Singer, songwriter, actress and author Marianne Faithfull passed away on January 30, 2025.

In 2000 I discussed Faithfull with her first record producer Andrew Loog Oldham, the 1963-1967 record producer and manager of the Rolling Stones, for Discoveries magazine. “The fact is forgotten that Marianne had, between August of ‘64 and the summer of ‘65 four Top Ten hits in the UK. ‘As Tears Go By’ and ‘Come And Stay With Me’ held up.”

“As Tears Go By” is a song penned by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Andrew Loog Oldham. It reached a top ten position in the UK singles chart. The Stones then recorded their own version, included on the American pressing of December’s Children (And Everybody’s) in 1965. Their American record label London issued “As Tears Go By” as a single that landed in the number six spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

It was Marianne who gave Mick the book which inspired the song “Sympathy for the Devil.” In the 2012 Rolling Stones documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, Jagger acknowledged his influence for the composition was informed from French poet Pierre Baudelaire and the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita. An English translation was made available in 1967. The song is heard on Beggars Banquet, produced by Jimmy Miller and engineered by Glyn Johns and Eddie Kramer in London at Olympic Sound Studios. Marianne is one of the backing vocalists on the recording.

Marianne went on to record more than twenty solo records, including the acclaimed 1979 album Broken English, and 2018’s Negative Capability, which included collaborations with Keith Richards and Nick Cave.

In the early ’90s Marianne was made a professor by Allen Ginsberg at the Naropa Poetry Institute in Colorado, where she has taught lyric writing. Her certificate reads: Marianne Faithfull, Professor Of Poetics, Jack Kerouac School Of Disembodied Poets.

During 1994, Marianne Faithfull had a new album out, A Secret Life, a collaboration with producer/arranger /co-writer Angelo Badalamenti (best known for his working relationship with filmmaker David Lynch, including orchestrating the music for Twin Peaks). Island Records at the time also released Faithfull: A Collection Of Her Best Recordings, and in 1994, Little Brown published her candid terrific memoir, with David Dalton, Faithfull: An Autobiography.

It was Allen Ginsberg, who encouraged me to look Marianne Faithfull up the next time she was in Hollywood. I was given an interview assignment for HITS magazine. Marianne’s publicist at Island Records arranged for me to visit her on Sunset Boulevard at the Chateau Marmont.

So in 1995 I knocked on the door to Marianne’s hotel room at the Chateau Marmont, ironically, right next to the suite where years earlier I had interviewed and had lunch with Leonard Cohen.

Marianne answered my knuckles, “Welcome to the poet’s corner,” she beamed.

I looked at her for about thirty seconds. She had big green eyes. Clad in black. Not punk black, but black blouse, black pants and black nylons. Marianne was an image out of Hollywood’s Jazz City music club circa 1958, a cinema noir sister of Susan Oliver and Gloria Grahame. She wore no makeup, blonde, long hair, a little shorter in person that I expected. She had a dancer’s body. In fact, twice during the two-hour chat, she leaped off the couch onto the rug and sort of did a move, an interpretation of “the sideways pony” dance that Tina Turner once taught Mick Jagger in the hall way in front of her in 1965 at Colston Hall in Bristol, England. She told me her mother Eva taught her to dance as a child.

I then mentioned that I briefly danced on American Bandstand as a teenager in May of 1966.

She was rather impressed.

“Whew…Remind me to give you a kiss and a hug when you leave today and don’t worry if my boobs get in the way,” she comically warned. “No problem,” I assured her.

Room service delivered Marlboro Lights. Marianne also ordered a vodka martini for our smoky conversation. I had a mineral water. The record label paid.

Marianne was very supportive to me when I complained about not getting a book deal. A decade later she had a chapter in my first book This is Rebel Music, published in 2004.

This still alluring Marianne Faithfull turned out to be a fascinating interview subject and a real yenta. She was a lot of fun and never avoided a question during our time together.

I got from your autobiography you were a poetry head.

Always. That’s one of the reasons I love Allen so much and William Burroughs.

Needless to say, one of the things that drew you to the music and word work of Bob Dylan. I noticed you were in one of the hotel room scenes in Dylan’s Dont Look Back film that chronicled his 1965 British tour. In your book in the Dylan Redux chapter, you provide a real cool glimpse of Dylan in action in the mid-60’s and then years later. I thought it was one of the sections where you and David Dalton worked really hard in bringing the moment to the reader.

I think that was the bit that David did best. I didn’t work the hardest on that, David did. But it was wonderful. I wish he’d written the whole book like that. And all the Bobby Newirth stuff was so beautiful.

Had you never seen a rock person like Dylan or an American like him in 1965?

Never. Never in my wildest dreams could have imagined anyone like Bob in 1965. His brain. But I was frightened. I didn’t know they were probably more scared of me. I don’t know. They were all on methedrine. He played me the album Bringing It All Back Home himself on his own. It was just amazing. And I worshipped him anyway. That was where I got very close to Allen Ginsberg ‘cause Allen was the only sort of person I could recognize as being somewhat like me.

I really enjoyed the passage in your book when Allen came to London with the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. They read at Queen Elizabeth Hall. You had spent some time with Ginsberg during Dylan’s Dont Look Back tour and I laughed out loud as you described inviting Allen to the house you shared with Mick Jagger. Great image and a very fortunate position for you as Ginsberg sat on your bed with you and Mick naked under a fur cover.

As you put it, “Allen, as usual, was on a mission. Allen was trying to get Mick to put William Blake’s ‘The Grey Monk’ to music.” Again, until this book, I never knew you had such a jones for poetry, and beat generation poets.

(Smiles. I find them very sexy all those guys. Wonderful. I teased Allen in my book. I adore him. The first time I went to Naropa, Allen was literally by my side like he is. There was a lot of criticism and “Who is the woman?” “Why do you (Allen) think she can do this?” And he didn’t say anything. “I just do.” And then I came back again. We are very good friends. He also represents a lot of things for me that aren’t part of our friendship or our relationship. He is the greatest living American poet. I hooked Allen up with [producer] Hal Willner.

How did your autobiography come together? I know you’ve been approached over the years and obviously film adaptations are being offered on this book and your life.

It took a long time. I have great recall.

Why did you do the book?

I did it for you. (laughs). I did. I felt there was something in the story that was very common to everybody. I do believe that the details and the individuals are different, but the emotions and the sort of core thing are very, very connected to all human experience. Therefore, I felt it was a valid story to tell. And then again, I felt I was very close to some of the greatest people of my time. And I had a lot of help.

David Dalton came to Ireland for two weeks. He’s a very shy person. He selected me. Such a strange story. Tony Secunda – who recently died, I dedicated my paperback English edition to him – he had become a literary agent, and he was working with Dalton and he came to Ireland. I didn’t want to do this book, really. Much as I care for humanity…

And he picked David Dalton who was a big Rolling Stones fan.

That was peculiar for me. And my great tease. I would tell David at first, that what I saw in him as a writer was that he was basically a necrophilliac. “You have only written books about dead people. (James Dean, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison). How are you going to cope with someone who is not dead and not likely to be dead?”

And being a woman with opinions.

But David liked that.

But I’m sure you also gave a view and observations of your life and art process that were different than the myth and history events captured so far in the Rolling Stones documentation.

It took him a long time to believe me. I have to stand up for David because it wasn’t as simple as that. Yes, he was a Rolling Stones fan, but that in itself shouldn’t be a problem.

The interviews went on for hours.

And for once, you had the opportunity and forum to tell your side of the story. The truth you saw and experienced. You were in control.

