Judy Dyble's creativity keeps flowing

For four decades now, Fairport Convention have been one of the most iconic folk-rock bands on the British music scene. In their 46 years they have had 25 different members.

Judy Dyble

Arguably, their greatest success came when the already established singer/songwriter Sandy Denny joined the band. 

However, before Denny joined, there was another female vocalist in the group. Judy Dyble was among one of the founding members of Fairport and featured on their hugely acclaimed debut album, 1968's Fairport Convention.

Judy recalls that it was an organic formation. "I'd known Ashley and Simon and Richard for, I suppose, about a year before Fairport was born. Ashley was always organizing bands of one sort or another; he had his little black book full of different musicians to pull together. Every now and again if they wanted a folk thing, because I played autoharp and had a bit of a repotoir of songs, he'd drag me in. So I was kind of on the edge of all the bands, I was going out with Richard at the time. We were both doing our A Levels, I think."

"They kind of got Fairport together and none of them really wanted to sing so they kind of asked me as the nearest singer if I would sing with them", she laughs. "It was quite a good name for a band, we thought.The funny thing is, if somebody invents a name like Fairport Convention in a book or on a film, it would sound ridiculously stupid, wouldn't it? Naff. But if a band uses it as a name, it becomes 'proper'." 

Like many of the bands around in the late 60's Fairport's live shows consisted largely of songs that went on much longer than the recorded version. But before the choreographed dance routines of Madonna, or the spontaneous twirls of Stevie Nicks, Dyble had her own way of gaining attention from the audience during the music breaks- namely, knitting whilst waiting to sing again. "They used to do these long breaks, improvising and doing a lot of stuff, and it's very hard to just stand there, waiting for the finish. I had these huge knitting needles and I thought I'll just do some knitting, though I can't knit- I never could knit and I will never be able to knit, so I used to just do Eiffel Towers and dishcloths. It wasn't that I didn't care about the music, it was just something to do. You can't gaze soulfully at everybody for 20 minutes- it gets a bit silly! I think at the Speak Easy, when Jimi Hendrix would get up and play, he'd get up and play with anybody who was there because he just loved playing, and off I'd go."

After a short stay in the band, she recorded with members of what went onto be the prog super-group King Crimson. She then went on to form the folk duo Trader Horne with Jackie McAuley, the former keyboardist for Them; but after one album, 1969's Morning Way, Dyble moved on once again.

"Fairport asked me to leave, they thought I wasn't a strong enough singer. So having been told that at quite an impressionable age, I joined other bands and thought 'well, it's been successful and I don't want to get thrown out again, so I'll leave'. I think that must have been the psychological thing behind it."

"Certainly, when I met up with Ian McDonald and Giles, Giles and Fripp, that was, kind of I suppose, behind it. I loved working with them. Giles, Giles were quite strange, I have to say. They were lovely, you know but I couldn't quite see where they were going to go. And then after I left of course and Pete Giles left they turned into King Crimson. They used to do some of the songs that I had brought with me. I had introduced Robert (Fripp) to Judy Collins. I think he still plays her stuff when he needs something to calm him down or whatever, so it's quite nice to know that what I brought with me to them is still useful."

"And then Trader Horne... that's another one, you see. That's kind of at the end of my tether; Jack and I were being worked really hard. In those days, gigs were kind of like: you were in Southampton one day and Peterborough the next, and then Scotland... there was not really any time to untangle. I was going through an emotional thing with someone at the time, and I just ran away- like you do, haha."

Trader Horne's album Morning Way was a critical smash, however, it did not fare so well commercially as Judy's work with Fairport Convention. "It's quite funny because people email me and say 'do you know your Trader Horne album's just sold for four-hundred quid?' and I think it's only done that because nobody bought it in the first place!" 

Soon after this era, Dyble retired from music for 35 years, leading a normal life for the most part, although she did keep her hand in music, doing small tours with various people. "I worked for Shelter music, which was set up for writers to give the copyrights of a song to Shelter. If the song was a success, Shelter would always give them the royalties. Then I started having a family. Once you stop going on the road and being in bands, it kind of leaves you behind. So I used to go and watch Fairport every now and again and think 'oh, I used to be in them!'- it was very strange."

"And I did that until 1994 when my husband died and went back to working in a library. The children moved out and went to university so it was a good time for me to start singing again, I think."

Dyble's first solo album, Enchanted Garden, was released in 2004. Two more albums, Spindle and The Whorl, followed two years later. In 2009, Talking with Strangers was released to massive critical acclaim. It featured several members of King Crimson and also the lead singer from All About Eve.

This July saw the release of Judy's latest solo effort, Flow and Change. Including songs that invoke memories of youth but also tell tales of growing old gracefully, the critics have once again been bigging up her latest release.

Flow and Change also sees Dyble teaming up with Alistair Murphy (The Curator). "I was talking to Tim Bowness (No-Man) via Myspace and saying that I wanted to do something different with the new songs I'd written. He'd said that he thought his friend Alistair might be keen to record and work with him and me. Everything I've done has been kind of done via the internet with Alistair coming to record my vocals, then taking them away adding to everything else that he adds in. He's done a lot of the musical side of it. I really like the stuff I'm doing now because it's all me."

"We did record another three songs, but they didn't quite fit. I'm not sure what we're going to do with them, but something will happen to them."

