1 - On The Beat

OTB 0037 (1CD) Sunday 12 October 1986, 1-2pm Richard Barnes Richard Barnes deserved to be better known than for his singles, ‘Take To The Mountains’ and ‘Go North’, both 1970,and written by the Liverpool songwriter, Tony Hazzard. He also recorded with Hazzard. I spoke to him at the Adelphi when he has appearing in Jesus Christ – Superstar at the Empire. There is a 10 minute section about playing Jesus and the difficulty is convincing the audience that you have stopped breathing. He has also played Judas in Godspell. There was a lengthy what’s on as everyone was out touring for the autumn and it is almost a list of future guests. Barnes MD 0084/5 T

OTB 0038 (1CD) Sunday 19 October 1986, 1-2pm Bob Brunning Bob Brunning was a musician with the De Luxe Blues Band and the headmaster of a London school and he had been one of the founding members of Fleetwood Mac. In his astonishingly busy life, he found time to come to Liverpool to promote his book, Blues – The British Connection. Bob Brunning had played with Jeremy Spencer in the original Fleetwood Mac and some years after he had disappeared from the scene, he turned up as solos performer. Bob was asked to back him at the Wimbledon Theatre and when the show finished, a solicitor acting for Jeremy Spencer’s parents said he was a fake. What did you do, I asked? “I went out and got drunk,” said Bob. Brunning MD 0057 T I think a few of the CDs are running a little slow around this time as the shows are coming out at around 61 minutes. I’m sure Brian Jacques would have said something if I was going over my allotted hour. Hence, the tapes may be about 2% slow. The cause could be the use of C120 tapes, which were later converted to CD.

OTB 0039 (1CD) Sunday 26 October 1986, 1-2pm Georgie Fame (Part 1) Programme starts by going to the newsroom for a news flash – Jeffrey Archer has resigned. I cringe now by my opening comments as I had been asked to publicise a feminist event and I am wondering why this is needed. Obviously, I couldn’t see in front of my eyes. What is worse I play Paul Anka’s ‘(You’re) Having My Baby’. I interviewed Georgie Fame at his soundcheck for the Wigan Jazz Festival. Georgie came from the area – he was born in Leigh in 1943 – and his memories come from a bygone age. His father took him on two buses and a tram to see Tranmere Rovers playing Blyth Spartans at Goodison Park in the FA Cup. This would have been on 7 January 1952: it was the fourth encounter after three drawn games and Tranmere won 5-1. With his flat cap, Georgie looked like a Lancashire lad. We are used to reading that the old blues singers got away from the cotton plantations by performing and Georgie says that music got him away from the cotton factory. He has fond memories of working with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. Gene gave him a signed photo on which he wrote, “Thanks for covering all my mistakes, Gene Vincent.” Fame MD 0100 T

OTB 0040 (1CD) Sunday 2 November 1986, 1-2pm Georgie Fame (Part 2) This is an informative Georgie Fame interview as it covers his career and he speaks so well. He shows his versatility via several records, all played in full and many of them little-known. Fame and Price’s 1971 hit ‘Rosetta’ was written by a Liverpool musician, Mike Snow. “It wasn’t a very deep song but it was a hit,” says Georgie. A fine, original instrumental from the Macclesfield acoustic guitar duo, (John) Hobson and (Howard) Lees is featured. Unfortunately, I don’t say how I came across them. In the programme I refer to interviewing Pat Boone during the week. I did broadcast a little of the interview in Radio Merseyside’s Town And Around and repeated on Weekend Merseyside but I didn’t put Pat in On The Beat until January. I’m surprised now that I didn’t have a quicker turnaround. Fame MD 0100 T

OTB 0041 (1CD) Sunday 9 November 1986, 1-2pm Remembrance Sunday Not quite as sombre as the theme suggests. Among the records played were the Righteous Brothers’ ‘The White Cliffs Of Dover’, Elvis Costello’s ‘Peace In Our Time’ and the brilliantly witty wordplay of Noel Coward’s ‘Don’t Let’s Be Beastly To The Germans’. The last named was banned by the BBC on the grounds that some listeners might not realise that Coward was being sarcastic. I refer to old aunt Molly who lived in Formby. Her boyfriend fought in the First World War, returned home disfigured and, amidst parental opposition, he became her husband. He died shortly afterwards. Molly went to live with her sister, Mary, and she stayed there for over 60 years. Harold and Mary were my aunt and uncle and she was like a second aunt. She had his commendation for bravery in her bedroom and she kept all his wartime letters in her handbag which she read every day. She never remarried. She was always perfectly pleasant but she never had any real interest in anything. Also dealt with listeners’ questions and played the title song from the Rory Storm play, ‘A Need For Heroes’. Okay, but surely the title song for a Rory Storm play should be Merseybeat and not MOR pop.

