Rock Routes – a history of Rock Music

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Introduction

Rock is dead. That is what Jim Morrison proclaimed in 1970. He was wrong.

Rock is alive and well.

Rock as a universal unifying force for Youth Culture is dead. For most young people it would appear that music is incidental to their life. It has become a consumable product to be bought and discarded. For those to whom it is central it has become an easy recognisable cult with dedicated devotees.

It was not always the case.

In the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s music was the focus for social change. It was the unifying force for fashion, politics, attitude, morality and social perspective. Rock was the vehicle that youth culture rode on. Its influence was universal. Rock ‘n’ Roll, Beat music, Psychedelia and Punk were world-wide phenomena. It is salutary to look back at the 60’s psychedelic phenomena and see long-hair bands complete with kaftans, bell-bottoms and accoutrements springing up all over the world including Peru, Afghanistan, Australia, Tokyo, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Everyone wanted to be part of the scene. They all wanted to be the Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Hendrix or Doors.

Everything now is controlled by the ‘Biz’ and run for profit.

I guess it was ever thus. It did not seem like it though. It seemed that the music was a revolution that was changing the world. It was made by us and controlled by us. It was not a product. It was an emotional portrayal of how we felt. It was ours, of us, by us and for us.

But then I’ve always been an idealist.

Well – I lived through it all. I’ve seen most of them and got to meet some of them. I have enjoyed a life-time of Rock Music. It has been central to everything I have done. It has affected my philosophy and impinged on every aspect of my life. I’ve lived it.

I am sitting here in 2013 looking forward over the next few weeks to a programme that includes Nick Harper, Roy Harper, The Magic Band, North Mississippi Allstars and Leonard Cohen. Wow! I’m looking forward to it. I’m 64 and still rockin’.

Back in the 1980s I ran an adult education on the history of Rock Music. I had great fun even though it cost me a fortune. My vinyl collection grew exponentially.

This book is an extension of that course. I first wrote a four volume book totalling 1500 pages entitled Rock Strata. It told the whole story of Rock Music through from the early 1900s to 1982. A publisher loved it. He loved my charts. He just thought it was a little too long. He wanted me to cut it down to 200 pages.

This is the rewrite of that attempt!

This book is the history of Rock Music up until 1982. I stopped there. I could have continued but it all rather broke up into fragments. There have been a number of those fragments that I continue to love but others I get frustrated by. I hate overproduced muzac for the hard of thinking. I hate product.

I love good, live, raw, loud, exciting music. I want my stuff straight from the heart, head and gut – not the bank.

This book shows how the different aspects of Rock Music developed and evolved. Nothing is ever new. True innovators are extremely rare. I’ve heard a few. Everything comes out of what has come before. You can always see where it has come from.

One of my Rock students started my course hating Country & Western. By the end of the course he had an extensive collection of 1930s/40s Country. He had ‘discovered’ it by looking at the influences acting on the music he enjoyed. He found it was stuff he’d never heard or listened to. He loved it.

This book tries to show you the things that influenced the music you love. Perhaps you will find other artists or genres you didn’t know about? Perhaps it will captivate you the way it has me?

It doesn’t matter what you love as long as you love something. It doesn’t matter if we love the same things. Half the fun is arguing the toss over songs, bands and genres.

This is Rock Music – not Pop. This is my kind of stuff. I grew up with it. It changed me. I love it!

Rock Routes: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781514873090: Books

Zargos Ecstasy – Star – A Sci-fi novel

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It’s the sixties – the three thousand one hundred and sixties. The Federation is in conflict with the Confederation. The Troman war rages.

The Federation is being run by an authoritarian regime. It’s down to the Rock Musicians to head the opposition. Nobody exemplifies the voice of discontent more than Zargos Ecstasy. He not only struts the stage but also puts in words the thoughts of billions of young people.

When I was transforming the 1960s dissent into an SF novel I created this character. Based a little on Mick Jagger, with the poetic protest of Dylan and the voluminous persona of Hendrix, I wanted someone big enough to spearhead the youth revolution.

It’s all here – the civil rights, the anti-war, the social politics. On top of that we have the intrigue. I was looking at what happened to the likes of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. Were they bought off, murdered or replaced?? Were the government or mafia involved.

