Howard Jackson

These are the words of my father, ‘At the end of the day, it’s a ball bouncing around between two onion bags.  I wouldn’t line the cockloft with any of them.’

Translated into English it means, ‘ The progress of any football team is much more dependent on luck than observers acknowledge.   Footballers and their managers are nowhere near as competent and worthy as they like to pretend. ‘

Dalglish was a great footballer and probably the best who ever played for Liverpool.   Certainly, Dalglish was the best buy that the club made.  He was a great team player, was consistent and rarely missed a game.   The perfect target man, he ensured the ball almost always went from him to another Liverpool player.  He could do this without relying on the pass back unlike many other strikers.  His passes either went sideways or split defences.   He is, for many football fans in Liverpool, the ultimate hero.   But this does not mean that he would be suitable for the cockloft.  No man is a hero to his valet.  Spend ten minutes with a taxi driver in Southport and you will often hear a different perspective about the great man.

Adrian Beecroft has proposed that sacking people in Britain is too difficult.  It appears that you need a reason and thinking of one is just too confusing for our great entrepreneurs who supposedly have the ability to lead us to a new high definition economic plateau.   This proposal should make us all angry but this week the sacking of Dalglish has occupied fans more than the erosion of their industrial rights.   The annual salary for Dalglish necessitated six figures.  The compensation payment is rumoured to be several millions.  Supposedly, he was offered an alternative post within Liverpool Football Club.  He chose the compensation payment instead.  There has been little indignation about the Adrian Beecroft proposal from football fans.  Without any flattering smiles from attractive young women, Vince Cable, who is also a member of the Coalition Government, described the proposal as ‘completely the wrong approach.’   This means that he disagrees with it and it will be dropped.   We have been fortunate.    The single parents who will have to register as unemployed as soon as their marriage explodes into fragments are not so lucky.

Meanwhile, sacked Dalglish has become for too many fans their Diana.   His response to the Hillsborough disaster when he made it a personal responsibility to attend as many funerals as he could should never be forgotten.  He demonstrated real valour and worth.     But the dismissal of Dalglish has happened now.   He is not a victim.   Not because he is a bad man but simply because of how the economics of this society work.    There are those who receive rewards that can never be justified.   It may not be his fault and, admittedly Dalglish only belongs in that category because he was exceptionally talented, but the winners are invariably overpaid and are always able to move on.   The ordinary people in low paid jobs whom half the Government want to be able to sack without a reason, they call it ‘no fault dismissal,’ will find themselves in Job Centre gangs chasing part time jobs.   In a couple of months, King Kenny would be welcomed on any TV show as a football commentator.   Actually, I think he will be better than that and resist the offers.   His hostility to the media which has been criticised and may have lost him his job is one of his more admirable qualities.    And, no, I am not defending his handling of the Suarez affair.

Football is becoming a dangerous distraction.   True, I have been preoccupied with rock and roll for all my life.   But I hope that these challenges demonstrate that a love of Elvis music and rock and roll can be combined with a sense of political responsibility.   The fans who believed that football was important because of its working class roots and the solidarity it created need to open their eyes.   Season tickets at a £1000 each have nothing to do with working class unity.     Some working class people can afford them but many cannot and the numbers of the disenfranchised are increasing.

But this is the point argue some of those that have bemoaned the loss of Dalglish.   Liverpool Football Club is not like Chelsea.  It had socialist values.   This is nonsense.  The connection to socialism was always remote.  That marvellous working class hero and its most famous manager, Bill Shankly, voted Labour and assumed he was a socialist but he was more a class conscious populist with strong and somewhat dangerous meritocratic sympathies.   His phrase ‘First is first and second is nowhere’ is not redolent with egalitarian compassion.   Many Liverpool fans are anti-Tory but the club has always been a business.   Football was about money from the very beginning, even when clubs were not allowed to make a profit.   God, those were the days.   Brian Clough, our other working class hero, was certainly interested in the green stuff which is why he was so interested in heavy brown envelopes.

The difference today is that business is more ruthless and calculating.   Now, it is either about getting super rich or gangsters and despots using their money to buy success.  Who was it who won the Champions League and the Premier League?  Well, yes.   The only hope that Liverpool fans have is that the owners, Fenway Sports Group, are competent at running businesses based on sporting competition.  They clearly know how to get wealthy from hedge funds but I have never been convinced that millionaires are cleverer than the rest of us.   Rich people queued up to buy overpriced Facebook shares.    The face of John Henry which appears to be far from authentic makes me uneasy.   I never wear them but if I had to have dinner with him I would feel safer with a cravat around my neck.

Still, we all want success?  I am not so sure anymore.   People have accused Elvis of becoming fake showbiz in Vegas but compared to the patronising rituals Manchester City fans had to endure in Manchester the other week Elvis looks like a man who was determined to honour his roots.  (Actually, I think Vegas Elvis was a lot more faithful to his working class roots than people realise but if you want an argument you will have to buy the book.)

I am in the half of Liverpool fans that believe Dalglish should have been sacked but like most of them I would have been happier if he had accepted to stay with the club in another capacity.  The debate about what his record last year justifies will never be resolved because a football team is always a work in progress.  Half the fans were convinced by what they saw and half were not.   I belong with the latter.   In a world where we appear keen to sack people with a no fault clause there should also be some financial responsibility or sense of proportion.   The £100m that was squandered has to have significance.   And like my father I do not believe in the myth of the manager ‘who turns it around’.  They can exist and Shankly and Clough are fine examples but success often requires other factors such as infrastructure, opportunity and good old fashioned teamwork and support.  Maybe our millionaires and football heroes should remember that when they vote for governments who want to fire people without a reason.

If you want to read about Elvis, rock and roll and much more click here.