OTB 0042 (1CD) Sunday 16 November 1986, 1-2pm Wayne Fontana Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders were one of Manchester’s top groups in the 60s, In 1965 their ‘Game Of Love’ was No.1 in the US with Herman’s Hermits at No.2 with ‘Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’ and Freddie and the Dreamers at No.3 with ‘I’m Telling You Now’. All three records were No.1 in the US, a remarkable achievement for Manchester beat groups and something that the Liverpool acts didn’t manage. What’s more, Manchester had done that without their top group, the Hollies. Another engaging oddity: all those three acts were managed by the same agency, Kennedy Street Enterprises, run by Danny Betsch. ‘Game Of Love’ needed a deep voice and none of the Mindbenders could do it effectively. Fortunately, the Liverpool folk group, the Spinners, were recording in another studio and they borrowed Cliff Hall for half an hour and got a perfect take. I was looking forward to hearing this interview again as I wondered if the later traits of Wayne Fontana’s personality were there. He has been perfectly pleasant when I have met him in recent years but then I don’t represent authority. Interviews with him can’t be broadcast as he rants against anyone who tells him what to do: policemen, parking meter attendants, backstage staff, even the audience. He collected parking tickets because he would park his car outside theatres including the London Palladium. In 2005 he was bankrupt and was arrested for setting fire to a car with a bailiff inside. He told an audience in Hungerford that he had been treated the way the Jews had been treated by the Nazis. When a fan told him to stop moaning and start singing, he said, “Fucking hell, have you got a fucking appointment to go to?” When his band started playing a tune, Fontana turned on them too. He used his website as a vehicle for his views and when the case came to court in 2007, Wayne had dismissed his legal team and arrived dressed as Lady Justice, wearing dark glasses because “Justice is blind”. Wayne was found guilty and jailed for a year. After serving his sentence, he moved to Spain but came back for oldies tours. In 2011 he failed to appear in court in Wakefield over an unpaid speeding fine. He was handcuffed and arrested as he was preparing to go on stage at the Palace Theatre, Manchester. Fortunately for him, the authorities had been sending the demands to his old address and the case was dismissed. Now in his 70s, Wayne Fontana reprises his hits on stage and includes ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’, which was a hit for the Mindbenders without him. His audience is largely comprised of senior citizens who presumably want to be reminded of their youth and want to forget about their infirmities. Not a chance of that with Wayne whose stage act is about high blood pressure, losing your memory and, most of all, incontinence pads. Having said all that, the 1986 interview is a pleasant surprise. Wayne is attentive and answering the questions sensibly. He sings on a few occasions and it’s good to hear him talking about some little-known recordings like ‘The Last Bus Home’ Linda McCartney’s father was a lawyer who represented show business folk. When the songwriter Jack Lawrence had problems with a bill, he told him to write a song for his daughter instead. He wrote ‘Linda’, which was a hit for Ray Noble and his Orchestra in 1947. I played a beat treatment by Jan and Dean, very much in the vein of the Four Seasons. I had pointed out the similarities between Chuck Berry’s ‘Deep Feeling’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’. The blues authority, Bob Groom, told me that Chuck didn’t sue because he had based ‘Deep Feeling on ‘Floyd’s Guitar Blues’ by Floyd Smith from the late 1930s. I comment that BBC Radio Merseyside are to record Lindisfarne at the Liverpool Empire and I played the Newcastle band performing ‘100 Miles To Liverpool’. I play a demo of Roy Orbison’s song’ Claudette’ where he makes a mistake and goes “Oh crap”. Fontana MD 0071 T (In the full interview, Fontana says that he was going to record ‘Love Of The Loved’ but Brian Epstein then wanted it for Cilla Black)

