Johnny Morris and the Convertibles

JOHNNY MORRIS

and the

CONVERTIBLES

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ISBN: 9781301834891

Published by Terry Aspinall Smashwords Edition

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© Copyright 2003 by Terry Aspinall

Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Other Books by this Author

Dedication

To the many friends I have made in the music industry over the past 50 years. They are numbered in there hundreds and this list is still steadily growing as we all embrace the internet, and pass around stories of actual events so that the public may learn and enjoy what we and others like us got up to.

Introduction

This story is fiction, however it is based on a collection of events that actual happened to me or some of my musician friends during my 50 years in the music industry.

The story takes you back to the late 1950's and through to the swinging sixties, when the musical world suddenly awoke to the sounds of a new musical revolution that was emerging from all parts of England. Johnny Morris and the Convertibles were part of that revolution that took them on one hell of a wild ride, as they slowly made their way to the top of their profession. While enjoying the brighter side of life along the way, they often fell victim to the darker side, that lay in wait, and in the end, it became their undoing.

This is a personal account of how Johnny Morris remembers his rise and fall.

I would also like to apologise in advance for any mistakes that you might find as I rely heavily on the so called latest modern spell checker.

Chapter 1

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Sitting up in my hospital bed, I opened my very old, tattered looking photograph album that had long since seen better days. I was trying desperately to recollect earlier events that had shaped and created my life. During the time when most of the photos had been taken, the people and events captured within each snap shot looked so realistic. They seemed to come alive and jump out at you, as you turned each page. In most cases no explanation was needed to the browser of the album, as to what dramatic moment had been captured on film. Each photo looked so real and modern to any viewer, even though they had been captured many years earlier. Unlike the old brown discoloured photos that my parents had clung onto, depicting their early family events that had taken place long before I was born.

However, a few years have since passed and now as I look through the album, all of my photos have somehow become faded and discoloured, so that they now look exactly like my parent’s old photo album. The subjects I had captured on film now seem to look like stone statues standing in artificial poses that have no meaning whatsoever to the casual onlooker. Although, to me they are still very real and each recalls events that showers me with every minute detail of the event in question.

I turned each page very slowly, trying to digest every crumb of information that lay before me. While at the same time I was very careful not to damage them further. The photographic experience was helping me recall the events in my life that recorded me chasing a dream for many years, and confirming that it had not been a figment of my imagination.

We all go to the cinema and watch the television, and whatever scene we are watching, it is usually enhanced and comes alive to the sound of music. Not only are our eyes witnessing the event on screen, but our ears are also being treated to a musical extravaganza that is designed to dramatically assist and enhance each scene. Unfortunately and sadly, in real life this does not normally happen. When we have a romantic moment there are no angels flying around our heads plucking harps in the background while singing melodically in our ears. Or if something has gone wrong or there is a disaster affecting our lives, there are no heavy orchestral masterpieces sounding in the distance. At least that is how I perceive life. Therefore, over the years, I learnt to create my own music deep within my head to suit the situation. Whenever something happened to me, I would conjure up some sort of musical theme to go along with the experience. Over the years, I turned it into an art form, and I must admit that it brought me through many problems in my life, as well as providing me with a wealth of ideas for songs and stories that I later found myself writing.

We had all been very young and reckless during those early years, setting a fast pace of life for others who wished to follow in our footsteps. In trying to reach our goals, we had set the world on a complete new path and direction, something that our grandparents would not have liked or agreed with. However, now that we have become the older generation, it is us that have to sit back and watch, as another younger generation take up the challenge, and start to create their version of history just like we did all those years ago, while all we can do is mob and criticise them, just like our parents did to us.

I could not help pausing at a page near the beginning of the album, as my eyes became focused on an old brown and white photo of my Mother Alice, who was sitting very stately like upon a stool by her beloved upright piano. This particular pose had stayed with me over the years, and was how I had always remembered her. Her hands were not on the keyboard but folded neatly in her lap, while she was sitting in a very rigid upright pose for the camera. This was a shame because she had been an excellent player and teacher, having taught most of the children in the area during the years I had spent at school.

The more I looked at the photo the more it seemed to come alive, as I imagined her turning and swinging her legs under the keyboard. She then proceeded to tickle the ivories, as I called it, and to play her favourite tune the White Cliffs of Dover. She loved that song, and played it constantly during those early years, I guess it remind her of her loving husband Barry who had not returned from the Second World War.

As I had never met my Father I always associated this song with him, as it had a war connection and besides it was the very first tune that I could ever remember. Therefore, whenever I heard it being played, I would have to wipe a small tear from my cheek, as I tried to imagine how it would have been if we had grown up together.

