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She Said She’d Always Been A Dancer – Soho in the 60s

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Please forgive what is clearly yet another self-indulgent stroll down memory lane, but a couple of Afterworders have requested more details about my Beatles encounter of 1967.
So here it is.

Now read on

11

Comments

  2. In May 1967 I’d just come down to London and landed a job as a dogsbody/messenger boy at a music publisher named W.Paxton in Old Compton Street, deep in the heart of Soho. It’s the location of the G-A-Y nightclub today, but that’s another story.

    Paxton’s was a strange place indeed, employing a motley assortment of misfits, oddballs and eccentrics. Some senior staff members had worked there for decades (some were rumoured to have been at the company for 50 years, taking them back to the First World War!) and nearly all had strange personality traits.

    One chap was the co-writer of the Max Bygraves novelty hit You’re a Pink Toothbrush (a 50s/60s staple of the BBC radio show Children’s Favourites, look it up on YouTube) and he received a Postal Order for ten shillings in royalties every few months. Despite this modest level of fame, he wore a brown Arkwright-style shop coat and worked in the gloomy basement beneath a bare light bulb taking care of the vocal scores for stage and film musicals. All of these scores were individually wrapped in brown paper and string. Some hadn’t been disturbed for years and were covered in a healthy layer of dust which he would remove with his sleeve before opening .

    For the first few weeks I worked alongside a lovely bloke named Caleb Quaye. His mate Reg worked at Mills Music in Denmark Street, over the other side of Charing Cross Road. Reg dropped by most lunchtimes and they would sit in the downstairs tea room planning world domination. At the time of course they just seemed like another pair of dreamers with big ideas and we took little notice of their grand plans. Caleb soon left to work for Dick James Music or somewhere similar, before becoming the guitarist in Elton’s early band, but that too is quite another story.

    View post on imgur.com

    Another highly entertaining, if somewhat unhinged, character was a messenger boy known simply as “Nigel” (I never knew his last name). Nigel was totally obsessed with The Who and despite looking like an overweight bank clerk in a tweed jacket and tie, he would perform My Generation daily for us in the tearoom.

    Using a piece of four by two as a makeshift guitar and placing heavy emphasis on Daltrey’s stuttering delivery (particularly the line “Why don’t you all f-f-f-f-fade away”) Nigel would roll around on the floor and then smash his “guitar” Townshend style. And of course, bastards that we were, we would egg him on for all it was worth until inevitably one of the managers heard the racket and came in to curtail Nigel’s performance I suppose these days he would be classed as “special needs” and taken care of properly, but back then he was thrown into the workforce at the deep end and left to sink or swim. It was all very sad.

    When agitated (which seemed to be most of the time) Nigel would suck his thumb and regress to infanthood. He lived at home with his mother in Richmond and there were rumours that Pete Townshend knew about him, inviting Nigel to Who concerts and even to his house.

    In 1967 the sexual revolution was in full swing and Soho exuded an air of seedy, down-at-heel decadence with garishly-lit strip clubs on almost every street and alleyway.
    Each strip club had a barker standing outside on the pavement whose job it was to cajole the drunks and unsuspecting saps inside where they would be fleeced for bogus membership fees and charged extortionate amounts for drinks.

    The girls who worked the strip joints had a, er, well-developed rotation system in place and you’d see them rushing from club to club, make-up in place, peroxide hair in curlers under a head scarf and wearing, more often than not, a PVC leopardskin print or cheap fur coat of some description to repeat their act yet again 50 yards down the road. This is surely what inspired Paul McCartney to come up with the line “She said she’d always been a dancer, she worked in 15 clubs a day” when he penned She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.

    Working in Soho we’d see famous actors and musicians on the street all the time and while it was always a thrill for a lad from the provinces, after a while it became a matter of routine. “Just seen that Roger Moore bloke in the sandwich shop on Wardour Street” someone would say, prompting someone else to counter with a bored “Really? The Tremeloes were in the cafe on Denmark Street this morning” or something similar.

    But I don’t care how blasé or world-weary you are, seeing The Beatles in the flesh is something else entirely. A few yards along from Paxton’s on the corner of Wardour Street and Old Compton Street, on the second floor above a shop, was Norman’s Film Productions. It was here that the Beatles came almost every weekday for eleven weeks in late 1967 to edit the Magical Mystery Tour movie.

