Ian Gillan: The Autobiography of Deep Purple’s Singer

by Ian Gillan

  With a Scotch in one hand, I was led passively by this incredible-looking girl to a room where we began to have lots of fun on a king-sized bed. And then, through the excitement of it all, I became aware of banter and giggles until, putting two and two together, I leaped from the bed and rushed into the hall to find a gathering of voyeurs and well-wishers looking through the one-way glass!

  Well, there are people who can get quite upset about being caught out like that, and others, like me, who try to see the funny side of a tricky situation. I remember looking at the gathering and saying, ‘I always finish what I start,’ before returning to the room to prove my point.

  Later that night, I was aware of all sorts of other goings-on in the house, such as that certain gentleman who I believe was from the civil service and who had one of the girls kicking and whipping him. I also noticed some private parts and performances from political life the electorate don’t usually get to see, as my wanderings took me past open doors and mirrors. Anyway, I certainly wasn’t complaining, and thought the whole thing pretty spectacular, so much so that I was offered a return visit!

  Looking back on it all, I held no position of influence, and had nothing really to sell; I wasn’t even a famous musician. Still, why question a good thing when it was giving me a few clues as to how good life could be if I could only become successful? It refreshed my ambitions at quite a difficult period of my life.

  As for Janie, I believe she got involved in the 1971 payola scandal, and went to prison for running a call-girl ring. Still, she was an interesting lady, was Janie. In fact, my kinda gal!

  Back in the real world, Episode Six struggled bravely on, but were losing momentum, as the Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks and the Small Faces took control of the music and cultural scene that was already the seed of a major and multifaceted industry. John Stephen, a Glaswegian, had transformed Carnaby Street from a nondescript alleyway off Regent Street into an international style centre for the young, as Time magazine referred to 1966 as the year of ‘Swinging London’, where almost everything seemed to centre on the pill, pot and ‘freedom’.

  Still we’d missed the boat, and Gloria explained that, if we were to survive and stay in the business, we’d have to work abroad. She told us what we already knew: that the gig scene had changed, along with the arrival of the major bands making albums, and needing the chance to perform them. The days of package tours with Billy Fury, Adam Faith and that generation of headline acts were at an end; the business was also moving into ‘concerts’. Still, Gloria sweetened the pill by saying that our records were selling well in the Lebanon, and ‘Morning Dew’ was apparently top of the charts in the two shops that had access to copies!

  In solemn moments, I wondered if they had been influenced by our newsletter, which described that song as ‘a sound that wraps itself around you … lifts you eight miles high … dreams you nine miles deep … moving brilliants … hues of red and crimson, purple, green…’

  I know Gloria was unhappy about our going to the Middle East, but we were outside the mainstream of activity in Europe, and needed to work and earn money. So there seemed no alternative, although I was still surprised that, after all we’d done, we still had to audition for the trip to Lebanon, and that took place at the Marquee in Wardour Street, which Dick Katz had arranged. Charlie Henchis came over from Paris to check us out, and we signed to travel after that. I was worried about losing our tenuous position ‘at home’, and where we might yet be lucky, but we were caught between a rock and a hard place.

  Of necessity, we took all our gear with us, and it was considerable, because we’d become a loud band by then and surprisingly had a lot more equipment than Deep Purple were working with at that time. We’d recently taken delivery of a brand-new sound system made by Grampian, and it came with a control panel similar to those used in recording studios. It had loads of effects, such as echo, reverb and the ability to play tapes through speakers that were built into the whole unit. Tony’s guitar was a Gretch Country Gentleman, which played through twin Vox speakers and a Marshall amp; Graham had a Fender with two Saltma Goliath speakers and a Dynachorde amp; Sheila worked with a WEM organ and through two Vox amps; Harvey had a kit that was a mix of Trixon, Ludvic and Avedis; and I had some new clothes! Also, I’m telling you all this because it shows how the newsletter was keeping up to speed on the technical side, and that, as ever, the backroom people were magnificent, and determined that we ‘get lucky’!

