Off Topic Gigs, Concert and Live Music
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Edgar Broughton and Stray appearing at Wrecking Ball in the next few months - I saw Stray at city hall in 71 - that was 52 years ago and Del Bromham has carried on ever since - same with Edgar Broughton, he did a free concert in East Park around the same time - seen them both many times over the years - i've put a great video of one of Stray's tracks which shows many concert tickets of the time - it's amazing to see some of the support acts who became much bigger in subsequent years
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Took in this little performance last night. Not a bad little gaff, but not a patch on the Welly in November 1980, my first ever gig.
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Can’t quite recall, as I drank ‘red ale’ or something in there a few weeks ago.
They do lager, but I’ve a feeling the draft beers change periodically anyway
Was going to stick it on the RIP thread but sits better here I think
Jim Gordon obituary
Influential rock drummer of the 1960s and 70s who played with George Harrison and Eric Clapton
Richard Williams
Amid the freewheeling rock scene of the late 1960s and early 70s, the drummer Jim Gordon was one of a group of accomplished young American session musicians who emerged from the shadows of the recording studios to become public figures in their own right, thanks to the enthusiastic patronage of such superstars as George Harrison, Eric Clapton and John Lennon.
Gordon, who has died in a US prison aged 77, began his career with the Everly Brothers in 1964. By the time he crossed the Atlantic to contribute to Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Clapton’s Layla and Lennon’s Power to the People, he had played on many hit records in the Los Angeles studios – including the Everlys’ Love Is Strange, Mason Williams’s Classical Gas, the Byrds’ Goin’ Back, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Marrakesh Express and the Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds.
He would bring his skills to many other hits throughout the 70s, including Maria Muldaur’s Midnight at the Oasis, Glen Campbell’s Gentle on My Mind, Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose that Number, Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain and Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust.
Psychiatric problems had already slowed his career when, in 1983, it crashed to a halt. In an episode that would later be diagnosed as schizophrenia, he used a hammer and a knife to murder his 71-year-old mother, Osa Marie Gordon, later claiming that he had heard voices telling him to kill her. Handed a sentence of 16 years to life, he entered the prison system and never emerged, allegedly refusing to attend parole hearings before dying of natural causes at a medical and psychiatric facility in Vacaville, California.
Brought up in the San Fernando Valley, he was the son of Osa Marie, a nurse, and an alcoholic father. At eight he built his own drum set and at 12 was given a proper kit. Attending Grant high school, he performed with the Burbank Symphony Orchestra while evading age regulations to play at loc al clubs, and turned down a music scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles, in order to turn professional.
Soon he was establishing himself alongside Jim Keltner as the most adept of the younger Hollywood studio drummers. Through his friendship with another session man, the pianist Leon Russell, he would become part of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, a touring troupe put together by Russell at a week’s notice, and a similar aggregation led by the singers Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, which was where Gordon met Clapton in 1969.
While they were recording All Things Must Pass in London the following year, Clapton invited Gordon and two fellow Americans, the pianist Bobby Whitlock and the bassist Carl Radle, to form the quartet billed, thanks to Clapton’s conflicted attitude to fame, as Derek and the Dominos. “I was in absolute awe of these people,” Clapton recalled. “I’d never felt so musically free before.”
Gordon, far right, with Delaney and Bonnie, Eric Clapton, seated, and George Harrison, third left, at Colston Hall, Bristol, 1969. Photograph: Watford/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
With Duane Allman, another American, added as a second guitarist, the group recorded a Clapton song called Layla, inspired by a Sufi love poem. Several weeks later Clapton came across Gordon sitting at the studio piano, picking out a haunting melody over a descending chord progression. Thinking that it would make a striking addition to the song, he asked Gordon’s permission to use it.
Once the band had recorded it, with Gordon at the piano, it was spliced on to the original Layla as a four-minute coda and included in the band’s debut album, released at the end of 1970. Although the album was a commercial flop, the song’s inclusion in a Clapton anthology two years later led to its release as a single and subsequent worldwide chart success. Later the singer Rita Coolidge, then Gordon’s girlfriend, claimed to have played a part in writing it, although she received no credit.
Disagreements not unrelated to the band’s prodigious consumption of drugs and alcohol led to a breakup during the early stages of preparation for a second album. Gordon was soon invited to join Traffic, his arrival freeing the group’s regular drummer, Jim Capaldi, to concentrate on singing.
