A farewell to Robert Trehern (Bobby Irwin) 1953-2015

Photo: Natacha Horn

As friends and associates will know, drummer and all-round good chap Bobby Irwin sadly died from cancer on 8 May.

At Bobby’s funeral at St Stephen’s Church, Twickenham, on 19 May, Nick Lowe took the lectern to deliver a eulogy for his fallen drummer and veteran musical partner. A few minutes beforehand, Bobby's brother Chris recalled childhood moments, and Geraint Watkins performed a comforting ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ seated at the piano, with Martin Winning on sax, but Nick’s own public address to the 300-strong congregation was nothing short of high drama.

Tears fell faster than the hailstone rain in the churchyard, which was punctuated by bursts of spring sunshine, just as Nick’s emotionally charged speech was dotted with humorous asides that brought hearty laughter and light relief.

‘I looked up the word “eulogy” before writing these notes,’ said Nick [I am paraphrasing]. ‘It is supposed to be brief… well, I first met Bob in 1976, when I was recording at Pathway Studios in Stoke Newington…’ Within moments of recalling this encounter, Nick broke down in tears, unable to continue for a full minute. Time became suspended as mourners allowed him ‘a moment’ to summon composure. Eventually, he mopped his eyes with a checked handkerchief and continued. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,’ he said, thumbing his notes and looking as if he was about to return to his seat in the congregation. The Reverend Jez Barnes stepped forward in support, his holy intervention persuading Nick to continue, and recall his unique musical partnership with Bob.

Then he slammed us with the nitty-gritty: ‘Bob was larger than life. When he told a joke, he was always a member of his own audience’. More laughter. And then, by emotional contrast: ‘I don’t know how I’m going to carry on without him…’ Nick’s son Roy popped up from the pews to deliver a fresh handkerchief. ‘We spent many years touring the world as young musicians,’ continued Nick. ‘There are of course stories that I couldn’t possibly repeat in church… but I‘m quite happy to give anyone a personal consultation later, if you wish.’ More laughter amidst the tears… Nick had done Bob proud, and returned to his seat to huge and sustained applause.

Recording engineer Neil Brockbank then read from The Corinthians, and we sang 'He Who Would Valiant Be'. Following the service, many of the congregation repaired to a nearby hostelry to toast Bobby’s memory and exchange stories about the great man.

Bobby Irwin obituary from The Independent

Music City Mike on Bobby Irwin

With thanks to Tanita Tikaram and Natacha Horn

Photo: David Corio

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The Benefit Show for Henry McCullough – London 17 March 2015

Putney’s Half Moon was heaving on St Patrick’s night with great music, familiar faces, and five of the biggest ‘stars’ loosely associated with London’s old pub rock scene. It was all in aid of former Grease Band and Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, who in 2012 suffered a massive heart attack and now finds himself in reduced circumstances and wheelchair-bound.

The charitable evening was proposed and skilfully organised by Dave Robinson, of Stiff Records fame, who has known Henry since the 1960s when Dave managed Irish band, Eire Apparent.

The evening’s music commenced with a funky set by London’s world-class musicians, Tim Hinkley (keyboards/vocals), Mel Collins (sax), Neil Hubbard (guitar), John Halsey (drums), Bob Tench (guitar/vocals), Steve Simpson (guitar/vocals), and Kuma Harada (bass). The Band’s ‘The Shape I’m In’ and McCullough’s ‘Gone With Another’ were stand-outs. Kokomo’s Tony O’Malley made a guest appearance for Bill Withers’ ‘Use Me’, and the band was then on hand to furnish versatile accompaniment for some of the name singers that followed.

The auction lots, pic courtesy of Justin Tunstall

In between sets there was an auction, in which many items of rock memorabilia went for eye-watering receipts, largely down to the style and skill of auctioneer, Nick Stewart. These included a platinum disc for ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ (awarded to McCullough); a set of Beatles LPs (signed by Paul McCartney, whose virtual presence was duly noted), and some fine cheddar cheeses, 45-disk shaped, with appropriate ‘record labels’, courtesy of the Town Mill Cheesemonger. The ‘So It Goes’ / ‘Heart of the City’ cheese went for £600.