OTB 0043 (1CD) Sunday 23 November 1986, 1-2pm Pete Seeger (Part 1) These were different times but I’m surprised that I asked performers to answer questions on tape, but maybe I thought that the station wouldn’t look favourably on someone who was ringing the US for interviews. Still, I got Doc Pomus, Anthony Newley, Pete Seeger and, for a country series, Hank Snow to answer questions on cassette; all good but Pete Seeger was exceptional as he answered my questions so fully, so modestly and, it would seem, so accurately. He spoke in a beautifully modulated voice too, the perfect storyteller. He wanted payment for this: a couple of George Formby LPs as he couldn’t find many of his records in the US. In the two parts, the 70-year-old Seeger talks about the way he wrote, or rather assembled, his songs: ‘If I Had A Hammer’, ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ (“I like the Byrds’ recording, all those clanging steel strings but the song has proved itself as you can do it in half a dozen different ways.”), ‘Guantanamera’ – all in the first part – and in the second, ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’, ‘We Shall Overcome’, ‘Sailing Down This Golden River’ and ‘Waist Deep In The Big Muddy’. I was asking for verses of Pete McGovern’s ‘In My Liverpool Home’ as I was planning to record the fullest version possible. You could even submit your own verses. I mention John McCulloch of Wallasey who kept sending requests and kept on requesting a particular record until I played it. He was on his third card for his fourth request for ‘Just A Little’ by the Beau Brummels. Beautiful version of ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well’ by Carly Simon. Bob Dylan had to spend ten minutes to get served at Rock On in Camden Town as they didn’t approve of queue jumping. Silent tracks: Sly Stone (‘There’s A Riot Goin’ On’), John Denver (‘Ballad Of Spiro Agnew’) and John Lennon (‘Nutopian International Anthem’). Records released with mistakes: Drifters (‘There Goes My Baby’), Kingsmen (‘Louie Louie’) and the Mama and the Papas (‘I Saw Her Again’) I had seen Beryl Marsden in Nottingham as one of the Vandellas with Martha Reeves. Seeger Cass 0102 T. Interview published in Omaha Rainbow 39, June 1987.

OTB 0045 (1CD) Sunday 7 December 1986, 1-2pm Tony Barrow (phone-in) My first phone-in…and also Tony’s first phone-in. Lively and entertaining and the positive nature of the questions indicates how well the Beatles were now regarded in Liverpool. One caller insists that Brian Epstein bought 10,000 copies of Love Me Do and could have gone to jail for hypoing the charts: Tony points out that if Love Me Do had been a miss, it wouldn’t have mattered as generally record companies stuck with an artist for a year or three singles. Show opens with an apology for recommending the musical, Leave Him To Heaven, starring Jess Conrad. It was appalling. Because of the 2-for-1 publicity, the theatre was full for the show as it started but only half of them stayed til the end. I saw a whole coach party leave in the interval. At the end of the show, I was making my way to the stage door, that is, going the other way to the audience. “Are you going to interview Jess Conrad?” asked a member of the audience, seeing my tape recorder. “Yes,” I replied. He said, “Give him hell” and walked on. Barrow Essence of questions and answers T

OTB 0046 (1CD) Sunday 14 December 1986, 1-2pm Flaco Jiménez The Mexican singer and accordionist Flaco Jiménez was noted for his work with Ry Cooder and I spoke him when he was at the Southport Arts Centre. He said he had been recording since 1955 and was very appreciative of the ways that Doug Sahm and Ry Cooder had introduced him to American audiences. During the interval, Flaco left his accordion on stage. Hank Walters went on stage and started playing it, taking it into the audience. Flaco came back and was so annoyed that he swore at him in Mexican. What I most remember about this interview is that one of his band was in the toilet and making the most violent, retching noises but nobody seemed the slightest bit concerned, almost as though it happened every day. I say Little Richard had gone from the age of rock to the rock of ages, which isn’t a bad joke. I mention that Little Richard was about to appear on The Cannon And Ball Show (available on YouTube and it’s bizarre to see Wee Dick with Cannon and Ball on three pianos). I say that BBC Radio Merseyside is broadcasting Lindisfarne at the Liverpool Empire over two hours on 28 December 1986. Jiménez Cass 115 T