Returning to Los Angeles, he resumed his life in the studios with artists from Barbra Streisand to John Lee Hooker, Van Dyke Parks to the Carpenters. He played on Jackson Browne’s The Pretender and Tom Waits’s The Heart of a Saturday Night, and in 1974 he toured Europe with the singer Johnny Rivers.
But consistency and dependability are as important to a session musician as technique and versatility, and work had dried up by the time he committed matricide. Coolidge later confirmed that Gordon had assaulted her during the course of their relationship.
During his four decades of incarceration and treatment, a drum break from the cover version of the Shadows’ instrumental hit Apache, which Gordon had recorded with the Incredible Bongo Band in 1973, became a favoured sample of hip-hop artists.
Two marriages, to Jill Gordon, a dancer, and Renée Armand, a singer and songwriter, ended in divorce. He is survived by a daughter, Amy, from the first marriage.
Jim Gordon (James Beck Gordon), drummer, born 14 July 1945; died 13 March 2023
Jim Gordon obituary
Influential rock drummer of the 1960s and 70s who played with George Harrison and Eric Clapton
Richard Williams
You must log in or register to see images
Amid the freewheeling rock scene of the late 1960s and early 70s, the drummer Jim Gordon was one of a group of accomplished young American session musicians who emerged from the shadows of the recording studios to become public figures in their own right, thanks to the enthusiastic patronage of such superstars as George Harrison, Eric Clapton and John Lennon.
Gordon, who has died in a US prison aged 77, began his career with the Everly Brothers in 1964. By the time he crossed the Atlantic to contribute to Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Clapton’s Layla and Lennon’s Power to the People, he had played on many hit records in the Los Angeles studios – including the Everlys’ Love Is Strange, Mason Williams’s Classical Gas, the Byrds’ Goin’ Back, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Marrakesh Express and the Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds.
He would bring his skills to many other hits throughout the 70s, including Maria Muldaur’s Midnight at the Oasis, Glen Campbell’s Gentle on My Mind, Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose that Number, Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain and Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust.
Psychiatric problems had already slowed his career when, in 1983, it crashed to a halt. In an episode that would later be diagnosed as schizophrenia, he used a hammer and a knife to murder his 71-year-old mother, Osa Marie Gordon, later claiming that he had heard voices telling him to kill her. Handed a sentence of 16 years to life, he entered the prison system and never emerged, allegedly refusing to attend parole hearings before dying of natural causes at a medical and psychiatric facility in Vacaville, California.
Brought up in the San Fernando Valley, he was the son of Osa Marie, a nurse, and an alcoholic father. At eight he built his own drum set and at 12 was given a proper kit. Attending Grant high school, he performed with the Burbank Symphony Orchestra while evading age regulations to play at loc al clubs, and turned down a music scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles, in order to turn professional.
Soon he was establishing himself alongside Jim Keltner as the most adept of the younger Hollywood studio drummers. Through his friendship with another session man, the pianist Leon Russell, he would become part of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, a touring troupe put together by Russell at a week’s notice, and a similar aggregation led by the singers Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, which was where Gordon met Clapton in 1969.
While they were recording All Things Must Pass in London the following year, Clapton invited Gordon and two fellow Americans, the pianist Bobby Whitlock and the bassist Carl Radle, to form the quartet billed, thanks to Clapton’s conflicted attitude to fame, as Derek and the Dominos. “I was in absolute awe of these people,” Clapton recalled. “I’d never felt so musically free before.”
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Gordon, far right, with Delaney and Bonnie, Eric Clapton, seated, and George Harrison, third left, at Colston Hall, Bristol, 1969. Photograph: Watford/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
With Duane Allman, another American, added as a second guitarist, the group recorded a Clapton song called Layla, inspired by a Sufi love poem. Several weeks later Clapton came across Gordon sitting at the studio piano, picking out a haunting melody over a descending chord progression. Thinking that it would make a striking addition to the song, he asked Gordon’s permission to use it.
Once the band had recorded it, with Gordon at the piano, it was spliced on to the original Layla as a four-minute coda and included in the band’s debut album, released at the end of 1970. Although the album was a commercial flop, the song’s inclusion in a Clapton anthology two years later led to its release as a single and subsequent worldwide chart success. Later the singer Rita Coolidge, then Gordon’s girlfriend, claimed to have played a part in writing it, although she received no credit.
Disagreements not unrelated to the band’s prodigious consumption of drugs and alcohol led to a breakup during the early stages of preparation for a second album. Gordon was soon invited to join Traffic, his arrival freeing the group’s regular drummer, Jim Capaldi, to concentrate on singing.
