Music
Without Prejudice
Music runs like a river of notes through my life, a torrent,never changing, always there, a back beat, pulsating, twisting and turning.
I was born to a muso and there is nothing better than having music hand printed into your DNA.
Dad vibrated with it, it sang in his heart, it saddened him, it inspired him, it was his lifeblood, muse, panacea for ill, his laughter his drug, his whore, his food, his blood.
He was obsessed with it, it's form, content, music notes on paper are framed at Jackies, our Dad's. And I am not sure if he just had a great positive attitude to life or that he was excited all the time, by the music, his muse.
I was convinced that if he was cut open, music notes would flow out.
We began as a Glee Club at home and soon we were in real life. Dad decided when I was 14 I could join the group on stage. I was so excited and Mum and Dad took us into Leeds to buy outfits.
It was the sixties so we had Bright Yellow Dresses edged with sequins on Sleeve and Hem and Gold Ballon Swinging earrings. We were thinking the Supremes.
I had a Piece that was for my hair, piled up high in a chignon, which got caught in Jackie's bass once and ripped off my head. Jackie nearly wet herself laughing and had to continue singing.
Jackie backcombed hers up high. We had to do eighteen songs, six per set, Dad doing the most and me, a tambourinist, back up singer and Jackie lead singer and bassist.
We did The Standards, "Someday", "He's Got The Whole World," "Green Green Grass Of Home" "In The Mood,", Down By the Riverside" big band style.
I learned how to move, sing, inflect, breathe, dance and follow rythm, struggling with it, but I loved to show off and that part was easy.
Not so the nerves before the first time we went on. We worked the Working Mens Clubs, which in the 60's were a profitable and fun place to be.
There would always be a person in the audience who could play the spoons, and didn't have to wait to be asked.
Bingo would be called half way through the night and sometimes we did the "Bingo Calling", Two fat ladies: 88, and every one called out in unison for the couplets, 2 little ducks 22, it was noisy and funny. And sometimes announcements broke through our playing.
"Two Fish Suppers, to be collected"
Everyone smoked so the air was a rich mix of tobacco and beer, men in working mens clothes, flat caps, The Waiters brought elks in jars of vinegar with pins to pick them out and jellied eels
glistening and black and mussels and I had a bad one and threw up for days,
I can't abide shellfish now because of it, sticking to prawns and crab, lobster, but mussels, scallops, oysters. You can have them, ok ...
Dad loved his Oysters Kilpatrick and insisted we try them and Jackie loved them (She has the skill to eat brains ) and I thought it was like chewing a piece of fishy snot solidified. retch. And we never left unless we were paid in cash, Dad was big on that.
Some of the places in Sunderland looked like they were prisons, bars on every window and the Geordies were a tough audience, not much money, tiny cramped dressing rooms and they really are as tacky as you think, peeling old gold mirrors for the stage makeup,
We had to buy it from Leeds, special, and put it on making each other up, Max Factor Pan No 1 of course and thick black lines at eye edge swept up in the corners.
There was a PVC eyeliner that you applied giving it a wet look, and then you could peel it off later, False Eyelashes, rouge, mascara that you spat on to wet it and it came with a straight brush. We wore jangly bracelets, one costume, no change and the outfit was NON sexy, my Mothers Stipulation.
I was 13-14 but that was acceptable because I looked at least 18 when I was done up. And no one ever asked, every so often i was allowed a Baby Cham.
Dad never drank neither did Jackie, ( and if I'm correct none of my family drank except me nor smoked either, ever, aren't they wonderful, dull, but wonderful, hahahahah) Bless,
They know I'm the outrageous one!
And I loved the stage then, it was a wonderful feeling to entertain people, the love coming back at you in waves of claps and cheers and applause. You knew when you were shit and you knew when you were good.
We went all over, crossing the Pennines in the Old Bedford so many times. One time inching forward through pea soup fog which was terrifying, and we took hours to get home. And we were still expected to go off to School or work the next day.
