On the Road with George Melly

by Digby Fairweather

  ‘Remarkable film,’ said George. ‘A man’s wife and a whore in the same coffin – and he’s wanking over them. Most stimulating I’d say.’

  At this point Lisa decided the conversation was a little too surreal for her liking, and strolled over to talk to Dominic and Craig who, with the balance of the Half-Dozen, were keeping a respectable distance from their new friend and feeling slightly mystified as to why – so far – he hadn’t bought a welcoming round.

  At last, around one o’clock, it was time to return to our hotel and go to bed.

  In the morning the Half-Dozen gathered together in the breakfast room to be joined in due course by our star clad only in a colourful nightshirt. A waitress approached his table.

  ‘Would you like coffee or tea, sir?’ she enquired.

  George thought for a moment. ‘I’ll have a boiled egg!’ he decided.

  A ripple of laughter ran around the room.

  ‘Well,’ said George, looking pained. ‘I really don’t see what’s so hilarious about a boiled egg.’

  Breakfast with our new guest was a delight. Holding court he told tale after tale and, as Bobby Worth observed later there was no need to intrude on the rich Niagara-style monologue of memories that held the attention of the entire room.

  ‘Once,’ recalled the Master, ‘we were in Wolverhampton in an Indian restaurant, and in comes this huge thug with blood on his face and a bandaged fist and announces “I’m the King of Wolverhampton.” He looks across and says, “You’re George Melly!” “That’s right!” “Well me mum likes you – but I think you’re a load of shite.” All the time he was perfectly friendly. Then he asked for a bottle of whisky and the waiter said, “We can’t serve you, sir – it’s after hours.”

  ‘“But I’m the King of Wolverhampton.”

  ‘So the manager arrives and gives him the bottle of whisky which he drinks – and goes on getting learier until at last he insists on paying. Then he pays again. And then made a hasty exit. After which I caught my train.’

  Our first concert – and our first breakfast – were over at last and now it was time for the long drive home. And then, to set to work.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Getting on the Record

  While the great band changeover was taking place there was a hiatus of four months that autumn while Jack Higgins beavered tirelessly and sometimes vitriolically to relaunch his long-term client in new company. New publicity must be produced, including an expensive and artistic photo session with the Half-Dozen and George for Tom Miller – Jonathan’s son – in north London. And the Feetwarmers, with George, completed their last Christmas season at Ronnie’s. As Jack’s publicity flooded the circuit, it was clear that jobs were coming in at quite a speed. But meantime I was still busy playing one-nighters with the Half-Dozen (including New Year’s Eve at the Pizza Express, Maidstone), as well as with the Great British Jazz Band and Don Lusher’s Best of British Jazz package, guesting with kindly hosts up and down the country and launching my autobiography Notes from a Jazz Life at bookshops in Southend, Bromley and elsewhere.

  So that our first job at the Marlowe Theatre Canterbury didn’t come round until Wednesday, 22 January 2003, when we appeared as part of Jack Higgins’s Giants of Jazz spectacular, alongside Kenny Ball and Humphrey Lyttelton and his band. By that time we had four tunes ready – ‘Old Rockin’ Chair’, an up-tempo ‘Cakewalkin’ Babies from Home’, ‘Trouble in Mind’ featuring Dominic, and a concluding ‘The Joint Is Jumpin’, with a romping Fats Waller-style piano outing for Craig Milverton.

  It was here that I observed for the first time George’s preshow routine. Once his dressing room had been located, the contents of his briefcase – including a packet of Pro-Plus, one of his long-standing liveners – would be laid out with tidy geometric accuracy on the table, his hat nearby and his stagewear (if different from what he was already wearing) hung on a handy hook.

  Our set went well and George was at the top of his form. After an opener from the Half-Dozen, he made his measured way on-stage to sit in an armchair and begin with a stately and dramatic ‘Old Rockin’ Chair’.

  ‘I open with that,’ he explained to the audience, ‘as my former signature tune “Goodtime George” written by John Chilton is far less applicable now. People ask me, “What about sex?” I say no! Mind you I’ve heard they have a new drug in America which combines Viagra with Prozac. So, if you don’t get a fuck, you don’t give a fuck!’

