Patrick Halling’s Musical Voyage 1

Unless I'm mistaken it was in the totemic decade of the 1960s - which witnessed an unprecedented explosion of pop and youth culture - that Pat moved into the session world where he was to record for film, television and above all popular music.

 In the meantime, my mother's musical life was put on hold while she concentrated on being the mother of two small boys, and supporting her husband in his various passions, which included dinghy racing on the Thames and elsewhere. Despite her strong aversion to sailing, she crewed for him for many years...specifically at the Tamesis Sailing Club in Teddington, West London where he was a member for much of the sixties, winning several racing trophies initially in a Firefly (number 1588), while his career as a session player thrived.

 According to what he's told me, he worked on early sessions for British musical sensations Lulu, Cilla Black and Tom Jones, as well as with superstar producers Tony Hatch and Mickie Most. Hatch wrote most of Petula Clark's hit singles of the sixties, some alone, some with his wife Jackie Trent, and she went on to become a major star in the US as part of the so-called British Invasion of the American charts, as did several acts produced by Most, including Herman's Hermits whose angelic front man Peter Noone ensured that his band were briefly almost as popular as the Beatles stateside. 

 Pat became close to both Most and composer-arranger John Cameron, who together helped Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan achieve a string of international hit records once he'd moved away from his early Folk-Protest style towards something far more Pop-oriented, starting with the psychedelic "Sunshine Superman" (1966), which was a massive stateside smash, and the first produced by Most.

 Among those session musicians who played for Most in the '60s were Big Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, who also arranged for him. Page went on to join seminal British Rock band The Yardbirds, which had been managed first by Simon Napier Bell, then by Most's business partner Peter Grant. When the Yardbirds collapsed in 1968, the two remaining members Page and bassist Chris Dreja set about forming a new band, also to be managed by Grant. Page's first choice as vocalist Terry Reid turned the job down, but he recommended a young 19 year old singer from the Midlands of England known as Robert Plant. Page duly travelled to Birmingham with Dreja and Grant to look the youngster over, and was impressed by what he saw. He then invited Plant to spend a few days with him at his home, the Thames Boathouse, in the beautiful little Berkshire village of Pangbourne for initial discussions related to the band...all this taking place in the summer of '68, just months before I joined the Nautical College situated a few miles from the village itself. So, the nucleus of the New Yardbirds came into being.

 Shortly afterwards, a friend of Plant's, fellow Midlander John Bonham came onboard as drummer, and an old session buddy of Page's, John Paul Jones replaced Chris Dreja as the band's bass player, as Dreja wished to leave the music scene to concentrate on a new career as a photographer. Jones supplemented this role by helping Page with the arrangements, and performing keyboard duties. The New Yardbirds were now ready to fulfill their contractual tour of Scandinavia, which they began in September 1968.  

 With their first album - recorded at West London's Olympic Studios - not yet released, they made their debut as Led Zeppelin at the University of Surrey on October 15, 1968. This was followed by a U.S. concert debut on December 26, 1968, and so Led Zeppelin went on to become the most famous Hard Rock band of them all equalled only by the Stones in terms of legendary darkness and mystery.
 It seems incredible that a force of such seismic power and influence as Led Zep should emerge from the relative innocence of the London Blues and session music scenes of the sixties. But then a similar thing could be said of British Rock as a whole. What was it that transformed an interest among young men of largely middle class origins in the bleak brooding music of the Blues into a musical movement which took America and the world at large by storm in the late '60s and early '70s? That's not an easy question to answer, but I'm going to give it some sort of a go.

 The Blues themselves may provide something of a solution to the puzzle, because they are believed to have begun life as a secularised version of the black Gospel music of the American south, with lyrics reflecting the sensuality, isolation and anguish of lost souls victimised by life and alienated from God, and they found fertile soil in the still repressed United Kingdom of the late 1950s and early sixties, and especially in the affluent south among men such as Brian Jones from the genteel spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucester, Eric Clapton from Surbiton - via Ripley -  in Surrey, and Jimmy Page from nearby Epsom, also in Surrey.

 But the British Rock explosion was not just fuelled by the Blues. By the early '60s, an effervescent fusion of Rock and Roll, Skiffle, R&B, Doo-Wop, Soul and even traditional Classic Pop had emerged from several British cities most notably the tough industrial towns of Liverpool and Birmingham, before going on to take the UK charts by storm. It was the sound of Beat, and no band encapsulated it quite like the Beatles. That said, to further confuse matters, the term Beat - or rather Big Beat - had been used to describe a music genre as early as 1961 by the writer Royston Ellis, a close friend of John Lennon's due to their shared appreciation of the Beat poets. In Ellis's book "The Big Beat Scene", the term Beat is used to describe the music of the first British Pop stars to emerge in the wake of the Rock revolution, such as Billy Fury, Joe Brown, Marty Wilde et al, as well as a host of lesser known ones...but then Rock is also used as an abbreviation for Rock and Roll in the same book.  

 The Beatles are seen by some as the inventors of modern guitar Pop. While this is debatable, they are without doubt the best known and most successful Pop group in history. Yet they themselves resisted being typecast as mere Pop, and could be said to have ultimately promoted a type of Rock with Pop elements which was yet no less removed from pure Pop than the Blues-based Rock of their chief rivals the Rolling Stones.  

 The overwhelming melodiousness of their classic period of 1964-'69 was founded on a vast variety of musical genres including Classical and Folk, Classic Pop, Country and Western, Rock and Roll, Soul and Motown, and even the Blues, leading one to conclude that largely through the Beatles, Rock became the ultimate musical smorgasbord, a veritable Babel of musical styles. During their brief few years of existence, they informed the development of Rock  to a greater degree than any other group or solo singer, and that includes the Rolling Stones, whose early style was far more rooted in the Delta and Chicago Blues than that of the Beatles, which was lighter, or Poppier. The Stones' uncompromisingly primal rhythmic proto-Rock went on to form the basis of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, and yet even these have to a greater or lesser extent benefited from the unrelenting melodic inventiveness of the Beatles, although the same could not be said of Punk, which is Rock stripped to its most essential ingredients. 

 That's not to say, however, that the Beatles introduced melody into Rock and Roll, because it already existed by the time they had their first hit single in 1962. One of its chief sources was what has become known as the Brill Building Sound, named after the very building in New York City where many of its songwriters were housed and which had been a Pop music centre since the '30s, the term Pop music having been coined - allegedly - as early as 1926. Brill Building Pop could be described as traditional Pop informed by the Rock and Roll revolution, and so partaking of Rock rhythms as much as the sophisticated song writing techniques of Classic - pre-Rock - Pop.