OTB 0047 (1CD) Sunday 21 December 1986, 1-2pm Russ Conway, Mike Batt, George Melly A Christmas show with three guests. I had interviewed Russ Conway for my series Almost Saturday Night, and now a new instrumental that he had talked about, ‘A Long Time Ago’, had just been released. Hence, I could use that part of the conversation. I had interviewed Russ Conway at Radio Merseyside and after we had spoken for an hour or so, I took him to Beatle City in Seel Street. He was fascinated by a long list of all the places that the Beatles had played. He said that they had supported him at show in Llandudno and he put on his specs to look for the gig which was listed around knee level. As he knelt down, some American fan came by and said, “Gee, you must love the Beatles to be looking at this so closely.” (I used this interview in the series Shakin’ All Over and also did an On The Beat around Russ Conway, OTB 0080). Similarly, Mike Batt had been featured in OTB 008 but I had not broadcast his comments on The Hunting Of The Snark because the album had not been released then. Now it was out and I could use his comments. It was always a delight to interview the jazz singer and art critic George Melly as he was so well-informed and so quotable. He also loved returning to his home town of Liverpool. Now 60, George Melly said that he had got his senior citizen’s pass for public transport. This was part of a longer interview done for my Shakin’ All Over series but here he was talking about his new album, Running Wild. He likens the fad for Franglais to Cole Porter’s ‘It’s De-Lovely’. “Society worships the old if they are doing something inappropriate.” I make a passing comment that Steve Voce (who presented Jazz Panorama) had insisted that George Melly was a better singer than Elvis Presley. In the Christmas Radio Times, deep-voiced presenter Terry Lennaine said he was Barnardo’s child and he only got a second-hand Beano album one Christmas. “If someone asked me for the best stocking-fillers, I would say Emmylou Harris’ legs,” I can’t believe I wrote that, let alone said it, but these were different times, and these occasional one-liners form the most unexpected and embarrassing feature of hearing these old programmes. Still in my defence, I did play Emmylou’s version of ‘The First Noël’. Conway MD 0162 T, Batt MD 0001 T, Melly Cass 004 T

OTB 0048 (1CD) Sunday 28 December 1986, 1-2pm Ken Dodd I’d known Ken Dodd on and off for some years and this interview was arranged after a show at Southport Theatre. I got to speak to him at half-past twelve and he gave me 40 minutes of his time. I can guess what the theatre staff were thinking but everybody knew what he was like. You might think from the opening that we had never met before but Ken wanted me to say my name, Spencer, so he could make jokes about washing machines and women’s undergarments. “People who sell corsets are living off the fat of the land.” It’s a very entertaining interview as he is full of good humour and giving us a good summary of his career. It was unusual for him to be quizzed about his recording career. In 1971 Ken Dodd had been in Twelfth Night at the Liverpool Playhouse. He had a straight role but after taking the applause, he stepped forward and said, “Come and see our next production, The Merchant Of Widnes.” He seemed pleased that I had remembered that. It’s an odd joke as on paper, it doesn’t sound funny but it brought the house down. Ken does pop up from time to time in these programmes and he was an interviewer’s nightmare as he was never on time. This was partly because he was so considerate to his public. I can recall seeing him talking to a granny as he was going into Radio Merseyside. “Hello dear,” he said, “Are you all right? I haven’t seen you down the Grafton lately.” He was a major star unquestionably, yet he had time for everyone. We once met on Lord Street and he said, “Do you know Bobby Bennett?” and went into a five-minute routine that he may have heard 30 years earlier. I’m sure that he had somewhere else to go. I’m glad to say that he loved my book about the old-time songwriters, Brother, Can You Spare A Rhyme, and he would sometimes ask me for a fact or two. The media receives the Honours List a few days before the awards are announced so that they can prepare features, so I knew at the end of 2016 that Ken Dodd was receiving a knighthood. The next morning I was going into Radio Merseyside and who should be in Reception but Ken Dodd. I thought, “Should I congratulate him or am I not meant to know?” Ken saw me and said, “Arise, Sir Spencer” so I knew it was okay. Ken was very astute when it came to other comics. I recall being backstage at a show where Ricky Tomlinson was using four-letter words on stage. “There’s no need for him to do that,” said Ken. “But Ken,” I replied, “you love Billy Connolly and he swears the whole time.” “Ah yes,” said Ken, “but he knows what he’s doing.” Ken’s last words to me were “What age is Willie Nelson?” “83” I said, “A mere youngster,” said Ken. During the course of the programme, I mention some of the guests that will be coming up in the New Year. I seemed to have a huge backlog of interviews although I don’t remember it that way. Dodd MD 0002 T

