‘I Walked Across the Freeway to the Ramada Inn’: The Trials and Triumphs of Tina Turner

Tina Turner performing on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' in 1970 CBS PHOTO ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

'Physical strength in a woman - that’s what I am.’
Tina Turner

The death at the age of 83 of the legendary singer Tina Turner earlier this year prompted me to look back on her life and work. And so I watched ‘Tina’ the documentary (2021, directed by Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin) and ‘Tina’ the musical (2018, directed by Phylidda Lloyd, at the Aldwych Theatre, London). Both were compelling commemorations of her luminous talent and indomitable spirit.

'My legacy is that I stayed on course… from the beginning to the end, because I believed in something inside of me.’

Turner shakes and shimmies, struts and stomps. She twists, jives and kicks her long legs to one side. She clenches her fists and claps her hands; implores us, pleads with us. She is both spiritual and sensual; tenacious and triumphant. Resplendent in red split skirts and sparkling silver mini-dresses; rejoicing in denim jumpsuits and leather leotards; glorying in knee-high boots, big belts and big hair - with a beaming smile and a full-throated roar, she celebrates what it is to be alive.

'I’m self-made. I always wanted to make myself a better person, because I was not educated. But that was my dream—to have class.’

Turner’s success was hard won. She had to prevail over poverty, racism, sexism and ageism. Above all she had to overcome a wretched, abusive relationship. She teaches us a good deal about survival and strength of character.

‘My ex-husband was a physically violent man. I went through basic torture… I was living a life of death. I didn’t exist. But I survived it. And when I walked out, I walked and I didn’t look back.’

Anna Mae Bullock was born in 1939 into a sharecropping family in rural Tennessee. As a child she started singing in the choir at her local Baptist church. She discovered she had a remarkable voice.

‘When you’re in the South there’s nothing happening except the church, the piano, the preacher.’

When she was 11 Anna Mae’s mother left without warning for St. Louis in order to escape her violent husband. Two years later he moved to Detroit with another woman. Anna Mae, feeling unloved and isolated, was cared for by her strict grandmother.

‘I didn’t think that I would actually achieve [success as a performer] because first I wasn’t pretty, and I didn’t have the clothes, and I didn’t have the means.’

Tina Turner. Michael Ochs Archives

At 16 Anna Mae rejoined her mother in St. Louis, where in 1956 she met Ike Turner, a talented musician whose 1951 recording ‘Rocket 88’ is considered by many to have been the first rock’n’roll song. That track was carelessly credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, and so began Ike’s lifelong sense of injustice.

'Oh, there's something on my mind.
Won't somebody please, please tell me what's wrong?
You're just a fool, you know you're in love.
You've got to face it to live in this world.
You take the good along with the bad.
Sometimes you're happy, and sometimes you're sad.
You know you love him, you can't understand.
Why he treats you like he do, when he's such a good man.’

'A Fool in Love’ (I Turner)

During the intermission in one of Ike’s concerts, Anna Mae grabbed the microphone and sang. He immediately recognised her talent and enlisted her to his band.

‘I was playing these two roles… Rings all over my fingers and bareback shoes with seams in my stockings. And then on Monday morning I was headed for school.’

Anna Mae had undoubted star quality, and Ike subsequently recast his outfit as the Ike and Tina Turner Revue – without consulting her. Perhaps this was the first indication that he had a sinister, controlling side. But she was young, in awe and in love. She accepted the name change and they got married.

‘I promised him that I wouldn’t leave him. In those days a promise was a promise.’

Before too long Tina realised she was in a toxic relationship. Ike was unfaithful, controlling, violent and abusive. He was also addicted and paranoid, and he gave her no financial independence.

And yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave him.

‘I felt obligated to stay there and I was afraid. And I stayed. This was just how it was. I felt very loyal to Ike and I didn’t want to hurt him. And sometimes after he beat me up, I ended up feeling sorry for him.’

Through the early 1960s Ike and Tina Turner had a string of R&B hits and toured extensively. Featuring Tina’s mesmerising singing, a tight band and the well-drilled, high-tempo dancing of backing vocalists the Ikettes, they presented an electrifying stage act.

In 1965 the band caught the eye of renowned music producer Phil Spector. Sidelining Ike from the recording sessions, he recorded Tina performing ‘River Deep – Mountain High’, a stunning expression of his ‘Wall of Sound’ technique.

‘That was a freedom that I didn’t have. Like a bird that gets out of a cage. I was excited about singing a different type of song. I was excited about getting out of the studio on my own. It was a freedom to do something different.’

The single was a smash overseas, but failed to make an impression on the US pop charts. The quest for mainstream success continued.

‘When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll.
It was the only doll that I've ever owned.
Now I love you just the way I loved that rag doll,
But only now my love has grown.
And it gets stronger in every way.
And it gets deeper, let me say
Then it gets higher, day by day.
And do I love you, my oh my.
River deep, mountain high.
If I ever lost you would I cry.
Oh, how I love you baby.'

'River Deep, Mountain High’ (E Greenwich / J Barry / P Spector)

Tina Turner perform at the Soul Bowl concert at Tulane Stadium in 1970.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL P. SMITH/PROVIDED BY HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION

At long last, in the early 1970s, after relentless touring and countless TV appearances, Ike and Tina Turner achieved crossover pop hits in the US - with 'Proud Mary'  and 'Nutbush City Limits'. But Tina was increasingly unhappy.

‘I was insanely afraid of that man.’

When she wasn’t performing she found herself confined to the family home in LA where she was raising four children. Ike became more controlling, bad tempered and violent. On one occasion Tina took a whole bottle of sleeping pills in an attempt to end it all.

‘Maybe I was brainwashed. I was afraid of him and I cared what happened to him and I knew that if I left there was no one to sing. So I was caught up in guilt and fear.’

Finally, introduced to Buddhism, she developed the mental strength to make a break.

‘Buddhism was a way out and it changed your attitude towards the situation that you’re in... So I started seeing my life. I started seeing that I had to make a change.’

Tina’s relationship with Ike had endured for 16 years. But in 1976, after the couple had a violent argument on their way to their hotel in Dallas, she fled with only 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket.

‘I walked across the freeway to the Ramada Inn. I was very proud. I mean I felt like…I felt strong.’

Tina’s short walk across that busy, dangerous freeway late at night represented a massive act of fortitude and defiance. She filed for divorce the same month and it was finalized in 1978. She was left with no money, no house, no car and no claim on royalties. She just wanted to be free. All she demanded was that she retain the Tina Turner name.

‘Actually there is something that he has that I want… That is when I realised that I could use Tina to become a business.’

Hard times followed. Tina was burdened with the bills for cancelled shows and found herself performing in Vegas and at sales conventions; in hotel ballrooms and on any TV show that would have her.

‘I was becoming stagnant. I knew that there was something else. And I realised I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d be in Las Vegas all my life.’

Tina’s luck changed in 1979 when she met Roger Davies, manager of Olivia Newton-John. He saw that, behind what had become a disco and nostalgia act, there was still a phenomenal talent. She pitched her vision for a new chapter in her career.

‘I had a dream. My dream is to be the first Black rock’n’roll singer to pack places like the Stones.’

