by Zoe Howe
Before they could concentrate on recording, it appeared that the suitcases were coming out again. The good news: Dr Feelgood were going to Japan, where they were always treated like kings. The not so good news: they would be supporting the Wilko Johnson Band. Chris Fenwick had gingerly approached the subject with Lee, adding, with a wince, that they were also booked on the same flights. Rather than explode at the apparent indignity of the situation, Lee, according to Will Birch, slyly replied that he would upgrade to first class, ‘get stuck into the champagne’ and then turn to raise a glass to his former sparring partner down the aisle before saying, ‘Oh, sorry, Wilko, you don’t, do you?’
In the opinion of at least some of the collective, on both sides, this seemed ‘an ideal time for them to just sort this out’, said Kevin Morris, but the Japanese promoters, realising the potential for bust-ups a little too late, then set about keeping the two groups apart as best they could.
Brilleaux and Johnson could have connected with each other if they’d really tried, but they were both stubborn and if they weren’t forced together, it just wasn’t going to happen. Lee, interestingly enough, did slink into the wings to watch Wilko’s set. ‘Savvi [Salvatore Ramundo, Wilko’s drummer] claimed he was standing there looking at me in a poignant manner,’ said Wilko with a laugh of disbelief. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Very interesting scenario, us and them on the same bill,’ Lee later said, with characteristic understatement, during an interview with Johnnie Walker.’ He was excellent,’ he added. ‘Very, very good, great band.’ Maybe one of rock’n’roll’s great feuds was starting to heal after all.
Phil Mitchell: ‘Take Lee out of the line-up and that would finish things.’
Lee Brilleaux: ‘No! Nobody’s indispensable. There’s ways around these things.’
Kevin Morris: We’ll get Lee Remick in.
Lee: Yeah. Well, it’d be better for you, wouldn’t it?
(interview for Central Television show First Night, 1991)
Dr Feelgood recorded new album Primo at Greenhouse Studios in London in 1990 and, as promised, this record would represent a return of sorts to their R&B roots, albeit with a clean, modern twist. It was the band’s first studio album in four years, and anticipation amid Feelgood fans was high. ‘We’re not trying to do anything clever, it’s just rock’n’roll,’ insisted Lee, adding meaningfully, ‘it’s definitely nothing like Classic.’
Among the tracks chosen, there would be the jubilant Nick Lowe number ‘Heart Of The City’, a nod to Stiff Records, being as it was the B-side to the label’s first release in 1976 (Lowe’s ‘So It Goes’). There would also be Mickey Jupp’s ‘Standing At The Crossroads Again’, The Doors’ ‘Been Down So Long’ … ‘Then there are a couple of songs we wrote with Will Birch,’ said Lee. ‘Down By The Jetty Blues’ would be one of them, an ‘anthem for our old home town of Canvey Island.’55
During the making of Primo, there would be some shuffling in the Feelgood ranks: Phil Mitchell would vacate the bass chair, and he would be replaced by the bassist and producer Dave Bronze after The Inmates’ Ben Donnelly filled in. Bronze was already acquainted with Lee and Kevin – ‘when you’re a muso in Essex, you kind of know everybody anyway’ – but a chance encounter while browsing the racks in Leigh on Sea record shop Fives would lead to Bronze’s engagement, and he’d remain in the group for the next three years.
‘Kevin came in and said, “Are you busy?” “Not terribly,”’ remembers Bronze. ‘They were in the middle of making Primo, there was an issue, and they needed a bass player. “Can you come and do it? Couple of days, won’t take long.” One evening after the sessions we went down to the local pub, and Lee said, “We’re going to France at the weekend, fancy coming with us?” “Yeah, all right!” The following Friday a van came and picked me up, and suddenly I was in the Feelgoods! Nobody ever said, “Oh, by the way, do you want to join the band?”’
Primo would be released in 1991, and was promoted by the usual live dates and radio sessions, including one for LBC which features a stunning vocal performance of ‘Down By The Jetty Blues’. Lee was using the studio’s old-fashioned crystal bullet mic which gave his voice a cracked, distorted quality – he admitted he liked it so much he was tempted to walk off with it. Before the live session had started, the DJ, after interviewing Lee, said that the band’s rehearsal had been the loudest they’d ever had on the station. ‘Really?’ said Lee, genuinely incredulous. ‘I thought we were being quite quiet.’
