JOHN WATSON BLUES BLOG

Why would anyone in his right mind want to leave Liverpool in the 1960s, right at the height of Beatlemania, and move to Teesside? Well, I did just that, and I didn’t regret it.

I had been having a marvellous time as a trainee reporter on a Merseyside weekly paper, not least because part of the job was to write a pop page, visit clubs like The Cavern and the Peppermint Lounge, and interview stars from the worlds of pop, blues and jazz (yes, I did interview the Fab Four, just once, when they returned to Liverpool for the premiere of A Hard Day’s Night).

I was also in an R&B band, playing blues harmonica, following an impromptu lesson backstage at The Cavern from the great Sonny Boy Williamson. The band was The Earthlings, and after I joined them the first gig was at . . . you guessed it, The Cavern. I’ve been working my way down ever since.

Why leave this musical heaven and move to Teesside? I felt the need to move on from the weekly paper, and I landed a job as a reporter and feature writer at the Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough – offering more experience, and, crucially, more money. It turned out to be the right career move, as I found myself among a great bunch of very talented colleagues.
 
To my surprise and delight, musical life on Teesside was buzzing. I had the task of writing a column about the many nightclubs in the region, where stars such as Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and Frankie Howerd would frequently appear. The pop scene may not have been quite as dynamic as that in Liverpool, but the ‘house bands’ at the nightclubs were packed with brilliant jazz musicians, among them Teesside’s own great saxophonist Ron Aspery.

I discovered that Ron, who co-founded the pioneering jazz/blues/rock band Back Door, lived nearby in Thornaby. I was chatting to him one night in the bar at The Fiesta club in Stockton-on-Tees, and I told him that although I played blues harmonica, I had really always wanted to learn saxophone.

“I’ve got an old alto I can sell you,” he said. “How about £25?”

“Ron, that would be great, but I haven’t got £25.”

“Well, OK, pay me five quid a week. Pick the horn up at the flat.”

And so, thanks to Ron’s generosity, I became a saxophone player. Very slowly. It’s not an easy instrument.

It’s also a loud one, and the volume is especially hard to control when you are just starting out. My neighbours moaned, so I took the saxophone out to a disused airfield, standing next to my old Minivan and balancing the saxophone tutor book on the steering wheel. From time to time, learner drivers would arrive to motor round the airfield. Goodness knows what they thought when they saw a mad saxophone student wailing away next to a Minivan.  It’s not the kind of hazard people are warned about.

When I could just about hang a few scales together, I had the chance to join a blues band forming in Stockton: The Steel Mill Blues Band.  My first gig as a sax player! A dream come true! I must have sounded terrible, but the band was good and probably loud enough to drown me out.  Thanks to the magic of the internet, I’ve heard lately from two old friends from those days, bass player Dave Macnamara and harmonica player Chris Bailey (who was an Evening Gazette colleague, working in the art department).

However, my Steel Mill band days didn’t last long. I landed a new job as a feature writer and sub-editor on the Express & Star evening newspaper in the West Midlands. I moved to Staffordshire (where I still live), and switched from alto to tenor and soprano saxophones. I found a marvellous teacher in session player Joe Paterson, who was working in TV studios in Birmingham, and then started playing in jazz groups with some really excellent pro players. I’m still playing, though there are woefully few gigs on the jazz scene these days.

I took early retirement from the newspaper five years ago, and became a freelance photographer and writer, specialising in music. I’m a frequent contributor to Jazz Journal magazine and to the New York website www.jazzhouse.org, and I cover festivals and do publicity shoots for venues, bands and record labels.

Do visit my website, www.jazzcamera.co.uk.  

You can also check out my jazz photography book The Power Of Jazz. Just go to the publisher’s website: www.blurb.com/bookstore and type ‘The Power Of Jazz’ in the search box.  You can view the whole book . . . and even buy it!