Morrissey and Vince Eager

March 2015

MORRISSEY would like to be cremated to a song by a Notts rock’n’roller.

The master of the morose, who is at the Capital FM Arena tonight, chose Vince Eager’s 1960 single The World’s Loneliest Man as his No. 1 in a list of Songs To Be Cremated With.

And his fascination with the song has led to him checking into hotels as Vince Eager and even releasing the song as a B-side on his own single.

“I find it all quite bizarre,” says Vince, 74, who lives in Radcliffe-on-Trent.

“The World’s Loneliest Man was written especially for me by Jerry Lordan, who had written Apache and other hits for The Shadows.

“When I did my TV series in 1959, on one occasion I sang Paul Anka’s Lonely Boy. Apparently a lot people went into shops to buy it but I hadn’t recorded it. Because there was so much interest we decided to go for one in a similar vein.”

The single, produced by George Martin before he went on to work with The Beatles, failed to make the Top 40.

“I wasn’t happy with the recording, to be honest, but it sold quite well, around 30,000 copies, which today would get it to No. 1. It got to something like No. 45.”

Fast forward to the late 90s when Vince, one of the original British rock’n’rollers alongside Cliff Richard, Billy Fury and Marty Wilde, was in the US and working as a cruise director.

“I started researching for a book I was writing. I’d got my first computer and I searched for Vince Eager to see what I could find... and there was this story about Morrissey’s list of songs he wanted to be cremated with. And I was at No. 1.”

The list, called Singles To Be Cremated With, was in an article in the NME called Headful Of Heroes, published in 1989.

Vince says: “Now I didn’t know much about him. I knew who The Smiths were but it wasn’t my sort of music. So I asked a friend who said ‘oh he probably chose that because he’s a miserable sod like you’.”

The song includes the lines:

I don’t want to live in the past

Oh no, that’s where you belong

I’ve got nothing to live for tomorrow

And today everything went wrong

I am the world’s loneliest man... yes... yes I am...

Vince continues: “About 18 months ago he released a single with my song as its B-side. It wasn’t his version of The World’s Loneliest Man but my actual version – the single I’d released in 1960. That blew me away. He never got in touch and asked his permission. But it was out of copyright anyway so he was OK to do that.”

The A-side was Glamorous Glue and the seven-inch vinyl record was only released as a limited edition, with some fans paying £150 for it.

“When I was recording my album in Bristol, the guy who ran the studio told me that Morrissey had been checking into hotels overseas as Vince Eager.

“I didn’t believe it but he said there was a bass player who Morrissey worked with that he knew and he’d told him that.

“He’d also told him that Morrissey does really like the record but he thinks everything else I’ve done is rubbish,” he laughs.

“Which is fair enough I suppose – I don’t like his stuff either.”






MORRISSEY’S SONGS TO BE CREMATED WITH...


1. The World’s Loneliest Man – Vince Eager

2. Don’t Take The Lovers From The World – Shirley Bassey

3. What A Nice Way To Turn 17 – The Crystals

4. There, I’ve Said It Again – Sam Cooke

5. Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets – Dionne Warwick

6. Strange, I Know – The Marvelettes

7. Third Finger, Left Hand – Martha Reeves And The Vandellas

8. I Take It Back – Sandy Posey

9. Heart – Rita Pavone

10. Shoes – Reparata

Alvin Stardust

September 2014

ALVIN Stardust will be back in his home county tonight for a gig that will span his 54 year career.
And it’s all down to an old friend who Alvin, born Bernard Jewry, used to watch on TV back in the Fifties.
“He was one of the original Oh Boy! rock ‘n’ rollers alongside our idols like Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and Billy Fury,” says the 75-year-old of Vince Eager, who has organised the gig at Grange Hall in Radcliffe-on-Trent to raise funds for the RSPCA.
“Vince was great and he’s still got a great voice,” says Alvin, who grew up in Mansfield, where he formed his first band Shane Fenton and the Fentones.
“We’d play Mansfield Palais and Nottingham’s Odeon Cinema, before touring with Billy Fury, Joe Brown and Marty Wilde.
“We were playing 50s rock ‘n’ roll and a few American covers, before making a couple of records.
“We became household names before we’d even had a record deal because we played The Saturday Club, the TV show that had 25 million viewers. We sent a tape asking if we could go on it. It was that simple.”

