‘The Blues Muse’ a novel on Rock Music – Georgia and the South

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

Georgia and the South

Once again I had fallen on my feet. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Little Richard must have heard something in my playing that he liked or at least nothing that he took exception to. As I was there in that band I just fell into place and was slotted in. I had a feel for that beat and a desire to be part of the storm.

Touring was crazy, particularly on the package tours. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Craze was sweeping the nation and the promoters were quick to jump on the wagon. They figured it was likely to last a week or two and be gone; they had to make their bucks while it lasted. They put together package tours with all the guys from Sun Records and lumped in Fats Domino and Little Richard.

The rivalry between Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis was immense. They both wanted to blow each other off stage, both used the piano as a weapon, a stage prop and a visual aid as much as an instrument.

On the bus we all got along fine, black and white. We were musicians. We played cards, swapped riffs, talked music and goofed. Those journeys were long and the heat was intense. There was no air-conditioning back then. You sweated and you fried, even with the windows open it was only hot air that blew through. It burned you up and made you grouchy but we coped.

But it was when we stopped that the trouble began. On the bus we all mingled as one. Off the bus we were divided. The whites went off to their eaters and we went to ours, we drank from different water fountains and even used different toilets. When we stopped for the night they got hotel rooms and we got flop-houses that stank, had roaches and bugs. Sometimes we couldn’t find nowhere to put us up and we slept on the bus while they enjoyed a nice bed.

In the concerts it was more of the same. Little Richard was causing a dilemma. The white kids were going nuts for the music. Little Richard was black and was used to playing to black audiences. At these shows there were just as many white kids as there were black. The promoters split the auditoriums in two with white kids on one side and blacks on the other. They thought they’d got it sussed but they hadn’t reckoned with the power of Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Jerry Lee and Little Richard sent those kids into a frenzy. They didn’t care if they was black or white or green; they just wanted to get out of those seats and let the music take them. Within minutes they were screaming, rushing the stage and dancing in the aisles. There was no stopping them. Black and white, side by side, digging that sound, in ecstasy, shrieking and rockin’ their hearts out.

Behind the scenes there was turmoil. The promoters were threatening the acts. They didn’t want the shows pulled. The police were threatening the promoters; they didn’t like to lose control. The establishment was in uproar. They didn’t want their sons and daughters driven into a frenzy by this decadent primitive beat. They saw it as a moral degrading outrage and the mixing of the races was indicative of all that was wrong with the world, the decay of civilisation. The performers didn’t give a hoot. They were having a great time. They loved every minute. Neither Jerry Lee nor Little Richard would back down. They wanted escalation. They both thought they were the greatest. Elvis might say he was the King but they knew different. Their egos saw all that reaction and stoked it up. They both thought they should close out the show, be the headlining act. They both looked for ways to upstage and outdo each other.

From where we stood in the backing group we saw that it couldn’t get any wilder. Jerry Lee would kick his stool across the stage, spring up on to the piano and pound the keys with his feet, he used his elbows and backside, and went crazy, long wavy hair hanging over his face. The fans threw themselves against the thin line of police and did their utmost to get a piece of him. They went berserk.

Little Richard was not about to be outdone. He played with his leg straight up on the keyboard, jumped on the piano and ran on and off stage. He drove the crowd into such a frenzy that they stormed the stage with girls throwing underwear at him.

At one show Jerry Lee was so incensed at having to take his turn at going on first that he took a can of gasoline on stage and finished with ‘Great Balls of Fire’; he soaked the piano and set fire to it.

Walking past a disconcerted Little Richard, as the flames roared behind him, he dusted his hands and said ‘Follow that Richard’.

We stood there and wondered just how he was going to.

Somehow the racial thing niggled at me. I found myself resenting it. It wasn’t the white guys fault. I could see they were embarrassed by it.

Another section of ‘The Blues Muse’ – early Elvis in Memphis

Posted on by Opher

A novel that dogs the history of Rock Music. Join Elvis in Memphis.

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

Memphis

Somehow I’d bypassed Memphis. Although I’d passed through and busked a bit I hadn’t stayed long enough to get my feet under the table. Most folks caught it on the way up, stayed a while and made their mark. It was like a staging post on the way to Chicago. The Wolf rolled in and out on his way to Chess.

I had rekindled a shred of ambition. I’d heard about this talent scout called Sam Phillips who checked out the local R&B and Country acts. He was acting for the Chess and Vee-Jay labels in Chicago. If he liked you he sent you on. But he’d also been recording his own talent and had set up his own studio with the Sun Record Label and Memphis Recording Service.