Reasoning that the US’s schism between R’n’B and rock radio stations presented too great a barrier to realising Tina’s ambition, Davies took her to the UK. There, in two weeks, she recorded a collection of pop and rock songs with four different production teams, including Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 and Rupert Hine. Tina was at first reluctant to take on one proposed track that had previously been recorded by Bucks Fizz. Finally she relented and ‘What's Love Got to Do with It’ became the album’s standout single.

The resultant ‘Private Dancer’ album, released in 1984, was a runaway success.  Certified five times platinum in the United States, it sold 10 million copies worldwide, and the following year Tina won three Grammys.

‘I didn’t consider it a comeback album. Tina had never arrived. It was Tina’s debut for the first time. That was my first album.’

'You must understand, though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react,
That it's only the thrill of boy meeting girl, opposites attract.
It's physical.
Only logical.
You must try to ignore that it means more than that.
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love, but a second-hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

'What's Love Got to Do with It’ (T Britten / G Lyle)

Tina continued recording, touring and scoring hits for her adoring fan-base. In 1988 she performed in front of 180,000 in Rio de Janeiro, setting a record for the largest paying concert attendance for a solo artist. She had achieved her dream of becoming the Queen of Rock’n’Roll.

‘I will receive it when I’ve earned it.’

In the years after her divorce from Ike, Tina was constantly asked about the split. In a 1981 interview with People Magazine she reluctantly revealed the facts of the domestic abuse in order to put the whole story behind her. But the questions kept coming.

When in 1993 a movie of her life story, ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ (starring Angela Bassett), was released, Tina couldn’t watch it. At the Venice Film Festival she explained:

‘I’m not so thrilled about thinking about the past and how I lived my life…The story was actually written so that I would no longer have to discuss the issue. I don’t love that it’s always talked about. You see, I made a point of just putting the news out to stop the thing, so that I could go on with my life. And this constant reminder is not so good and I’m not so happy about it. So, do I want to sit with a screen and watch all the violence and brutality? No… That’s why I haven’t seen it.’

By shining a light on her experience of domestic abuse, Tina helped a vast number of women all over the world. And she illustrated the complex emotions playing out in victims and survivors. In time Tina was happily remarried and found peace.

‘At a certain stage forgiveness takes over. Forgiveness means not to hold on. You let it go.’

As Tina’s mother, with whom she had a difficult relationship, observed, she was fundamentally a courageous, independent spirit.

‘Some people [are] afraid to climb a ladder unless someone’s holding it. But she’s not. Once she’s made that first step on that ladder, she’s climbing… up, up, up.’

At the heart of Tina’s extraordinary triumphant story was huge personal resilience. We should all aspire to her strength of character.

'I didn’t have anybody really, no foundation in life, so I had to make my own way. Always, from the start. I had to go out in the world and become strong, to discover my mission in life.'

'Left a good job down in the city,
Working for the man every night and day.
And I never lost one minute of sleeping,
I was worrying about the way that things might've been.
Big wheel keep on turning,
Proud Mary keep on burning,
And we're rolling, rolling,
Rolling on the river.’

‘Proud Mary’ (J Fogerty)

No. 448

The Persistent Positivity of Mavis Staples: ‘Just Another Soldier in the Army of Love’

‘I’m not gonna stop. I was there. I’m still here. I’m a living witness.’

I recently attended a performance by 82-year-old Mavis Staples, lead vocalist of the legendary Staple Singers. I followed this up by watching a moving documentary about her life and career: ‘Mavis!’ (2015, written and directed by Jessica Edwards)

'The devil ain't got no music. All music is god's music.’

The Staple Singers pioneered a hybrid of gospel, folk and soul that combined melodic sweetness with a gutsy guitar sound, raw vocal storytelling and an urgent message. With their heartfelt ‘freedom songs’ they took a leading role in the civil rights struggle. And to this day Mavis Staples sustains their calls for progress with resolute positivity.

‘We’ve come to you this evening to bring you some joy, some happiness, inspiration and some positive vibrations.’

Let’s consider how Mavis and the Staple Singers can ‘take you there.’

'I know a place
Ain't nobody cryin’,
Ain't nobody worried,
Ain't no smilin' faces 
Lyin' to the races.
Help me, come on, come on.
Somebody, help me now.
Help me, 
Help me now.
Oh, let me take you there.
Oh-oh! Let me take you there!’
The Staple Singers, ‘I’ll Take You There’ (A Isbell / A Hardy)

1. ‘Family is the Strongest Unit in the World’

Born in 1914, the youngest of 14 children, Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples grew up on a cotton plantation near Drew, Mississippi. Having learned to play guitar from local bluesmen, he dropped out of school to sing with a gospel group. In 1935 he married Oceola Staples and they moved to Chicago where Pops found work in meatpacking, construction and steel. 

The couple had four children - Cleotha, Pervis, Mavis and Yvonne – who grew up together on 33rd Street on the South Side, a melting pot of musical talent. Sam Cook, Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler all lived nearby and the Staples house became a social hub.

‘Everybody would come to our backyard because Mamma would make home-made ice cream, spaghetti, coleslaw. So they knew this was a party at the Staples backyard.’

Family meant everything to Pops.

'Pops always taught us that family is the strongest unit in the world. If you stick with your family, nobody can break you, nobody can harm you. You'll always have your family.’

2. ‘Sing What You Feel in Your Heart’

Pops set about giving the young Staples siblings their musical education.

‘Pops called us kids into the living room. He sat us on the floor in a circle and he began giving us voices to sing that he and his sisters and brothers would sing when they were in Mississippi.’

In 1948 Pops formed the Staple Singers, and they took to performing in local churches and on the radio.
Mavis had a deep, gritty voice that resonated powerfully with Pops’ blues guitar.

‘People would say, ‘That’s not a little girl… It’s got to be a man or a big fat woman.’’

Mavis ignored the comments and sang with total conviction.

'I'm just singing what I feel in my heart.’

In 1952 the Staple Singers signed a professional contract and 1956’s ‘Uncloudy Day,’ their first hit, became the first gospel song to sell a million records.

'They tell me of a home far beyond the skies
And they tell me of a home far away.
They tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
They tell me of an unclouded day.’
The Staple Singers, 'Uncloudy Day'

The Staples Singers in the late 50s (left to right) Pops, Cleotha, Mavis and Pervis. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives

3. ‘If You Ain’t Shouted the People, You Ain’t Done Shit.’

Mavis learned to use the power of her voice to excite raw emotions in congregations. In the gospel world this is called shouting.

‘If you ain’t shouted the people, you ain’t done shit.’

Audiences would scream and dance in the aisles, and some would be so overwhelmed they had to be carried out by the ushers. Staple Singers concerts were exhilarating experiences.

‘Shouting is not a bad thing. When you shout and let it out, you gonna feel better.’

4. ‘Everybody Don’t Love You’

When Mavis graduated in 1957, Pops took the Staple Singers on the road, marketed as ‘God's Greatest Hitmakers.’ But touring exposed the young family to the indignities of the segregated South.

‘Pops explained to us: ‘Now listen y’all, it’s not like you’re in Chicago. Everybody don’t love you.’’