Rock Music is big business. By the time we are into the intergalactic gigs of 3167 we are dealing with mega bucks.

If you are familiar with the 1960s you will recognise a lot of this. I’ve transformed it into the distant future and given it a futuristic vibe but the essence is the same.

What happened to Zargos Ecstasy, the voice of a generation?

Available in paperback and digital:

Star: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798647632906: Books

Beware!! This way be Monsters!!

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Amazon.co.uk : opher goodwin

Roy Harper – Flat Baroque and Berserk

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I was privileged, as one of Roy’s friends, to be invited down to Abbey Road Studios for the recording of this album. I’d toddle along to St John’s Wood on my old AJS motorcycle to quietly sit in the background in the control room as Roy recorded this gem of an album. He and Pete were meticulous and Roy was very hands-on, experimenting and learning how the mixing board worked. The quality of the sound matched the quality of the songs – and what a bunch of songs!

Going to the studios was an experience. I’d just park up and walk in. Often there was nobody on the front desk. When there was I’d just nod and walk through. Security was virtually non-existent. John Lennon, Syd Barrett and Paul McCartney were recording and wandering around. Pink Floyd were there. Sometimes the control room would fill up with rock luminaries. At one time I found myself sitting with Keith Moon, Jimmy Page and Dave Gilmour. At other times the Nice all piled in and Robert Plant. We bumped into Syd in the corridor for a chat. Roy was hot property. It was widely expected that he was going to explode onto the scene. All the major acts – the Who, Led Zep and Pink Floyd rated his songs. They recognised the huge talent. It felt like a matter of time and this album seemed as if it was going to be the breakthrough album. I sat in amongst this melting pot of talent and absorbed it. A camera would have been good. It felt as if I was at the very centre of a hurricane that was going to blow Roy into the stratosphere. I’d known him for a few years, from the tiny clubs and Cousins to the Royal Albert Hall and now poised on the brink of major stardom. Bewildering.

I could only imagine what Roy was actually feeling at the time. He knew his songs were good. By this time he’d produced epics like McGoohan’s Blues and I Hate The Whiteman and was being courted by the biggest label in the world and all the top rock musicians of the age. He was riding the wave. This album was going to do it. Each song was being honed to perfection. The quality was obvious.

To be sitting in a control room with the top hierarchy of the rock world was incredible for me, but heaven knows what emotional impact it was having on Roy.

From: Roy Harper: Every Album, Every Song (On Track) Paperback – Flat Baroque and Berserk – 1970

Harvest Label  1970

Recorded at Abbey Road Studio

Roy Harper: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar on Hell’s Angels and all song writing

Pete Jenner: producer

David Bedford: strings

Skaila Kanga: harp on ‘Song Of The Ages’

Tony Visconti: recorder on ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’

Keith Emerson: keyboards on ‘Hell’s Angels’

Lee Jackson: bass guitar on ‘Hell’s Angels’

Brian Davison: drums on ‘Hell’s Angels’

Lon Goddard: gatefold cover design

John McKenzie: photography

EMI had become aware of the burgeoning underground scene that was emerging in the late sixties. They had a few fingers in that pie, with Pink Floyd, but wanted an opportunity to delve deeper into this potential market. Their answer, in 1969, was to set up a subsidiary label which was to specialise in music from the underground scene. That was the Harvest label. They signed up Deep Purple, The Battered Ornaments, Syd Barrett, Robert Wyatt, Pink Floyd, Edgar Broughton and others.

   By 1969 Roy was making quite a name for himself. He was recommended to EMI by Pete Jenner who managed the early Pink Floyd. Pete had been impressed with Roy’s Hyde Park performances at the free festivals and after hearing his recorded material he thought that Roy had the ability to do more. So Roy became one of their first signings on the Harvest label.

   The beauty of the deal was that, for the first time, Roy had access to top quality recording facilities (the Abbey Road studios where the Beatles recorded), unlimited studio time, a quality producer in Pete Jenner (they became good friends and cannabis buddies), and brilliant sound engineers in Phil McDonald and Neil Richmond.

   Roy had been prolific on the song writing front and in 1969 he entered the studio with a batch of songs surpassing anything he had created previously.