  This produced a roar of laughter and thereafter George had his audience in the palms of both hands. ‘Cakewalkin’ Babies from Home’ followed, on the closing chorus of which George, who sang seated, rose majestically to his feet. ‘I only stood up to alarm you!’ he said as the song came to an end. Then a dramatic ‘Trouble in Mind’, a rousing ‘The Joint Is Jumpin’’ and our part of the show was over.

  What I wasn’t prepared for was the interval brouhaha that accompanied the sale of CDs and books in the foyer. Lisa, however, was more than equal to the task and, with the help of Susan da Costa, Humphrey Lyttelton’s long-time manager and our good friend, we learned quickly how to deal with the queues. While we sold across big trestle tables with a hastily acquired cash float, Humph and George sat well away from the queues, each with a table to himself, signing autographs and chatting with fans. Then it was time for home.

  By this time Jack Higgins’s high-powered publicity had secured us a healthy level of dates and over the next three months we played the Giants of Jazz show at Bedworth, High Wycombe and Truro, as well as solo dates with George at Dudley, Blackburn, Haverhill, Hunstanton, Cambridge, Worcester, and Cole Mathieson’s wonderful club, the Concorde at Eastleigh, near Southampton. By now we were getting to know George rather better – often in the course of the long car journeys for which (for an additional payment of £50) we were contracted to pick up the Master, his stagewear and his supplies of merchandise from west London and return him home safely afterwards.

  The journeys were entertaining and only hampered by George’s increasing deafness which, against the motorway background of a fast car, made conversation virtually impossible. Wide awake and bright-eyed our guest was nevertheless conversationally self-propelling and pleased, at the start of the journey, to entertain his driver and fellow passenger with everything from Max Miller routines to music-hall songs, comedy monologues, jokes and reminiscences of the great and good. An accommodating passenger, he was also happy to stop at motorway services for tea and a light snack (George only ate sparingly), which he would pay for himself before wandering at leisurely speed to buy papers or chocolate. Once back in the car, when conversation was exhausted, he would doze off as we drove.

  Sundays could be a different matter, however. Befitting his long career as a journalist, George loved the Sunday papers and regularly brought them all on the way to or from a concert. As every one was a bonus-filled multi-volume affair, he was soon scarcely visible under a mountain of paper, brilliantly coloured Sunday supplements and catalogues, all of which he scanned before delivering the unwanted remains to the front-seat passenger for perusal or disposal. Any pretty girl would be subject to a ritual which I later discovered had been patented by his girlfriend, Babs (not her real name!), whom we were soon to meet. The pin-up girl’s most private places would be subject to a jabbing finger and high-pitched ‘e-e-e-e-eh’ in acknowledgement of the beauties on show, or semi-concealed.

  As I had never learned to drive, most of the chauffering fell to Julian, Craig and Dominic Ashworth who, with his usual consideration for others, bought a new car to ensure that his guest was comfortable. Seated in the back of this newly acquired vehicle, George looked around with satisfaction.

  ‘Well, this is very nice,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t shat myself for at least a couple of months now. So everything should be fine.’

  Gradually too, we learned about the eccentricities of our guest. ‘I was driving George to one job in my brand-new car,’ Dominic told me four years later, ‘and when he got in he said, “Is it
all right to smoke?” I said, “Sure, George, go ahead” and right away he broke my ashtray. It’s still in pieces now. And when we got close to our destination I was studying the map and George suddenly broke into some Shakespeare and said, “Do you know what that is?” And while I’m still poring over the map, I said, “Sure, George, it’s Shakespeare.” And he said, “Yes, of course – but do you know which play? Ah-ha, I thought as much. It’s Richard the Second.” And all this time I’m trying to read the map and in a way he’s trying to put me down.’

