Jon Kremer, Writer-Session-2-Episode #393

My guest today, British author and pop culture historian Jon Kremer is appearing on StoryBeat for the second time. He’s best known for his memoirs and books detailing the 1960s pop and rock music scene. 

A long-standing friendship with “Year of the Cat” singer-songwriter, Al Stewart, along with owning his hometown Bournemouth’s original vintage vinyl shop led to Jon experiencing many aspects of the UK music industry.

The recently released updated version of Jon’s book Bournemouth A Go! Go! – A Sixties Memoir features meeting the Beatles in 1963 at the height of Beatlemania in England. Jon also explores his ringside seat for the journey of his close friend, Al Stewart, from playing guitar in a local beat group to international success and hit double platinum albums in the ‘70s.  

I’ve read the revised version of Bournemouth A Go! Go! and can tell you it’s a fascinating, fun look at what life was like in England during the heady, music-filled ‘60s and ‘70s when everything in the culture was rapidly changing, and possibilities abounded. If you’re interested in the beginning of modern rock and pop music in England, and the early years of Al Stewart’s career in particular, I highly recommend Bournemouth A Go! Go! to you.

In 2024, Jon also published Chain Reaction – Rock ‘n’ Pop’s Magic Moments, which we chatted about during his first appearance on StoryBeat.  

Episode Transcript

Steve Cu (00:00):
On today's Story Beat,

(00:02):
In Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, one of the lines hesings, I'll, uh, know my song. Well, before I
start singing, before you write something, knowwhat you're writing about. Do know what you're
doing. It seems an obvious thing, but if you dothat and you are doing this with confidence, that
confidence comes across and I think in life,subliminally, at least in all sorts of things.

(00:26):
When we're talking with people, certainly if it'sabout anything serious, we want to have confidence
in them that they know what they're talking about.
This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden. A podcast forthe creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters
of creativity develop and produce brilliant worksthat people everywhere love and admire. So join us

(00:52):
as we discover how talented creators find successin the worlds of imagination and entertainment.
Here now is your host, Steve Cuden
Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We're comingto you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. My guest today, British author andpop culture historian John Creamer is appearing on

(01:18):
Story Beat for the second time. He's best knownfor his memoirs and books dealing with the 1960s
pop and rock music scene. A long standingfriendship with Year of the Cat singer songwriter
Al Stewart, along with owning his hometown,Bournemouth's original vintage vinyl shop, led to
John experiencing many aspects of the UK musicindustry. The recently released updated version of

(01:43):
John's book, BOURNEMOUTH A, uh, a 60s memoirfeatures meeting the Beatles in 1963 at the height
of Beatlemania in England. John also explores hisringside seat for the journey of his close friend
Al Stewart from playing guitar in a local beatgroup to international success and hit double
platinum albums in the 70s. I've read the revisedversion of Bournemouth A Go Go and can tell you

(02:07):
it's a fascinating, fun look at what life was likein England during the heady, music filled 60s and
70s, when everything in the culture was rapidlychanging and possibilities abounded. If you're
interested in the beginning of modern rock and popmusic in England and the early years of Al
Stewart's career in particular, I highly recommendBournemouth a Go Go to you in 2024. John also

(02:32):
published Chain Rock and Pop's Magic Moments,which we chatted about during his first appearance
on Story Beat. So for all those reasons and manymore, I'm delighted to welcome back to Story Beat
the author and music historian John Kremer John,so good to see you again.
Well, Steve, it's an absolute delight to be withyou again on Story Beat.
Well, the pleasure is mine, believe me. It's aterrific chatting with you. Look, I know you were

(02:57):
a young man in the 60s listening to all thatincredible music being created all the way around
you at all times. What effect do you think allthat music ultimately had on you as a person
throughout your life? How did it affect you?
Well, do you know, it seems to be like having, um,your own personal soundtrack. There's something
about, uh, that kind of musical jukebox we allhave in our mind. And it's like, um, teleporting.

(03:24):
It's like a time machine. What it set in play wassomething, uh, better than keeping a diary, I
would say. I mean, uh, perhaps, uh, back in theDwardian days, people would keep a diary. Now it's
mainly to keep to admin in place. But somehow whatit gave to me was initially just, uh, first of

(03:45):
all, I suppose, a defense against the vicissitudesof school days. But then when leaving, it kind of
gave, um, I don't know, a kind of credibility tolife that somehow you could tune into. And I'll
say pop music, because I think it delivers in away that nothing else ever could. Not rock music,
not jazz, not anything else, all wonderful. Butjust pop music can give you that two or three

(04:10):
minute sort of endorphin rush of pleasure. Andthis little soundtrack to life seemed to be there,
sort of. Yes. From those days onwards. What itmeant now would be decades and decades later, uh,
if I want to rush back to some moment in the past,there's probably a musical soundtrack tune that's
going to come to my mind that would take me there.

(04:32):
So songs will absolutely drag you back to thosedays? Yes.
Yeah, I think in an instant. I think, um, I thinkthat works for everyone, to be honest. Um.
Did you know back then that music had a hold onyou when you were a young man? Did you know it
then?
Yes. Uh, I started to get affected by thisstrongly, and we spoke about it in our previous,

(04:53):
uh, conversation. Partly because my parents and Ialways had the kind of relationship that maybe an
only child might have more than maybe, if you havemany brothers and sisters in which, um, they used
to talk. A thing called the generation gap backthen never existed for me because my dad, although
he wasn't a musician, could play a guitar. Andthough it wasn't the thing in the 50s, he had

(05:18):
quite a record collection. And by the time I'mabout 12 and you're just sliding into that teenage
thing, uh, I already had some records from mydad's collection and I was already getting a buzz
from this. So you hit adolescence and it allbecomes very important very quickly.
Mhm. For sure, for sure. What back in the day wereyour absolute favorite songs or albums or groups?

(05:43):
Who were your favorites back when you were sort ofjust getting into it?
Um, are we talking about the very early part? Uh,in this case we'd be talking about the very late
50s, very early 60s. Uh, we're talking preBeatles. In other words.

