Song credits The Beatles "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers "Stepping Out"
The Doors "Five to One"
Muddy Waters "I've got my mojo working"
Members of Cream- Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker
Part Fourteen
John could remember the day when he confessed to his beloved daughter Charlie that he shared her taste for Black Sabbath. Her tolerant smile showed that she had failed to realise that his playful nature had the tendency on occasion to understate the more outrageous sides of his personality rather than exaggerate it. The memory of that conversation however lingered at the back of his mind.
It all started from the day he watched the television and saw the Prime Minister up to his usual tricks of image projection in the tactfully unostentatious way that his guitar case was displayed to make him look vaguely hip. It angered him much to see him so very badly clothed by the tattered remnants of a vanished hippie past. He was not sure whether this or the nauseating way he said the word "guy" incensed him more. John was always a man of strong views. By God, he was better than this mediocrity who presumed to rule the nation. He bet that he was a mediocre musician as well.
He had worked hard all his life with not much of a respite from the law books and the cases, which had dominated his life yet everyone felt distant from him, out of reach that night. He was at a loose end and, for once in his life, searched out the more forgotten parts of his flat.
There it was, on the topmost shelf, buried below a mixture of old papers and a few clothes, a long black flat case. He pulled it out, dislodging everything around it. He clicked the catches and, there it was, a shiny cherry red Gibson electric guitar. For a second, he didn't want to disturb it but the force within him was too great. He picked it up and the lean plastic shape fitted snugly into his hands and his fingernails dragged their way across the strings. The muted but to him, resonant hum dragged him back into his past and brought back to him that long forgotten thrill.
With characteristic obstinacy, John blithely propped the small practice amplifier on a coffee table, hooked the guitar strap over one shoulder and struck out the first shimmering amplified notes of "Sunshine of your Love." The fingers still remembered the once familiar patterns as he punched out the intro. An intense feeling of satisfaction brought him to life. Just when he was about to ascend the musical scales into that familiar solo leaving behind that bedrock riff, the door opened and Monty poked his head round the door.
"John, what in hell are you doing? I'm trying to work"
."What does it look like"
"You can't play that music here"
"Aha. You didn't call it an infernal racket as my university tutor used to call that song"
"Yes, well, I have some affection for it, but this is neither the time or the place"
"You are a rock fan, Monty?" John looked at him with that expression of spiritual recognition of a soul brother, instead of that mockery in his eyes. Stanley might have looked at the long lost Dr Livingstone that way.
"Yes," growled Monty." I used to play drums a bit but I gave it up when I met Vera"
The faint tinge of regret was not lost on John.
"And would you like to get back to playing in a band"
John's words and his appealing blue eyes roused a flicker of spirit in him, as he was secretly bored with his life. He knew he shouldn't let John coax him into such a mad idea but deep down he wanted to be tempted.
When he stood in the mysteriously acquired rehearsal hall, he felt too old and stiff for the shiny drum kit before him. However the cymbals weren't quite his height, he noted.
"Just imagine that Neil Haughton is the drum kit and you are kicking at him with the drum pedal and clouting him with your drum sticks." John's voice insinuated its way into his fantasies.
Monty seemed to swell inwardly, removed his tie and jacket, unbuttoned his two top shirt buttons, took his place and unleashed a brutal drum solo where the sideways smashed at the bass drum pounded out in perfect synch with the drum rolls off the top and into the cymbal crashes. John felt this animal thrusting rhythm, which blew the top off Monty's long, pent up rage. He immediately locked into it with a throaty rhythmic guitar figure, which drove Monty's fury onwards. The spirit between them fused together till Monty's final flourish drew the music to a halt.
"Not as fit as I used to be," Monty gasped apologetically.
"Monty, you are brilliant. We've got to get a group together,
" I suppose it's like riding a bike, you'll always remember." Monty panted, still recovering his breath but he felt unexpectedly good about himself.
"We need a bass player and singer at the minimum"
"You're right," enthused Monty when he had recovered." but we can't just stick an advertisement on the student union notice board like we used to. "
"Where there is a will, there is a way." John muttered, a faraway look of determination in his eyes.
The next day, he still looked that way when he had adjourned to his favourite café. One half of his mind was on the trial he was overseeing, the other was fixated on his frustration in being in a potentially rock solid outfit but minus a vital component.