They were barred from many hotels and restaurants, and they had to learn to be resilient in the face of racist abuse.

‘White kids would try to run us off the highway. But Daddy wouldn’t take it. He’d go right back into them. He took enough of that when he was a boy.’

One Sunday while on tour Pops took the family to hear Dr Martin Luther King preach at his church in Montgomery, Alabama. Pops was hugely impressed, and later announced:

‘I like this man’s message. I really like his message. And I think, if he can preach it, we can sing it.’

The Staple Singers began performing ‘message’ music. Through compelling songs like ‘Freedom Highway’, ‘Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)’ and ‘When Will We Be Paid?’ they became the musical voices of the civil rights movement.

5. ‘Reflect and Effect the Culture’

As the ‘60s progressed, Pops sought to expand the band’s audience by performing in jazz clubs and at folk festivals. This exposed them to music from other genres, and led to them covering contemporary hits with positive themes - by the likes of Bob Dylan, Stephen Stills and Joan Baez.

Inevitably the evolution in style prompted criticism from the traditional gospel community. But the family were insistent that they were staying true to the spirit of their faith.

‘You know gospel ain’t nothing but the truth, and we’re telling the truth in our songs.’

In 1968 the Staple Singers signed to Stax Records. Working with producers Steve Cropper and Al Bell, and with musicians from Booker T and the MGs, their sound became more soulful. This led to more success, and to the hit singles ‘Respect Yourself’ and ‘I'll Take You There.’

Bell observed the special place that the Staples had in the music industry at that time:

‘They say that art in many instances is either a reflection of what’s going on in your culture or in society, or it effects, impacts what’s going on. Staples were doing both.’

'If you disrespect anybody that you run into,
How in the world do you think anybody's supposed to respect you.
If you don't give a heck about the man with the bible in his hand,
Just get out the way, and let the gentleman do his thing.
You're the kind of gentleman that wants everything your way, 
Take the sheet off your face, boy, it's a brand new day.
Respect yourself.
If you don't respect yourself,
Ain't nobody gonna give a good cahoot,
Respect yourself.’
The Staple Singers, ‘Respect Yourself’ (L Ingram, M Rice)

6. Only Stop Singing When You’ve Nothing Left to Say

Sadly Stax was declared bankrupt in1975. The Staple Singers signed to Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label and scored another hit with ‘Let's Do It Again.’ They also memorably performed ‘The Weight’ with The Band in their film ‘The Last Waltz.’ However, with the arrival of disco in the late ‘70s and the growing taste for more heavily produced sounds, the group’s popularity declined.

Gradually time has taken its toll. Pops passed away in 2000, followed by Cleotha and Yvonne. When Pervis died in 2021, Mavis became the last soul survivor.

‘It’s because of you, Pops, that I’m standing here today. And I tell you, you laid the foundation and I am still working on the building.’

Mavis, who made a couple of fine solo albums in 1969-70, has continued to record brilliant music, on her own and with collaborators. She has no intention of packing it in.

‘People always asking me when am I going to retire. I don’t care to retire….I’ll stop singing when I have nothing left to say. And that ain’t gonna happen.’

I was particularly struck by Mavis’ dedication to the cause; by her youthful enthusiasm and her ageless conviction that there is still work to be done.

‘My mind is made up and my heart is fixed and I just refuse to turn around. I have come too far. And I’m determined to go all the way until Dr King’s dream has been realised… And if y’all don’t see me here singing, look for me in heaven…I’ll be walking those streets of gold and singing around god’s throne.’

Mavis and her family teach us that a desire for progress and a commitment to change cannot be lightly held or casually worn. Rather they must come with passion and action; hard work and a hard edge.
As she sang in one of the Staple Singers’ greatest songs, she’s ‘just another soldier in the army of love.’

'Now hate is my enemy. I gotta fight it day and night.
Love is the only weapon with which I have to fight.
I believe if I show a little love for my fellow man
Then one day I'll hold the victory in my hand.
That's why I'm just another soldier in the army of love.’
The Staple Singers, ‘I’m Just Another Soldier’ (R Jackson, H Banks)

No. 383

‘I Am My Own Fantasy’: Marc Bolan and the Creative Ego

Roger Bamber/Shutterstock

'Well, you can bump and grind, it is good for your mind.
Well, you can twist and shout, let it all hang out.
But you won't fool the children of the revolution.
No, you won't fool the children of the revolution.’

‘Children of the Revolution’

I recently watched ‘Cosmic Dancer,’ a splendid BBC documentary about the musician Marc Bolan.

In his brief life Bolan brought colour, style and romance to drab early ‘70s Britain. He set the charts ablaze and hearts aflutter with his swaggering guitar pop. He inspired a generation of teenagers, challenged stereotypes of masculinity and invented Glam Rock.

‘I guess my name will live longer than any record. I am the ‘Cosmic Dancer’ who dances his way out of the womb… I am a lifestyle. I am my own fantasy.’

Bolan created his own world of gurus, warlocks and wizards; of gypsy dancers and ‘silver-studded sabre-tooth dreams.’ With a sway of his slim hips and a wave of his elegant hands, this latter day troubadour looked his audience straight in the eye and serenaded them. He was ‘your boy, your 20th century toy.’ He was ‘just a Jeepster for your love.’ And he ‘loved to boogie on a Saturday night.’

‘I’ve always known I was different right from the start, right from the moment I was born. When I was younger I certainly thought I was a superior sort of being. I was very much into my own little world in those days.’

Marc Bolan was born Mark Feld in Hackney, East London, in 1947. His father was a lorry driver and his mother worked on a fruit stall in Berwick Street Market. As a child he fell in love with Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent. But most of all he fell in love with himself - as he preened, pouted and posed in front of his bedroom mirror.

‘As a little kid I was always into music… I used to just look in the mirror and wiggle about. I was completely knocked out by my own image, by the idea of Mark Feld and what he would become.’

Aged 9 Bolan was given his first guitar and he formed a skiffle band at school. Later he embraced the dandy discipline of Mod and featured in a Don McCullin shoot about the youth movement for Town magazine.

Peter Sugar, Michael Simmonds and Mark Feld in Town magazine, September 1962.

‘For me clothes were wisdom and knowledge… In those days I created a world where I was king of my own neighbourhood. I was always a star, even if it was only a star of three streets in Hackney.’

Bolan briefly took up modelling. But then he read a book of Rimbaud’s poetry and ‘felt like my feet were on fire.’ He began writing his own verse.

‘I dreamed of voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of. I boasted of inventing with rhythms from within me a kind of poetry that all the senses would recognise, and I alone would be its translator.’

Soon Bolan was trying his hand as a musician, styling his early efforts on Bob Dylan.

‘I thought, if he can sing like that and play guitar that bad, I can do it.’

In 1965 this Bohemian minstrel signed to Decca Records and changed his name to Marc Bolan. Fame didn’t fall easily into his lap by any means. He made a modest impression with Mod band John's Children. And then, inspired by Ravi Shankar, he took to playing acoustic guitar while sitting cross-legged. The psychedelic folk rock duo that he formed on the back of this, Tyrannosaurus Rex, was critically acclaimed and enthusiastically promoted by DJ John Peel. But again it was only moderately successful in sales terms.