    Word started going round that McCartney had been spotted going in and out of Norman’s and sure enough a few days later I saw a dark blue Aston Martin DB6 coming down Dean Street with Paul at the wheel. I spotted him a couple more times in the coming weeks, usually alone, but once with Ringo and another time with George.

    Then one day I was coming back from lunch and as I was about to cross Old Compton Street I saw all four Beatles walking together. My memory tells me they were walking in single file, like on the Abbey Road sleeve, but that’s probably not true.

    Dressed in their colourful psychedelic finery with scarves and beads, John had on a bright yellow sleeveless Afghan coat. They seemed in high spirits, chatting and wisecracking among themselves. As they passed an eaterie named The Yodelling Sausage on the corner of Greek Street and Old Compton Street, Lennon was clearly highly amused and began repeating the name over and over in that unmistakable voice of his.

    As for me, I became frozen to the spot. Speechless and gobsmacked, nonplussed and amazed, my flabber was well and truly gasted, you might say. In fact and as my good friend @ianess remarked when we exchanged Beatles stories recently, “it must have been like seeing a pack of unicorns prancing up the High Street”. Not that I’ve ever seen such an eventuality you understand, but Ian’s imagery is spot on. Then they were gone and it was back to the workaday drudgery and eccentrics and misfits at Paxtons.

    As a footnote to this rambling tale, a few months later we were sitting in the basement tea room at Paxtons when someone came brandishing the newly-released double EP of Magical Mystery Tour. We all pored over it eagerly, as people did with every new Beatles record back then. Most of the younger members present vowed to buy a copy when funds allowed, but one young square piped up with “I’d like to buy a copy for my young niece, but I don’t think it’s appropriate because of the lyrics of I Am The Walrus“. It turned out he was referring to the line “Boy you been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down”. Now, even in 1967 that was a weird thing to say.

    • Hello Johnny,

      I have recently stumbled across your post about your time working at Paxtons Music Publishers, and felt compelled to share a little of my own time at Paxtons earlier in the decade, at their base, 38 Dean Street, Soho.

      Without doubt, I was an insecure young teen, looking for something yet to be identified, but certainly within the field of music. As a classical organist, I was torn between the music of the French, Italian, German Baroque, and the music of R&B and Soul – especially that emerging from Stax and Atlantic.

      In 1964, I was appointed to the post of assistant to the deputy editor, Harry Shabermann. Harry was a kindly, gentle Jew from the east end. He was exceptionally knowledgable and could pick his way through a large orchestral score without coming-up for air.
      Harry talked about writing songs for sale at ‘Tin Pan Alley’. I doubt that he earned much money from his sales, because he was self effacing, not self-promoting.

      He spoke of his collaboration with others on the children’s favourite, ‘Your A Pink Toothbrush, I’m a Blue Toothbrush” …. Even I had heard that song … CRACKERJACK !!

      As time went on, I became increasingly unreliable and depressed, and occasionally didn’t go into work.
      I was summoned to his office, but, instead a dressing down and a warning of dismissal, he said he had noticed recently that I looked sad and asked what was troubling me.

      I told him of my unrequited dream of professional band musician. I wanted to join a soul band.
      When asked what was stopping me, I told him I didn’t own a Hammond Organ and Leslie Speaker.
      He admonished, that if I worked hard at being reliable in my day job and save money, I will be able to buy the beloved Hammond.

      Several months later, we were working on fulfilling an order together, when he casually asked how I was getting on with saving for the Organ.
      I said not very well. Then he said, when you have half the required amount, I will add the other half, and you can begin looking for that dream !

      That’s exactly what I did. It never occurred to me that there may be an ulterior motive in his generosity; and there was none. This was an act of kindness from one human being to another!

      I remember my time at Paxtons with a dose of ambivalence: mind-numbingly boring, and extremely interesting in equal measure.
      But Harry I hold dear in my heart: a kind, gentle, quietly generous father figure to we younger members of staff.

      Harry Shabermann was a kindly old gentleman and I think that he wasn’t quick to claim royalties for his compositions and, in the cut-throat world of Tin Pan Alley, he was often taken for a mug.
      Dog eat dog I suppose, and such a shame.

      Mike.