Well I didn’t realize that, ya know. That’s what made it so hard for Dalton. He kept saying to me, “This is your book! This is your thing! I will only do what you want.” But I didn’t believe him.

Was it your intent in the book, and specifically this Dylan chapter to be so detail oriented about the environment? Obviously, you were doing a memoir. I know for a fact there are some scenes that went down that you could not invent unless you were there. And, I even feel it on the printed page.

Of course, I was there! I ended up adoring David. He’s one of my best friends now.

Did photos trigger recall of events?

No. I’ve been carrying this around for a long time. And I had remembered the things that were important to me which were always the same. It was always very, very clear that what I was really interested in and always had been interested in was motive and psychic position and why. There were a million things I could not remember, which are not interesting to me.

What was it like seeing the galleys? The first typeset manuscript?

That was heavy. (sighs). That was when I also saw the pictures. My editor came over with the pictures. That was one of the harder bits.

Did you take things out at that point?

Yes. It wasn’t legalities. There were some mistakes and I could not have them.

Was it hard during the interviews and the collaboration with David Dalton to tell your point of view? I would imagine you had to at times be combative.

Yes. I thought it was really good for me and about fuckin’ time I learned to do that. I didn’t want to. I resisted it but I had to. I had to. David is married to a very intelligent woman Coco and she really worked very closely with him and I think it had some impact. It was much harder work than David had ever done before. A living person.

In your book you mention some of the Rolling Stones characters in their songs came to life partially owing to acid.

Of course they did. I don’t think acid is relative or relevant anymore. I wouldn’t do it again. But I think that it was important then, and I think it taught us a lot.

They were all very much in love with me at that time. Not only me, but I was one of the many women they were in love with. Keith and I are still very close. I’m under his wing and I know I will always be under his wing.

Brian wasn’t as bad as everybody thinks. Well, Brian was a genius, but he was a very irritating person. Keith really loved Brian. I use Brian. I have a whole lot of friends on the other side that I call up when I need them. I use Brian, Janis and now I’ve got Tony Secunda and Denny Cordell.

I cut out some things about Brian Jones. He went on and on and made him much more of a worse person than he was. He could only do that really because he was dead. He couldn’t go on and on about Keith and Anita or even me because I did the classic Buddhist thing: I just did a drive all blames into one. I made that decision. That is something I learned from Allen. I’ve had good Naropa training. The galleys were hard to read.

What is it like looking and reading the book?

I’ve read it and re-read it and it’s still hard…It’s hard to believe I’ve done it and that it’s really me and a part of me now. David did a good job, man. I have to say this.

Your book is now out in paperback. I just got a copy. Do you have any more feelings on it since publication?

I’m terribly pleased with it and proud of it. It’s like a child of mine that has gone out and done well. It’s a good read.

As a teenager in England you went to a Catholic School St. Joseph’s in Reading. And devoured a lot of books and studied poetry. But in your autobiography, I learned you’re Jewish.

My dear little Piscean, my mother and my grandmother were Jewish. My mother came from a line of Austro-Hungarian aristocrats. My mother was a doctor’s daughter. She was a Jewess, those great Jews who went out and did it from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Doctors, writers, sort of like going into Oklahoma. Allen Ginsberg now is my Jewish Mother.

© 2025 Harvey Kubernik

Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015′s Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016′s Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017′s 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.

Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.

Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His book Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll Television Moments) is scheduled for 2025 publication.

During 2006 Harvey spoke at the special hearings by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 Kubernik appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in their Distinguished Speakers Series).

The first time I saw Bruce Hampton, he was standing on the tiny stage at a suburban Atlanta “teen scene” venue reading the contents off the side of can of spray paint. This was in 1968. A sweaty, short-haired guy in a button-down-collared shirt with the build of a middle linebacker, Hampton looked out of place accompanied by two guitarists, a bassist and drummer all with hair so long you could not see their faces and all of whom were playing as loud as fire engine sirens. Needless to add, I had never seen anything like it in my 15 years on this planet. Nor had the handful of other brave teens whose parents had dropped them off at the alcohol-free club in the shopping mall. A much larger crowd of teenyboppers were milling about in the parking lot outside, having been driven from the room by the psychedelic noise created by the Hampton Grease Band. Years later I learned this was just one of the many ill-advised gigs the band’s manager had secured for them prior to their signing a record deal with Columbia, which released their one and only album, the epic double-LP package Music to Eat.  (On which was a cut called “Spray Paint”).

Not too long after that, the band—Hampton on vocals and dada vibes, guitarists Harold Kelling and Glenn Phillips, bassist Mike Holbrook and drummer Jerry Fields—began appearing at free shows in Piedmont Park, the downtown Atlanta hangout for hippies, druggies, bikers and most of the runaways in the southeastern US. Soon enough, on the strength of these monumental free gigs, the Hampton Grease Band would wow hundreds of thousands of “freaks” at the two Atlanta Pop Festivals and regularly share bills with Jimi Hendrix, the Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead and even Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band. Bruce was, in fact, a Southern-fried version of Don Van Vliet, with a warming touch of Sun Ra. To my fragile eggshell mind, Hampton, and his band, provided an epiphany of sorts—showing me that music could go beyond mere recitation of clichéd boogie lyrics and shoddy playing and take you to places you never expected to go.

The Hampton Grease Band carried on for a few years, then members drifted off to pursue their own musical muses. Phillips and Kelling went on to form their own bands (a live recording by Phillips’ band was favorably reviewed in UT #44). Over the next four decades, Hampton added the honorific “Colonel” to his name and recorded a few solo albums (including the unsurpassably strange One Ruined Life of a Bronze Tourist) and became a major force in the jam band subculture that flourished under the banner of H.O.R.D.E. He fronted several bands of his own, including the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Fiji Mariners and Codetalkers, and served as a mentor to many young, gifted players who’ve since gone on to productive musical careers.

In the 1990s, during one of his passes through Washington DC, where I then lived, Hampton contacted me through a mutual friend and I spent a day museum-hopping with Bruce and members of his band, one of the highlights of my 17 years in the nation’s capital. He was generous, funny, kind and subject to conversational turns on a dime. No wonder Billy Bob Thornton called Hampton (who appeared in his film Sling Blade) “the eighth wonder of the world.” Listening to Hampton on album (other than the indispensable Music to Eat) was not quite the same as seeing him live. I once saw him play a gig with a golf club in his hands, practicing his swing while his band jammed, and every so often going to the microphone to pronounce the word “hose.” Every concert was different, unpredictable, strange and beautiful.

Early in May, a veritable who’s who of Southern rock gathered for a sold-out 70th birthday celebration for Col. Bruce Hampton at Atlanta’s historic Fox Theater. At the end of the show, during the final encore (of “Turn on Your Lovelight”), Hampton collapsed on stage and died minutes later at a nearby hospital. The mourning could be heard all the way to New England, where I live now. Both of my sisters, who live in Atlanta, called to bring me the news, then high school friends I hadn’t heard from in years began contacting me. Eventually, the strangeness of Col. Hampton’s demise gave the story “legs” in print and on the Internet, propelling it even into the staid pages of the Wall Street Journal—providing Hampton more notoriety in death than he ever had in life. The consensus seems to be that he could not have had a more fitting exit, dying on stage like that.

For me, though, it’s just sad. Part of it is, no doubt, tied up with losing that personal connection to my youth, but so many musicians I admired have died before this and the sadness didn’t linger like this. With Hampton’s death, it’s as if a musical force were shut off, like a faucet or a hose. I had no delusions that he still had some musical masterpieces locked inside his fertile cranium. No, it’s clear now that HE was the masterpiece.