T. Rex: The Slider (1972)

‘I wish I could get away to another place where mountains rise unspoilt to the sky and you could ride horses as far as the eye could see.’

At length, thirsty for stardom, Bolan bought a Gibson Les Paul guitar, teamed up with producer Tony Visconti and recorded his first hit. Released in October 1970, ‘Ride a White Swan’ combined Bolan’s mystical lyrics with a brighter pop sound, a fresh, modern re-articulation of ‘50s rock’n’roll. 

'Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days.
Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown.
Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane.
Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong.’ 

'Ride a White Swan’

Bolan expanded the group, shortened its name to T Rex and everything fell into place. The hits came in quick succession throughout 1971 and 1972. ‘Get It On’, ‘Hot Love’, ‘Jeepster’,’Telegram Sam’,’Metal Guru’,’Children of the Revolution’, ‘Solid Gold Easy Action.’ 

Bolan had created a production line of exuberant electric boogie, and T Rex became a huge pop sensation, mobbed by teenage girls wherever they went.

‘I like being loved. Isn’t it nice that someone can love you enough to put your picture on their bedroom wall? The frightening thing is the sheer strength of it all.’

Bolan was well aware that his popularity was as much based on his image as his music.

‘95% of my success is the way I look. Look and presence is what people pick up on. People are really works of art and if you have a nice face you may as well play about with it.’

Bolan’s long lustrous curls tumbled over his delicate shoulders. His purple open-neck shirt revealed a gold pendant on a hairless chest. He shimmied across the stage in flared trousers and stacked heels, scarves on his wrists and a sailor’s hat on his head. He wore leopard, tiger and zebra skin prints; sequins, silk and satin; feather boas, floral shirts and figure-hugging tank tops. He finished off his look with a little glitter on each cheek. 

'You're so sweet.
You're so fine.
I want you all and everything,
Just to be mine.
'Cos you're my baby.
'Cos you're my love.
Girl I'm just a Jeepster
For you love.’

‘Jeepster'

Of course pop stardom is fleeting. By late 1973 Bolan’s fickle young audience were turning their attention to other heart-throbs - to the Osmonds and David Cassidy.

‘I’ve never felt so insecure as I do about my music, because I’m so exposed. What I’m playing and singing is a projection of my real self.’

Though Bolan had a few more hits, the original T Rex line-up disintegrated and his marriage broke up. He turned to drink and drugs and put on weight. His career limped on with further albums and tours, and his own teatime TV show. But the glory days were over.

In September 1977, Bolan was being driven home through Barnes by his backing singer and partner Gloria Jones. The yellow Mini struck a fence post and then a tree. Bolan was killed instantly. It was two weeks before his 30th birthday. 

‘Personally the prospect of immortality does not excite me, but the prospect of being a materialistic idol for four years does.’

Bolan’s time at the top was brief and brilliant. He came to represent an age of innocence, an era of youthful optimism, a period when pop really mattered.

Some took Bolan less seriously because he courted teen magazines and photo shoots; because his looks were flamboyant and his lyrics were daft. But such criticism failed to understand the thrilling effervescence and precious transience of pop music. And Bolan left a legacy. In creating Glam Rock he cleared a path for Bowie, Roxy and Punk.

'It’s easy to underestimate him because he overestimated himself.'
Keith Altham, Publicist

Viewed from a distance, one can’t help being struck by Bolan’s extraordinary narcissism and arrogance. This was a man whose self-belief knew no bounds and who often spoke with a comic hauteur.

'If God were to appear in my room, obviously I would be in awe, but I don't think I would be humble. I might cry, but I think he would dig me like crazy.’

In my time I have known quite a few conceited creative people. I have become convinced that original thinkers need a certain amount of ego to sustain them; that you can’t break conventions without a little self-importance; that invention often comes with pretention. Of course nothing excuses rudeness or poor treatment of others. But there is a price to pay for difference. And it’s a price worth paying if there’s real talent to back it up.

‘I do lie a lot, you know. I feel my credibility as a poet allows me to make things up.’

A few years ago Brian was driving Gwyn and me to a meeting in West London. As we passed Barnes Common, Brian pointed out the spot where Bolan met his end. The car radio had been playing quietly in the background. Suddenly and magically ‘20th Century Boy’ started blaring from the speakers. Bolan had lost none of his dramatic flair. 

'My friends say it's fine, friends say it's good.
Everybody says, it's just like a rock 'n' roll should.
I move like a cat, charge like a ram.
Sting like a bee, babe, I wanna be your man.
Well, it's plain to see you were meant for me
I'm your boy, your 20th century toy.’

T Rex, ‘20th Century Boy’ (M Bolan)

No. 333

Disruptive Dreams: A Tour of France with My Brother, Two Mates and Van Morrison

‘If my heart could do my thinking
And my head began to feel,
Would I look upon the world anew,
And know what's truly real?’
Van Morrison, ‘I Forgot that Love Existed’

Some time in the late 1980s I went on a road trip round France with my brother Martin and friends Mike and Thommo. 

Crammed into a small, silver Citroen AX, with our sports bags strapped to the roof and with nothing booked, we disembarked at Calais and plotted a path towards the Loire Valley. 

Since Martin and I were feeling flush, each night we shared a room in a modest hotel, while Mike and Thommo settled for the local campsite. When the four of us reported at the first establishment and requested ‘une chambre a deux lits,’ the proprietor was somewhat challenged. Martin, realising the misunderstanding, gestured towards Mike and Thommo and explained:

‘Non, ils font le camping!’

We started each day with strong coffee, golden croissants, President butter and apricot jam, and each evening we feasted on quite extraordinary food and wine - whether at a smart local restaurant or a truck drivers’ cafe. 

‘Fruits de mer et confit de canard, s’il vous plait.’

Thommo couldn’t cope with the unrelenting richness of the meals, and so we took one night off, settling for local ‘Loveburgers’ washed down by 1664. 

We moved on to the Vendée and the Dordogne, through the Auvergne and up to Burgundy, Alsace and Lorraine. And at each new location I dusted off the remnants of my O-Level French.

‘Pardon, maisonette, je n’ai pas de la monnaie.’

‘Ah, c’est l’année des guêpes!'

We explored lush green landscapes, rugged mountain roads and bleak grey hamlets. We encountered old men playing boules on village squares and young men playing baby-foot in late night bars. We avoided one town because on approach it seemed to be very smelly. Only later did we realise that we’d been following a sewage lorry round a ring road.

We were accompanied on the trip by Van Morrison’s elegiac ‘Poetic Champions Compose’ album, on repeat play. It seemed entirely appropriate.

'You're the queen of the slipstream with eyes that shine.
You have crossed many waters to be here.
You have drunk of the fountain of innocence.
And experienced the long cold wintry years.’
‘The Queen of the Slipstream’

On the long journeys Scouse Mike would amuse himself by hanging his head out of the car window. And when the two campers returned to their site each night, he insisted that Thommo stay up into the early hours drinking cheap warm red wine from plastic bottles.

Inevitably on a holiday of this nature, although we were pretty much aligned in terms of evening adventures, there were some disagreements about how to spend the daytime. Martin and I were interested in churches and chateaux. Thommo leaned towards nature and wildlife. Mike just wanted to have fun. 