 There was a somewhat notorious interregnum period of Popular Music between the decline of the first wave of Rock and the onset of Beatlemania and it lasted from about 1958, the year of Elvis Presley's induction into the US Army, and around 1963 when the Beatles started to go global. Much has been made of the fact that the music's initial threat was neutralised during this brief era, and that this process coincided with the first wave of teenage idols - both in the US and UK - who while heavily influenced by Elvis visually, had nowhere near the same devastating effect on the moral establishment.

 It's my contention that in spite of the bad press it's received over the years, the first wave of Pop to arise in the wake of the Rock and Roll revolution was infinitely more fertile and diverse than it's been given credit for, and that's especially true of the Brill Building Sound, whose melodic and lyrical sophistication harked back to the golden age of the Great American Songbook. It's sheer wholesomeness has attracted much hostility, but it should be remembered that for the first two years or so of its existence, the music of the Beatles was pretty wholesome too, and I can't help thinking it's a shame it didn't remain that way; even though many - perhaps most - of their finest songs were written after 1965.

 Its chief songwriters included Goffin and King, who wrote hits for the Shirelles, the Crystals, the Drifters, Bobby Vee, Gene Pitney and others in the immediate pre-Beatles era. They certainly influenced the Beatles, who covered one of their songs, "Chains", which was soulfully sung by John Lennon. Carole King of course went on to become a superstar in her own right during the singer-songwriter era of the late 1960s, one of the most obvious examples of a survivor from the Brill Building era. Another was Burt Bacharach, who with lyricist Hal David went on to even greater glory in the '60s at the height of Beatlemania. Despite reversals, he continues to be recognised as one of the greatest popular songwriters of all time. Other Brill building teams included Leiber & Stoller, Sedaka & Greenfield, Mann & Weil and Barry & Greenwich. As well as writing songs for major acts from Elvis Presley to the first great girl groups, their work facilitated the pioneering production techniques of Phil Spector, and influenced much of the Pop that was to dominate the '60s, including the Beatles themselves.

 Yet, while the Beatles remain indelibly associated with modern Pop, by about 1966, they were as much a Rock as a Pop group and this had less to do with their music than their lyrics. These had started to acquire an intellectual dimension by that totemic year, which was significantly attributable to the influence of Bob Dylan. Pop as a whole in fact had acquired a gravitas at odds with the innocent and sentimental music of the early Beatles and other bands within the outdated Beat genre as a result not just of Dylan's influence as the first great poet of Rock, but an increasing melodic complexity on one hand, and an increasing spiritual darkness on the other. This latter was at least partly founded as I see it on the growing influence of the Blues, which led ultimately to the British Blues movement of the late 1960s. The term Rock was somehow perfect in describing the way out new music that arose out of it, although when this moved in to supplant Pop as its main name it's impossible to say. One thing is certain...as soon as it did, Rock became far more than a mere music form. I'd go so far as to say that it was a way of life of life almost from the outset, a philosophy, even a religion one of whose prime components was rebellion against the traditional Christian moral values of the West.

 Could this be the reason - or at least one of the reasons - why the US and Britain came to be its spiritual homelands, given that these are the nations most associated historically with the rise of Evangelical Christianity? Perhaps so. Whatever the truth, Rock is clearly more than just another form of Pop. Yet, in the modern sense of the word, Pop is intrinsically tied to Rock, or rather was...until about 20 years ago, when the latter started to decline as the leading voice of youthful rebellion, to be slowly replaced as such by other forms of popular music such as Hip Hop, Contemporary R&B, and Electronic Dance Music.

 Today, Rock no longer represents the dark side of popular music, being just one of its many faces, just another branch of the entertainment industry. After nearly half a century of waging war against a world view rooted in the Bible, Rock has very little ability left to shock...although some may still be offended by its persisting lyrical darkness. Yet, the damage has been done: Western society has been irrevocably altered by Rock Music and the socio-sexual revolution it led. 

 Had it not been for this devastating youthquake, Pop might never have moved beyond the kind of novelty song Tin Pan Alley was producing at such a furious rate in the early 1950s, such as Bob Merrill's wonderful "She Wears Red Feathers"; but would that have been such a bad thing, when you consider Rock's ultimately disastrous legacy, the result of over a half a century of "letting it all hang out"? I don't think so. 

 But to return to Pat, whose contribution to the growing Rock movement was ever both innocent and involuntary:
 For the legendary Beatles producer George Martin, he led the string section that was filmed live for "All you Need is Love", written specially for the "Our World" program which secured an international audience of 350 million people at the height of the so-called Summer of Love on July 25th 1967. It was the first satellite broadcast in history, and one of the most famous pieces of film ever made. Also taking part were Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Donovan and Marianne Faithful.

 A year later, he worked on a project that was as much a concept album as any of the Beatles records of the same period, Ken Moule's superb "Adam's Rib Suite", which fused elements of Jazz, Pop and Classical music to recount the history of womankind from Eve to Cleo Laine. Needless to say though, it was infinitely less successful than any comparable record within the Rock genre, Rock being at the cutting edge of popular culture in a way that Jazz had once been, but no longer was.

 However, by the turn of the decade, a reconciliation between the two alienated factions was well under way, with Jazz-Fusion coming from one camp and the more populist Jazz-Rock from the other. In '75, Pat served as leader for Mike Gibbs' "Only Chrome Waterfall Orchestra", an unsung classic of British Jazz fusion which was finally released on CD in 1997. Adam's Rib followed it on CD exactly ten years later.

 By the time of his involvement with "Adam's Rib", Pat had already moved into the worlds of film and television, and his early TV career included solos for the much-loved British sitcom "Steptoe and Son" (1962-1974), penned by one-time Tony Hancock writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, with music, including the well known theme tune, by the Australian composer Ron Grainer.
 When it came to his early film career, he served as concertmaster for the great Johnny Green on Carol Reed's version of Lionel Bart's "Oliver" (1968), arguably the greatest film musical of recent times, and for John Williams on “Fiddler on the Roof” (1971), another film masterpiece based on a stage musical, this time directed by Norman Jewison. In addition to Williams, he's served as concertmaster for several other major 20th Century musical figures, Dimitri Tiomkin, Nelson Riddle, Maurice Jarre, Georges Delerue and Wilfred Josephs among them.
 He worked with Williams again on the musical version of James Hilton’s “Goodbye Mr Chips” (1969), directed by Herbert Ross, and featuring wonderful performances by Peter O’Toole as Chips and Petula Clark as his wife Katherine. The screenplay was fashioned by one of the 20th Century’s leading playwrights, Terence Rattigan, while Leslie Bricusse provided both the music and lyrics for the songs, some of which are enchanting despite what certain critics have said about them. David Lindup, father of Level 42's Mike, whom Pat had first met while they were both working for British Jazz legend John Dankworth was one of the orchestrators on the project, under the masterful musical direction of John Williams. Sadly for all its virtues, "Chips" was not a critical success, although it was nominated for several major awards and enjoys a passionate following today, notably on the internet.

