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:

More than one woman has explained to me why men never grow up.    They say it is something to do with privilege and power.   Men are indulged and respond like children.   Those men who are perpetually indulged remain children.  Some merely have moments and head without caution towards infancy for brief escapades.   If the movie ‘Beyond The Sea’, directed by Kevin Spacey, has not been quoted as evidence for this argument it should be.   Spacey was given the option to take control of the movie when the planned director Barry Levinson abandoned the project.   Spacey, a Darin fan, not only directed the movie, he sang the songs on the soundtrack as well.   He may have more brains than the average Elvis impersonator but the familiar adolescent fantasy was revealed to be as deep rooted.   Spacey was not an awful singer and most of the time he did a decent impersonation of the vocal performances by Darin.   There was an irony in the movie that somebody as bright as Spacey must have realised.   Spacey was impersonating the man who was perhaps the greatest mimic of them all.  Okay, the mimicry of Big Al Downing was important because of the way he straddled various genres and acted as a missing link but nobody is as versatile as Bobby Darin.   Well, there is one obvious example but regular readers of this challenge do not need me to mention his name just yet.   The versatility of Darin became obvious in the film.  Spacey is required to perform a version of the big Darin country tinged hit ‘Things’.   The song is used as backing material for a poignant scene.  The intention is that we do not listen to the performance too closely.   Spacey may be comfortable with the swing and folk music that Bobby Darin performed but country music and the subtle performance of Darin was beyond him.

When Robert Matthew Walker broke ground from most critics and in the 70s analysed seriously the musical catalogue of Elvis he insisted that only one singer could match Elvis for versatility.  The singer he named was Bobby Darin.   These comments were made in the early 80s.   Both Darin and Presley were dead and nobody was especially interested.  The memory of Darin was on its way to being neglected and there were too many awful 70s Elvis albums still on the shelves of record stores.   Nobody was interested in Elvis as a barometer of anything.   Both men were underestimated and both remain that way although fans are persistent and people like Kevin Spacey for Darin and Peter Guralnick for Elvis have emerged to defend their heroes to those prepared to listen.

I was disappointed when Matthew Walker compared Elvis to Bobby Darin.   I suppose I wanted somebody cooler, someone who would be more impressive to people of my generation or, if I am being honest, my antagonistic friends.   Not long after the book by Matthew Walker was published, the songwriters Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber appeared in a radio show hosted by a DJ called Brian Matthew.    The format of the show was a steal from Desert Island Discs.  The guests had to pick their favourite twelve records.  The difference was that there was no desert island and the guests were music stars and not Radio 4 worthies.   Rice and Webber picked an Elvis song called ‘The Girl Next Door Went A Walking’ because one of the songwriters was called Rice.  As Tim Rice explained, how can you pick one Elvis song above all the others?   He also selected a Bobby Darin song.   This was  ‘18 Yellow Roses’.  Rice laughed about how often Darin impersonated others and asked the listeners to note how the performance was a copy of the cowboy style of Marty Robbins.

This is what is odd about versatility.  There comes a point when people stop taking you seriously.  There is a famous tale about the British entertainer Roy Castle who was obliged to appear at the Glasgow Empire, a theatre famous for its hostile and unforgiving audience.  Castle revealed his usual repertoire.  He sang songs, told jokes, performed magic tricks, danced, played a bewildering number of instruments and did impressions.   The audience was always restless and one member of the audience who was perhaps less patient than the rest admitted before the end of the act that he had endured enough.  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he shouted, ‘is there no end to the talent of the wee —-‘.

You can work the obscenity out for yourself.  Note that, like the Glasgow accent that uttered the heartfelt plea, it was harsh.    Roy Castle did not return to the Glasgow Empire.  Later, he was quite successful hosting a show about record breakers, the man who could eat the most boiled eggs and so on.  It suited him perfectly.   He could talk about people like himself, people whose talents were extreme but inconsequential.