  George was seldom if ever malicious, but he was a great teaser as well as being highly observant of our conversation, particularly of any cliché that invaded our talk. His catalogue of remarkable stories and wondrously anarchic adventures demanded acknowledgement rather than conversational exchange. But my obligingly intentioned and usual response of ‘Really?’ swiftly came under the hammer, returned to me with a particular enthusiasm accompanied by eyebrows disappearing into his greying hair and an exaggerated response to the over-wide smile that I tended to deliver as a visual response to his deafness. George also hated the phrase ‘No problem’. This could be awkward as he was regularly inclined to present his minders with small but knotty difficulties and his dismissal of the phrase following their resolution could produce a moment’s tension.

  He was also inclined to latch on to isolated observations and turn them to permanent visions. Therefore, early on I was branded as eternally hungry for junk food (in fact I’m careful about my bodily intake), unobservant (George unlike me had a quick and perceptive eye for detail of every kind) and ignorant about practically everything apart from jazz. My lack of general art knowledge must have been particularly irritating for him.

  ‘Perhaps you can tell me who painted the Mona Lisa?’ he once enquired with the hint of a malicious grin. And as, in the heat of the inquisition, I was unable to tell him, he produced the expected wagging finger and disbelieving ‘Aaaah . . .’ But underneath the occasional teasing which was a lifelong inheritance from the days of Mulligan, then Chilton, George carried a generous heart and early on in our travels frequently brought treats with him including, on one occasion, quails’ eggs, a delicacy which he much enjoyed and had previously recommended to his fellow travellers. The contents of this large and delicious bagful he shared with his driver and fellow passenger, covering poor Dominic Ashworth’s rear seat with shell and salt.

  Very early on, however, he discovered my interest in erotic art. ‘Do you like cunt? Or fucking? Then next time I shall have something for you.’ And he did – an edition of Erotic Review – later followed up by several more, for which he would give me his considered (and valued) opinion on what was genuinely erotic and what constituted ‘just pin-up pictures really’.

  George was blissfully ignorant of the motorways of Britain, but not averse to holding court at inappropriate moments. And the strain on the navigator – purposely and visibly perusing a map while attempting to respond positively to conversation from the rear – could be considerable. Nick Millward, our resilient and ever good-humoured drummer in later years, often became George’s driver, and quickly got his number, recognising that, once his passenger was any more than a mile from Shepherd’s Bush, his knowledge of navigation was rudimentary at best. This seldom stopped him offering helpful hints, however, which Nick skilfully learned to field.

  ‘I think if you’d taken that little left turn off the Uxbridge Road we’d easily have been home by now . . .’

  ‘George – don’t start!’ As we were rounding Blackheath, ten miles or more from the Uxbridge Road, the reproof was justified.

  Nick also learned to deal with George’s deafies without in any way causing offence.

  ‘What kind of car is this?’

  ‘Diesel.’

  ‘Easel?’

  ‘DIESEL’ (louder this time).

  ‘Threesome?’

  ‘Diesel, you silly old deaf twat!’

  As time went on other more serious hazards than deafness or eccentric efforts at navigation would raise their heads. But that was later.

  In contrast to his social eccentricities off the stand, George was one of the most receptive musicians I had ever encountered. Blissfully ignorant of technical matters such as keys, he was happy to sing whatever he found on the typed programme placed on the music stand next to his rocking chair. As well as selecting repertoire, which rapidly settled into a working programme, I was to set tempii, direct solos and indicate when my new colleague was due to come back in. Perhaps it was the receptive and empathetic side of George that enjoyed direction. And very regularly he would announce to the audience that he’d joined our band, apparently unaware – or at least unconcerned – that it was very much the other way round. We had joined George Melly. And now we were working!