   With a bunch of friends to egg him on, a producer who was happy to work in collaboration on the whole process, all manner of rock cognoscenti dropping in to listen, comment and contribute, Roy was all set for a ground-breaking album and that is what we were treated to with the magnificent Flat Baroque And Berserk.

   Even the gatefold album cover is brilliant. Designed by old friend Lon Goddard with a photograph from John McKenzie, Roy looks resplendent in psychedelic shirt and flat cap. Eyes shut, cig in mouth, he is reclining on a chaise longue with a background of flock wallpaper and a tiger growling into his face!

Roy Harper: Every Album, Every Song (On Track): Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789521306: Books

Looking for a last-minute Christmas present? Or just wanting to treat yourself to a great read?

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Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781678850661: Books

I first met Nick when he was a young child and over the years he has become a close friend.This book illuminates the genius that I feel is Nick Harper and is designed to accompany ‘The Wilderness Years’, a trilogy of vinyl albums. Nick talks candidly about many aspects of his music and career. I include, with Nick’s permission, the lyrics of all the songs featured in the trilogy.There are also many photos dating from his childhood to the present day.

Roy Harper: Every Album, Every Song (On Track): Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789521306: Books

Roy Harper must be one of Britain s most undervalued rock musicians and songwriters. For over fifty years he has produced a series of innovative albums of consistently outstanding quality. He puts poetry and social commentary to music in a way that extends the boundaries of rock music. His 22 studio albums 16 live albums, made up of 250 songs, have created a unique body of work. Roy is a musician s musician. He is lauded by the likes of Dave Gilmour, Ian Anderson, Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend, Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes and Kate Bush. Who else could boast that he has had Keith Moon, Jimmy Page, Dave Gilmour, John Paul Jones, Ronnie Lane, Chris Spedding, Bill Bruford and Steve Broughton in his backing band? Notable albums include Stormcock, HQ and Bullinamingvase. Opher Goodwin, Roy s friend and a fan, guides the reader through every album and song, providing insight into the recording of the songs as well the times in which they were recorded. As his loyal and often fanatical fans will attest, Roy has produced a series of epic songs and he remains a raging, uncompromising individual.

In Search of Captain Beefheart: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798346131236: Books

The sixties raged. I was young, crazy, full of hormones and wanting to snatch life by the balls. There was a life out there for the grabbing and it had to be wrestled into submission. There was a society full of boring amoral crap and a life to be had in the face of the boring, comforting vision of slow death on offer. Rock music vented all that passion. This book is a memoir of a life spent immersed in Rock Music. I was born in 1949 and so lived through the whole gamut of Rock. Rock music formed the background to momentous world events – the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, Iraq war, Watergate, the miners’ strike and Thatcher years, CND, the Green Movement, Mao and the Cultural Revolution, Women’s Liberation and the Cold War. I see this as the Rock Era. I was immersed in Rock music. It was fused into my personality. It informed me, transformed me and inspired me. My heroes were musicians. I am who I am because of them. Without Rock Music I would not have the same sensibilities, optimism or ideals. They woke me up! This tells that story.

Neil Young 1963 to 1970: Every Album, Every Song (On Track…): Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789522983: Books

In the realm of singer songwriters, few have been as influential as Neil Young, whose music has always been creative and relevant throughout six decades. Neil is a chameleon for whom boundaries of genres do not exist. He has delved into folk, country, r&b, rock ‘n’ roll, grunge, hard rock, electronic and pop and made them his own. But the sixties were his launch pad. This book follows his music through that seminal period when he played with The Squires, Mynah Birds, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Crazy Horse and The Stray Gators. During this seminal period, Young wrote or co-wrote some of his greatest songs, including ‘I Am A Child’, ‘Southern Man’, ‘Helpless’ and – most importantly – ‘Ohio’. It is the story of how one of the most seminal artists of the last fifty years learned his trade – every band, every twist and turn and every track.