Steve Cuden (05:59):
Pre Beatles. Yes.
Okay. Um, I had 2M. I very, very much liked fromthe word go as soon as I heard him. Buddy
Hollywood M. Unfortunately this came aboutprobably not long after he sadly demised in the
year of 1959, I think in February 59, from theword go, everything he did. And it was

(06:23):
extraordinary to me then as time goes on, whenyou're that age, a year, two years, five years,
well, considerable amounts of time. I realizedlater, uh, that he did virtually everything in
about a 20 month period. All the songs that anyonecan remember, and there's five or six of them that
have given their titles to film titles, they stillsound totally fresh to me. If you popped on Every

(06:49):
Day now on your turntable or Peggy Sue GotMarried, it just sounds wonderful. And in England,
um, I very much liked Anthony Newley. Somethingabout his voice just took hold of me.
I know we talked about Newley in the last show,uh, in regard to uh, uh, his influencing David
Bowie.
Yes, that's what I wrote about a chapter in ChainReaction on. Yes indeed.

(07:10):
Correct. So in the book Bournemouth a Go Go, youuh, have pictures of you with a guitar. Were you a
musician back then? Were you working that way?
Well, this is the thing. If we're going back toEngland and the beat group scene, it had developed
out of a mid-50s fluke in which something calledskiffle music was popular for a couple of years

(07:34):
mainly because of a guy called Lonnie Donegan.
What this meant was this craze meant you didn'thave to be a musician. People just picked it up,
uh, learned three chords, had a cheap Spanishguitar, somebody possibly on a washboard making a
noise and a, uh, uh, sort of a bass, somethingsort of homemade. And then the Beatles start with

(07:59):
John Lennon having a group called the Quarry Men,which is a skiffle group. The craze comes and goes
and by the late 50s it's faded. There's not aghost of it remains. Out of the 100% of people who
tried it, 98% stopped. 2% of them though didn't.
They thought they like this idea, this grecariousgame. Of pretending to be performers. They're not

(08:23):
even really even amateur musicians. And they arethe forming of British rock and roll groups.
That's what they morph into. They become three orfour people on guitars, Somebody pretending to be
Elvis Presley up front. And they eventually becomethe beat groups that one day in 1964 will storm

(08:45):
across America and be called the British Invasion.
My point here is there was a time where you coulddo this stuff, really not be a musician. I was
never a musician. I picked up electric guitarbecause, like many people in England my age at the
time who were male, you wanted to be Hank Marvin.
Hank B. Marvin, the lead guitarist of the Shadows.

(09:07):
And he inspired everyone to pick up electricguitar. I soon realized to be any good, you had to
practice. I was too lazy. Um, now I rememberedthat why I wanted to do this was, oh, you look
good. Maybe girls will like this. And I found outthere were easier ways to maybe spend some time

(09:30):
with girls than bothering to become a musician.
Then around that time, I think the picture you'relooking at, I'm about 16 then, maybe 15. Um, I'd
met Al, and he could play very well then. And thenI met Robert Fripp, who was fantastic. And then

(09:52):
Andy Summers from the Police. And you think you'reseeing people like this every week, popping in and
out of clubs or whatever, playing guitar. Ithought, I'm never going to do this. So, uh, I
quite quickly stopped those
listeners who don't know. Robert Fripp is of KingCrimson, correct?

Jon Kremer (10:08):
Yes.
Uh, and, uh. So you were meeting, uh, trulyseminal artists before they were known, Correct?
Yes. In a word, it was extremely. Everywhere inthe country had a kind of music scene. Liverpool,
of course, was off the scale. Something else.
London metropolis doesn't count. But Bournemouth,for some reason, really tended to kind of punch

(10:34):
above its weight. Um, besides Andy Summers, whogoes on with the Police, there's Al Stewart, uh,
there's a number of people.
Why do you think that was happening in the 50s,60s and 70s? Why was Bournemouth such a focal
point?
It was really in the 60s in Bournemouth and, um,particularly the early 60s. What would tend to
happen in England would be. If you wanted to makeit, you went to London. When the Beatles are in

(10:59):
Liverpool and Epstein is still trying to get thema recording deal, they just tell him over and over
again, every record label, every music publisher,you're wasting your time. You're in Liverpool.
You've got to come to London. The same thing wouldhappen in Bournemouth. They would have to go to
London. Al Stewart went to London, um, RobertFripp and his group become the King Crimson. Um,

(11:25):
so it starts in Bournemouth, but in the end it hasto be from London. It's just the nature of it.
And you had Greg Lake come out of there too. Yeah.
Oh, sorry, Greg. Yeah, I was forgetting him. Ididn't know him too well. I mean, I see him
because when you've got a scene in a relativelysmall place, a town, everyone will basically know

(11:45):
everyone. Some you know better than others. But,um. Yes, yes. Um, he, um. When he first joins
Robert Fripp and his character Crimson lineup. Andthen of course it's the, uh. The Lake and Emerson.
Lake and Palmer, they are.
The first rock group I ever saw in concert wasEmerson, Lake and Palmer.

(12:06):
Oh, really?
Yes. I was a young, very young person. I probablywas 9 years old, 10 years old, whatever.
I was very early into it then.
Yeah, that was. Well, yeah, that was. Was bigstuff. And I just. I was totally enamored with,
uh. With Keith, um, Emerson and the way that heplayed the keyboard and made those noises. That
was unique at the time, all the synth noises. Um,and that all came out of the rock movement. Of

(12:30):
course, the Beatles were not synths till muchlater. They, you know, they were a true band for a
long time. Was there something, do you think aboutit? Was it England in general, that this was
happening and it just was partly in Bournemouth?
Or was there something special happening inBournemouth?
No, I think the whole thing was England, as youput it. But there was one or two sort of hotspots.

(12:54):
I mean, the obvious one is Liverpool. But, um,Bournemouth was, ah, kind of under the radar in a
sense with this. In retrospect, people look back.
There's a line I always like to say to people. Um,where did the Beatles perform live in England most
times, excluding Liverpool, obviously, and London?

(13:18):
Well, the answer is Bournemouth. So this by itselfkind of tells the story quite how and why, I
don't. I don't know.
But lots of folks came through Bournemouth to playthere, including people like the Stones and
Manfred Mann. And, uh, all these folks camethrough.
Yeah, well, Manfred, uh. I know Manfred Mann from.

