
Mr N Thanks very much.
DC Somebody in a car boot sale somewhere in Bolton is going to find one of those, before long.
Mr N I know somebody bought one for 50p in a car boot sale.
DC Oh, right. But joking aside, I mean you had ups and downs in this business then, didn’t you? Particularly with the music business there, I mean, it must have been, even now I suppose, it’s a thing you don’t like talking about, but what actually happened with Island Music?
Mr N With Island Music – well, we had a – Terry Clough and I were partners and we took on another partner to sell organs.
DC Three people involved.
Mr N Three people involved, yes. We took on Ken Dove to sell organs because he was a good organist. Unfortunately, along the way, he opened up a secondary business, unknown to me, with another partner. And when that fell by the wayside they started delving into Island Music and that’s where the problems arose.
DC So it was financial really then?
Mr N Oh, absolutely, yes, a lot of money, you see.
DC A court case involved, was there?
Mr N There was a court case, yes, he got twelve months, yes.
DC So where did – that left you then with no business at all?
Mr N No business, we had to close down, yes, unfortunately.
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DC Surviving then on the earnings from the band?
Mr N Well, yes, yes, I had to go out in the public, with the public looking at me, just after the shop had folded and I think I was the fall guy, really, you know, because he’d gone, he’d disappeared, and it was a hard time.
DC So up to that then, it was a good healthy business, was it?
Mr N Absolutely, yes, absolutely, yes.
DC This would be selling musical instruments, sheet music, records ...
Mr N Everything, yes, yes, yes.
DC And there was, in those days, a bit of competition because there’d be – was Blakemore’s still around then?
Mr N Blakemore’s was still around but they weren’t in the same league as regards instruments and stuff, you know.
DC No, no. So in those days then, we’re talking here, what, ‘60s, if you went to buy, shall we say, a decent trombone, how much would you have paid for it?
Mr N Oh, God, a trombone?
DC Or a trumpet, or anything.
Mr N Well, a trumpet, really a trumpet was about £200 or £300 about then, you know.
DC A fair amount of money even then.
Mr N Sure yes, yes.
DC I’m just trying to relate it to today, because we’re talking thousands now, aren’t we?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, I wouldn’t know these days.
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DC Have you got a drum kit hidden away in the house here?
Mr N No room, no room, no.
DC Any biscuit tins?
Mr N Biscuit tins, yes. I did buy a kit when I came back and I practised all summer in a warehouse on Finch Road, because there was a chance of forming another band with John Nelson, you know John Nelson, don’t you? Anyway that fell by the wayside as well so I just sold the kit, I thought, oh, sod it and give it up.
DC Right, so you retired from the music business altogether then, at some point.
Mr N ’83 I had to retire, yes, because running the guest house, the band and the video shop and all got on top of me and I ended up in hospital, so, one of them had to go.
DC Well, as I say you’ve had ups and downs in the business, but you’ve taken the Combo to play across at various dates, have you?
Mr N Sure, yes, we played in The Adelphi in Liverpool, for the Blue and White Ball, for, of course, all the Jews, and I mean spot prizes there were like £500 in cash, you know.
DC Really?
Mr N Yes. We backed Vera Lynn there. Acker Bilk was playing with us and there’s a funny story to this actually. After we finished our spot the boys were all going into town, you see, and the big boss asked me to go to the party upstairs, and he asked the boys. ‘Oh, no, we’re going on the town,’ like, you know. So I went up to this room and I went in and, ‘Excellent music,’ somebody was saying, you know, and somebody pushed something in my pocket, you know. Somebody else come along, ‘Enjoyed the band,’ you know, money in the pocket, you know. By the time I’d finished I was ...
DC Bulging with money.
Mr N ... bulging with money, yes. 22
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DC Wonderful. What was it like backing Vera Lynn?
Mr N Oh, no problem, great, she was great, yes. We did, it was sort of off the cuff, type of thing, as she appeared, we just played her number, you know, ‘We’ll meet again,’ and all.
DC Oh, you hadn’t rehearsed it then?
Mr N No, we didn’t rehearse ‘We’ll meet again,’ and she just sang it and that was the end of it.
DC What about the various managers, I mean we’ve talked about Bob Wilkinson, who seemed to be an easy fellow to get on with, but you won’t have found them all as easy as Bob, will you?
Mr N Oh no, Alex, he was a tyrant.
DC Hang on, who’s Alex?
Mr N Alex O’Brien, he had the Alex Inn, didn’t he, and then he was managing the Palace. He was a good lad, like, but he was a tough boy. And one time they had some Spanish dancers over, it was Valdespino, the sherry people, putting on a show and I wasn’t supposed to announce that but – somebody else was. Anyway it ended up that Alex said, ‘You’ve got to announce it,’ you know. I said, ‘Well, I can’t speak Spanish.’ ‘You’ll have to try,’ he said. Anyway I got through it all right, you know, doing all the Spanish names and that, and as I was announcing it the porter came up and said, ‘Hold it, hold it,’ you know. So he said, ‘10 minutes more, 10 more minutes,’ you see. So I looked at my watch just to check the time, and eventually they came on, done their bit, and it went down very well. Alex come in the dressing room after and said, ‘What the hell were you looking at your watch for?’ I said, ‘Just to check the time, Alex.’ ‘I’ll tell you what to do,’ he said. I said, ‘Well I know that, I was just checking the time.’ Anyhow he lost his temper and it ended up with me and him having fisticuffs in the dressing room. Yes, I was sacked and everything that night.
