Break on through to the other side: when the stars align and things happen

I'd call this a stonking great home run for BBC Introducing. Result! And not before time.  

Will that damn door ever open? 

Webby thinking is that all you need to succeed is to just do it: put it out there, get the recognition you deserve. Why, look at this vlogger, or that musician, or that podcast. They did it, so can you.

But that's a crock, and even the dreamiest of fantasists know that. For the few who go stratospheric using clickbait, provocation, or every weapon that heavyweight old-school marketing can devise (Hi, Adele!), there are thousands of people with something to say who don't get heard.

There's a doorway to go through, a barrier to recognition. Whether the door swings open is down to luck and circumstance. Of course, talent is still essential - unless you go down the X factor route - but nothing is guaranteed, and it gets harder every day.

The door swung open, just a tiny bit, for a few people this past week.

Curtis Little: goodbye to one of the greats

On Friday, I went to another funeral. 

It was to send the great Curtis Little on his way, and to celebrate his life. 

When I landed in Birmingham, two generations ago, I was taken, very early, by Slender Loris, a band that mixed complex intelligent songs with delivery, from Curtis, that was punchy as hell. 

As a DJ, I couldn't believe my luck: a voice like that? On my patch?

Whip-thin, all sinew and muscle, not a spare ounce on his frame, Curtis was the epitome of a front man. He had a voice to die for, rich, soulful, deep, and he really knew how to use it. Where it came from, God only knows. But he was a joy to watch. 

Lives Well Lived

There's more, far more, than one way to define success

Mick Dolan died last month. I found out as a surprisingly wide range of friends and acquaintances marked his passing online. Texts, emails, facebook, tweets: a social media thing. I'll come back to that. That's often how we do this now: appreciation rippling out across the net. Refreshingly, unusually, it was sincere and heartfelt. 

I knew Mick in the mid 70s; he fronted an outfit called Big Front Yard. They were a fine, credible band. They made some lovely stuff, but ultimately didn't get anywhere. Before that, he and his brother were in a Birmingham prog rock outfit, Hard Meat, who didn't tear any trees up but richly deserved to - check this piece from Sam Umland. And don't snigger: that was the age of preposterous band names: Heavy Jelly, or Iron Butterfly, anyone? Hard Meat, never mind the name, did a lot more than most hopefuls: they scored a proper deal with Warners, and even got to play the US. You can find their stuff online...

.... and I think it's worn well, despite the prog trappings. There's some great guitar work in there. Let it play while you read on; it's worth it.

What happened in between then and now? I really can't tell you. I knew he was around. His name would crop up in discussions and music notes. He was respected, well respected. One of those guys doing good things, quietly and well. This year, 45 years on, he was still hard at work as a producer. Here he is, with Kate Gee, and a set of musicians I have a lot of time for. 




These are scraps and fragments: brave, innocent pictures of young men with a lot of hair and a lot of skill; odd recordings posted to YouTube by people who clearly loved Mick's work. It's not a lot. It would be even less without social media, which, bit by bit, collects traces and fragments from decades of work.

Hard Meat, early 70s    

But that's what we have left: files humming in a server somewhere halfway around the world: scraps of our lives. Little virtual milestones marking random moments. It doesn't really tell the full story of how we work and try and fail and try harder. These are lives lived, and the internet flotsam that washes around them is mostly what we're left with. It never tells the full story, but I'm still glad I can look. 

Sometimes we succeed and we have our moments of success. Inevitably, we get old, without noticing, until that change slaps us in the face. Suddenly there are new people, shiny and pumped; they run through the same brick walls we too used to burst through without even noticing. The difference? Now, we notice those walls because we're bouncing off them. It goes without saying that new talent is to be cherished and supported. People helped you on your way; now it's time to pay it forward. 

Mick did that. I try to do that. In fact, I don't really know anyone in music, or radio, who doesn't see that as an obligation. I don't care to know those who don't. 

So the wheel rolls on. Spirited young talent either flies or it doesn't. And when your shining new future doesn't quite work out like you hoped - or even if it does - then there are decisions to make. You love what you do? Stay doing it. But move, shift sideways, find new approaches. If that's what you love, there are ways. And once in a while, you'll bump into someone who remembers what you did back in the day, or who you can work with, and help. Sometimes they help you.

Our media gobbles up the next big thing, and tears down last year's sensations. Social media, with its lack of self-restraint, is especially guilty: it encourages you to jump and shout about the shiny new star you've just discovered. It discourages loyalty and considered appreciation. The next time you catch a likely bunch of swaggering young blades strutting their fine stuff onstage, think of those bands you saw five years ago - the ones that didn't make it. Where are they now?

Mick in '76   © Michael Gray, 2014    

Chances are they're still playing, just maybe not with the same people. Maybe there's a few rough edges been knocked off. Some will have given up and got a proper job, the better to pay for that house and mortgage. Maybe the guys still doing it have developed into much better musicians after their five years of toil. Maybe they still harbour dreams of glory. One thing won't have changed: the love of the music. The ones who jumped in for the love of the music will still be plugging away, and those are the ones we should salute. But - horror of horrors - they're older now. 