Dad told us of the Yorkshire man. Percy Shaw who invented the "Cats Eye", looking for a sheep and a cats Eyes gleamed in the dark, giving him the idea. They came in handy for visual aid as we hand led Dad in the van, inching our way down the Pennines, no other cars appeared at all in the fog, obviously we were the only idiots on the road.
And the air muffled, and the fog so dense it bounced back the headlights, and I realised the wisdom of fog lights.
And Dad sweating in the Spotlight, dripping off his brow, coating his top lip and the heat of the lights and not being able to see anything as you looked out across the footlights, and singing to no one, not wanting your voice to waver on a high note
Jackie sweeping me up with her powerful husky voice. And remembering the words, we had to rehearse all the time and we wanted to.
Dad losing his plectrum and steel with monotonous regularity pushing his glasses on to his head and thinking he had lost them too. And we had so much equipment, heavy amps, speakers, all had to be put out before hand and pulled apart after the show, legs unscrewed, cords wound up, The artist leaving the now hushed stage...
And Dad was an artist, who would push us further than we ever had before, his right foot tapping a tattoo angrily once he was behind the guitar on legs, trying to create a drum rhythm.
He was a perfectionist and he would go over and over a note, a phrase, a word sang a certain way, breathing from our diaphragms and "Singing it up to the back stalls". I was not a singer but could back Jackie up and Dad, singing part harmony which Jackie taught me.
She said I enunciated too much, like I was talking and she taught me to soften my jaw.
We didn't fool ourselves we were great, we weren't, but we received repeat bookings and we were also able to see some great entertainers, Tom Jones in Wales (what a voice that man has, a true Welsh Wales one) and Louis Armstrong in Leeds and Roy Orbison and Shirley Bassey at the Batley Variety Club.
We saw Wilson Pickett, and Bill Hayley, Gene Pitney, (Old rock and Roll Revival), we stayed in small pubs in Wales with the mountains of slag looming over the houses, menancing, primeaval almost,
and Aberfan happened, killing 116 Children and 28 adults,
"In the silence after the collapse there was no sound, silence, no bird, no child", one survivor said.
We went to East Anglia on the coast, so wild, so ancient, cliffs high and waves pounding, you felt like you should have been a Thomas Hardy Character, long dress and bonnet, walking the hills in your dirty ankle boots waiting for Alec D'Urberville to pass you by.
It was real 'Tess Of The Durbervilles," country. Or given my age 14, "Jane Eyre", which I had seen as a movie as a child. Jackie laughed at my girly passions and could never understand my love of the auld.
She thought my favourite book "Wind In The Willows'. was dumb and when I asked her why, she said, the animals. They to me were the best bit,
"Why?"
"Because they TALK!
The People that asked us there were Restauranters, who had a cabaret club and restaurant perched right on top of one of the Cliffs, the glassed in dance floor loomed out over the crags, the waves underneath crashing on to the rocks.
It was so elegant, all lemon and a wood snug bar, round tables, dressed in starched linen, silver gleaming, a big open fire, it was stunning.
And our hosts were an odd couple. She was tall, thin, elegant in a raw boned country way, greeting us in Wellies and tweeds, her long dark hair whipping in her face and she had to have been 70.
Her cheeks showing road maps of capillary veins. Johnny boy, her hubby was at least 80, but kindly in a vague Professor sort of way. Red faced, military haircut and mo, with an old boy outfit on of Plus Fours, Fairisle Jumper, shirt, natty bow tie on and a Tam O Shanter.
They were both ga ga, eccentric, as only some of The English can be, but they are adored the true eccentrics, here we would probably lock them up in a nut house.
We knew this when Dad, Winn, Jackie and I took our luggage into the enormous flag stoned kitchen. Two Aga's lined one wall, there was a massive oak table in the middle, it was messy, and smelt like dog shit.
Retch type stage of smell, eye watering, we all gazed about not looking at each other, closed mouthed. Aggie, said oh don't worry about the smell, Charles is dying and keeps messing everywhere.
