End of April 2014 I decided to go to Oslo, Norway for the weekend. I founds a Ryanair return flight for £50 from Stansted Airport. Hmm, pretty cheap I thought but maybe I should have factored in the cost of getting to Stansted Airport but, more importantly, the cost of getting from “Oslo Torp” Airport to Oslo! To those who don’t know Ryanair this may sound quite odd but, no, Ryanair have their own idea of where airports are and Torp is more than 100 miles from Oslo and an expensive bus ride away that takes nearly two hours. Total cost in reality was more than £100 return but I suppose that’s still pretty cheap really.
Both Norway and Oslo itself weren’t really what I was expecting. There were no mountains and the weather was beautiful, warm and sunny for the whole weekend! Oslo is a very pleasant, relaxed city and the people are very friendly and everyone seems to speak English. I had a really nice time there and enjoyed travelling on the trams and visiting the museums and the parks. I would particularly recommend The Vigelandparken Sculpture Park. This park is really lovely and contains sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. Some of these are truly amazing to look at and the whole park is like a work of art with beautiful fountains, bridges and wide boulevards:
Paris in Springtime. According to the songs that is the time to go. Unfortunately, my trip was a bit early for that and it didn’t really look any different to Leicester apart from the buildings and river etc. I guess you should go there late rather than early April, or maybe even early May. Still, I had a good time over all. You can get special offers on Eurostar for £29 each way and I availed my self of this. From London to Paris takes about two and a half hours on the high speed train. Amazing! In the old days it took about twelve hours on the boat and train. You can get to Paris quicker than you can get to Manchester now and it is very romantic, at least in my imagination.
The good thing about travelling by rail is that you can take a musical instrument with you without paying extra. On my European Musical Trip last year I took my accordion which weighed a ton and nearly wore me out. This time I took my guitar which is a lot lighter but is rather bulky and gets stuck in the doors and exits. Very disconcerting! Also, it proved very embarrassing on the Paris Metro which was very crowded and I managed to annoy several people with the guitar on my back knocking into them. Still, I eventually managed to get to my hotel on the outskirts of Paris and settle in. The view from my window was not what I was expecting but the hotel was very cheap and there was a metro station very close by.
View from my hotel room
That night I decided to go to an open mic. That was the main reason I had decided to go to Paris. To check out the live music scene. Because of the problems I’d had with my guitar on the Metro I decided to leave it behind and hope to borrow one when I got there. Maybe take my guitar the next day when I was a bit more confident.
I checked out the possible venues on my phone and found quite a lot of places I could go to. I decided on the Bombardier Pub in the Latin Quarter with a possible back up at The Galway Irish Pub just around the corner and near the Seine. I also planned how I could get back to my hotel. It was quite a way out and the Metro closes just after 12 and taxis are expensive. I found out there was a night bus that went near Bagnolet so I decided I would get this! More about that later!
There was no open mic at the Bombardier but I ended up getting a free burger meal that had been made by mistake. I guess they took pity on me or thought I needed it! Unfortunately, I don’t really like burgers or chips but I thought it would be rude not to eat it! At least it filled me up.
From there I went to the Galway Irish Pub which did have an open mic and I performed and had a really good time. It was a really cosmopolitan crowd with a big American contingent and the standard of the acts was very high. The bar staff were really friendly and told me about another open mic I could go to at a pub called The Highlander Scottish Bar in two days time which, apparently, was the best one in Paris. I noted that down. It was virtually next to the Pont Neuf, a bridge I’d played my guitar under many years ago.
The Galway Irish Bar Open Mic
Getting the night bus was pretty easy but I wasn’t that sure where to get off. It was a strange experience. Most of the passengers were workers returning from a late shift and looked tired and morose. There weren’t any other late night revellers like me! I got off too early and proceeded to have a real problem getting to my hotel. I could see it in the distance but there were about three motorways in between. It took me over an hour to get through. I then found there was a bus stop just outside the hotel. A bit annoying but at least I knew where to go for the rest of the trip!