‘The new bass player, Dave Bronze, he’s great,’ said Lee. ‘We’re very lucky to have him. How long he’ll stay I don’t know, because someone else might steal him. But for the time being we’ve got him and I think he’s enjoying himself. We do like to have fun, you see … there’s more to life than just work.’
And with the 1980s firmly behind them, Brilleaux was pleased to note that the pendulum had swung back. The new decade had ushered in a resurgence of interest in ‘real’ music. From Nirvana to The Stone Roses to Iron Maiden, the guitar band was once again de rigeur and back in the charts (well, alongside Vanilla Ice and Right Said Fred), and Dr Feelgood themselves were ‘on a bit of a crest at the minute. I’m thoroughly enjoying it.’ As for their position as perennial purveyors of R&B, ‘nobody else really does what we do,’ said Lee. ‘We’re specialists.’
As content as Lee appeared in interviews, those close to him were aware that something was amiss. During sessions for Primo, Lee was noticeably under the weather. Normally robust, he was picking up every cold going and also becoming short-tempered over ‘trivial matters when things weren’t exactly slotting into place,’ said Will. ‘It was a character trait no one had experienced before.’
‘He’d been unwell,’ adds Kevin. ‘We were playing in Paris, and our friend Joanne, who is a nurse, said to Lee she was concerned that he was very red in the face. She was concerned about his blood pressure. He said, “I’m all right.” She said, “I’m sure he’s not all right.” But nothing more was said.’ Lee had already commented on the increasing ‘mental strain’ he was experiencing, but, as was his way, he’d continued to push himself instead of taking time off when he needed it. Now, it appeared, his body was starting to complain as well.
Once the band were back in the UK, Lee dropped into the Grand Records office on Canvey for a chat. He was agitated, and, as Chris Fenwick recalled to Feelgood biographer Tony Moon, he ‘waved the troublemaker flag’ much to Chris’s astonishment. Lee had always been the one who could take the lifestyle, the schedule, the drinking and, to a point, the travelling, but something had changed.
Sitting Lee down, Chris looked his friend in the eye and asked him if he wanted to stop. ‘You seem a bit pissed off with it all,’ said Chris. Lee simply replied, ‘I like it more than I don’t.’
Still, an agreement was made that Lee would work through 1992 before taking a sabbatical. ‘He was going to have a year off, completely,’ said Will Birch. ‘Of course, ironically, that was when he got the illness. It was terrible.’
A page from the ‘reduced’ but still rather punishing Feelgood schedule (kindly provided by Dr Feelgood secretary Ann Adley).
Lee’s ‘Top Twelve Blues ’n’ Rock ’n’ Roll Sides’, ‘Roadrunner’ taking the top spot, naturally (kindly provided by Ann Adley).
19.THE LONG GOODBYE
He promised Shirley he’d give up when he was forty. I thought, he never will … But of course he did – because he had to. Strange really, isn’t it?
Joan Collinson
In December 1991, artist Anthony Farrell began painting a portrait of Lee at his studio, just off Leigh Broadway. ‘I got to know Lee in the Grand,’ he explains. ‘I thought I’d like to paint him but I never ask people directly. It’s more embarrassing if they say no, so I go through third parties. Anyway he was all for it.’ For two hours a week, Brilleaux would sit for Farrell, discuss art, talk about his children with great pride, and plan trips with Farrell to exhibitions to the Royal Academy (usually via the Colony
Room in Soho).
‘Lee was funny,’ said Farrell. ‘He had a very mild manner, but sometimes he’d get up to go to the loo, and you’d hear him trip over something – “FUCK!” – and then he’d be back, all courteous. He used to really make me laugh. This was when he was well, of course. If he couldn’t make one of our appointments, I’d get these formal little notes offering alternative dates – and then you’d see him onstage, who is that guy? He was still OK then.’ While Lee was ostensibly still ‘OK’, the portrait, which was completed in July 1992, displays the florid complexion Kevin Morris’s friend had noted on the previous year in Paris. Whether Lee’s reddening features were just caused by the broken blood vessels of a lifetime’s drinking at this stage, it’s hard to say.56
What was unusual, however, was the small and apparently insignificant lump on the side of Lee’s neck which, for a while, he chose to ignore. A few months down the line, he was ‘suffering from flu symptoms’, said Kevin Morris. ‘He just couldn’t shift them.’ After one show, he came off stage feeling decidedly ill, only to find he had a temperature of over a hundred.