Charles being an old Irish Wolfhound, that looked like a grey shaggy mat and just then he shat again, diaorhea, and we waited frozen.
I had to turn away as I couldn't stop laughing, hysteria rising in me and Dad was looking dangerously close of being about to chortle. But I turned around and Aggie had covered all with a towel and was calling us to,
"Come, Come"
There was another huge panelled room and off that was another dwelling joined by a hallway.
We stood in the hall as Aggie explained the Wallaper was hand made and was extremely old and the rooms were rooms like you see in a Castle, Cavernous, huge, cold.
Velvet Drapes rising 15 feet high at the windows, Jackie and I thought it was like something out of Jane Eyre and were convinced there had to be a ghost, somewhere. Or a mad woman in the attic, at least.
Oh, and just to add to the strangeness of it all, there was no electricity in this part of the house being hundreds of years old and we had candles and no fire and it was freezing.
The sheets slippery linen on the bed and a duvet, of which we had never slept under. And we told ghost stories until we were thoroughly spooked and the rain and waves crashed below us, and rained on the windows.
The next day we rehearsed all day and retired to dress and get ready for the Show, and what a show it was, people had come from all around, lots of horsy country farmers who were Upper Class People with thrilling, ringing accents and they all drank like fish.
Aggie approached and I coudn't believe the transformation, she was elegant in ball gown and dripping with diamonds and you just knew they were real.
She looked great, makeup on, hair up and suddenly she was Viven Leigh, gushing at us and introducing to people who had names like Binky, Winky and Vlad. he was a Diplomat.
And we had a great show and they loved everything we did, applauding us and patting us on the back as we finally were allowed off stage.
And then they partied big time, whoopimg it up doing Gay Gordons and knees up songs, some of the men were kilted.swooping around and showing hairy legs.
They were lovely people and made us so very welcome, but we had to get home We packed up and pushed off with a long drive back to Yorkshire ahead of us, glad to clear our nostrils at last, oh, that smell
I can't remember if we ate in that kitchen, I don't think i could have stood it, we must have eaten in the restaurant part. but we were well paid and got rebooked over and over . And on the way home we laughed at the smell of the ancient dog, and how he was still so revered.
But we suddenly had a lot of bookings then and I can't remember ever going back that way, East. We mainly went North or And further North, closer, tougher audiences that stretched us.
Bad boarding houses and Fat slatternly landladies, drunken Scottish guys, seedy run down neighbour hoods, we did it all. Jackie was not allowed to sing :The Wedding", there as every girl singer sang it and the audiences were fed up with it. She did Helen Shapiro and Brenda Lee, and they loved it.
Then we went to Blackpool and the landladies there were a breed apart, well dressed and beautifully coiffed. The B and B's there were clean well run and the place was suuny and warm.
We went for the "Illuminations" and stayed on, buying Blackpool Rock and fairy Floss and a kiss me quick straw hat and we went on all the rides and they were major rides, the best in Europe.
We picked our way across pebbled beaches and lay in deckchairs, doing the English thing with hankies tied at four corners on our heads.
British seaside towns are an ancient art of carousels and bearded ladies and dirty postcards of the "Cheeky" variety, chips soggy with just vinegar and salt and eaten out of the packet.
And then we went to London. Exclusive little night clubs, some of them gambling clubs,all menacing Hoods at the door, one we had to give a certain knock and a little grille in the door opened, like in Hernando's hideaway.
And we were in, we were the band, the show! And Jackie and I had cocktail dresses, short and pulled in at the waist and shoe string straps and felt very grown up.
The place was hushed, only the smack of snooker balls and roulette table snickers, sort of like James Bonds "Gentlemans Club", green baize surfaces and rich wine red velvets and a carpet you sank into.
It was the most sophisticated place I had ever seen. And the Owners were Cockney Jews with suits and rings and looked like the Kray Twins, and cracked their knuckles a lot
Music runs like a river of notes through my life, a torrent,never changing, always there, a back beat, pulsating, twisting and turning.