Next day I decided to go to Pere Lachaise cemetery which was only a couple of stops from my hotel at Bagnolet. It is an incredibly interesting place. Apart from having the tomb of Jim Morrison, which was perhaps my principal reason for going there, it has the graves of luminaries like Colette, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and many others. I took lots of photos there. It is a very evocative place that reminded me in some ways of the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. I find the statuary quite compelling.
Jim Morrison’s Grave
I spent a long time in the cemetery and it was quite tiring. It is very big, so I decided to go and hire one of the public bikes and cycle into the city. As usual it took me a while to sort out how to use it and had to phone the help line. They were a lot better and more helpful than the equivalent in Frankfurt a few months before. I was soon on the road and on my way to the centre. Notre Dame here I come! And yes, I took lots of pictures of the magnificent cathedral all the way round. I also went around the city centre and into the Latin Quarter. The buildings are amazing and I went into a reverie imagining I was one of the poets and Existentialists in the 1940s and 50s, talking earnestly in sidewalk cafes.
Paris bikes. Easy to use.
The Paris bikes are easy and cheap to use. After an initial charge you get the first half hour for free. If you know where you are going you can use them for virtually nothing, changing over every half hour. There are plenty of cycle tracks but the roads in Paris are quite scary. I abandoned my original plan of cycling back to the hotel and took the metro. That night I was so tired I just fell asleep and didn’t go anywhere. Spent the night in!
Next day I decided to go to the Philharmonie de Paris where an exhibition of the Velvet Underground was being held. There were amazing posters all over Paris advertising this. I decided to cycle there but unfortunately I went in completely the wrong direction and ended up miles away. My sense of direction seemed to abandon me in Paris. I swallowed my pride and took the metro. I don’t like travelling underground but at least you get where you want. I arrived at the exhibition hall and there was a court yard with an excruciating loud noise going on. I thought it was the beginning of the exhibition and filmed it with my camera. It wasn’t! It was just good old fashioned construction work! What a fool I felt, but it was a noise worthy of the Velvets so I kept the recording.
Philhamonie de Paris. Velvet Underground Exhibition.
I first heard the Velvet Underground in 1968 and they became one of my favourite bands. The exhibition traced their early period from 1965 to 1968. It was very good with lots of film and exhibits that I have never seen before. It really caught the essence of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable and Warhol’s Silver Factory. It was a true assault on the senses. I spent a lot of time there and would recommend it to any Velvet Underground fans.
From there I decided to visit Montparnasse. It’s an area of Paris I have not been to before that was associated with artists and Bohemians. I must admit it was a bit of a disappointment. I did get there fairly late but the cemetery was closed and the neighbourhood looked quite ordinary apart from the strange, grotesque and enormous tower. Who put THAT there?? Maybe I just missed the good bits and need to go back, but I did end up in a rather good cocktail bar in the middle of it’s happy hour. Happy I was indeed!
I decided to go straight to the open mic at The Highlander Scottish Pub. By the time I got there it was already full and there was a long list of performers waiting to play. It was a great night though and everyone ends up with three songs which means you can really get into it. Because I was high on the Velvet Underground I decided to do one of their songs Heroin. This could have been a disaster but it wasn’t. It went down a storm! I did my other two songs and from then on I had a room full of new friends and the bar staff kept giving me free drinks! I couldn’t have wished for a better night, and the other acts were brilliant too. I filmed a couple of them with my phone. Again, there was a large American contingent. Like in a lot of European cities the British pubs and Irish bars are the place for live local music and open mics. There is also a receptive listening audience. The Highlander’s music cellar had bags of atmosphere. Definitely worth a visit.
Highlander Pub Open Mic
Next day I got the Eurostar back to England. I hadn’t used my guitar once. It only takes two and a half hours to get to London. Paris will become one of my regular haunts I think!
I arrived in Frankfurtat about 10.30 p.m. It was an easy run and the bus station was next to the railway station, like they are in many European cities. It makes sense. Why don’t they do that in British cities? Mind you, the bus stations have a very different atmosphere. There is a slight air of desperation with people waiting for buses, an atmosphere of uncertainty. And things happen that don’t happen elsewhere. Everyone has a story to tell!
