Froggy and H - fifty years in the biz. And the rest...
I'm sitting with
Raymond Froggatt and long-term collaborator Hartley Cain - or H, as he is universally known - in H's Shropshire studio. The place is packed with H's guitars... and
dulcimers, banjos, mandolins, even an 18-string monster hybrid. And
we're talking about change.
Froggy and H go back half a century. This studio is where they record Raymond's new albums, although the next album
will be live and on video – they're filming Raymond's December 4th
gig at Birmingham Town Hall. H will mix and produce, and they will sync it
to video shot on the night. All of
that, under their control, using their own kit, and released on their
own label.
And here's a demo preview of a new Froggy song - Kentucky Sue - that they graciously let me have for this blog post:
For all that Froggy is a child of the fifties and sixties with long associations with some of the biggest rock and roll monsters in the business, for all that he has generated umpteen millions in royalties and record sales, from which he may well not have had his fair share down the years, he's absolutely not one to complain about bad deals, dodgy managers and stingy publishers
Froggy: "Roy Wood
recommended me to Don Arden, and a lot of what we did was because of
Don's company. Money was no no object... We went all over the
world. Supporting tours with Wizzard and ELO when they first
started. Lots of things that we did in those days wouldn't have
happened without that. And I got on well with Don.
But he had a fearsome
reputation
"I think a lot of people like to play on that.
But Don, really, was a proper mogul. He didn't want a friend – he
wasn't interested in friendships, or going down the pub and having a
drink. If you could make money out of it, he was interested. He
wouldn't know what a great song was. He wanted second opinions. But
because of him, a lot of doors opened for people, not only me.
"Everybody went to see him skint, and they went back after five years,
in a Rolls Royce, to sue him. And he probably wasn't that honest
with all of them, but he opened some doors. He made money, but he
made you a star."
The contacts Froggy
made over fifty years are astonishing. As a sixties kid, he bumped up
against some of the names who created Rock and Roll. A publisher
contact in the US was EH Morris, who eventually sold out to Warner
Chappell. I, like hundreds of radio types who worked in the days before computerised libraries, only know that name from the days of endlessly hand-writing music
returns, and, later, building those digital libraries. Names like EH Morris, Screen Gems, Jobete, Carlin and dozens more are landmarks in the history of rock music, if you care to look and explore. The people behind these names were every bit as powerful as Sam Philips, Brian Epstein or Berry Gordy: all links to times now long gone.
But Froggy actually met EH himself, and most of
Nashville's music royalty from those days. People like the
Jordanaires, who recorded harmonies round one mic, bluegrass style.
Drinking buddies like Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. And most of the
big beasts from the UK music biz.
"Another publisher was Micky Most. He wanted to sign me up for
songwriting with RAK records. I didn't want to sign with him. So he
asked me for one song. I gave him one – Running Water – and I
haven't seen one penny from that song from that day to now!"
"But we're thinking of
re-recording that song now for ourselves. But, as I say, there's
value in people like Don Arden and Micky Most for people like us."
"I did a thing for Richard Branson because of Don Arden, When
he opened the Manor studios - big studio complex in Oxfordshire - he was struggling. He only had the one shop in London. He
was struggling, mortgaged up to the hilt. Don hired the Manor for a
month, for us. And the deal was that our downtime could be used for
Mike Oldfield, because he hadn't got the money to pay for it to be
made."
Let me get this right.
You finish for the day, and Mike Oldfield comes in, and does Tubular
Bells?
"Yeah. Mike was always
there. We'd finish pretty late, and he would go straight in. He
worked on his own."
So what you are saying is: the Virgin Empire was built off the
back of your downtime, which allowed Branson's record label to have
that huge global hit, which then started it all for Virgin?
"Absolutely! I remember
one day, we were recording down there. Remember Viv Stanshall, lovely
Viv? Of the Bonzo Dog Doodah band, for younger readers? Hew came and
spent a couple of days with us. He was a bit of a drinker, and so was
I, mind. We popped down the pub for a few drinks, while the lads were
recording. We were walking up the towpath. I had to go back and do
some vocals, and he said he'd be up in about an hour. With his dog,
Bootleg, a big Irish Wolfhound."
After an hour, Viv came
in, soaking wet. He's fallen in the canalL he had to jump in to save
Bootleg. So then the dog comes in, dry as a bone. And then Viv stood by
the open fire – and fell into it. No damage done, sparks
everywhere. But he dried off... and that was the last time I saw
him. But that was the sort of place the Manor was. And that's the way
I got there."
Were you a bit of a
hellraiser?
"We
all were, in those days. But I'd rather sit down and watch telly than
throw it out the hotel window."
Sit with Froggy for a
spell, and the stories come rolling out. When you've worked for such
a long time, and sold songs all around the world, you get to meet interesting people. 80s kids might remember, with a
shudder, a slew of Hooked on Classics recordings, which jammed much
loved classical tunes together over a robot drum track. It was
remarkably, if tastelessly, successful. One of the people responsible
for all that was Louis Clark, who worked with Froggy for a long time
"Louis was our bass player for eleven years. He did the
orchestral arrangements for us too. We were the first band to use an
orchestra live, at the Belfry in Sutton Coldfield. Roy Wood came to
see it, and all of a sudden we had ELO. Not that I'm complaining.
Lovely man, Roy; a good friend."
It's a long long way
from the sixties. There's a story on this blog about a contemporary of of Froggy's, Don Fardon, who finally got his just deserts after decades when an old song of his was picked up for TV adverts. Don signed a contract on the back
of an envelope, with the Krays... and I'm pretty sure similar things happened to most musicians of that vintage. I'm also pretty sure it still goes on now. And...Froggy? He's diplomatic to a fault. He's not complaining.
He's not too worried about weird covers of his songs either.
Dave Clark's signature tub-thumping version of Red Balloon may not
have been to everyone's taste, but it did him no end of good.
Red Balloon: Dave Clark's version and Froggy's version (complete with, er, Dave Lee Travis speaking bad German)
"When I played Red Balloon to Polydor – we didn't like
signing to them, by the way, we wanted Decca. We had no idea how big
they really were. The other band they had was the Bee Gees – they
said 'That is a world hit'. I had no idea. It was just a song I'd
written – put a shilling the meter, sit down and hope you get it
finished before the electric went. I wrote it in twenty minutes and
it went to to sell 20 million. There's at least sixteen versions, not
counting Dave Clark."
Do you mind that
someone can take your song and turn it inside out?
"Never bothered me. There was a lot of criticism of Dave Clark
at the time. I thought it was a really good thing. I had to write to
the newspapers. But if it hadn't been for Dave, nobody would have
heard the song. We were number one everywhere in Europe with it. But
Dave – everything he did was was successful. All of a sudden you're
a hit songwriter, everyone wants to know you, everyone wants to
record your songs."
Best gig?
"Let's say memorable. We worked at the Icedrome in Tulsa. Huge
place. Pretty memorable, but scary. I hired the London Palladium.
We filled that – fantastic, a gig to remember. And also the Albert
Hall, filled that too. The best? Probably the Belfry, when we did the
orchestra gig. The love and affection I got for my band... we were
only kids, we hadn't got any money. Our bass player conducting the
orchestra. But we were good at it. We were only babbies, but we did
that. We weren't the Beatles, we didn't have George Martin. We did
it all on our own."
Links
Raymond Froggatt website
