All The Rage - My high life with the Small Faces, the Faces, the Rolling Stones and many more

Part One. 1945 - 1969.

CHAPTER ONE

GREEN ONIONS

It’s September 1995 and I’m on my way home to Austin from Bangkok. Breaking the journey in Los Angeles, I spot an ad for an organ in the classifieds. It’s a 1954 Hammond B2. I can’t resist this little gem, so I buy it - sight unseen - and arrange to have it collected, crated and trucked to Texas.

Sometimes a smell can trigger a memory so strong and true, it unravels years in an instant, like the smell of a pub at opening time, or a whiff of oil paint, which takes me straight back to my art school days in Twickenham. So, as they unbolt the crate, even before I get to see how beautiful this instrument is, the combination of furniture polish and Hammond oil wafts up my nose and I get a flash-back to 1964, when I caught that odd mixture for the first time.

Ever since I heard ‘Green Onions’ by Booker T. & The MG’s on the radio, the sound of a Hammond organ has moved me. Although at the time I didn’t know exactly what Booker T. was playing, I knew I wanted to make that noise. I didn’t even know how to play an organ, but the way it swirled and swam and bit your ears off, I knew somehow I had to have one. Later, after seeing Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames at the Flamingo, I found out Georgie played a Hammond L100, and he made it sing just like Booker T.

So I did my research in the music shops, and found out that the coolest sounding organs were all Hammonds, but that the L100, while it still had that special sound, was lighter and cheaper than the other models. Not that any of them were cheap, which didn’t much matter, because I had no money. Then, thumbing through the back pages of the Melody Maker, I noticed an ad for Boosey and Hawkes, in Regent Street, who were offering to let me: ‘Try a Hammond organ in your own home on two weeks free approval.’ “Yeah, right,” I thought, “Pull the other one.” I tried to figure out what the catch could be, because I couldn’t believe they’d let me get my sweaty hands on a genuine Hammond without money changing hands or at least making a promise to buy.

But when I called them up, they were very helpful. There was no catch. The only thing I could not do was move it, once they’d set it up. That wasn’t going to be a problem. The problem would be explaining the arrival of this beautiful monster to Mum and Dad. But I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I wasn’t really thinking at all, apart from wondering - when could it be delivered?

“Tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

And that was it.

The next morning at about 10 a.m. there was a knock at the door and two men in white coats were standing on the doorstep. Though it wouldn’t have surprised me if they were coming to take me away, they were from the store, of course, and after signing the papers and promising not to move it, we pushed the dining table and chairs back against the wall. Very carefully they wheeled in a brand new walnut Hammond L101 spinet organ and matching bench with the ‘playing guide’ and connecting cables tucked inside the lid, and a brand new Leslie 147 speaker cabinet, which filled up the entire room. My face must have been a picture. This was the gear! It was all polished and shiny and made our dining room suite look quite tatty. They showed me how to start it up and we shook hands. It couldn’t have been simpler.

“See you in two weeks then.”

“Yes, Okay, bye.” Slam.

“Aarrgh!” I screamed and ran upstairs to get the Dansette from the bedroom, set it up on top of the bookcase, plonked ‘Green Onions’ on the turntable and cranked it up! Yes, yes, yes, nothing could stop me now. I had lost my mind and I’d never find it again. Now I had to figure out how to play the beast and get that Booker T. sound. Carefully listening to sustained notes on the record, I pushed and pulled the drawbars in and out until I got the same sound. Then if I played the part right, the sound would change - just like the record. The next thing was to master was the Leslie cabinet. This was where the sound came out. The Leslie is a combined amplifier and speaker cabinet, but it has two speakers which point up and down. The sound travels through revolving rotors which throws the music out in waves. It’s what makes the sound of every Hammond bite and swim in your ears. You can regulate the speed it rotates and it’s very powerful!