DC Were you?
Mr N Oh, yes, only for 10 minutes like. 23
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DC For 10 – taking back ...
Mr N Anyway we ended up at the bar and we both got drunk after that.
DC That would be a problem as well, because the punters would be offering you drinks all the time, wouldn’t they?
Mr N Oh, yes, there was lots of drink. Well, we had to learn to take it easy, you know. I mean 2 o’clock in the morning was our time to start drinking.
DC 2 o’clock in the morning? And you’d wake up at about 2 in the afternoon then?
Mr N Mid-day, mid-day, yes.
DC You’d miss a lot of what was going on in the world, probably, I suppose.
Mr N I guess so, yes. I thought it was great though.
DC But would you arrive home sober?
Mr N Not really, no, I’ve been stopped by the police a few times, you know. ‘Excuse me, sir, you know you’re going such and such speed,’ – wind the window down – ‘oh, how are you, Ray, get off home, go on.’ Or words to that effect.
DC Well, attitudes were very different then, I think, weren’t they?
Mr N Oh, yes.
DC And there wasn’t the traffic on the roads then or anything like that.
Mr N Any other managers that you worked for apart from Alex, then?
DC Well, Jack Cretney was self-styled manager of the Combo in the early days, he decided he was going to be our manager and we had a dinner dance on at The Palace and he had a guest for us to back, and anyway he just come on the stage and said that this guest hadn’t turned up, so he said, ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ve worked it all out.’ He said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the cabaret and on the keyboard, the wizard on the keyboard, Jimmy Maddox.’ So, what the hell’s 24
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going on, you know, so Jimmy’s rattling away, you know. ‘And now, the Tom Jones of the Isle of Man, Ray Norman.’ So Dougie – so we were all doing the cabaret, and Terry Cringle was in the party that night and he says, ‘Great stuff, Ray, but we’ve heard it all before.’ Terry was a good lad.
DC So you didn’t have an agent as such, of course, over here, would you?
Mr N No, I managed it all myself.
DC Did you do all the booking yourself?
Mr N Yes, sure, I’ve still got invoice books with the Ray Norman Combo on.
DC You could start up any time, could you?
Mr N Start up any time, yes. Even with my VAT number.
DC How many of the songs can you remember today, then?
Mr N Oh, none of them. I can’t remember what happened yesterday, now, never mind the songs.
DC Well, you’ve done very well so far, but you must – how many do you reckon you’ve learned over the years then?
Mr N Oh, hundreds, hundreds.
DC Ever counted?
Mr N Never counted, no.
DC How many performances has the band ever given, or how many – I mean, these are not things you’ve thought about?
Mr N Well, I know we’ve done 2000 dinner dances in The Palace, 2000, it was an average of three a night, three a week, not three a night, three a week. And sometimes five a week, you know, and particularly Saturday nights we’d do the dinner dance and then we’d hump all the stuff, carry all the stuff into the main 25
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lounge and start up again and give it some stick with rock and roll after playing all the quiet stuff, yes.
DC You must have found it reasonably easy to learn songs, then, as well.
Mr N Oh, yes.
DC They came to you quickly.
Mr N Sure, yes.
DC And when you were going to various places, not permanently based in The Palace you’d have had this carting gear in and out from one place to another.
Mr N Yes, that’s the worst job of a band, yes.
DC Isn’t it?
Mr N Humping all the gear, unless you’ve got roadies.
DC Did you play The Majestic?
Mr N We played The Majestic, yes, we played The Majestic, all over, Grand Island, I think nearly every hotel on Douglas prom, you know, we’ve been in.
DC What about the financial side of things then, Ray, I mean you were talking about the band guys getting 30 quid a week, initially. Did you, as your popularity grew did the fees go up, in line with it, I mean.
Mr N Well, that was The Palace, you’ve got to remember, no it didn’t, you know, you had to suck everything out of them, you know. And I remember when they changed managers, and I forget the other guy, and a holiday time was coming up so I went for the wages and I said, ‘Where’s the holiday pay?’ ‘Oh, you don’t get holiday pay?’ I said, ‘We’ve had it for years and years,’ and that went on for two or three days, fighting for the boys, you know, because if not I would have had to pay them myself out of my own money, you know.
DC Yes, right – you got it? 26
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Mr N We got it in the end but they didn’t like it, they said it’s the last one you’re going to get from us.
DC Oh, really.
Mr N I said, ‘Oh, that’s very nice of you,’ so I think we left the next year, yes.
DC What, a winter season somewhere else, did you?
Mr N Well, we played down at Castletown ...
DC Golf Links?
