Stand By Me.

There we are – the lads! Someone told me that a certain section of middle class people don't like using the word 'lad' any more. I mean I think it's one of the oldest words to join the English language and now they're . . .

Anyway there we are above; me and my brudder; his birthday was on Sunday and from that day (not long before that photo was taken) to this there is something I won't forgive him for – happy birthday and all that but, you know!! We have to draw lines in the sand sometimes.

Let me tell you.

I have always been very keen on sound recording. I did the mix on my film sOUNDz that I learned from my old pal Giles who did it on my film The Scroll about 25 years ago (hope you still read this Giles?) - although he had to do it with actual magstock which means physically cutting and splicing - and I've mixed my CDs, songs etc. 

On my recent song Prima Donna I used eleven tracks and to get a certain sound I wanted I used two tracks for the banjo solo in the middle. A reviewer said that they thought 'the steel guitar solo was amazing' when it was a banjo.

Many years ago I kind of manufactured my own echo chamber with my Grundig double track reel to reel tape recorder.

The one with the 'green light' as Paul McCartney says.

I worked on the motor bikes at the time and I would get my pals to record various songs - I remember the line of post office motor bikes outside the house - I did this (the echo chamber) by playing a famous record and getting them to sing along with it but recording them quite low so as to cut the sound out of the original record in the background.

Then I would get them to do it again and I'd line the tape up to start nearly in the same place - a nano second behind (literally) and it would produce an echo effect; this was for timing, by the way.

Some of the guys were quite good and some not so good but the reverb (yes I got to find out it was reverb or a slight delay) made it all sound better.

But when my brudder, whose birthday it was on Sunday, sang . . ..

Well it wasn't that he couldn't sing, as I'm sure he can but . . .

Let me just say that one of my favourite songs over the years has been Stand By Me, by Ben E. King – or Ben E Fred, as we used to call him.

Ben E. King wrote the song – the tune and the lyric – and took it along to two great song writers Leiber and Stoller – the greatest - they wrote some of Elvis's early songs and songs for The Drifters and groups like that in fact I think they worked in the famous Brill Building in New York.

When Ben E. King took the song to the two guys they really liked it and put the bass line on to it – you know: derm derm, dum-dum, derm derm, dum-dum. derm derm. dum-dum, derm derm . .

You know it – yes you do!!!!

And they took equal shares of the writing royalties so Ben lost two thirds of the royalties and they won the other two thirds for a bass line. But Ben E. King lived on that, sent his kids to college, paid his hospitals bills etc for the rest of his life.

All on that one song.

The thing is he could have taken it to some of the crooks that were about then so maybe he did the right thing and maybe they did good for him. And I know that sounds very American but sometimes their phraseology sounds better – you ain't hear nothin' yet!

See what I mean.

So let's get back to my brud!

I would sing maybe the Buddy Holly, Bobby Vee type songs as I sang in the same key as those giants. In fact I remember going through the motions of learning a song and recording it in about an hour – like the big boys did and boy wasn't I in a fantasy world!

I learned and recorded Please Don't Ask About Barbara and what a terrible song it turned out to be – but I never really went in to pop music after all.

My pal sang a Billy Fury song quite well and I sang More Than I Can Say and someone heard it – one of the lads who had a proper echo chamber – invited me over to his gaff and I sang More Than I Can Say onto his tape recorder. 

He could still have that recording, as far as I know, and be selling it on the pirate market but . .. who the bloody hell would want to buy my stuff . .. . . . hang on we've missed the point, the culmination of this little tale.

One day my brother sang Stand By Me and when I played it back I couldn't hear the tune that poor old Ben had written.

It's a wonderful song and every time I hear it now, or think about it I hear my brother's version, my brud's tune. My brud whose birthday was on Sunday.

Let's hope that if he had a party and if they had a sing along or a karaoke machine that he didn't sing Stand By Me because poor old B.E.K. would be spinning in his grave.

Yes Ben died a few years ago and I hope he rests in peace . . . unless?????

as we are today 

- I had to obliterate a photo bomber from the back ground