  We took the whole lot and our wardrobe to Beirut with very mixed feelings, and, once out there, continued to gig on the same lines as before, with kaftans, lots of swapping of instruments between us, and all topped off by our unique brand of comedy, which sometimes went down well, and at other times failed miserably! We mixed popular international hits with our own increased record output, which was still on the Pye label, and with whom the ‘lifetime commitment’ felt like a prison sentence. The songs included ‘When I Fall in Love’, ‘Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart’, ‘Stay with Me, Baby’ and ‘Light My Fire’, to which we actually added mock stage fire! Then there was ‘Jesse James’, which Rog performed, and he was funny (well, we thought he was); while for ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ we used crazy foam and cornflakes, and also played our B sides, including ‘Mozart v the Rest’, which we’d later record on Les Reed’s Chapter One label.

  And then, at the Casino du Lisbon, I met for the very first time a name from my past: Mr Raymond Nash. We were well into our set, and I was resplendent in my Mississippi gambler’s outfit – black frock coat, bootlace tie, Paisley waistcoat, striped pants and black boots – when this very nice party of diners who’d been buying us drinks all evening were suddenly removed from their table in front of the stage. It was incredible how it happened: there was no fuss, no argument, just that about ten of them were asked to go somewhere else by a group of very large people in ill-fitting suits. As quickly as this had been done, the table was re-laid with fresh ashtrays, flowers and so forth and, soon after, a dapper man came and sat down, while four or five cronies formed a semicircle around him. After he’d watched the show for a few minutes, and eyed me in particular, a note was passed up which I read while singing. It said, ‘Mr Nash wishes you to join him at his table when you take a break.’ Mr Nash was, of course, the owner of the Establishment in London, so it was hard to know if I was singing the right words, before I did as he asked.

  After a long pause, Mr Nash said, ‘Tell me, Ian, what really did happen to Dennis?’

  After what seemed an eternity, I looked at him and said, ‘Mr Nash, I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ I remember babbling on about how Jean and I got back to the flat at King’s Cross, but he suddenly changed the subject, and was as nice as pie.

  Courtesy of his expense account, the band drank themselves silly, and even went back to his fantastic home for more hospitality. I admit to coming over extremely unwell, and not being able to join them. In fact, I spent some time thereafter being fairly low-key, and improving my writing skills in the blistering heat.

  I am a cloud, I am a cloud

  Not just any cloud, but a big black thunder cloud

  And I am really proud of my capabilities

  I have a loud roar and like to frighten poor people

  With my flashing fury

  They run helter skelter for shelter

  Still l am bored and I will retreat and take a back seat

  I am a cloud.

  Little things come to mind when I look back on a trip such as the Beirut visit, things you’d never really think of in the normal course of events. For instance, it quickly became evident to us that the showbiz fraternity out there, other than speciality acts or rock bands, were gay – a situation Charlie Henchis explained as deliberate policy for contracts other than very short-term ones.

  Relationships – business and personal – were more reliable that way, because pregnancies were removed from being an inconvenient issue, or, if they were, then a contract could be ended before it b
ecame a management problem. Anyway, I found an English girlfriend for much of the time we were there. And it was with her that I experienced one of many strange and troublesome incidents that were typical of that region at the time.

  We were stretched out on the beach one day, just quietly enjoying each other’s company, in relative isolation. The sand stretched out for ever, with only the odd shack breaking the view – not an ice-cream van to be seen for miles! It happened that a recent storm, one of the worst the area had seen for years, had caused incredible damage to the few shanty-type buildings around, and one such was just a few yards behind us. Suddenly, a load of sand was thrown over me, and when I looked up there was this guy standing in what was left of a window frame in the derelict structure. The roof had gone, the top floor was mostly missing and the whole situation was utterly bizarre. So I told him (in French) to bugger off, which I think is the same as in English, but he just grinned and did the same again.