 Also in '69, Pat worked on another film which has since grown in stature, David Lean's penultimate movie "Ryan's Daughter", written by playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt and with music by French composer Maurice Jarre. Like "Chips", "Ryan's Daughter" was poorly received by the critics, although it was a moderate box office success, and is considered by many today to be a worthy addition to Lean's peerless body of work.

Patrick Halling’s Musical Voyage 2

As the sixties gave way to the '70s, Mickie Most entered the second phase of his glittering Pop career, although he was briefly involved with highly successful Hard Rock band the Jeff Beck Group which had been formed in early 1967. Beck had signed a personal management contract with Most who apparently wanted to turn him into a solo star, even though his backing band included one Rod Stewart on lead vocals. The Jeff Beck Group having failed to produce any hit singles, Most's business partner Peter Grant eventually took over their management, arranging a six week tour of the US in early '68. They went on to take America by storm, anticipating the success of another Grant-led band, Led Zeppelin.

 While Grant went on to Rock mega-glory with Zep, Mickie set about turning RAK - which they'd founded together in 1969 - into one the key Pop record labels of the '70s and home to several classic Glam, Pop and Teenybop acts such as the soulful Hot Chocolate and former Detroit rocker Suzi Quatro - with whom Pat worked on several occasions with Mickie at the helm - as well as Mud, Arrows, Kenny, Smokie and Racey.

 Talking about Pop, in the early 1970s, John Cameron became an unlikely member of a successful Pop act himself as part of CCS, a band he put together with Mickie for RAK, and featuring the Blues guitarist Alexis Korner as band leader, but with Danish musician Peter Thorup doing most of the vocals.
 Alexis Korner has been called the Founding Father of British Blues, and with good reason because possibly more than anyone he was the incubator of the '60s Blues Boom which was one of the great cornerstones of the entire Rock movement. Some of the bands who were swept to stardom in its wake went on to be part of the celebrated British Invasion of the US charts which could be said to have transformed the American cultural landscape.

 Born in Paris of Austrian and Greek ancestry, Korner began his musical career in 1949 as a member of Chris Barber's Jazz Band, but his love of the then lesser known music of the Blues led to his forming the band Blues Incorporated in 1961 with singer Long John Baldry, harmonica player Cyril Davies, guitarist Jack Bruce, saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Charlie Watts.
 The list of musicians who were drawn to Korner's regular Rythym and Blues night at the Ealing Jazz Club in the early '60s included future members of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones, as well as Rod "The Mod" Stewart, and spectacularly handsome Oxford undergraduate Paul Jones. Paul had apparently been Brian Jones' first choice as vocalist for his band the Rollin' Stones, which he put together in 1962 with piano player Ian Stewart from Cheam in Surrey who'd been recruited from an ad in Jazz News, but he turned him down, only to resurface at a later date as front man for another Blues-based band which achieved mainstream Pop success, Manfred Mann.

 A mere nine years after their formation, with poor Brian Jones no longer living, the Stones started work on the album which is widely considered to be their masterpiece, "Exile on Main Street". These first sessions took place in the basement of the Villa Nellcôte, a 19th century mansion on the waterfront of Villefranche-sur-Mer in France's Cote d'Azur, which had been leased to Keith Richards in the summer of '71, although several tracks had already been recorded at West London's Olympic Studios, as well as at Mick Jagger's country estate, Stargroves near Newbury in Berkshire. Much has been written of the ultra-decadence surrounding the "Exile" sessions, which saw various icons of the counterculture passing through Nellcote as if there to bestow their blessings on the proceedings. They could be said to be the quintessence of the Rock and Roll lifestyle following a mere decade of Rock culture, which had yet already altered Western society as a whole almost beyond recognition. However, blame for this transformation can't in all good conscience be laid exclusively at the feet of Rock. That would be absurd.

 It seems pretty clear to me that the cultural revolution of the 1960s didn't just appear out of nowhere, and that tendencies inimical to the Judaeo-Christian moral fabric of our civilisation can be traced at least as far back as the Enlightenment of the 16th and 17th Centuries, which could be said to be the starting point of the Modern Age. Much of the groundwork had already been done in other words, and that's especially true of the two immediate post-war decades, in which the Existentialists and the Beats became international icons of revolt, with lesser groups like the Lettrists of Paris acting as scandal-sowing forerunners of the '60s Situationists...Britain's first major youth cult surfaced in the shape of the Edwardians who later became known as Teddy Boys or Teds...a cinema of youthful discontent flourished as never before creating a desire among many young people to be identified as wild ones and rebels without a cause...and Rock and Roll - perhaps already jaded as an art form by 1972...the year the Stones' "Exile on Main Street" finally saw the light of day - took over the world, with Elvis Presley as its first true superstar.

 That same year saw Pat work on an infinitely more humble musical project, Richard Harris' "Slides" which, while a success on the Billboard charts at the time has since been sadly overlooked, although it was released on CD with another Harris album "My Boy" in 2005, receiving very high ratings from Amazon reviewers both in Britain and the US. 

 A year later, Pat worked on the first of two pictures helmed by the great Fred Zinnemann, whom he was kind enough to introduce me to - and on the set of "Julia" (1979) unless I'm mistaken - and he was utterly enchanting. This was "The Day of the Jackal", based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth, and with music this time by Georges Delerue, whom I also met with Pat. Although not a commercial success, it's now seen as a classic British thriller in the tradition of Carol Reed's "The Third Man", and Edward Fox's mesmerising performance as the elegant ruthless Jackal helped turn him into a major star.

Patrick Halling’s Musical Voyage 3

By the start of the 1970s, for a teenager like myself and many of my friends, Rock and Roll music had divided into two categories. One we knew as Commercial, a word we tended to spit out like some kind of curse, the other, Underground, or some other term reflective of its shadowy exclusivity. While the former was effectively pure Pop, whose domain was the Hit Parade or Pop charts weekly featured on the British TV program Top of the Pops, the latter consisted of groups who made music largely for the growing album market...and there were those Rock acts such as Led Zeppelin who never graced the singles chart despite earning fortunes through concerts and album sales. Within album Rock many strains co-existed as I recall, including Hard or Heavy Rock, Soft Rock of the type of Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash, and the Art or Progressive Rock pioneered by the Beatles, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, the Doors and others.
 Despite himself Pat was part of it from the outset, notably through his association with the Beatles, who by '67 were at the forefront of the Rock revolution, having arguably left much of their Pop career behind them once they'd retired from touring, although their Rock was ever replete with beautiful Pop melodies.