I was a bit nervous when I arrived at Frankfurt. After my experiences with the hostel in Brussels I was afraid that things may go wrong. Also, the reviews of the hotel I was staying in were not great. There was talk of drug addicts and prostitutes hanging about outside the hotel! Well, at least they weren’t inside and, actually, it turned out to be fine! Yes, it was a slightly dodgy area but it was really close to the station and the town centre and it was clean and had a 24 hour reception which meant I wasn’t standing around for hours outside. I had a really good night’s sleep!
I didn’t know what to expect with Frankfurt. When I worked out my itinerary for the trip it was a convenient stop on the way from Brussels to Prague and it’s a place I didn’t really know anything about apart from it was where hot dogs were invented! I certainly wasn’t expecting a major festival to be happening that had taken up most of the town. I eventually found out it was a commemoration of the re-unification of Germany. Things were happening everywhere. I decided that busking was not really going to be feasible. There was noise coming from countless tents and stages. At night there was a major rock concert in the centre of town with thousands of people and a major police presence. Very exciting. Yet again, my busking plans had been thwarted (or was I just bottling out?!).
Festival time in Frankfurt. Stages everywhere!
Anyway, I decided to try and rent a bike from the stands outside the station. This time I had more luck and I managed to get the pay station to accept my credit card. However, it took a long time for me to work out how to actually unlock the bike. The instructions for everything were in German and when I tried to phone the helpline the operator knew nothing about how to hire the bikes. Great helpline!! In the end I worked it out by downloading the Android phone app that was in English and I realised that hiring the bike was easier than I thought. Fantastic! I went cycling off round the city.
Got the bikes to work! Liberation!!
The city is interesting with a futuristic financial area full off postmodernist buildings and hipster delis. It was so nice not having to walk but still be able to get round and see everything! Bliss!! As expected, there are very few old buildings but it has a good atmosphere and it is very nice down by the river. I had an Indian meal from a market stall which wasn’t that great but it filled me up.
View from Frankfurt StationFrankfurt centre. Many interesting modern buildings.
At night I had a look round for live music venues. There is a street with several jazz clubs and bars down in it and I was heading for these. I had been told about a bar called Club Voltaire that I went to but when I got there it looked a bit dull so I didn’t stay long. I also never got to the jazz clubs. On the way I came across a bike park and decided to do more biking, this time at night. Loved it! What a liberating feeling biking is! Then I went back to the hotel and watched Star Wars Episode 1 on my computer. It was better than I remember it.
Frankfurters everywhere cooked over wood barbecues!
Next morning I went to the bus station to get the bus to Prague, the next city on my list.The stop I wanted was down a side street. The buses are actually clean and comfortable but the bus station was a complete mess. Rubbish was everywhere. The bins were either overflowing or broken. This is not what I expected in a German city! There was also nowhere for passengers to sit and wait. I was beginning to feel like a second class citizen. It was good experience though and the other passengers were really friendly, and of course it is really cheap! You may think it’s odd me saying it’s a “good” experience but at least part of what I was doing was to see things from a different perspective, and it made me aware of how other people live and survive. It made me a part of things just by being there. There really were shades of the Jack Kerouac zeitgeist in what I was doing. I was on the outside looking in and I saw much that I haven’t seen before.
The trip from Frankfurt to Prague is really good. The scenery is wonderful and there are hundreds of miles of pristine forest. The only stop we made was at Nuremberg which is pretty grim. Glad I wasn’t staying although lots of passengers got off there. You can’t just base opinions on what a place looks like. It’s the people that count and Nuremberg’s history is pretty disturbing what with the carpet bombing and Sovietisation. It makes Coventry look picturesque! I was glad to get back into the beautiful countryside though.
On the bus to Prague
Prague is a beautiful city. I think it was the nicest place I’ve been to on the whole trip. Again, it wasn’t good for busking because of punitive by-laws. You need a licence and can only play for an hour at a time. Some of the buskers on Charles Bridge were brilliant, among the best I’ve ever seen. There were two accordionists playing Bach fugues, perfectly! I decided not to go rogue, and didn’t busk!