By Alan Clayson

“Terry,” maiden single by Twinkle—who has died of cancer, aged 65—caught if not the mood, then a mood of 1964. Concerning a biker who, irked by his girl’s infidelity, zooms off to a lonely end of mangled chrome, blood-splattered kerbstones and the oscillations of an ambulance siren, it had been an instant cause célèbre. As well as distressing the BBC, it also suffered a banning on ITV’s Ready Steady Go, not for the death content so much as its non-conformity to the series’ Mod specifications—for there was no doubt about Terry’s identity. There was, however, some speculation about Twinkle’s: a London dolly-bird in her John Lennon cap, striped jumper and kinky boots—“I never wear anything except boots” ran one press release—singing about a leather boy with a greasy quiff. It was like West Side Story, wasn’t it: a Mod loving a Rocker?

Moreover, the upbringing of Lynn Annette Ripley—pet-named ‘Twinkle’ from birth—was centered on gentrified Kingston Hill where Surrey merges with London, and  embraced chauffeurs, maids, meeting royalty – and a private education that she endured rather than enjoyed at Kensington’s select Queen’s Gate School. Other former students included the Redgraves and Camilla Parker-Bowles, the future Duchess of Cornwall.

Her father, Sidney, a prominent local politician, was an amateur songwriter, albeit with no interest in pop. He and his wife, a conservatoire-trained pianist, decided to formalize the musical talent that Twinkle betrayed when, as she recalled, “apparently, when I was three, I sat down at the grand piano in our drawing room, and played the National Anthem right through.  That was the first time anyone realized that I had a natural ear. So my mother took me to see Sir Sidney Harrison (piano professor at the Guild Hall School of Music), and he said that if I continued the way I was going, I’d have a teacher’s diploma by the time I was twelve. He recommended a local piano teacher. I started playing in concerts when I was four – but I just got bored with it, and gave up when I was eight.”

A prototype ‘wild child’, Twinkle was to admit, “I didn’t have an image made up for me by a publicity department. All you saw was what I was. I’m very rebellious, and I was terrible anxious to get in with the fast crowd.” Thus she found herself microphone in hand during one frolicsome 1963 evening at Esmeralda’s Barn, a west London night spot. Her looks and personality as much as her singing landed her a weekly spot as ‘featured vocalist’ with resident two-guitars-bass-drums quartet, the Trekkers.

If Twinkle’s subsequent pop career was to be shorter than the Sandie Shaws and Marianne Faithfulls of the era, she was less of a marionette as most other female singers of the era seemed to be, composing the A-sides of her hits herself—thus pre-empting the likes of Joni Mitchell and Melanie by at least six years. “I wrote ‘Terry’ during a particularly tedious French lesson at school. It was about somebody I wanted to meet but never did.”

An entrée into the record industry came via her elder sister Dawn whose literary talents had led her to become a leading pop journalist, working for IPC, Mirabelle and Rave!, and serving as feature writer for 19 magazine. Accompanying Dawn to numerous show business parties, Twinkle acquired an admirer in Dec Cluskey of the Bachelors, who played her demo of “Terry” to the Irish trio’s managers, Philip and Dorothy Solomon. Sensing a potential smash, Philip, a powerful mid-1960s impresario, visited the Ripleys where, after committing a faux pas by mistaking Twinkle for one of the servants’ offspring, his enthusiasm for “Terry” and predictions of a golden future for Twinkle proved cautiously contagious in that she had to promise to attend finishing school if the record missed. Seized by Decca, she was backed by a session crew that included guitarists Big Jim Sullivan and Jimmy Page.     

Copious plugging on pirate radio provoked the headline “Drop The Death Disc, Johnny!” from Melody Maker, and Lord Ted Willis’ condemnation of “Terry” as “dangerous drivel.” How, therefore, could it miss? Sent in its way with pieces in Mirabelle—that added a year to Twinkle’s age—and a television debut on ITV’s Thank Your Lucky Stars, it came within an ace of Number One in the domestic chart—and was a hit overseas too, notably in Australasia and Canada.

It was still in the Top 30 when the 16-year-old undertook the first of many round-Britain package tours, one of them headlined by the Rolling Stones: “My parents insisted that a uniformed nanny went too as the guardian of my innocence. Mick (Jagger) was always amused when he noticed her in the front row, rooting for me and the Stones.”

Adulation on these shows gave a false impression of Twinkle’s standing in market terms. Her second 45, “Golden Lights,” an understated melodrama of love corrupted by fame, reached the edge of the Top Twenty, and later releases entered overseas charts. Moreover, “Terry” had bubbled under the US Hot 100. Further progress, however, was thwarted by US immigration authorities who temporarily refused visas to UK pop entertainers in an attempt to stem the ‘British Invasion’.  Among those advantaged by the sanction were New York’s Shangri-Las whose “Leader of the Pack” in early 1965 shared a similar scenario to “Terry.”

Nevertheless, Twinkle’s early retirement as an entertainer was imminent: “I was on a particularly unnerving spell of one-nighters, and Hamburg was the first place I ever went to without an escort. I went on at the Star-Club with a pick-up group, and it was a nightmare—mainly because I thought I’d only have to do one set. I did several, doing the same numbers and wearing the same stage outfit. I gave up performing then and there—at the age of 17.”

Her sporadic latter-day offerings, however, were rich with intrigue. An approach by former Rolling Stones svengali Andrew Loog Oldham in 1969 resulted in the issue of ebullient “Micky” on a subsidiary of his ebbing Immediate label. A eulogy to her then-boyfriend, Michael Hannah, it was produced by Manfred Mann’s Mike d’Abo.

The next few years were spent as a house songwriter for ATV Music. This period embraced too  the oddest tangent in her career when she and her father amalgamated as ‘Bill and Coo’ for “Smoochy Smoochy,” a single considered worthy of a slot on an early evening television magazine programme; its interest lying less in Twinkle’s pseudonymous re-emergence than Sidney’s post as joint deputy leader of the Tory opposition on the GLC.

More credibly, Twinkle made a serious attempt at cracking the album market during the mid-1970s fad for singer-songwriters. Boldly, she tested the water with two quite prestigious concerts of new material, accompanied only by a pianist: “I didn’t need the money but I wanted to show people that I wasn’t just a one-hit wonder.” Warm reaction from both the audiences and other artists such as Colin Blunstone and Cat Stevens indicated that she was well-placed to become, perhaps, a UK ‘answer’ to Carole King. Indeed, a concept album to tie-in with a film based on Hannah’s life was completed when its subject was killed in 1974′s Paris Air Show disaster, and “I felt too personally involved to see it come out.” All that surfaced then was a promotional single, “Days.”

Once again, Twinkle withdrew to the back corridors of pop. Still an avid surveyor of the hit parade, however, she gained a commission from EMI Music to turn out a specific number of compositions per year. These would be put in the way of suitable vocalists. It was, she admits, “a privileged position but I blew it mostly through lack of confidence.  I think I became a tax loss.”

She signed off with a disinclined 1982 revival of the Monkees’  “I’m A Believer,” by which time,  music had  became a sideline to marriage (to the distinguished actor Graham Rogers, known most conspicuously as star of ITV’s Cadbury’s Milk Tray commercial), motherhood and a hands-on commitment to animal welfare—with the writing of  children’s stories her principal creative pursuit.

As the decade turned, Twinkle thought aloud about treading the boards again: “I went to see two old friends, Billy J. Kramer and Frank Allen of the Searchers perform in Croydon. The venue—a theatre rather than some dingy dive—and the audience’s enthusiasm were inviting enough to erase flashbacks of how ghastly it had been in the old days.”