All rock and roll careers are littered with mistakes and what usually happens is that the fans drift away as soon as the mistakes cause them to lose their money on redundant albums.    Elvis was the same but different.   If the soundtrack albums and sweetening of his material saw his record sales collapse, there were many fans that stayed loyal.  The addicts who needed the next fix, and who hoped that the next purchase might contain a high similar to what had first caused them to be hooked, hung around because they had no choice but to remain.   John Lennon was wrong when he said, ‘Before Elvis there was nothing.’   In England, though, it felt that way and you stayed with Elvis because you remembered what nothing was like.   The addict always expects more of the same.   He is not interested in variety and diversity.   Only after the death of Elvis were music critics able to look at some of the more unusual material and realise its strengths.     When he was alive few thought it possible.  Inevitably, revisionism occurs and somehow Elvis was saved by postmodernism or, if that is too fancy, the playing lists of the iPod.   But because those early highs required supreme examples of rock and roll they also acted as the measure of what could and possibly should have been achieved by others.

Not all regard Elvis as the barometer.   Some will think of Dylan, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix or others.   They will look for people who are as clever as Dylan, can produce hooks like The Beatles or have the dexterity of Hendrix.   Elvis addicts, though, are usually condemned to search for someone who can add heart and drama to a song.  This means certain people appeal rather than others.   For me, they are the great black vocalists like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke and Bobby Bland.     The white alternatives to Elvis although interesting usually register lower pressure on the barometer.    The best records of Elvis have an irresistible groove that contains power, grit and charm.    ‘A Mess of Blues’ is a fine example but there are many more.    There are few white performers who can make the needle on the barometer thrust its way into the high pressure zone and keep it there like Elvis.

Dion, though, was a genuine exception.   In the later phases of his career after he had recovered from heroin addiction he became introspective and his songs were contemplative and restrained.   At his best, though, there was nothing clever about Dion.   He sang his early hits with the tough guy authenticity and musical command that rock and roll should insist upon.   Supposedly he has compared his life to the ‘The Sopranos’ TV series except that his story had reform and a happy ending.   He is probably right.  We need Tony Soprano but a good guy Tony with fists that hit the right notes as hard as anyone.   I first saw Dion in the movie ‘Twist Around The Clock’.   The film was released in 1961 but I had to wait until 1963 when it appeared in the local flea pit.    The world was different then.   I saw it with a mate called Geoffrey Cresswell.    In those days, in the North of England people had names like that.  Today, the Geoffrey would be reinvented as Jeff.   Then, we thought English people saying words like cool, and talking like Americans was silly.   We assumed that if we did that then people like Dion and Elvis would laugh at us.

In Britain, Dion had two big hits which were ‘Runaround Sue’ and ‘The Wanderer’.   The latter which has been subsequently traduced by inferior performers started life as a B side which indicates that the machismo lyrics were always tongue in cheek.   Both records were funny but powerful.   The extravagant claims in ‘The Wanderer’ are matched perfectly by the moral condemnation of the school flirt in ‘Runaround Sue’.    The line ‘she goes out with other guys’ which Dion sings with incredulous horror is irresistible.

In Brazil, there was a bandit called Lampiao.  He waged war on soldiers and terrorised the small towns and the villages of the backlands.   He had his admirers but there were occasions when he would have his gang rape a girl in the village if he discovered that she had consorted with enemy soldiers.  The same man would also castigate young women who wore their hair too long and their skirts too short.   Obviously, he was difficult and he has to be condemned.  But if he had been alive in the fifties he would have been a Dion fan.

The very best record by Dion, though, is the extreme ‘(I Was) Born To Cry’.   Compared to this the nihilism of the other great cynical classic, ‘Is That All There Is’, by Peggy Lee sounds sentimental.  It is not, of course, merely that ‘(I Was) Born To Cry’ is so extreme.   In the song, Dion reveals a vulnerable moment when he thought he had a friend but he soon confirms that the friend later stamped all over his face.   Oh dear.   Elvis is very good at implying anger and despair.  In ‘(I Was) Born To Cry’ Dion does more than imply.  He describes what it means for him and he has no inhibitions at all about sharing his bleak contempt.    Cornell Woolrich was a great American thriller noir writer.   He wrote the short story that inspired the classic Hitchcock movie, ‘Rear Window’.   He once said, ‘First you dream and then you die.’   Like Lampiao, Woolrich would have liked Dion.   Maybe Dion was dreaming when he became a heroin user at the age of fifteen and maybe he needed a life that somewhere contained a recognisable death and rebirth.   Some have said the heroin addiction explains his demise but his commercial decline began before the addiction led to a not too prolonged absence.

In the sixties, Dion made what appeared to be an obvious choice for a man whose vocals were so powerful.   He sang the blues.    These records are not as successful as his previous triumphs promised.   Dion was tough and urban.   He is right.   Dion belongs in ‘The Sopranos’.  Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf may have made their classics in Chicago but their roots are rural.   Dion is an incredibly powerful singer but he is not primal.   He did make some great R&B records but they proved that he was more suited to urban wise guy attitudes.  His cover of ‘Drip Drop’ by the Drifters is a success.  He triumphs because he has urban authenticity and superiority.  It is in all his best records.  Dion is most impressive when he is on the street corner sneering at everyone who walks past.  We listen because he is slick and entertaining.  Suddenly, the street corner does not quite feel so cold and boring anymore.   Well, that was how it felt to me and Geoffrey Cresswell in that northern fleapit all those years ago.

We have to be pleased that Dion made personal progress, even though he abandoned the rock and roll street corner that some of us still use and need.  Now he works to prevent addiction in others and to help addicts repair their lives.   He is still making records and if none capture the glory of the three mentioned above they are definitely worth buying.   The man was never invited to appear in ‘The Sopranos’.   They probably realised that to give him sufficient respect he would have needed a whole series.   Now, there is an idea.

Listen to the great Dion DiMucci

To read more about Elvis, rock and roll and a lot more click here.