Prague at night
Unfortunately, there were no street bikes to hire so I was back on foot. I went all over and was particularly impressed by the Franz Kafka Museum. It didn’t have many exhibits but it presented itself as a kind of art installation and it gave a real insight into the work of Kafka, especially his novel, The Castle. It’s inspired me to revisit his work.
Franz Kafka Museum, PragueKafka’s illustrations of The Castle.
That night I took my accordion to an open mic at The Red Room bar. This was very good and I made lots of new friends including a couple from San Francisco who were doing a European tour. They did a brilliant version of Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix using acoustic guitar and voice. Check them out: The Jeff Jolly Band.
Red Room Open Mic, Prague. Jeff and Desiree playing.Hilarious statue outside the Kafka Museum, Prague
Next morning I was up early to get a bus to Berlin. This left at seven in the morning but I made it. It stopped at Dresden which is also a grim East German city that suffered terribly in the War. It made me realise how profoundly affected Europe was by the War, something I hadn’t really realised as a child growing up in Leicester which was relatively unaffected by bombing, although I did know about Coventry which was another beautiful city reduced to rubble! I went there as a child to visit the new Cathedral on a school trip.It was very memorable, especially the statue of Lady Godiva! What a terrible thing war is!
Kurferstendamm BerlinAlexanderplatz, Berlin. Full of strange, dislocated people.
Berlin was my last stop and I only stayed there for a day before I went back overnight on the bus to Brussels. I went to a strange bar that night that had an open mic. It had a stream flowing down the bar! The barman didn’t think I was drinking enough beer. He was quite eccentric! It was mainly songwriters and the standard was really high. The atmosphere wasn’t as good as some of the places I’ve been to and I left early to make sure I got the metro back to the hotel before it shut down for the night.
Arcanao Bar Open Mic, Berlin. Some really great singer/songwriters!
I had most of the day in Brussels before I got the train back to London so I decided to go to the Musical Instrument Museum and the Magritte Museum. Both were really interesting, especially the Magritte. I never realised a seminal surrealist could be so conventional and bourgeois! Still, I like his work!
Magritte Museum, BrusselsOutside, the riot squad are getting restless, they need somewhere to go..
Got back to London at 7 p.m. Adventure over, but there’ll be another one soon!
So, here I am on my second travelling adventure of the year. I’ve got the bug now. A bit like a latter day Jack Kerouac in search of kicks and excitement. Well, okay, visiting several European cities in a very short time! In this case, from Tuesday 29th September to Wednesday 7th October 2015. This is a shorter time than my Interail Spanish trip in April but I’m visiting nearly as many cities. I’ve also taken my accordion along for the ride. Am I mad, it weighs a ton, or seems to after a very short time. Still, the idea is to possibly do a bit of busking on the streets of Europe and also maybe get involved with open mics and jam sessions. I thought the accordion would be more interesting and exotic than a guitar which is lighter but takes up more room, and there are millions of guitarists around. It makes me yawn just thinking about it.
Okay, the train ride to Brussels went very smoothly. Changed at St. Pancras no problem. It’s the first time I’ve been on EuroStar. It’s a bit like taking a plane with all the security checks! I managed to get through without setting any alarms off. I’m getting good at this now! The train wasn’t quite as luxurious as I had expected it to be. There were no electrical sockets or WiFi. This makes the buses I have travelled on so far actually better. In fact, the one I’m travelling on at the moment even has a selection of films you can watch. Now, if only I could speak German! Never mind though, the scenery is gorgeous! The journey from London to Brussels took only two hours. The train is staggeringly fast although you don’t really notice it. I got to Brussels late afternoon and walked from the station to my hotel, Hotel Francois. For once I found it easily but ended up waiting for over an hour for the person to come to the reception. He never arrived. One of the guests woke up a man who was sleeping in room 1 and told him I was waiting. I’m not one to complain but this hostel is about the worst I’ve ever stayed in. All the rooms were unlocked all the time so there was no security (or key) and I got a bunk bed with no pillow or blanket. To be fair, the place was clean although there was no toilet paper. It was also right in the middle of the beautiful old town. I managed to survive their for two nights though. Brussels is very expensive and the Hotel Francois cost €20 a night. The nearest alternative cost €90 a night. That’s why I stuck it out. By the second night I was getting used to it anyway.
