Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories

by Rick Wakeman

  The passports finally arrived with visas stamped in them. Igor was visibly relieved and he said to me, ‘OK, I think everything sorted. Tickets, passports, visa . . . I will offer my help to get you through customs quick but you need to tell me if you have like Russian dolls or any T-shirts, that kind of thing. Do you have anything that you shouldn’t have in the suitcase, Mr Wakeman?’

  It was at this point that, for the very first time that day, I realised that in my rush to get to the airport I hadn’t taken out the KGB and Soviet admiral uniforms, which were folded neatly in the suitcase that nestled between my legs, next to Igor’s table, in that small 1970s office, in that decrepit airport, in Cold War Russia, thousands of miles from home.

  ‘Er, yes, well, there are a couple of little things, yes.’

  ‘OK, what like, dolls, yes? You like Russian dolls?’

  ‘Er, no.’

  Igor opened the suitcase and looked in. His face went as white as the snow that was tumbling onto the tundra outside.

  ‘Mr Wakeman, what is this?’

  ‘It’s an authentic KGB uniform, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, I know it is KGB uniform, Mr Wakeman, but what is it doing here?’

  ‘It’s a cracking uniform,’ I offered, clawing for some hope.

  ‘Is not possible, Mr Wakeman. No one has those uniforms.’

  ‘But they are real, they belonged to this chap’s brother . . . er . . . and he was in the KGB and . . . er . . . then he left.’

  Igor leaned across the table and said, ‘Rick, nobody leaves KGB.’ He put the tips of his fingers in a pyramid of anxiety and sat thinking for a few moments. Then he said, ‘OK, here is what we do. I may be able to help you but you must help me, Rick.’

  At that moment, I could think of very little I wouldn’t do to ‘help’ him – I could almost smell the gruel they served at the Siberian labour camp.

  ‘Anything, sir, I’ll do anything. What is it you want?’

  ‘Some records by Led Zeppelin. And The Who, yes?’

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved in my life. I was in a very serious situation and yet here was something so trivial and easy for me to get hold of that could remedy everything.

  ‘My friend, I can get you records by anybody you like!’

  ‘Even The Yes?’

  ‘Yes, even The Yes.’

  He quietly explained that Lufthansa trucks were able to travel across East/West borders relatively unchecked and that was how we would be able to get him the records. I promised him I would send all the records he wanted and he hastily scribbled out a list. He then escorted me to the metal detector at customs and whispered in my ear, ‘Do not worry, Rick, KGB long coat is just cloth, it will not set off metal detector.’

  ‘No, it won’t, sir, but the badges and buttons on the admiral’s uniform in there might.’

  He went white again.

  ‘Not possible, Rick. How? Wait, let me guess: same man?’

  ‘Same man. His other brother. He was an admiral and then . . . er . . . he wasn’t.’

  ‘I see. Follow me.’

  It couldn’t get much worse.

  But it did.

  As we were walking across the airport with these two highly illegal uniforms in a case that was about to be smuggled through customs by a security man from the KGB himself, a man from the TV company came running across and said, ‘Rick, Rick, I have your passports and visas and I have got your $2,000!!! I am good man, I make my word, Rick!!!’ and promptly handed me a huge brown-paper bag stuffed full of one- and two-dollar bills.

  Quick as a flash, Igor said, ‘Hide it.’

  I had to think fast. I looked at my three travelling companions from the band and they were like, ‘We’re having nothing to do with this!’ so I stuffed the money down my pants and into my socks.

  Best I could do.

  When I looked up, the customs officers were just standing there across the hall, watching me.

  I have to tell you, laugh as I might now, I was shitting myself.

  Then, like a dead man walking, I trudged up to the customs desk. I handed them my ticket, exit visa and passport. The guy started to grumble something but then Igor took him into a little booth and whispered something in his ear. The customs man came back and waved me and my contraband suitcase straight through, unchecked.