I wasn’t sure about the chances of a recording career but I had hopes of getting into the house band and ambition enough to want to move into recording. I thought there might be an opening there for me. Sam sounded like the kind of guy who knew what he wanted. He’d recorded the Wolf and Rufus Thomas. I thought I might just get lucky.

Sam Phillips seemed happy enough to hear me out. He listened to my guitar and said he liked it but I soon figured that he did not want to record me. He was busy looking for something different. I didn’t fit the bill. If I wanted to record I’d have to pay for the pleasure and that wasn’t what I wanted. I also found that there were no openings for soundmen or scouts. I had no way forward and my contacts were simply not opening any doors.

But Beale Street was a revelation. It was jumping. The place was packed with marks and every bar, club, bordello and street corner was pumping out a different sound. It reminded me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. This was my kind of place.

The only trouble was that every other Joe Soap had the same idea. The place was packed out with musicians all trying to claw a living. It was jumping but it was sure hard to find a place to jump in.

I drifted back to Sun Studio more in hope than expectation. I guess there was one of my old buddies who had the same idea. As I ambled near to the place with no clear plan in mind a truck drew up outside and out jumped a young lithe figure I knew well. He hadn’t changed much since those days in Tupelo; the same crazy style, long greased hair, sharp clothes and sideburns. The only difference was that now he was clutching a beat-up old acoustic guitar.

Elvis saw me staring and recognised me straight away. He came right on over and gave me a hug, asked how I was doing and flashed that same lopsided grin that I remembered so well. I explained that I was plum full of luck, just that none of it was of the good kind. I was looking for work.

Elvis stood back from me looking concerned and thoughtful. He asked if I’d driven trucks.

‘Sure,’ I lied, after all driving was driving, trucks were no different to cars.

It looked as if there was a possibility of a job. My spirits rose.

I asked what he was up to. He grinned with that lip raised and quivering and lifted his guitar.

‘I’m here to record a song for my Ma,’ he explained. ‘Gonna be a birthday surprise.’

The Memphis Recording Service was one of Sam Phillip’s spin offs. For a few dollars you could go in and record a couple of sides and walk out with a record of your own. It was highly popular. Elvis thought that it would send his Ma crazy to hear him on record.

I accompanied him in.

Sam Phillips was not there but Marion Keisker, his secretary, ran the business when he was not around. She organised the recording booth. Before we could start Marion had to get a few details down.

‘What sort of style do you sing?’ Marion asked.

‘I sing all kind of songs,’ Elvis answered with a bemused frown.

‘Well who do you sound like?’

‘I don’t sound like nobody,’ he replied shuffling around awkwardly.

I concurred with that. Elvis didn’t look, move or sound like any white cat I’d ever met.

I sat at his feet in that booth as Elvis cleared his throat, fidgeted around and got his guitar just how he wanted it. Inside that booth the bubbly Elvis was absent. He was subdued, serious and nervous, a little overawed. He’d wanted Sam Phillips to hear him sing and had hopes of being recorded properly. That was not to be. But he wanted this to be good for his mother. He joked around a bit to settle his nerves and then the red light came on.

Elvis strummed his guitar and sang. The first number was ‘My Happiness’ and then he went straight in to ‘That’s When Your Heartaches Begin’.

When he’d finished we came out. Elvis was excited and buoyed up. He hadn’t made any bad fluffs. It had gone well. He was sure his mother was gonna love it.

Marion had also been impressed. I watched as she wrote ‘Good ballad singer. Hold’ next to his name. I knew that meant she was certain to play it to Sam.

We went back the next day to pick up the demo and Elvis clutched that acetate in its plain paper cover to him, delighted at what he’d done. His mother was more than delighted.

I was not so sure. I’d heard that voice. It was good, but I reckoned that he needed to get the material right. Back in Tupelo we’d been seeing all those great Blues guys who could really jive it up. I would have preferred him to be doing some of that hard-ass stuff.

Elvis was as good as his word and got me working making deliveries. I made good money.

‘Hey Elvis,’ I asked as we were working together, ‘why don’t you record some of that great stuff we were listening to? You know……. The Jimmy Reed and Arthur Crudup.’

Elvis paused and looked thoughtful.

I knew he could do it and I knew Sam Phillips was on the look out for a white guy who could sing like a black guy. He made no secret of it. He always said that The Wolf was the greatest talent he’d ever recorded and if he’d have been white he’d have made Sam a billion bucks. I thought Elvis had the potential.