 However, it was Jethro Tull, a British band that achieved both commercial and critical success on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, that marked the height of his relationship with the new Art Rock phenomenon. Working with front man - as well as singer, flautist and composer - Ian Anderson, and conductor, arranger and keyboard player David Palmer, Pat served as leader for two Tull albums, which is to say, “Warchild” from 1974, and “Minstrel in the Gallery” from a year later, both recognised today as undisputed masterpieces of the Progressive genre.
 During the Prog Rock boom which was at its height from about 1969 to 1975, Pat played on several albums which while not successful in the mould of best sellers by Tull, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and others, have nonetheless received fresh critical acclaim through the internet, some of this verging on the adulatory.

 They include “Definitely What” (1968) by Brian Auger and the Trinity, “Cosmic Wheels” (1973) by Donovan, “Beginnings” (1975) by Yes guitarist Steve Howe, "Octoberon" by Symphonic Rock pioneers Barclay James Harvest, and two by Gordon Giltrap, “Visionary” from '76 and “Perilous Journey” from the following year. Giltrap, I feel safe in asserting, is one of the most outlandishly gifted guitarists -acoustic or otherwise - in the history of recorded music.

 For composer-producer-arranger-conductor Johnny Harris, who has worked in various capacities with some of the greatest names in entertainment of the last half century including Michael Jackson, Sammy Davis Jnr., Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis and Tom Jones, Pat led the strings on “All To Bring You Morning” (1973), his second solo album, which featured no less than three one-time members of Prog Rock legends Yes, namely the aforesaid Steve Howe, vocalist/composer Jon Anderson, and drummer Alan White, who just happened to be recording next door at the time as Johnny and friends and were great admirers of his work. It achieved a CD release in 2008.
 For his very close friend Derek Wadsworth he played on “Metropolitan Man” (1974) by Alan Price, the former keyboardist for British Invasion band the Animals. They scored an international mega-hit in 1964 with their version of the traditional Folk song "The House of the Rising Sun" produced by Mickie Most, who masterminded the first two years of their career, during which they became Pop sensations in the US almost on a par with the Beatles and the Stones. Alan Price left in 1965 to form his own Alan Price Set, which, with songs such as the classic “House that Jack Built” from '67, combined musical virtuosity with lashings of commercial appeal, a gift that was one of the hallmarks of classic sixties Pop, but which had perhaps declined somewhat by the turn of the ultimate Pop decade.

 In the early '70s though, the Glam-Glitter genre took off in Britain, taking the Pop charts by storm in the process. Among those artists who became superstars through Glam, a heterogeneous mixture of Pop and Rock whose purveyors flaunted an outrageous androgynous image were Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and Elton John, all of whom had been striving for Rock and Roll success for years.

 Bolan is widely credited with inventing Glam, although it had been foreshadowed in the '60s by the Stones and others, but its true pioneer was arguably Little Richard, known today as the Reverend Richard Penniman. 

 Among the first generation of Rock stars he was the most overtly androgynous, although it's been said he took much of his image from a little known Rock shouter named Esquerita, who was believed to have been even wilder than Richard....if that were at all possible. A product of the southern Bible Belt like Richard, Esquerita died young at only 49 years old from an AIDS-related illness after a life of relative obscurity.

 As a child Richard had attended Pentecostal churches in his native Georgia, and seriously considered becoming a preacher of the Gospel; but it was also in these churches that he developed the musical gifts that were to lead to his ultimately embracing the music which he has gone on record as declaring to be incompatible with the Christian life. In fact, few Rock stars have been quite so vocal in their denunciation of the spiritual dangers of Rock music as Little Richard Penniman. For a time, however, he was the most outrageous of the early Rock idols, and many of Rock's most dynamic performers - Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and David Bowie among them - have cited him as a seminal influence.

 The Glam Rock era of 1971-'73 was to some extent a revival of the sartorial flashiness - and musical simplicity - of early Rock and Roll...and one which swept a host of gifted young musicians who'd been striving for major success since the early 1960s to fresh levels of stardom in the UK and elsewhere. Yet, despite the Pop star status they enjoyed in the UK, several of these were viewed as serious album artists as well as TV idols, among them Rod Stewart, David Bowie and Elton John, and significantly all three remain international Rock icons to this day. On the other hand, other Glam acts were viewed largely as singles bands during a golden age for the British Pop charts...and one that seriously advantaged a certain East End boy of part Irish Traveller extraction by the name of David Cook.

 As David Essex, he became a star on the fringes of Glam, not through Rock nor teeny bop Pop, but largely through acting both onstage and in the movies. It was his own song, "Rock On" a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1974 that really put him on the map as a major heart throb...together with the '73 movie "That'll be the Day", directed by Claude Watham, in which he plays a young tearaway in a bleak pre-Beatles Britain who yearns for Rock and Roll stardom, and ultimately leaves his young family to pursue it. In the follow-up, "Stardust" (1974) - also the name of Essex's third British hit single - he achieves his dream...but ends up living as a wasted recluse in a vast castle in Spain.

 Both "Rock On" and "Stardust" were produced by New Yorker Jeff Wayne. Pat worked with him not just on "Rock On", but his own “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds” which has achieved classic status since its release in 1978.

Towards the middle of the '70s, Soul music, a popular genre which had evolved out of Gospel and R&B birthed a mutation known as Disco, one of whose hallmarks was the liberal use of strings often played in a staccato style. In consequence, Pat was involved in several major Disco projects, including the band "Love and Kisses" formed by Alec R Costandinos, which produced three albums between 1977 and '79. While these have been obscured by Giorgio Moroder's groundbreaking work with Donna Summer, they were massively successful at the time, yielding several US hit singles and helping to define the Disco sound. Both Pat and Costandinos had earlier worked with another French Disco pioneer Jean-Marc Cerrone on his hit album, "Love in C Minor" from 1976.
 Pat played on several other Costandinos records, including an acknowledged Disco masterpiece "Romeo and Juliet" (1978) which unlike many of the classic works of the Disco era was not flagrantly risqué in the lyrical department. He also worked on the album “Limelight Disco Symphony” (1978) by Melophonia which was a Disco tribute produced by Franck Pourcel and Alain Boublil to Sir Charles Chaplin, who'd died on Christmas Day '77. Some years previously, Pat had worked with him on sessions which involved some of his classic films being set to new musical arrangements, and he'd introduced me to him, and he was charming; in fact it was one of the most memorable events of my life.