Howard Jackson has appeared on another BBC Radio show, discussing ‘Treat Me Nice‘, Elvis Presley, and his forthcoming book ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’. You can listen to the interview by clicking on the link below, skip to 34 minutes in to hear Steve Yabsley playing Jailhouse Rock, the interview follows after.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00r23md/Steve_Yabsley_04_05_2012/

Take a breath everyone.  This next sentence is not quite what it seems.  Every time I look at Jeremy Hunt I think about sex.  See? People are already jumping to conclusions.  No, not that.  The people who lust after Jeremy belong to a rare category of probably damaged human beings and I am glad to say that it does not include me.   First, Jeremy makes me think of sex because he has that empty headed fervour that reminds you of sixties hippies who believed that all they had to do was take off the clothes and make love to everyone and communal bliss would follow.  Hunt has the same naive faith in neo-liberalism.  What we need to do is remove employee protection and health and safety regulations and we can all walk naked, our muscles bristling with economic purpose, towards fulfilment.   The fact that some bodies do not bristle quite as attractively as others does not matter.  It is his own that concerns him which may be why this narcissist spends so much time jogging and dancing the lambada.  Second, he is a reminder of how the male libido can have unintended consequences.   We all know that, before he met Cherie, Tony Blair was a vacant extrovert without any real interest beyond being famous and popular.   A woman and his own sexual urges led him almost without thinking towards left wing politics and a position where he could finally indulge his talents as an insincere performer.   So, sex is important when we think of Mr Blair, as anybody who has read ‘Ghost’ by Robert Harris will know, and it is the connection between Blair and Hunt that makes me think of sex.   I never see Jeremy Hunt without thinking of Tony Blair.

If Blair is the corrupt individual that haunts every left wing soul with a conscience, there is now some compensation.   Jeremy Hunt is what Tony Blair would have been with a less complicated libido.  Hunt is what a Tory Tony Blair would sound and look like.   These are men whose only concern is personal glory, men who somehow think they can romantically sweep away all social problems.  Tony Blair talked about the welfare state as if he could abolish sickness, and he dreamed that equality could be resolved simply through education.  The plan was that after 15 years of Tony nobody would ever be weak or fragile again.  It was baloney, of course, but Tony prayed to God and he had faith and the sun even shone on that fateful day in 1997 when he shook so many hands.

Dangerous romance is invariably rooted in a too strong attachment to adolescence.  It was obvious in Blair and it defines Jeremy Hunt.    These are men who will struggle to grow old.  Hunt, of course, was head boy at Charterhouse, so his attachment to his own adolescence is understandable.   And, presumably, there would have been some sunny days on its cricket fields.   Romance would have been in the air on more than one occasion.  Unfortunately, this romance festers on exclusivity and privilege.  If it inspired some of the more fluent passages in ‘Brideshead Revisited’ it was also responsible for some of the silliest writing of Evelyn Waugh.  Despite its popularity ‘Brideshead’ is far from being his best book.  This is ‘A Handful Of Dust’.   Waugh was a brilliant cynic but his intelligence floundered when he became sentimental.    Hunt, of course, is no Evelyn Waugh.   All he had in his vain dreams was neo-liberalism and self-serving economic theory.   And he needed to be popular.   We all know how Head Boys and Head Girls are not inclined to rebel.   This is why we do not like them.   It is why rock and roll and Elvis became so entrenched.   He and the other rockers were the alternative.  You could either become a teacher’s pet or grow sideburns.  Later, rock and roll raised the stakes.  Sideburns were insufficient and wild coloured hair and facial jewellery became essential.  But if the rebellion has sometimes been silly, remember what the rebellion is against.  That’s right, people like Jeremy Hunt.

The good news is that a Tory Tony Blair is so much worse than a Labour Tony Blair.    If Hunt has a redeeming feature it is beyond most commentators.  The assertion by David Cameron that Jeremy Hunt was doing ‘a good job as Culture Secretary’ sounded like it belonged in an episode of the TV series on the Titanic.  Admittedly, these are difficult times and Rupert Fosters Confucius Murdoch is a loose cannon but it takes an awful lot of wrong-headed incompetence to fail as a Culture Secretary.     No doubt there will be people who think Cameron has been unlucky in his choice of friends and that he has been let down by someone whose judgement is not as sound as his own.   But what did he expect, appointing, to evaluate impartially the bid by Murdoch, a man who described himself as a cheerleader for BskyB.  Well, guess what, he was not impartial, or as David and his look alike Captain Pugwash would say, ‘Shiver me timbers.’    The notion that a special advisor would send 150 emails without the minister knowing is simply absurd.   My own career as a Civil Servant was modest but I did occasionally meet mandarins from Whitehall.   These people are programmed not to say more than two sentences without using the words, ‘The minister says/thinks/wants/believes etc.’   Remember the number, 150 emails, and think of what Cameron claimed.   ‘He is doing a good job.’   This is the best comedy show on the TV.   Is satire dead?  I would hate to have to listen to its bronchial tubes.   The sound of suffocation is too eerie.

Perhaps, Jeremy Hunt has strengths.    He may be pitifully weak on compassion for those less fortunate but there is always a chance that the ideals of Charterhouse left him with a strong sense of integrity.   Well, he refuses to resign or walk so I can only assume he did not captain the cricket team.   Those who are generous also overlook his placing of Naomi Gummer, his former Parliamentary Assistant, within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport after Hunt had proposed departmental cuts of 35-50%.   Notice their jobs are not cut, merely those of the rest of us.   He also had to refund parliamentary expenses that he had incorrectly claimed.   If his errors were modest compared to some MPs he stands condemned because of his attachment to high minded romance.   A man who eschews pragmatism should not expect it in return when his failures are being accounted.

Finally, we are left with a man who decided that the Hillsborough disaster was the result of football hooliganism.   What qualified him for this opinion? Well, nothing because he never researched the subject.   Blog readers will know that I am a Liverpool football fan.   So, if this blog has been more personal than some perhaps readers will now understand why.   You can take the boy out of Charterhouse but you cannot take Charterhouse out of the boy.   Head boys?  If he was a rock and roll star he would be in The Bay City Rollers, smiling according to instructions.  No, give me Elvis instead.  That’s why he was invented.  We will always need our alternatives to pious, corrupt courtiers who when they are not passing glib judgements on the rest of us are bending at the knee.