I was born to a muso and there is nothing better than having music hand printed into your DNA.
Dad vibrated with it, it sang in his heart, it saddened him, it inspired him, it was his lifeblood, muse, panacea for ill, his laughter his drug, his whore, his food, his blood.
He was obsessed with it, it's form, content, music notes on paper are framed at Jackies, our Dad's. And I am not sure if he just had a great positive attitude to life or that he was excited all the time, by the music, his muse.
I was convinced that if he was cut open, music notes would flow out.
We began as a Glee Club at home and soon we were in real life. Dad decided when I was 14 I could join the group on stage. I was so excited and Mum and Dad took us into Leeds to buy outfits.
It was the sixties so we had Bright Yellow Dresses edged with sequins on Sleeve and Hem and Gold Ballon Swinging earrings. We were thinking the Supremes.
I had a Piece that was for my hair, piled up high in a chignon, which got caught in Jackie's bass once and ripped off my head. Jackie nearly wet herself laughing and had to continue singing.
Jackie backcombed hers up high. We had to do eighteen songs, six per set, Dad doing the most and me, a tambourinist, back up singer and Jackie lead singer and bassist.
We did The Standards, "Someday", "He's Got The Whole World," "Green Green Grass Of Home" "In The Mood,", Down By the Riverside" big band style.
I learned how to move, sing, inflect, breathe, dance and follow rythm, struggling with it, but I loved to show off and that part was easy.
Not so the nerves before the first time we went on. We worked the Working Mens Clubs, which in the 60's were a profitable and fun place to be.
There would always be a person in the audience who could play the spoons, and didn't have to wait to be asked.
Bingo would be called half way through the night and sometimes we did the "Bingo Calling", Two fat ladies: 88, and every one called out in unison for the couplets, 2 little ducks 22, it was noisy and funny. And sometimes announcements broke through our playing.
"Two Fish Suppers, to be collected"
Everyone smoked so the air was a rich mix of tobacco and beer, men in working mens clothes, flat caps, The Waiters brought elks in jars of vinegar with pins to pick them out and jellied eels
glistening and black and mussels and I had a bad one and threw up for days,
I can't abide shellfish now because of it, sticking to prawns and crab, lobster, but mussels, scallops, oysters. You can have them, ok ...
Dad loved his Oysters Kilpatrick and insisted we try them and Jackie loved them (She has the skill to eat brains ) and I thought it was like chewing a piece of fishy snot solidified. retch. And we never left unless we were paid in cash, Dad was big on that.
Some of the places in Sunderland looked like they were prisons, bars on every window and the Geordies were a tough audience, not much money, tiny cramped dressing rooms and they really are as tacky as you think, peeling old gold mirrors for the stage makeup,
We had to buy it from Leeds, special, and put it on making each other up, Max Factor Pan No 1 of course and thick black lines at eye edge swept up in the corners.
There was a PVC eyeliner that you applied giving it a wet look, and then you could peel it off later, False Eyelashes, rouge, mascara that you spat on to wet it and it came with a straight brush. We wore jangly bracelets, one costume, no change and the outfit was NON sexy, my Mothers Stipulation.
I was 13-14 but that was acceptable because I looked at least 18 when I was done up. And no one ever asked, every so often i was allowed a Baby Cham.
Dad never drank neither did Jackie, ( and if I'm correct none of my family drank except me nor smoked either, ever, aren't they wonderful, dull, but wonderful, hahahahah) Bless,
They know I'm the outrageous one!
And I loved the stage then, it was a wonderful feeling to entertain people, the love coming back at you in waves of claps and cheers and applause. You knew when you were shit and you knew when you were good.
We went all over, crossing the Pennines in the Old Bedford so many times. One time inching forward through pea soup fog which was terrifying, and we took hours to get home. And we were still expected to go off to School or work the next day.