 Boublil went on to write the libretto for the musical "Les Miserables" with composer Claude Schonberg, and it was John Cameron who arranged it for them. Pat was involved with the London production of "Les Miz" for many years as the leader of the orchestra, one of several highlights of a theatrical career which has involved his working with such legends as Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Tiny Tim, Barry Manilow and Boy George of Culture Club, and touring with Tom Jones, Barrie White and others. But it's his participation in Bing Crosby's final tour of London in September 1977 that is perhaps the most memorable of all. In that same month, Bing, his family, and his close friend Rosemary Clooney began a concert tour of England that included two weeks at the London Palladium. He recorded an album "Seasons", and a TV Christmas special with David Bowie and Twiggy in the UK. His duet with Bowie on "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" was listed in Britain's TV Guide as one of the 25 most memorable musical moments of 20th Century television. After the tour Pat actually managed to wangle an autograph from Bing during a last recording session at Maida Vale studios. Der Bingle had initially objected to Pat helping himself to a piece of his sheet music, before relenting with the words, "he seems like a good man", and autographing the music into the bargain. He died some days afterwards on October 14th, following a round of 18 holes of golf near Madrid where he and his Spanish golfing partner had just defeated their opponents, towards the end of a year which had seen the deaths of a string of cultural giants including - in addition to Bing - Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Maria Callas and Elvis Presley.
 Speaking of John Cameron...he was one of the men responsible for a rare classic of British Soul, "Central Heating" (1978) by London-based Funk outfit Heatwave. John served as producer on the sessions, with Pat as his concermaster, while the songs were mainly written by keyboardist Rod Temperton. Temperton was the white Englishman who went on to write several of the most memorable numbers from the best-selling long player in musical history, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" from 1982, which was produced by Quincy Jones, as well as for Quincy's own album "The Dude", for Patti Austin, George Benson, Anita Baker and others. Three Heatwave songs, all written by Temperton and produced by Cameron were millions sellers in the US, these being "Boogie Nights", "The Groove Line" and the lovely ballad, "Always and Forever", sung straight from the heart by tragic former US serviceman Johnny Wilder Jr, who had one of Soul's greatest and most underrated voices.
 At the end of the '70s, Pat played what was possibly his most memorable ever solo for a television program and that was for the stunning opening and closing theme to BBC’s “Life on Earth” (1979), composed by Edward Williams and conducted by Marcus Dods. This 13-part documentary series by British naturalist David Attenborough - whom I met very briefly at a social function with his wife in the late 1970s, most probably ’79 - is widely considered to be one of the greatest ever made; but for some people- and as a Christian I include myself among them- it was controversial, given its foundation in the Theory of Evolution.

Patrick Halling’s Musical Voyage 4

The '80s was a difficult decade for session musicians like Pat as the synthesizer started making stronger inroads than had previously been the case into the world of recorded music, and that's especially true of the so-called New Pop that arose in Britain in the wake of Punk. Several New Pop acts took part in the so-called Second British Invasion, which saw British bands dominating the American Pop charts to a degree unknown since the first one led by the Beatles. This was significantly due to a demand on the part of the newly launched MTV music channel for colourful videos of which there was a shortage in the US at the time, and it enabled several - largely synth-driven - British bands such as the Human League, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Culture Club and Eurythmics to score massive transatlantic hits. 

 Despite the inexorable rise of electronic Pop, Pat's career proceeded apace during the '80s. In 1980, he worked once again for his close friend John Cameron, this time on "The Mirror Crack'd" based on the Agatha Christie novel, with music by JC, and featuring a roll call of Hollywood legends including Elisabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, and Kim Novak, with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple. Pat even had a small non-speaking cameo in the movie as a World War II bandleader, a walk-on admittedly but a featured one. He worked with Cameron again on a further star-studded Christie movie, "Evil Under the Sun". Both were helmed by Bond director Guy Hamilton, and produced by John Brabourne, and Richard Goodwin, who became a friend of Pat's, and they were to work together several more times in the '80s and '90s.

 For Richard’s wife writer/director Christine Edzard, he was the violin soloist for “Biddy” (1983), working again with Christine - with Richard producing - on “Little Dorrit" (1988), based on the Dickens novel, and “The Fool” (1990), which was written by Christine with Oliver Stockman. All three movies were scored by French composer Michel Sanvoisin. Incidentally on “Little Dorrit”, based on the novel by Charles Dickens, Pat is credited either as soloist or song performer, duty he shared with his beloved friend, Catalan cellist Francisco Gabarro, known as Gabby, as well as the celebrated clarinettist Jack Brymer.

 For Beatles legend Paul McCartney he led the orchestra for the soundtrack to the movie “Give My Regards to Broad Street” (1984), which sold well, including as it did reworked versions of six Beatles classics including "Eleanor Rigby", although the film itself performed poorly at the Box Office. Since '84, its reputation has barely improved, although on the US and British versions of Amazon it benefits from a good deal of affection on the part of everyday net users, a testament to the enormous good will MacCartney continues to generate on a worldwide basis.   

 Three years later, he worked with another Pop superstar of Irish ancestry, Enya Brennan - although unlike Macca she was actually born on the Emerald Isle - on "To Go Beyond II", final track of the highly successful “Enya” album to be precise. The album was later remastered and renamed “The Celts”, for use by the BBC for the 1992 TV series of the same name.
 Other television projects on which Pat worked in the '80s include “Hold that Dream” (1986) based on the novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford, with original score by long time friend Barrie Guard, “Tears in the Rain” (1988), from a novel by Pamela Wallace, with music again by Guard, and “The Darling Buds of May” (1992-1993), based on the novel by HE Bates, and with music by Pip Burley and Guard.
 In 1989, he worked with a yet another Rock legend, Pete Townsend, serving as leader on the concept album "The Iron Man - The Musical", based on the novel by Ted Hughes. Townsend was of course the guiding spirit of the Who, whose contribution to the so-called British Invasion of the US by English bands, led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, was little short of earth-shaking...as even more than the Stones they provided the basis for much of the Hard and Heavy Rock to follow. Interestingly, Pete's father Jazz saxophonist Cliff Townsend had been a colleague of Pat's during their time together on the BBC 1 program Parkinson, named after British chat show master Michael Parkinson.
 In 1990, he appeared on John Williams’ album “The Guitar is the Song”, having earlier worked with the great Classical guitarist on “John Williams plays Patrick Gowers and Scarlatti” (1972), and specifically on Gowers’ “Chamber Concerto for Guitar”, as well as “Portrait of John Williams” (1982), on which he served as leader of the String Orchestra for Vivaldi’s Concerto in D major, and “Cavatina” by Stanley Myers, known by many as the theme to “The Deerhunter”.