On this blog, I write about music and radio people, and their craft. I try to tell stories, and I look at the business trappings. Personally, I adore catching new, brave young talent, fresh and fierce, stealing audience hearts effortlessly. These are people driven by the pure love of music and performance. But so, too, are those - there's a lot of them - who have lived their lives in and around music and radio, and who still pitch up to battered mixing desks and pub stages, or who work behind the scenes to try to do the right thing. It's often the bit in the middle, the ugly business bit, that loses me, despite the fact that the ugly business bit often gives me lurid blog stories that get fantastic responses.

So here's to those people who've put in their shifts, who are burnished by the years, and who add craft and wisdom to their talent and energy. The weird old guy you've never seen before, who sits down at an open mic night, comfortable as you please, and... just blows you away. The battle-scarred veteran who can read your talent and make you shine. The ones who've got miles on the clock, and who still care. The ones who put music nights on for the love of the music, not the money. The ones on whom our entire grassroots scenes depend. These are the ones who share, and in so doing leave behind those little traces of their lives for us to discover - if we're lucky.

Mick was one of those.


See also this very touching May 2015 blog post from Michael Gray

You can find other blog posts on people we've lost here 

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70s heroes: Jim Hickman and Little Acre. Bostin.

The day after Glastonbury wound up, I went to Lower Gornal to meet Jim Hickman. 40 years ago, Hickman was the lynchpin of a killer band that came so, so close to getting there: Little Acre. They had impeccable credentials and terrific Black Country and Birmingham connections. As is so often the case, success and ultimate failure was driven by factors well out of the band's control. Little Acre had a rotating personnel of up to ten, which lead to crowded stages and small returns from gigs. But they were one of the UK's very first successful blue-eyed soul bands. Working in that chronological gap between Rock and Punk, they had a lot of room to move.

Jim was a bass player and powerhouse singer. He's getting on now, could be healthier, but the voice is still there. We met up, caught up... and talked for hours. 

I think you were the first band we pulled into the old BRMB to do a session. All of you, in one tiny studio, recording backing tracks live to stereo, bouncing down if we had to, and then adding vocals. 

I remember the night very well, it was fabulous. We put the tracks on a private album, just for old friends. Mostly it was a cassette of a reunion gig at the Coach and Horses, Willenhall. Roy Williams did a fabulous job on it, on reel to reel. And the BRMB session tracks.

I'm glad they survived! Very little BRMB stuff did. Tell me how the band came together.

I'd just come back from Italy – we'd gone out as a band called State Express, to do 15 days. We stayed three years. We were based in Turin. Three of us came back, two stayed, I did a normal job for a year and when the other two came back, we got together with a few other people in a cellar in Upper Gornal. It went from there, other people came in, some left... 

Tell me something. I remember UK soul bands in the 60s. Mostly they were, frankly, embarrassing. Guys trying to sound like Otis, and failing miserably. Same with the blues bands. If you dig out very early Stones R'n'B cuts, they're pretty awful. But by the 70s, things seemed to have sorted themselves out. You weren't the only ones... but you were one of the bands that hit that spot. Can you explain why?

Influences. Little Acre, as a band of people, enjoyed each other's company. We liked each other. We liked what we were doing. And State Express, the first band, used to back all the soul acts that came over – James and Bobby Purify, Edwin Starr, Sam and Dave... loads of them. And that's where I learned a lot. One of my favourite ladies was Inez Foxx. We did a fabulous tour with her. She was a fantastic Hammond player. Really, really nice. And we did Mocking Bird, and I sang Charlie's part. It used to change on the night, and she insisted that it changed. Experiment with it!

So you got some groove right from the source.

They'd explain things. You'd get this rhythm... 'think of it this way: one foot on the pavement, one foot in the gutter'. Boom–tschk, boom-tschk. They'd use these analogies and you'd get it. 

Now it's gone worldwide

That's the web. Here's a story about the web....I played with Ricky Cool and the Rialtos after Little Acre. Ricky's still going; lovely man. We did a reunion with the Rialtos a couple of years back, at the Robin Hood in Bilston. There was Ricky Cool with the Rialtos, the Big Town Playboys and the Hoola Boola Boys. A night for Ricky, fabulous guys. We were sat in the dressing room having a drink. And all of a sudden the door bursts open and Robert - Robert Plant - walks in, cursing us. 

'You didn't tell me you were bloody playing tonight!' 

Cos the Rialtos were the Honeydrippers for one tour, you see. 

'We didn't know you were in the country!'

'Well, I gotta get up and do something!' 

Which he did; he played for an hour. Anyway, I went to the bar to get a drink, and the place was rammed. There were people there I hadn't seen for years. And I asked a few of them how they knew this was going on... and it was on the net. Great night, and we all got a good wedge. 