  Next up was the currency desk where they examined your money. Including, in my case, $2,000 from a brown-paper envelope shoved down my pants. I looked up – and I mean up – at a woman who made Giant Haystacks look feminine. She said, ‘You came in with $100 and £130 sterling and you changed £30 into roubles and so you need to leave with £100 sterling and $100. Or do you have any other currency on your person that you wish to tell me about?’

  I was standing there, literally bloated with dollar bills rammed down every crevice and the odd orifice. Two minutes earlier, she’d watched me stuff all this money into my trousers.

  ‘Er, no, no.’

  Cue Igor and his little whisper in the ear and, once again, I was waved through. Within five minutes I was sitting on a virtually empty plane, struggling to fit into the seat with all these dollars spilling out of my pockets and more intimate regions of my trousers. After a few minutes, a stewardess came over to me and said, ‘We are actually only here for refuelling, Mr Wakeman, we are not supposed to take passengers on board here. I’ve heard you had some fun and games – you must have a story to tell . . .’

  ‘Yes, you could say that. And one day I might be able to tell it.’

  EVER BEEN CONNED?

  Long before KGB uniforms, TV shows in Russia, before Yes, before touring the world, prog rock and all that jazz, I was just a kid who loved music and playing the piano. As Louis Armstrong once said, ‘It’s a wonderful world,’ but for a naive sixteen-yearold trying to break through into the music business in the 1960s I don’t think he was referring to the wonderful world of showbiz management.

  At that age you have so much to learn.

  Here’s one of my very first lessons – how I met, worked for and subsequently wasn’t paid by one of the greatest music-biz managers of all time.

  In the mid-1960s radio was in the grip of a so-called ‘nonneedle time’ controversy. With the explosion of vinyl sales and the prevalence of records rather than live tunes being played on the radio, the Musicians’ Union were very worried that musicians were being forced out of work. They campaigned vehemently against this and, consequently, it was agreed that on Radio 1 there had to be a certain amount of what was christened ‘nonneedle time’ – namely the broadcast of live bands rather than just vinyl. It’s absolutely true, strange as it may seem now. DJs like Jimmy Young (who I think is about 128 now) would play the hits of the day and, every now and then, would have to throw in a live track. To be fair, although it sounds archaic now the practical reality was that this regulation did indeed create work for live musicians.

  One of the most renowned ‘non-needle time’ artists was a great singer called James Royal. He was managed by Mr Mervyn Conn who, sadly, is no longer with us. To this day, Mervyn’s moniker remains the most appropriate I’ve ever come across in the business.

  Mervyn Conn . . . because so many of us were conned.

  Despite this apparent managerial handicap, James Royal had made himself one of the most used non-needle-time artists around; it got to the point where James Royal and the Royal Set were getting more phone-in requests than artists with big record deals. I later found out that a large majority of these fan letters came from James’s mum. She lived in south Ealing but wrote dozens of letters to the BBC – to avoid suspicion, she first mailed these letters to her friends around the country who posted them in from distant addresses to avoid detection. Before long, between his mum and the large amount of genuine fan mail and requests he received, James Royal was the most requested person on the radio anywhere in the world.

  Where did I fit into all this and how did my path cross with that of Mervyn Conn?

  Well, my path
to James Royal’s door came via the Red Lion pub in Brentford, a great, old-school rock ’n’ roll pub where musicians from all over the place used to congregate and jam together on a Thursday and Friday night. Loads of amazing players, like John Entwistle (from The Who) and James Royal. For me, as a sixteen-year-old hopeful, it was an incredible privilege to play alongside the likes of these people. I used to go down there in my mate’s battered old Land Rover with my battered old Hammond in the back and spend all night playing with these big-name session musicians. I just loved it.

  James Royal was a really nice guy and I was very flattered one day when he said, ‘Would you like to come in and play a Radio 1 session with me?’

  I nearly fell over in shock.

  ‘And here’s a list of the session guys who’ll be playing with you . . .’

  It was just about every top name I admired.

  ‘And you’ll get paid £2 a session.’

  I was in heaven. You could fill your car up with petrol in those days for £1.