On Monday Howard Jackson did a live radio interview on Ed Stagg’s BBC show, talking about his book, Treat Me Nice and Elvis.

In case you missed it, you can listen to both parts of the interview here:

Howard Jackson will also be appearing on BBC Radio Bristol this Friday May 4th at 12:30pm. You can listen to this live here.

The name is good.  Buddy is friendly and Holly suggests yuletide celebrations, optimism even.   Of course, the celebrations at Christmas are always short lived and before the week is out the death of another year has to be acknowledged.  The British deal with this as they do with all unpleasant existential truths.  They turn their back on it and get plastered with alcohol.   So, the name Holly made sense for friendly Buddy, brief happiness and success before a wintry death in snowy February.   The big difference between the death of Holly and the bleak conclusion that occurs at the end of every year is the inevitability of the New Year.  Time passes, rock and rollers lose hair and put on weight and years end.   The heroes who die before they reach twenty four years are unusual and unlucky.   The man deserves plenty of sympathy and he has had it.   He provides the rock and roll tragedy that was imitated so brilliantly by Diana on behalf of the establishment.  Okay, that is too cynical but you know what I mean.  It is difficult to discuss objectively the merit of either individual because for so many real grief intrudes.   The death of Elvis was different.  He died when he was forty two and there were elements in his death that were self-inflicted and there were also compensations in his short life.   Holly was a rock and roll star for a mere eighteen months.  He met a nice girl and married.   At least, Elvis had a sex life that more than a few young men would have exchanged for longevity.

The obsession of Elvis and Holly fans is similar but their attitudes are different although I tend to avoid discussion with those fans of either who value themselves according to their loyalty.   Holly made some great records and my favourites are ‘Rave On’, ‘Not Fade Away’, ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man’, ‘That’ll Be The Day’ and ‘Maybe Baby’.   But I was never as convinced as his loyalists.   It is interesting that this challenge has come from Nigeria.   I suspect that over there they can evaluate Buddy Holly more accurately and objectively than in the UK or than I can at least.   The culture here is rich and the British remain passionate about music, drama and literature although we are less well read than we were fifty years ago.  Supposedly, our Prime Minister avoids reading.  He is an expert on TV programmes.  Considering the record of his Government we should not be surprised.  Anyway, like Cameron, in Britain art and culture is always tainted by class.   This does not mean the triumphs are any less spectacular.  They exist in books, on the stage and sometimes in the movies.  But the taint is there.   What should be taste is often snobbery or aspirational identity, at least.

Buddy Holly arrived as an alternative to Elvis and although like everybody else I thrilled to the early black and white clips of Holly singing ‘Rave On’ I never quite identified with the clique that surrounded him.   There is an axis in rock and roll that travels from Elvis towards Dylan and that passes Holly and The Beatles.   Elvis was possible when rock and roll was dominated by the working class.  The rockabilly of Sun is the sound of rougher bars than that of Holly.   Americans with more understanding of their social milieu may dispute that but that was how it sounded to me as a young man.  In England, it felt like Elvis was listened to by the kids in the secondary modern schools, Holly was for the grammar kids who wanted to impress their teachers and Dylan was for the adolescents who attended University.  This is an unfair generalisation and has little to do with the talent of what were in all three cases exceptionally gifted performers.    But these three musicians all needed a market to be successful.   The hype which is fed by the media may be desperate to tell us different but nobody conquers the world.   For everyone, the world remains indifferent.   Scott Fitzgerald recognised in ‘Gatsby’ that human beings were too self-obsessed to worry too long about the worth of others.  Massive success and widespread ignorance are compatible.  The record company BMG has tried for years to place Elvis CDs in more than 10% of UK households.   So far they have not succeeded.  90% of households do not have one Elvis CD and, of the 10% that do, 90% of them have no more than one.   This is what is odd about fame, the famous wallow in glory whilst having to endure widespread contempt.    Success requires appealing to a limited number of individuals whose identity your music, books, paintings or movies either support or, at least, do not threaten.   Some people, of course, become obsessed with their heroes and reshape themselves in the image of those they adore.   Most of us, though, merely draw on what is available and take what is on offer when it suits.  Perhaps this is why the famous, faced with being patronised relentlessly, are obliged to turn a little crazy.

In his biography ‘Blue Monday- Fats Domino And The Lost Dawn Of Rock And Roll’ Rick Coleman argues that Dylan colonised rock and roll on behalf of the middle classes.  Listening to Dylan fans at University I suppose that was also how it seemed to me.    The triumph of Dylan felt like a defeat.   Progress that had been gained by people like Elvis was being lost.   But it may have been nothing to do with the middle class colonisation that Coleman describes.  Elvis, Holly, The Beatles and, finally, Dylan were also a consequence of  how the British working class spent more time being educated and progressed through grammar school to University.    Rock and roll has always been redefined by subsequent generations.   Elvis was an innocent who prospered when innocence was not only required but constituted protest and integrity.   Like Christmas celebrations, innocence rarely prevails, even amongst the innocent.    Holly was needed because rock and roll had to reflect grammar school certainties, the belief in the cerebral creative talent.   Much has been made about how Holly was the first rock and roll auteur.  Dylan suited the intellectual aspirations of undergraduates and his fans compare him to Shakespeare.     The music changes and something is gained but, inevitably, something is lost.

No doubt, Holly was influential.  The Beatles may have been Elvis fans but the model for them was Holly.   The vocals of The Beatles were modest compared to Elvis but like Holly they worked hard to give the songs a hook.   Holly was unusual amongst white rock and rollers to put so much emphasis on percussion and The Beatles or George Martin imitated this from the very beginning.   Listen to ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ which Elvis would play to his friends to show them what he wanted his own records to sound like and would have if RCA and Parker had not doctored his music against his wishes.