Over the ensuing months I worked as a truck driving delivery man and often teamed up with Elvis. We tore up the town and had a good time. Elvis liked to drive wild, live wild and catch the best acts in town and Memphis had all the best acts going. He had wide tastes. One time it’d be the glorious smooth voice of Clyde McPhatter and another it was the wild Little Richard or a country act like Bill Monroe. Elvis didn’t seem to mind what colour they were or what type of music they were playing. As long as it was good and it moved him he was happy. When he heard that music he couldn’t sit still. His whole body jerked into rhythm. It shook him to the core. There was nothing he could do about it.

I think Elvis had all but given up on Sam coming through. He’d been in and recorded another demo – ‘Just to hear the sound of my voice’ – he told me. But I could sense the disappointment. Music was in him and it had to come out.

We were together when Elvis got the call. Marion had finally persuaded Sam to give him a chance. Sam was not convinced. He liked the voice he heard but to him it was nothing that special.

I sat in the corner of the studio looking up at the weird switch-back ceiling with the insulation tiles hanging off. Sam assured me that it was like that to create the sound. It stopped it echoing. I was dubious but then you couldn’t argue with the quality of the recordings he was getting out of it. They were different.

Sam had a bit of an idea of what he wanted. He placed Elvis in the centre with his guitar and brought in a guitarist called Scotty Moore and a bass player called Bill Black. I don’t know. I didn’t get it. Those two guys looked square to me. They didn’t look like they could cut it. Elvis looked so cool he stood out between those two. He was young, sharp and keen. They looked jaded, boring and out of touch. I couldn’t see them cutting it with the kids or jiving up a storm. I didn’t know why Sam had brought in a couple of black musicians. With someone like Ike Turner behind him Elvis could let it all go and shine.

I was being proved right. It wasn’t happening. The guys weren’t gelling. Elvis was nervous and subdued and what they were producing was sending the mossies to sleep. It was late into the night and Sam was just on the point of giving up.

‘Take a break’, he said in exasperation and disappeared off.

When the guys in the studio were alone Elvis started fooling around and singing ‘That’s Alright Mama’ in his most uncontrolled and exuberant fashion, jumping, shakin’ and thrashing that guitar any old how. Scotty and Bill responded and they all let rip.

In the control room Sam nearly blew his top. That was the sound he had been dreaming of.  He shouted for Marion to press record.

In the studio the unleashed Elvis was having a ball. All the nervous tension was gone. He let it loose. In a couple of takes they had it and a new sound was born. Elvis had married that Blues of Arthur’s with a jumped up rhythm and created a monster. A few days later Dewey Phillips played it non-stop on his Memphis radio station and that was all she wrote.

Elvis was no longer a truck driver but was driving all over the State. He was in demand and it looked like the girls wanted to tear him apart and eat him up raw.

As for me, my truck driving days were over too. I think Elvis pulled a few strings and got me a couple of gigs with the Ike Turner band and a few with Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were really just the Ike Turner band with Jackie singing. They’d had a big hit with ‘Rocket 88’, that many were saying was the first record to create the sound that Elvis did so well, but I was not so sure. What Elvis did was something special and original. He’d created Rockabilly single handed. I felt it had come out of a general movement. The kids were ready for a new sound. Many of the cats were moving in that direction. There were Louis Jordan, Bill Haley, Hank Williams, Roy Brown, Clyde McPhatter, Rufus Thomas, Big Mama Thornton and a host of others. Elvis just pulled it together and rode the crest of that wave.

It was an experience I wouldn’t have missed for the world. I caught a number of those shows where Elvis exploded and Scotty and Bill were wild men. Elvis was magnetic. He was bursting with electricity; it ran through him, jerked him and poured out of him in a torrent. There was a seminal force, a howling beast inside him, a primeval energy that he’d tapped into. I don’t even think he was aware. He just let it loose and it controlled him and he allowed it to take him over. He gave himself to it and became one with it. It was primitive, innate and total. The screaming was unreal and they were right – there wasn’t a dry seat in the whole building! Those were the days when Elvis was real and totally unreal, before he started getting too massive and TV and fame turned him, made him conscious of what he was doing, and made him into a parody of himself.

I saw him when he was raw, savage and untamed. It consumed him. He left me in his wake and I was washed up on Beale Street again busking for dimes.

A Slice of my rock music novel ‘The Blues Muse’ – Stax, Soul and Black Power.

