Long time Groovies fanatic PHIL SUGGITT tracked down the legendary CHRISWILSON and talked about Groovies past and present in a North London hostelry.
SHINDIG!: Many people think ‘Shake Some Action’ is one of the greatest, life-changing songs ever recorded. How do you feel about this after all these years?
CHRIS WILSON: Well, it changed my life for sure! It got me a record contract and some money! At the time we thought we really had something special, a great tune that could be really popular. It was a huge disappointment that it never “made it” in commercial terms, but at the same time I feel incredibly gratified when I meet people who feel what we did when we wrote it and played it.
SD: How did you and Cyril write songs together?
CW: Creativity is a funny thing; it comes to you at different times and in different ways. I might be off in my part of the house we shared, playing guitar, with Cyril downstairs reading comic books (or vice-versa), when one of us would come up with a guitar lick or some words about an unrequited love affair or something, and would run to the other saying, “What do you reckon to this then?” The other would alter a few words, or have a hook that would go with the chords, or say the idea was completely crap! We bounced ideas off each other. Most of the songs were genuine collaborations even if one of us had most of it. We always gave co-credits, like Lennon and McCartney. For instance, Cyril had all the chords for ‘Teenage Confidential’ but few lyrics. I had the idea of putting the dulcimer on, though, which made the song what it is!
SD: Did the band design the cover for the Shake Some Action album? It is regarded as one of the best covers of the era…
CW: No. The photos were shot just across the road from our tailor. Armand Haye the photographer said, “You boys just stand against this wall”. We didn’t really notice the billboards above us much, or the writing on the wall. The Jag on the cover was just parked nearby, so we just leaned against it as if we were waiting for our chauffeur! I took the photo of our guitars on the back cover of Now –I borrowed Armand’s camera for a couple of minutes. The retro look of the other albums was more coincidence than design. For Jumpin’ In The Night, Chester Simpson said he had just borrowed a $6,000 fish-eye lens, so would we like to try some shots? We didn’t sit down and plan to copy the Stones.
SD: Which Groovies album do you prefer?
CW: I still think Now is my favourite Groovies album, rather than Shake Some Action. Recording it at Rockfield was just an incredible time in my life. I got across a lot of my ideas on that record. It was magical to be in the middle of the Welsh countryside, which I love, recording with Dave Edmunds, who I respected tremendously. And we even had our own cook down there, who made a tremendous venison casserole. I made a pretty good version of it last weekend! All the sessions at Rockfield were special. Doing ‘I
Can’t Hide’ was an incredible night. There was a full hunter’s moon. We were able to make use of an accident, when the tape machine sped up and down, Dave said “No need to do it again. We can use that!”
SD: Some journalists claimed you played too many covers. Neither you nor Cyril were prolific songwriters so was it purely that you didn’t have any more songs?
CW: No! There are lots of unrecorded songs and ideas that never got developed. For instance, ‘All The Action’ and ‘While There’s Life’ (on Chris’ new album, see below). I had those licks over 30 years ago. The Groovies wasn’t a democracy, it was Cyril’s band, and he didn’t want to give the publishers and record companies a lot of original songs that they weren’t going to promote. A crazy idea. Cyril had this bee in his bonnet about The Beatles. Cyril thought if we could just be like them then we would somehow be as successful! It was like the cargo cults of the South Pacific, where the natives built and painted these phoney planes and runways in the hope that the bountiful cargo planes would land again. We had all out clothes made by Cliff, The Beatles and Stones tailor, the same guitars. Our song ‘Please Please Girl’ was an obvious homage to The Beatles but it was different enough not to be a shameless rip-off. Cyril wanted to do all those covers. Sure, we did some great versions, but they should have been for encores or at rehearsals.
SD: What are the other Groovies are up to these days?