Returning to Los Angeles, he resumed his life in the studios with artists from Barbra Streisand to John Lee Hooker, Van Dyke Parks to the Carpenters. He played on Jackson Browne’s The Pretender and Tom Waits’s The Heart of a Saturday Night, and in 1974 he toured Europe with the singer Johnny Rivers.
But consistency and dependability are as important to a session musician as technique and versatility, and work had dried up by the time he committed matricide. Coolidge later confirmed that Gordon had assaulted her during the course of their relationship.
During his four decades of incarceration and treatment, a drum break from the cover version of the Shadows’ instrumental hit Apache, which Gordon had recorded with the Incredible Bongo Band in 1973, became a favoured sample of hip-hop artists.
Two marriages, to Jill Gordon, a dancer, and Renée Armand, a singer and songwriter, ended in divorce. He is survived by a daughter, Amy, from the first marriage.
Jim Gordon (James Beck Gordon), drummer, born 14 July 1945; died 13 March 2023
In my top 5 without a doubt...
"Layla" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally recorded with their band Derek and the Dominos, as the thirteenth track from their only ...
Recorded: 9 September 1970
Genre: Rock
Length: 7:04 (album version); 2:43 (single vers...
Released: March 1971
Layla and Other Assorted Love... · Layla (disambiguation) · Majnun
Layla · Derek & The Dominos Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs ℗ 2010 Polydor Ltd. (UK) Released on: 2011-01-01 Producer: Derek & The Dominos Associated Performer, Vocals: Eric Clapton Associated Performer, Guitar: Duane Allman Associated Performer, Organ: Bobby Whitlock Associated Performer, Bass Guitar: Carl Radle Associated Performer, Drums: Jim Gordon Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Ron Albert Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Chuck Kirkpatrick Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Howie Albert Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Karl Richardson Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Mac Emmerman Composer Lyricist: Eric Clapton Composer Lyricist: James Beck Jim Gordon
More;
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/03/jim-gordon-1945-2023-drummer.html
"Layla" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally recorded with their band Derek and the Dominos, as the thirteenth track from their only ...
Recorded: 9 September 1970
Genre: Rock
Length: 7:04 (album version); 2:43 (single vers...
Released: March 1971
Layla and Other Assorted Love... · Layla (disambiguation) · Majnun
You must log in or register to see media
Layla · Derek & The Dominos Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs ℗ 2010 Polydor Ltd. (UK) Released on: 2011-01-01 Producer: Derek & The Dominos Associated Performer, Vocals: Eric Clapton Associated Performer, Guitar: Duane Allman Associated Performer, Organ: Bobby Whitlock Associated Performer, Bass Guitar: Carl Radle Associated Performer, Drums: Jim Gordon Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Ron Albert Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Chuck Kirkpatrick Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Howie Albert Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Karl Richardson Studio Personnel, Recording Engineer: Mac Emmerman Composer Lyricist: Eric Clapton Composer Lyricist: James Beck Jim Gordon
More;
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/03/jim-gordon-1945-2023-drummer.html
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Y theatre in Leicester last week . Playing Mott the Hoople/Ian Hunter stuff.
Good night
https://www.google.com/search?q=The...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3a80b625,vid:I2xY4d-GHo0
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I remember seeing Mott The Hoople at Malcolms, early 70s - great but crazy gig, their drummer ''Buffin'' wrecked the ceiling above the stage!
Them was the daze...
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Saw them a couple of years ago at Newcastle City Hall - still going strong.
I once saw Wreckless Eric in HMV in York - he played "Whole Wide World" to about 10 of us 
Thanks for the warning ,I will make sure I avoid the area .
I've got 3 drumsticks and 2 bullets from Overend Watts guitar strap from that gig
Think he’s on at Adelphi in October
He has this brilliant ability to inspire’: cult rock eccentric John Otway’s never-ending tour hits Gibraltar
Fans of ‘Rock and Roll’s Biggest Failure’ have taken him from Top of the Pops to Cannes, and keep him touring constantly in his 70s. We head to a fan convention to find out why
It’s Sunday evening at the All’s Well bar in Gibraltar and the jukebox is playing non-stop John Otway songs. The great rock eccentric is leading fans in the call-and-response parts of his 2002 heavy-rock version of House of the Rising Sun, originally recorded at Abbey Road with 1,000 fans on guest vocals. The bar staff look on in amusement. “It was so special,” says Sarah Hatton, a 61-year-old lorry driver from Cornwall, afterwards. “John looked so happy.”