  When the day came I made my way excitedly to the old underground Maida Vale Studios in London which were made famous during the Second World War. It was a fantastic little labyrinth, with a tiny control booth and recording room. They recorded each live session direct onto quarter-inch tape – there was no mixing, it was done as quick as that. I say ‘live’, they would actually bring in about half a dozen musicians who’d play together for around three hours, performances which were recorded and then used for the non-needle time. For some reason, there was always a woman sitting in the corner knitting. With cotton wool stuffed in her ears.

  Later, I asked why she was there and it turned out that her presence was a throwback to the war. Apparently, during the conflict there had been a shortage of skilled producers and technicians, largely because they were all being killed in action, I suppose. So the BBC had brought in a lot of women to do what had previously been seen as ‘men’s jobs’. These women were given permanent contracts so after the war finished the BBC had little choice but to keep them on. These old women would sit in the corner of the studio with their ears blocked against the ‘noise’ of the band . . . and knit.

  Anyway, my first session went very well and, thankfully, James was really pleased with my playing. I was delighted to be asked back and before I could catch my breath I’d done six weeks of sessions. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was great fun.

  Then I realised that I hadn’t yet been paid. I broached the subject with James and he told me that his manager looked after that side of things.

  It was time to go and meet Mervyn Conn.

  His office was up near Leicester Square, so I filled up my little Ford Anglia – you’ll learn more about this legendary automobile later – and drove to London for the very first time. I shat myself – I’d never seen so much traffic in my life and had no idea where I was going. Although I only lived five miles or so outside London, it was in a quiet leafy suburb surrounded by fields and it might as well have been another planet. I vividly remember heading along the A40, my mind a blur, as the chaos of the city enveloped me.

  Somehow, I eventually found Mervyn Conn’s office, right in the middle of the West End. I walked up to the door which had a little sign bearing the inscription – no word of a lie – ‘Mervyn Conn Artists’. At the top of a very narrow staircase there was a small reception area with a girl sitting behind a desk.

  I nervously said, ‘I’ve come to see Mr Conn. I’m Ricky Wakeman.’ (People used to call me Ricky in those days. An early girlfriend said it sounded more American and cool because Richard sounded like an old fart’s name. Perhaps I should be called Richard again now?)

  So . . .

  ‘What band are you from?’

  ‘James Royal and the Royal Set.’

  She went through a door to her left and closed it behind her. Then I heard her say, ‘I’ve got a Rocky Wigwam outside, says he wants to see you.’

  ‘Send him in.’

  I was very nervous as I sat down opposite Mervyn Conn. He was sitting behind an enormous old oak desk, flanked by four walls crammed with gold discs. I remember thinking to myself, Wow! I’ve hit the big time! He was very friendly.

  ‘I’ve heard all about you, Rocky.’

  ‘Er, it’s Ricky, Mr Conn.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard all about you, Ricky.’ He clearly hadn’t got a bloody clue who I was or why I was there. ‘I’ve heard all about what a great player you are.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Conn.’

  ‘James speaks very highly of you and tells me you are one of the country’s best young guitar players.’

  ‘I play the organ, Mr Conn.’

  ‘Yes, one of the country’s best young organ players.’

  ‘I’ve been told to come here to collect my session wages. Six sessions at £2 a session which makes £12, Mr Conn.’

  ‘They are fabulous sessions, aren’t they? Very popular too, you know . . .’

  I just kept saying ‘Yes’ and ‘Thank you very much’ to pretty much anything that came out of Mervyn Conn’s mouth. He kept talking and then suddenly stood up from behind his gigantic desk. Automatically, I stood up too. Mervyn was smaller than I thought, so when he came around by my side he had to reach up to put his arm round my shoulder. He slowly walked me to the door and said, ‘You have a great, great future, Rocky . . .’

  ‘Ricky.’

  ‘Yes, a great, great future, Ricky. From what I hear, you are going to be up there with all the big names.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Conn.’

  As we stood in reception next to the girl on the front desk, he took my hand in both of his and said, ‘Any time you need to chat to me, you know where I am, come and see me.’

  Then he turned, walked through into his office and shut the door.