Still, there were plans for yet another album. It was time to lay down a fistful of originals after the cover-heavy Primo; Steve Walwyn had written several new compositions, including the ebullient ‘Tell Me No Lies’ and ‘Fool For You’, while Dave Bronze was writing strong material with Kevin Morris.
Lee, in his sleeve notes for upcoming album The Feelgood Factor, explained in his customary way (elaborately formal but completely tongue-in-cheek) that they’d been discussing the new record while on the road – or rather ‘on a ferry between mainland Scotland and the Orkney Islands. I seem to recall being relatively sober but cruelly tormented by a vicious hangover. The latter was significantly alleviated by a judicious intake of the barley waters prevalent in those parts, but more particularly by the collective enthusiasm for the project in hand; it’s not often that the Muse and the Mammon sit well together.’ And, during said discussions, it was stipulated that, as Lee would later write, ‘the songs would be straightforward and they would be recorded straightforwardly and that they would be played and sung by members of Dr Feelgood without the unnecessary augmentations of a plethora of session musicians, backing singers and guest appearances.’
After rehearsing upstairs at the Grand, the band began recording in February 1993 at the residential Monnow Valley Studio in Wales. Lee and Kevin would cook and, of course, ‘it was close to the Punch House, curiously enough’, adds Steve. All the requisite comforts were taken care of.
The mystical ‘Wolfman Calling’, co-written by Bronze and Morris, stands out on the otherwise high-spirited The Feelgood Factor (co-produced by Bronze and Monnow’s Dave Charles). Obviously the track paid tribute to Lee’s lifelong passion for Howlin’ Wolf, and musically gave a nod to ‘Smokestack Lightning’ as well as the riff in Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’. Under the circumstances that were soon to come to light, ‘Wolfman Calling’ would prove to be a strangely poignant song.
It was during sessions for The Feelgood Factor that Lee had become quietly concerned about his health. ‘I had been feeling rather poorly,’ he later explained, ‘but I just put this down to encroaching years.’ However, in addition to his general malaise, his lymph glands had become swollen and he was starting to lose weight. While the rest of the group worked, Lee drove to London to see a doctor.
‘Everyone knew there was something up,’ said Bronze. ‘Lee was definitely in trouble, there was something not right. He was getting short-tempered, he was obviously in distress.’
The lump on Lee’s neck was removed and biopsied, and the results revealed that Brilleaux was far from just ‘under the weather’; he was suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph glands which would, in this case, spread to the liver and spleen. ‘He came back the next day,’ said Kevin Morris. ‘We went for a drink and he told me then that he had something quite serious, and that as soon as we’d finished in the studio, he’d be going into hospital.’ When Lee then delivered the news to the band, they were in shock, but he stoically continued to work. Once the announcement was out of the way, he didn’t speak of it again.
‘When it was time to do the vocals we had to put him through the mill a bit,’ said Dave Bronze. ‘I remember thinking, how hard can I push this? To his credit, he was right there. He definitely wanted that record finished properly. When he gave us the news, it was devastating for all of us, but he carried on. He was a consummate professional, in his own lawless way.’ Once sessions were complete, he was admitted to London’s Middlesex Hospital the very next day for treatment. ‘We just cancelled all of our work,’ said Kevin.
The doctors informed Lee that he would be receiving very severe doses of chemotherapy, warning him that it could either kill the cancer, or it would kill him outright. He was kept in on reverse barrier; all visitors having to wear masks to eliminate any chance of him picking up an infection while his immune system was compromised. The ordeal brought with it, as Lee told Malcolm Wilkinson, ‘all the usual unpleasant side effects of going bald, feeling violently sick etc. This was compounded by the necessity of the drugs being extremely strong, i.e. enough to kill a horse. I have lost nearly three stones in weight.’