That night I had a walk round the town and had a tasty kebab supper. I also took some pictures of the city at night and looked where I might do some busking. I went back to the hotel and eventually managed to get to sleep. I was in a room with five people and it was pretty noisy but I must have been tired. Didn’t wake up until 9.30 a.m.
Brussels at night. Beautiful.Brussels. Love the trams!! Just rode around on them for the hell of it!Brussels CathedralBusker in Brussels. You need a licence and can only play in certain places.
That morning I decided to try some busking. Unfortunately, there was virtually no one about. The town doesn’t fill up ‘til gone twelve. I decided to put the accordion in Left Luggage at the station (it was beginning to get really heavy) and do the busking later. Then I had a good look round the town. I tried to rent a bike but had the same problem as when I was in Valencia. I couldn’t get it to read my credit card. Very frustrating!! So I got a 24 hour travel pass that I didn’t realise expired at midnight. Okay, as you have probably realised, after a promising start things were not exactly going to plan. Well, that’s part of the adventure. That is my rule. You take and deal with anything that comes, good or bad. And later on it got really good. The busking never happened because of various problems I hadn’t thought of like local laws and regulations. Officially, all buskers need to be licensed and can only play in certain places. What did happen though was a brilliant jam session at the Café Floréo near where I was staying. Had a great time playing all night with some excellent musicians and made a whole load of new friends. Fantastic! I slept well that night!
Cafe Floreo, Brussels. Great live music bar!Cafe Floreo, Brussels. Great jam night on Wednesdays.
I got the bus for Frankfurt on Thursday 1st October at 16.30 from the Gard du Nord station, Brussels. Everything went smoothly and I found the bus stand easily and I was in good time. I wasn’t sure I was looking forward to a six hour journey though, but it was an opportunity to have a good rest!
Well,I’m feeling a pretty strange. I’m writing this on a train heading for Montpellier where I have a bit of a wait before I get a train to Barcelona. A month ago it seemed like a good idea and I’m sure it will eventually be one (idea that is). It’s good to do something different! I flew from Gatwick to Nice yesterday and everything seemed fine. Monarch Airlines were a bit odd and their baggage policy is even worse than Ryanair but they eventually let me on to the plane after queuing for about an hour.
When I got to Nice Airport everything was good and there was even a bus waiting to take me to the centre of town. I thought it would take me all the way to the railway station where I had booked a hotel, the Elvira, but it stopped way before then. Panic!! It was also pouring with rain and cold. This wasn’t supposed to happen! This is supposed to be the sunny Riviera!! I asked the driver in atrocious French how to get to the station and I managed to understand that I needed to get the tram. Somehow I stumbled upon the tramlines and walked along until I found a stop. Fortunately, my bus ticket was okay for the tram and I eventually arrived at the station at about nine o’clock. Another half an hour of getting wet and lost I was standing outside the hotel with the door locked and no-one at the reception. At this point a certain feeling of misery and panic crept in. Eventually, I was let in and finally got into my room with the sound of rain dripping on my tiny balcony through an open window. A dim, single light dangled from the centre of the ceiling. I slept badly and was afraid I would miss my train the following day. I set two alarms but didn’t need either of them.
Hotel Elvira, Nice where I spent my first night!
After a strange night of weird dreams and feelings of disorientation I had a nice couple of hours looking round Nice and am now on the train writing this, still feeling strange but adjusting to the little adventure I have set upon. The weather’s better now as well. Another eight hours and I will be in Barcelona. Can’t wait!!
I have recently got into making videos of the photos of some of my trips accompanied by music that has been important to me over the years. This includes tracks by the likes of the Velvet Underground, Country Joe and the Fish and Bix Beiderbecke. Quite a variety really. It is amazing how the music changes the way I look at the photos, and they seem to take on a different meaning. It’s quite an eye opener really.