The Beatles: White Album – Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523331: Books

Arguably the greatest album by the best rock band ever, The Beatles – also known as The White Album – proved to be a watershed recording. Coming as it did, after manager Brian Epstein’s death; after the disillusionment with the Maharishi; in the middle of the break-up of long-term relationships, and following on from the psychedelic masterpiece Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it heralded changes of style and the marked the start of the falling apart of the previously tight-knit group.The album’s diversity and creation are analysed and its background and dynamics revealed. This extraordinary double album reflects a remarkable time and period. As the sixties came to an end, so too did the band. They mirrored the times they lived in. The album also followed on from their first highly criticised TV flop Magical Mystery Tour, the success of the first global satellite triumph of ‘All You Need Is Love’, and the highly ambitious Apple business venture. George Martin ducked out and ructions broke out between band members. But, among all the pressures and stress they found time to write and record an incredible array of songs; songs that synergised into a spectacularly successful album with a fascinating story. This is the tale of every track and every facet of this remarkable record.

Captain Beefheart On Track: Every Album, Every Song : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Captain Beefheart (Don Vliet) was undoubtedly the creator of the most bizarre and wonderful music. A child prodigy sculptor, he applied his artistic approach to music, creating ‘aural sculptures’. He befriended Frank Zappa in High School, collaborating on a teenage rock opera and sci-fi/fantasy film entitled Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People. It was from this film that Don took his name. Of course, a magic character had to have a magic band. The Magic Band started out as a blues band in the mid-sixties but soon, with lysergic propulsion, surreal poetry, free-form jazz, polyrhythms and African beats, they were at the forefront of West Coast Acid Rock. A series of hugely inventive albums, including the infamous Trout Mask Replica, established them as the foremost avant-garde rock band with legendary live performances. The author was there for their first concert at Middle Earth and that night changed his life. Few Bands are as influential. The Beatles, The Fall, PJ Harvey and Tom Waits all pay homage, While The Magic Band have inspired a myriad of tribute bands and created a mythology like no other. This book sets the history of the band in context, analysing every track and interpreting the music with its poetic content. It is essential reading for diehard fans and the Beefheart-curious alike.

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523263: Books

Phil Ochs was the ‘The Prince of Protest’ in the sixties. The only real rival to Bob Dylan, he was the archetypal Greenwich Village topical songwriter. Whether protesting the Vietnam War or campaigning for civil rights, workers’ rights and social justice, Phil was always there. Phil was the man to take up causes, write songs, play at rallies and even risk his life. His clear voice and sense of melody, linked with his incisive lyrics, created songs of beauty and power. As his career progressed, with lyrics and music becoming more highly poetic and sophisticated, he still never lost sight of his cause. Towards the end of the sixties he joined with the YIPPIES in protest against the Vietnam War. But idealism became Phil’s downfall. He was an idealist who could see no point in continuing if he was unable to make the world a better place. Phil lost all hope and descended into depression, which, along with excessive alcohol consumption, led to his suicide in 1976. Shortly before he took his life, Phil asked his brother if he thought anyone would listen to his songs in the future. Well here we are; sixty years later, still listening. The songs of Phil Ochs are every bit as relevant as they ever were and they are making the world a better place!

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Bob Dylan is the magician who sprinkled poetic fairy dust on to the popular music of the early sixties and his songwriting sparked a revolution and changed rock music forever. The diminutive poet/singer claimed he was merely a ‘song and dance man’ but Dylan altered popular music from intellectually bereft teenage rebellion into a serious adult art form worthy of academic study. Dylan headed for the sixties as a Little Richard rock ‘n’ roller but soon turned acoustic folkie and after absorbing the music and words of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson and Brecht, he became a vagabond social troubadour. Basking in Rimbaud he transformed into a poetic symbolist before later immersing himself in lysergic beat surrealism. The chameleon of Dylan in the sixties was bewildering to his followers. His first album was a raw debut folk/blues. Then followed three acoustic poetic gems, three ground-breaking surreal ,electric wonders and four that were more mundane and country-tinged. But by the mid-sixties he was a strung-out polka-dotted rock star. He crashed (physically and mentally) before leaving the sixties as a clean-cut country crooner. Dylan had mutated more times than a trilobite. Dylan’s ground-breaking music changed the world and his amazing story is revealed by exploring the eleven albums that he released between 1962 and 1970.