A cog in the vehicle of her brief but well-received comeback as a grande dame of the Swinging Sixties nostalgia circuit, I was bass guitarist and self-appointed leader of her backing combo drawn, from Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages and my own Clayson & the Argonauts. However, before the start of her first tour in this capacity, we were superseded by The Four Pennies. There were also episodes such as her official opening of the Cavern—nothing to do with Liverpool, but a restaurant club in rural Essex. After Twinkle cut the ribbon, the evening was soundtracked by a local 1960s tribute group—with whom she sang “Terry” in a voice that had lost little of its adolescent purity. Into the bargain, she had also clung onto much of her blonde allure.  

Neither was a return to at least a qualified contemporary prominence out of the question. Reissues of “Terry” had spread themselves thinly enough to sell well without cracking the Top 50, as did a compilation album with sleeve notes by Bob Stanley of 1990s chart contenders St Etienne. Of greater import had been a version of “Golden Lights” as a 1986 B-side by the Smiths, whose practical approbation had already brought Sandie Shaw back to the Top 30 after a fifteen year absence. “Nobody’s ever heard the decent stuff I’ve written,” sighed Twinkle, “Also, after ‘Golden Lights’, nothing I have ever done has been to my liking. I’m not qualified to do it alone, but I wish I was because I know exactly what I want—but somebody else has to interpret that for me, especially with today’s equipment.”

‘Dozy’ was Trevor Davies, who attended the primary school in Enford, then a Wiltshire farming community, prior to studying at Durrington Secondary Modern—and a road-to-Damascus moment when Buddy Holly and the Crickets appeared in Salisbury in 1958. “I was young and impressionable,” admitted Davies, “but Buddy astounded me just by his very stage presence.”

Acquiring an acoustic and then an electric bass guitar, Davies joined the Beatnicks, where he found himself alongside Ian ‘Tich’ Amey. By 1961, however, the two had been incorporated into Ronnie Blonde & the Bostons with John ‘Beaky’ Dymond, David ‘Dave Dee’ Harman and drummer Stan Poole. After the departure of vocalist Blonde in 1962, Dave Dee became nominal leader when they undertook first professional bookings, zig-zagging across Scotland at a time when Britain’s only motorway terminated at Birmingham, and such an odyssey was truly hellish. Then came arduous seasons in Cologne and Hamburg clubland which led to the replacement of Poole with Mick Wilson, a friend of Davies.

Now a hard act to follow, Dave Dee & the Bostons acquired a shrewd management and songwriting team in Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley which, combined with a change of name, led to a maiden Top 30 strike with “You Make It Move,” and its “Hold Tight!” follow-up coming with an ace of Number One. So began a four year run of world-wide hits that embraced artistic progress that went beyond orthodox beat group instrumentation—as illustrated by the use of balalaika on “Okay!,” and a South American charrasga on “Zabadak!” (which lent its name to a present-day DDDBMT fan club magazine). Moreover, the quintet’s parameters as composers of B-sides and LP tracks were proficient, even adventurous—as instanced by 1967′s psychedelic “The Sun Goes Down’ “co-written by Davies, with its an abrupt concluding tape-edit that anticipated that in the Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” on Abbey Road. In retrospect, the chasm between the ‘rock’ of the more intellectually revered Beatles, and the ‘vulgar’ pop of DDDBMT is far from unbreachable. In parenthesis, Davies proved an assured lead vocalist when required—as instanced by “Hands Off” on the second album.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Trevor ‘Dozy’ Davies 2nd from right.

By 1969, however, DDDBMT and their mentors were running out of ideas, and the group split in two. Dave Dee went solo while Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich (as ‘DBMT’) attempted to rise anew with a prog-rock repertoire, as instanced by a mild cause célèbre of an album, 1970′s Fresh Ear Me). One associated single, “Tonight Today,” penetrated the Top Ten in the Netherlands.

Inevitably perhaps, both factions of the old firm resumed an intermittent recording career together in 1974 with “She’s A Lady.” All members continued, nevertheless, however, to pursue extra-mural projects, as Davies, Amey and Dymond did in Tracker. Yet despite a well-received tour of Germany, this promising trio sundered in 1975. Davies also functioned as one of Woodsmoke, a country & western duo, and recorded songs penned solely by himself for submission to other artists. Then DBMT reunited in the late 1970s, most conspicuously with “In the Coven,” a single that might have been a surefire smash had it been attributed to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich during their “Zabadak!”-“Xanadu” commercial prime.

It was not heard on stage, however, when DDDBMT began focusing chiefly on the Sounds Of The Sixties nostalgia circuit (with a set that sometimes included a showstopping Johnny Cash impersonation by Davies) while tilting occasionally at the charts with such as 1983′s disco-tinged “Staying With It,” a revival of Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” and grafting a Status Quo-esque blues-boogie rhythm onto “Here We Go,” the soccer match ditty that lives in its Offenbach melody.

Though Dee died in 2009, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich were still performing together sith the enthusiasm of their younger selves until Davies was diagnosed with acute pancreatic cancer a week before his own death.

He is survived by his wife Yvonne, children Darren and Sarah, and five grandchildren.

‘Dozy’ (Trevor Leonard Ward-Davies), born 27 November 1944, died 13 January 2015

During his nearly 70 years on this planet, Mick Farren wore many hats, and all of them at a jaunty and rakish angle. (Metaphorically speaking, of course — as if any chapeau could have perched for long on that fabulous Farren ‘fro!) Rocker, poet, journalist, critic, promoter, activist, raconteur, radical shit-stirrer, author of everything from vampire and science fiction novels to treatises on Elvis, Jim Morrison, amphetamines and conspiracy theories — the man was utterly impossible to pigeonhole. If you loved all of what he did or some of it or none of it, it didn’t matter; he was still going to keep right on digging away in whatever direction his impressive intellect and indefatigable curiosity took him. While it’s tempting to call a gent of such breadth and depth a “Renaissance Man,” that expression reeks too much of shallow dilettantism these days to apply here. Basically, he was Mick Fucking Farren, full-on, full-time and full-stop.

I will leave it to someone else to offer up a full appraisal of Mick’s musical and literary contributions—not because they weren’t significant (they were), but because in my sorrow over the news of his death, all I can think about is the person I knew, as opposed to his discography or bibliography. Those, thankfully, will live on; but the warm, brilliant, hilarious man that I was honored to call a friend and colleague for nearly twenty years is gone forever, and that breaks my heart.

I first met Mick in early 1994, when he signed on as a regular columnist for the LA Reader, where I was employed as an assistant editor. I was 28, just belatedly getting my journalism career in gear, and completely starstruck by the notion that my name was to be on the same masthead as the Mick Farren, the legendary writer whose stuff I’d read in Trouser Press (and back-issues of the New Musical Express) as a music-crazed teen. The first couple of times he showed up in the office, filling up the hallway with his imposing, leather-overcoated frame and rolling, piratical gait, I was too far intimidated to introduce myself. But somehow the ice was eventually broken, whereupon I quickly surmised that he was as much of a teddy bear as he was a buccaneer, and a man always relished a good chat — even with an aspiring writer who was perhaps unhealthily obsessed with late-60s British rock and psychedelia. Mick, bless him, was incredibly patient with my endless variations on the question, “What was the London music scene like in 1967?” But he seemed to have little interest in discussing his own music, unless it was something he was currently working on. Early on in our acquaintance, I showed him the passage on the Deviants in Vernon Joynson’s The Acid Trip: A Complete Guide to Psychedelic Music, which described 1968’s Disposable LP as partly that, and their self-titled 1969 album as “disappointing.” I was hoping to get a ripping rant from him in defense of all things Deviants, but no such luck. “I’d say that’s a pretty fair assessment,” he shrugged, and left it at that.