  I repeated my demand in much more forceful French, but it happened again, only this time he started throwing stones. So I picked up a nearby rock, threw it very hard, and it caught him smack in the face, before he disappeared from sight. My first thought was, Great shot, Gillan! But then I wondered if I might have gone a bit over the top, and went to the wall to check on him.

  What I saw worried me, because his face looked badly damaged, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Without thinking about any consequences, I told my girlfriend to find her way back to the accommodation, while I left to look for a police station. Some people at a petrol station directed me further down the road, and I eventually arrived at the building in question, exhausted and with nerves tingling.

  I saw the policeman the moment I burst in. He was sat at the far end of the room, and appeared to be taking a coffee break, while a cursory look around confirmed there was nobody else present. I gave it a few more moments, but, since he seemed oblivious to my presence, and made no effort to turn around, I approached him, unsure whether to smile or look sombre. Well, it wouldn’t have made any difference, because he sat there, clearly on another planet, as I detected some movement under the chintz tablecloth. No question about it: the law-enforcement officer was jerking off, and was clearly somewhere near the ‘vinegar strokes’!

  Not wanting to spoil his fun, I quietly took my leave and headed for the apartments, where I found some local people with whom we’d become friendly. When I told them the story, they went mad, shouting at me, ‘You crazy, you crazy, you never go to the police with thing like that!’

  I gave it an hour or two for my nerves to settle, and then went back to the scene of the incident, where, to my astonishment, there was no body. There was plenty of blood, but no drips to suggest he’d managed to struggle away. Maybe he’d just been removed…

  Beirut was a brutal place to be in, as we discovered on many occasions. We came across a European once who looked as if he’d been hit by a truck, as he dragged his broken body along a ditch, which also served as the local sewer. It was an appalling sight to witness, but made a lot worse when the poor man tried feebly to signal for help, and our driver just put his foot down, and refused to get involved. It was later explained to us that, if you report an accident, the automatic assumption is that you caused it. We’d subsequently learn that the poor fella’s body had been recovered from the stinking hole about three days later.

  To get in and out of Beirut on the ‘American Highway’, you had to pass over the ‘Yellow River’, which was a euphemism for the open sewer that served the city. And down below, in that stinking morass, lived a community of Palestinian refugees, whose only source of fresh water was the sprinklers that came on at dusk, to freshen up the ornamental shrubs in the central reservation of the highway. Unsurprisingly, the sprinklers were also a source of drinking water for the refugees, but the children tasked with collecting it had to ‘play chicken’ to succeed, and some would be hit by a vehicle as they crossed the road with their little rusty tins to collect the precious water. I’ve often wondered how much dignity can be stripped from human beings before death becomes more attractive than such an existence; whilst on that same subject, I’ve similarly wondered if the builders of the road actually intended it to be such an insult.

  On to lighter things, and the night Angel Manchenio tried to kill me in Maameltein. Angel was a flamboyant dancer of Spanish Gypsy decent, and he was a regular on Charlie’s bills at the casino. He was quite short – about five foot six, I’d guess, but possessed of great strength. One of the highlights of his show was to climb up to the balcony about fifteen feet above stage level, and throw himself off, flying through the air, to land on his knees on stage, then to rise and strut his stuff! Often as not, Manchenio would simply turn up at the venue unannounced, kick bottles off the table and perform this very dramatic dance routine that involved much clicking of heels, snapping of fingers and macho posing. The performance could go on for hours, we’d all get drunk, and it was great! The man demonstrated truly fantastic showmanship, and we spent many a happy time with him and his large, red-haired English girlfriend, or wife, and they would sometimes party with us at the apartments, a feature of which was the plumbing, or lack of it. I mention this particular problem because it explains why we used to go outside to ‘water’ the rocks, and for you to then know that from this vantage point there were amazing panoramic views of the village, railway line and the Mediterranean.