Flow and Change, Judy Dyble's latest album

Although still recording, Dyble, 64, does not see herself hitting the road full-time again. "I don't really enjoy doing live gigs. I haven't done them regularly for years and years. Plus, I have rheumatoid arthritis and emphysema so those two things make it quite hard to travel far. But I'm quite happy just to do occasional gigs because it's quite hard work, touring. I think you've got to be either mega-fit or mega-hungry to do it, I don't think I'm hungry enough to do it", she laughs.

By James Nuttall

Thanks to Judy Dyble for her time.

Links:
Judy's official website.
Judy Dyble's music can be purchased here.
Trader Horne's Morning Way can be purchased here.
Fairport Convention can be purchased here.

Patti Smith speaks out against Margaret Thatcher's funeral expenses and plans second memoir

 Godmother of Punk, Patti Smith, returned to Britain last month for three intimate acoustic performances in the North of England. 

Speaking to her backstage at Burnley Mechanics before her first show, coincidentally the same day as Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, Smith spoke of her disgust at the amount of money that was spent on the funeral in relation to all of the government cuts.

“I think it’s terrible… terrible”, she begins. “It doesn’t matter who it is that they were honouring. It doesn’t matter whether it was Martin Luther King. I don’t think Martin Luther King, or anyone who cares about the people, would have wanted to see a government spend £10m in their name.”

“The people, in the end, are paying for that. Anyone who is there for the people would not want all of that money spent on anything but the people. Especially in these times; we have such difficult economic times. To take away from children’s education or the arts, which are so important. Ten million pounds could take care of a lot of things… it is such poor judgement, I think.”

“There are so many ways to honour the dead. If she is beloved by some people, then let them remember her in their daily lives. I just think it’s wrong.”

Smith is famous for her outspoken views and political activism. In her documentary film, ‘Dream of Life’, she famously indicted George W. Bush for “… squandering a vast federal surplus, while giving tax breaks to the rich.”

None the less, Smith believes that such a grand funeral would not have taken place in her native America. “I can’t imagine that. The grandest funeral I can remember was the Kennedy funeral. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t opulent. They had a black coach and a horse and four, like Abraham Lincoln did, and the family walked behind.”

“I know that, for instance, Mother Theresa wouldn’t allow the Nobel Prize people to throw a party in her honour. She wanted the money they would spend on the party to go to the people. It just seems like common sense to me.” 

In other news, Smith, who won the National Book Award for non fiction with her 2010 memoir 'Just Kids', which documents her life with Robert Mapplethorpe, is planning another book. 'It's [set in] more or less the same time frame, although it sort of bleeds into the early 80's. But it's not centered on Robert. 'Just Kids', I wrote for Robert; he asked me to write it and it was really filtered through my relationship with Robert and Robert's evolution as an artist.'

'This one would be, perhaps, more autobiographical and have more to do with the evolution of the records, performance and, really, what I did in life. But it would be in the same time frame.'

James Nuttall

Photographs from Facebook

T'Pau Back For 25th Anniversary Trek

Listening to the excitement in Carol Decker’s voice as she describes how she will play the Isle of Wight Festival this year, it is easy to understand how that same voice took T’Pau’s third single to number one in 1987, where it stayed for five weeks.

Carol Decker

Still possessing the powerful voice that took her to the top, Decker, 55, is taking T'Pau on its first headline tour in 15 year to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the band’s debut album- the quadruple-platinum ‘Bridge of Spies’. 

 “I thought I would mark our anniversary in some way and come out and sing a few tunes… hopefully some people will come and see me”, she laughs. “Of course I will play hits, but also classic album tracks. I’m thinking of having a little acoustic set in the middle.” 

The unusual name was taken from a Vulcan high-priestess on the TV show 'Star Trek', which Decker happened to be watching at the right time. 

'Bridge of Spies' has sold over five million copies. Decker holds the rare honour of having both an album and single at the number one spot at the same time. Even more impressively, the single, 'China In Your Hand', which was the biggest-selling single of 1987, kept George Harrison off  the number one spot in the UK singles charts. 'Bridge of Spies' kept Paul McCartney from hitting number one on the album charts. 

T'Pau seemed to live on Top of the Pops in the late 80's. Selling out the likes of Wembley Arena, they were one of the hottest tickets in town. Decker was the flame-haired pinup for a decade of teenagers.

'Rage', released in 1988, peaked at number four in the UK and also went platinum. 1991's 'The Promise' also made the UK top 10. Altogether, they have scored eight top 40 singles, including 'Valentine', 'Heart and Soul', 'Secret Garden' and 'Road to Our Dream', and sold over 15 million records worldwide. 

Speaking to Carol over the phone, however, these accomplishments are modestly lived down. Decker describes having a male roadie pose as her to distract the throng of people waiting for her at venues for her own protection as "...my 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol would say. I couldn't get out of the stage door at the Hammersmith Odeon for the fans and press. Our roadie just put on this red wig, leather jacket and shades and jumped into the back of the limo and everybody sped after him. He had better legs than me as I recall!”

It was all steaming along nicely until 1991, when the original lineup of the band disintergrated. "It's the cliched old tale. We had, behind the scenes, been falling out for quite some time. It's ancient history now and I'm friends with several members of the original lineup. We send Christmas cards and keep in touch. 

We were having creative differences. Ronnie (Rogers, the band's rhythm guitarist, and Decker's ex-boyfriend) and I put the band together; Ronnie and I wrote all the songs. The other boys began to find that frustrating, and of course, because we wrote all the hits we started to earn more money than they did. Creative differences... powerful personalities, and a lot of time living in each other's pockets. It's quite sad really, because you go from being like the three musketeers to sort of 'I think you're a complete t***!'