(13:41):
Again, this is covered in my memoir. Before their.
Manfred Manna, they were called the Man Hug BluesBrothers, after Manfred Mann and Mike Hug, the
drummer who'd formed it. And before they'd evenmade a record, they would play once a week. I
think it was on a Wednesday back in 1963, in aBournemouth club called Ladiskagogo. Uh, first

(14:05):
time they played there. There's like about 30people there no one's taking any notice. Um, Al
and I went to see them and thought, this isfantastic. At this point they haven't even got a
guitar in the group. This is how non sellable tothe public they would have been. And had a lead
singer called Paul Jones. So we would, uh. Thenext week, there's more people. Next week, after

(14:28):
about a month, there's about 200 people packedinto this little club. You could hardly take it
that number. Uh, after a few months they get arecord deal. Their first record comes out and Al
and I would sort of see them often and, you know,chat and. Well, I say often once a week when they
were playing there. And I kind of tell a fewstories about them in a go go revisited for

(14:52):
America. If anyone remembers back in the 60s,Manfred man had a number one hit with a, ah, Ellie
Grinnich song called do what Diddy Diddy. A decadeor so later they split up and Manfred Mann had
something called Manfred Mann's Earth Band. And hehad number one in America with a cover of Bruce
Springsteen's Blinded by the Light. So, um, it'sthis fantastically weird thing of my life, which

(15:19):
is I just happened to come across enough peoplethat I could write a memoir about. Um, it was
talking of Paul Jones being the singer. He'dformed this group with Manfred. Manfred man,
having a year or so earlier, turned down thechance of being a singer in a group that a friend

(15:40):
of his was just putting together. And his friendhad the same name, actually, his name was Jones
and his friend was Brian Jones, who asked him tobe the singer in what would be the Rolling Stones.
And he said no.
He said no because it'll never work, you know.
So they got this guy from the London School ofEconomics in his first year called Jagger, I think

(16:01):
his name was something like that.
Who was Tony Hancock and how did he influencepeople in Bournemouth?
Oh, well, that's interesting. Um, you can haveprobably. I'm trying to think of some equivalent.
It's not real equivalent, but if you were to saySid Caesar, uh, in America, I'm assuming, even
though it's from the 1950s, his heyday, that hisname might still mean something. Sure, sure

(16:26):
citizes it would. And he was huge. And he wasprobably the number one early tv.
There was nobody bigger. Him and Milton Berle,basically. And that's it.
Absolutely. In England, no one had ever heard ofCid. Caesar. And anyone who will be listening to
this, hopefully one day soon in England wouldthink, who am I talking about? No idea. But

(16:51):
everybody Whatever their age would know of TonyHancock, because he was the number one in comedy
on television and radio in England from themid-1950s to the early 1960s. Uh, sadly, he
demised in the late 60s. He was somebody quitetroubled, shall we say, in the sense that the act

(17:15):
he did was a kind of comedic version of himselfand it made people very happy. But there was one
person it didn't make happy, which was TonyHancock. That old joke about, um, somebody who's
very depressed. And he goes to see a psychologistand says, what you need to do is go and see a
great comedian, a great clown. Go and seeGrimaldi. He's the greatest clown in the world.

(17:40):
And the person says, of course. Well, I amGrimaldi. Um, Tony Hancock was Tony Hancock. And
he wasn't happy with it. And he did thisextraordinary thing. He had a radio show and TV
show, three or four people around him who kind offitted as his sort of sitcom family of people, if

(18:00):
you like. And he had two script writers whobasically with him constructed his thing. Well,
bit by bit, he let every person who was in hisshow go, including his number one foil and friend,
a guy, a movie actor actually, called Sid James.
He got rid of him and eventually got rid of hisscript writers. And in the end, he got rid of his

(18:23):
career. He just wanted to be not parochial, notjust in England. He wanted to be. He made a couple
of films. He wanted them to be, you know,international successes. They weren't. He was
looking at a template which was Peter Sellers,who'd been huge in Britain, in a comedy act called
the goons in the 50s. And he then goes into moviesand he becomes worldwide famous. Tony Hancock

(18:48):
wanted that and it didn't happen. The Bournemouthconnection here is that Tony Hancock came from
Bournemouth. Um, he, in the 1930s, studied atlocal college. He first started to perform on
stage in a theatre in Bournemouth called thePavilion. And he originally came from Bournemouth.

(19:09):
Um, there's a, uh, linkage that I will maybe cometo later when we talk about Al. Um, with Al's
breakthrough success, he built up to it with a fewsmall hits, but he has a huge hit in the late 70s
with the year of the Cat. Well, there's aconnection between Al and Tony Hancock in Year of

(19:29):
the Cat, which I tell in a Go Go revisited.
Right. And I was just wondering who he was and howinfluential he was. Eventually he becomes very
influential in his own way. Um, but not as amusician, as a comedian.
No, it's as a comedian and it's basically, uh, forAl who liked him like everyone did back in that

(19:51):
day, seeing him perform, not that long, about twoyears before his sad demise. And by then he's a
very sad character. And something with Al stayswith him. And later, many years later, uh, he
decides to write a song about it, uh, called, uh,the Foot of the Stage. His tears ran down like

(20:13):
something on the foot of the stage. Anyway, peoplelistening to this might notice that Foot of the
Stage scans in the same way as Year of the Cat.
And when I was recording the album that would beYear of the Cat, he was going to record this song
about Tony Hancock and the American company forhim. Uh, at the time, said, uh, record label said,

(20:34):
well, look, you know, we did. No one knows whoTony Hancock is. We don't want this. Forget it. So
he scrapped all the lyrics about Tony Hancock andwrote Yoda Cat instead.
Well, that's a big influence. It's kind of likethe famous, uh, story of, um, McCartney coming up
with Yesterday. But the first lyrics werescrambled eggs and then becomes Yesterday.
Yeah, well, to be fair to him there, he wasn'tever going to have these as lyrics. He was using

(21:01):
it as a kind of mental place thing. Yeah.
And the Beatles did that frequently where theywould just put in nonsense words just to see if
the words would come out of their mouths in someway.
Yes, they could find it tune afterwards. Um, Imean, this one that MacArthur likes to tell about
how, um, they were finishing off the lyrics to ISaw Her Standing There. Um, and. And originally it

(21:26):
was, um, something like I saw her standing thereand she'd never been a beauty queen or something.
And I thought, well, that sounds awful. Oh, no,she was just 17. You know what I mean? That sounds
sexier.
Yes. How important were, um, movies, not only fromthe US but British movies as well, but US movies
too. How much influence did that have on the waythat the scene was? That. And artists. There were