Larry Wallis was among those who visited. On asking in advance whether he wanted anything brought in from the outside world, Larry was instructed to smuggle in ‘a big cream cake, a newspaper, and a single malt. I said to him, “Are you going to be all right?” He said, “The jury’s still out on that, old boy. Don’t quite know yet.”’ Colin Crosby would also come to see Lee regularly, surreptitiously drawing the curtains around Lee’s bed and unpacking takeaway boxes of curry from Brick Lane, plates and all, for them to enjoy together. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering who we’re talking about here, Brilleaux’s love of a good meal seemed to have shown little signs of diminishing; the arrival of a curry and a beer was a rare and much needed sign of familiarity and normality during a time in which Lee was having to endure being in a very unfamiliar place, in every sense.
Kevin Morris would visit once a week, and before long ‘had to steel myself to the fact that it was Lee, because it didn’t look like Lee any more. He’d wasted away to the point that he just looked like ET. And he was heavily dosed on morphine, so we’d have quite surreal conversations.’
In the meantime, Chris Fenwick, his brother Chalkie, Dean Kennedy and their associates had set to work on a project that would give them a focus during this agonising time. Together they were redeveloping the old Oysterfleet building on Canvey where the old jug band used to play almost thirty years previously, and they were turning it into what would become the Dr Feelgood Music Bar. Once Lee was well enough to leave hospital, he was unable to work, but he could, and would, get involved with the venue himself, ‘channelling some of my excess energies into [it]’, he said. It was the ideal distraction for Lee, a man who was not accustomed to kicking back at the best of times. But now he had no choice.
‘The chemotherapy kind of knocked me for six actually,’ said Lee. ‘It was pretty strenuous, and I’m sure many other people have suffered it and know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, it’s left me unfit to go back on the road, so I’ve been concentrating my efforts on the new album and this music bar, and just relaxing and generally quite enjoying being off the road, in one way.’ He still insisted he and the band would be making a follow-up to The Feelgood Factor ‘if the doctor allows’. But when it came to kissing the travelling side of his life goodbye, as he told Radio 2’s Paul Jones, ‘after twenty years of living out of the suitcase, it’s quite nice to hang my hat up’. He was making light of the situation, of course. He wasn’t hanging up his hat out of choice.
Back at The Proceeds after his treatment was complete, Lee rested up, surrounding himself with books and records to divert him. Andrew Lauder had put together a box of blues albums for him and had them sent to the house. ‘I got a really nice letter back saying, “Well, that’s the one upside of this b
loody illness … I’ve got bags of time to play these records.”’
Lee’s strength began to return and he started to regain a little weight. ‘He’d nearly died,’ admits Kevin. ‘But all through the summer, he was just taking walks and relaxing, and his hair grew back.’
‘Obviously only time can tell of the success or otherwise of the treatment,’ Lee wrote to Malcolm Wilkinson in a letter he kindly shared with me for this book. ‘In the meantime, I am determined to enjoy my life, eat, drink, be merry, all that kind of stuff. Enough of that,’ he concluded, before turning his attention to the old days. ‘Like you, I have the fondest of memories of Canvey and the early days of the Feelgoods; I would go so far as to say our adventures comprised the happiest days of my life.’
On the subject of Wilko, Lee assured Malcolm that while the ‘poison’ which had grown in the band had been upsetting, he hoped that ‘you remember me well enough to know I am not a vindictive or malicious man, and any beef I had with Wilko is long since gone’. As with everyone who receives a brush with death, Lee, just like Wilko would twenty years later, now viewed the past with a greater sense of perspective, although Lee would not be receiving the same miraculous reprieve that was granted to Wilko.57
In terms of the eating, drinking and being merry Lee had talked about, he would certainly hold good to his word. He travelled with Shirley to Barcelona, linking up with former Feelgood tour manager Jerome Martinez one last time, visited his favourite local restaurant Los Caracoles and, during the summer of 1993, he took the family to Disney World. ‘Then we drove to Louisiana to see my grandparents,’ said Nicholas Brilleaux, who ‘surprises [himself]’ with how much he recalls. ‘I remember going to Spain and riding on his lap in the car – so I was driving the car. And one day he took me to London. It was just the two of us, and he took me to an exhibit at the Naval Museum in Greenwich. I was obsessed with pirates and ships, so he’d always take me out to see boats. He gave me a ship in a bottle which I still have.’