And the music-scene had changed. When we came out with The Promise it was all club music, Stone Roses. It was all groove-orientated stuff, and we couldn't find our place. We lost our footing. Ronnie and I ended up splitting up. In the last year, it all went tits up."





Decker also put the breakup down to the fact that although they were marketed as a band, it was more about her than anyone else, which caused friction. This is evident on the cover of 'Bridge of Spies', as she is in the foreground and the rest of the band are at the back in a blur.

Decker released an album, 'Red', in 1998 under the name of T'Pau, although she was the only member of the original lineup to feature on it. 

In recent years, she has been a regular fixture at 80's nostalgia shows, such as Rewind Festival. These shows  fill the biggest arenas in the country, and their summer festivals can bring up to 40,000 people to see acts like The Bangles, Heather Small, The Human League, and of course, T'Pau. 

These shows consist of the artists playing a handful of their biggest hits as part of a package show with many of the 80's biggest acts on the bill. Carol is thankful for the 80's revival as she does not find herself writing that many songs anymore.

"I have been trying just lately. I've found it incredibly difficult to knuckle down to do it in the last few years. I don't know if that part of my brain has withered on the vine. I'm a very practical person and I'm a very busy mum (Carol has two children with her husband) and I find that takes over.

I am trying. I'm about half way through three or four songs with my keyboard player. I'm just very critical of my ideas. I want them to be special and sometimes I struggle to get that special quality that you do when you're young- everything's alive to you, and you're angry about stuff, passionate about stuff; and that goes, haha." 

The last new material Decker released was 2007's 'Just Dream'- a song released exclusively through iTunes, and sold from her website. It was a collaboration with Ron Rogers, who will be performing with Carol on some of the upcoming UK tour dates. "He can't do the whole tour with me, which is a shame, but he's going to do as many  as he can. He's one of the most talented rhythm guitarists ever."

In 2011, 'The Story Behind the Tracks' was released. A CD/DVD set, it contained a one hour film, which documented Carol and Ronnie's road to stardom, along with a CD of original demos of the 'Bridge of Spies' album, and also unreleased demos, not featured on any other album.

Carol has always maintained that selling out Wembley Arena as a headline act is the highlight of her career so far. "We played it many times with Brian Adams and Prince's Trust stuff, but the lights went down and we heard this roar went up and we went on the stage and people went mental. Thinking about it now, it's like it was yesterday.

This is very generational, but the first time I did the Top of the Pops was incredible. I ticked all the boxes like the old Marquee Club in Soho. Long, long gone, but every band worth their salt played the Marquee, and we played the Marquee." 

Despite being a busy mum, and finding it a little harder to get inspired like she used to, Carol is determined to release a new album, with the possibility of selling an EP of new songs at the shows. "This year I will get an album out. It won't be in time for the tour, but I'm going to get on with it."

By James Nuttall

Tour dates and T'Pau news can be found on the official website.
Follow Carol on her official Facebook site.

The Story Behind the Tracks can be purchased here.

Older albums can be purchased here.

Decker in T'Pau's heyday

Photographs copyright James Nuttall and Carol Decker.

Greg Lake: playing Madison Square Garden, touring the UK and being a Lucky Man

This November sees one of the most iconic voices of the 70's prog rock scene tour the UK for the first time in many years.

Greg Lake, the voice and bass player of prog super groups, Emerson Lake and Palmer and King Crimson, will be touring the UK with his 'Songs of a Lifetime' tour- an acoustic show that sees the veteran rocker showcase some of his most iconic hits from both groups, as well as covering some of his biggest influences. 

Lake, 64, completed the American leg of the tour recently to rave reviews. Speaking to him over the phone last week, he was cheerful and eager to tread the boards in his native country once again.

This year should also see the release of Greg's autobiography. What prompted him to write it now?

"I never had any great ambition to write an  autobiography. Every time I was at a dinner table, inevitably, like all musicians, you start to tell stories. One day my manager said that I really ought to write this stuff down because if you don't then it will be gone forever."

"Now I'm coming towards the end of my career I look at the journey that I've shared together with the audience. I think it was in the writing of the autobiography that these songs started popping up, and I realised that that was what they represented- this journey we had shared together; that's what prompted 'Songs of a Lifetime.'"

The tour will be a theatre show, and promises to be a very intimate show with fans sharing stories just as much as Lake himself.




"I've chosen to play smaller places because that's the nature of the show- really intimate. We play through these songs, and exchange memories and the audience talk a lot. It's rather like being in the middle of a huge family room. It's something that I wasn't really ready for, but once I started getting into it I realised the beauty of it is that when I write a song it belongs to me, but the moment you record it and put it out there it starts to become the possession of the people who interpret it in their own way. All of us have shared these songs together and everyone's got their own interpretation of it and everyone has something attached to them."

"This show is like a tapestry and I think the audience get a lot of pleasure from hearing other people's visions on that tapestry. At the end of the night everyone has somehow bonded by this shared experience. What was great about that early era of rock and roll, from 1950-1970-something, that it was a shared experience. After that music became a very solitary experience- listening to your walk-man on headphones, whereas before that you used to sit around with your friends and share a record together. I love the music and the whole vibe of the 'shared era'."

Agreeing with this view, I had to ask whether Lake believed he was fortunate being able to have success in the days of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and  other rock super groups, when music was very much a shared experience. 