This is John Otway’s Wee Rock weekend– named after one of his songs and held on the wee rock of Gibraltar. Equal parts DIY punk and comedic entertainer, Otway is a veteran of more than 5,000 gigs across five decades of attention-grabbing stunts. Now 70, he still plays dozens of dates a year. To celebrate 30 years of his four-piece Otway Big Band, he has brought 100 fans to Gibraltar for one of his regular international excursions.
When I first started seeing him in the 1980s, I thought – from my perspective as an Italian – there was something quintessentially English and end-of-the-pier about Otway: flailing away in his trademark black trousers and white shirt, cartwheeling across the stage, jumping off ladders and deliberately head-butting the microphone – almost like a rock’n’roll Tommy Cooper. This is my first time on one of his oversees jaunts, surrounded by Otway lifers. “We’re like the Otway family,” says Debs Smith, 61, from Nottingham, who sang at the Abbey Road sessions. “We don’t see each other for a couple of years, then meet up at these events and pick up like we never left off.”
Otway’s career has been a seat-of-the-pants journey that started with a nine-year-old Aylesbury boy’s obsession with becoming a pop star. “He was a weird and interesting character with enormous self-belief and absolutely no ability,” laughs Chris France, a friend since Otway’s teenage years and a music industry veteran. He’s visiting from Portugal with wife, Issy. “Otway had a blind faith and determination and I got caught up in his crusade,” he says.
John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett in 1980.Photograph: Goddard Archive/Alamy
That crusade started in the early 1970s, at local fixture Wild Willy Barrett’s weekly folk club, the Bog Hog, above the Derby Arms in Aylesbury. For four weeks, Otway played Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? When Barrett insisted he learn another song, he started writing his own. In 1972, with £100 borrowed from Chris France, Otway and Barrett recorded the double A-side single Gypsy/Misty Mountain. He borrowed another £100 to produce 500 copies. One found its way to John Peel, and then to Pete Townshend, who produced four more songs for them.
In 1977, Polydor bought the rights to their first album, titled John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett, and the duo appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Otway’s maniacal performance ended with him misjudging a leap on to Barrett’s guitar amp and landing on his groin on the amp. He finished the song on his knees in agony, a furious Barrett grabbing his throat. The result was a sales surge, a Top of the Pops appearance and a three-year contract with Polydor.
Otway burned through the money, buying a Bentley he couldn’t drive and flying to LA to rerecord the song Geneve with a 100-piece orchestra to impress the old flame the song was written for. Popular musical tastes changed and Polydor dropped him. Undeterred, Otway started calling himself Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure. But as his audience shrank, they became more fervent, captivated by his famously rambunctious shows.
Dave and Sue James, both in their 60s, have come to Gibraltar from Shoreham. “The first time I saw him in Brighton in 1976 he did a somersault and took out the first two rows,” says Dave. “There were pints flying everywhere!”
Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure: Otway the Movie met the deadline. Attendees and donors were credited as producers; Barker filmed them walking in and edited them into the end of the film as it was screening.
Armed with their own IMDb credits, more than 100 fans followed Otway to the Cannes film festival, where they charged the promenade dressed in his trademark attire and wearing Otway masks. (They even got Miss France to wear one). “It’s been suggested that I was crowdfunding before crowdfunding was even invented,” says Otway, reflecting on his fan loyalty. But the truth might be more organic than that.
“He has this brilliant ability to inspire,” says France. “He inspired me to go into music and be successful at it. He’s an enigma, an English treasure and still a work in progress. He can communicate with people in a way I’ve never seen before. He’s a warm person, he’ll help when he can and be happy to be helped. We’ve all stuck our necks out over the years. He inspires support and loyalty.”
Otway’s philosophy is simple: “When you do a great gig, you want to have a beer with the audience afterwards. I would feel really disappointed if I was kept away from the party.”
In 2017, Otway wanted to be the first person to record on the Caribbean island of Montserrat since the Rolling Stones made Steel Wheels in George Martin’s Air studios, which was destroyed by a hurricane and a volcano in 1989. “The studio was in such bad shape that while we were scouting for a space to build a temporary studio, the guy showing us around fell through the floor,” says Steve Barker. “On the last day, we discovered that George Martin had a soundproofed cinema in his basement.” Favours were called, sleeves were tugged and Martin, a month before his death, gave his blessing. Otway crowdfunded to build a temporary studio, and 50 fans flew out for the recording, singing backing vocals with local school kids. “We ended up at the governor’s mansion dressed up and having wine and canapés,” marvels Sarah Hatton.