Posted on by Opher

Another instalment of my novel: The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

Memphis and Monterey

Stax was a great place to work. To start with it was good to be in Memphis again. I felt as if I was home. This was the time of Black Power; the Black Panther movement were tearing up New York. The old subservience was long gone. I could stroll down Beale Street with my head high and my Afros declaring to the world that I was a free man. More importantly it was a musician’s paradise. McLemore and College was the site of an experiment that proved race was not important; white and black could be equal. Booker T and the MGs were the tightest unit on the planet, apart from maybe the Meters in New Orleans. They were the driving force behind the whole Soul phenomenon. The incredible thing, for that time in the south, was that ‘Duck’ Dunn and Steve Cropper were white, white Booker and Al Jackson were black. They were a living example of just how good racial harmony could be. Together that band had created a sound that had propelled the likes of Aretha Franklin, Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Albert King, Eddie Floyd, Sam and Dave and Arthur Conley to the heights of their creativity. I was in heaven. They’d taken me on as a studio technician on the basis of my work in London. I got to stand on the spot where Otis Redding stood. Better than that I actually got to watch Otis record!

Music doesn’t get much better than that.

My legs were like jelly as Otis came in for his session. The MGs were all micked up and Otis was sound tested but I still faffed around. Somehow I knew this had to be perfect. Man, that was an intense session. Otis knew what he wanted. It had to be just right. ‘Try a little Tenderness’, ‘Shake’, and ‘I’ve been loving you too long’ send shivers through me but ‘Respect’ filled me with pride and resolve.

Watching Otis performing in the clubs was like seeing a ball of energy bounce across the stage. Nobody was ever short-changed. The sweat poured off him as the emotion poured out. That voice, the anguish, yearning, tenderness and power; it was all there.

Steve Cropper was brilliant with me. He was working with Otis writing songs, sorting arrangements and getting the sound right, but he always had time for me. He always included me, sought my opinion and made me feel valued.

In my book that Soul sound was unparalleled. Nobody has got close. Those guys engineered it and it came out of harmony, collaboration and integration. That sums up life for me.

The Monterey Pop Festival brought it all together for me into the perfect package. If ever a festival has been misnamed that was it. It was derogatory and demeaning to describe those acts as Pop. Nobody in their right mind would put Otis, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Big Brother, Buffalo Springfield and the Holding Company and Hendrix under a Pop label. That might be true of the Mamas and Papas but not class Rock and R&B acts like those.

Otis and Steve Cropper had insisted I went along. It was brilliant. I got to see a lot of my favourite acts, reuniting with Jimi and the Who, the Airplane and Springfield. It was as if a w3hole load of different elements were being drawn together.

Monterey was a great time to be alive. To see Otis Redding up there on stage wowing a white audience, the British contingent and Us Acid Rockers all together on stage was like the apotheosis. Hugh Masekala just put the seasoning on the dressing.

I came away thinking that this couldn’t get any better and we were heading for a climax that would transform the world; this was building to a crescendo that would blow the whole conservative edifice to shards. Music was the liberator, the emancipator and uniter of people.

It just goes to show how wrong you can be.

It started going wrong with that plane crash.

I was in the Stax studio with Steve when the news came through; Otis was gone. We turned on the TV and watched as news came through of the crash. They pulled Ben Cauley out of the lake but not Otis.

It seemed to me that Otis was just the start.

Four months later we were reeling from another body blow.

Martin Luther King was staying in the Lorraine Motel across Town from us. He was there to support a walkout of sanitation workers. He went out from his room on to the balcony. A sniper shot him through the neck.

That was the year of the black riots. Memphis, along with many other cities burned as the frustration and fury boiled over.

Steve Cropper stood outside Stax studios and looked over to the smoke. ‘They’re burning their own town’ he said in disbelief.

It was blind fury and the atmosphere at Stax changed forever.

Extract from ‘The Blues Muse’ – a novel around Rock Music

Posted on by Opher

This is a fun one. I was talking to a friend about wishing I had been there at all the seminal moments in Rock Music – stuff like seeing Robert Johnson playing in inns, those early Elvis concerts with that rockabilly trio, the Stones in Richmond, Beatles at the Cavern, Little Richard in the 50s, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley in Chicago, The Sex Pistols at the 100 Club, Nirvana in Seattle, Elmore James, Son House, Pink Floyd, Doors, Cream, Hendrix, Led Zep, and hundreds more.

Of course, I was there for a lot of that, saw that, did a lot, but it’s always the ones that got away. The thing is that I knew it all, had seen and met these guys. I could write about it. All I needed was a character who was there. I invented one.

We start at the very beginning with my character the blues singer on Tutwiler station as recounted by W C Handy. He finds himself everywhere from Sun Studios to Hamburg, from Hank Williams to Kurt Cobain. He’s right there. I made the history of rock music into a novel. Loved it!