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523140: Books

One of the most pivotal albums in the evolution of rock music, few other recordings have had more impact than the 1965 Bob Dylan classic, Bringing It All Back Home. In the mid-sixties, rock music was about to explode into psychedelia, prog and jazz fusion. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan had made an enormous impact on songwriting with his first four all-acoustic albums. He had created a different way of writing songs, by embracing themes such as civil rights, anti-war protests and social issues, which lifted the subject matter from teenage love songs to serious poetic works of art, rife with symbolism. But with Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan shot his lyrics through with surreal hard-edged beat poetry while the music contained both acoustic songs and blues-based loud electric rock. It alienated him from many of his peers in the folk community but nonetheless contains classic cuts like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ ‘Maggie’s Farm’ and ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. Dylan had opened the door to experimentation. The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Doors, Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Cream all listened and responded. In its wake, Songwriting rose to new heights with few boundaries. After Bringing It All Back Home, music was forever changed.

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

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.

Rock Routes: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781514873090: Books

This charts the progress of Rock Music from its beginnings in Country Blues, Country& Western, R&B and Gospel through to its Post Punk period of 1980. It tells the tale of each genre and lists all the essential tracks. I was there at the beginning and I’m still there at the front! Keep on Rockin’!!

Opher’s World Tributes to Rock Geniuses: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781508631279: Books

If you like Rock Music you’ll love this! – 195 tributes to Rock Acts of Genius. – Each one a gem of a picture. You’ll find out what makes them so brilliant and a lot more besides! This is the writing of a true passionate obsessive. These are Ophers tributes to Rock geniuses – loving pen-pictures to all the great artists and bands that have graced the screens, airways, our ears, vinyl grooves and electronic digits – (well a lot of them anyway). These tributes make you thrill to all the reasons why they were so great. There will be many in here that you are already familiar with and adore but I bet there are also a number that you’ve never heard of and would love to get to know. Whether you know them or you don’t this book will give you a fresh insight from a very different slant that will make you think about them again. I guarantee this will widen your horizons, give you new eyes and make you chuckle and nod your head. These are the ‘Greats’ – lest we forget.

537 Essential Rock Albums – Pt. 1 The first 270: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781502787408: Books

This is not your average run through an opinionated list of somebody’s favourite albums. This is much more than that. By the time you get to the end of the book you will be in no doubt as to the type of person who has written this and what their views are. This is Opher at his most extreme and outspoken. He’s been there at the front through thousands of shows, purchased tens of thousands of albums and listened to more music than seems possible to fit into a single life. He’s run courses on Rock Music, written books and been there in the studio with many of the greats. But more important than that is that he has lived the life. He was there living it. You’ll find a lot of albums and artists in here that you will never have heard of and they are all brilliant. You’ll find out a lot of information about them that you did not know; but more than that you will hear someone who was there telling you why they were so important to him and giving his view on the issues around and in that music. There is a depth, a political and social perspective and a personal involvement. The passion suffuses this like TNT through dynamite. Whether you agree with the choices or not you’ll love the journey.

Bo Diddley – Who Do You Love

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The man who underpinned Rock

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=youtube+bo+diddley+who+do+you+love&&mid=E2F58C789E929EAF0D92E2F58C789E929EAF0D92&&FORM=VRDGAR

Big Eyed Beans From Venus! Captain Beefheart

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One of Beefheart’s greatest riffs! This track rocks!

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=youtube+Big+Eyed+Beans+from+Venus&qpvt=youtube+Big+Eyed+Beans+from+Venus&mid=CE167F811847AE9DD127CE167F811847AE9DD127&&FORM=VRDGAR

Esquerita – Where Little Richard got his sound!!

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Not only Little Richard’s sound, with that falsetto whoop, but also the look!!

Today’s music to keep me SsSsssaaAaaANNnnNeEEE – Bo Diddley

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Nobody quite like Bo Diddley. Fabulous concert in Hull. Went backstage and met the man.

In Search of Captain Beefheart – a memoir of a life immersed in Rock Music.

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50 years of gigs, buying albums and meeting musicians. A life well spent. These are the stories.

Foreword

Fight for what you believe with passion not violence.

Liz & Opher walking down Massachusetts Avenue
in Boston 1971 – featured on the front page of the Boston Evening Globe

Jack White launched into the searing riff that was the intro to ‘Death Letter Blues’. It shot me straight back to 1968 and the thrill of seeing and hearing Son House. Son’s national steel guitar was more ragged than Jack White’s crystal clear electric chords, and nowhere near as loud, but the chords rang true and the energy and passion were exactly the same.