John Otway performing in 1977. Photograph: Howard Barlow/Redferns
On finishing the album – which he titled Montserrat – Otway donated the recording equipment to the children, to be overseen by Peter Filleul, a local music teacher and member of the Climax Blues Band. His kindness is typical, says John Skews, a fan from Sheffield who has been running Otway’s merch for eight years. “Before we went to Montserrat, I had a personalised notebook made with a gold disc on the cover and the joke: ‘John Otway: 50,000 record sales’. I said: ‘Go on, write me a hit.’ He used it to write the lyrics for Montserrat. The trip coincided with my 50th: on my birthday he returned the notebook with all his handwritten lyrics.”
On Saturday night in Gibraltar, Otway’s well-versed fans shower him with flowers as he starts the first of two sets with his song Beware of the Flowers. He sports a plastic seagull mask for a soaring Seagulls on Speed, and ends with 1978’s Geneve, a tender love song about his first heartbreak. Then it’s time for drinks with the fans until closing time.
“I always used to fret that I would never achieve the sort of mega-stardom I thought I was destined for,” Otway had said earlier. “But I’ve made enough money to bring my family up on. You can talk to all your fans and it’s a micro-audience for a micro-star, but that micro-audience is very loyal, and I do really enjoy them as much as I hope they enjoy me.
“It is a lovely level of stardom. The fans are probably more avid than anybody else’s fans. If any big person’s fans are that avid, they’re probably stalkers!”
John Otway is touring the UK now. Otway and Wild Willy Barrett’s 50th anniversary tour commences in April. See johnotway.com
He has this brilliant ability to inspire’: cult rock eccentric John Otway’s never-ending tour hits Gibraltar
Fans of ‘Rock and Roll’s Biggest Failure’ have taken him from Top of the Pops to Cannes, and keep him touring constantly in his 70s. We head to a fan convention to find out why
You must log in or register to see images
It’s Sunday evening at the All’s Well bar in Gibraltar and the jukebox is playing non-stop John Otway songs. The great rock eccentric is leading fans in the call-and-response parts of his 2002 heavy-rock version of House of the Rising Sun, originally recorded at Abbey Road with 1,000 fans on guest vocals. The bar staff look on in amusement. “It was so special,” says Sarah Hatton, a 61-year-old lorry driver from Cornwall, afterwards. “John looked so happy.”
This is John Otway’s Wee Rock weekend– named after one of his songs and held on the wee rock of Gibraltar. Equal parts DIY punk and comedic entertainer, Otway is a veteran of more than 5,000 gigs across five decades of attention-grabbing stunts. Now 70, he still plays dozens of dates a year. To celebrate 30 years of his four-piece Otway Big Band, he has brought 100 fans to Gibraltar for one of his regular international excursions.
When I first started seeing him in the 1980s, I thought – from my perspective as an Italian – there was something quintessentially English and end-of-the-pier about Otway: flailing away in his trademark black trousers and white shirt, cartwheeling across the stage, jumping off ladders and deliberately head-butting the microphone – almost like a rock’n’roll Tommy Cooper. This is my first time on one of his oversees jaunts, surrounded by Otway lifers. “We’re like the Otway family,” says Debs Smith, 61, from Nottingham, who sang at the Abbey Road sessions. “We don’t see each other for a couple of years, then meet up at these events and pick up like we never left off.”
Otway’s career has been a seat-of-the-pants journey that started with a nine-year-old Aylesbury boy’s obsession with becoming a pop star. “He was a weird and interesting character with enormous self-belief and absolutely no ability,” laughs Chris France, a friend since Otway’s teenage years and a music industry veteran. He’s visiting from Portugal with wife, Issy. “Otway had a blind faith and determination and I got caught up in his crusade,” he says.
You must log in or register to see images
John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett in 1980.Photograph: Goddard Archive/Alamy
That crusade started in the early 1970s, at local fixture Wild Willy Barrett’s weekly folk club, the Bog Hog, above the Derby Arms in Aylesbury. For four weeks, Otway played Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? When Barrett insisted he learn another song, he started writing his own. In 1972, with £100 borrowed from Chris France, Otway and Barrett recorded the double A-side single Gypsy/Misty Mountain. He borrowed another £100 to produce 500 copies. One found its way to John Peel, and then to Pete Townshend, who produced four more songs for them.
In 1977, Polydor bought the rights to their first album, titled John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett, and the duo appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Otway’s maniacal performance ended with him misjudging a leap on to Barrett’s guitar amp and landing on his groin on the amp. He finished the song on his knees in agony, a furious Barrett grabbing his throat. The result was a sales surge, a Top of the Pops appearance and a three-year contract with Polydor.