"The title of my autobiography is Lucky Man, rather unsurprisingly, because I do feel blessed to have been born when I was; to have had the privilege of being born on that tidal wave. I was destined to tarmac the streets really, and  had it not been for music I'm sure that's probably what would have happened, not that there's anything wrong with that. But I do feel grateful to have been able to live the life I have."

"When it comes down to it you realise, it's not the money, it's not the fame, it's this beautiful thing of being able to share between one soul and another this music. That's an amazingly gratifying thing, to know that you've touched somebody in that way."

Lake would cite that as being the highlight of his career.

"In a strange way, Songs of a Lifetime is a big thing in my career because it confirms the depth of that communication and emotion that's generated. In some cases it's been a crutch for people, in others it's been a celebration. I've had people tell me stories of people dying to my music. People cry at the show, it's like a roller-coaster... five minutes later they'll all be laughing. It's a roller-coaster of emotion in a lot of ways. That's what music does, it elevates things... it enhances things. It brings sadness to the surface, it brings joy to the surface, and I think that's one of the great things that music does."

With such variation from night to night, it's not surprising that Songs of a Lifetime is not your usual, going through the motions type of tour. 

"Musically it tends to be the same every night. I do vary it because sometimes the way the questions and discussions go I end up playing different songs. I've got it worked out. One thing I didn't want this show to become was one of those storyteller, legend in his own lunchtime, sitting on a stool, strumming guitar things. I wanted it to be entertaining. I wanted it to be dynamic and active, and that's what it is. In a way it's a bit of a shocking show. It certainly won't be one of those reflective, reliving my past things."





"At the end of the day, my big ambition was to have people walk out of a one man show that I did and say 'Hi, that was incredible... we've relived our lives'. And that is in fact what happens. At the end of the night half the audience don't go home; they stay there and I spend half the night talking to them all. A lot of people of course are a bit shy, they won't stand up and say what they've got to say but they still want to say it. So it is really like a very family-orientated thing. I've put a lot into it. It took me over a year to prepare."

Having played on so many different albums, does one stand out in particular? 

"I don't think of it like that really. I think some are more important than others. The early ELP albums: Trilogy, Tarkus, Brain Salad Surgery and the first, Emerson, Lake and Palmer were important records to me. In the Court of King Crimson, of course; the original King Crimson with schizoid man and the screaming face and all that. These were really iconic albums and they are important to me from that point of view."

"I'm just about to release this live album, Songs of a Lifetime, and I love the record. I'm really proud of it. Sometimes it's not about the scale of how popular it was but how much you like it."

"I very much enjoy working with other people. Some years back I did a tour with Ringo Starr. I've recorded with The Who. I was on their last single. It does tend to reconfirm the fact that music is very circumstantial  When you play with these different people you realise that they're not very much different to you. The game is the same."

Does the urge to 'plug in' and do an electric show ever occur?

"I love playing in a band. I grew up playing in a band. I will probably, sooner or later, get back and do that. I think to be perfectly honest I want to bring out some new music, it's been too long since I had some new music out. I just haven't been inspired to be honest. But since doing the Songs of a Lifetime tour I've lit up a bit. So I think I might get back to writing more material and putting out a new album just for that reason, I feel more inspired."

"You look at all these artists around the time ELP was out, they've really gone quiet creatively. That was an incredibly inspiring era. People were very creatively inspired and prolific. And you go through that in your life, times when you're prolific and times you're less so. I'm not one of those people who's got to put out an album just because I think if I don't someone will say 'Oh look, what's wrong with him'? I don't like doing that because that way you end up with shit albums. I think you've got to wait for genuine, honest inspiration when you feel in your gut you're ready to do something. It may or may not be successful but it's worth it."

"One of my late managers used to say to me 'Greg, when you're hot you're hot, and when you're not you're not!" Artists just can't accept the fact that sometimes they would  be better just to shut the fuck up than keep churning out stuff."


It is over 40 years since Emerson, Lake and Palmer released their eponymous album, labelled one of the most important albums of the 1970's. Does he still get the same buzz from playing live?

"You can't lose it really. It's captivating, the moment you begin you're no longer yourself. You find abilities you thought you'd lost. You do become a sort of transformed being when you're performing. I think anybody who does anything in the public eye; when you speak in public or something like that you have to transport yourself to a different place. If you didn't the nerves would kill you. Also, it requires a certain state of mind where you've got an infinite resources to draw upon because sometimes you need them."

"If somebody's bought your record you owe them a live performance. I think the whole idea is to perform that music with as much quality and dedication and sincerity as you possibly can. My main object when I play is to try and make it as good as the record."


Was he worried about the audiences' reaction to the idea of playing acoustic?

"Just before I left to go to America I did sit on my sofa in my living room and go 'Oh, God what have I done?' If it doesn't work... but as soon as I did it was wonderful. It was a wonderful night the first night because it was immediately clear to me how well it worked and how the audience participate in the show."

"There is a level of nervousness that is constantly there, but as Paul McCartney once said, people don't pay to see nervous. I've learned over the years just to put it to one side. You have to, otherwise it just becomes a nuisance. When you relax and you just get on with it nothing goes wrong."

"Somebody said to be before the tour in the US started, 'what are you going to do if someone asks a really nasty question?' do you know what, nobody did. The audience are living it through you. They feel it through you."

"In the early days of ELP we were playing at Madison Square Garden in New York, the first time I'd ever played MSG and I went out from backstage to have a look at the audience just so that it wouldn't shock me too much, and I peeked up at the curtain and looked up at 22,000 people in a very small space so they lined the walls. It's an awesome spectacle. Dee Anthony, my manager, was up there with me and I said 'That's a frightening sight'. He said 'don't forget, that's only one person out there. To each person sitting there, they are just themselves looking up at you and really you are only performing to one person.' That's in my mind how I think of it. Once you adopt that one person state of mind a lot of the nervousness goes away."