By 1961, they’d signed to EMI, picked up by A&R man George Martin, who would soon begin his legendary role as The Beatles producer. It was during the 70sthat the renamed Alvin Stardust would become a household name, famed for the black quiff, leather jacket and gloves, with a string of hits including My Coo Ca Choo and the number one Jealous Mind.
“We will play such a cross section of stuff,” he says of tonight’s show.
“We do 50s rock n roll, a few 60s bits and bobs, the 70s hits and the 80s hits. I actually sold more records in the 80s than the 70s. It started with Pretend on Stiff Records, which was a street cred label.”
Over the years he has appeared in a number of West End musicals, including Godspell, David Copperfield, Phantom of the Opera and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

“But they became UK tours and I didn’t want to sign up for six months or a year of being away from my family,” he says.

Instead he has hopped aboard a wave of 70s nostalgia, which sees him playing his past hits right across Europe. “We do festivals and stadiums. Tens of thousands of people. But at the same time I’ll do little clubs, because I love it. I’m lucky that I can pick and choose.”


Alvin, who lives in Surrey with his third wife and 13-year-old daughter, is working on his first album of new material in 30 years.
He says: “We’ve recorded a few tracks but nobody knows for sure where it’s going to go.”

Alvin Stardust

May 2010

NEXT week Alvin Stardust will be releasing an album of hits. Nothing unusual in that you might think.

But the collection, called I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, will be released on a major label. Added to that, there’ll be TV advertising to promote it. And a full on tour of UK theatres.

It’s the latest revival of the Notts hitmaker who has already experienced quite a few over the years.

“I had the success in the sixties touring with the rock n rollers, then in the seventies with the black leather,” says the Mansfield raised musician.

“When that was over I figured that was going to be it. But then in the eighties Pete Waterman gave me Pretend and I signed to Stiff Records.”

Next up in the regeneration of Alvin Stardust came a few year later when Mike Batt gave him the song I Feel Like Buddy Holly. He signed to Chrysalis where he became their top selling male singles artist. Further hits included I Won't Run Away and So Near To Christmas.

By the late nineties Alvin, 67, had moved in to musical theatre. The plum role was as the Child Catcher in West End smash Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

“I really enjoyed the theatre but I missed the music and I wanted to get back to it,” he says.

Not that he believed that in his sixties he was going to crack the charts again. Or so he thought.

“About six months ago I had a phone call from Universal saying they wanted me to do an album,” says Alvin, whose Notts accent is still evident despite having lived out of the county for decades.

“I thought it was a spoof to start with. I then thought they meant the plan was to just re-release the greatest hits. So I said ‘sure, go ahead’. But they said ‘no, we want you to write some new songs and record three covers for it’”.

The result is a best of album with a twist. As well as three new songs and three new covers, Alvin has re-recorded all of his old hits.

He admits: “I don’t like it when artists re-record hits. I like them to sound exactly as they did. But when we play the hits on stage we always do them exactly as they were. So, we tried recording them in the studio in one take and they sounded great. Exactly as before but with a rockier fell.”

To sit alongside the revived hits of Pretend, My Coo- Ca- Choo, I Feel Like Buddy Holly and Jealous Mind are covers of Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N Roll and Duffy’s Mercy.

“My daughter suggested those. She’s nine. I thought she was going to suggest doing a Miley Cyrus song,” he laughs.

The new songs include My Sweet Elvis, a tribute to his hero.

“It’s also about growing up in the East End, then moving to Mansfield when I was two. My mum ran lodgings for the Palace Theatre and I remember sitting in the wings watching people like Tommy Steele and Arthur Askey. And they’d all stay over at our house.

“It was in Mansfield that I first discovered Elvis.”

He adds: “I remember talking to Ian Dury about his song Sweet Gene Vincent and how great it was as a tribute. It occurred to me to do my own tribute to Elvis.”

The closing song on the album, Reverend Jack Daniel’s, is another new one.

“Two minutes before going on stage I’d always get the band and crew together to join in a prayer. A prayer with the Reverend Jack Daniel’s. We’d have a glass of Jack and coke each then go straight on stage.”

The revival is gaining momentum as he plans to write a country album this year.

“I’m going to Nashville in a couple of weeks to work with a guy who writes for Garth Brooks and people like that.

“And next summer I’ll be headlining the Americana at Newark which we’ll record to release an a live album.”

I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll is released on Universal Music TV on Monday.

Gig

Who: Alvin Stardust

Where: Palace Theatre, Mansfield

When: Tonight, 7:30pm

Tickets: £16/£17, 01623 633133

Web: www2.mansfield.gov.uk/palacetheatre

Scotty Moore interview

March 2004

IT was a Sunday morning and the 22-year-old guitarist was waiting around his apartment in Belz Avenue, Memphis, TN, for the arrival of an auditionee for his band the Starlite Wranglers. They were signed to local record label Sun Records but needed a new singer.