It is all a matter of taste.   I can spend an evening listening to Elvis without being bored.   Holly fans are the same and no doubt are happy with half a dozen tracks of Elvis like I am with Buddy Holly.   Some people take Holly seriously because he wore glasses; some find his image a real shortcoming in a rock and roll star.   If our passions reveal our craziness, our indifference too often exposes our superficiality.   There, I have convinced myself.  I need a box set.

To read about Elvis, rock and roll and much more click here.

Click the clip to bop:

“Mr Murdoch, you must be the first mafia boss in history who did not know he was running a criminal enterprise,” so said Tom Watson to James Murdoch of News International at the Parliamentary Select Committee hearing last November.   At the time not everybody approved.    Alexander Chancellor in the Guardian was quite sniffy.  He described the remark as silly and concluded that James Murdoch was safe.    Tom Watson had been unable to resist playing to the gallery and had failed to master the forensic talents of skilled interrogators.    These are my words not those of Chancellor but they summarise what his critics said.    Not surprisingly, Sky News was not quite as concerned about the adversarial skills of Watson.    They were more interested in the spiritual redemption father Rupert had experienced in the back of his limousine on his way to the hearing.  Rupert Murdoch, the man who prefers to think of days as being humble rather than himself.   If the Tom Watson wisecrack was not to the taste of everyone at least it was grammatically accurate.  God knows who taught Rupert Murdoch how to use English grammar.  Perhaps he lost his grammatical grip while managing his empire.   ‘It was the Sun wot done it,’ may be a half decent excuse.

Well, James Murdoch was not safe and News International is now rocking and will rock a little more after this week and the publication of the Tom Watson and Martin Hickman book ‘Dial M for Murdoch.’   The book reveals that members of the Parliamentary Select Committee were put under surveillance by a ‘crack’ squad of News International reporters.  The objective was to find secrets about the committee members.    At the London Book Fair this week, Watson made clear to all those who listened that his lawyers had read the book and insisted on corroborative evidence.    To use the tortured language of Murdoch, ‘Dial M for Murdoch’ had more than one corroborative day.   So we can believe the story is true, just as we can accept the allegations about the once Director Of Public Prosecutions, Ken McDonald, being wined and dined by News International editors and Chief Executives.   And if dirt had been found then threats would have followed.     ‘Fix the jury and buy the judge?   We’ll do our best, Mr Capone.’  True, there is no evidence that either the Select Committee or the Director of Public Prosecutions responded to the behaviour of News International but all this proves is that Capone had superior influencing skills.    Whatever the Foster adverts might say, Australian villains are no match for authentic Chicago gangsters.

Watson has predicted that his book ‘Dial M for Murdoch’ will be the most attacked book this year.   Trevor Kavanagh at the Sun is already leading the way but it would take a better man than me to summarise the opinions of that particular hysteric.   His journalistic style consists of disconnected slurs and random resentments that avoid argument and defy logic.   Somewhere in his prose, though, he mentions that Watson is an intolerant bully and, worst of all sins, is even a socialist.    When Tom Watson was interviewed by Jonathan Heawood of English Pen last Monday the response of the audience at the London Book Fair was far more appreciative.   Many of those listening dwelled on more serious matters such as how close Murdoch had come to owning all of BSkyB and controlling rather than dominating the British media, and how members of the Government were determined to help Murdoch undermine what are the pathetic remains of British democracy.  The catastrophe was averted in the same way Kevin Costner sorted Robert De Niro in ‘The Untouchables’ or Alan Ladd blasted Jack Palance in ‘Shane’.  For once, the good guys won and it was impressive how Tom Watson at the London Book Fair resisted praise and glory.   The Kavanagh caricature was not present.  Indeed, Watson several times stressed the contribution and importance of others.  The work done by Martin Hickman on the book ‘Dial M for Murdoch’, and the moment when Ed Milliband decided he would fight elections without the support of Murdoch.   We will all have a view as to what constituted the McCarthy moments that punctuated the sordid saga of News International but only lost self-centred souls would deny Tom Watson praise and respect.   He made a difference and that is the best epitaph there is.

I was older than many of the audience on Monday.   I can remember the Murdoch version of the Sun being launched in Britain.  Prior to this there had been tabloids but not tabloid culture.  Newspapers reported the news and news meant politics.  Newspapers had something else besides dirt and gossip.   But once Murdoch outlawed serious news from his papers he drove arrogantly into his own cul de sac.  Of course, he always intended to finish in a cul de sac but what he envisaged consisted of a dumbed down population that would mindlessly vote for the powerful simply because they were supposed to be glamorous.    He missed the second dead end, that with nothing to write about but dirt and gossip he was obliged to dig deeper and deeper into personal lives.   The empire of Murdoch did not go into decline or lose its way.    The mistakes Murdoch made were inevitable and the seeds were sown forty years ago.    The dirty tricks were the consequence of the trashy tabloid culture that Murdoch created.   The elite of Britain should have treated the bad taste of Murdoch with contempt.  Instead, they embraced it like the corrupt policemen you see in a cheap Hollywood ‘B’ movie.   Make no mistake, this scandal will run and run.   Our elite is shabbier than ever.   When Watson resigned his post as Government Minister he was condemned by Tony Blair for being disloyal.  Tom Watson had had the temerity to state the obvious, to remind Blair that his leadership was the reason long standing Labour voters were abandoning the Labour Party.  The avarice and war mongering of Blair had gone out of style.  Some have claimed that Watson was a puppet of Gordon Brown but after the performance I witnessed at the Book Fair I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt.   Nobody else, in quite the way Watson did, challenged the most repulsive leader the Labour Party has ever had or stood up to Murdoch.  Let us give credit when it is due.