(21:52):
lots of artists happening around then. There werethe, uh, the abstract expressionists and so on.
How important and influential were those on themusic scene? Was it all of a piece or were people
being influenced by not realizing they were beinginfluenced? Uh, you know, Bill Haley's Rock around
the Clock came out and all of a sudden the music,the scene explodes in rock and roll. How did that

(22:14):
influence the musicians in Bournemouth?
Well, it's an excellent question. I won't narrowit down just to Bournemouth, but it's not so much
the famed artist of the time, although possibly OPartist Bridget Riley had a big effect on the who,
but something else which I've always thought to mewas obvious, and perhaps it is obvious to a lot of

(22:37):
people, but I never hear anyone else say this orwrite it, because rock and roll comes, as you
said, from Bill Haley onwards. And then it goes inAmerica and then the Beatles bring it back to
America and it's rock and roll 2.0. Uh, why didthis suddenly happen? How could there be this

(22:59):
American almost amnesia in which they drift into aworld without Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis and
Little Richard, and suddenly it's Fabian andFrankie Avalon, and suddenly it's not only not
rock and roll, it's Hooten Alley. I mean, it'sridiculous. There is Tamla, but it's not really
major in America. It comes to England first. Thefirst Tamla song ever performed on the radio in

(23:27):
Britain is a live performance by the Beatles atthe beginning. One of the differences between
America and Britain, I've always thought, is to dowith, in England, art schools. Art schools are
like college, university type age group, butspecifically for art. And to my mind, there's no

(23:51):
coincidence that what Britain brought to it, thatwas different to America and built on it and took
from America, was an art sensibility. Andprimarily it comes from the Beatles, because
Lennon and McCartney have an art background.
Stuart Sutcliffe, who sadly demised just beforethey make it and had already left the group, is a

(24:15):
serious artist. Uh, an artist called EduardoPalazzi, who's one of the originators of pop art
in England in the late 40s, early 50s. He was astudent of his. He was serious potential artist,
and he kind of engaged to the Beatles, thefledgling Beatles, his art sensibility. But then
after that, if I say there's at least one memberof the following groups who went to art school in

(24:42):
England, if not in Bournemouth, the RollingStones, the who, the Kinks, Pink Floyd, Queen, Led
Zeppelin. And you suddenly think, hang on, there'sa clue here. And I think the question you asked
there is an excellent one. There's. It wasdefinitely an art influence, but it wasn't at that

(25:06):
elite level of hugely successful artists at thetime. It was much more at a sort of grassroots
level of studying art. Uh, well, it's the.
You have abstraction and expressionism and allthat happening at the same time. And you have
this, I think this rebellion that happened in the50s that led into the 60s in young people came out

(25:29):
of. Correct me if you think I'm wrong, came out ofthe Second World War, where there was, uh, really
a very terrible time for people to recover fromthat, especially in England. And that formed a
sort of rebellious attitude in young people. Andthat bloomed into art and music and everything
else.

(25:49):
Yes, it's absolutely true. That's exactly whathappened. Um, coupled with a kind of handy thing
that, um.
I mean, existentialism will knock people for asideways loop. And that's really what it really
was, was existentialism.
Well, yeah, a lot of people were, you know,reading, I don't know, Jean Paul Sartre and, uh.

(26:10):
Uh, French Parisian, Left bank and Juliet Grecowas always very attractive theme. A lot of these
things kind of merged together. Plus which,there's this thing that we call the swinging 60s.
It was a retrofit title put in place by timemagazine in 19. I think it's probably 66. I can't
remember exactly when. And they wrote this famedarticle about when Time magazine meant something

(26:34):
about London and swinging in London. But this hadcome about primarily because of the Beatles, then
because of various things to do with art, theater,music, plays, everything. Um. But it kind of
started just before music starts. The 60s,inverted corners in England. It starts with art,

(26:58):
in a way, but fashion art. Ah. And fashionphotography. And a guy called David Bailey. And
David Bailey is young, hip, he's got a beetlehaircut. Probably before the Beatles. He has a
muse, his girlfriend, who becomes England's firstsupermodel. Uh, Jean Shrimpton. And just before

(27:20):
the Beatles happen, it's early 62, maybe late 61.
He's got, amazingly, a job working for Vogue. Isay amazing, because he's from the East End of
London and Vogue is very upper class. He's got ajob as a photographer. And they send him and Gene
Shrimpton to New York to do some standard photos,you know, sort of mannequins just standing still.

(27:45):
And he does street scenes and all sorts of stuff,which now wouldn't seem like something, but
there's always a before and after moment. And helooks through his lens and he creates what is the
beginning of the 60s. In England. It would havebeen 61 or 62. I should know this. I've actually
written about, um. Might be early 62.
But it was. It was also happening in authorship aswell. You had Sam Beckett and you had, uh, Eugenie

(28:11):
Enesco and people like that that were also pushingthese unusual abstractions in wording as well. Uh,
and, uh. So I think that all of this was happeningin this cauldron at the end of the 50s and into
the 60s. You write in the book about when you feelthe 60s really started. Was that it?
What you just Said there's one day in Englandwhere I think it starts. Just one day. And it's

(28:37):
October 5th, 1962.
Wayne. Let me guess. It's Love Me Do.
That's one of it. On the same day in London at,uh, the Odeon Leicester Square Cinema, uh, a film
premieres on, um, the same day Love Me do isreleased. And that film enables Sean Connery to
say for the first time, my name's Bond. JamesBond. Dr. No premieres on the same day. Now, if

(29:03):
anyone like, suddenly was tuning in from Mars andthey just, you know, they wanted a few words, uh,
to describe what all of this was. What was thebiggest thing of the 60s from England. You could
just say it in three words. Beatles and Bond.
That's really very, that's very good. That's atrue cultural dividing line at that moment and

(29:24):
nobody knows it. You don't know those things tillmuch later, do you?
That's the retrospective lens of history.
Yeah, I think that that's really interestingbecause James Bond is so not what rock and roll
is, and yet in a way it is. And then you get thismarvelous music that comes out of the Bond world.
And some of the famous people that wound up inrock and roll, uh, like John Paul Jones and um,

(29:47):
Jimmy Page, they were playing on Bond recordings.
Yeah, well, they were both session players, um,originally. Ah, Jimmy Page, at a very young age,
about 17, you know, he was, um, I don't know,playing three sessions a day sometimes. Uh, yes,
they're very much a part of it. Also, theidentifier, the sort of audio identifier for James

(30:11):
Bond worldwide is the, obviously the James Bondtheme music. Now, uh, uh, it's almost always
associated with John Barry. And to be fair, JohnBarrie's arrangement of it is what we all know.
Absolutely. So it's Monty Norman's theme, but it'sJames Barrie's arrangement. And then, and then he
pushes it very hard throughout, I don't know,eight or nine movies.