Otway burned through the money, buying a Bentley he couldn’t drive and flying to LA to rerecord the song Geneve with a 100-piece orchestra to impress the old flame the song was written for. Popular musical tastes changed and Polydor dropped him. Undeterred, Otway started calling himself Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure. But as his audience shrank, they became more fervent, captivated by his famously rambunctious shows.
Dave and Sue James, both in their 60s, have come to Gibraltar from Shoreham. “The first time I saw him in Brighton in 1976 he did a somersault and took out the first two rows,” says Dave. “There were pints flying everywhere!”
Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure: Otway the Movie met the deadline. Attendees and donors were credited as producers; Barker filmed them walking in and edited them into the end of the film as it was screening.
Armed with their own IMDb credits, more than 100 fans followed Otway to the Cannes film festival, where they charged the promenade dressed in his trademark attire and wearing Otway masks. (They even got Miss France to wear one). “It’s been suggested that I was crowdfunding before crowdfunding was even invented,” says Otway, reflecting on his fan loyalty. But the truth might be more organic than that.
“He has this brilliant ability to inspire,” says France. “He inspired me to go into music and be successful at it. He’s an enigma, an English treasure and still a work in progress. He can communicate with people in a way I’ve never seen before. He’s a warm person, he’ll help when he can and be happy to be helped. We’ve all stuck our necks out over the years. He inspires support and loyalty.”
Otway’s philosophy is simple: “When you do a great gig, you want to have a beer with the audience afterwards. I would feel really disappointed if I was kept away from the party.”
In 2017, Otway wanted to be the first person to record on the Caribbean island of Montserrat since the Rolling Stones made Steel Wheels in George Martin’s Air studios, which was destroyed by a hurricane and a volcano in 1989. “The studio was in such bad shape that while we were scouting for a space to build a temporary studio, the guy showing us around fell through the floor,” says Steve Barker. “On the last day, we discovered that George Martin had a soundproofed cinema in his basement.” Favours were called, sleeves were tugged and Martin, a month before his death, gave his blessing. Otway crowdfunded to build a temporary studio, and 50 fans flew out for the recording, singing backing vocals with local school kids. “We ended up at the governor’s mansion dressed up and having wine and canapés,” marvels Sarah Hatton.
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John Otway performing in 1977. Photograph: Howard Barlow/Redferns
On finishing the album – which he titled Montserrat – Otway donated the recording equipment to the children, to be overseen by Peter Filleul, a local music teacher and member of the Climax Blues Band. His kindness is typical, says John Skews, a fan from Sheffield who has been running Otway’s merch for eight years. “Before we went to Montserrat, I had a personalised notebook made with a gold disc on the cover and the joke: ‘John Otway: 50,000 record sales’. I said: ‘Go on, write me a hit.’ He used it to write the lyrics for Montserrat. The trip coincided with my 50th: on my birthday he returned the notebook with all his handwritten lyrics.”
On Saturday night in Gibraltar, Otway’s well-versed fans shower him with flowers as he starts the first of two sets with his song Beware of the Flowers. He sports a plastic seagull mask for a soaring Seagulls on Speed, and ends with 1978’s Geneve, a tender love song about his first heartbreak. Then it’s time for drinks with the fans until closing time.
“I always used to fret that I would never achieve the sort of mega-stardom I thought I was destined for,” Otway had said earlier. “But I’ve made enough money to bring my family up on. You can talk to all your fans and it’s a micro-audience for a micro-star, but that micro-audience is very loyal, and I do really enjoy them as much as I hope they enjoy me.
“It is a lovely level of stardom. The fans are probably more avid than anybody else’s fans. If any big person’s fans are that avid, they’re probably stalkers!”
John Otway is touring the UK now. Otway and Wild Willy Barrett’s 50th anniversary tour commences in April. See johnotway.com
If you only watch one failed rock n roller documentary this year, make it Otway The Movie.
It's Really Free (so long as you've got a Netflix subscription).
I saw Otway for the first time in the early 80’s, then saw him again twenty years later supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods at a maté’s festival in Oxfordshire. He was equally bonkers on both occasions and remains the only performer I’ve ever seen play two guitars, hinged together, one with the right hand and the other with the left.
Malcolms, brings back memories, worked behind the bar on a weekend when it first opened. Down to The Old Town in the early hours after closing for a few beers with a few of the other staff, home for 6am.