* * *
by Bill Richards
There are 2 main problems with the first
chapter (in 'As It Began') from my
point of view: the chronology of Brian's brief involvement with
LHM (which was 1967, i.e. 2 years after we both left school) and
my own involvement with 1984 (which is not mentioned.
I agree up to the point on page 5 (para4) where
it says:"Brian and Dave were joined by an enlarging circle
of friends..." but suggest you add:
"who were interested in blues and pop and sought inspiration
from Brian who was seen as the expert both in terms of his
musical knowledge and his playing skill. One of his classmates
was Bill Richards, who learned to play the guitar entirely from
Brian and was keen to provide vocals for Brian and Dave for
everything from Benny Hill to The Beatles, and from the Mojos to
Manfred man."
Then in para 6 it should say "Brian on
lead guitar, Dave on bass, Bill on lead and vocals and another
classmate called John Sanger on piano. The piano came in useful
when the band rehearsed numbers like Go Now (which the Moody
Blues had just released), but there was a problem with Bill's
guitar which was cheap and nasty. It fell to Brian to tell Bill
tactfully that if he couldn't get a better guitar he would have
to leave: he couldn't, so he did. Bill commented 'To be honest, I
think Brian was being even more tactful by underplaying the
problem with the vocals, which weren't right at the time,
although he was kind enough to say much later that I'd sorted it
out.' The band was then joined by a friend called Malcolm, but he
proved...."
Then there's a BIG gap, because brian and 1984
went in one direction (rock / pop), while i started writing songs
and went in quite another, namely folk-rock. I formed The Left -
Handed Marriage in the Summer of 1965, not with Hampton Grammar
people but with Jenny, Henryand Terry whom I'd know since primary
school: Jenny was doing teacher - training and the other 2 were
at work. In January 1967 we made our LP 'On the Right Side of the
Left - Handed Marriage' (which is now in Record Collector's Top
20 Rare Albums and rated at GBP 500, althought one dealer is
advertising it at 1250 GBP)!
A music publisher began to show interest in
some of the songs, and an employee Brian Henderson, who was also
a member of the original (British) Nirvana, persuaded them to
consider recordingsome of them for offering to bands or singers.
They also signed me up for a 12-month contract. I realised the
sound would be too this to interest any other artists, so I
contacted Brian. He was living in Belmont Grove, Chiswick and
wrote to me in March 1967 to say he'd liked the tape I'd sent him
and hoped we would be favoured with "connubial bliss".
Although he was due to support Jimi Hendrix at I.C. he spared the
time to try and persuade 1984 to do a couple of my songs
including 'A Little Less'. This didn't happen, but he did agree
to help us on our next project, on the understanding that it
wouldn't interfere with his commitment to 1984.
On 4th April 1967 he joined jenny, henry, Terry
and me in a little amateur studio in Twickenham run by someone
who had been a Field Manager for EMI. We recorded 'Give Me Time'
(the title was later changed to 'I Need Time' because someone
else released a song with the first title), 'She Was Once My
Friend', 'Sugar Lump Girl' and (with the help of Terry on flute)
'Yours Sincerely' (which was basically 'Give Me Time' backwards,
with new words pinched from the Russian writer Pushkin). The idea
had been to market it as an EP, but it became the first demo for
the publishers and led to the session at Abbey Road which you
mention on page 5 but which actually happened on 28th June 1967.
We were joined at Abbey Road by Dave Dilloway,
whose incredibily long blue scarf invited some amusing comments,
as Dave was not exactly short himself! We all piled into a
borrowed Commer van driven by Terry's dad and after walking over
the famous zebra crossing (backwards or forwards, I forget which)
we were greeted by the A&R Man who said "Hello, I'm a
bastard". This was an accurate statement, as he showed no
appreciation of Brian's skills, or as I put it in a letter to a
friend "totally ignoring our Brian's admirable sensitivity
to lead-guitar tone". I will send a sleeve note giving
further detalis of this individual's myopia (e.g. "Solo?
What solo?"). We set down 'I Need Time' and 'She Was Once My
Friend' but over-ran by 20 minutes: in view of your comments
about studio time in later pages of 'As It Began'. I have to say
we were incredibily lucky. At this stage there was even talk of
relase in August 1967.
The publishers were interested: "Don't
worry boy - We think you got a good group - Just leave it to us -
Somebody's gotta be interested - If EMI don't want it we'll take
it to someone else".However, they still thought the sound
could be improved, so a session at Regentsound was scheduled for
31st July 1967 and another friend of mine (this time from Notting
Hill Gate) was drafted in to play bass and piano: this was John
Frankel, to whom I am indebted for some of the archive material I
am using here!
The 3 songs recorded at Regentsound were: 'I
Need Time', 'She Was Once My Friend' and a new song I had just
written during a trip to Devon and called 'Appointment'. We had
rehearsed once with a session drummer called Peter Trout, no idea
what happened to him, but he was our first and last drummer. On
the day of the recording Henry and I went to Soho by train and
tube, while Terry (heroically changing his plans at the last
moment as a result of his dad being taken very ill) shoehorned
Brian and his gear into his Reliant Regal 3/25 and we met up with
Jenny, John and Peter. Terry had already claimed his place in the
history books by suggesting to Brian that he solve the clicking
problem on the Red Special by fitting a capacitor: I don't know
when this was done, but we were delighted with Brian's playing,
more so than Brian who was convinced he could have done the solo
better! As the 8-track regentsound machine was something of a
technological marvel, we were impressed with everything we heard,
and it was certainly handled very professionally. What a shame
those mastertapes seen to have disappeared along with studio!
Needless to say, even these recordings were
never relased. Brian got busier, and the last time any of us saw
him was on February 8th 1969 when I married Deirdre, a
longsuffering friend of LHM and co-producer of the LP sleeve! I
carried on writing songs but did not approach the microphone
again for the next 25 years, until we made the new album in fact.
Bill Richards
© & ® 1999 Misiaq Ltd.