The first one is of Essex and Suffolk when I went on a tour playing with my old friends, folk group Bodger’s Mate. It is accompanied by “I’m Coming Virginia”, one of my favourite tracks by Bix Beiderbecke from 1927. I’m amazed how well the music stands up. It could almost be contemporary. The guitar playing by Eddie Lang is incredibly subtle, considering it is the main rhythm part.
The next one is of the Old Town of Marbella with “Grace” by Country Joe and the Fish. “Electric Music for the Mind and Body” was one of my favourite albums when I was young, along with the even better “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die”. I first went to Marbella in 1971 and didn’t go back there until last year. It was virtually unrecognisable until I found the Old Town, which was actually the only bit that existed when I went there before, and it was just the same and the memories came flooding back.
The last one is of my photos of New York when I visited there in 2012. This was the first time I had ever been to America and I had a brilliant time. I went to all the places I had heard of when I first started playing the guitar and it felt like I had gone home. I think New York is the only place I have been where people seem to know what I’m talking about. Fantastic! Greenwich Village may have changed but it resonated with meaning for me. This is accompanied by “Sister Ray” by the Velvet Underground who were one of my favourite bands in 1968. It’s worth watching this just to hear “Sister Ray” all the way through although it is very long.
Here are some videos of Steve Cartwright and my involvement with the N.U.T. strike in Leicester. The p.a. system stopped working but we managed to get by!
Rick Grech with Geoff Overon in the late 1970s. “to ruminate and reminis (sic) is allright (sic) once in a while. file this under Rock to Geoff. Rick Grech”. Actually, this is perhaps the first time I’ve seen him play bass in this period. He mostly played guitar and violin. The cryptic comment is probably referring to the fact that although he is playing bass he feels he has moved on from that. He no longer wants to be seen as a “bass player”.
I realized as I started this memoir that I don’t really know how to either spell or pronounce Rick’s name. Until recently I thought it was Ric and that Grech was pronounced with a hard “K” sound. I’m not sure now. On most of his recordings, and his own signature on a photograph I have, it is spelled Rick and many people I have spoken to who knew him assure me that Grech should be pronounced with a “CH” sound. I also thought he was of Polish origin but many biographies online say he was Ukrainian. Not a great start really as I am now totally confused and can hardly put myself forward as an expert! Mind you, it fits the person I knew for many years who was both interesting and sociable but was also a bit of an enigma who rarely gave a straight answer to any personal question.
What I do know is that I met him late 1975 and subsequently did gigs, wrote songs and recorded demos with him until the early eighties when we went our separate ways. When you look at biographies of Rick they all tend to agree that his career ended in 1977. Bizarrely, many say he became a carpet salesman. I don’t know where that came from but it was the sort of thing he would say as a joke. He had a cynical and sometimes surreal sense of humour. He actually saw himself as a musician and played in various combinations until his untimely death in 1990. The period I knew and worked with him was between 1975 and 1982 and we did many gigs together mainly around the Midlands area in the U.K.
In 1975 I was living on the St. Matthews Estate which was an area of social housing near the centre of Leicester. It was a time of economic upheaval with hyper-inflation and widespread industrial unrest. The then prime minister, Ted Heath, announced a three day week at the height of a miner’s strike that eventually brought down the government and returned Harold Wilson and a Labour government to power. On top of that there were many terrorist acts being committed by the IRA and other extremist groups with particularly horrendous bombings in Birmingham and Guildford. It was a time of great unrest and social change. The hope of the 60s had dissolved into the pessimism and paranoia of the 70s.
However, personally untouched by the economic downturn (living “on the dole” was alright as long as you didn’t have expensive habits), I continued to pursue and develop my career as a singer/songwriter. There weren’t many gigs in the centre of Leicester at that time so I and some of my musical friends started a club in the top room of a pub called the Town Arms on Pocklington’s Walk. We met every week and played songs and generally had a good time. Everyone at that time was making a big effort and many of the songs were excellent. Regulars at the time included Geoff Overon, Mick Pini, Dave Plimmer, Gwyn Jones, Annie Williamson and many others, some of whom I’ve forgotten the names of. None of us were making much money at the time but that didn’t really matter. We were more interested in writing and performing good songs.