Bobby Darin had hits in Britain but for most British rockers he was a rock and roll version of Roy Castle.  He lacked consequence and failed to offer the excitement of the real rebels.  Today, this view appears to be harsh.   We now realise that some of his records are exceptional.   ‘Mack The Knife’ is a great record but it is easily surpassed by ‘Beyond The Sea’ which is probably perfect.   It not only swings irresistibly but has relentless vocal invention.   Similarly, the career of Darin is underappreciated.   Not only did his music cover various genres he had a movie career that made real demands of a substantial acting talent.  Darin won the acting awards that Elvis could only dream about.   He wrote songs and played several instruments.  Amet Ertegun, the founder and President of Atlantic Records, worked with the great Ray Charles and other fabulous black talents but he was always prepared to single out Bobby Darin for praise.   Darin even managed a classic double A sided single, ‘Irresistible You’ and ‘Multiplication’.   The sides were actually reversed in Britain.    Like all great musicians he had exquisite timing and by sharing it with his audience he was able to add dynamism to his stage show.  On stage, he was not like Roy Castle.  Bobby Darin was not a dull performer.   He was great.

But as marvellous as some of his records were – the hilarious ‘Bullmoose’ is another fine example – he was not the equal of Elvis.  Inevitably, the versatile are obliged to produce moments that are not always compelling.   No doubt some people will look at the music of Elvis and say he suffered from the same limitations but they misunderstand his history.   Elvis was mismanaged and became self-destructive.   Listen to him at his best, on the four CDs that document his career in the fifties on the still available box set ‘The King Of Rock And Roll’.   Nobody has combined that degree of versatility with consequence and consistency.   This is why he appeals to the adolescent in us.   He made us feel privileged and indulged and without thinking our generation followed him into infancy and innocence.  We chose simple rock and roll and excitement.   Darin was talented enough to do everything but was always happier with sly sophistication.  Although he should not be dismissed, his reach was more limited.  The versatility had less consequence than that of Elvis.  It explains why his career took him to Vegas, well before Elvis was finally dumped there.

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Bobby Darin sings Beyond The Sea:

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.

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And now for some Big Al Downing

His original name was George Gideon Oliver Osborne but at the age of thirteen years he dropped the name Gideon.  He wanted to be considered normal like his other chums at his expensive London private school.   It clearly failed because Osborne more than any other Cabinet minister looks like the man ready to pull the switch on the gas oven.  He has a vampire smirk that suggests his dark desires will prevail or as Ann Widdicombe once famously said about Michael Howard, ‘There is something about the night about him.’  There have even been rumours about Osborne salivating over cocaine lines with eccentric ladies giggling sweet Gideons in his ear.   But at least he tried.   Some have alleged that the name change was done deliberately to help his career in politics.   Something helped him switch jobs from stacking shelves in Sainsburys to discussing policy in Conservative Central Office.    This happened very quickly; think about Robert Johnson at the crossroads where he became a guitar genius.   The fans of Robert Johnson believe the bluesman sold his soul to the devil.    Most Tories become blank eyed when you mention the devil but a few wonder if perhaps Satan really did put a hand on the shoulder of one of his favourite vampires.

For many on the left, Osborne is the most hateable of those within the present government.  Cameron is more of an empty headed performer than a vicious architect.  We may not like his friends but Cameron is at least nice to his own.  George Oliver is an almost unique mix of social advantage and sycophancy.  His haters think of the photograph of Osborne out in the countryside shooting grouse.   Osborne looks like a parvenu, a spare part amidst all the wellingtons and waxed jackets.  The effect is odd, even mysterious considering his private education, privilege and wealth.   Osborne likes to pretend his family was a typical hard working family of wallpaper manufacturers.  This may explain some of the stickiness but the wealth of the family has benefited much from their membership of the British aristocracy.   Inevitably, his education was ultra expensive but in the case of our economic tiller the return was poor.   Osborne graduated from Oxford with a 2-1 in Modern History.    This can be roughly trranslated as thick posh.   So the left not only hate him, he makes them feel superior.   But he is not the first Tory averse to intellectual curiosity.  He is amongst friends and that helps.

One characteristic above all enrages his enemies.   George Oliver Osborne appears to care about nothing or no one other than himself.    When he inadequately explains his policies and argues incorrectly that high income tax discourages investment (not that 50% on income over £150,000 is high) it becomes clear that he has one ambition and that is to pass money from the poor to the rich.   So far his performance as a chancellor has been awful.   Economic growth, employment, investment have all deteriorated and Britain’s credit rating has acquired hostile caveats.   He persists, though, in arguing that Britain needs more neo-liberalism economics.   He claims that he is friendly to business and understands business but his desire to cut the welfare state indicates a man who has failed to grasp the principles of limited liability.  This exists to ensure that businessmen do not go bankrupt only their businesses.  It is how businessmen and businesswomen are given a second chance.   The welfare state is limited liability for the rest of us.   It allows us to start again after misfortune.   But in case you believed his shameless phrase ‘we are all in it together’ George is not really an equality man.  When it comes to limited liability ordinary people will just have to miss out.  To quote Polly Toynbee from The Guardian, ‘In the US and UK the gap between the income of the top 10% and the bottom 10% multiplied by 14 times in the last 25 years.’   She should have added that growth rates have been disappointing throughout that period, half of what they were when the rich paid high rates of tax on incomes over £150,000.   But the great blunderer does not do statistics and his dewy eyed view of laissez faire indicates he is also averse to modern history.   He has been lucky.  He suits this modern age of madness.