On the other hand, getting him to talk about other artists was easy, and great fun; in retrospect, I wish I’d had a tape recorder running, but in my head I can still hear him raving about what an amazing live band The Move were, or complaining about how Tomorrow would “play this bloody endless version of ‘Why’ by The Byrds, which would always fall apart when Twink and Junior started disrobing,” or recalling how sick he and his mates were of hearing The Who play their mini-opera “A Quick One (While He’s Away),” but how blown away they all were when “I Can See For Miles” came out. And, of course, there was the infamous story about him luring the MC5 to the UK to play the Phun City festival, only to break the news to Wayne Kramer and Co. upon arrival that there was no money to pay them with…

There were also salty tales from his days as a music journalist, my favorite being the one where he interviewed Marianne Faithfull in an office at Island Records. “How are you at picking locks?” Marianne asked him, shortly after the Island publicist left them alone. “Not bad,” he replied. “Well, that’s Chris Blackwell’s liquor cabinet over there,” she said. Mick successfully popped the lock, and the two proceeded to enjoy a most convivial chat fueled by some of the Island owner’s top-shelf booze.

I could have listened to this kind of stuff for hours and often did, whether it was loitering in the Reader hallway or (once we became friends) lingering over drinks at Formosa or some other Hollywood watering hole. It was also almost ridiculously easy to get Mick riled up about acts and artists he didn’t like — I sometimes used to drop Scott Walker into our conversations, just so I could hear him sputter with rage. There was something wonderfully cartoon-like about the way Mick’s voice would jump an octave whenever he’d get worked up in enthusiasm or anger, and my fellow Ugly Things contributor Eric Colin Reidelberger (who also worked at the Reader for a time) and I used to amuse ourselves endlessly by imitating him in “high dudgeon” mode. In fact, Mick once busted us in my office while we were in the midst of doing our dueling Mick Farrens. “I don’t actually sound like that,” he huffed, glaring at us over the top of his spectacles like a cross schoolmaster, and of course sounding exactly “like that”. But he could give just as good as he got: One night when several of us Reader staffers were out for a drink, someone asked him what he thought of his countrymen electing Tony Blair as their prime minister. “That would be like electing Dan president,” he replied.

Still, when we weren’t poking fun at each other, Mick was incredibly complimentary and encouraging about my writing — an unbelievable shot in the arm, considering that he was (and remains) one of my all-time favorite music journalists —and he was a real pleasure to work with on the rare occasions that I edited his Reader copy. There were writers at the paper who would chew your head off if you so much dared to alter a word of their brilliance; Mick, on the other hand, wanted his editors to push him and spar with him. The hell of it was, his stuff was so good right out of the chute, there was usually little point in sending any of it back for a re-write. Mostly, though, editing Mick’s submissions fell to others, and I saw his copy for the first time when it was published; invariably, it was the first thing I turned to when I picked up a new issue. And whether he was writing about the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the O.J. Simpson trial (his likening of OJ’s visage to an Easter Island moai still makes me chuckle to this day) or Tom Jones’ latest attempt to break into the US charts, it was always fiercely intelligent, deeply funny and profoundly thought-provoking. His lefty ex-pat Brit voice was an odd fit in a paper that was aggressively trying to market itself to West Side yuppies, but (as one of my former colleagues recently observed) it also lent the Reader more credibility (and depth) than it probably deserved.

Mick was extremely active on the LA music scene in the mid-90s, and—next to the Baby Lemonade version of Arthur Lee and Love—I probably saw him perform more than any other local act during that time. I was initially hoping to hear old Deviants songs or solo material like “Let’s Loot The Supermarket Again…,” but Mick had completely different sorts of fish to fry. Backed by a revolving cast of musicians that usually included ex-Blodwyn Pig saxophonist/flautist Jack Lancaster (for whatever reason, Mick refused to acknowledge that Jack had ever been in “the Pig,” and used to get stroppy about me mentioning that factoid in the Reader gig listings), guitarist Andy Colquhoun, and sometimes Wayne Kramer, Brad Dourif and Ric “Mick Shrimpton” Parnell, Mick would hector and regale us with epic poems like “Disgruntled Employee,” “Atomic Boogie Hour” and “Memphis Psychosis” over a firestorm of angular free jazz. It was uncompromising, it was uproariously funny, and it was unmistakably Mick.

Mick was equally uncompromising in his approach to life. In a way, I’m rather surprised that Mick lived as long as he did; I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who actively took worse care of himself. The man’s alcohol intake was prodigious, ditto for tobacco (despite a lifelong struggle with asthma), he rarely did anything that remotely resembled exercise, and boy did he love his desserts — though he often used the post-war rationing of his childhood as justification for his unquenchable adult appetite for sugar. (“We couldn’t have sweets, you know.”)

Mick and I lived near each other, so I had to drive him home many times after he’d gotten completely legless at one Reader function or another, though just about every member of the paper’s editorial staff was similarly pressed into duty at least once. My all-time favorite “driving Mick home” story is the one from the paper’s office Christmas party of 1995: Despite a pitifully stingy refreshment spread—at the time, the Reader was about eight months away from going under—Mick still somehow managed to get righteously, rip-roaring drunk. James Vowell, the Reader’s publisher, saw Mick swaying unsteadily in the reception foyer and asked me to take him home. “C’mon, Mick,” I said, “Time to go.” Mick wordlessly grunted his assent, then paused for a moment and reached back to grab a full bottle of Myers’s dark rum from the drinks table; as James looked on with a deeply appalled expression, Mick tucked the bottle inside his coat and he staggered out the door. I was never able to figure out if he thought he was being slick and no one saw him do it, or if this was his way of saying, “Fuck you, James—you’re paying us all shit, so I’m hereby extracting my Christmas bonus!” When I asked Mick about it the next day, he claimed to have no memory of the incident, or any knowledge of the bottle’s whereabouts.

Mick and I saw each other much less after the Reader closed, though we still stayed in touch on and off over the years, even after he moved back to the UK. “It’s easier to be poor in England,” he said, and certainly it was easier there to afford health care for his many afflictions. But I also got the sense that the return to his homeland revitalized him creatively and spiritually. In the summer of 2011, I contacted Mick about writing something for “Single Notes,” a music-related eBook project I was helming for Rhino. We hadn’t spoken in a while, and he caught me up thusly:

Dan — It’s really good to hear from you. England is really interesting. Tories in power, economy in the toilet, riots in the streets, and last night North London was burning after the cops in Tottenham shot a well known local dealer. Oh boy. But I do have healthcare, a pension, a very nice apartment and my cat from Hollywood. (Which was an epic in veterinarian bureaucracy by itself.) I’m also being treated like a famed and venerable pirate back from the rock & roll seven seas — which I greatly enjoy. And the Deviants are back in business. We just played Glastonbury. (Mud to rival WWI.)

Almost two years to the date of that email, Mick collapsed onstage while he and the Deviants were playing the Atomic Sunshine Festival at London’s Borderline nightclub. While his passing is indeed sad and tragic and leaves a massive, unfillable crater in the lives of so many of us, we can at least be comforted by the thought that he died doing what he loved, surrounded by people who adored him and admired his work. None of Mick’s rock & roll heroes enjoyed an end as fitting as his own; in that respect, at least, you could certainly say that Mick beat the odds. To paraphrase the Righteous Brothers, if there’s a rock & roll heaven, you know they’ve got a helluva bar — and you know that Mick is propped against it as we speak, holding court and entertaining the likes of Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison and Sun Ra with one outrageous tale after another.