Well, I noodled around with it for hours that day and played with it until I got some results. Basically, I just taught myself. The wonderful thing about the Hammond is it sounds good without too much effort. It’s not like the bagpipes or the violin, where even after a lot of work it can still sound bad! When Dad came whistling his way up the path after work, I went to the door to head him off.

“Hello Dad.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing much, well, I’ve got something to ask you.”

“Yes.”

“Er, Dad, you’ll never guess what I’ve got.”

“What have you got?”

“A Hammond organ.”

“What’s a Hammond organ?”

“It’s free. I’ve got it for two weeks, then they’ll come and take it away and no charge whatsoever.”

“Where is it then?”

“It’s in the back room, it’s fantastic, and it’s not costing a penny.”

He was down the hall and peering round the door suspiciously before I could stop him. “Blimey, Lord luvaduck.” He said. “Well, I’m blowed, where’s the dining room table gone?” He was in the doorway, trying to squeeze past the monster organ and the Leslie.

“It’s great isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s big….how are we going to eat with this thing in here, and why didn’t you ask me or your Mum?”

“Sorry, but it’ll only be here for a couple of weeks, listen to this.” I played the first part of ‘Green Onions.’

“Not bad, eh?”

“I dunno.” He was thinking. “Here, don’t say a word, let me break it to your Mum.” Somehow I knew it was going to be alright. The men in white coats came to take it away two weeks later and my new mahogany, L102 and matching Leslie cabinet arrived the following week. I bought it on the ‘never never.’ Dad co-signed the hire-purchase forms for me because I was under age.

I never had any ambition as a kid to play the piano, let alone the organ. It was all my Mum’s fault. She’d had a dream of playing the piano since she was a kid, but growing up in the little town of Mountrath in the centre of Ireland, as one of eleven kids, there was hardly money for shoes let alone piano lessons. And as she hadn’t been able to afford them when she was young, I was going to get them whether I wanted them or not.

When I was 12 Mum found a piano teacher for me. Mrs. Morgan lived in Cranford, next to Heathrow airport, and I started going to her house every Saturday afternoon for lessons. I hated it and just wasn’t interested. She was probably a good teacher but I considered it all a waste of my time.

It didn’t take her long to realise it was a waste of hers too, even though she was being paid for it. She had an annoying habit of putting her coffee cup and saucer on the ivories while I was playing, and I was always worried they’d fall off. Every three minutes a BEA Vickers Viscount airliner would scream overhead as it came in to land, rattling the french windows and the cup and saucer too.

She taught me ‘The Vicar Of Bray’ and ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’ which were bad enough, but I had to play scales up and down the keyboard and I knew she wasn’t going to teach me anything I might want to play. After a few weeks, instead of getting on the bus to Cranford, I’d hang out with Alan Worrell and Terry Munro, my mates from Spring Grove Grammar School. The Temperance Billiard Hall was above a car showroom opposite Hounslow bus garage.

They had a dozen great tables, and it was usually empty in the daytime. It was a very dignified and quiet place. No alcohol was served, which was why it was called the ‘Temperance’ billiard hall, and for only a few pennies you could get a delicious cheese roll, a cup of tea and enjoy a pleasant afternoon playing snooker. None of us were very good, but we took it seriously and played to win. We all liked the look and sound of Gene Vincent and The Blue Caps, but Terry was a big fan, and he wore a flat cap like them. Later Alan and I bought chequered flat caps as well, which we wore when we played snooker together, thinking we were Jack-the-lads. It was as if they were our first group uniforms, although we weren’t actually in a group yet.

Of course, when the bill for the lessons came in, Mum found out I hadn’t been going and she sent me out to the garden for what she called a ‘switch.’ The bush had long, thin spiny leaves with tufts every few inches and it grew conveniently just outside the back door. She’d whip the backs of my legs with it whenever it was felt to be necessary. Ouch! I don’t regret not having lessons, the music I love could hardly be taught by a white, English, classically trained music teacher. But I don’t know why I couldn’t have been shown Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’, Little Richard’s ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ or Jerry Lee Lewis’...