(30:33):
Yeah. And the original thing that most people knowis a very simple few guitar notes, staccato, um,
which we could both hum, but we won't, whichintroduces James Bond. And the amazing thing is
that's played by the lead guitar player from JohnBarry's group. He had, besides being, um, becoming
famous as a, huh, composer for movie soundtracks,um, originally he had a group called the John

(31:00):
Barry 7. And the lead guitar player from that isthe one is on the session for the first James Bond
film. And it's his guitar you hear. And this guy,I thought Had a wonderful name for an electric
guitar player. It's his real name. His name wasVic Flick. And that's who you hear going, dang, da
da, dang, dang, dang. But. So, yes, theconnections with music and movies, but the Bond

(31:21):
themes, uh, I think there's two or three that areoutstanding. One of them, of course, is Paul
McCartney's Live and Let Die. Um, and it alwayshas kind of personal connection with me because
when I met up with him back in 1973, um, it wasthe month that, uh, Live and Let Die was being

(31:43):
released. And it was very interesting because Igot to chat with him about writing movie music
because he had written before in 1966, a HayleyMills movie called the Family Way, and he'd
written the music for that, which most peoplenever take any notice of at all. In the McCartney
story, um, actually, why would. There's a lot moreto look at than that.

(32:04):
So you have a marvelous quote in the book that I'mnot sure I understand. I want you to. I know what
the quote means, but I don't know where it comesfrom or how it applies. So I'm curious about it.
You write, and I'm quoting. I sometimes wonderwhat might have been if the relative discoveries
of Lord Cardigan and the Earl of Sandwich had beenreversed. In a parallel universe, we could be

(32:25):
eating Cardigans and wearing sandwiches. I lovethat.
Thank you so much. I think you're the only person,perhaps. Besides, Al is actually probably like
that. That's actually an example of how, uh, heand I, I don't know, are on a similar wavelength
with humor, probably from when we were in ourteens. Um, it just struck me, and I've no idea why

(32:46):
it was leading on into the fact that Bournemouthis a relatively new town in the sense that if you
go back to the mid 19th century, there's reallynothing in Bournemouth. Whereas five miles away,
this town called Poole, P O L E, that's been theresince, you know, the year, uh, 1000. You know,
it's just an old sepal. I think I was going towrite about a guy called Lewis Tregonwell who

(33:11):
first built a house in Bournemouth. And I think Iwrote something like, you know, in another
universe, instead of being Bournemouth, there's ariver called the Bourne, and it's at the mouth of
it. It's that prosaic. Um, it could have beencalled Dragonwellville or something like that. And
there's a lead into it. I wrote that thing. Butthis is true. Um, we do wear cardigans because of

(33:34):
Lord Cardigan. And we do eat sandwiches because ofthe Earl of Sandw. The story, uh, probably
apocryphal to it, was he was playing a card gameand it was going on and on and on and he was
hungry and he didn't want to stop. And he got oneof his servants or whatever, uh, to come and bring
him something. And this is how a sandwich came tobe.

(33:56):
So why do you call in the book 1963 and 1967 theLightning Years?
Well, I always like the expression the lightningyears. And in 1970. No, sorry, it must have been
1980. There's a series of documentaries inEngland, um, on one of the channels. And it was

(34:20):
about the 60s. And they called this documentarythe Lightning Years. And I absolutely loved it. I
thought that's terrific. I thought I'll stealthat. Um, I'll digress for one moment and try and
plug something that doesn't even exist. The bookI'm currently writing is about 20th century songs.
Not just songs that were spectacularly popular,ah. And had endured and still do, but songs that

(34:47):
somehow, for varying different reasons over ahundred years, became kind of embedded in history
itself. They just became something more than justa well known song. So I'm writing about, about
these songs. I've realized that there were. The60s is without question the standout year of the

(35:09):
20th century. Not in terms of, uh, conflict oranything, but it just is. If you take it from um,
the Beatles at the beginning to um, John Kennedy'sproclamation that we'll land a man on the moon
within a decade coming true, it's a fantasticdecade. If it didn't exist, I think the Silver

(35:33):
Medal would probably be going to. What would bethe gold medal decade would be the 1920s. From the
cultural point of view, from what happens and whatstill this stuff pertaining now, half a century or
more later than the 60s, from the 20s, well, youknow, you go and see a movie and the sound on it,
well, that started in the 20s, a huge amount ofthings did. The idea of um, mass marketing being

(35:59):
fueled by a thing called advertising starts in the20s. In other words, the contemporary world has
got to start somewhere. And it struck me that ofthe great decades of the century, the 60s, there
were two years that were particularly outstanding.
And I think I could make a case for 1963 and acase for 1967. Having said that in the book, I

(36:22):
almost immediately underwrite the one about 67 bysaying how, uh, much it needed 66 to run up into
it. It didn't just come out of nowhere.
You know, I'm giving my age away, but I livedthrough the 60s. And it was in retrospect, the
dynamic decade, I think, of the 20th centuryagain. I think you're correct with the exception

(36:46):
of the 20s and maybe the 40s with the Second WorldWar. Uh, but the 60s were extraordinary. And what
happened there and assassinations of world leadersand, uh, the music industry and then the Vietnam
War and everything else. It was a big decade witha lot of things happening. Um, and so the music, I

(37:06):
think, at that time reflected all that. And what'sinteresting to me is how many where there was a
war going on, how the music industry was, uh, partof the protest movement against that war, and how
that then sort of disappeared for a long time. Uh,and I think it's maybe just now starting to come

(37:29):
back in our world a little bit. But it's not likeit was in the 60s at all.
Well, no, it's a very good point about conflict. Imean, obviously if we're Talking about the 1940s
or any decade, there are huge important changesthat come from it. And of course from warfare.
Obvious. And of course the fact that, um, um,Oppenheimer, uh, goes into the Los Alamos, New

(37:53):
Mexico desert, um, and in the 1944 and they splitthe atom. Of course, these are off the scale
things, though, I would say for the 60s, becausethey can claim the moon landing in 69. Um, this to
me is an event in human history that you could goback however many tens of thousand years you like.