Little Acre came to an end – and we'll come to that – but along the way, they recorded with Bob Lamb, in the same King's Heath bedsit studio he used for the first UB40 album. So in a way, they bridged from the soulful sixties right up to the stroppy late seventies; as they were winding down, UB40 were winding up. And their paths crossed in the same studio. 

We recorded some really good stuff. We used to go over, and get him out of bed...

So what happened with Little Acre? You should have made it. You were plenty good enough. 

We were playing the right places in London, we were lined up with a manager, he'd got Atlantic Records nicely warmed up. And then, punk hit. And everybody wanted a punk band. And of course, just before us, there'd been a band called Kokomo. They'd made it hard for other bands like us. A couple of them were a bit starry. So nobody wanted big line-ups.

I think that the industry always wants new kids, not only so they can present the next big thing, but being very cynical, because they can sign them cheap on dodgy contracts. You guys had been knocking around for ten years or so. 

But kids today aren't that stupid.

I've heard a few stories... But that was basically it?

It was sad at the time. We were talking to Mercury Records as well; Chris Rea, bless him, had introduced us. And it all went Pete Tong too. 

To cut a long story short, two members of the band were detained at her Majesty's pleasure for three months, just as punk came in, and that was enough to lose the impetus.

So you carried on working?

Yes. I was with Ricky Cool and the Rialtos, and then Zoo-Q, and then I started writing my own material. And I went off and did other things. The music's not a career. I just write the songs. Now we (Jim and Dave Lowe) work on a laptop, with a time signature, an acoustic guitar, and vocals - I very rarely do retakes. Dave Lowe does the rest.

Its not for everyone, to stay performing or to carry on writing. 

No, I don't think it is. You're part of a jigsaw puzzle, and you don't have control over most of the pieces. So at the end of the day, it's luck. If they out there doh like it, it doh matter how much work you put in to it. 

The conversation wound on. We'd both been watching bits of Glastonbury on the beeb. Robert Plant and Dolly Parton were the subjects – the topics were of survival and craft. Jim was and is a fine musician. He's worked with Plant, and a host of others who went on to great success. 

So do you feel bad about Little Acre getting that close and not making it?

No, no I don't. I have fabulous memories. We did these gigs... some gigs, we only did three numbers. We'd start on a funk groove and stick there. The crowd went with it. I feel very privileged to have been there. It was a fabulous time. But you, know, some of the young bands now... it's such a pleasure to see them too.

It's interesting to look back at the 70s. The early years were a bit... vague. Progrock and Psychedelia had had a good run; Heavy metal was splintering to sub genres; the British Blues Boom had run its course too. The Beatles were over; the Stones were faltering again. Glamrock was big. Image started to really matter. In the middle of all this, a host of bands tried out different grooves, before punk upset the apple cart. Little Acre had their day in the sun, but it should have gone on for longer.

 

See more music posts on Radio To Go

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A local YouTube chart: February 2014

This time last year, the Official Chart company decided not to use YouTube data when compiling the UK charts. Maybe we'd get a bit more metal if they did.

Mvula: big numbers after a big year. But not #1

I do this chart every six months. Again, there's a new leader of the pack, with big numbers. Some people are doing really well - either under their own steam, or with the help of a big marketing push, at both ends of the chart. It's fascinating stuff. Well, I think so.  

By the way, this isn't perfect - it can't be. YouTube numbers, like many Google reckonings, can wander about a bit. Not every genre - like rap battles - fits the criteria. And Ruby Turner would place impressively high if her showcase TV slots with Jools Holland were included – but these are live fan captures, not commissioned videos. 

We don't live in a perfect world. Two charts follow the break: the basic totals, and a breakdown of who's made the most progress in the past six months. Numbers were collected in the week just gone. And if I've missed you out, I'm really sorry. Yell at me in the email box at top right, or drop me a snarky comment, and I'll fix things. 

The Redbeards From Texas started a joke. It very nearly got serious.

A tale of fake beards, real success, and pencil pushing bureaucrats.

A long time ago, a South Birmingham boozer, the Selly Park Tavern, was hosting a radio gathering: lots of people from West Midlands stations, many no longer in existence. 

Onstage: The Redbeards From Texas. A seriously fun band that, later, came this close to breaking though; a whim that almost, almost made it. We’ll get to that. But that night, in front of the assembled might of Midlands radio, they were playing for laughs. They pulled people up onstage to sing with them. 

That was fun... until they fingered me. Ooops. I didn’t know the words to Born In The USA, so I bawled the chorus a couple of times, and retreated in confusion. Oh, the humiliation, and all in front of a roomful of my peers. Bastards. 

If you google ‘Redbeards From Texas’ now, thirty years after their glory days, you’ll find a surprising amount of material – videos, a discography and reminiscences. This was a band that made a mark. Craig Fenney (aka Bud Weiser), has a ton of stories after the jump.