"Hi John, didn't know you were going to be round these parts." Nikki's bright pleasant tones broke in on his thoughts. By the expression on your face, you have a tricky case on your hands"
"The trial is commonplace. What is driving me to distraction is that I am trying to form a rock band as an extra curricular interest and I have a problem"
"Suppose you talk to me about it." Her curiosity was definitely roused and she had an inkling in her mind that she could help out.
"Coope has tipped me off through her network of contacts that the Prime Minister is considering coming to the local town hall in a sponsored talent show for groups"
"It will need to keep out the would be "pop idols." Nikki concluded.
"I understand that he plans to perform with a pick up band. I have that itching, burning desire to form a rival outfit and just blow him off the stage. That is my ultimate ambition in my life"
That combative gleam in his eye and the drawl in his voice was infectious and immediately had Nikki in its grip.
"So what's the problem"
"I am an accomplished lead guitarist in the Eric Clapton mould and I have a partner in crime as a Ginger Baker styled drummer. I urgently need a vocalist and bass player"
"The answer to your problem is sitting opposite you."Nikki smiled broadly." I sang and played bass in a group in my early days till my other half at the time made me settle down and give up the music scene. Now I have a regular daytime job, I'm up for something like this. Helen will understand"
The gleam of intense satisfaction shone out of John's eyes as fate fell into his hands. He knew Nikki, the former inmate of Larkhall and now governor of G Wing but Nikki the reincarnation of Jack Bruce was an enormous stroke of luck
Back in the rehearsal room on another evening, John enthused at length to his comrades in arms as they sweated away to set up the array of amplifiers, drum kits and to plug in the leads. "One, two three four." John counted in as, with a will, Monty smote the drum kit with that peculiar lopsided beat for the four beats in a bar for Nikki and John to come in with that unique scrubbing rhythm.
"We're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We hope you will enjoy the show
We're Sergeant Pepper's one and only Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Sit back and let the evening go"
Nikki's voice had that ecstatically raunchy intonation and she played with that thumping edge over which John's fluid high-pitched guitar cut an authoritative edge through the music. Beneath that, Monty hammered away and they were all together with that intense joy at making music, however ill assorted were their origins. That was almost the point of it all.
They started to strike problems from the next song onwards as the sound balance started to go awry. Monty's drums started to drown everything out and other times Nikki's bass occasionally did the same with John's elaborate guitar solo. The expression on his face became more and more pained till he drew the last song to a close.
"We're all playing fine but the music's out of balance. We need a mixing board and someone to work the PA"
"Did you mention a PA?" A strange voice broke in on them. It was none other than the respectably dressed Coope, that infinitely resourceful manager of John's complicated love life, the embodiment of imperturbability who gently steered into his hands the cases she thought he should have.
"I. was looking for you as Jo Mills had kept calling for you and was increasingly worried that you weren't returning your calls. Now I see I have no cause to worry"
"But we do." Retorted John." I need someone to manage a different kind of PA that you perform as your daily function"
"I think I can help out here. I used to manage the board for my son till he went to university. Even he thought I wasn't bad"
"Coope, as usual, you're a godsend," exclaimed John. Fortune blessed them as, with inspired musicianship, they played the same set of songs again the next night and Coope's deft touch manipulated the various channels to perfection. They grabbed the songs by the scruff of the neck and rode them all the way home.
It was the evening that the P M had been waiting for. His close political advisers had warned him that a more hip image would draw back the young voters who had stabbed him in the back by daring to take to the streets and march in the streets about Iraq instead of sticking their favourite pin up posters of pop stars on their bedroom walls. He wasn't exactly "pop idol" himself but his looks were still vaguely youthful. His political fixers had set everything up and he was the top of the bill attraction, together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a reluctant Neil Haughton on drums. It suited his aggressive tendencies and was safely consigned to the back of the stage.
The youthful groups played as tastefully though not too expertly, helped by the fact that no alternative musician or pop idol would have dreamed of turning up for totally opposite reasons, even with the faint hope of a second of TV coverage. The TV cameras were set up complete with the supine press corps and the besuited trio drank sugar free tea backstage and waited to be given the curtain call. The local yokels had been duly given their instructions as to what to do.
Behind the curtain, John, Nikki and Monty were sweating hard to fix up their equipment in record time in the narrow space to the side of the expensive gear of the band they vowed to upstage. The break before the headline act was judged to be long enough to heighten that feeling of anticipation of the passive celebrity worshippers. Ironically, it gave them just enough time with the help from women working at the hall that Nikki knew from her club days who helped them get set up ten minutes before the interval was due to end.