(38:15):
And frankly, since then to now, nothing is theequivalent of that. I know it's become so
unexciting. Space is frankly boring. I canremember very well with the moon landings and I
was very taken by something that happened sixmonths before because I think it's the summer of

(38:35):
69 and around Christmas 68, um, Apollo 10, Isuppose it was, went to the moon and didn't land
and came back three astronauts. Lovell, Borman andAnders. I think I'm right. I hope so. Now, to me,
the most extraordinary thing I ever rememberexperiencing up to that point. Forget personal

(38:58):
life, of course, is different, but shall we say,being in the moment of, you know, human history,
was listening on, um, the radio. I think it wasbecause you could have this feedback from mission
Control. People were listening to this when theyreached the moon for the first time. They went
into orbit a few times, come back, but the firsttime when they go around the other side of the

(39:23):
moon, the dark side, they're out of Contact withEarth and no one can be sure for about 20, 30
minutes. Have they been flung off into space? Didit make it the orbit and then they come back on
and yes, it's all worked out. And I suddenly hadthis thought that these three human beings there,
they're on the other side of the moon. They can'teven see this planet. Of all the people who've

(39:49):
ever lived. And of course there's tremendous moonlandings of Armstrong and Collins and who doesn't
land? And Buzz Aldrin, um, a few months later. Butthese three guys are the first ones that are out
of sight of the planet. I, uh, thought, isn't thatextraordinary? Well, that happens in the 1960s. So

(40:10):
besides John, Paul, George and Ringo, there areother things we can look back on and see.
Oh, uh, no doubt it was a huge decade. So I wantto spend a little time talking about your good
friend Al Stewart. How did you actually meet? Whatwas your first meeting?
My dad had a small shop in uh, suburb ofBournemouth, um, in which I mentioned before that

(40:33):
he had an interest in music and guitars andthings. We'd moved to the Bournemouth area in
1961. Lived in uh, London, outskirts of London.
And um, my dad had uh, worked for a fairly bigcompany and he decided he didn't want this anymore

(40:53):
and he wanted to open a small little shop doingthings like buying and selling guitars and musical
instruments. And he opened this shop a year or solater. I just left school. I was helping out in
the shop when Al walked in the door. He walked inthe door and inquired about, uh. It wasn't a

(41:17):
guitar, it was uh, a reverberation unit, that folkguitar. And he said, oh yeah, okay, I'd like to
try that for guitar sign. He said, no, no, I wantto get my guitar and try it. So he went off and we
thought, okay, we'll never see you again. And justbefore our shop was closing, he walks back in with

(41:39):
a guitar and a small guitar amplifier to try outthis item. Tries it out. He wasn't very good,
didn't like it, didn't buy it. But in that time,two things happened. He and I start chatting. I
recently started to try and play the guitar, youknow, he can play quite well, maybe he can teach

(41:59):
me a few chords. And uh, we start chatting. Werealise we like a lot of records the same. We even
realized there's a couple of authors we like.
Within an hour or so we've become friends. He'snot buying this item. Time for the shop to shut.
And he's going to then get on a bus to take allthis stuff back to his home. And we realize he

(42:20):
lives like, not far away from where we lived. Sowe said, we'll give you a lift back. So pop his
stuff in the boot of the car. My dad drives usback to his place and he said, well, you know, uh,
come and visit, you know, I realized that it justseems an obvious thing now, but it's not really
obvious. We became instant friends and that wasthat.

(42:44):
Uh, that's how friendship frequently happens. Uh,then what did you do along the way to help him, to
support him in his growth as a songwriter and asinger. Prior to him becoming, uh, an
international success. What did you do to help himalong the way?
Well, he had been at a boarding school, which hehated, and left. And while there he started to

(43:09):
play guitar. Uh, and he always wrote poems. Andhe, bit by bit was writing songs. And the very
first time, a couple of days later, I poppedaround his family home, which, uh, was actually
very charming cottage with a thatched roof. Um, heshowed me basically like a school exercise book

(43:32):
full of songs he'd written. And this is back inautumn 62, and we've just met. And this was just
fascinating.
Were they just lyrics or were there actual songswritten?
No, no, no, he had songs to them. Yeah. Um, Iremember one called Stagnation Blues that I quite
liked a lot. And, um, some of them had, like,nonsense lyrics and things. Anyway, um, the next

(43:58):
thing is his school days are over. Uh, he's got ajob in a department store in Bournemouth. But he's
joined a local beat group to play guitar. Becausehe's good enough for that for the first year or
two, that's it. The hope is that he'll be in agroup. They'll get a recording contract. It all
happens from there. Then in, uh, early 1963,something changes. There's an American that we

(44:23):
dimly heard of. We had heard of him because he'dwritten a song that was a hit for Peter, Paul and
Mary. And we realized this guy's just got a new LPout, his second lp, the freewheeling Bob Dylan.
This changes everything. Al starts to get, if youlike, tuition from Bob Dylan, if you like. And

(44:44):
then by 1965, beat groups are over. Uh, he'sdecided he is going to be a singer songwriter. The
term didn't really even exist. Then he went toLondon, starts playing in the kind of coffee bar
scene, if you like. And no one takes any notice atall. Well, during all of that period, the B Group

(45:04):
period and whatever. He's writing songs and, um,no one says to him anything other than nothing.
But he will say that I always said, no, no, you'regoing to write a hit song, you're going to make
records. This will all be okay. I'm now not sure.
It's so long ago why I said this, but it's true, Idid. Even up to by 1965, 66 he makes his first

(45:30):
record. Um, 67 he makes his first LP. Yes, by thenthere were enough people saying, yeah, but in
those first few years, there's only one personsaying to him, I think you're going to make it.
That's possibly why we're still friends.
So you were giving him your intuition about whatyou were perceiving, of course, as an artist. Most

