Patrick rang me today to confirm the text that the great guitar player John Renbourn wrote to him after he read the book and that he is happy for us to use for publicity. We are proud to repeat the following:
'What a great book! Full of bullshit, of course, but GREAT bullshit! The text is right on the money and the photos really make it...'
Once Don had made the initial breakthrough into the Biz after 'Rosie' became a hit, other offers presented themselves. One rather obscure one was when he was commissioned to write the lyrics (Stanley Myers did the music) for the opening theme over the titles for the film 'Otley.' The resulting song was, 'Homeless Bones,' a quirky little ditty, backed by Don's one man band, heavily featuring harmonica and banjo rather than guitar, with some background orchestration - minimal strings and a tuba. (He often used plectrum banjo on the street - as did Alan Young, his oldest friend - because it cut through the surrounding noise very efficiently). 'Otley' was released in 1968, with Tom Courtenay in the lead (alongside Romy Schneider) as a jack the lad about town in the 'Swinging Sixties.' The movie is actually somewhat better than that description might suggest...
'Gerald Arthur Otley (Tom Courtenay) is a born loser.While asleep,drunk,his
host is murdered and Otley himself is taken and interrogated by two
separate sets of kidnappers before he has a chance to talk to the
Police. The bemused Otley blunders from one near-fatal crisis to another
with no idea who is on whose side, and especially who is on his side. This spoof comedy-thriller combines elements of ‘James-Bondery’
with the swinging London set as the confused Otley unintentionally
finds himself keeping company with spies and murderers in all manner of
comical situations.'
The opening sequences show Tom Courtenay walking along a busy london street
and is a time capsule of late 1960s london, the people, the hair
styles, the clothes and cars bringing memories of the era flooding back
if you were in london at that time. Covertly filmed unlike many films
you can see that most people are totally unaware they are being filmed
as the actor walks amongst them. I find this part of the film alone
fascinating. Shot in colour OTLEY is a must see for any British comedy
film fan.'
(Taken from here).
The 'busy London street' is Portobello Road, one of those iconic London settings of the time. Not sure who the busker is on the left as the camera follows Courtenay's progress through the crowds - could be John McCarthy ('Scouse')? Height and moustache would be about right.
When the film opened in the US in March 1969, Vincent Canby, writing in the New York Times, was not overly impressed:
'"OTLEY," the British comedy that opened yesterday at the Cinema I, is
like one of Billy Liar's had dreams. An occasional antiques dealer and
gigolo to Soho landladies. Otley wakes up one morning to find himself
wanted for a murder he did not commit, and the prize of rival
intelligence agencies, whose intentions he cannot fathom.
Like Otley, the movie is a bad risk. Everything in it is borrowed and
badly used—actors (Tom Courtenay, Alan Badel), situations (the triumph
of the fraudulent fool), and even settings, including a rather handsome
Thames houseboat that reminded me wistfully of "The Horse's Mouth."
"Otley" is the kind of movie that allows you to think about other
movies, in those great gaps of time between the setting up of a gag and
the moment when it is ritualistically executed.
Tom Courtenay, who used to appear in good, intelligent movies ("The
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," "Billy Liar") plays Otley with a
certain commendable desperation. ("Have a go at me psyche," he tells a
hood who's about to beat him up, "but leave me body alone!") However, if
he continues in films like this and "Dandy in Aspic," he's going to
wind up as an actor who will be described—throughout his career — as "a
rising young star," a talent as immobilized in mediocrity as a leaf
frozen in recite.
You pays your money, as they say. But the match-up between Don's song and ongoing street vibe with Courtenay's youthful roguish energy and good looks works well enough for this period piece.
Frank Brown and his old Gibson Twelve String.
Leicester Square 1968.
A
very nice review of the book from John Bentham in the Tiger Folk
Newsletter (not available on their site but via Dave Sutherland's monthly newsletter):
'Three
years ago on a Friday night Don Partridge played the Pack Horse Folk
Club in Loughborough. It wasn’t a turn up, perform and off down
the road jobs, oh no. Saturday saw him busking in the Market Place;
one of his old haunts from the 80’s when he was living on a narrow
boat in the town. In the pub later in the afternoon, an old chum of
Dons, Rod Warner broached the idea of writing a biography of Don.