And, of course, Tom Watson is a suitable topic for an Elvis Presley Challenge, more suitable than most as it happens.  He is not only an Elvis fan and has a potentially great rockabilly hairstyle but he has the same birthday as the supreme rock and roller.  We all know the scene in ‘King Creole’ where bar sweep Danny Fisher stands up to the gangster bully Walter Matthau.   As Elvis sang in this great movie and later resurrected brilliantly in his ’68 TV special, ‘if you’re looking for trouble you came to the right place.’  Last Monday, we listened to Tom Watson describe how resistance eventually led to the Leveson enquiry into a corrupt press.  The London Book Fair felt like the right place to be.     Enjoy the clips.

If you want to read about Elvis, rock and roll and much more click here.

Follow Howard Jackson on Twitter: @howardjackson09

The name alone tests belief, makes us wonder what happens in the mansions of our rulers.  Johnny Cash was right to invoke our

Abingdon School

sympathy for ‘A Boy Named Sue’ but even Johnny failed to imagine the double whammy inherited by the Minister for the Cabinet Office.   Even if most of it was spent at £10,000 a term Abingdon School, Francis or Maude must have had a complicated childhood.  Maybe somebody assumed his names would toughen him and anticipated Francis or Maude battling the school rugger team, similar to what happened to Sue in the Johnny Cash song.   David Cameron understands public school privations as well as anyone although his schooling was only at the charity institution Eton College where as many as thirty boys (whose noses presumably point sideways) do not pay any fees at all.  Cameron probably concluded that the harsh existence of Francis or Maude made him favourite to deal with the civil contingencies his policies would create.   Cameron told the others, ‘When the going gets tough you find a man called Sue or Francis or Maude.’

These are cheap jibes, I know, but the history of satire and politics in Britain up till now has been simple and crude.   When the programme, ‘That Was The Week That Was’, first appeared on TV the satirists were content to giggle at the absurdities of politicians.   They accused them of not being very bright and not much more.  Fifty years ago, though, politicians had tried to appeal to as many voters as possible.  The political parties lined up on the left and the right because that is where politicians were supposed to be.   They represented themselves, the powerful and sometimes even the powerless but whatever their bias they assumed some responsibility to everyone.  Difficult issues that divided the nation were referred to cross party committees and parliamentary commissions.   Consensus was considered desirable.   These courtesies were shattered in the sixties by trenchant and rebellious teenagers.  An absence of manners and an unwillingness to compromise led eventually to a much more abrasive revolutionary champion.  She was called Margaret Thatcher.   Not quite what the left expected but there is a history of unintended consequences and the young of the sixties were always casual about history.   As politics changed so did the satire.   The gentle reminders of ‘That Was The Week That Was’ were replaced by the savage insults of ‘Spitting Image’.   There is a cliché, long unfashionable, that a nation gets the government it deserves.   The same can be said of politicians and satire.   They started the nastiness so they should not be surprised that they are now held to account through foul mouthed ridicule.   Thatcher probably relished such attention, was happy to bathe in a fame that left its stain.   She liked it rough and tough and the head butting puppet of ‘Spitting’ defined her well.

Nobody, though, could have anticipated what followed.  Now the politicians satirise themselves before the satirists.    When did this phenomenon begin?  Was it Tony Blair walking across Camp David, a man with too many teeth wearing too tight trousers and pretending to be a cowboy?   It could have been the palpably false break in the voice when he announced the news about Princess Diana.  Actually, there are too many Tony Blair moments for anyone to say.   Nor should we forget Thatcher on the tank, wearing goggles and wrapped inside freshly laundered white linen.  The moment we saw a crazed woman pretending to be Lawrence of Arabia, Boadicea and John Wayne (take your pick), a nightmare filtered through shimmering desert heat.  The unthinkable had happened.  The politicians were now more terrifying than the puppets on ‘Spitting Image’.

Francis Maude should not be in this company.  He is too like the quiet bloke in those sinister ensemble scenes that occur in a Shakespeare play.   Maude is the gang member whom we imagine saying something like, ‘Perhaps Richard we should count to ten.’    His ability to look harmless has been his political skill.   He can talk about vindictive social engineering and pretend it is logical and essential.   They all do it, of course, but Maude sounds as if he actually believes it, although forty years of neoliberalism has given him plenty of practice.   Cameron is different, he sounds like he is preparing to sell you an encyclopedia.

Last week, though, Francis or Maude acquired a taste for satire and to describe the absurdity of what happened is beyond me.  Imagine this; a minister says that he had no intention of causing a panic by telling people to fill their car fuel tanks.  He only wanted to remind the British people to take sensible precautions.   This is the same British people who have created a Christmas of such excessive consumption and indulgence that even God has abandoned the festival.  The supermarkets are closed for Christmas Day and the people immediately forfeit their favourite carol and sing ‘Please, please, tell us where we can get our bread?’  Less than twenty four hours after Francis or Maude had issued his ‘sensible precaution’ garages were putting up signs that said ‘No petrol for sale.’    That’s right; Francis Maude is one of the people who run the country.   What a pity they cannot swap places with the rioters.  We might have effective government and ineffectual riots.    Inevitably, the response has been quick.   One blog talked about a pending tax on sex and an outbreak of panic shagging by the Brits.  I know, I try to keep the blog family friendly but the image is irresistible and, I hate to say, the notion all too plausible.

But everybody makes mistakes and a slip of the tongue can happen to anyone.  Unfortunately, Francis or Maude also came up with the idea that we should store petrol in our garages, later described as ‘sensible topping up’.  ‘We meant a couple of pints, no more.’  One woman, unaware that Francis or Maude was a devotee of Bertholt Brecht, assumed he was serious and the result was that she was taken to hospital with 40% burns.   And if that is not enough to leave you flabbergasted, not only is Francis or Maude still in a job there are Tories claiming that his comments show a brilliant grasp of strategy.   ‘Look how he has put Unite and Len McCluskey on the back foot,’ say some.   Indeed, William Hague is still defending these remarks as practical advice but then the man whose baseball cap was an earlier defining satirical moment has always played his part.