  At this point record producer Peter Clayton raised his ever-enthusiastic head. Peter (not to be confused with the late and much-missed broadcaster) was a highly successful builder in South London with music in his heart and a new company called Robinwood Productions. We’d become great friends when Len Skeat had invited me to become involved in a Robinwood project – unlikely on the face of it – to bring jazz and dancing back to the Albert Hall. To do this Peter had hired the Hall and three British groups – Keith Nichols’ Cotton Club Band, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, singer Carla Valenti, compere Nicky Martin and an all-star line up, which I was to lead and included Dave Shepherd, Tommy Whittle, Roy Williams, Roger Nobes, John Pearce, Len and the great drummer Ronnie Verrell. I was far from sure that even a bill that packed with homegrown talent could fill Britain’s biggest concert hall but Peter was adamant that it could. He advertised his concert in a slew of periodicals (right down to the Women’s Institute Journal) and, to my amazement, later in the year, on the night of 23 September, we walked out to face over three thousand people. For good measure Peter recorded the whole thing and issued it on a double CD Ragtime to Swing recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall.

  ‘Well,’ said Peter one morning, ‘how do you feel about an album with George and the Half-Dozen?’

  ‘Is a frog watertight?’ I said delightedly and we set to work.

  The first matter was to put Peter, the enthusiastic newcomer, in touch with Jack Higgins, the weathered veteran, and Jack drove a professional bargain. We were to record at Clownspocket Studios, in Bexley, run by tenorist Derek Nash in mid-April. George was to be housed for three nights in the five-star Marriott Hotel nearby; the Half-Dozen were to receive full union rates for three days’ recording and I was to receive an extra sum for writing arrangements. Peter was to produce the album, an excellent idea as he has a natural ear for what’s good or not, how a mix should sound and even how an arrangement might be fashioned.

  This talent had already come in handy. In early March, Peter had come to see me play at Grantham Jazz Festival with Don Rendell, a local rhythm section and, most remarkably, a young pianist-singer called Jamie Cullum. Rather to our surprise Jamie really didn’t want to play on our set and was reluctant to read Don’s arrangements. ‘I normally do my own stuff,’ he said self-effacingly and did. Playing a roaring trio set following Don and I, he set light to the room playing driving piano (seated and standing), singing up a storm and playing drums on the piano-top like an intellectual Jerry Lee Lewis. At the point in his show when he included a rock-beat ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’, Peter nudged me.

  ‘You know, Dig,’ he said. ‘George should do “Frankie and Johnny” like that . . .’

  So, with manuscript paper, pencils, sharpener and erasers at the ready, I set to work at Lisa’s piano writing. George and I had talked through tunes and, true to his Bessie Smith roots, he wanted to recreate ‘On Revival Day’ and ‘Trombone Chollie’ but left most of the remaining choices to me. He was receptive to almost all my ideas: ‘Not exactly one of my favourites . . . but, if you want, I’ll sing it of course.’ So I had a clean creative slate and my idea was to re-present some old Melly standards, including ‘Funny Feathers’ from the Mic
k Mulligan days, ‘Dr Jazz’ and ‘Michigan Water Blues’, with material less familiar to Melly lovers, including ‘I Can’t Get Started with You’, ‘Sugar’ and ‘September Song’. Once the creative blister was broken, the ideas came thick and fast. The Half-Dozen is an enormously creative unit which can tackle anything from high-class Dixieland to electric jazz-fusion. So ‘Frankie and Johnny’ could come with a rock-beat and Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’ riff. ‘The Joint Is Jumpin’ could encompass a driving tenor-riff borrowed from Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon. ‘All the Girls Go Crazy’ could re-adopt the basic New Orleans riffs built into the original, then progress to a jump-band conclusion. ‘I Can’t Get Started with You’ could incorporate the under-heard verse with a salute to vintage trumpet-master Bunny Berigan (as well as Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney). And ‘September Song’ would make an appropriate closing track. I was excited, and so was Peter.

  So finally the session days arrived. George had been installed in his hotel the night before and I had lodged with my producer. The day was bright and clear as we drove to the Marriott Hotel to be greeted at its palatial reception.

  ‘We’ve come to collect Mr Melly,’ Peter explained.

  A cloud passed over the receptionist’s face. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I think you might need to go up. There’s a slight problem.’

  And there was. George was flat on his back in his nightshirt, motionless on the bed groaning with pain. A nearby wastebin had been used as a pee-pot.

  ‘I went to the bathroom in the night,’ he said, ‘and slipped on the floor. I managed to crawl back to bed but now I can’t move.’