When the going gets tough the tough get going is the famous phrase.   Well, when these challenges involve the really nasty I usually sidestep them.    Thatcher was ducked and Cameron was compared to Parker.   This challenge is one of the least pleasant.  Elvis has his faults but George Oliver Osborne operates at his own chilling level.   But an Elvis doppleganger does exist for our chancellor.

Freddie Bienstock like Osborne was supported by family connections.   He had the responsibility of finding songs for Elvis and it required his vigilance and scheming to ensure that Elvis recorded as much cheap rubbish as he did.   He is famous for two incidents, in particular.   On one occasion he told Leiber and Stoller, ‘I don’t care how good it is.  I want a song here tomorrow.’   On another he tried to slip a song past Elvis that several months earlier had been rejected by Elvis after he had heard a couple of bars.  Elvis, though, remembered it and told Freddie. ‘I didn’t like it the first time and I don’t like it now.’

Bienstock was not interested in quality, only in placing songs that earned him, Parker and others decent royalties.   They were the musical equivalents of supply side economists.   The impact on the demand from the public did not interest them.  Osborne has the same feelings about the UK economy.   If Bienstock squeezed from Elvis’ music the affection Elvis had earned from his fans then Osborne is more than willing to sacrifice economic purchasing power.  Make the rich even richer and they will invest and the economy will grow is his one dimensional belief.   Worrying about how customers will buy what is produced and having compassion for the unemployed is for economic softies.   Bienstock had the same hard heartedness towards the talent of Elvis and to his fans being served tripe.   Presumably, this was part of his ego.  He wanted others to realise he could be brutal and competitive within the Elvis environment.   It is easy to imagine Osborne doing the same with awful economic projections and the embarrassing comparisons with the positive effects of the Obama stimulus in the States.   We picture him toughing out the horror with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, his wilfulness making him supreme to the too many competitive males that exist in the coalition.

Special circumstances need to apply for men and women to take pride in failure but they often exist as many of us know from our workplaces.  Perverse ambitions from unqualified men with huge egos applied in the career of Elvis Presley and they apply in the economic policies of the coalition government.   Bienstock employed crazy accountants who were unable to understand long term consequences.  Osborne is luckier.  He has the Treasury and their myopic madness.    All of this takes us back to why Osborne is hated so much and why Bienstock was willing to do such damage.    Neither men cared about what they should have nor understood that they had responsibilities.   Bienstock did not suffer and neither probably will Osborne.    The rest of us are not so lucky.

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The fans are convinced he is innocent and in their chatrooms they have praised the Worcester Review for giving a fair account of the court proceedings.   P J Proby is on trial for wrongly claiming £47,000 worth of benefits – pension, housing benefit and council tax rebate.  Those who think life on benefit is idleness and luxury should note that this was meant to be his total income for eight years.  In the sixties, P J became notorious for splitting his pants when on stage.   £6,000 a year does not leave a lot for clothing.

The singer was first seen in the UK when he appeared in a TV show called ‘Around The Beatles’ which was produced by Jack Good.   It showcased The Beatles well.   The next day, though, Proby was the talking point in the school.   Proby had sung ‘I Believe’ and had delivered a bewilderingly accurate impersonation of Elvis.   People who were averse to Elvis raved about Proby and his imitation.   The conversations demonstrated how admiration for the talent of Elvis could often co-exist with antipathy to the man.   Elvis always drew ridicule and there is a possible irony.   Proby possibly mistook that antipathy and ridicule for success and fame. It may have shaped his self-destruction.

Proby is mentioned in the Nik Cohn book ‘Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom or Pop From The Beginning’.  Cohn who is a big Elvis fan and a big admirer of Proby describes an innate talent beyond mortals.   In his book, he tells the famous tale of when P J appeared at a music festival.   Proby rehearsed his song with the orchestra and afterwards the musical maestro turned to Proby and said, ‘Mr Proby, how do you do it.’