Speaking of his work: Mick’s Single Notes eBook, Elvis, Esquerita & The Zenomorphs: The Music Of The Monkey Planet, is currently scheduled for an August 29 release. It’s a riotously Farren-esque piece of speculative fiction — “Multidimensional alien anthropologists study rock & roll as planetary species behavior,” was how he initially pitched it to me — and it was a total joy and privilege to be his editor on the project. While it saddens me terribly that Mick didn’t live to see its publication, it also gladdens my heart that his many fans will get to enjoy one more blast of brilliance from one of the great brains of our time.

Here’s to ya, my friend. Thanks for everything.

(Dan Epstein)

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard the news about the death of our friend Mick Farren. I wanted to write a little tribute to him and show a more personal side of a truly wonderful man. If you don’t know a lot about his work just google, there are stories about him in nearly every paper in the world. He was one of a kind. We heard the news yesterday, but somehow it takes a while to really sink in, that we won’t see our friend again.

Mick and I had known each other for years, but became really good friends when Patrick made the brilliant decision to ask him to edit the Bomp book (Bomp!: Saving the World One Record at a Time, Ammo Books, 2007). He was the perfect person for the job and loved the project. As a result of the book Mick and I worked side by side for over a year, culling articles from the zines, picking out photos and fact checking. In addition to that he decided that I needed to write some personal stories about life at Bomp. I initially declined, not really wanting to be in the spotlight, but he insisted. I relented and told him I’d write up something rough and he could edit it, but when I sent him the story he loved it just as I had written it and made me write 7 more! That brought us into a very close relationship. We ended up having a great time together telling the stories about the early days of Bomp, although I declined to include some of the more scandalous tales. He told me, with his eyes twinkling, “There’s another book there, darling, an even BETTER book!” We didn’t get around to that one, although he would have loved it if I had let him do it.

He always had projects going, one of which was a book of cat stories. Some might find that surprising, but Mick wasn’t all vampires and rock’n’roll, he loved animals and we would often send each other pictures of our cats or cute things he found on YouTube . He sent me some very good stories from his proposed cat book to see what I thought, and they were amazing, sweet, funny and insightful. Fortunately I printed them out and saved them, as there is no trace of them on my computer. I suppose that book will never be published, at the time he had other books that he was working on and put that one on the back burner. I hope somebody else has the stories as well and will see to it that they are available in some form.

Doctor Mick even saved me from unnecessary surgery! I had gone to the doctor for a regular checkup and got the extremely surprising news that my blood test results had shown that my kidneys were failing and they needed to schedule a biopsy; that it could be cancer. Needless to say, I was in a dead panic, absolutely hysterical. I’d never even had a cavity, let alone kidney failure, and seemed to be in radiant health by all accounts. I called Mick, sobbing, and he listened quietly until I finished my story and said, taking a slow drag off his cigarette , “Darling, don’t be ridiculous, you are entirely ROBUST, merely call this stupid doctor and tell him you demand a second test!” I swear it never would have crossed my mind to question the doctor, but thanks to Mick, I did just what he said and avoided a very unpleasant month. Mick was right, nothing wrong with me all. We both had a good laugh later about the great health care system in America, and Dr Mick comes with me in spirit on all my doctor visits now, telling me to ask questions and not be so damned polite.

Mick himself used an Armenian pharmacist as his doctor, unable to afford health care here and relying on the pharmacist to supply him with the drugs he needed to breathe and remain ambulatory. He had emphysema and he had trouble breathing or even getting around. But he carried on as though nothing was wrong, and never quit smoking as far as I know. When we would go to pick him up at his apartment we wouldn’t worry about remembering the apartment number, you could just follow the smoke that hit you in the face the minute the elevator opened on his floor. When he would open his apartment door the smoke would practically billow out into the hall, I would worry about the cat and Patrick and I couldn’t really stay more than a minute or two without coughing, but Mick was steadfast, he was going to do things his way. I remember we had breakfast one day and he mentioned that the doctor told him his cholesterol was insanely high and that he should change his diet. He was cheerfully munching away on his usual bacon and eggs, (and beer, as I recall) and seemed surprised when I told him bacon and eggs was perhaps not the most “heart healthy” breakfast. He had never thought twice about what he ate, I don’t think he had a vegetable in his whole life and was rather stunned by the news about his breakfast. He remarked that perhaps the best thing to do was never go to the doctor and continued with his breakfast. He shortly thereafter moved to England, unable to afford even the medication from the pharmacist, and our regular lunches were, sadly, no more.

One of the tributes to Mick I just read said that he “died with his boots on,” and this is true is more ways than one. One of the things I would scold him about was his insistence on wearing high-heeled cowboy boots, perhaps necessary for public appearances, but he could barely walk as it was, and he seemed in constant danger of toppling over. I would beg him to “just wear some f*cking tennis shoes for god’s sake!” but he refused to do any such thing, he had to be Mick Farren and Mick Farren doesn’t wear tennis shoes.

The only consolation is indeed that he died doing what he loved, I just wish it had been 30 years from now. He was family to us; we’ll miss him every day.

(Suzy Shaw)

CSM remembrance: www.charlesshaarmurray.com/2013/07/mick-farren

Nat Nichols remembrance: www.hipspinster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/dr-crow.html?m=1

The Titanic Sails at Dawn: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/31/mick-farren-nme-rock-titanic-sails

Special thanks to Dan Epstein, Steve “Plastic Crimewave” Krakow, Eric Colin Reidelberger and Patrick Boissel for assistance with the playlist.

A one-time teenage pinup, Read’s first love was acting and he attended Corona Academy for Dramatic Arts in Chiswick, West London, along with future Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell and Michael Des Barres. Acting was a vocation he often ran in tandem with more musicianly pursuits via TV and film work—where he came to be known as “One Take Read” being a fast-learner and keen executor. Theater kept him busy in the later ‘70s/early ‘80s. He played Keith Richards in Let the Good Stones Roll, starred in a production called Bastard Angel inspired by the Kinks, and also a UK version of Hair. A veteran of Hammer Films in his youth, in recent years he co-wrote and starred in a low-budget film Remember a Day, playing a hermitic character based on Syd Barrett.

Darryl was a man willing to tell his story to all listening ears, and like many other innovators likely felt maligned by being at the forefront of something of which they saw little profit or accolade from (the latter did start trickling in come the late ‘90s). Though, that didn’t deter him from blazing a trail down the decades via collaborations with another recently passed hero Ray Manzarek (Read’s poetry set to Manzarek modes), World War III’s Terry Stamp, and touring as vocalist with ex-members of T Rex, along with other combos and solo projects. In 2004 Read also issued an auto-bio/novel Stardom Road that charted his thespian and musician life from ’63 onward, opening yet another avenue.

At the time of his passing there was a press being put on a documentary about the man’s life titled Darryl Read: The Man Will Know Us When We Get There. Hopefully time will show that effort put to light. Darryl Read, a life lived fully, but ended too shortly.

Jeremy Cargill

“I appreciated Darryl’s complete commitment to the art of rock’n’roll. I knew him at drama school when we were very young. He had the fire in his eyes even then. May it still burn.” – Michael Des Barres, July 2, 2013 via email.

George was born in the Garngad (later Royston) area of Glasgow and would’ve celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday on 21 October.