"Monty Python said it: always look on the bright side of life. Most people sit there and worry. It probably isn't going to happen. Something good's probably going to happen. At least the odds are probably 50/50, why dwell on the negative? There's no point living that negativity in advance!"

Having picked up on the phrase 'end of my career' at the start of the interview, I had to end with asking whether he saw himself doing this when he's 70.

"If I can I will be. I don't want to retire, I enjoy what I'm doing. I'd love to be doing it, but only if I'm able to do it well and people get pleasure from it. I don't want to be one of those people that goes past their sell-by date. Right now I'm sure that people are enjoying what I'm doing. They're getting a lot of pleasure from it and so am I. As long as it's like that, all is well."

By James Nuttall 

Greg Lake will performing UK dates starting on 12 November. 
Dates can be found at: http://www.greglake.com/
Latest ELP news can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/EmersonLakePalmer

Many thanks to Greg and Billy for setting up the interview. 

Patti Has the Power, By James Nuttall

Patti Smith, 2012

I have talked to a lot of very interesting people at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club, and seen some fantastic shows there.

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of re-interviewing one of the most interesting and influential people on the planet- Patti Smith.

Patti was scheduled to play the Trades that night. She was back in the UK to tour with her band to promote her latest album, Banga.

The date in Hebden Bridge would be an acoustic show, with just her and bass player, Tony Shanahan, on piano and guitar duties. Patti would be donating her £3,000 fee to the town's flood appeal; a campaign close to her heart. As she explained that evening during the show, her own house flooded in the 1980's, so she could relate to the town's troubles. "I saw all the sand bags and I just thought 'ugh, my life in the 80's".' In the end, you just pick up and start again."

Patti arrived at the venue around 5pm. Taking time out to recover from car sickness, she signed autographs for fans, and even complimented a passing child's bike! 

Once again, I found myself walking into another venue with the Godmother of Punk for an interview on another sunny afternoon. Taking me into the soundcheck in the 190 capacity venue, I was greeted with a bottle of water and the opening bars of Smith's top 5 UK hit, Because the Night, playing in the background as the duo prepared for soundcheck.

Soundcheck over, Patti went for a stroll around the town to search for a book store where, she hoped to purchase a poetry book for the evening, intending to read a Sylvia Plath poem. Plath is buried in Heptonstall, near Hebden Bridge.

Returning empty handed, I offered to go home and print off the poem from the internet in return for a slot on the guest list for the evening's show, which had sold-out within minutes. Patti was happy to oblige, but first things first, we launched into the pre-arranged interview...

This date was scheduled as a day off between dates at Manchester and Leeds Academy's. With such a tight schedule, Patti still managed to fit in some sightseeing.

"We were in Haworth and we visited the Bronte parish and the museum, and that was really wonderful because I share, with my sister, a deep love of the Bronte's. They had a very old second-hand copy of my favourite Charlotte Bronte book, Villette. That was quite moving."

"I didn't do extensive sightseeing because I'm saving it for a trip my sister and I are taking in the spring. But the most moving thing, actually, was to go to St Thomas' church yard and visit the grave of the great Sylvia Plath. I've well loved her since I was a teenager. It was very moving to visit her modest little grave, and I had to take a couple of very beautiful shots that I'm very proud of."

"Then we've been about this town, which is beautiful. It's so beautiful here that everything is sightseeing... looking out the window... looking at rolling hills, dotted with sheep is especially wonderful because I have a great affection for sheep. And the biggest cows I've ever seen! I'm from South Jersey, where there's a lot of white Jersey cows, but your cows are much bigger than our cows!"

Patti Smith plays an acoustic show at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club, 7th September 2012

In November, Patti will be back in America, touring with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. They will be playing the biggest arenas in the country, taking in the likes of Madison Square Garden. However, she says that size is not important to her.

 "Our essential duty is to prepare the stage for Neil, which I'm really happy to do because I greatly admire him. Neil and I are of the same generation, about the same age, so it's really great to be able to work with him. As a performer the difference between one room or the other is technology, often. I don't feel anymore affection for a small room than a big room. My job is to communicate whether it's 20,000 or 20 people. I'm the same person, I just will adjust."


Smith is now 65 years old. The Godmother of Punk, she has been on the road for nearly 40 years... does she still enjoy it as much now as she did then?

"Yes, or I wouldn't tour. I don't do what I don't enjoy unless it's something that has to be done... some kind of responsibility. If a cat throws up on my books I'll have to clean it up. I love touring because that's a way to communicate with a lot of people, to meet people out on the streets, to talk to people, to consider what's going on in our world and share ideas. And it's fun."

This was the first time Patti ever visited Hebden Bridge. A town famous for it's unusual shops, beautiful walks and views- it is no surprise she plans to come back.

"I'm definitely bringing my sister back in the spring. I want my sister to see the town, it's beautiful. And I want to see how the people are recovering from the flood, and visit Sylvia [Plath] again with my sister... it's beautiful around here. I hope to play here again too... I'm sure that I will."

Smith has released 11 studio albums. The first, Horses in 1975, features in pretty much any 'Greatest Albums of All Time' lists worth reading. Radio Ethiopia followed a year, under the name 'The Patti Smith Group' and her two most commercially successful albums, Easter was released in 1978 and Wave a year later.