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

Thanks for looking, buying and leaving reviews. Much appreciated!!

Tutwiler Mississippi  (Chapter 1 out of 89)

It was a desultory day on the railway station at Tutwiler. The Mississippi August sun was unrelenting and the air thick with moisture. No matter how used I became to the sultry heat, it was draining. The sweat beaded on my skin and refused to evaporate. My overalls were already sodden and my shirt was clinging to my body. My red bandana, tied loosely round my neck, soaked up some of the moisture and stopped the sweat running down my back. It was still early morning and sure to get worse before noon. I was grateful not to be labouring in those fields. My guitar was my passport to an easier life. I wanted to be free of those plantations and that gruelling work but there were only two ways out that I knew and I had no desire to go into the church.

I sat down on the bench by the brick wall in the shade of a large tree festooned with Spanish moss. It afforded me some shade and a good view over the station. This was a good spot. When enough people were gathered I would start my show. I knew that I could have two shots at it because when the train finally arrived I would have a second ready-made audience.

My attention was drawn to the only other person at the station; a gentleman was sitting on another bench nearer the track. He looked to be around thirty years of age and was obviously quite affluent. He was shaded from the sun but I could see that he too was greatly troubled by the heat from the way that he kept mopping his brow. His over-heated condition was not at all assisted by his attire. He wore a starched shirt and tie with a three-piece suit. Although he had discarded his hat, which rested on the seat beside him, he had kept his long dark frock jacket on despite how uncomfortable that must have been. He was desperate to create an impression. He was here on business.

Although this man was black-skinned, like me, he was none-the-less a man of some importance and a musician to boot. I could see that from the trumpet case he had laid beside his valise. This was highly unusual for the year of 1903. Most dark-skinned men and women were bought and sold. This person was, from all appearances, a free man. He might be a potential mark. It was worth a try. A man had to make a living.

I took up my guitar, my knife from my pocket, and began to practice my repertoire. I watched the man. The name on his suitcase was W C Handy. He looked like a young man of means. I plucked the guitar and as soon as my knife connected with the strings I could see from the way his body stilled that I had his attention.

I worked up slowly; setting the rhythm and making those strings give up their shrill urgency as I applied the blade of my knife, before coming in with the vocal. Some said that it was a voice that was deep and emotive beyond my years. I gave him everything I could, describing the pain of that heat, the despair of those long days of working under a blazing sun, the dust, the scant pleasures and the life in those shacks. But I also made sure that I captured the joy and spirit of life.

I could see I had his full concentration. He turned towards me and watched intently to see what I was doing, how I had constructed the song, the way I repeated the refrain. I could see he had a trained eye and was taking it all in.

This was my music, made from the memories of my heritage, the songs of my family and the white man’s music I’d heard coming from the mansion in the evening. The local master encouraged us to play western instruments. He would often take a group of us into the house to entertain his guests. We had learnt his melodies and merged them with our own.

I blended them into something of my own that sang of my world and experience.

A few more people drifted on to the station and stood around while I played. By the time the train arrived I had some copper in my hat. The smart business man was the last to board. He came over to me, dropped silver on top of the other coins, smiled and nodded his approval. He did not say a word but I could see that he had appreciated my performance.

I turned my attention to the people descending from the train. It was time to start over again.

The Blues Muse Paperback  – A Novel on Rock Music.

Posted on by Opher

I was in conversation with a good friend who, like me, is a Rock Music fanatic. We have both been everywhere, seen everyone and have had our lives hugely affected by music. However it is not who you have seen but what you failed to catch that you dwell on. I said to him that it would be brilliant if we had a time machine and were able to go back and see all the major events in Rock history; Robert Johnson play in the tavern in Greenwood, Elmore James in Chicago, Elvis Presley in the small theatres, The Beatles in Hamburg, Stones in Richmond, Doors in the Whiskey, Roy Harper at St Pancras Town Hall…………….. and a thousand more. Then I realised that I could. I knew it all, had seen much of it first hand, and had the imagination to fill in the gaps. All I needed was a character who worked his way through it, was witness to it, part of it and lived it; someone to tell the story and paint the picture. I invented my ‘man with no name’ and made a novel out of the History of Rock Music. This is that novel. It starts in Tutwiler Mississippi in 1903 and finishes in Kingston upon Hull in 1980. On this journey you will breathe the air, taste the sweat and join all the major performers as they create the music that rocked the world and changed history.

Takes you on a journey through the whole of Rock Music, Very readable!!

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books