Dad told us of the Yorkshire man. Percy Shaw who invented the "Cats Eye", looking for a sheep and a cats Eyes gleamed in the dark, giving him the idea. They came in handy for visual aid as we hand led Dad in the van, inching our way down the Pennines, no other cars appeared at all in the fog, obviously we were the only idiots on the road.
And the air muffled, and the fog so dense it bounced back the headlights, and I realised the wisdom of fog lights.
And Dad sweating in the Spotlight, dripping off his brow, coating his top lip and the heat of the lights and not being able to see anything as you looked out across the footlights, and singing to no one, not wanting your voice to waver on a high note
Jackie sweeping me up with her powerful husky voice. And remembering the words, we had to rehearse all the time and we wanted to.
Dad losing his plectrum and steel with monotonous regularity pushing his glasses on to his head and thinking he had lost them too. And we had so much equipment, heavy amps, speakers, all had to be put out before hand and pulled apart after the show, legs unscrewed, cords wound up, The artist leaving the now hushed stage...
And Dad was an artist, who would push us further than we ever had before, his right foot tapping a tattoo angrily once he was behind the guitar on legs, trying to create a drum rhythm.
He was a perfectionist and he would go over and over a note, a phrase, a word sang a certain way, breathing from our diaphragms and "Singing it up to the back stalls". I was not a singer but could back Jackie up and Dad, singing part harmony which Jackie taught me.
She said I enunciated too much, like I was talking and she taught me to soften my jaw.
We didn't fool ourselves we were great, we weren't, but we received repeat bookings and we were also able to see some great entertainers, Tom Jones in Wales (what a voice that man has, a true Welsh Wales one) and Louis Armstrong in Leeds and Roy Orbison and Shirley Bassey at the Batley Variety Club.
We saw Wilson Pickett, and Bill Hayley, Gene Pitney, (Old rock and Roll Revival), we stayed in small pubs in Wales with the mountains of slag looming over the houses, menancing, primeaval almost,
and Aberfan happened, killing 116 Children and 28 adults,
"In the silence after the collapse there was no sound, silence, no bird, no child", one survivor said.
We went to East Anglia on the coast, so wild, so ancient, cliffs high and waves pounding, you felt like you should have been a Thomas Hardy Character, long dress and bonnet, walking the hills in your dirty ankle boots waiting for Alec D'Urberville to pass you by.
It was real 'Tess Of The Durbervilles," country. Or given my age 14, "Jane Eyre", which I had seen as a movie as a child. Jackie laughed at my girly passions and could never understand my love of the auld.
She thought my favourite book "Wind In The Willows'. was dumb and when I asked her why, she said, the animals. They to me were the best bit,
"Why?"
"Because they TALK!
The People that asked us there were Restauranters, who had a cabaret club and restaurant perched right on top of one of the Cliffs, the glassed in dance floor loomed out over the crags, the waves underneath crashing on to the rocks.
It was so elegant, all lemon and a wood snug bar, round tables, dressed in starched linen, silver gleaming, a big open fire, it was stunning.
And our hosts were an odd couple. She was tall, thin, elegant in a raw boned country way, greeting us in Wellies and tweeds, her long dark hair whipping in her face and she had to have been 70.
Her cheeks showing road maps of capillary veins. Johnny boy, her hubby was at least 80, but kindly in a vague Professor sort of way. Red faced, military haircut and mo, with an old boy outfit on of Plus Fours, Fairisle Jumper, shirt, natty bow tie on and a Tam O Shanter.
They were both ga ga, eccentric, as only some of The English can be, but they are adored the true eccentrics, here we would probably lock them up in a nut house.
We knew this when Dad, Winn, Jackie and I took our luggage into the enormous flag stoned kitchen. Two Aga's lined one wall, there was a massive oak table in the middle, it was messy, and smelt like dog shit.
Retch type stage of smell, eye watering, we all gazed about not looking at each other, closed mouthed. Aggie, said oh don't worry about the smell, Charles is dying and keeps messing everywhere.