To accommodate Mike we took in a terrifying luge trip down a mountainside. And when we visited the tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine at the magnificent abbey at Fontevrault, he persuaded Thommo to stay outside and play footie. On another occasion he took over the map, and, without conferring, navigated us to a beach crowded with locals in skimpy trunks and bikinis. This was not my natural habitat. In protest I sat on a towel fully clothed with my top button done up. 

'Let go into the mystery.
Let yourself go.
You've got to open up your heart,
That's all I know.
Trust what I say and do what you're told,
Baby, and all your dirt will turn
Into gold.'
‘The Mystery’

We all look back on the holidays of our youth with great fondness. These were simple, carefree, happy times. And perhaps our exploits were all the more special because they were characterised by surprise, serendipity and strangeness. Everything seemed mysterious.

I read recently (The Guardian 14 May ‘Weird Dreams’) about a new theory of dreams.

Dreams have long fascinated scientists and psychoanalysts. Freud believed they were ‘disguised fulfilments of repressed desires.’ And through the years experts have variously hypothesized that they help us process our emotions; consolidate our recollections; make creative connections between memories; and practice our survival skills.

Erik Hoel, a research assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts University in Massachusetts, has proposed that, by introducing the strange and bizarre to our habituated existence, dreams equip us to cope with the unexpected.

His theory was inspired by the field of machine learning. Artificial intelligence often becomes too familiar with the data with which it’s been coached, assuming that this ‘training set’ is a perfect representation of anything it may subsequently encounter. To remedy this, scientists introduce some chaos into the data in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs.

Hoel suggests that our brains do something similar when we dream.  

‘It is the very strangeness of dreams in their divergence from waking experience that gives them their biological function.’

This suggests to me that we should think seriously about the role of the unusual and unfamiliar in our lives. 

Perhaps we should more actively embrace strange and bizarre events in our personal and professional worlds; not just in our dreams or on holiday, but in our day-to-day experience. Maybe we should use the weird and wonderful to ward off the narrowing perspectives brought on by habit, custom and age. Maybe we would do well to regard disruption, not just as a revolutionary market force; but as a necessary part of our daily regime.

Despite our excellent gastronomic adventures, by the last night of our tour of France I was pining for some familiar food. Spotting ‘fromage blanc’ on the menu, I assumed it was cheddar and ordered it with eager anticipation. When it arrived it was worryingly soft and smelly. 

I ate it nonetheless.

'I've been searching a long time
For someone exactly like you.
I've been travelling all around the world
Waiting for you to come through.
Someone like you,
Makes it all worth while.
Someone like you
Keeps me satisfied.
Someone exactly like you.’
Van Morrison, ‘Someone Like You’

No 328

Poly Styrene’s Provocation: ‘When You Look in the Mirror Do You See Yourself?’

‘I just consider myself a person first. And anything else that anybody else might call you - well, they’re just names really, aren’t they? ’
Poly Styrene

I recently enjoyed a documentary about the luminous singer and inventive songwriter Poly Styrene.

Co-directed by Paul Sng and Poly’s daughter Celeste Bell, ‘Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché’ reminds us that, as leader of her band X-Ray Spex, Poly gave us some of the most inspiring music of the punk era. She engaged with issues - sexism, racism, consumerism and identity - in a way that was heartfelt, insightful and way ahead of her time. She was a creative force, a defiant political voice and a unique style icon.

Let us consider what Poly teaches us today.

‘Who am I? I’m just an ordinary tough kid from an ordinary tough street.’

Mari Elliot was born in 1957 in Bromley and raised in Brixton. Her mother was a Scottish-Irish legal secretary, her father a Somali dockworker. Bullied at school, she encountered racism from all sides.

‘They see us as a threat to their genetic existence.’

As a teenager Mari travelled around the country going to gigs. She dabbled in a recording career, and made her own customised clothes and jewellery to sell on a stall on the King’s Road. On her nineteenth birthday she saw the Sex Pistols perform on Hastings Pier. She decided there and then to form a punk band, and promptly put an ad in the Melody Maker for ‘young punx who want to stick it together.’

And so X-Ray Spex was born. Mari chose her stage name, Poly Styrene, from the Yellow Pages. It suggested ‘something around today - something plastic and synthetic.’

In 1977 X-Ray Spex released their first single. The song begins with a gently spoken intro:

'Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard. But I think ...

Poly’s voice suddenly becomes irate:

‘Oh bondage up yours! 1-2-3-4!’

‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’ was inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s Seditionaries outfits, by the Suffragettes and David Bowie, by rage against ubiquitous sexism, racism and consumerism. It was banned by the BBC and was not a hit. But it became a seminal punk single. 

‘I discovered a new-found sense of freedom….I had an innate desire to be free – to be free from unwanted desires seemed desirable.’

The X-Ray Spex sound was built on a base of buzzsaw guitar. A robust saxophone added melody and mystique. And over the top of it all Poly shrieked, chanted and sang with raw power and intensity.

'A lovely girl with a voice that could punch a hole in a steel plate.’
Johnny Rotten

Poly Styrene in 1991. Photograph: Ian Dickson/Redferns

Lyrically Poly was particularly concerned with the omnipresence of plastics and synthetics; with a culture that was becoming increasingly disposable and fake. 

'I know your antiseptic,
Your deodorant smells nice.
I'd like to get to know you.
You're deep frozen like the ice.
She's a germ free adolescent,
Cleanliness is her obsession.
Cleans her teeth ten times a day,
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away,
The SR way.’
‘Germfree Adolescents'

Poly recognised that, on the one hand, this modern consumer society dumbed down and desensitized; but, on the other hand, it had seductive charms. And she found this paradox fascinating.

‘The weird thing about all the plastic is that people don’t actually like it. But, in order to cope with it, they develop a perverse kind of fondness for it.’

There were few women in pop and rock at that time, and they were often forced by the industry into highly sexualised presentations of themselves. Poly was determined to be different. 

Here’s Poly in her signature dental braces; in DIY day-glo and brilliant bri-nylon. Poly in an army hat and scarlet military jacket; in home-made creations, jumble sale discoveries, ornamented with enamel badges. Here’s Poly in leggings, pink socks and court shoes; in huge white woolly cardigan. Poly in granny prints; in emerald tank dress with orange tights. Poly in a pale blue trouser suit with lemon-and-lime head dress. Poly with red and blue pom-poms in her hair. She was a magnificently inventive dresser.

‘Clothes are never really you. That’s why people wear them. Cos you can just create an image with clothes. They’re just part of a façade, which is good fun to play sometimes.’

On stage Poly performed with righteous anger and joyous pride. She skipped, strutted, danced and did a playful hand jive. You can’t take your eyes off her. 

Given her experiences growing up, Poly was keen not to be defined by demographics, gender, ethnicity or style tribe.

‘Identity. That’s one of the current problems at the moment is identity. Everyone’s looking desperately to identify themselves with one thing, instead of themselves.’

She elegantly articulated these sentiments in song.