The Town Arms, Leicester where our club used to meet every week in the upstairs room.
One night, out of the blue, Rick Grech turned up with his violin. He commenced to play along with people and then borrowed a guitar and sang some of his own songs. He obviously enjoyed himself and started to come every week. At the time he had just finished working with Gram Parsons and had even made two records with the original Crickets! One week he brought a cardboard box full of records to the club. It was by a “super-group” called KGB featuring Rick on bass. He proceeded to give everyone a free copy of this! This is when I first encountered Rick’s evasiveness. I said shouldn’t he be in America promoting this record but he told me nothing and didn’t want to discuss it! It was at this time that rumours started circulating that he had been expelled from America and could not return. I don’t know any facts about this but I know he never returned when I knew him in the 70s.
At the beginning Rick was a bit of an anachronism with his Rock Star status and red Ferrari which he crashed and abandoned shortly after I met him. But he was a nice guy who was soon part of the scene and we started working with him in various ways. At the time my maisonette (like a third story house on top of another house!) was a centre for continual jam sessions. I had a reel to reel tape recorder set up (a bit like the Basement Tapes) and recorded many sessions that involved Rick and lots of others. Unfortunately, the tapes I used were the cheapest available and oxidized over time and are virtually unplayable now. Rick was buzzing with ideas and writing some great songs and playing some fine fiddle. He was still involved in recording as a session musician with people like Rod Stewart and was still managed by impresario Robert Stigwood who released a compilation album of him in 1973. He had also promoted the talents of guitarist Albert Lee and had involved him in records with the Crickets and “Doctor to the Stars” turned country singer, Hank Wangford. It seems like Rick was everywhere, doing everything, he couldn’t fail, but cracks were beginning to show. Hank Wangford says this of his time with Gram Parsons and Rick:
“I spent four months in Canada, and came back and resolved to make a country album with Rick Grech for Robert Stigwood, I called Rick up one day and said, ‘You know who should co-produce this? Gram Parsons.’ He said, ‘I know Gram well’, and called him up. And Gram came over. “This was 1972. I did a demo with Rick on bass, Mike Kellie from Spooky Tooth on drums, Mike Storey on piano, and Pete Townshend on lead guitar. Glyn Johns was the engineer. I could have been forgiven for thinking I’d made it. But the whole thing fell apart. Gram came over, we spent a couple of days at Rick’s house going over the songs, but it fell apart because of heroin. Rick and Gram just got really stoned, and I didn’t take heroin. I hated it. Rick was so wrecked, he couldn’t get his recording machine to work. For hours and hours, he and Gram would get higher and higher, and nothing happened. Nothing was put on tape. Actually, that time, he brought with him George and Tammy’s new duets album We Go Together. And that was Gram’s role model for him and Emmylou.” (http://www.gramparsonsproject.com/hank/)
Hank Wangford with Syd Barrett and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Formentera 1967! If Daniel O’Donnell is the brightly scrubbed face of British country music then Hank Wangford is its guilty conscience, its dark and troubled grubby soul.This messianic derailment onto the path of country music came from befriending and playing with Gram Parsons, ex-Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers, in the seventies. This was at a time when Hank – as Dr Sam Hutt – was a rock ‘n roll doctor. Many of his patients were from the world of rock music and the hippie alternative world. The Grateful Dead, the Who and the Rolling Stones were some of his clients.
There’s a horrible prescience to this because years later I was with Rick when he was incapable of working his tape machine because he was so wasted! He became a victim of serious drug and alcohol abuse that eventually sent him to an early grave!
In 1976 Rick decided to form a band to showcase his songs. It was based on the kind of music Gram Parsons had been producing on his two solo albums “GP” and “Grievous Angel” both of which contained songs written by Rick although he didn’t play on them. He did have a producer credit on “GP” though. He teamed up with a local Irish/Country band called the Lentones at the time but who changed their name to Rhinestone in 1976.