My Mother was a beautiful woman with long, flowing auburn hair that was usually covered by a brightly coloured silk headscarf, as was the fashion for working class Mothers in those days. Her slender body always gave her an appearance of a young film star, and I can still remember the men folk of her age all giving her a second glance as we walked past, while some used to whistle at her once we were in the distance. I had learnt to copy them, so that I could whistle back some sort of reply. However, Mother hated that and would always be telling me off, by saying that it only encouraged them and drew further attention to us.

For some unknown reason she had never taken another husband. I guess she wanted to remain true to the only person she had ever really loved. To prove this she would constantly be telling me stories about my Father, and of what a nice person he had been. Unfortunately, it was left to my imagination to work out how we would have got on together.

However, it was not for the lack of chasing admirers, because we lived near an American Air Force base, and there were always many servicemen walking around the town at any one time while on leave. For some reason she chose not to take up the many offers that she must have had during those early years. Upon reflection, I can only remember her ever bringing home a couple. I guess it never worked out for her. What I do remember is the struggle that she went through in order to provide for us over the years. She would take any job that was available to her, which was usually shop assistant work.

In the late forties, we moved to the suburb of Combs Wood and into what was known as a small prefabricated house, it being a low set building that was specially constructed very cheaply to house the local people just after the war. They had been designed to last for only ten years, when in actual fact most of them stood for nearly forty.

As I continued to turn the pages of the album, my Mother returned to her statue-like pose by the piano, as The White Cliffs of Dover slowly faded into the background. My eyes scanned the next page and settled onto a photo of myself sitting amongst a group of young school friends by the town’s swimming pool. What stood out to me more than anything was how sun tanned I looked and even at that age, I was already developing into a muscular lad. Suddenly I could hear Elvis Presley singing Heartbreak Hotel. Well since my baby left me, how could I ever forget those words? Therefore, I immediately knew that the photo had been taken in late May 1956, and that I would have been only thirteen years old at the time. This was the very first time that I ever heard Elvis sing, and to what later became known as Rock n Roll music. The people in the photo all started to come alive as the song in my head progressed.

In the background of the photo were two girls sitting on the rough wooden seats that were built around the viewing area of the swimming pool, while in between them sat the very first small portable radio that most of us had ever seen. However, it was the music that came out of its speaker that grabbed our imaginations, sounding unlike anything we had ever heard before. For some unknown reason we could not contain ourselves and we all launched into some sort of jitterbug frenzy, trying to dance to it by the side of the pool. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but it sure as hell felt good.

Until that day, not only did I not know what Elvis sounded like, but also I had no idea as to what he looked like. However, that was soon to change as one of the girls, known as Maureen, handed me a magazine with a coloured picture on its cover of the man himself. The first thing that caught my eye was the bright colour of his shirt, it being deep claret red. My attention was then grabbed by his hairstyle and to the way that it was plastered down on his head, by what looked like some sort of grease. Maureen, who was a few years older than me, told me to open the magazine, so that I could see a small article on the man himself inside.

Late that afternoon, as most of the public were leaving the pool, I walked over to where we had all been sitting to look for my towel, not wanting to return home without it, as my Mother would have given me a good talking to for losing it. Sure enough, there was my towel and lying right beside it was the magazine that Maureen had let me read. After looking around to see if I was being watched, I picked it up, wrapped it in my towel, and beat a hasty retreat before she came back to retrieve her precious magazine.

At home, I spent hours and hours just looking at the picture of Elvis, while wondering what it would be like to be on stage, and to be able to sing just like him, while besieged by hundreds of screaming girl fans. Then while standing in front of our very small bathroom medicine cabinet mirror, I tried to pout my lips in order that I could look just like him. I then tried to sing the only words of the song that I could remember at that time, Down at the end of lonely street. I must have found over one hundred different ways of trying to sing those words, while prancing around the bathroom. I’ve often wondered what Mother thought was happening in the bathroom at that time. Because up until then, she would have to threaten me with physical violence just to get me inside the room, let alone get me in the bath, and now she could not get me out of the place.