Elvis was surrounded by idiots and it is tempting to line them up and pick a corresponding character.   But maybe the connection is more abstract than that.  This is about the urge of the famous and powerful to be absurd.   The phenomenon of politicians ridiculing themsleves is mirrored by the descent of Elvis into bizarre and excessive caricature.   Think of Francis or Maude but do not think of the usual Elvis villains – Parker and RCA and so on.   No, remember the white suit and Elvis stoned in the Jungle Room.  It might just give us an idea of what happens to politicians who think their personal whims should define the lives of others.

If you want to read about Elvis and much more click here.

Q.  What is being planned for the future after ‘Treat Me Nice’?

A.  ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’ is being proof read and when this is complete it will be sent to Robin Castle who is responsible for designing the covers and preparing the artwork for all of the books published by Red Rattle Books.  Once this is done it will go for printing and after that it will be made available on Amazon and in bookstores.   Our objective is that readers will be able to purchase the book from Amazon in May.

Q. ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’ sounds very different from the book ‘Treat Me Nice’.

A.  Yes it is although there are two very brief references to Elvis in the book.  The subject, though, is completely different and so is the writing style.   ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’ is a much lighter read than ‘Treat Me Nice’.   We think ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’ will appeal to book clubs, especially those that embrace a wide range of readers.   Indeed, we have already had interest from book clubs.

Q.  So why did you write something so different?’

A.  Because I went to Brazil and because I was interested in the story of Canudos where 30,000 people were slaughtered.   I thought an account of the month long journey and the history of Canudos and Brazil would make a good book.   The style of ‘Treat Me Nice’ was designed to establish accuracy and critical authority.  ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’ evokes the atmosphere of Brazil and the mood of the character.

Q.  Will the Elvis Presley Challenges continue?

A.  Yes they will because they are rapidly increasing in popularity.  The intention is to do at least 53 Challenges.  When they are complete it will amount to year of Elvis Presley Challenges.   Read together they will not only give plenty of information about Elvis and other music figures but also provide a not too serious political almanac.   And, of course ‘Treat Me Nice’ is still available for those people who have not yet bought a copy.

Q. I noticed that one of The Elvis Presley Challenges reviewed the book, ‘The Courageous State’, by the economist Richard Murphy.

A.  I have an interest in economics.  I would think that half the books I read are about economics and the financial crisis.

Q.  Do you read economic text books whilst you listen to Elvis?

A  I do that quite often.   I liked the economist who said on the Richard Murphy blog that Elvis would be no worse running the economy than George Osborne.  Of course, that wouldn’t be difficult.

Q.  The challenge last week was Big Al Downing and you included a musical clip.  Are you going to do that more in the future?

A.  Yes, I probably will.   I should have thought of it before.

Q.  What or who is the next challenge about?

A.   Don’t know yet.   What do you think?

Q.   I think Francis Maude would be quite good.

A.  It could well be.

Q.  Which are the most popular blogs, the musical or the political?

A  They are about the same.

Q.  You are also working for Red Rattle Books?

A  I am but I am in the process of becoming a partner with the company.   They publish my books and I work for them as an editor.  I am now very involved with the company.  I think what the company is trying to do is worthwhile especially as the publishing industry is changing so rapidly and life is getting much tougher for authors.   Red Rattle supports new authors and gives them a first stepping stone in a literary career.  Our plan is to not only publish books by new authors but guarantee that the book they write after the one we publish is read and considered seriously by a prestigous literary agency.   This gives them a shot at the big time so to speak.  This access is not currently available to new authors.

Q.  Which agency is that?

A.  We can’t say at the moment but after we visit the London Book Fair this month we have a meeting in London with an agency and are quite excited by what we might achieve.

Q.   Is there a website that provides details about Red Rattle and tells authors how to contact Red Rattle?

A. Yes and it has links that produce the contact E mail address but if you do not have an email account on your computer you will not be able to send emails direct.   Going into your gmail account via the website is not possible.  It is simple enough, though, to copy and paste the address.   The website was designed and constructed by Wim Folkers who is based in Brussels.

Q.  Will you only publish books by new authors?

A.  No, we will also publish literary and cult classics.   A varied list supports the authors and gives the reader a more interesting choice.

Q.  Any literary classics in mind?

A. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley would be a good place to start.

Q.  I should have guessed.  Tell me about ‘Crime Chronicles’.

A. This was set up by Gisela Lehmer who is based in Berlin and Irene Keith who is based in Brussels.  They are interested in reviewing and promoting crime fiction.   So far I have reviewed a couple of books and written an editorial.  The Romanian thriller ‘Attack In The Library’ has just arrived from the publisher and I will review that this week.  ‘Crime Chronicles’ also uses other writers and reviewers.   There is plenty to read on the website.   Wim Folkers also constructed this website.   The illustrations are particularly good.   The website is especially relevant as more mainland and East European crime fiction is being translated into English.   Gisela and Irene are very interested in how the crime genres of individual countries have different styles and concerns.

Q. With the work that you are doing on Red Rattle Books, the Elvis Presley Challenge and ‘Crime Chronicles’ do you have time to write your own books?

A.  It is sometimes difficult but I am still writing both fiction and non-fiction.   There will be more books to follow ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’.

Q. I really enjoyed reading the book ‘Innocent Mosquitoes’.  I liked the way it makes you laugh and cry.   But then I really liked ‘Treat Me Nice’ because I am an Elvis fan and it is so pleasant to read a book that takes him and his music seriously.

A  Thank you and thanks for suggesting Francis Maude for a future challenge.