His response was that it shouldn’t be a biography but a book about
buskers. After all both he and Rod were on the busking scene at the
same time. It became more than a suggestion and the prospect of
writing such a book started to become a reality. Perhaps the
catalyst was when Don... contacted Pat Keene. Now Pat had also been
earning his living busking but was also a photographer with rolls and
rolls of film that he had taken at the time. Of course, busking was
nothing new, there had always been street performers, but nearly all
of them were “The Old School”, accordion players, banjo and spoon
players, jazz bands, individual singers and their ilk but now,
suddenly, there appeared in their midst young, guitar carrying lads
and the busking world was about to change and Pat was there to
capture it on film.
In
the book we are taken, in photographs some of which have never been
published before and through the reminiscences of Don, Pat and Rod,
back to a world that the majority of people only saw or ignored as
they passed by on their own journeys. And it would possibly have
remained a twilight world if Don Partridge hadn’t have mackled up
his one man band kit, worn a snake skin jacket and started singing a
song called “Rosie”. The smart thing to say now would be;” And
the rest is history”. Well, yes it is, and you can now read the
first-hand accounts of that history. Because I know Rod quite well, I
felt a little uneasy at times reading some of the intimate details of
his life but also fascinated by them, is this just curiosity or
voyeurism? Whatever it might be, it proves yet again that we might
think we know someone but how much do we really know.
Life
was good on the streets and life was bad on the streets. The streets
weren’t just in London. They were up and down the country. They
were up and down the Europe. They were east of Europe and west to
Ireland. Sometimes travelling in style, sometimes bumming it,
sometimes with money to burn, sometimes with a scarce two ha’pennies
to rub together, sometimes travelling alone, sometimes with fellow
buskers and bottlers, sometimes as a loner sometimes with a lover,
travelling, travelling, always moving on. Even when the times were
good the road would beckon and so they would up sticks and away.
Bohemian, I guess it was.
The
highlight was The Buskers Concert in 1969 when Don hired The Royal
Albert Hall.....read all about it!
Sadly
Don passed away before the book was finished but Pat and Rod were
determined to complete the project in memory of their old mate and a
damn good job they have done of it.
“If
you don’t see me next spring, I’ll be in Berlin” “Transworld
Blues”-Don Partridge.'
The
book is now launched, people are buying it, which is gratifying, with
not too many problems so far.
Of
course, after publication, one is always thinking of the material you
wanted to put in, things that you might have approached differently,
stylistic choices that were or were not made. The list goes on...
Pat and myself hit the basic problem when Don suddenly and tragically died: should
we continue or should we abandon the book in its planned form and try
to resurrect it as something else? In the end, we fell somewhere in
the middle, deciding that, yes, the book would be incomplete from the
original ideas that had been thrashed out, because we needed more of
Don's input for that, and short of a Doris Stokes moment or two, this
was not going to happen in this life. But what we had was maybe
enough to justify the project. So we went with that. Three stories
that elliptically reflect and refract on each other. The other issue
was: time and mortality. With Don gone, the two of us not exactly spring chickens,
the owld wingèd chariot was hurrying near behind us somewhat. Et in
busking arcadia ego... (I have a rather drunken fancy that after
death, crossing the bar (to borrow from Tennyson) might be turned
from the sombre process of changing continuum, so to speak, if the
Pilot suddenly turned round and revealed himself as my old friend, professional loon and busking partner, Jumping Jack/Earl
of Mustard/Norman Norris: 'I'm the guv'nor. Whorr hor hor.' I
assume the old bugger has left this level sometime back and would
like to think he found a good gig beyond... ).
In
the end, the book followed one of the literary precepts which CharlesOlson appropriated from his younger friend and fellow poet, Robert
Creeley: 'FORM
IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT.'.
Many
years later, when asked about his famous quote, Creeley responded:
'I
would now almost amend the statement to say, "Form is what
happens." It's the fact of things in the world, however they
are. So that form in that way is simply the presence of any
thing.'
Finally we have arrived! 'Don Partridge and Company' is now on sale from my online store.
'Three young men hit the road with their guitars and music and became buskers. One of them became famous...'
The book is available in either paperback hard copy or pdf digital download.
The photo above is one I found a few days ago and the last one I took of Don before his tragic death just over a year ago. This was on my last visit - we'd broken from recording his interviews to go to Brighton for a few hours. It was a glorious day and we drank too much. But great fun... as time spent with Don always was...