In 1964, The Poets were quickly signed to Decca by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who produced for them a brace of highly-innovative singles, all co-written by Gallacher, and guitarists Hume Paton and Tony Myles. Forever etched in the minds of beat fans is the group’s scorching February 1965 single, “That’s The Way It’s Got To Be,” and its sublime, truly haunting counterpart, “I’ll Cry With The Moon.” This showcased both the tough and romantic sides of the young Gallacher’s talent, across intense, creative, and thoroughly mesmerizing material. The weird baroque-beat stomp of “Now We’re Thru,” their debut from late the previous year, would give them their only Top 30 placing. The Poets followed manager Oldham into his new Immediate label venture, cutting two singles there including the spellbinding “Some Things I Can’t Forget,” the group’s preferred choice for the topside. This was over-ruled by ALO in favor of “Call Again”—“depressing stuff… and we were depressed that it was going to be our single,” recalled Gallacher in 2011.

In early ’66 after “Baby Don’t You Do It,” Gallacher left the Poets, disillusioned by lack of direction and momentum within the group, and the mess of ongoing management wrangles. He stayed in London until the end of the ‘60s singing back-up on sessions for such as Keith Relf and Spencer Davis, doing A&R work, writing and recording for labels including United Artists, Fontana and Major Minor. Gallacher also taped some excellent songs of his own with backing by the pre-White Trash group, the Pathfinders, who included former Poets guitarist (and by then Gallacher’s brother-in-law) Fraser Watson. At least four titles exist on acetate only including “The Tailor,” “A Weathercock’s View Of Life,” and the more well-known “Dawn (A Portrait).” A little-known fact, however, is that in 1968 Gallacher also supplied lead vocals for an album project by a group called the Illusive Dream which remains unreleased to this day.

When George returned to Glasgow, married with children, much of his free time was spent playing junior league football. As early as 1963, before the Poets broke out, George’s prowess on the football park had already been noted and he signed up for trials with Leicester City’s youth team alongside England’s future goalkeeping hero Gordon Banks.

But music was in Gallacher’s soul, and after a brief stint playing with old pal Alex Harvey, he and Watson formed the hard rocking, politically aware Dead Loss Band, also the Dansettes, The Blues Poets and, more recently, the Nearly Men. His friend, award-winning author James Kelman, had also cast him as the leading role in his acclaimed 1994 play One Two Hey!, the story of a struggling blues group, mirroring that of the Poets.

Gallacher also returned to education, gaining degrees in both English and Philosophy at the University of Strathclyde, before becoming a teacher, and mentoring to asylum seekers, many from war-torn Kosovo.

A unique vocalist until the very end, George was blessed with a thoroughly commanding stage presence, as evidenced by those in attendance at recent concerts given by the reconstituted Poets line-up where George and Fraser were backed by longtime friends and fans, the Thanes, in Glasgow, London, and at what would turn out to be their last ever appearance, at Festival Beat in Italy on 30 June, playing almost all of the group’s ‘60s repertoire before jubilant, receptive audiences.

On a very personal note, as one of George’s and his family’s friends for the last twenty five years, I’d like to say that life has been richer by far having known him. George Gallacher was a very generous, gracious, wryly funny, heart-thinking individual, an extraordinary spirit with an astonishing musical gift. He will be dearly missed by all who knew him. He journeys on leaving behind his dear wife Anne, and their two sons, Craig and Fraser. RIP George, you were some man. (Lenny Helsing)

http://www.the-poets.co.uk/

(Jeremy Cargill aka jeremy nobody, esq)

Don Grady, best remembered as ‘Robbie Douglas’ on the long-running TV sitcom My Three Sons, died at the age of 68 in his home in Thousand Oaks, California, the cause being cancer.

Grady, a multi-talented musician began his career in 1957 as a Mousketeer on Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club. He related to me in 1998, “I started playing a bunch of different musical instruments when I was a kid. When I was 12, I went out and auditioned for Walt Disney because they were looking for new Mouseketeers. I played like eight different instruments for the audition.”

He soon moved on to dramatic roles, starring in countless westerns such as The Restless Gun (his first dramatic role), The Rifleman, Wichita Town, Wagon Train and Have Gun Will Travel to name a few. Grady recalled in ’98, “After The Restless Gun I started to do every western that was around in those days. This was ’58 and ’59. I was always playing the part of a kid whose father was a drunk, or whose father had left him and his mother.”

In 1960, he was called up for a major role in the then popular western Laramie, only to be ousted by Bobby Crawford, Johnny Crawford’s (of The Rifleman fame, and teen-idol/recording star) kid brother. Though it was a major disappointment, it was actually the turning point in his career. He explained, “I was so disappointed and heartbroken, but shortly after that, I got the call to do My Three Sons. I was actually a replacement because the original ‘Robbie’ didn’t work out.” He played the role for the duration of the show, from 1960 through 1972 appearing in 300 plus episodes.

On the show, like Ricky Nelson on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Don would break out with the occasional musical number, one time with his first band the Greefs. During his stay on the show he harnessed a recording contract with Capitol (cutting some sides in the process), recorded a single with the Palace Guard (“Little People”), and cut some solo sides and an album (some of it) with the Yellow Balloon on the Canterbury label.

Don working at Capitol Studios.

He explained the evolution of the Yellow Balloon to me in 1998, “What happened with that was that I was the teenage chairman for National Cerebral Palsy. On the weekends I would go around to different parts of the country and I would do the telethons. During a break I’d go out and try to hear a rock group. I started keeping a list of what I thought were really exceptional musicians with the thought in mind that someday it would be great fun to put a band together having these great musicians involved. At that time I was on Canterbury Records and I had recorded “The Children of St Monica.” I was a solo act, and I think it was one of the first records on the label and it started to take off. Anyways, this guy Gary Zekley came in with this great tune called “Yellow Balloon”, which Jan & Dean had just recorded, but he really didn’t like their version and wanted to get his own version out. Ken Handler, the president of Canterbury gave him a budget and he got some studio musicians together, went into the studio for a couple of hours and put “Yellow Balloon” (the song) together. They then released it, and within a week it took off. I had just gotten back from being on the road with one of the telethons. Ken Handler said we had to get a group together [to tour behind the single]. I piped in that I’d always wanted to put a group together. He said ‘Great, go for it.’ I started calling all these guys whose names I kept. We became the Yellow Balloon.”

In the band, Don would always appear onstage and on TV performances incognito.

After My Three Sons came to a conclusion, Don continued with his musical career cutting a solo album, Homegrown, for Elektra under his real name Don Agrati in 1973. Later he composed music for shows on the Discovery Channel, numerous PBS documentaries and worked with the London Symphony Orchestra.

He is survived by his wife, Ginny; his two children, Joey and Tessa; his mother; and sister, Marilou Reichel. I interviewed Don in 1998 for Outasite and stayed in touch with him sporadically through the years. He was always a riot to talk to. A great guy. Bummed he’s gone.

-Greg Prevost

It’s Like a Fading Yellow Balloon                     

There’s something about Gary…that they don’t know. Gary. There’s just something about Gary.

Zekley that is. The unsung soft-psych ‘Superman.’ The Terry Reid or Shadow Morton of the sure-shot shoulda-beens. Relegated to REM footnote status now, and that’s a crime. Still; enviable fate compared to his former amarillo Balloon-mate Don Agrati, whose tombstone will likely be mouse-ears and dog-cornered 8x10s instead of the constellation/pantheon elevation that his true craft (music) so rightly warranted, both solo and helium-inflated. They’ll have plenty of time now to talk though: the two of them, about how they both were robbed and pigeonholed, watching the clouds go by.

FACT: most pop-psych music is garbage! Soft sounds for gentle people with no standards. Round Wonders that make you wonder why they were ever ‘rediscovered.’ Harpers’ Bizarre rejects repackaged as pop-sike (heavy on the ‘sike’ and spray-on sunshine tan). It is temptingly easy to get lost in this mustachioed orchestra pit—blinded by gold fillings set in fake plastic smiles—but Spanky & Our Gang are not Gary Usher and the Free Design will never be Pet Sounds, or even Andy Kim!