However, there would be a nine year wait before Patti was ready to make another album, Dream of Life, in 1988. Smith states that she does not have a favourite album from the early days. "It's like asking which child you like the best. They all have qualities that I like. The first four are a long, long time ago, and they reflect when I was just beginning. I was just learning the technology of doing a record. Really, they're very fledgling. I'm proud of how the band has evolved, and how I've evolved as a songwriter and a singer. I like all the records, somewhat. They're not perfect, but there's something on all of them that I like."

Reflecting back on something Patti told me in Wolverhampton, that an album is supposed to take you on a trip, I was keen to ask whether sequencing is an important part of the trip. "Sequencing is very important. That's probably the thing that sometimes one spends the most time dealing with."

1997's Peace and Noise 

"In these times it's sort of painful because you go through so much to sequence an album, and people just buy one song and then shuffle them on an iPod. So sequencing where it might be important to an artist might be unimportant to the listener, so you have to bow to the listeners desires and needs. I still think it's important. Each song should stand on it's own, but I like the idea that you're building... it's like in a concert. Sometimes a certain song in itself is not important, but it will help to build the night."

The same goes, Patti says, for the album covers... famous for her simple yet powerful shots, Patti often takes the photographs for the CD booklets herself. 

KT Tunstall famously wrote her hit Suddenly I See about the shot of Smith on the cover of Horses. Easter famously shows smith revealing the hair under her arm- a revolutionary shot for the times.

"Album art was very, very important to my generation. We sometimes fretted as much about the album art as the album. It was always exciting, also, when I was younger 'what's gonna be on the cover of Blond On Blond, or  what's gonna be the new Stones album, what's it gonna look like? The new Led Zeppelin album... Jimi Hendrix... Miles Davis.'"

"Covers were really part of the message, or part of the aesthetic experience of buying a record. So for me it's still important. I spend a lot of time on the packaging. I have worked on the packaging of all our albums, with the design, the font, the liner notes, to make sure it's a full aesthetic experience."

"Horses... it was Robert [Mapplethorpe] who chose that cover. He shot like 12 pictures and he chose the cover. Robert knew when he shot it that that was the cover."

Famous for her raunchy, hot and energetic gigs, Smith's acoustic shows can be few and far between. However, she does enjoy both electric and acoustic performances.

My signed Easter vinyl

"The only advantage of acoustic is often I can hear myself better. So as a singer, acoustic might be a little more pleasurable, but for excitement, it's great to have a full band. I love plugging in my electric guitar at the end of the night. It's more anarchistic maybe with a full band, but, you'd be surprised what you can get out of an acoustic guitar if you have the will."

So finally, my most-asked question: does she see herself doing this in 10 years?

"I have no idea. I truthfully did not see myself doing this 20 years ago. 20 years ago I was married, I had children. It never occurred to me that I'd be back on the stage playing electric guitar."

"I actually see myself living in a little house by the sea and writing. Doing probably more acoustic things, going from town to town like we're doing now.I could see myself spending just a few weeks in the UK, going from town to town doing poetry readings or small concerts."

"I'd still like to do another record or two, but what I want to do more than anything is write. I began as a write, I'll probably end as a writer, so that will probably be the full circle of my life."

Dashing home to print out a Sylvia Plath poem for Patti to begin the night with, appropriately entitled Sheep In Fog, I returned to find the club filling with eager fans, all keen to get the best view in the house.

Once the opening act, Karima Francis, completed her 20 minute set, the room was on it's feet.

Patti took the stage a little before 9pm, and was greeted with wild applause.

Beginning with saying how happy she was to be there, Patti read out the poem, much to the crowd's love, before hitting the wrong chord going into the first song... Attempting to salvage the somber atmosphere, she tried to repeat the final line of the poem. However, she was unsuccessful, bursting into a fit of laughter before she could get the line out. "That was pathetic. It was such a wonderful setup and I hit the wrong chord!"

Smith delighred the audience with a selection of songs from her new album, Banga. Some of the songs performed at The Trades had never been performed acoustic before. A song from Banga, April Fool, was one such song.

The room was in hysterics as Patti walked up to, and then retreated from the microphone, explaining "This is where the guitar solo normally is!" As Tony repeated the bridge of the song, on piano, Smith turned to him and asked "How much longer does this thing last?"

A particular highlight was the song Ghost Dance from 1978. The audience cheered with empathy at the line "We shall live again... we shall live". Tony Shanahan playing the song on just an acoustic guitar made it even more poignant.

Patti once again said how great it was to be in Hebden Bridge. "I'm sorry you had to have a flood for me to come!"

Another highlight was a passage from Smith's 2010 award-winning memoir, Just Kids, which tells the story of Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe's years as struggling artists in New York. She even told the crowd her recipe for lettuce soup.

Pissing In A River, the signature song from her 1976 album, Radio Ethiopia, sent the audience wild  from the opening piano sequence, as did Because the Night.

My Blakean Year saw the audience clap the bass line for Patti to stay in time- a duty they were pleased to take on.

The final song was the anthem Patti co-wrote with her late husband, Fred 'Sonic' Smith. People Have the Power had the whole room swaying, repeating the refrain over and over again.

My signed copy of the Banga CD

Making my way down the staircase after the show, I heard a woman declare: "Do you know what? She's right!"

Patti's dressing room for the evening was a dressing room inside the Little Theater Company, which is next door to The Trades. 
There was a 40-strong crowd surrounding the theater, hoping to get albums and books signed,  or just to shake her hand.