It was always a mélange... Pat says that he started out playing under the influence
of Rambling Jack Elliot but also had a lucky encounter in Paris with
Ian Bennetts:
'… Ian
Bennetts... was a shithot flatpicker... very good at playing American
folk and who occasionally did some busking although it wasn't his
main livelihood. He was one of three brother - the Bennetts – who
were all guitar players. I knew Ian and John. (Les Bennetts, of
course, was the guitar player in Lonnie Donegan's band1).
My hero Jack Elliott had been in and out of Paris quite a bit in the
previous two or three years and Ian had watched and learned from him.
To the extent that he became every bit as good, which was saying
something – Jack was a master. I was transfixed watching Ian
playing all these flatpicking riffs and tantalised because I
couldn't work out how he did it. I practised and practised and kept
watching, trying to unlock the mechanics of his right hand technique
– which was probably one of the complications I found because I'm
left handed. .. Finally I asked him if he would consider giving me a
lesson, which he did. I was surprised but grateful and he charged me
a thousand old francs, which in today's money is about twenty quid.
He showed me the right hand positions for regular guitar players, the
essence of what flatpicking was all about.'
Don
Partridge's father had been a jazz guitarist in a dance band, Django
style, but like Pat, Don looked more to the folk world initially for
guidance:
'I
had asked my dad if he would show my the rudiments on guitar but he
said that he would only do it if I studied properly and learned
music. Which was no interest to me – I just wanted to learn enough
to start me off and figure the rest out for myself. So I went
elsewhere. Bought myself a guitar and had a few folk guitar lessons
from a teacher called Peter Grauner who showed me some basic finger
style playing.'
Me?
Started out trying to play jazz piano then got a guitar for its
portability – and also because I was also becoming interested in
folk music:
'A
folk club had started up in Loughborough, run by three art students.
One of whom was the mighty Dave Evans,1
a few years older than most because he had been a merchant seaman
before he came to do an art degree. Dave was a phenomenal guitarist
already and he kindly showed me some fingerpicking techniques and
tunings which helped me to make a quantum leap in my guitar
playing... a mighty stroke of luck. The piano was cumbersome, the
guitar the ideal portable instrument for a naïve, would-be
troubadour who had suddenly experienced wider freedoms through his
hitch-hiking adventures. So: time to be a traveller and a busker... '
Despite
mastering finger-picking, for busking you needed a strong, rhythmic
plectrum style in the days before portable amps became prevalent. I
learned a lot watching at Keene and Don when they played together and
Alan Young, another gifted player and busker, Don's best friend and
frequent sidekick. Despite our common origins in folk music, this
wasn't the only source of the street repertoire. Skiffle was one,
the others blues, American bluegrass, various pop songs of the day,
old jazz standards like 'Bill Bailey,' and by 1966 –
Beatles/Rolling Stones/Animals. Whatever worked. Everything got
blended into your style...
1
Lonnie Donegan 1921-2002. 'The King of Skiffle,' Donegan left his
gig as banjoist/guitarist in Chris Barber's Jazz Band to go on his
own and sell a lot of records during the 'Skiffle' craze and
onwards. Les Bennetts played lead guitar in his band for a time.
1
Dave Evans - one of the true greats of acoustic guitar, Dave never
quite got the recognition accorded to his contemporaries: Bert
Jansch, John Renbourn, Davy Graham etc. Dave has lived in Belgium
for many years, where he makes pots and ceramics, living in a
converted brewery.
This image is Norman Norris AKA as Jumping Jack/Earl of Mustard, taken backstage at the Albert Hall Busker's Concert. Bizarrely - but there again, Norman was never remotely normal in his interactions with life in general - he decided that he would go on in drag. The old school busker who was supposed to accompany him flatly refused when Norman got into his women's clothes. He asked Don and Alan for help but it it was obvious they could not do it, Don headlining and Alan with his specially prepared act. So that's how I ended up playing twice on the bill - once with Aidan Agnew (as 'African Jack and the Matabele Uprising' - well, we were young!) and once with Norman. Not so much of a chore as I had by that time worked extensively with the old rogue - but he came slightly unstuck as he hadn't figured out that a long dress might inhibit his tap dancing. It didn't really matter - the overall image of this gnarled loon in a dress, dancing with golden boots that had cut-down skis on the bottom was always going to impress!