 Moving into the so-called Noughties...between 2000 and 2002, Pat played violin for Nuages, a band specialising in Swing, Vocal Jazz and Classic Easy Listening formed by his good friend Barrie Guard, and featuring myself on vocals. We laid down a series of superb demos - beautifully arranged by Barrie - at his home studio in the outer suburbs of London, and even went so far as to record a pilot radio show but to no avail.  We gigged sporadically for about a year and a half, and response to our music was polite at best, until a final concert at the 2002 Shelton Arts Festival brought us into contact with the kind of intimate cultured audience we perhaps should have been aiming for all along...and we all but brought the house down. Sadly though, for a variety of reasons Nuages dispersed soon afterwards.
 On a brighter note, there's a fascinating tale attached to singer-songwriter John Dawson Read for whom Pat served as leader on his two '70s albums, “A Friend of Mine is Going Blind” (1975) and “Read On” (1976). Sometime around 2005, fellow singer-songwriter Michael Johnson included an MP3 of Read singing the title track of his first album, “A Friend of Mine” on his website, and many Read fans began communicating through the site in consequence. His subsequent re-entry into the music world after nearly thirty years of relative - although not complete - inactivity, resulted in a third album, “Now…Where were we?” being released that same year.
 Until quite recently, Pat served as leader - under the headship of conductor and composer Ronnie Hazelhurst - for the BBC comedy series that is the longest running in television history, Roy Clarke's "Last of the Summer Wine". Working alongside Pat on the series was harmonica maestro Jim Hughes, whose playing it is that makes Ronnie's gently pastoral theme tune so distinctive.  With Jim's help, Pat began work on an album of popular song standards - featuring myself on vocals - some time in the mid Noughties, possibly 2006. Eventually given the title  “A Taste of Summer Wine” thanks to the generosity of Ronnie Hazelhurst, it's credited to James Hughes Carl Halling with the London Swingtette, the latter consisting of, in addition to Pat's own Quartet Pro Musica, Judd Procter on guitar, Manfred Mann founder member Dave Richmond, and John Sutton, on bass, and John Dean and Sebastian Guard on drums. The album was engineered by sound recordist Tony Philpot, and Keith Grant - formerly of West London's legendary Olympic Studios - and finally released in 2007. Olympic became one of the great recording centres of British Hard Rock after it had been bought by Keith and Cliff Barnes in 1966, with the Stones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Queen all recording there, as well as the Beatles, The Small Faces, Procul Harum, Traffic, Hawkwind and others.
 Other recent projects of Pat's have included the world premiere of the string quartet “A Poet’s Calendar” by long-time friend Derek Wadsworth, which took place at the Riverhouse Barn studio in Walton on Thames, Surrey, on the 10th March 2007, with Pat leading his own revived Quartet Pro Musica, and the first live performances of Quartets 1 and 2 by Jazz drummer and composer Tony Kinsey. As things stand, Pat plays in two quartets, the previously mentioned Pro Musica, and the Leonardo, formed in 1993.
 Despite having worked as a professional musician for more than half a century, Pat is still a force within the music industry, and has recently spoken on television and elsewhere on his work with the Beatles. He also paints now under the quaint monicker of Clancy, the middle name he once rejected. Furthermore, he's still winning up to two races every Sunday for his local sailing club. There seems to be no end to the man's almost preternatural energy and force of will. Although there's no hard and fast evidence that Pat has Scandinavian blood, research related to the Norwegians who emigrated to the American Midwest - and particularly Minnesota -from about the mid-19th Century onwards, reveals that one of the characteristics of the inhabitants of the Halling Valley known as Hallings and speaking a dialect known as Halling is firmness “in thoughts and beliefs”, so that he would “rather break than bend”. This in the words of the Norwegian-American writer Syver Swenson Rodning, who in 1917 took first prize in an essay set by a man called Hallingen called “A Halling is a Halling wherever he is”. The Hallings themselves settled primarily in Spring Grove, Minnesota, with traces of their subculture surviving into the 1930s. Perhaps then, alone among the three children born to Phyllis Mary Halling, Patrick is a true Halling with roots deep in the Hallingdal in Norway's Buskerud County where the Halling Valley River lies.

In the summer of 1972, I finally quit Pangbourne in consequence of a decision made between my father and those in authority over me at college to the effect that it was pointless my staying on for the final two years, presumably because "A" or Advanced level GCE - or General Certificate of Education - exams would be far beyond me. After all, I'd only succeeded in passing two GCE "O" Levels (in French and English Literature)...five being the minimum acceptable amount for entrance into university, together with two or more well-graded "A" Levels, depending on the university. GCE "O" levels were phased out in 1988, in favour of GCSEs.

 I was subsequently involved in the intensive program of academic, artistic, sporting and semi- professional activities outlined in my previous autobiographical work, "Rescue of a Rock and Roll Child", and continued to be so until about 1977.

 When I left that summer, I'd not changed for years and was still a hippie at heart despite the military-style haircut I so detested and resented, and resolutely masculine in my tastes, despising softness and effeminacy in the standard male adolescent manner, but a change came over me in the summer of '72, which may have been caused to some degree by the prevailing zeitgeist in the UK at least, but which I can nonetheless trace back to a single defining incident.

 This took place in a bar in the little former fishing town of Santiago de la Ribera in the province of Murcia, Spain, close by the Mar Menor, where I'd been vacationing with my parents and brother since the late 1960s, and which I'd like now to recount.

 There was a young man of the pueblo I'd idolised for several years. He incarnated a kind of old-school Iberian macho cool, and was fair as I recall, rather than swarthy as might be expected, and quite stocky, with muscular arms...and if he'd worn a medallion and identity bracelet, he'd have been typical of his kind. That's how I recall him... 

 What I'm certain of though is that by the summer of '72, he'd let his hair grow collar length as was the fashion of the day - even though it was still quite rare among Spanish men - and taken to sporting colourful large-collared shirts which he elected not to tuck into his trousers. The style of these shirts meant that his long hair would occasionally get caught between neck and collar which necessitated his flicking it out with an elegant sweep of his hand and coquettishly tossing his head. This he did one evening in full view of Castilla's clientele.

 While these gestures seemed perfectly in keeping with his swaggering machismo as I saw it, there was another of Castilla's patrons that evening who was far less convinced than I, and he duly muttered his misgivings in my ear. Rather than putting me off, these whispered words of censure had the effect of making him even more fascinating than ever; and it may be that as a result of this episode, I came to covet the notoriety that had suddenly been afforded him. Furthermore, this incident may have marked the beginning of the end of my identification with undiluted masculinity...whether of the type of the macho movie star such as Steve McQueen, or that of any number of hirsute Hard Rock shouters, and the onset of a fascination with a far more androgynous brand of male sexuality. 

 This was compounded by a performance I witnessed on TV towards the end of the year on an afternoon Pop show called Lift off with Ayesha (hosted by presenter Ayesha Brough) of former Bubblegum band the Sweet, performing their startling new single, "Blockbuster". The Sweet had once incarnated everything I loathed about commercial Pop music, but watching them prance around in high heels and make up, pouting and preening like a quartet of amphetamine-crazed transvestites, I had what was little short of an epiphany. What the effect this spectacle had on my nascent sexual identity I can only imagine.