'Identity
Is the crisis,
Can't you see?
When you look in the mirror,
Do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself
On the TV screen?
Do you see yourself
In the magazine?
When you see yourself,
Does it make you scream?’
‘Identity'

I have always found this a compelling provocation. When we look in the mirror, do we see categories and classifications? Do we see other people’s standards and stereotypes - their expectations of who we are? Or do we see a unique individual, liberated from definitions and divisions?

X-Ray Spex did not hang around for too long. They only released five singles and one album, 1978’s ‘Germfree Adolescents.’ They performed in all the classic punk venues: The Roxy, the Man in the Moon, the Hope and Anchor, New York's CBGB's. And they featured in the famous 1978 Rock Against Racism gig at Victoria Park. 

But then in 1979, exhausted by touring, Poly left the band. She was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and sectioned. Only many years later was her condition recognised as bipolar disorder. 

‘It isn’t normal for people to be surrounded by people telling them that they’re great.’

Poly pursued a solo career, developing a more jazz-based sound, and in 1983 she joined the Hare Krishna movement. She died of breast cancer in 2011. She was only 53.

Poly Styrene teaches us that creativity is, at heart, an articulation of your own personal tastes, your individual feelings, your particular perspectives – unconstrained by custom, consensus and convention. Creativity is an expression of self.

The B-side of X-Ray Spex’ first single was ‘I Am a Cliché’ and featured the song title being repeated over and over again. Of course, Poly Styrene was anything but.

'I drove my polypropylene car on wheels of sponge,
Then pulled into a Wimpy bar to have a rubber bun,
And watched the world turn day-glo. 
You know, you know,
The world turned day-glo.’
X-Ray Spex, ‘The World Turned Day-Glo’

No. 330

Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night: The Imaginary World of Tom Waits

‘Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
I rolled down the national stroll
and with a big fat paycheck
strapped to my hip-sack
and a shore leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve
in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank
and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
and I was in bad need of a shave
and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
and shot billiards with a midget
until the rain stopped
and I bought a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife
’Tom Waits, ‘Shore Leave’

I recently watched a documentary on the musician Tom Waits (‘Tales from a Cracked Jukebox’, BBC4).

In his gruff, gravelly voice, Waits sings about loneliness and longing in the wee small hours; about outsiders and outcasts - lowlife at the liquor store, in cocktail bars, strip joints and tattoo parlours; about the one that got lucky and the one that got away; about dreaming to the twilight and drinking to forget; about forlorn lovers looking for the heart of Saturday night.

'Oh and the things you can’t remember tell the things you can’t forget 
That history puts a saint 
In every dream.’
‘Time’

Waits pores over the underbelly of American city life, telling tales of warped relationships and withered dreams, cracked aspirations and doomed love; the determined self-delusion of the hopeless case.

'Well I've lost my equilibrium and my car keys and my pride.’
‘The One That Got Away’

Waits is a master of characterisation. He gives us fragments from the lives of damaged veterans, worn out waitresses and escaped criminals - seen through the bottom of a beer glass; refracted through early morning tears. His stories are interwoven with incoherent conversations in a late-night drugstore, the elusive dreams of advertising, the insistent pitch of the whiskey preacher.

‘Don't you know there ain’t no devil, 
There's just god when he's drunk.’
‘Heartattack and Vine’

Waits teaches us a good deal about the alchemy of storytelling; about drawing on a rich set of influences, infusing personal experience with invention and memory; about creating our own imaginary worlds.

Interviewer: Do you have a philosophy about writing?
Waits: Never sleep with a girl named Ruby and never play pool with a guy named Fats.

1. ‘Create Situations in Order to Write About Them’

Waits was born in 1949, in Pomona, California. His parents were teachers, his father an alcoholic. They separated when he was 10 and his mother took him to suburban San Diego. He dropped out of High School and did a variety of low-paid jobs.

‘It was a choice between entertainment and a career in air conditioning and refrigeration.’

Waits turned to music as an escape. He progressed from writing Dylan-influenced folk songs to jazz compositions inspired by the Great American Songbook. In 1972 he moved to LA, settled into a cluttered two-room apartment and hung out in the downtown bars, diners and pool halls. 

‘You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty.’

Album cover: Blue Valentine

2. ‘Combine Imagination with Experience and Memory’

'I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.’

Waits took notes of late night conversations with barflies and Bohemians; of dialogue overheard in taxis, at newsstands and gas stations. And then he set his imagination to work. 

‘I remain in all of my stories, but at the same time I think that the creative process is a combination of imagination and experience and memories. By the time a story or song is finished, it may or may not resemble wherever the story came from.’

Importantly, Waits blurred the line between experience and invention.

'Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.’

3. ‘Try to Discover That Which Has Been Overlooked By Moving Forward’

Waits grew up surrounded by the emerging hippie culture, but regarded himself as ‘a rebel against the rebels.’  He drew his inspiration from a previous age: from ‘50s Beat writers Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs; from film noir, Hitchcock and ‘The Twilight Zone’; from detective novels and the art of Edward Hopper. He was a man out of time. 

‘Sometimes you find yourself going back in time just to locate something that you can’t find in the future. You’re trying to discover that which has been overlooked by moving forward.’

4. Write About People, Places and Things

Waits avoided hollow generalisations. He peppered his work with incidental details; with references to particular streets, brands and weather conditions – to Kentucky Avenue, Burma Shave and ‘that bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky.’ He always wrote about specific people, places and things.

'I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.’

Waits recognised that small events can create big dramas.

‘It’s the little things that drive men mad. It’s the broken shoe lace when there’s no time left that sends men completely out of their minds.’

5. Keep Evolving

Waits’ songwriting style changed over time.

'You have to keep busy. After all, no dog's ever pissed on a moving car.’

In the early ‘80s he became fascinated by Captain Beefheart, by the pioneering contemporary composer Harry Partch, and by Weimar artists Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. His song settings moved increasingly from the bar and diner to Vaudeville and the stage, the freakshow and the fairground. His writing explored themes of salvation and damnation. And his instrumentation embraced experimental brass, percussion and found objects

'Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.’

6. ‘The Way You Affect Your Audience Is More Important than How Many of Them Are There’

'They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing.’

Though Waits was much admired by critics and fellow artists, his commercial success was modest. Nonetheless he is regarded as one of America’s greatest songwriters. He has always focused, first and foremost, on the work. 

'I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.’

Waits reminds us that reward and recognition should not be objectives, but effects.

'I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.’

The documentary left me reflecting particularly on the imperative for creative people to immerse themselves in incident and adventure. If we don’t expose ourselves to diverse people and rich experiences, how can we create compelling characters and original narratives? If we live conventional lives, how can we come up with unconventional ideas?

There is perhaps one other lesson suggested by Waits’ approach to creativity. 

His vision is bleak, his themes are melancholy and his heroes are resolutely unheroic: the failing lounge singer, the desperate door-to-door salesman, the down-at-heel prostitute and the grubby private investigator.

'Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.’

But these are real people with compelling stories. Waits has genuine empathy and at heart he is a romantic. He paints his pictures with respect and affection. And he always affords his characters a certain nobility.