OTB 0049 (1CD) Sunday 4 January 1987, 1-2pm Sydney Devine, Ron Goodwin British country music had a bad name and as many people hated Sydney Devine as loved him. To my mind, the Scottish singer bulldozed his way through the country music repertoire in overwrought appearances but he filled out theatres throughout the UK. In the past, I had written lukewarm reviews of his albums and stage show, but I had interviewed him for Country Music Roundup and I did write the tour programme for this particular tour. He was a good interviewee and he talks of his early friendship with Alex Harvey and the guitarist Joe Moretti. He criticises British country artists for copying what was coming out of Nashville. He put the songs through the wringer like Elvis Presley but without his finesse. Instead of ‘American Trilogy’, Sydney performed ‘Scottish Trilogy’, complete with bagpipes. Stephen Citron had written a book about songwriting and pointed out that ‘orange’ wasn’t the only word that didn’t rhyme: how about absent, almost, April, bargain, evening, goodness, gorgeous, hundred, modern, sausage, softly, sunrise, sunset, victim, wasp and woman. Okay but if you sing like Bob Dylan, you can make anything rhyme like ‘Armageddon’ and ‘heading’ in ‘Is Your Love In Vain’. Very often there were questions about songwriting plagiarism in On The Beat. Here I talk about the similarities between ‘In A Little Spanish Town’ and ‘Why’. I had interviewed Ron Goodwin in the past and I take a clip of him talking about the court case where he defended the songwriters of ‘Why’. Apparently, the plaintiff had to prove that the songwriter had heard the original tune, which could be tricky if he says, “Never heard it.” Devine T but original tape not kept. Goodwin MD 0014 T.

OTB 0050 (1CD) Sunday 11 January 1987, 1-2pm Pat Boone (Part 1) I couldn’t get an interview with Pat Boone when he was coming to Southport as he was going to play golf. However, he was doing a live interview at BBC Radio Nottingham, and I was told I could interview him after that, using a studio at the station. He was delightful company, very friendly and very cooperative. The interview which was broadcast in two parts was very well received. I am in two minds about Pat Boone’s records – I love his ballads like ‘Love Letters In The Sand’ (especially his whistling!) and ‘Remember You’re Mine’ – but thought he was too formal a singer for rock and roll itself. His ‘Tutti Fruitti’ was diabolical. Just before the interview I had asked Pat to sign a number of albums. We start the interview and he suddenly says, “Put that cap on please; it’ll dry up.” He saw the Beatles in Las Vegas in 1964 and he says, “I’d never seen anything like the Beatles, particularly the audience reaction. The people would shriek from the minute they came on until long after they’d gone and you couldn’t hear them perform. It was somewhat like that with Elvis and somewhat like that with me, but the screaming was at the beginning of the songs. Then they’d get very quiet as they wanted to hear you sing.” As Motown Chartbusters was coming to Southport, I used a short clip of Jimmy Ruffin talking about ‘What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted’? I don’t know where this clip comes from as it isn’t from my own interview with Ruffin. Stan Ambrose of Folkscene had told me that there was a strong Irish influence in the Beatles’ songs and he let me play ‘Norwegian Wood’ that he had recorded on bouzoukis with two local musicians, Tony Gibbons and Chris Kelly. (48m in) One listener questioned Ken Dodd saying he had been No.1 for 18 weeks when it should be five. I play the record that had been top for 18 weeks, ‘I Believe’ by Frankie Laine. But how many times had Frankie heard a new-born baby cry – does he work in a hospital? I’d gone to Nottingham with my wife and as we walked to the radio station we passed a kitchen designers and after the interview, we ordered a new kitchen from them. We still have it so we have a lot to thank Pat Boone before. Boone MD 0016 T (in print, Country Music People, June 1987)