 However, the influence of the Sweet, devastating as it was, was destined - by 1973, the highpoint of Glam - to become minimal in comparison to that of David Bowie, whose sphinx-like charisma was so potent that even the most unreconstructed of provincial British macho men were drawn, irresistibly, to an art which combined the most infectious Pop melodies with complex, deeply literate lyrics, and yet one purveyed by a man who would once have moved those same men to violence. Indeed, Bowie still antagonised as many as he mesmerised in his Glam Rock heyday of 1972-'73.

 My whole persona seemed to soften once I'd turned 17 in October 1972, as maturity brought me a physiognomy I'd not expected, and yet, while I was more than pleased with this development, my interest in the opposite sex was as strong as any other male in late adolescence, although I was inclined to sentimental reverie rather than macho forwardness. If an attractive female happened to speak to me in a public place, I'd be all but incapable of sound...while in serious danger of falling in love on the spot.

 A propos of which, on the way back from Spain via Bilbao on the ship HMS Patricia in the summer of '72, I fell in love by sight with a fellow passenger, a young Spanish girl I saw several times about the ship but never actually spoke to, and subsequently became obsessed by her, even to the point of roaming the streets of London for several days in succession in the vain hope of somehow bumping into her.

 Several songs served as the soundtrack to this irrational spell of romantic madness, including Betcha by Golly Wow by the Stylistics, and Last Night I Didn't Get To Sleep At All by the 5th Dimension, written - respectively - by Philly Soul stalwarts Thom Bell and Linda Creed and master British songwriter Tony Macauley. The former initiated a love affair on my part with the aforesaid sweet Soul variant which - originating in the City of Brotherly Love - was popular from around 1969 to 1975, and it remains my favourite ever example of the genre...apart, that is, from the exorbitantly romantic La La la Means I love You by the Delphonics, also written by Thom Bell, but with first partner William Hart rather than the better known Linda Creed.

 Mine was an isolated existence throughout the following year of '73. When I wasn't pursuing the academic and sporting programme that had been specially prepared for me by my father, I sequestered myself in my parents' house, where I fantasised about the kind of fame enjoyed on one hand by Glam icons such as the Sweet and David Bowie, and on the other, by a new breed of teen idol that included Donny Osmond and David Cassidy, whose angelic faces graced the covers of teen magazines all over the world, and like them I wanted to be endlessly pursued by hordes of lovelorn teenyboppers. I was supposed to be studying, and study I certainly did, but I also spent untold hours in idle contemplation of the glamour of the superstar lifestyle...a life I wanted for myself as soon as possible, and despite a serious dearth of discernible talent.

 Late in that same summer, I signed up for five years service with the London Division of the Royal Naval Reserve, based at HMS President on the Embankment of the Thames. Within a short time of doing so, I discovered that I was seen by several of the older seamen as some kind of shipboard mascot/pretty boy and at first I was flattered rather than insulted to be seen in this way, because it was all new to me, given that my reputation at Pangbourne was that of an unkempt scran bag. To a degree then, it was a case of an ugly duckling suddenly finding themselves to be a swan, and enjoying the resultant attention...or rather the notoriety, such as that conferred on the young Spaniard of the Bar Castilla in the summer of '72 by the wry mutterings of a disapproving patron.

 '73 was the year in which Glam became a national craze throughout Britain and other Western countries, although it had been carried into the Pop mainstream several years earlier by the aforesaid Marc Bolan, who'd been featured in 1962 in a magazine called Town, as one of the Faces, or leading Mods of his area of East London, Stamford Hill, although by then he'd moved with his family to a council house in Summerstown near Wimbledon.

 He went on to become a darling of the Hippie Underground as one half of the acoustic duo, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the other being multi-instrumentalist Steve Peregrin Took, whose tastes inclined more towards the avant garde than Bolan, and who was eventually replaced by Mickey Finn. In 1970, Bolan shortened the name of the band to T.Rex and soon after enjoying his first major hit single in the autumn of that year, became the biggest British teen sensation since the heyday of Beatlemania...as lovingly portrayed by Elton John in "Teenage Idol", his 1972 tribute - with lyrics by Bernie Taupin - to his one-time Glam Rock comrade-in-arms.

 In truth though, Glam was not as new as many might have believed it to be...extreme androgyny having been pioneered in Pop music all throughout the '60s by such figures as Brian Jones of the Stones and Pink Floyd’s lost genius Roger “Syd” Barrett, although it could be said that its true founding father had been Rhythm and Blues shouter Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard. After all when it comes to Rock and Roll, everything can be traced back to the early days and beyond that to the Blues themselves.

 As a boy, Richard attended the New Hope Baptist Church in his native Macon, Georgia, and sang Gospel songs with his family as The Penniman Singers, his favourite singers being Gospel legends Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. He joined Sister Rosetta onstage in Macon at the age of 13, in 1945 after she heard him singing before the concert. What's more, he had serious ambitions of becoming a preacher.

 By 1951, however, the world had begun to beckon, and he won a talent contest in Atlanta that led to a recording contract with RCA Victor, but the four records he subsequently released all flopped. Around about the same time, he came under the sway of an outrageous Rhythm and Blues musician by the name of Esquerita, who shaped his unique piano style. Esquerita is also believed to have influenced his increasingly flamboyant image, although self-styled King of the Blues Billy Wright, who piled his pomaded hair high on his head - as did Esquerita - and wore eye liner and face powder, was also an influence in this respect. Real success came for Richard in 1955 with Tutti Frutti, which has been cited as the true starting point for the Rock and Roll revolution; but within two years, he'd quit the business and returned to his faith.

 Whether Richard is saved or not no one knows except God, but one thing that is certain is that few Rock stars have been as vocal in their condemnation of Rock and Roll as he has been. He has been quoted as saying that Rock and Roll is driving people from Christ, and that he himself was directed and commanded by another power. The power of darkness. This presumably at the height of his influence as a Rock and Roll star. And if anybody knows whereof they speak when it comes to this massively influential musical and social movement, it's the good Reverend Penniman. I think he's a man worth listening to myself.

The Punk Rock Insurrection

 By the end of '73, the first wave of Glam Rock had all but dispersed, although it was to experience repeated periodic revivals, notably in the '80s through the New Romantic movement in the UK, and the Glam Metal scene in the US. It still exists to some degree...yet with its power to shock effectively reduced to nothing, such is the extent to which the West has become inured to outrage.

 Within three years, it had been supplanted by a movement which - if it were at all possible - was even more outrageous…I'm referring of course to Punk.