Meg pounded the drums and the crowd surged forward.

It was Bridlington Spa in 2004. White Stripes were the hottest thing on the planet. The place was packed and the atmosphere electric. I was right near the front – the only place to be at any gig – the place where the intensity was magnified.

It was a huge crowd and they were crazy tonight. I could see the young kids piling into the mosh-pit and shoving – excited groups of kids deliberately surging like riot cops in a wedge driving into the crowd and sending them reeling so that they tumbled and spilled. For the first time I started getting concerned. The tightly packed kids in the mosh-pit were roaring and bouncing up and down and kept being propelled first one way and then another as the forces echoed and magnified through the mass of people. At the front the crush was intense and everyone was careering about madly. My feet were off the ground as we were sent hurtling around. I had visions of someone getting crushed, visions of someone falling and getting trampled. Worst of all – it could be me!

For the first time in forty odd years of gigs I bailed out. I ruefully headed for the balcony and a clear view of the performance. I didn’t want a clear view I wanted to be in the thick of the action. It got me wondering – was I getting to old for this lark? My old man had only been a couple of years older than me when he’d died. Perhaps Rock Music was for the young and I should be at home listening to opera or Brahms with an occasional dash of Wagner to add the spice. I had become an old git. Then I thought – FUCK IT!!! Jack White was fucking good! Fuck Brahms – This was Rock ‘n’ Roll. You’re never too old to Rock! And Rock was far from dead!

The search goes on!!

We haven’t got a clue what we’re looking for but we sure as hell know when we’ve found it.

Rock music has not been the backdrop to my entire adult life; it’s been much more than that. It has permeated my life, informed it and directed its course.

From when I was a small boy I found myself enthralled. I was grabbed by that excitement. I wanted more. I was hunting for the best Rock jag in the world! – The hit that would send the heart into thunder and melt the mind into ecstasy.

I was hunting for Beefheart, Harper, House, Zimmerman and Guthrie plus a host of others even though I hadn’t heard of them yet.

I found them and I’m still discovering them. I’m sixty four and looking for more!

Forget your faith, hope and charity – give me Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll and the greatest of these is Rock ‘n’ Roll!

I was a kid in the Thames Delta, with pet crow called Joey, 2000 pet mice (unnamed), a couple of snakes, a mammoth tusk, a track bike with a fixed wheel, a friend called Mutt who liked blowing up things, a friend called Billy who kept a big flask of pee in the hopes of making ammonia, and a lot of scabs on my knees.

My search for the heart of Rock began in 1959 and I had no idea what I was looking for when I started on this quest. Indeed I did not know I had embarked on a search for anything. I was just excited by a new world that opened up to me; the world of Rock Music. My friend Clive Hansell also had no idea what he was initiating when he introduced me to the sounds he was listening to. Clive was a few years older than me. He liked girls and he liked Popular Music. Yet he seemed to have limited tastes. I can only ever remembering him playing me music by two artists – namely Adam Faith and Buddy Holly. In some ways it was a motley introduction to the world of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

I was ten years old which would have made Clive about twelve or thirteen, I suppose he could even have been fourteen. That is quite a lot of years at that age. We used to got off to his bedroom, sit on the bed and he’d play me the singles – 45s – on his Dansette player. He’d stack four or five singles on the deck push the lever up to play and we’d lean forward and watch intently. The turntable would start rotating; the mechanism clunked as the arm raised, there were clicks and clunks as the arm drew back and the first single dropped, then the arm would come across and descend on to the outer rim of the disc. The speaker would hiss and crackle and then the music kicked in. We watched the process intently every time as if it depended on our full attention.

The Adam Faith singles were on Parlaphone and were red with silver writing. The Buddy Holly was on Coral with a black label and silver writing. We reverentially watched the discs spinning and listened with great concentration to every aspect of the songs. It was a start.

Yet Rock ‘n’ Roll was by no means the only quest I’d started on. I was an early developer. I’d hit puberty at ten and can imagine myself as the scruffy little, dirty-faced kid who climbed trees, waded through ditches, got covered in frogspawn and lichen and was suddenly sprouting pubic hair – very confusing.

Life was going to change for me. I was in a transition phase.