        • Hello Gatz,

          Yes, I got the Hammond: M102 coupled with a Leslie 145.

          I became a jobbing musician and was a resident at a small Studio in Paris (Phillips), a tiny studio in London Oxford Street (Polydor Demo facility I think), and a short residency with a house band at Dick James’ studio.

          I also worked in a trio backing cabaret in various night clubs, around the South-East and South-West UK.

          Joined the PO shipping line and served aboard ssCanberra (Pianist/Organist with a trio).

          I was Keyboard Player with Carl Douglas’ Band, ‘Big Stampede’.

          But I continued as a jobbing player for most of my career from the BBC to various small facilities.
          But the toll travelling had on me was tiresome, and I decided to open a small sound to picture facility of my own.

          I retired some years ago.

          Looking back, the most pleasurable of my ventures was working at sea on that PO liner. I’d always had a passion for water, boats, and ships, so my passion for music and the sea seemed to be a fine combination.

          I have very fond memories of working in and around London, especially for the Mecca Ballrooms organisation.

          As a classical organist, I played at weddings, funerals, and other types, including as a holiday relief organist at Lincoln Cathedral.

          Backing Cabaret was least favourite. Cabaret artists were often unpleasant prima donna’s, with less real talent than they thought they had.
          Their band arrangement parts that they provided, were often difficult to read under the low light of night club facilities in the capital !

  4. Great stuff, JC. I’m envious of you working in Soho – my first job in London was in the rag trade quarter at the top end of Great Portland St, where you never saw anybody famous.

    • Thanks Mike. The real footnote to the story is that in around 1971 Paxtons was bought out by a giant American publisher and relocated to Moorgate in the City, which after working in Soho was Boresville, Arizona.

    • Thanks Gary and KFD and apologies for the stray apostrophe and occasional wonky sentence. I was working to a tight deadline this morning and had to knock it out (oo-er) quicker than I would have liked.

      If only we could edit these things.

  12. Great story – I find London of that era very interesting. Aside from meeting famous pop stars it seemed to be inhabited by very shady characters. Well documented in the Jake Arnott novel The Long Firm. I am sure there are as many undesirables today but the 60’s seemed to have a romantic feel even to the violent side of the city. Strange.

  14. Lovely writing, lovely story.

    My only brush with fame around this period (a few years later admittedly) was working one summer holiday with two decidedly dodgy characters in a tiny record shop in Notting Hill Gate.
    Memory definitely states it was Dick, I always called him Dick never Richard, who at the end of that summer said “We’re opening a shop in Tottenham Court Road, fancy coming along for the ride?”
    “I’m sorry Mr Branson, I need to get back to the LSE, get my degree then forge a highly successful career in metal packaging”.
    Have I ever received an invite to Necker Island ?

  15. Great piece. I really enjoyed that. All before my time tough.

    I was in Soho on Saturday as it goes at a fancy boutique hotel for a bafta film screening, then we wandered, all squiffy of free wine, up to sit in Soho Square. Then down to Bar Italia – 3 quid for two lattes in the best coffee shop in the country.

  16. I’ve said this before JC but you have the both the style and content to produce a decent book of memoirs, and should you need any evidence to persuade a publisher, you can use this post as confirmation of an order.

    I had an uncle who once fitted Paul for a suit (and possibly Ringo too). Said uncle worked for Simpsons in Piccadilly and had some great stories of working there, the people he met, and the colorful characters he worked with. He also worked at Moss Brothers in Covent Garden, which is where my mother and father met. I loved spending time with him – he had a slightly risque, ribald manner which my mother loved but was always vaguely anxious when I was in ear shot. And he always bought be an ice cream. She need not have worried – all the double entendres went over my head, and I was in my late teens before the penny dropped as to why he lived with another guy.

  17. The Yodelling Sausage. Every town should have one of these establishments. Keep these stories coming JC.

    I rarely visit London these days. In the late seventies I used to come down monthly for the meetings of the NUS Entertainments Committee, of which I was an elected member for a one year term. The meetings were chaired by Ricky Hopper, but as JC would say, that’s another story. Around this time a dozen of the major University social secretaries were invited down by Phonogram Records to be wined and dined and taken to see their latest band signing. It was also to be my first time in the Marquee on Wardour Street to see the band performing their first gig in the legendary venue.