Patti emerged at 10:20pm, carrying a bouquet of flowers. The audience burst into a spontaneous round of applause as she made her way to the waiting van.

Before she left, she called "Who's going to see Sylvia tomorrow?" When a hand was raised, they were instructed to leave the bouquet of flowers on the grave.

Patti Smith and her band was booked to play Leeds O2 Academy the following day, and she was already behind time. The autograph hunters were left disappointed as she was ushered into the car. However, she did stop to shake my hand and thank me for sourcing the poem for her. Reaching into her pocket and handing me some plectrums, she said "Keep in touch... email me or something, won't you?" Giving her my assurance I would email the finished piece to her, and also stay in touch, we shook hands one last time before Patti thanked the crowd again, and both she and Tony disappeared behind the black tinted windows. 

The duo were driven off in a black luxury Mercedes van. Several fans chased after it to catch a last glimpse of their idol before the van turned around the corner onto the main road. Most were content to applaud them as they drove off into the night, with calls of "come back soon" lingering in the evening's atmosphere.

By James Nuttall

All photographs copyright James Nuttall 2012 ©

Many thanks to Patti Smith for her time and assistance.

Thanks also to the Hebden Bridge Trades Club.

http://www.pattismith.net/intro.html
html http://thetradesclub.com

The triumphant return of Suzi Q... By James Nuttall

Suzi Quatro live at the Havering Show, Essex, 27th August 2012

The August Bank Holiday included countless festivals all over the country; some in castles, some in fields and some in downright odd places chosen as the venue. 

One of the less publicized weekend festivals saw the first ever female rock musician return to form after a five month recuperation.

Suzi Quatro has sold over 50 million albums worldwide. She has inspired the likes of Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, Oasis, The White Stripes, Pat Benatar and Melissa Etheridge. She is also an actress and radio and television personality.  Last year she was inducted into the Detroit Music Hall of Fame, both as a solo artist, and as a member of her original girl bands, The Pleasure Seekers and Cradle.

She closed the Havering Show in her home county of Essex on Monday 27th August. It was her first gig since the end of March after falling from the top of a steel staircase while boarding an airplane the day after a show in Kiev. The resulting injuries included a broken left arm, right leg and a black and blue chin, which she landed on.

A misdiagnosis resulted in Quatro needing her leg to be re-broken and screws put in. 

Staying in touch with her fans via Facebook and Youtube, Suzi tracked her recovery commenting that the physiotherapy was 'S**t... absolute s**t... It's better to have a baby!"

Shows all over the world had to be rescheduled, and some were cancelled altogether.

However, Quatro, ever the professional, chose the free festival in Hornchurch as the place for her comeback gig. The Mersybeats and The Searchers had headlined the festival the day before, each day having a strict 6 pm curfew.


Suzi arrived a little after two o'clock on the day of her performance, and marched straight into her dressing room tent. Fans had come from all over the world to welcome her back to the stage, but much to everyone's shock and concern, four members of the St John's Ambulance team rushed into Quatro's tent shortly after her arrival.

Inside the dressing room I found myself watching the 62 year old rocker having her right wrist cleaned and bandaged up. "Can you believe this?", she asked, trying not to laugh "All for a coffee burn!... Tony [her driver] poured me a cup of coffee, and well... yeah!" 

When I asked if it would affect her performance that evening, Suzi quipped "No... no big deal. After what I've been through... you gotta be kidding me!" Pointing to her lower wrist, she told the medic "Just try to stay away from there, I'll need to be able to play."

After being bandaged up and doing meet and greets with some fans, we sat down in the dressing room to discuss her projects- past and present, her favourite albums, and how it feels to reclaim her position as the reigning Queen of Rock and Roll. 

Suzi's performance was running late, as the whole show was behind time. However, it still had to be finished by 6pm as the festival was in a public place. "We have to stick to the time, unfortunately. I hate it when that happens, but that's how it goes. They're having problems with sound too, but I'm just so ready... I shall be high-kicking with the best of 'em!"

Since her second operation, Quatro has had to have screws in her leg to aid the healing process. She has already said they have caused her much discomfort from day one, commenting "worst screw I ever had!". As a result, she had plans to have one of them made into a necklace; something she is still yet to do. "I'm still deciding if I want to take the other one out yet or not."

(Pointing to her shin) "That one's still there, that had to be there. So if I never take it out then I'll frame the one, or both if it does come out." 

Watching her update videos on youtube, Quatro was clearly unhappy and frustrated that she would have to take so much time out from gigging- the longest time since she was pregnant. 

However, speaking to her on the day of the gig, she looked healthy, happy and very strong. She clearly managed to stay in shape while injured. "Well I was immobile. [I stayed in shape] by not being lazy. I was on that walker going everywhere. I was emptying the trash, I was putting the dishes out of the dishwasher, I was cooking, I was going from one end of the house to the other. That in itself was exhausting, dragging the cast around. So I didn't sit around, basically."


Although the accident stopped her touring, it did not halt Suzi's thirst for work. While recovering she penned her one woman show, Unzipped, named after her 2007 autobiography. It will be performed from Monday 29th October to Saturday 3rd November at the London Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square. 

"It's me telling the story of my life. Basically, how I became Suzi Quatro from the very beginning, the early days up to the modern day." There is music in there, but it's not going to be a concert. There will be a couple of hits in there, but you're going to get talking, you'll get bits of music that were important in the beginning. There'll also be video clips from the very beginning [of my career], too. I think people are going to enjoy it."