Nick tunes, Dave and Nick Stewart auction, pic courtesy of Justin Tunstall

First-up, post auction, was Nick Lowe, who received a hero’s welcome from the capacity crowd and delivered a chilling version of McCullough’s ‘Failed Christian’. Nick was soon joined by Andy Fairweather Low and Paul Carrack for an acoustic and harmony strum along on some old classics, including Ray Charles’ ‘Crying Time’, Bobby Darin’s ‘Things’, and Johnny Cash’s ‘I Don’t Hurt Anymore’.

Andy, Paul, Nick, pic courtesy of Justin Tunstall

See a video of Lowe - Carrack - Fairweather Low in action here (courtesy of Claire Robinson)

Fairweather Low, Carrack, Lowe, pic courtesy of Pia  Meijer

It was then left to Carrack to rouse the audience with his evergreen ‘How Long’, which no doubt reminded Paul of a football crowd sing-along on the Sheffield Wednesday terraces.

Graham Parker was up next for storming performances of  ‘Local Girls’ and ‘Soul Shoes’. Close your eyes and it could have been The Rumour, so sympathetic was the band.

Graham Parker, pic courtesy of Vernon Wallis

The evening finished with Suggs, who was charm personified, delivering his Madness hits, ‘It Must Be Love’ and ‘Madness’.

Suggs, pic courtesy of Claire Robinson

Should you wish to make a donation to the Henry McCullough cause, a Facebook page has been set up here

To round off a great evening with lots of rocking music and old friends, I made the trip back into town on the tube with GP, who agreed it was a classic night for sure. Let’s hope it raised plenty of dosh for Henry.

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Joe B Mauldin - cornerstone of beat group anatomy

L-R Sonny Curtis, Joe B Mauldin, Glen D Hardin,

WB, Jerry Allison, 1997

Joe B Mauldin, bassist in Buddy Holly's Crickets, died on 7 February. His nimble instrumental work on many of The Crickets' hits helped to define the sound of early rock'n'roll, and he was a co-inventor of the modern, self-contained beat group, on which The Beatles and therefore thousands of pop bands based their act.

In 1997, I met with Joe B and his three colleagues, ostensibly to interview them for Mojo, although I'm not sure if the piece was ever published. Joe was friendly, modest, and easily the quietist member of the group. I sensed a certain shyness - was this really the man who toured the world at Buddy Holly's left elbow, rocking it up night after night?

Glen D hardly said a word either, but this was more than made up for by the more dominant, talkative Crickets, Jerry and Sonny, I'm pleased to say.

So here is a brief extract from the latter part of my interview, and it's the only section in which Joe actually uttered a word. You will see that I had to address him directly, to prompt him to speak.

Joe, when you joined [the Crickets], were you thrown in at the deep end?

Joe: Sort of, but the group I was with before The Crickets, was doing the same kind of stuff, Elvis songs. I did have to learn some things. I’d been playing maybe a year. I’d never seen an electric bass.  The first one of those I saw was when we toured with Eddie Cochran. I said 'Wow, I’ve got to have one of those!' I got one, but it didn’t work out. When people came to see Buddy Holly and The Crickets, the stand up bass was the thing people wanted to see.

Were you conscious of the visual element?

Sonny: It didn’t affect me much. I just sort of stood there, still do. I can’t dance and play guitar at the same time! 

Jerry: If you see me dancing, don’t let me drive my car!

Joe: The visual thing was important to me. I did more dancing around the bass than I did playing.

Sonny: I remember seeing y’all at the Brooklyn Paramount and you were lying down on the stage playing your bass! You weren’t trying to go to sleep either!

Joe, when you joined the Crickets, was the creative process fairly free?

Joe: Yeah, we used to get in Buddy’s car and sit in Jerry’s folks’ driveway and kick ideas around. Things changed as time went on, but I thought it was very open.