Mr N Golf Links, and Rushen Abbey, done a season there, Ken Daley had it then, and I always remember he’d got the doors, the glass doors, from Woolworth’s, they were changing the doors so he had the old doors and we were playing away this night and this dog came wandering in and we said ‘Yelp, yelp,’ to scare it, and it flew right through one of these doors.
DC Through the glass?
Mr N Through the glass, it must have flattened it’s face. The whole place was in tucks, it was. Ken wasn’t very happy, like, you know.
DC Well, they had cabaret there didn’t they, as well, at Rushen Abbey.
Mr N Not the year we played, not the year we played.
DC Not that year, they didn’t need it, you were the cabaret.
Mr N We were the cabaret, yes, yes.
DC What were the crowds like at Rushen Abbey then?
Mr N Okay, great, yes, yes, in fact they were good.
DC And you fellows were all living in Douglas at the time, presumably.
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Mr N Yes, we had, yes, we all had to motor in, yes. And then we played at The Bay Queen, for a season. Didn’t like that one very much, because they were always playing bridge. We used to walk past the table and go ‘Snap!’ We weren’t very popular there.
DC There were a few changes with your band make-up over the years, or mostly did the boys stay with you, or what?
Mr N Dougie was, Jimmy left, Dougie stayed, and we took on Gerry Wordsworth, he was the professional musician, he’s got DMS [Discount Motor Spares] now, do you know DMS? Yes, he’s the boss of that.
DC You didn’t have any difficulty finding work then?
Mr N Oh, no, no.
DC It was always there.
Mr N It was always there, I didn’t sell it cheap either, you know.
DC No, and the competition that you had, I mean, was mainly – you would be mainly talking about rock and roll groups in those days, were they?
Mr N We ended up doing more rock than anything else, yes, in the latter days. The last days at The Palace, a couple of the boys tried to sabotage the band, by playing wrong stuff, you know, not rehearsed, and I had to get rid of them, and one went with the Bee Gees’ younger brother, he’s dead now, Andy Gibb, he went with them – Stan Hughes, he’s in Canada now.
DC Oh, right.
Mr N But they were playing a little game and I didn’t like it and I just shut the band down and I said, ‘That’s it – close it down,’ and I spoke with Gerry Wordsworth, and we reformed it again around him, you know, because he was a trumpeter and everything so I had to do different stuff, you know.
DC Did you do any jazz as well?
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Mr N Yes, oh loved it, yes, I’ve got some great jazz tapes.
DC Yes, yes, jazz tapes that have never been issued to the public?
Mr N Oh, no, no, this is all stuff I’ve rehearsed, and I recorded everything we rehearsed.
DC Did you have a favourite haunt for jazz where the fans got used to it?
Mr N Yes, at The Empress Hotel, John Morley’s place. We used to, of course, do dinner dances there and John liked jazz and we used to try and please him a bit and do a bit of jazz, and oh, it was great stuff, yes, loved it.
DC Right, as the drummer then, you were sitting down to sing, and it’s not – most singers are standing up, aren’t they, did you have to – a different technique, really, almost, is it?
Mr N Well, you still do it from the diaphragm, you know, even though you’re sitting down and your breath control is dependent on how many cigarettes you smoke.
DC So you’re a self-taught drummer and a self-taught singer?
Mr N That’s right, yes.
DC Who were your own favourites, I mean if you ever had time to listen to bands or to singers or to jazz groups or whatever, did you have any particular favourites?
Mr N Well, Vic Damone was a big favourite of mine, you know, and Eddie Fisher, yes.
DC You’d pick up a lot of the songs off their recordings, would you?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes.
DC That would be one of the ways to learn them, presumably, would it?
Mr N Absolutely, yes. I know I used to work in a factory in Manchester one time and I used to sing, ‘Your Daddy’s all angel,’ or ‘Daddy’s old girl,’ actually. That was 29
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an Eddie Fisher song and I used to sing at night, I’d do a night shift, all you could hear was, ‘For God’s sake, shut up, not again.’
DC And what about the Frankie Laine, Sinatra world or any of that stuff?
Mr N Well, yes, I used to do Frankie Laine stuff, yes.
DC Do a bit of ‘Jezebel,’ or something like that?
Mr N Oh, ‘Jezebel,’ aye, ‘Jezebel,’ aye. And Frank Sinatra’s stuff, yes.
DC Not, ‘My way’?
Mr N ‘Done it my way,’ yes.
DC But that of course became a pub anthem almost, did it?
Mr N Oh, didn’t it just, yes, yes, ‘My Way,’ yes.
DC The music that you’d need to have though was the kind of the popular music of the day, was it?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes.
DC So if you were doing it now what on earth would be performing?
Mr N Oh, God knows, God knows, I hate it at the minute, it’s all rap and oh, I don’t like rap at all.
DC Then when you had to give up the music had you had enough, do you think, you know, that you’d – or did you feel sorry that you had to give it up?
Mr N Oh, I’m still sorry to this day, you know.
DC You miss it really?
Mr N Oh, yes, yes, and as I say it was illness that stopped me, really, doing too much work and even now, what, it’s eighteen years later, and I still play the tapes of 30
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the band and that, get myself going.
END OF INTERVIEW
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