They did gigs at Irish clubs and were breaking into the Country & Western club scene that was becoming very popular at the time. They were a very good band who won a national Country Music competition and played at the Wembley Stadium at a big festival with Rick on fiddle. To get the “Gram” sound he invited singer Claire Hamill to join him. She was a fairly well-known singer/songwriter at the time from the North East (I’d seen her play when I was a student in Darlington) and had recorded four solo albums at that time. She was favourably compared to Joni Mitchell. Praise indeed!!
In 1976 we had moved operations from The Town Arms to a place called Watson’s Restaurant on Belvoir Street, Leicester. This was originally intended as a kind of club for well-to-do business types but it was short on customers. We turned it into a live music venue and it did very well for over a year until the owners went bankrupt. It was here that Rick and Claire refined their songs and harmonies and they sounded very good. It was time to go on the road. A band was formed and a tour was set up. Robert Stigwood was still the manager and was setting up recording etc.
The site of Watsons Restaurant as it looks now on Belvoir Street, Leicester. The live music was on the first floor.
What happened then can only be called a disaster. I went to one of the gigs at the Nottingham Boat House (a well known venue at the time) and Rick was not on his best form. Captain Video (an up and coming country rock band) did the support but the main problem was that most of the audience were not expecting Country music. They were there to hear Rick play bass and do a Rock set. He didn’t touch the bass and played no Rock, no Blind Faith, no Traffic, no Family. I believe this was the reaction that met most of the gigs on this tour! Although Gram Parsons had convinced us that Country was hip there were a lot of people who hadn’t got the message. A shame, because actually it was potentially very good. The harmonies and songs were excellent and the musicians were good if a little unrehearsed. They should have toured the Country Music Clubs who would have loved it! To make matters worse I believe Claire and Rick ran up enormous expenses at London’s Claridges Hotel and charged them to Robert Stigwood who then immediately dropped Rick from his management. Well, that was the story at the time and I’m sure that’s what Rick told me!
It was towards the end of 1976 that I started doing gigs with Rick. By this time his drug and drink addiction was spiralling out of control and he was getting short of money. A Gibson Dove that had belonged to Gram Parsons began to be pawned regularly and the royalties from his recordings had begun to dry up. For the next four years I did many gigs with Rick as a duo and also in a band. At one point we were doing over four gigs a week! One of the most memorable regular gigs we did was at the Crows Nest on King Richards Road, Leicester every Tuesday night.
Rick Grech and me at the old Crows Nest, King Richards Road, Leicester 1978
This was always well attended and Rick often produced some great work on the fiddle. It lasted for several years. We also did many club gigs as a band and recorded some demos in the early eighties that showed some promise. From 1982 I didn’t have a lot to do with Rick but I know he continued playing. He’d sit in on jam sessions and continued to write songs and record them on his TEAC four track tape recorder. The mid eighties were a difficult time for him but interest in his old recordings was increasing. Many of the recordings he had been a part of had become classics and were selling well in the new CD format. I heard that he went to New York at one point, thinking of forming a band but I don’t think anything came of it. His early death was a great loss and he continues to be missed. He was a warm, funny guy who could be difficult at times but had a big and generous heart.
Here are two demos I made with Rick in 1981. We had a band called Blue Mountain with Stu Wilson on bass and Chris Drayton on drums. Rick on violin and vocals, both my songs:
Rick Grech jamming with Geoff Overon and Graeme Malen at the Phoenix Theatre Leicester c.1985
Here is a great concert video of Rick Grech with Blind Faith in Hyde Park 1969. They sound really good!! Rick is on great form!!
shame, because actually it was potentially very good. The harmonies and songs were excellent and the musicians were good if a little unrehearsed. They should have toured the Country Music Clubs who would have loved it! To make matters worse I believe Claire and Rick ran up enormous expenses at London’s Claridges Hotel and charged them to Robert Stigwood who then immediately dropped Rick from his management. Well, that was the story at the time and I’m sure that’s what Rick told me!