"One two, one two," John spoke into his mike and there was a brief squeal of feedback before Cope, serene at the mixing desk, got it under control. It did bring in the quicker witted audience back from the bar to augment the few who stayed in their seats.
"We are an unscheduled support band before the P M takes the stage. We are the Storm Riders." John announced, his expressive voice capable of filling a court room now amplified by the PA which sent it rolling round the hard domed ceiling of the much larger concert hall." On bass and vocals we have, Nikki Wade, a prison governor. I'm John Deed on lead guitar and I'm a high court judge and on drums is Monty Everard who is my senior in the legal profession. One, two, three, four"
Immediately, the band careered into a perfectly balanced version of "Sergeant Pepper" The three instruments meshed and blended perfectly together to perfection and the wall of music grabbed hold of the audience, John inspired to venture into back up vocals behind Nikki. The audience were entranced and a solid stream of people filed in from the bar. At the end, Nikki's voice built to a crescendo as the song soared out into the audience before the band signed off with a brief instrumental flourish.
"And now, our second number features John Deed as Eric Clapton.This is no "Stars in Your Eyes" though. This is for real." Nikki shouted exultantly into the mike as john tore into the opening riff of "Stepping Out". Nikki and Monty held down the short stabbing staccato rhythms while all of John's soul was at one with the fiery flurry of notes which reached out into the dark. His flying fingers coaxed such an intensity of feeling out of his freeboard, his face intent with concentration yet stepping back from the spotlight.
There was pandemonium backstage as three angry powerful rulers of the country burst out of their dressing room and struggled their way through the rambling maze of corridors to find the stage. Whoever was responsible for escorting them to the stage had let them down badly.
With one eye mentally on the clock which ticked away the time they had to perform their set, John led the trio into the archetypal Cream song "Sunshine of your Love' which Nikki and Monty blessed alongside of him with their music, their undying devotion to that song. He stepped forward to the microphone to add a touch of emphatic background harmonies to the line "……..I'll stay with you till my seeds are dried up……"But, he thought smugly to himself, while he followed that pulse of music to its distant source so far away in an endless quest, his powers would stay with him, like Nikki's, like Monty's. They drove that song home to a climax of thundering drums and crashing chords until the Doors of Perception opened right up in front of their eyes in the next song.
"Five to One One in Five No one here gets out alive You get yours, baby I'll get mine Going to make it if we try"
"The old get old And the Young get stronger May take a week And it may take longer They've got the guns But we've got the numbers Gonna win, yeah, we're taking over."
Nikki screamed out the words of Jim Morrison of the Doors into the dark as the repeated pile driver rhythms eventually erupted out into the audience with a glorious explosion of interlocking rhythms, Monty grinning devilishly as he pounded away in the background and the music reached its triumphant conclusion.
"All right, Houghton, what is the problem," John exclaimed as the crowd exploded in cheering while that contemptible weasel was suddenly pulling at his shirtsleeve. Behind him, the face of the smiling smoothie behind him who always looked so in command before a TV camera was distorted with rage and jealousy. The real man, so carefully hidden from public eye, was coming to the surface. He wasn't coming forward to back up his friend but hung back, leaving someone else to do the dirty work for him.
"We're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We're sorry but it's time to go
Sergeant Pepper's one and only lonely Hearts Club Band"
Nikki improvised this last finale as an encore as she knew that the wrath of the establishment would cut them short very shortly. She wondered how they had gone on so long without the plug being pulled on them for so long but wasn't asking questions. John tore off a brief snatch of a solo as his torn shirtsleeve flapped loose leaving an enraged Neil Houghton in the wings, impotent and helpless.
"Prime Minister, beat that." He shouted through the blend of stamping and cheering and turned round to stare defiantly at the PM who stood aghast and indecisive. He was no longer a politician appearing at the rostrum at a party conference or a would be rock star. The TV cameras had caught and transmitted the last two minutes of the Storm Riders performance on prime time television. As Muddy Waters might have told him, his mojo definitely wasn't working now or would it ever work in his life.
When John woke up, he felt enormously elated and refreshed in comparison with the way the wounds of his psyche had been opened up and had bled all over the carpet. Perhaps this was John's way of self-preservation through the ultimate rebellion to rise from the ashes of his former self.