This will not be the first time Quatro has been on stage for more than rock and roll. In 1986 she played the lead roll in Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of the musical Annie Get Your Gun. 

She also wrote her own musical with Shirlie Roden, Tallulah Who?, about the life of actress Tallulah Bankhead; a project she has in the past said she would like to bring back. "I would love to bring that back, I'm still hoping we will. In fact, it was performed in Hornchurch, which is right here. If there's a time for it we will; somebody will approach me."

Last year Suzi was quoted in a national newspaper saying that she would like to also do a musical about her own life, commenting at the time she would like KT Tunstall to play her. Would she still like to do that? "Yeah, but let's see how [Unzipped] goes." 

And is KT still her first choice? "No. Not now. Whenever it happens is when I decide who I want to play it, but she's good, I like her." 

Since Unzipped was published to good reviews in 2007, Quatro has expressed her ongoing love affair with writing, although she has not released another book, but she will... "I'd like to. I've given stuff to publishers to see. I have a fiction which I started quite a while ago, which I haven't gone back to for a while called The Hurricane. That's really good so far. I will go back and finish it. I could write another autobiography after all this... maybe it should be called Re-zipped, haha!"

At the moment, the next Suzi Quatro release is set to be a limited edition release of her 2011 album, In the Spotlight, which will contain a bonus CD entitled In the Dark. "I've received the album cover already, but I'm yet to see the finished piece. It's got demos, unreleased stuff that nobody's heard yet, postcards and also the unseen video of Strict Machine."

In the Spotlight was released by Cherry Red, who have also remastered and re-released seven of Quatro's albums, starting in 2008 with Main Attraction, originally released in 1982 on Polydor. Some of these albums are on CD in their own right with the original art work for the first time.

Several albums, such as If You Knew Suzi and Oh Suzi Q are still to be released, however. "It seems to be that little by little all the things are getting redone, so I should think they probably will too given chance. Nothing is cement right now."

Has she given thought to her next studio album? "No, but I've already started to write."

On the subject of albums, Quatro has often spoken of her fondness for her first album, 1973's Suzi Quatro, along with 1979's Suzi... And Other Four Letter Words, and 2006's Back to the Drive. So which of her albums would be her least favourite? "Probably Aggro-Phobia." This was the only album Mickie Most, who discovered Suzi in Detroit in 1970, brought her to England and signed her to his label, RAK, ever produced.

The other albums were all produced by Mike Chapman, who composed most of Quatro's hit singles, along with writing songs for Tina Turner, The Sweet and Mud. He would go on to produce Blondie's most successful albums. He also spearheaded In the Spotlight and executive produced Back to the Drive for Suzi.

"I never thought Mickie was my producer. I love him to death, but I never thought he knew how to bring out the best in me. The only way I can say it is I don't like the way Mickie produces me. I think Mike Champan brings out the excitement in me, and Mickie was always lost in the studio with me. He got me where I wanted to go, but not production-wise. But he was smart enough to know that Mike got me."

Moving onto other people's albums, Suzi has always expressed her love for Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and The Eagles... Her favourite albums by them are as follows:

Tom Petty: "Definitely, without a doubt, the first one. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I bought about five albums all at once, and that's one that I wore out."

The Eagles: "I don't know, I like their Greatest Hits because it's just a group of most of their best songs."

Jackson Browne: "Running on Empty. That's another album I wore out... fantastic."

Suzi is an accomplished musician. In her autobiography she offers Gene Simmons from KISS some redeemable bass lessons. In 1975 she was named the third-best bassist in the world after Jack Bruce and Paul McCartney. She also reads and writes drums and piano. 

Staying in contact with the outside world by Facebook and Twitter, Quatro commented that her bass playing is the best it's ever been. 

"It's much better now than it used to be because I relearned how to play. So it's excellent, I'm playing really well. It's just readdressing technique, things that you would maybe cheat on because you find this position's easier. Everybody has little cheats. When I relearned how to play once the cast was off I couldn't do any cheats, I had to start from scratch."

Suzi Q was set to go onstage at 4:45pm. She was finally announced about 10 minutes late, and the 2000-strong crowd went wild with excitement as she took the stage in her iconic leather jumpsuit, with a red Ed Hardy tattooed sleeve t-shirt underneath, and launched into a cover of Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World, then straight into her 1979 single I've Never Been In Love. 

Fifteen songs were packed into a one hour show. Can the Can, Devil Gate Drive, The Wild One, Tear Me Apart, and other hits each went down a storm. The loudest reaction was Suzi's trademark bass solo, which sent the crowd wild with excitement.

The single from In the Spotlight, a cover of Goldfrapp's Strict Machine, was supposed to end the show, but time delays lead to it being cut from the encore, making A Girl Like Me the only song to represent the album at the gig. One encore of the top 5 UK hit If You Can't Give Me Love, and Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Rock and Roller closed the festival. 

After the show, we escorted Suzi to the merchandise stand, still in her stage clothes, where she signed autographs for eager fans- all desperate to get albums, programmes and photographs signed. 

Her high heeled boot had caused her to hurt her ankle after the show, so taking my arm as we walked back to her dressing room she said "That was incredible."

So finally, does she see herself doing this when she's 72? "Yeah. I do!" 

By James Nuttall

Many thanks to Suzi for her time; thanks also to Lynn and Skip for helping to arrange the interview. 

All photographs © James Nuttall 2012

suzifanclub@hotmail.co.uk

http://www.suziquatro.com/