'And I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair
Could look down on Illinois
And find you there.’
‘Shore Leave’

'Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
Got what I paid for now.
See ya tomorrow, hey Frank can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you?
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda
You'll go a-waltzing Mathilda with me.’
‘Tom Traubert's Blues’

No 301

‘I Made It All Up’: Bruce Springsteen and the Art of Invention

Courtesy of Rolling Stone

‘We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior.'

Bruce Springsteen, ‘Springsteen on Broadway’

I recently watched ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ (Netflix), the film record of Bruce Springsteen’s 2017-18 residency at the Walter Kerr Theatre, New York.

I’ve always been an admirer of Springsteen. As a youngster I fell for the romantic picture he painted of blue collar America. He sang about his family and friends, home and hometown; about cars and girls, escape and the open road; about dancing in the dark and racing in the streets; about broken promises, burnt out Chevrolets and the land of hope and dreams. He was a sentimental storyteller, a soulful troubadour. He was the future of rock’n’roll.

‘Springsteen on Broadway’ is not a conventional gig. The singer weaves stripped down versions of some of his more famous numbers around a spoken narrative about his life and career. For the most part he stands alone on stage, in dark jeans and t-shirt. Lean and tanned, face chiseled, eyes beaming, a smile never far from his lips, he commands our attention.

He explains what his hometown, Freehold, New Jersey, meant to him when he was growing up.

‘There was a place here. You could hear it, you could smell it. A place where people made lives, and where they worked and where they danced, and where they enjoyed small pleasures and played baseball, and suffered pain; where they had their hearts broken and where they made love, had kids; where they died and drank themselves drunk on spring nights; and where they did their very best, the best they could to hold off the demons outside and inside that sought to destroy them and their homes and their families and their town.' 

Springsteen speaks with a preacher’s zeal, testifying to the ties that bind. He prompts us to recall why we loved the United States in the first place; reaffirms the fundamental dignity of the working class; reminds us that masculinity doesn’t have to be toxic; restores our faith in the transformative power of rock’n’roll music.

‘The joyful, life-affirming, hip-shaking, ass-quaking, guitar-playing, mind and heart-changing, race-challenging, soul-lifting bliss of a freer existence… All you had to do to get a taste of it was to risk being your true self.’

Springsteen’s emotive themes resonate particularly in a contemporary setting, when there’s so much doubt about America and its place in the world – when there’s a darkness on the edge of town.

‘These days some reminding of who we are and who we can be isn’t such a bad thing.’

There’s a compelling moment early in the show when Springsteen comes clean about the source of his classic blue collar narratives.

'I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud. So am I … I’ve never held an honest job in my entire life. I've never done any hard labor. I've never worked nine to five… I’ve never seen the inside of a factory and yet it’s all I’ve ever written about. Standing before you is a man who has become wildly and absurdly successful writing about something of which he has had absolutely no personal experience. I made it all up.'

Though Springsteen had little first hand experience of working class struggle, it becomes clear, nonetheless, that his storytelling gift was rooted in observation of the community he grew up in, awareness of its strengths and passions, sensitivity to its trials and tribulations. Moreover, many of his songs were inspired by his father - ‘my hero and my greatest foe’ - a complex man of Dutch Irish descent, who was haunted by depression and drink and struggled to find work.

‘Now those whose love we wanted but didn’t get, we emulate them. It’s the only way we have in our power to get the closeness and the love that we needed and desired.’

It is conventional to characterize composers and storytellers as lonely, isolated souls, as outsiders struggling to articulate their unique personal vision and experience. Springsteen’s narrative, by contrast, expresses an intense sense of belonging - to family, community and country – harnessed to acute observational skills. He has profound empathy and emotional intelligence. He feels for other people. And this equips him to tell their stories.

Springsteen should prompt all of us working in creative industries to interrogate our own roots, background and community: How have my history and culture made me? How have I been influenced by my parents and siblings? How am I a product of my hometown?

When confronted by a taxing brief or a blank sheet of paper, when struggling for a creative spark, the inspiration may be close to home.

'I met her on the strip three years ago
In a Camaro with this dude from LA.
I blew that Camaro off my back and drove that little girl away.
But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes
And she cries herself to sleep at night.
When I come home the house is dark,
She sighs "Baby did you make it all right."

Tonight, tonight the highway's bright,
Out of our way mister you best keep.
'Cause summer's here and the time is right
For racing in the street.'

Bruce Springsteen,’Racing in the Streets’

No. 215

The Definition of Empathy: Aretha, The Queen of My Soul

'The moment I wake up,
Before I put on my makeup,
I say a little pray for you.
While combing my hair now,
And wondering what dress to wear now,
I say a little prayer for you.'

 Aretha Franklin, ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ (Burt Bacharach / Hal David)

Once when I was at school I read an interview in the NME with Kevin Rowland (of Dexy’s Midnight Runners) in which he declared that he couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without listening to Aretha Franklin singing ‘I Say a Little Prayer.’

I knew what he meant. The gently swaying piano intro, Aretha’s confident gospel tones, the tight backing vocals punctuating her thoughts, the mounting intensity at the chorus - and then that point of clarity:

'My darling, believe me.
For me there is no one but you.
Please love me too.'

Aretha seemed to reach out to me across an ocean, across a great divide of experience, ethnicity, gender and age. The soaring vocals, the spirituality cut right through me. Her voice demolished the distance between us. It was immediate, urgent, gentle and kind.

'Sometimes, what you’re looking for is already there.’

Aretha Franklin

Born in Memphis in 1942, raised in Detroit, the daughter of a famous preacher, Aretha learned to sing and play the piano in church. But her recording career was initially only moderately successful. Then she teamed up with producer Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, and in 1967 they went down to record at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. There followed a cascade of luminous soul classics: ‘I Never Loved a Man,’ ‘Respect’, ‘Natural Woman’, ‘Chain of Fools,’ ‘Think’ – variously expressing ardent affection, enduring love, self-righteous anger and bitter regret. She was hugely successful, universally acclaimed, justly lauded as ‘The Queen of Soul’.

Yet things were never easy for Aretha. She had a tough childhood and a challenging youth. She was unlucky in love and struggled with health issues. In her rare interviews she seemed shy, wary and a little awkward. She wasn’t a natural celebrity and, as she had a fear of flying, she seldom traveled abroad in later life.

Aretha’s warm mezzo-soprano articulated the breadth of these experiences, embracing all the joy, heartache and pain. She could be weak sometimes, and at other times compellingly strong. She always communicated an intense humanity.

'All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit).'

Aretha Franklin, ‘Respect’ (Otis Redding)

Of course, for the most part Aretha didn’t sing her own words. She was channelling the thoughts of the lyricist, inhabiting the character of the song. But she had a special talent for expressing real feeling, true emotion. When I listen to ‘Don’t Play That Song’, ’Aint No Way’,’ Until You Come Back To Me’, I feel what Aretha feels. I second that emotion.

We talk a good deal about empathy in business nowadays. We define it as the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. But what does this really mean?

Aretha teaches that empathy is not a rational condition. It’s not a cold calculation of other people’s circumstances. It is a profoundly emotional state. It’s the ability to identify shared human truths; to really feel for someone; to share their sentiments; to inhabit their triumphs, challenges and disappointments - despite differences of background and experience, regardless of race, colour or creed.