  I smiled at the girl, delighted by how well the meeting had gone, and made my way down the narrow staircase. I strolled to my car and, just as I was getting in, thought, I haven’t got my money! I walked back up the street, back to the office door, up the narrow staircase and into reception.

  ‘Can I see Mr Conn again, please?’ I said.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s gone out to a meeting.’

  I’d literally been out of the office for thirty seconds.

  ‘When will he be back, please?’

  ‘In a week.’

  ‘Oh. So how can I get hold of him?’

  ‘Just give him a ring.’

  I rang for weeks and weeks but never got through.

  Mervyn Conn.

  I never got paid.

  I took a view on it: I was young, inexperienced and here was a chance to play sessions for the BBC with some of the world’s top players. The £12 would have been wonderful but I still thought I was doing well.

  Years later, I bumped into James and we were laughing about Mervyn and the non-needle-time days. These revered veterans had a genuine affection for those days and felt privileged to have learned so much from them.

  ‘You know, James, I never got paid . . .’

  ‘You know what, Rick? Nobody did!’

  How did a sixteen-year-old come to be playing in a pub with some of the country’s best musicians, you ask? It is a tawdry tale of crap equipment, a riot and an alcoholic baptism of fire, so bear with me . . .

  By the time I was getting ‘paid’ work from Mervyn Conn I was already the veteran of several working bands. Let me tell you first about the fabulously titled Atlantic Blues. Back when I first started, being a pianist posed a practical problem for simple monetary reasons. You could pick up a guitar for about a fiver, but a little electronic piano would set you back about £50 or £60. Given that the average weekly wage was about £14, and my pocket money was 25p in today’s money, this was an astronomical cost. Also, there was no affordable or readily available form of amplification for electronic pianos, so even if you did save up for one the chances were that no one would be able to hear you anyway. The practical repercussion of all these problems was that you ended up making do by pla
ying old-fashioned acoustic pianos.

  Quite often, the line-up of a band was decided more by what gear someone owned than by their actual musical ability. For years, it was said that Bill Wyman first joined the Rolling Stones because he had more equipment than the rest of them. Ken Holden from the Atlantic Blues was the same, although that’s where the similarities between us and the Stones ended. Ken was, by his own admittance, a pretty inadequate drummer behind a full kit, yet oddly, due to him being in the Boys’ Brigade, he was a brilliant snare drummer. He was aware of this foible and even tried to make up a kit out of a Boys’ Brigade snare and a bass drum, but he only had one cymbal. Then he upped the ante by purchasing a Gigster drum kit – it only cost £12 from Woolworth’s and was the cheapest, nastiest, flimsiest kit imaginable. It was so weak that when you hit the foot pedal the bass drum actually went completely oval. On average it took just over twelve seconds to assemble. I believe they are quite valuable nowadays because so many of them didn’t last. Back then, they were shambolically poor but it was a kit so Ken was suddenly in demand. Ken was very like Keith Moon – not in terms of his drumming ability, God no, but due to the fact that he was totally unaware of anything else going on around him.

  Then he pulled a masterstroke.

  He bought a van.

  Never mind: do you want to be in the band? If you had a van, it was your band!

  With Ken’s friend Derek on bass guitar, myself on piano, Ken on drums and a really good rock ’n’ roll guitarist called Alan Leander, we formed the Atlantic Blues in 1963. Ken painted our name down the side of his battered old van and we were in business. We even had a manager, Paul Sutton, also a member of the Boys’ Brigade, aged thirteen. We rehearsed in the Civil Defence Hall in Northolt Park, which was great fun. No one could afford proper amps but fortunately Ken worked as an electrician for London Transport and was a bit of an electronics wizard. He bought a broken old Vortexian amplifier for £1 and somehow fixed it, even wiring up three inputs – the distortion was horrendous and actually only one of the three inputs could really be heard . . . we didn’t care, we had an amp! They hung a mike by my piano so I was virtually amplified; Alan had loaned Ken the £1 to buy the amp so, in return, it was Alan who always got the ‘loud’ socket.