These are the website addresses for Red Rattle Books and Crime Chronicles.

http://www.redrattlebooks.co.uk/

http://www.crimechronicles.co.uk/

In his 68 TV Special Elvis Presley says something like, ‘I’d like to do my favourite Christmas song, of all the ones I’ve recorded.’   He plays and sings ‘Blue Christmas.’   The scene deceives the viewer.  The song ‘Blue Christmas’ was not actually played in the sit down session where he revealed his favourite Christmas song.   Presley preferred the much bluesier ‘Santa Claus Is Back In Town.’   The TV version of ‘Blue Christmas’ remains essential because half way through Elvis urges his musicians to ‘play it dirty’.   In an instant, Elvis reveals his notion of what constituted grit and fire and we understand immediately how he differed from his critics.   He saw potential for rebellion and protest in the unlikeliest places.   I really only mention it because Big Al Downing plays it dirty, too, and like Elvis his music came from or finished in odd places.

In his biography ‘Elvis’, the muck raker Albert Goldman attempts to dismiss Elvis as no more than a mimic.   Goldman is half right; Elvis did have a talent for mimicry.  His imitation of an upper class Englishman on an alternative take of ‘Is It So Strange’ is both hilarious and eerily accurate.   Goldman conveniently forgot, though, that his ability to bend his voice enabled Elvis to create styles that were unique to him.   Big Al is not as original as Elvis but he is a talented mimic and it meant that he would never be restricted to a solitary genre.

Big Al was noticed by the English on a compilation based on the UK record label, Sue.   The label combined 60s soul music with tougher rhythm and blues.   The music on Sue ranged from Major Lance to Howling Wolf.   Big Al was probably included because he was black and because ‘Yes I’m Loving You’ is such a great record.    Nobody complained that a compilation of rhythm and blues and soul included an archetypal rockabilly hit because nobody really noticed.   There is a website that honours Charlie Gillet.  He was a DJ on Radio London and author of ‘The Sound Of The City’ which provides a very good history of rock and roll and rhythm and blues.  Gillett is now dead and the website evokes a poorly maintained grave.  Some of the comments are quite old.  The hit ‘Yes I’m Loving You’ is mentioned.  One person says that the record is just Fats Domino.   Another disagrees and urges us to listen to the rockabilly guitar solo.   The guitar afficianado understands correctly that ‘Yes I’m Loving You’ owes more to Memphis than New Orleans.  But if UK soul and rhythm and blues fans listened to their Sue compilation and missed the dose of rockabilly planted in the middle it is understandable that someone today can hear the record and only hear Fats.

The Fat Man was an influence on Big Al who could and does recreate him when required.  His versions of ‘When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again’ and ‘It Must Be Love’ sound as if they were recorded by Fats himself.  Big Al is not as versatile as Elvis but he he could create more sounds than most and he could impersonate virtually anyone.  Later in his career, this would become a feature of Big Al’s stage show.  He would do impressions of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Little Richard and the rest.   On stage the impressions were choreographed.  On record he was less disciplined and Big Al somewhat endearingly often forgot who he was impersonating.  The best example is ‘Oh Babe’ that mixes Larry Williams, Little Richard and Fats Domino in one record.  Neither was he slavish about matching voices to the arrangements we associate with those voices.   His Little Richard impersonation could feature on a rockabilly track and his Fats could appear on a pumping Little Richard style rocker.   The results are initially confusing but subsequently educational and always exhilarating.

Still available is a four set compilation of rock and roll that is identified by the word ‘sugar’ in the title.   These sets consist of three CDs.  The set ‘Raunchy Sugar’ is devoted to Memphis rockabilly and there are two sets called ‘Heavy Sugar’ which concentrate on New Orleans rhythm and blues.   The Memphis set has a photograph of Elvis indolently accepting female adoration.   The New Orleans collection has Fats looking into a pot of gumbo that is being prepared by his wife.   Both men were more complicated than this attempt at thumbprints.   Fats strayed from sexual fidelity and Elvis, as my grandmother used to say, liked his chuck.

Listening to these sets back to back is illluminating.   The arrangements are obviously different.  The Memphis records have sparse instrumentation and feature bold and prominent guitar solos.  The New Orleans records have driving horn riffs.  They may have played it differently but in the fifties the musicians in the two cities heard and played something new.   Obviously, rockabilly fed from rhythm and blues and black music. Fats Domino was making rock and roll records before the white boys in Memphis.   But listen to the CDs back to back and it is clear that the music of each city influenced the other.  Riffs appear in New Orleans records that surprise you and the same happens with some of the hits from Memphis.   There were links.

Rock and roll may be simple, and instinct is important so sometimes the musicians would not have realised that they were importing ideas.   Awareness, though, is obliged to intrude.   The curious and the opportunists are always present.   This is why Elvis and Big Al Downing are important.   Both men could reproduce easily what they heard around them and both were interested in ‘all kinds’.   Much has been written about how Elvis found inspiration in black music.   Less is said about the black musicians who were as curious about white music.   The interest of Ray Charles in country music is well known but he was not alone.   There are two fabulous CDs available called ‘Dirty Laundry’ and these collections document effectively how many black musicians were obliged to record country material simply because it was there, because it was different and sometimes because somebody said they should not.  There were also many black musicians who because of temperament were drawn towards country music but failed because black musicians were not welcomed.   Elvis was white and he had the freedom to cross genres.

Times changed allowing the curious Big Al Downing to add country music to his reportoire as he became older.   Eventually, he was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame and secured a nomination as Best New Artist by the Academy Of Country Music.   Elvis made rock and roll acceptable to a pop audience and later his music changed in ways nobody could have predicted.  Goldman never persuaded his readers that Elvis was only a mimic but too many are prepared to dismiss Big Al as a follower.   They should listen to his classics like ‘Down On The Farm’ and ‘Georgia Slop’.   His great moments alone are important but before you seriously assess the man listen to the music of Memphis and New Orleans.   Discover what kept the music distinct but also what pulled it together.   The romantic myth is that rock and roll was sourced by originals.  They played their part but the others should also be remembered.  The missing links – the mimics, the opportunists and the curious – are not often given the credit they deserve.

If you want to read about Elvis, rock and roll and much more click here.

And now for some Big Al Downing