(45:53):
artists, I wouldn't say all but a good chunk ofartists are self conscious and not sure of
themselves. And, uh, they feel like they'refooling people. And that's what they call imposter
syndrome. He might have had a touch of that backthen where he wasn't sure.
Well, the first thing a person wants to do iswritten a song, is play at somebody. Well, by the

(46:15):
time he's on the London folk club scene and the65, there's an audience to play it to, getting
some feedback. But even then, um, he'd write asong and he'd play it to me and I would be very
often for many years the first person to hearthese songs. Because you want some kind of
feedback and probably validation as well, if youreally please with something. Um, actually it's

(46:41):
very funny because, um, in my book I'll talkabout, um, how I'll. When he was first in London,
he was at one point sharing a flat with anAmerican who had not hit big then, but had written
some nice songs. And then suddenly gets a phonecall from his American record company, uh, saying,
come back. Silence of Silence looks like being ahit record. And he used to share a place with Paul

(47:06):
Simon. And the weird thing with this is that PaulSimon, exactly what you're saying. He wrote
Homeward Bound or finished Homeward Bound. And,um, the first person he played it to was Al. He
happened to be in the room next to him. A coupleof days later, Al's in Bournemouth, gets his
guitar out and says, listen to this. This issomething Paul's just written. And I'm one of the

(47:31):
first people who ever hear Homeward Bound becauseAl Stewart plays it for me. It's a funny life how
coming, um, into my dad's shop and not buyingsomething leads to, um, him being best man at my
wedding, me being best man at his first wedding.
Um, it's strange but true.

(47:54):
Do I remember correctly that you write in the bookthat you were the first person ever to actually
record him?
Oh, well, yes. Um, I had to tape reel to reel,tape deck, partly again due to my dad and his
interests. And people did have such things, but itwasn't that commonplace. It's not till you get to
the late 60s and cassette tapes and things thatpeople have routinely got some way of recording

(48:18):
something. Um, and yes, he'd come out to ourfamily home and he'd, you know, sing a song or two
and I'd record them. Um, the interesting thingwith these tapes is very weird. About three years
ago, um, a company that specializes in makingexpensive limited edition box sets of an artist's

(48:40):
work put out an, um, Al Stewart box set. Ah. Andit's called, um, the Admiralty Lights. And it's
got.

Steve Cuden (48:51):
What's it called?
The Admiralty Lights. There's a reason for this.
It's from one of his songs, um, the AdmiraltyLights. This box set was limited to 2,000 copies
and it sold for, I suppose, about $500, roughly.
And it's got two books in it and wait for this, 60CDs.

(49:12):
Wow.
It's everything he ever made. And live shows,rarities, outtakes, and the company putting it
together were put together with, connected withme. Let's put it this way. Um, and I licensed to
them about eight or 10 things that I'd recorded inthe mid-60s before Al made records.

(49:34):
Wow.
They then digitally reprocessed, made them soundgreat and put on their rarity CD. So there are now
people, I don't know, uh, 2,000 fans who areenthusiastic and want to spend the money, actually
have got these things that I. Yes. Originallyrecorded for.
Is that just him on guitar singing?

(49:56):
It's just him on guitar. Uh. Oh, yeah, yeah.
So that must be. Well, that's extraordinary. Soyou kept those tapes, so obviously you kept them a
long time.
Well, this is. Yeah. Yes and no. Um,unfortunately, at one point I switched everything
over into cassette tapes and I hadn't got theoriginals. But because of what you now know can be
done, Steve, with, uh, the digital world, um, andsoftware, they can make these things, these things

(50:23):
sound fantastic. Um, but it's a strange thing of,uh, a time loop.
So ultimately you wind up in Los Angeles with Alat some juncture, uh, briefly.

Jon Kremer (50:38):
Yeah.
And I'm just curious, how important was it For Alto finally play the famed Whiskey a Go Go on the
Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
Yeah. Um, do you know, I'm assuming he playedthere. We didn't see him there. Familiar with
Whiskey Go Go, but not seeing Al there.
Oh, so Al didn't play there. Am I misrememberingit?

(51:00):
Yeah, I'm sure he must have done. He played theTroubadour, which is the, um.
Oh, even bigger there, which is the
famous breakout thing for that, and the Starwood.
And, uh, he probably did play the Whiskey I. Just.
Not when we were around there.
But he played the Troubadour. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, he played the Troubadour. Doug Weston'sTroubadour. Yeah.
Oh, well, that was. I mean, so many huge acts cameout. The cast through there, Elton John and Linda

(51:24):
Ronstadt.
Elton John breaks out from the Troubadour. Um, andactually the. The basis of, um, the beginnings of
the Eagle start there. Of course, Linda Ronstadtuses a couple of them in her backup band,
actually. Frankly, the Eagles should every daysort of say, um, thank you to Linda Ronstadt.
I suspect that they do. Um, I have been having themost marvelous conversation with John Creamer,

(51:51):
the, uh, author and historian of all things musicfrom England in the 60s and 70s and 50s. Um, and
we're going to wind the show down just a littlebit. And I'm just wondering, John, in all of your
vast experiences with Al Stewart and in the musicbusiness and your time, uh, with your own record
shop, uh, can you share with us a story that'seither weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just

(52:14):
plain funny?
There's a time in the late 60s when Al's actuallymaking records already. He's made a couple of LPs.
They sold a few thousand copies. He hasn't got aband. He's in between managers. He's got an agent.
And there's a circuit that's developed in Englandin the late 60s, which is the kind of university

(52:35):
college circuit for music gigs. And it was a timewhere singer songwriters beginning to happen.
There's psychedelic bands, there's everything. Butbesides the normal venues, which are maybe clubs,
if they're not big enough to be on touringtheaters and stadiums. Not stadiums, other venues.