*

The same set of autographs captured a quarter of a century apart, with barely a pen's quiver to differentiate the Texans' calligraphy. Top, 1997, during my meeting with The Crickets at the Hilton, Regents Park. Below, 1972, at my local cabaret 'nitespot', where I also saw The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison (twice), Del Shannon, Bobby Vee, Bill Haley and The Comets, and many other rock'n'roll legends in the early 1970s.

The death of Joe B Mauldin 1940-2015 as reported in Rolling Stone here

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Chucked by Pop: Del Shannon

I was an avid reader of the New Musical Express for approximately 30 years. I devoured its contents from cover to cover every week on a Thursday, or for many years on a Wednesday when I worked in the smoke and was thisclose to its distribution axis. How I enjoyed Nick Kent’s epic multi-week-spanning analysis of Brian Wilson’s world… or Charles Shaar Murray’s incisive critique of, say, Black Sabbath… how I laughed at Tony Parsons’ irreverent one-liners that instantly dismissed the 15-year career of Eric Clapton…

Well, it all came to an inglorious end one Wednesday in February 1990, when I picked up that week’s edition from a newsstand near Piccadilly Circus. First I turned to the news pages. Then, unable to find any coverage of the previous week’s tragic event, I turned to Titbits, or Alley Cat, or whatever it was called back then, but nothing. Search as hard as I might, I failed to find one single reference in my NME to the death of Del Shannon.

I knew Del was old-school of course, unhip to those who considered themselves arbiters of cool, and commercially dead, but he was, let us not forget, the creator of ‘Runaway’, and in recent months hotly tipped to replace the deceased Roy Orbison in the Travelling Wilburys. However ner-nicky-ner-ner it might seem, this was the moment I ceased buying the NME. I felt betrayed, isolated, pushed aside by the powers-that-were in King’s Reach Tower. However all-powerful the NME might have considered itself, they missed a trick. Del Shannon’s legacy surely deserved not to be ignored.

My bust-up with the NME had been coming for some time. I had turned 40, and except for a handful of happening UK acts I loved, such as The La’s and the Stone Roses - ‘pop’ no longer spoke to me. Although in my mind I was still a teenager, striding through Soho in my spiral leg Levis and Florsheim wingtips, the fact was that my generation was old and in the way. We had been chucked by pop.

So what has prompted these memories? Well, it is the vital text in ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah – The Story of Modern Pop’ by Bob Stanley (Faber & Faber), a Kindle-inducing house brick of a paperback, that contains an electrifying summation of Del Shannon’s oeuvre on pages 93-97 (print edition).

Bob has it that Shannon died in 1991 (actually 1990 - a minor quibble) when he was on the verge of a comeback as a Wilbury. I love his take on Del at the height of his powers – ‘the fear and the demons in Shannon’s music echoed the mind of its maker’, and ‘Del Shannon, king of pain, was truly one of pop’s heavyweight champs’. Bob Stanley is clearly a fan, and I urge you to read his formidable book – the neatest overview of rock and roll since Charlie Gillett’s ‘Sound of the City’

As a footnote, I offer some obscure memories. Tom Petty, no less, produced Del’s 1981 album ‘Drop Down and Get Me’ (the reissue of which on Demon Records contains the Shannon-produced 45 ‘Cheap Love’, a power pop classic). Speaking of producers, in 1974 Dave Edmunds was hired to cut some sides with Shannon at Rockfield, and a couple of tracks appeared on the LP ‘And The Music Plays On’. Around 1983, some Leicester-based musicians of my acquaintance backed Del on a UK tour, and I recall well-meaning tales of whisky-drowned tears, and toupee insecurities.

But never mind, Del was the kiddie, and it is tantalising to imagine what might have been, had he cut some sides with George, Jeff, Tom and Bob. 10 days older than Elvis, he would have turned 80 on 30 December 2014. I am sorry for the delay in posting this birthday tribute.

http://www.delshannon.com

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