OTB 0051 (1CD) Sunday 18 January 1987, 1-2pm Pat Boone (Part 2) “I loved songs where I could sing low notes,” says Pat Boone and you can hear it on ‘Love Letters In The Sand’ and ‘Don’t Forbid It’ (which he sings to me a cappella). I was delighted to show Pat a list from a Liverpool drummer John Cochrane (Wump and his Werbles, Steve Day and the Syndicate) that showed the Beatles did ‘Don’t Forbid Me’ in their Cavern days. Pat describes being in the UK in 1963 and hearing ‘From Me To You’ and wanting to record it but his record label said, “That song has been out on Vee-Jay and didn’t make it.” On Big Daddy’s tribute to Pat Boone, they perform ‘Dancing In The Dark’ like ‘Moody River’. John Prine’s ‘Down By The Side Of The River’: “We’re all taught how to speak properly at school but I think he missed the lessons.” I must have got used to poor diction as it sounds okay today. At an Adrian Henri exhibition at the Bluecoat, you could purchase the original of The Entry Of Christ Into Liverpool for £4,250. That would have been a great investment. Boone MD 0016 T (in print, Country Music People, June 1987)

OTB 0053 (1CD) Sunday 1 February 1987, 1-2pm John Stewart It is not possible to escape from John Stewart for long on my programmes as I often find excuses to play his songs. Ever since The Phoenix Concerts in 1974, he has been my favourite singer/songwriter and the New Brighton concert that Radio Merseyside broadcast in 1984 was the musical highlight of my life. Whenever John returned to the UK, they were new songs to talk about; this time I had the privilege of talking about his song for the homeless, ‘Justiceville’ and another about terrorism, ‘Unchained Beast’. Good stories about writing with John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas (‘Chilly Winds’) and writing for the Monkees (‘Daydream Believer’). The Monkees were “the classic example of Americans jumping onto a good thing”. John Stewart mentions a new label, The Ship, which will feature himself, Jesse Winchester, John Sebastian and Jesse Colin Young. Whatever happened to that? He says that he wrote a new song in Scotland four days ago, ‘Runaway Train’, which he is pleased with. It became a No.1 country hit for Rosanne Cash. Stewart MD 0028 T, printed in Omaha Rainbow 39, June 1987

OTB 0054 (1CD) Sunday 8 February 1987, 1-2pm Val Doonican Maybe a bit middle of the road for On The Beat but my personal label for the series was Bob Dylan’s ‘It’s all music, man.’ I felt that Val Doonican had great tales to tell: he had had some superb guests on The Val Doonican Show, so I asked if I could interview him when he came to the Floral Pavilion at New Brighton. This was always a good place to conduct interviews as it was relatively quiet backstage and there was rarely other media people around. You might do an interview at the Liverpool Empire, for example, knowing that somebody else is waiting to come in after you, or vice versa. I once went to interview Slim Whitman at the Empire and another guy was going to talk to him first: he said he wouldn’t be long. He had not only written out his questions but also Slim Whitman’s answers. Val tells of giving Cilla Black a song she had never heard, ‘Liverpool Lullaby’. He talked positively about his hit singles but felt bad about covering ‘Elusive Butterfly’: “It so lacked originality to have done that and I felt bad about it really.” One extraordinary fact: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was knocked from the top of the album charts by Val Doonican Rocks But Gently. A few years down the line, I was talking to Michael Holliday’s son and found that the BBC had given him he rocking chair that Michael Holliday and then Clive Dunn had used on their TV series. Clive Dunn had also sat in it when he sang ‘Grandad’ on Top Of The Pops. I told the imminent Museum of Liverpool about it and they borrowed it for their display about Liverpool music. Val Doonican’s autobiography, Walking Tall, had just been published, which obviously was a help in preparing questions as I knew what the good stories were and what were dead ends. His speaking voice though was so warm that he would have sounded good reading out shopping lists. Some fun outtakes of Elvis doing ‘Loving You’ and Fairport Convention updating ‘Johnny B. Goode’ for the Hunchback of Notre Dame, ‘Quasi B. Goode’. A great story from the station’s engineer, Bill Holt. He had been to see Charley Pride, who had invited everybody back to his hotel. Bill went “and Charley seemed surprised that only five of us had turned up. The audience must have thought he was joking.” During the week, I had said to someone, “Liverpool’s not bad as all the big names play here” to which the response was, “Of course, they’re all from here anyway.” Doonican MD 0072 T