(52:59):
Um, the college circuit developed, and that wouldbe run by a student at the college or university,
usually called the social secretary, who wouldmaybe once a week get in touch with various
agencies and book an act. It could be FleetwoodMac. You know, they've got a couple of albums out,

(53:20):
but they're not selling they're bookable for acouple of hundred pound. It would be things like
this. And sometimes it will be just to sing. Asongwriter with a guitar. Anyway, Al calls one day
and says, oh, um, got a gig in Southampton,Southampton University, which is about 30 miles
from Bournemouth. So I said, sure, okay, I'll meetyou there. He was in London, then he drove down

(53:45):
from London. I drove over from Bournemouth. I getto Southampton University before Al, uh, and at
that point I go in, meet the social secretarywho's organized the whole thing, the people being
able to arrive. And I said, is Al here yet? And hesaid, well, no, why would he be? And, um, I said,

(54:08):
well, he's playing here tonight. He's performingtonight. He said, no, no, no. He says, we've got
Michael Chapman now. Michael Chapman was anothersinger songwriter on the British scene. Then had
an LP out called Fully Qualified Survivor. Verygood lp. Didn't really sell much. And he was on
the circuit. No, no, Mike Chapman's book. And thensomeone turns up. Mike Chapman. Oh, really? I

(54:32):
said, no, no, Al Stewart has booked. Al turns up.
And I said, um, Mike Chapman's here. Al knowsMike. Mike knows Al. They say, you're not booked.
And Al says, yes, I am. And because there's no onein the way of a manager there, it has to be me.
And I say to the guys, use at the university, no,Al Stewart's booked here. What's now going to

(54:59):
happen? Well, they freak out and they go runningaround the campus saying to loads of people, it's
not just Mike Chapman. We've got Al Stewart hereas well. And they somehow rustle together enough
people. There's a film club happening that night.
They go into that and they drag people out that.
And they get enough money together and. And theysay, look, can you split it between you? So Al.

(55:25):
Mike thinks it's very funny. And they do this. AndMike plays, Al plays. Everyone goes home. That's
it. Next day, Al phones me and he said, uh, he wastalking with his agency and he said, you know, um,
that thing we did last night. He said, uh, theyhad inquired, uh, but they didn't send a contract

(55:49):
through. They didn't sign it. Made a mistake. Iwasn't booked to play there last night. And we
said, but you know something? We joked about thisfor years afterwards. Ever suddenly need money.
The answer is just rock up to a universitysomewhere in England and demand to play. Because
this is what happened.

(56:10):
That's. That's a marvelous story. He wasn'tsupposed to play, but there he Was. And you were
insistent. You were so insistent that they boughtit.
Astray's, uh, here, you know, I won't go as faras, say, my artist is here. Do you want to hear
from our lawyer? Uh, be on speed dial? No, notquite in the late 60s, but it was a bit like that.
And we'd insisted he play and insisted they pay.

(56:33):
And they did. I'll tell you a little coda to that.
After that, it went down so well. He did playSouthampton University many, many times. Four or
five times over the next 18 months, two years. AndSouthampton University would ring, I suppose, ring
or write to me even in those days to make thebooking, because they thought it had to go through

(56:58):
me, which it absolutely didn't.
I think that, uh, that's a fine story because it'sfunny how life works like that. Sometimes things
are. They're not supposed to happen, but they do,and they turn into bigger things. I think that's
really tremendous. All right, so last question foryou today, John. Um, are you able to share with us
a piece of advice or a tip that you like to giveto people who are maybe starting out as writers or

(57:22):
starting out in the music business or whatever,when they ask you, how can I do what is this thing
that I want to do?
Or.
Or maybe they're in a little bit trying to get toanother level.
Well, we're talking a lot about music, andobviously what I write about has a lot to do with
it. And a little while back mentioned Bob Dylan'sfreewheeling lp, and it had on it a song, Hard

(57:44):
Rain's Gonna Fall, which I think after Don't ThinkTwice, it's all right was his first truly great
song. That eventually leads, in 2016, to himwinning the Nobel Prize for literature. I know
everyone says, well, it starts with Blowing in theWind, but even Bob Dylan doesn't think that's a
great song. But, um, in Hard Rain's Gonna Fall,one of the lines he sings, I'll know my song well

(58:08):
before I start singing. I think it's a good ideato know your song well before you start singing.
Before you write something. Know what you'rewriting about. Do know what you're doing. It seems
an obvious thing, but if you do that and you aredoing this with confidence, that confidence comes
across. And I think in life, subliminally, atleast in all sorts of things, when we're talking

(58:32):
with people, certainly if it's about anythingserious, we want to have confidence in them that
they know what they're talking About. I mean, asidebar to this might be. If you go into an art
gallery, whatever you like in your knowledge isparamount when you look at the paintings. But it's
not like someone's just wandered up to you in thestreet saying, look at this painting. They're

(58:53):
hanging on a wall. Somebody has already put theircredibility into it. Somebody's already said, the
gallery owner or curator, they've got theconfidence to say this. And I think we're all
looking for confidence subliminally. If you canput that into your writing, because you do know
your song well, before you've started singing, youdo know what you're writing. I think that that's a

(59:15):
big help. And, uh, a small alternative to that.
I'll reach to my friend Al Stewart in one of hissongs called if It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave
It. And I think if you're writing and you findsomething's worth pursuing and it's taking some
work to make it shiny, well, of course, continue.
But if it doesn't really seem to work, if itdoesn't come naturally, leave it. You're not going

(59:39):
to regret you've left it out. You're never goingto think that, make the whole thing better.
I think that's marvelous advice because, uh, thetruth of the matter is, uh, you can't just wing
everything. You can wing some things and you cango at some things having no idea what you're doing
at all and trying to find your way. But it'sextremely useful, I think, when you have thought

(01:00:02):
through things, when you actually know what it isyou're trying to achieve, what your goals are, and
you go after those, that means that you've thoughtthrough this process that you want to get through.
It doesn't mean you have all the answers. You, youcan find those along the way. But having an idea
clearly in your mind's eye about where you'retrying to head. In other words, you know your song
ahead of time, same sort of thing. That's a reallywise piece of advice. Um, I just think that's

(01:00:28):
terrific. John Kremer This has been an absolutelywonderful episode of Story Beat. And I thank you
for all this grand information that you've sharedwith us about, uh, rock and roll and, and Al
Stewart in the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. And Ithank you for your time, your energy, and from all
this great
wisdom, it's been an absolute pleasure again, andas, uh, our previous conversation, it just seems

(01:00:52):
to fly by. And that's all down to your very, veryinteresting questions. Steve. Thank you.
And so we've come to the end of today's StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won't you please
take a moment to give us a comment, rating, orreview on whatever app or platform you're
listening to? Your support helps us bring moregreat Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is

(01:01:15):
available on all major podcast apps and platforms,including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify,
iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until nexttime, I'm Steve Cuden, and may all your stories be
all unforgettable.