  So the evening and moment came when I needed to go outside to answer the call of nature, and, while ‘doing the business’, I saw Manchenio creeping round the building until he got to the corner, where I had my ground-floor apartment. It was very strange, because he was tiptoeing along, bent double, until he arrived at my bedroom window, at which moment I had cause to be even more puzzled, until it emerged that his girlfriend was ‘having it away’ with some fella in my room. Well, I’ve never seen anybody lift themselves by their own hair, but that was exactly what Manchenio did, as he paced around like a crazed animal in total silence. At the time, I didn’t, of course, know what was going on in there, so all I could do was watch this ninja-like creature skulking and raging around in the dark, until I decided to do something about it, and came from out of the shadows.

  ‘Hey, Manchenio, what’s up?’

  On seeing me, his eyes lit up like torches and, reaching down, he produced this very big knife. Well Manchenio always wore knee-length boots, but it was only now that I realised he used them to also conceal this nasty weapon.

  ‘I keel you. You, you fucka my wife – I keel you! I thought you my friend – I keel you!’

  So now I’m backing up a bit, saying, ‘Hang on, Manchenio. What are you talking about?’ But he just repeated, ‘I keel you. You fucka my wife!’

  I said, ‘Look where I’m standing. I’m taking a piss, you dickhead. How can I “fucka” your wife from here?’

  He froze briefly, the cogs in his head started turning, and then he said, ‘My God, Ian! My God! I’m sorry! I keela myself now. Goodbye!’

  I tried to reason with him, saying, ‘Listen, first you want to kill me, and now you want to kill yourself.’

  ‘No, no, Ian, I insult you. There is only one thing a Gypsy with honour can do: I have to take my own life!’

  I then said, ‘Look, Manchenio, there must be some way out of this,’ to which he carefully said, ‘Well, there eeesa one way.’

  Well, it’s funny how some ‘exchanges’ can cause warning lights to flash, as I said equally carefully, ‘Is it dangerous?’ When he replied, ‘No, eesa no dangerous,’ of course I put my arm around him, as one does in moments of great relief!

  His solution for getting us out of the unfortunate mess was for us to share blood, and this we did in the grand tradition of the movies. He wiped his knife clean on his clothing, made a cut in the heel of our hands, then took out a filthy neckerchief, which he used to bind our wounds together. Finally we embraced passionately, exchanged words of love and respect and went back into the lounge, where he totally ignored hi
s wife! He simply got back to drinking with us, before dancing again.

  My gypsy brother

  Tried to take my life

  Thought I’d stolen your lover

  Faced me with a knife

  Life in Beirut wasn’t all about problems and stress, and we often experienced generous hospitality, including, on one occasion, when we were invited to a Christmas party by some sailors in the US Navy. I guess this would have been in 1968, and the fact we spoke English and were musicians made their day, so they took us on board, where everybody in sight, from top to bottom, was already drunk! After shaking a few hands, occasionally saluting and accepting a drink, we were taken through ‘Top Secret’ and ‘No Admittance’ areas to see the missiles and flight deck, before continuing on to ‘inspect’ their helicopters, which one guy said were radio-controlled, meaning that they needed no pilot. As for the cameras we had on us, well they let us take as many pictures as we wanted!

  Although we ended with a delicious meal in their mess, we couldn’t go the whole hog, since we were on stage that night. However, despite this wonderful distraction, we couldn’t hide the fact that the music side of our lives was not progressing, and relationships were becoming very strained. The few press cuttings copied from England continued to read well, but also disguised many troubles. Harvey and I certainly went through a bad time, so when the fans back home were reading things like, ‘Sheila turned up late, clearly exercising her prerogative as the female in the group,’ it must have sounded fine to them, but in reality it was a turnoff, and a mask for what was really going on – or not, as the case happened to be.

  Harvey seemed to be suffering the most, and his lack of interest shone through some of our performances. In fact, I threatened to throw him over the castle battlements on one occasion, if he didn’t get his act together, and he finally quit the band, when he fell for a Greek belly dancer called Natasha.