CW: George Alexander (bass) married and went to Hawaii for a while. They returned to SF and went into property development. Bought a nice old Victorian house cheaply and sold it for a healthy profit, so they did it again. And again! George is a really skilled chap. David Wright (drums) was the first to leave. He had some health problems, but now he owns a couple of restaurants in SF. Mike Wilhelm (guitar) lives in Clear Lake, North California. It’s very beautiful and he occasionally plays with the other remaining Charlatans. Roy Loney (original vocalist) continues to play and record. In his spare time he still helps out at Jack’s Record Store in SF. In the ’60s they bought a hundred of everything that came out, so, if you have the time to sift through racks of crap, you can discover a real gem for only $3! Cyril Jordan: After spending a lot of time on his painting and comic art projects, Cyril is playing guitar with Magic Christian, and has just toured the East Coast. Clem Burke from Blondie and Eddie Munoz from The Plimsouls play with them.
SD: Some people remember the Groovies spending ages tuning up!
CW: Yeah, we did a lot of tuning up, but I like to think it was worth it when we started playing. There’s nothing worse than out of tune guitars – horrible. With all that tuning we still managed to be out of tune sometimes! The two lead guitars were in stereo, which really helped to spread the sound, as did our incredible gear – Gretsch guitars and Fender Dual Showmans.
SD: Sometimes it must have been hard to tour the less glamorous parts of the UK in the punk era.
CW: A lot of the punk bands didn’t rehearse and put in the work we did… we were old school musicians. We got good responses from the audiences. It’s a myth that the crowds just wanted to see the punks, especially outside London. Living in England was great – it wasn’t as if we came from sunny San Diego! The weather in
56
SF is wet and grey, most of the time… pretty similar to Cleethorpes in fact! There was no homesickness – we were young, and excited to have got to England on our own steam. Sunday closing was bad, but we found ways of brightening things up! Before we did Jumpin’ In The Night Seymour Stein and Sire records had a change of heart. We had just come off a tour of Europe and he told us we were going home the day after tomorrow. He put us up in this hideous flea-pit in Bayswater. It was so bad that I spent the night with friends in North London. The head of Warner Brothers told Seymour he would put us on another of their labels if Seymour didn’t go through with the album. I came back to the hotel to celebrate. I had left bags with all my stage gear on the bed, but it had all disappeared, stolen. Three grand of ’60s suits – a lot in those days. The dodgy looking guys on reception looked very guilty but I could never prove anything.
SD: You have a new self-released solo album.
CW: I can’t see the point in labels any more. They can’t do anything for you that you can’t do for yourself, with perseverance, the internet and technology that allows cheap pressing. Why should record companies dictate what is released and when? In the ’60s and ’70s these mercenary record company people sucked the life blood out of your vision and creativity. The Groovies would go into the Sire records office and it was all smiles, all “Hi Chris, how you doing?” when things weren’t going so well they would all stare at their desks, type furiously and ignore us.
SD: Will we ever see Jordan and Wilson together again?
CW: In ’81 Cyril wanted to dominate everyone. I left after he double-booked us. The first gig was at a drug dealer’s convention in a hotel. The second was in this scummy club I had sworn never to play in again, because they let another band use my gear, and I got it back with beer stains and cigarette burns. Cyril knew this, but told me I had to do the gig or I was out of the band. So I left. We haven’t seen each other since. About 10 years ago I put out some feelers, but he didn’t want to know. Recently I hear he might have changed his views. If he was interested I might give it a go. If it was bad again I could always walk out the door...
CHRIS WILSON & HIS SHAMELESS PICKUPS Second Life Self-released
www.flamin-groovy.com Chris Wilson’s first album in 15 years is his strongest solo work to date, and will delight
fans of his incarnations as a Flamin’ Groovy, Barracuda, Fortunate Son or folk troubadour. The opener ‘All That Action’ even quotes the “bust out with more speed” line from ‘Shake Some Action’. Crucial to the success of the album are the
contributions of Anthony Clark, who not only plays guitar and bass but contributes eight of the 12 songs. As a long time fan Clark knows just what suits Chris’ style, and the results are splendid. ‘Set Free’ is a real highlight, with a gloriously uplifting chorus. Elsewhere Chris presents a very different version of one of his best tunes, ‘Never Love Again’. Dylan’s ‘Visions Of Johanna’ is the sole cover, paired with a Clark song that sounds like Dylan, ‘Under the Power Lines’. This album is a lesson in maturing with
dignity, without abandoning the music you do best. Phil Suggitt
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84