 By the time I left the RNR in '77 as an Able Seaman - and armed with a character report that was only a little shy of glowing - Punk was in full swing, and within a few months, I was a fellow traveller myself, my hair dyed and spiked, and favouring black drainpipes, usually worn with black leather winkle picker boots and other provocative items of clothing.

 Punk's origins lay in the US among the so-called Garage bands of the 1960s, who attempted to emulate the rougher acts of the British Invasion, such as the Stones, the Kinks, the Who, the Troggs, the Pretty Things, who were themselves heavily indebted to American Rhythm and Blues. But it was the distinct New York variant that exerted the greatest influence on the British Punk uprising...easily the most momentous of them all...and largely through the influence of a brilliant young London entrepreneur by the name of Malcolm McLaren.

 McLaren, whose Jewish mother had owned a shmatte (clothing) factory in London's East End was a former art student turned boutique owner, who by early 1972 was selling '50s style clothing - among other items - designed by his then partner Vivienne Westwood through an outlet at 430 Kings Road, Chelsea, which he'd named Let it Rock. It exists to this day as part of Dame Vivienne's global fashion empire as World's End, which it was renamed in late 1980.

 In the late 1960s, he'd been drawn to the subversive ideas of the Paris Situationists, believed to have played a part in fometing the '68 riots, themselves offshoots of the previously mentioned post-war Lettrists, who were very much precursors of the British Punk variant. He brought them to bear as he set about developing the Punk look in mid '70s London.

 In 1975 he became the manager of the disintegrating Glam band the New York Dolls, designing red leather outfits for them in tandem with a new pseudo-Communist image, which proved a disastrous move and they split up soon afterwards. Yet, while in NYC, he came across a fledgling Punk outfit by the name of the Neon Boys, featuring two young former Sandford Preparatory students by the name of Tom Verlaine - named after the French Symbolist poet Paul - and Richard Hell... born Thomas Miller and Richard Meyers in Morristown, NJ. and Lexington, Ky. respectively.

 He was especially impressed by Hell's unique image of spiky hair - allegedly inspired by the famous tousle-haired photograph of Rimbaud by Etienne Carjat - and torn tee-shirt held together with safety pins. He attempted to persuade Hell to return with him to London, but the poet and musician demurred, so McLaren returned alone in mid 1975.

 Some time afterwards, he renamed his Kings Road boutique Sex and set himself up as the manager of a group known as the Strand (after a song by Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music). The Strand had originally been formed by three working class denizens of the Hammersmith - Shepherds Bush - Acton area of West London, allegedly at the urging of guitarist Warwick "Wally" Nightingale.

 Mclaren agreed to be their manager only on the condition that founder member Wally - deemed "too nice" by the entrepreneur - be ejected from the band, and so he was. Then, when a charismatic young London Irishman by the name of Johnny Rotten - born John Lydon in Finsbury Park, N4 - came onboard as lead singer, and the band was renamed the Sex Pistols, they were set to spearhead the most infamous and influential Punk insurrection of them all.

 I was more than happy to be caught up in it all...although when I auditioned for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in late '77, none of my overseers would have suspected anything of the sort. These included the handsome patrician head of a British acting dynasty that thrives to this day who informed a third party - I can't recall who - something to the effect that while my stagecraft was crude and chaotic it was also mesmerising, and he believed something could be done with me at the school, and told me so. As it turned out he was wrong, but his initial faith resulted in my being offered a place on the three-year Drama course beginning in the autumn of 1978.

 The Clattering of the Compact

Once I started at Guildhall, I made it pretty clear than the nice clean-cut Carl who'd auditioned the previous year had been a curve ball, as I was making no further attempts to conceal my Punk image. This was compounded by a bizarre hyperactivity that occasionally degenerated into outrageous and even disruptive behaviour. It was as if I was determined to convince the world that I was an Artist with a capital A and therefore entitled to incessantly attract attention to myself with aberrant behaviour and clothing. With regard to the latter, among the items I favoured in '78-'79 were slim jim ties, drainpipe jeans, florescent Fifties-style socks, and white leather brothel creepers, but my favourite of all was a pair of tight plastic snakeskin trousers, which I can only actually remember wearing once.

 As if my manic behaviour and bizarre clothing weren't enough to cause eyebrows to raise among the Guildhall authorities, I insisted on wearing make-up even in classes, although to be fair it was subtly applied, except for on certain occasions such as parties when I really piled on the slap, foundation, eye shadow, blusher, lip rouge, the works. Talk about lipstick, powder and paint..

 On one memorable occasion, in the course of a mime class supervised by a quirky bearded professional mime artist who'd been a regular on children's TV for a time, and who worked as an occasional teacher at the Guildhall, the rouge compact I usually carried in those days for sporadic touch-ups fell out of the inner pocket of my jacket when I bent over during an exercise before hitting the floor with an embarrassing clatter. All eyes went to the offending compact, and there was a mortifying silence...which our mentor mercifully broke by retrieving the blusher from the floor, and – while urging us to make use of everything that comes to hand - started furiously daubing peoples’ startled faces with glittery blusher, thereby sparing my blushes.

 He was a champion of mine among the members of staff at this time, and they'd become thin on the ground quite early on in the course…by the time in fact that I was summoned to the principal's office to be informed something along the lines that I'd be better off away from college. Naturally I disagreed, but I had no choice but to go along with their opinion. As things turned out, though, I didn't leave until the end of the year, and at the end of the second term I was told my work had much improved, so it looked like I might be asked to stay on; but it wasn't to be, and I was definitively informed I'd have to go a little before the end of my third term. It was on this very day, or not long afterwards, that another friend of mine from among the teaching staff - and a working actress at the time - rushed up to me to tell me in no uncertain terms that I was extremely talented and that I ought to aim for the Fringe…which is the London equivalent of Off-Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway…

 But it wasn’t the Fringe…it was the great British tradition of pantomime that ultimately claimed me...and within months of quitting college, I was Christian the Chorus Boy in a panto production of Sleeping Beauty which played at the Buxton Opera House over Christmas '79, and if that sounds louche then it assuredly was…at least how I interpreted him: in pale ballet-style tights and full make-up.

 Still, my days of wearing slap were numbered, because within less than two years of the Sleeping Beauty tour...around about the time in fact that the New Romantic movement - which was a Glam revival to a degree, fused with the more sophisticated decadence of figures such as David Bowie and Bryan Ferry - was at its apex, all forms of face paint were causing my eyes to become puffy and red-rimmed. I had to convince myself that I could still be interesting without cosmetic enhancement, and this was a tough order for me at first...but at least my dandyism remained undimmed, in fact, enhanced thanks to the sartorial liberalism of the crazy nineteen eighties…and what a decade that was!