I even tried to get my hair to look the same as Elvis. Not having any Brylcream, the normal hair-grooming grease that was available in those days, I borrowed some Vaseline from the medicine cabinet. Having applied the grease to my hair, I then spent several hours trying to make it look just like Elvis. In the end, I kidded myself that I had found a way of getting it to look as near as possible to the man. However, there was a down side to my experiments, the greasy black stains that mysteriously appeared on my bedroom pillow, after sleeping on it for a couple of nights. Not to mention my Mother’s constant nagging, wanting to know why all the Vaseline had suddenly disappeared from the cabinet. I hoped she didn’t think that I was using it for something else. Deep inside I knew that she was aware of where it had gone, so I tried to make a joke of it by telling her that I could not scrape it off the pillow and replace it back in the container. She must have forgiven me because, on her very next shopping excursion, she bought me a small jar of Brylcream and a brand new plastic hair comb, while I bought myself a small scrapbook and glued the colour picture of Elvis on the very first page. As far as I was concerned, he was my number one idol and I was his number one fan. I’m sure if I had known how, I would have built a shrine and prayed to him almost every day.

In order that I could accompany myself singing, I started tapping a beat on a small cardboard box that I found in my bedroom toy cupboard, while imagining I was a drummer. At times, I got quite good, or at least I thought so, and progressed into playing along with any tune that came on the radio. I guess I must be one of the only guys who accompanied classical music on cardboard boxes. I could already hear the announcer in my head; And now, at great public expense to the tune of a refundable cardboard box, I introduce to you all, the melodic tapping of Mr Thumper Tune.

At a later date I returned to the swimming pool hoping to see Maureen and Patty, as I wanted to ask what station they had been listening to. I had spent time scanning the channels of my Mother’s radio, but all I could find were the BBC Radio bands. At that time there were only three of them. The Home Service that was strictly for people who wanted to listen to current affairs and debates. Then there was what was known as the Third Program that was for the highbrow upper-class people and it only played Classical and Orchestral stuff. For people like myself there was the Light Program, that played what was known as light music of the day, and consisted of a few ballads that had been around for a couple of years and were constantly being repeated, songs that were sung by local artists like Dickey Valentine, Anne Shelton and Vera Lynn, while from America there were Frankie Lane, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney.

On Sundays, at midday, there was a program called Family Favourites that was produced especially for the British servicemen and their families. The servicemen were usually based in Germany, Cyprus, Aden and Singapore, while their families were holding the fort back in the United Kingdom. Messages of goodwill were passed on to each other, and culminated in a request for a record for their loved ones. Mostly these requests consisted of some sort of orchestral masterpiece, but occasionally a more modern piece of music was requested. One of the more favoured ones at that time was by Pat Boone, an American artist singing I’ll Be Home. I guess the title says it all for the servicemen to their families, and so this song was usually played at least once a month. Unfortunately, it was a ballad type of song, and so it was not really what I wanted to hear. To me it was what I called a wishy washy sort of song because it had no go in it. It was music that made you go to sleep and what I wanted to listen to made you want to jump up and dance. However, it was a change from the usual type of rubbishy music that was usually played on the program. Therefore, I guess the establishment was gradually changing their boring ways in order that they might retain a younger audience.

We had no record player but, even if we had, the records of the time known as 78s because they ran at 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) were all designed to attract the older generation, as they were the ones with the money. However, this was all about to change, and in doing so, it would ruffle a few feathers of the so called established music moguls in the country. It was also impossible to obtain American records in the United Kingdom, which was why we had to rely on what became known as substandard English versions of the original American hits. The Musician’s Union of that time had a stranglehold on what the radio stations were allowed to play, and to what proportion of overseas musical content was allowed to be slotted in between the local live and recorded music.

Maureen informed me that she listened to a Dutch radio station known as Hilversham, and that at certain times of the day they had special programs that played the latest music coming out of America. It did not matter that you could not understand the announcer as he talked in between tracks, because Elvis sounds the same in any language. Anyway, once the record started to play there was no mistaking who it was.

Back at home I spent a lot of time fiddling with the radio while trying to find Radio Hilversham, not really knowing where it actually was. The wave band number that Maureen had given me did not seem to be playing music that I wanted to hear. It was only after several attempts that I realised that the music I craved for was not played all the time, it was only on the odd occasion that you would hear it.

However, after a couple of days I convinced myself that I had found it, but this lead to two problems. One was that I had to sit through many hours of music that I hated and did not want to hear, in order to be listening when Elvis finally came on. The second problem was that the radio reception was poor, and during the day the station kept fading badly. Therefore, I decided to do something about it, by attaching a piece of wire to the radio aerial connection on the back of the radio and threading the other end through a hole in the glass window by the radio. I then climbed up the side of the house and attached the other end of the wire to the metal rainwater guttering. It did not solve the problem completely but it did improve the reception to an acceptable level. It was strange but I worked out that the signal to the radio always seemed to be much stronger in the evenings, and became stronger as we progressed into the night, although I never did know why.

Turning another page of