    The day started in a recording studio listening to a playback of their first single with the band present. When we were taken by coach to a restaurant and then onto the Marquee the band’s PR chap insisted on stopping a various locations so he could scrawl the band’s name on road signs, poster sites and pavements with a marker pen. We later learned this was BP Fallon and his guerrilla tactics for free punk marketing. After the gig more wining and dining – actually it was beer and chips – and bags of freebie records before retiring to the freebie hotel. Students are easily bribed.

    Most of the time these days I cannot remember what I did last week and yet my memories of the seventies are (almost) crystal clear. I remember on this trip we saw a video clip of a yet-to-be-released single Ca Plane Pour Moi and all predicted it would be a smash hit. After the Marquee gig I recall being harangued by the band’s lead singer who heard I did not like them. However it was the social sec. from Leeds Uni who said that, not humble me from Leeds Poly. We met again when we booked his band so things ended happily. I even had my photograph taken with the band ( I never got a copy).

    The band? The Boomtown Rats. Hardly the Beatles but a different era.

    • That brings to mind a snippet I heard as a teenager at my brother’s university (Exeter). The guy who got the bands in said to him that The Tourists were a nightmare and the singer was a stroppy cow.

      • Funny enough, in my time on the committee The Tourists played the bi-annual Social Secretaries Conference to try and get college bookings. I would have to check my diaries to see if I made notes on any other bands appearing. Drink would have been taken at the time to dampen the old memory buds.

        I do remember being in the bar at one conference when, at the stroke of midnight, I announced it was now my birthday and was promptly grabbed by the arms and legs and given 22 bumps!

    • I just did a Google search for the Yodelling Sausage and while the Soho restaurant is long gone it seems there are still loads of places using that name worldwide .

      It absolutely never occurred to me before, but the name relates to places serving German/Swiss food. Obvious when you think about it.

    • As a much belated footnote to this story, I was thrilled to find this photo today. Here, just for @beany, is the actual Yodelling Sausage eatery mentioned in the story above. I’m guessing it’s around the same time, too (mid-60s).

      The location is the corner of Old Compton St and Greek Street looking towards Soho Square. The imposing building on the left is the side wall of the Prince Edward Theatre.

      Now, try and imagine the chap in front of the Land Rover is John Lennon and the story comes to life.

      http://i.imgur.com/oRA0dK6.jpg

      • …and, you’ll notice the sign for the offices of Private Eye just a little further up Greek Street on the right (on the wall behind the No Entry sign). I don’t think they advertise their location quite so openly these days.

        Nice Wolseley 15/60 parked outside the Yodelling Sausage btw.

  20. I did post this story up some time ago on a thread MiniB had began, but it is worth repeating. I grew up in the 60’s in a small town in Kintyre, Campbeltown, AKA “The Wee Toon” and in these days it was quite a cosmopolitan place with both an RAF base and a USAAF/US Marine base close by, but the pubs closed at 10pm and if one went to the local hop, one was liable to get a duffing up if your hair was long. So if you failed on the female front, it was back to Big Campbell’s house for warm cans and hot music…… Big C’s dad was a lovely man who tolerated the almost weekly invasion by the local longhairs -well his son was one, so he could hardly condemn us, could he- and he frequently would join us, and he was very good company, and he had a party piece… with a spoon on his bald head, a pencil on his left cheek, stamping his feet, he would whip a stormy rendition of the theme from The Lone Ranger… you know the one “dadadadadadadadaaa dadadadadadadada”, with us clapping along and those who could play a guitar, strumming along. It was a hoot. At some point in time, 1968sh, a rumour started…. “Paul McCartney has bought a farm/ house/ island/ shop and is moving here”, a pile of nonsense obviously. One day a clearly animated Campbell came to school and told us that it was true and his Dad, who was the accountant of a firm of local solicitors who were handling the deal at this end, had told him and sworn him to secrecy. Fat chance. Still, it must be a wind up, right? Then Macca was seen in the town…then again…… I first saw him and Jane Asher in our local bakers one Saturday morning. Anyway Campbell returned home from school one day, (it was the year we all left, so it must have been early Spring 1970) and sitting in his lounge was The Great Man… and Paul McCartney….. to Campbell’s horror his dad was showing Macca how to do the William Tell Overture using a pencil and spoon, and berating the now ex Beatle for not being able to do it properly as his “bloody hair was too long”. True story

  22. Back in primary school, in Chiswick, in the late 60s, I had a “girlfriend.” Her name was Abigail. I was 9 years old. It turns out her mum worked at the Apple building on Savile Row, and through her we both got invited to a Beatles Christmas kids’ party. Lennon and Ono were dressed as Father and Mother Christmas, and Lennon was handing out presents to the kids. I got a plastic beer mug, with a clear, concave lid, filled with brown soapy liquid to resemble foamy beer.