The Yellow Balloon—Don Agrati’s group and Zekley’s finest production vehicle—will never be Pet Sounds either, but in my estimation they maybe made it closest to those petting-zoo shores. Sadly, Don Agrati is now two months dead, so I felt it only fitting to offer him a libation, as the music of his group—which existed for less than a year—has offered and provided me both succor and a safe harbor in which my psyche has lodged for several earthly revolutions.

Like the best of the genre – the Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Left Banke, Robbs, Scratch in the Sky-era Cryan Shames, the Smoke, Don & the Goodtimes, later period Jan & Dean—the music of the Yellow Balloon sounds and feels like home: the home that is forever flash-frozen in your mind when you were young and felt the most happy and innocent, when the world was newest and unfolding—the home that now mostly exists in flashes, photographs and bi-annual get-togethers (C&E – Christmas & Easter) with aging family and old friends. Not a security blanket or a comfortable set of jeans, but a trigger mechanism set to immediate egress—far away from trouble and strife.

Brian Wilson may be the ultimate, undisputed Nolan Ryan of the ‘60s pop paradigm, commanding every inch of the melodic strike-zone, but ATTENTION MUST BE PAID to his bull-pen under-studies. And in my opinion, “How Can I Be Down,” “Baby Baby It’s You” and “Stained Glass Window” by the Yellow Balloon are every bit as inimitable as the highest-quality stuff of Inglewood’s winningest ace.

If anyone living requires proof of the exceptional nature of not only mid-to-late-‘60s pop music, but also the mid-to-late-‘60s pop climate, they need only look to acts like Don Agrati and the Yellow Balloon, who were teen idols and chart successes at the same time as they were sailing at the forefront of progressive studio craft.

And even after the Yellow Balloon settled to Earth, Don didn’t stop. His 1973 Elektra-Asylum solo effort, Homegrown, was a minor pop milestone; battered like the Hollywood sign, but soldiering on like Joey Stec, Crabby Appleton and Blue Ash against their times. And time has most certainly shown Don wiser.

Even though the Yellow Balloon, like your tree-house fort or lemonade stand, for whatever reason failed to change history, the work of Don Agrati will continue to occupy prime real-estate in my personal pop scrapbook long after My Three Sons falls off syndication or California falls into the sea. And I know you’re feeling it too.

-Collin Makamson

Sadly, earlier this month we lost the Lord in a London Clinic from the combination of pulmonary embolism and his battle with pancreatic cancer. Below Doug Sheppard spins his personal tale of decades-long Purp pleasure and Lord worship. Following that Hush for a minute and partake in some of the inspired madness in the YouTube playlist selected by Doug and myself. (jeremy nobody, esq.)

When a favorite musician dies, it’s sad from a standpoint of losing their talents and the potential to ever enjoy those talents again—but it’s not like losing a family member. You listened to their music and maybe even went to their shows, but you didn’t share in any life experiences with them.

Some, however, transcend the anonymity of the average fan-musician relationship when their music ends up shaping your life in a significant way. Jon Lord, who passed away at age 71 on July 16, was such a musician to me. Had it not been for Jon Lord—or should I say Deep Purple—I probably would not even be writing this.

Deep Purple came into my life at age 10 (going on 11) in the summer of 1980, when the only music that meant anything to me was the Beatles. Just about everything I’d heard on FM radio—no need to recount how awful AOR, disco and that year’s Top 40 were—left me cold. (Tellingly, I’d discovered the Beatles via reruns of their cartoons.) Until one June day when “the riff” came on…

Hearing “Smoke on the Water” was like seeing a new Ferrari drive out of a junkyard. Played to perfection by perfectionist Ritchie Blackmore on a Stratocaster, the riff was powerful, catchy and monolithic—a collusion of metallic megawatt ecstasy and an R&B base that no AOR ever had. With Ian Paice’s hi-hat punctuating every verse and memorable chorus, Roger Glover’s bass moving like a stealthy snake, Ian Gillan’s restrained yet melodic vocals and Lord’s brilliant Hammond C3, it was flawlessness all around.

From that moment forward, I was hooked. More importantly, I knew I had to dig deeper than the Top 40 to hear good music. Deep Purple may have sold millions in the early ‘70s, but by 1980, they were out of fashion. These were the days when major labels and their lame-ass radio accomplices were hyping new music as Something You Must Own simply because it was new; old music was out because it was old. So you barely heard “old music” like Deep Purple on the radio and were considered unhip if you liked it.

Or so I was told by a few of my fifth grade classmates in suburban Pittsburgh. But I didn’t care. With Deep Purple seemingly always at the forefront of the “never heard of them” whine I’ve heard many times since, I began reading rock encyclopedias and accumulating records as best I could with my limited pre-teen funds—with my fanaticism ultimately leading to the music writing I’ve done for the past 22 years.

But Deep Purple wasn’t just at the forefront because they happened to be on the right radio at the right time. They were a great band—as great as anyone during their initial 1968-1976 run and even in some of the post-reunion days of 1984 to the present. As veterans of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, the Outlaws, Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages, Joe Meek sessions and the Artwoods, they began as a hard-hitting take on Vanilla Fudge with classical overtones in Mark I, turned in to a pulverizing powerhouse with a tinge of Little Richard in Mark II, got more soulful in Mark III and went into funk with both feet in Mark IV—every lineup recording at least one classic album.

The only constants through all four Marks were Paice and Lord. Lord was the leader of the band in the early days and, while that would change in subsequent lineups, always a key player in their distinct sound. Lord brandished the Hammond C3 not as an instrument to fade into the background, but as much a primary element of the sound as the guitar. His tasteful, restrained side is what made the band’s version of Donovan’s “Lalena” (also featuring a brilliant Rod Evans vocal) and the classic intros to “Child in Time” and “Lazy” memorable. His solos on “Hush,” “Fireball,” “Highway Star,” “Burn,” “ ‘A’ 200” and many others are pure magic—using flamboyance and virtuosity to push the heavy rock envelope while stopping just short of overindulgence. He could even lay back—as in way back—for the mystical intro to “This Time Around,” a highlight of 1975’s underrated Come Taste the Band.

Tellingly, it was Lord’s loud Hammond that signaled the band’s return as the intro to the title track of their 1984 comeback, Perfect Strangers—which for me was a godsend in the musical wasteland of the 1980s. Not only because that one did get airplay (payola’s not all bad I guess)—but because the resulting tour meant I finally got to see Deep Purple. The records were powerful—but nothing compared to seeing them live at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in February 1985 and again at Richfield Coliseum in May 1987. Yeah, they were arena rock shows with all the requisite pomp and indulgences. But I say that guys who actually cut their teeth in the early to mid-’60s UK rock‘n’roll and R&B scenes—as opposed to merely worshipping it after the fact like their critics—have every right to indulgences. Especially when those indulgences include Lord’s house-shaking Hammond solos, delivered almost like a dirty old man smashing a synthesizer (this was the ‘80s, after all) with a cricket bat: over the top but not overindulgent.

Jon Lord, of course, also had a distinguished pre-Purple history including the Artwoods, the Flowerpot Men and Santa Barbara Machine Head, plus post-Purple solo efforts and stints in bands like Paice, Ashton & Lord and Whitesnake. But you can read plenty about that somewhere else—not to mention the influence of Deep Purple on many bands that followed in their wake. His memorial will be tinted metallic purple figuratively and maybe even literally, and it’s that color that’s moved me the most.

Doug Sheppard