When the 19-year-old finally arrived, Moore was taken aback by his look. “He had on black pants and a pink stripe down the legs, a see-through shirt...” It was all topped off with long greased-back hair. “He was taking after the New York boys, with those ducktails.” It’s fair to say he was a bit odd looking. “For the time he was, yes. He was just a wild and crazy kid.” But not overly impressive.

After running through every song he knew, Elvis Presley went home. Moore would later tell Sun Records boss Sam Phillips that he was just an OK singer, though his sense of rhythm was impressive. The following day, on the insistence of Phillips, the trio went in to the studio after work and tried out a few more numbers. During a break, with everyone feeling discouraged, Elvis suddenly launched in to a hectic version of the blues hit That’s All Right. Moore and Black joined in with this “goofing around” and inadvertently created the sound that Philips said he had been looking for.

Moore remembers: “Just a couple of days later, Sam had took the cut of the song down to a local disc jockey, Dewey Phillips. He liked it, so he started playing it and started getting calls for it.”

It was July 1954 and popular music would never be the same again. What the trio created that day was wild, sexy and — most importantly — mums and dads hated it. “We didn’t think about it at the time,” he says of the significance of those days. Does he now? “Well, yeah, but you look back on a lot of things.” Is he proud of what he was part of? “Oh yeah.”

Scotty Moore, now 72, will be reliving those sessions at the Rescue Rooms next week. Against doctors orders. In December he had brain surgery to remove blood that was trapped between his brain and skull (subdural hematoma). Physically he is fine, but until he is fully recovered Moore has trouble getting his words out. For parts of the interview, his long-term partner Gail Pollock takes over. “I can listen better than I talk,” he chuckles after one such incident.

“We knew what we were playing was different but we didn’t figure it was anything spectacular. As far as we knew it was just going to be a flash in the pan.” As it took off, Scotty signed up as Elvis’ manager and was, he remembers, the band’s leader. Under the name of The Blue Moon Boys the trio played across America for the next year, eventually adding DJ Fontana on drums.

Soon after Colonel Tom Parker began managing Presley, he signed to RCA and in March 1956 Elvis Presley’s first single on the label was released. With Heartbreak Hotel the names of Elvis Presley and rock ’n’ roll became international phenomena. Moore played with Presley for a total of 14 years, right up to the famous 1968 Comeback Special, which helped Presley shake off the years of poor movies and regain his status.

Had he changed? “Not really. He was pretty much the same guy. People always change as they grow older, though.” Was he arrogant? “Oh no, he wasn’t arrogant. Maybe a little more settled. Until he got that whole group around him. Before he got cut up.” He means the Memphis Mafia, the dozen or so men that surrounded Presley everywhere he went for much of his career. Many blame them for failing to protect Presley from self-destructing. Moore blames them for keeping him away.

The ’68 Special was the last time he even spoke to Presley. “I couldn’t get to him. If I called I would never be able to speak to him. It’d be the people around him. And they wouldn’t let you talk to him.” Why did they do that? “Protection. I might get in his pocket book (wallet).”

Moore had already been working as a record producer and boss of his own studio throughout the 60s and 70s. He was in the studio when a secretary told him of Presley’s death in the summer of 1977. Even though he’d neither seen nor spoke to him in nine years, Presley’s failing health was common knowledge. But Moore says he wasn’t expecting it. “Of course not. I wasn’t with him so I don’t know what he had in his mind, what he was thinking, what he was doing.”

Moore continued to work as a recording engineer — he worked on Ringo Starr’s 1970 album Beaucoup of Blues — although he was enticed into recording himself once again, first by Carl Perkins in 1992 then five years later by Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Jeff Beck. The trio were among the guests on his album with D.J. Fontana called All The King’s Men. In recent years he has been happy to take part in Elvis events, particularly revisiting the original 50s material on which he played such an important part. Asked for one moment that stands out, all he says is: “I’m proud that the music has held up all these years.”

Scotty Moore facts:
Born Winfield Scott Moore III December 27, 1931 on a farm near Humboldt, Tennessee. Began playing the guitar aged eight. At 16 joined the Navy serving in Korea and China. Set up his first record label/recording studio in 1958. First solo album, The Guitar That Changed the World, released 1964, featured instrumental versions of early Presley hits. Gibson Guitars produced a limited edition Scotty Moore ES-295 guitar. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Recorded an album in Nashville with Nottingham-born guitarist Alvin Lee, due for release next month.