    Hells Angels were in attendance, invited by George, I later found out, and much fizzy pop was consumed. I also remember seeing a framed black & white photo of a naked Lennon and Ono on the wall. I think I blushed a little.

    Fast forward four or five years to secondary school and our English teacher, Mr. Gould, had brought a Dansette and his copy of the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ EP to class. I think it was in an effort to explain metaphor and simile, and he explained that the line “man, you’ve been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down” wasn’t to be taken literally, but was a metaphor… for something or other.

    I innocently raised my hand and asked “how do you know, sir?” Steam started to rise up from Mr. Gould’s shirt collar and then he screamed at me “Oh! I suppose you know better, do you, boy? I suppose you’ve met John Lennon?”

    “Actually, yes sir, I have” I responded. Cue much laughter from a bunch of 13 year old boys and a temper tantrum from the teacher. I got detention for that.

    As a post script to this story, a few years ago I was scouring a book shop and found “A Hard Day’s Write – The Stories Behind Every Beatles’ Song.” I immediately turned to “I Am The Walrus” and was intrigued to read that Lennon had received a letter from a pupil at Quarry Bank school in the mid sixties mentioning that an English teacher had been analyzing Beatles songs. In an effort to confuse, Lennon asked Pete Shotton to remind him of a playground rhyme from their schooldays, which went “yellow matter custard, green slop pie, all mixed together with a dead dog’s eye, slap it on a butty, ten foot thick, then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick.”

    When it was all finished, Lennon apparently said to Shotton “let’s see the fuckers work this one out.”

      • Billybob (love the explanation for the name) – you must have read ‘The Longest Cocktail Party’? It’s a very entertaining insider account of the chaos within Apple and contains an account of the party you attended.

        • Actually I haven’t read the book, but I found an excerpt and some pics online a few years ago. There is a photo online that features what could be a 9 year old boy who could be me!!

          My dad recently sent me hundreds of photos that he’d taken over the years so now I can compare the online photo to one of hundreds I have of me at that age.

    • I’m just reading (or, rather, listening to the audiobook version of) the McCartney biography by Philip Norman there’s quite a lot about the Hell’s Angels’ occupation of Apple, including John & Yoko’s Xmas party described here. It seems they (the Angels) terrorised everyone from Derek Taylor down to the office juniors.

  24. So …. my Beatles connections:

    1) My ex’s mum hung used to out with them in the 60s in London’s fashionable West End. She was in their circle through the clubbing, and dated Denny Laine for some time (advising him against joining Wings as she didn’t much like PMc. She also had some really interesting insights about JL and particularly the way he related to women). She was very much of the ‘not a fan’ type though knew they were talented. So I guess the complete lack of star-struckedness (and her obvious charms) made her fit in well.

    2) My sister delivered Mary’s (?) baby at the Portland Hospital some years back. She had no idea who the patient was (as she was under a pseudonym) but was told at some point that her father was very famous and would be arriving shortly, entering via the back door with security. She was gobsmacked when she saw who it was and he politely greeted her thanking her for her work and then introduced himself at ‘Paul’. She just said ‘yes, I know’ in reply. I guess he gets that a lot.

    3) Stella McCartney definitely, and possibly siblings too (?) went to the same primary school as my son. He left recently, they I think were there in the 70s.

  26. The thing that occurs to me about this encounter is… it would probably have been quite a stretch to see all four Beatles in the street together any later than this, short of staged occasions like the Mad Day Out and the Abbey Road cover.

    Which leads me to a question I’ve been a-ponderin- ever since I read the Doggett book a few years back:

    Were all four (proper) Beatles ever in the same room at the same time outside of the sixties?

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