So, it turns out that Tony Blair's dodgy tennis partner, Middle East envoy and loans-for-peerages wheeler & dealer, Lord Levy, used to be exactly what he looks like: Alvin Stardust's manager. (For non-Brit readers, Alvin Stardust was/is a retro rocker from that awful rock'n'roll revival period that gave us acts like Showaddywaddy. A sort of less successful Gary Glitter without the paedophilia.)
Alvin Stardust had been, in a previous incarnation, Shane Fenton of Shane Fenton & The Fentones. (For non-Brit readers, a late-coming Merseybeat group who enjoyed a couple of minor hits.)
Between the two incarnations, in the early 1970s, a friend and I went to interview him. He was living in a council house in outer Liverpool, setting the poetry of the bloke next door to music and trying to get a deal for this sensitive-singer-songwriter album he'd made. He was married to a pleasant woman called Iris. She was the sister of Rory Storme of that important Merseybeat group Rory Storme & The Hurricanes. Their drummer had been Ringo Starkey (aka Starr), who'd quit to join The Beatles.
So: Beatles - Ringo - Rory - Iris - Alvin - Lord Levy - Blair.
Also, Iris (Caldwell, I think?) is mentioned in the Beatles Anthology book. She was George Harrison's first girlfriend and there is a photo of the two of them together.
ReplyDeleteMichael
ReplyDeleteApologies for asking you this question in the comments section but I can't find an email for you.
Will you be repeating the talk you're giving at the LRB bookshop tomorrow (July 18) at any point, in London? I really wanted to go but it's sold out.
Thanks
Sir W
Ah - well remembered. I didn't know that. She was discreet enough not to mention George at the interview with Shane.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to say that his real name was neither Shane nor Alvin but Bernard Jewry.
Anyway, thanks Andy.
Dear Anonymous Sir W
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking. Yes, I'm hoping to do a bigger, better talk at another London venue in October but nothing is fixed yet. We've been asking the ICA, for example, but in one place or another it'll happen.
Best~
Michael
Dear Michael,
ReplyDeleteAnother apology for this method of contact - similar e-mail problem.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed Song and Dance Man 3 - having read many Dylan books and found myself spitting and snarling at them, it has been a genuine pleasure to read one which said just about everything I felt was about right. The bugger of it though, is that Love & Theft came out after it. Having concurred pretty much with your thoughts on the slightly over-lauded 'Time Out Of Mind', I wondered what you thought of the much under-lauded 'Love & Theft', which I believe is the best thing Dylan's produced since Street Legal. I don't want to press on your time, but it would satisfy my curiosity to know what your general impression of the album was.
Yours sincerely,
A Complete Dylan Anorak.
John
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments - but to learn how I feel about "Love and Theft" (beyond simply VERY POSITIVE), I'm afraid you'll have to look at the entry on it in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (and/or come to one of my talks...)
Best wishes~
Michael