‘I don’t do,’ said Proby.   ‘I am.’

Now, he is accused of being a benefit cheat and the reasons why are obvious.   James Marcus Smith, his real name, is no longer capable of being P J Proby.  His own flaws have played a part but this is a trapped creature and those who rush to take the disabled off benefits or condemn them to an existence below subsistence levels need to think about the case and life of P J Proby.  He is one of many injured creatures and they need support, especially as the rest of us are often responsible for the injuries.

But back in the sixties Proby was welcomed as a sensation.   He may have been American but Britain now had its own Elvis.  Compared to The Beatles he was insignificant but he did help a British generation sidestep what had become an American irritant.   Jack Good used Proby in two of his musicals – a rock and roll version of Othello and a musical based on the real Elvis.   The show by Good had three leads playing Elvis.  Proby played the 70s star and he produced fabulous vocals.   Unfortunately, Proby had lingering temperamental weaknesses.  He was an alcoholic and he was not averse to being worshipped by women.   Normally, the latter is not a fatal weakness in rock and roll performers.  In fact, it might be an essential competency.  But Proby not only took it to excess he did it in a country that had the News Of The World as its most popular Sunday newspaper.  The press were on to him almost from the beginning.   The British establishment, compared to their mainland European neighbours, may once have had a very liberal attitude towards anarchists but wear a pony tail and split your trousers and you court disaster.   So it proved.   The career of Proby soon deteriorated although he continued to receive offers of work, hence the benefit fraud.   It seemed to distant spectators that James Marcus Smith lacked discipline and he would rather be adored than make an effort.   Maybe he had difficulties and circumstances that the rest of us underestimate.   Even after the decline he recorded singles and CDs.  They may not have appeared frequently but they were issued regularly.  There was always another independent record producer who believed in Proby.

Before he left the States, James Marcus Smith had used the name Jett Powers, so perspective may have been lost almost immediately.   He sang demos for Elvis, and Ernst Jorgenson in ‘The Complete Recording Sessions’ mentions that his demo version of ‘Slowly But Surely’ is superior to the final version by Elvis.  This may be true because Elvis was not inspired at these 1963 sessions.   I have my doubts.   Proby is a fabulous ballad singer but his rock music is mechanical.  He had energy and no doubt the demo would have had plenty but his sense of rhythm was never inspired.   His virtuosity on a ballad, though, was second to none which is why most of us will feel sorry for the man and hope he will be found not guilty.    We think of a reduced life and remember his stunning version of ‘Somewhere’.   When the record was released it appeared as if the future might be his but it was an illusion and the best he could do afterwards was a version of ‘Maria’ that only imitated the earlier success.

P J resented the fame of Elvis.  He once described Elvis as typical of the singers in the American South who made rock and roll music.   He was wrong about Elvis and he misunderstood himself.  Despite his stunning debut on the Jack Good show, Proby was soon overtaken in popularity by Tom Jones.  The Welshman was an inferior talent to both Elvis and Proby but he had versatility and, well, we endured what followed.

Supposedly, Elvis and Proby clashed.  Elvis told Proby to stop drinking.   Elvis was happy for Proby to drink spirits but hated people around him to drink beer.   Proby thought this irrational but the explanation is simple.  Presley’s mother was a beer drinker and seeing people drink beer had unpleasant memories for Elvis.  At one point in his life, Proby lived in a council house in North Manchester.   The Saddleworth Hills are close and it is tempting to imagine Proby venturing on the uplands.   This is where Brady and Hindley buried some of their victims.   It is a confusing landscape, beautiful and welcoming in the summer and terrifyingly hostile in the winter, suitable for a man who could promise so much with certain material but then became ordinary with the alternatives.

Like the rest of us, Proby has mellowed with age which is probably why he now lives in Worcester.   There will be some who will use the fall of Proby as a justification for Parker and claim that without his manager Elvis would have probably suffered a similar fate.    Right now, Elvis might be tempted to swap.   Proby is still alive and at seventy two years of age he even has impressive sideburns.   Both men split their pants on stage and both have been eccentric with money.  Elvis paid his tax without employing an accountant and Proby made no attempt to relate the earnings from his fading career to his benefit support.   The man from Texas deserves a break.  When he states he often lost money from his appearances at the end of his career I am prepared to believe him.   But I have also forgiven Elvis for his mistakes.  Naivety and excess loyalty may be in my nature.

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