'Baby, will you call me the moment you get there?
Baby, will you do that, will you do that for me now?
Oh, call me, call me the hour, call me the minute, the second that you get there.
Oh, call me, call me, call me, call me, call me, call me, baby.'

Aretha Franklin, 'Call Me'

One of my favourite Aretha performances was on her own composition, ‘Call Me’. In the song she pleads with her departing partner to phone her the moment he arrives at his destination. (It was inspired by an overheard conversation on Park Avenue, New York.) She also seems to me to be expressing a lover’s patience: the willingness to wait until the object of her affection reaches the same level of understanding – until he finally gets there. I have always found this deeply moving.

I was never quite sure Aretha understood how much she meant to others - to people with very different personal narratives. If she were here now, I’d want to replay to her the words she sang so tenderly on ‘Call Me’:

'My dearest, my dearest of all darlings,
I know we've got to part.
It really doesn't hurt me that bad,
Because you are taking me with you,
And I'm keeping you right here in my arms.'

 Aretha Franklin, 'Call Me'
 

(Aretha Louise Franklin, 1942 - 2018, RIP)

No. 195

Are You a Cowboy or a Farmer? Managing the Tension Between the Pioneering Spirit and the Need to Cultivate The Land

Frederic Remington 'A Cold Morning on the Range'

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! features a song called ‘The Farmer and the Cowman.’ This jaunty number explores the musical’s central tension between the farmers, who have an instinct to settle and cultivate the land, and the cowmen, who naturally want to move on and pioneer new territories. Brian Eno, the master musician, producer and artist, has observed that this tension, between cultivating and pioneering, is fundamental to our understanding of creativity.

‘I often think that art is divided between the farmer and the cowboy: the farmer is the guy who finds a piece of territory, stakes it up, digs it and cultivates it – grows the land. The cowboy is the one who goes out and finds new territories.’

It’s a thought provoking distinction. And perhaps all of us in the field of commercial creativity should ask ourselves: What kind of creative am I? Am I more adept at pioneering or cultivating? Am I a cowboy or a farmer?

I suspect most of us would like to imagine ourselves as cowboys or cowgirls; as experts in reframing, redefining, reinventing; as intrepid adventurers intent on discovering new frontiers. It’s the more romantic choice. Indeed this is Eno’s own understanding of himself.

‘I would rather think of myself as the cowboy, really, than the farmer. I like the thrill of being somewhere where I know no one else has been.’

But let’s not be too hasty.

Many of the world’s great artists could perhaps be described as more farmer than cowboy. Think Mondrian, Giacometti, Rothko or Pollock. They worked within a coherent conceptual space, repeatedly revisiting a relatively narrow terrain; making it their own through variety and depth of expression. They ‘grew the land.’

Grant Wood 'American Gothic'

Moreover, in the world of commercial creativity ongoing brand success requires high levels of consistency and coherence: campaigns that build a positioning; initiatives that sustain and evolve a theme; executions that nurture an idea with imagination and freshness.

My former boss Sir Nigel Bogle would often talk of a brand needing to ‘move it on without moving it off.’ This task can be just as critical and just as challenging as complete reinvention. It requires the calibrated embrace of context, a more nuanced understanding of past success, a respect for ideas that were not invented here. But do we properly appreciate, celebrate and reward the ability to evolve, nurture and cultivate? Do we really acknowledge the worth of the creative farmer? Or will we always prefer our creative cowboys and cowgirls and their mastery of the blank piece of paper?

Perhaps a little predictably, I’m inclined to say that a healthy creative business needs both cowboys and farmers. We need to be able to pioneer as well as to cultivate; to reinvent as well as to refine. And critically we need to know when to adopt each of these two modes; when to stick and when to twist.

As Rodgers and Hammerstein put it, ‘the farmer and the cowman should be friends.’

‘Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends.
One man likes to push a plough, the other likes to chase a
cow,
But that's no reason why they cain't be friends.’ 

The Farmer and the Cowman, Rodgers and Hammerstein

No.115

NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND 9

A Creative Business Is No Place for a Recluse

I’ve been listening to the piano works of Charles-Valentin Alkan. Romantic and intense, thoughtful and complex, sensitive and slightly troubling.

Alkan was a friend of Chopin who lived, composed and performed in Paris in the nineteenth century. He was clearly something of an eccentric. His works included The Song of the Mad Woman on the Sea Shore and Funeral March on the Death of a Parrot.

Alkan had been a child prodigy and was a popular concert pianist.  But, after the age of 35, he became progressively reclusive. There are only two photographs of him and in one of them he has turned his back on the camera. Alkan died in 1888 at the age of 74, reputedly when a bookshelf fell on top of him. One obituary rather cruelly observed: ‘Alkan has just died. It was necessary for him to die so that we could be sure of his existence.’

I think most people that have worked in the creative industries have at some point yearned to give it all up and get away. Creativity is all about self-expression and purity of intent. But business is all about listening, adapting, negotiating. There’s an inherent tension here, a source of daily frustration.

However, whilst the reclusive life is available to the fine artist, the commercial creative needs to engage with the world, to be in tune and in touch with culture. The best commercial creatives in my experience watch film, play music, visit galleries, read books, carve spoons. They have interests outside work. They have a hinterland.

Denis Healey RIP (1917-2015)

‘I have always been as interested in music, painting and poetry as in politics.’
Denis Healey, The Time of My Life

I should mark the passing of Denis Healey.

Healey was a towering political figure in my youth. He was Defence Secretary in the '60s as Britain adjusted to life after Empire; and he was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 when the economy was fragile and politics were turbulent.

Healey was fit for this combative environment as he had seen active service during the Second World War. He’d been beach master during the allied invasion at Anzio. Fiercely intelligent, eloquent and argumentative, Healey didn’t suffer fools and didn’t go out of his way to make friends. This may explain why he never quite made Prime Minister. He was a rarity in British politics: a robust moderate.

Healey also popularised the use of the term ‘hinterland’ to indicate depth of experience, interests and character. He argued that the absence of culture compromised politicians’ judgement.

I’m sure this could be said of business people too.

Celts: An Aesthetic for the Networked Age?

I recently attended Celts, an exhibition of art, armour and decorative craft at The British Museum.

It transpires that the idea of a unified Celtic identity is rather misleading. The word ‘Celt’ was used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans to describe various neighbouring European tribes. It was only in the eighteenth century that antiquarians applied the term to the early inhabitants of Britain and to the modern peoples of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. The curator suggests that the one consistent theme across all uses of ‘Celt’ was a sense of ‘otherness.’

Certainly you get a sense that the Celtic aesthetic was completely at odds with the classical beauty of the Greeks and the hard, straight lines of the Romans.

There are copper cauldrons embossed with curling, curving coils; there are knotted, twisting, turning tendrils; decorated armlets, anklets, war horns and neck rings. There are shields etched with spiralling serpents and sinuous snakes; bronze boars and birds, basket weave broaches. There are richly wrought Christian croziers and carved stone crosses.

I couldn’t help thinking that this beguiling, looping, patterned aesthetic is appropriate to the networked age. It suggests that within our maddeningly complex, connected world there can be beauty, order, design.

I wonder should we consider Celtic PowerPoint?

No. 52