Charles being an old Irish Wolfhound, that looked like a grey shaggy mat and just then he shat again, diaorhea, and we waited frozen.
I had to turn away as I couldn't stop laughing, hysteria rising in me and Dad was looking dangerously close of being about to chortle. But I turned around and Aggie had covered all with a towel and was calling us to,
"Come, Come"
There was another huge panelled room and off that was another dwelling joined by a hallway.
We stood in the hall as Aggie explained the Wallaper was hand made and was extremely old and the rooms were rooms like you see in a Castle, Cavernous, huge, cold.
Velvet Drapes rising 15 feet high at the windows, Jackie and I thought it was like something out of Jane Eyre and were convinced there had to be a ghost, somewhere. Or a mad woman in the attic, at least.
Oh, and just to add to the strangeness of it all, there was no electricity in this part of the house being hundreds of years old and we had candles and no fire and it was freezing.
The sheets slippery linen on the bed and a duvet, of which we had never slept under. And we told ghost stories until we were thoroughly spooked and the rain and waves crashed below us, and rained on the windows.
The next day we rehearsed all day and retired to dress and get ready for the Show, and what a show it was, people had come from all around, lots of horsy country farmers who were Upper Class People with thrilling, ringing accents and they all drank like fish.
Aggie approached and I coudn't believe the transformation, she was elegant in ball gown and dripping with diamonds and you just knew they were real.
She looked great, makeup on, hair up and suddenly she was Viven Leigh, gushing at us and introducing to people who had names like Binky, Winky and Vlad. he was a Diplomat.
And we had a great show and they loved everything we did, applauding us and patting us on the back as we finally were allowed off stage.
And then they partied big time, whoopimg it up doing Gay Gordons and knees up songs, some of the men were kilted.swooping around and showing hairy legs.
They were lovely people and made us so very welcome, but we had to get home We packed up and pushed off with a long drive back to Yorkshire ahead of us, glad to clear our nostrils at last, oh, that smell
I can't remember if we ate in that kitchen, I don't think i could have stood it, we must have eaten in the restaurant part. but we were well paid and got rebooked over and over . And on the way home we laughed at the smell of the ancient dog, and how he was still so revered.
But we suddenly had a lot of bookings then and I can't remember ever going back that way, East. We mainly went North or And further North, closer, tougher audiences that stretched us.
Bad boarding houses and Fat slatternly landladies, drunken Scottish guys, seedy run down neighbour hoods, we did it all. Jackie was not allowed to sing :The Wedding", there as every girl singer sang it and the audiences were fed up with it. She did Helen Shapiro and Brenda Lee, and they loved it.
Then we went to Blackpool and the landladies there were a breed apart, well dressed and beautifully coiffed. The B and B's there were clean well run and the place was suuny and warm.
We went for the "Illuminations" and stayed on, buying Blackpool Rock and fairy Floss and a kiss me quick straw hat and we went on all the rides and they were major rides, the best in Europe.
We picked our way across pebbled beaches and lay in deckchairs, doing the English thing with hankies tied at four corners on our heads.
British seaside towns are an ancient art of carousels and bearded ladies and dirty postcards of the "Cheeky" variety, chips soggy with just vinegar and salt and eaten out of the packet.
And then we went to London. Exclusive little night clubs, some of them gambling clubs,all menacing Hoods at the door, one we had to give a certain knock and a little grille in the door opened, like in Hernando's hideaway.
And we were in, we were the band, the show! And Jackie and I had cocktail dresses, short and pulled in at the waist and shoe string straps and felt very grown up.
The place was hushed, only the smack of snooker balls and roulette table snickers, sort of like James Bonds "Gentlemans Club", green baize surfaces and rich wine red velvets and a carpet you sank into.
It was the most sophisticated place I had ever seen. And the Owners were Cockney Jews with suits and rings and looked like the Kray Twins, and cracked their knuckles a lot
Love Janette x
