In the eighties, Saturdays usually involved a tedious drive through the London traffic and onto the A12. Or the A11 perhaps, or even sometimes, exotically, the A13. ‘Sapphire’ my cabaret band seemed drawn to the mystical east, if that’s how you would best describe Dagenham. Or Romford, or any of the other dismal towns down the Essex corridor. Usually the singer, Paulette, would pick me up in her old Audi from Leytonstone, where I had moved to from Bethnal green, on her way from Finchley. We’d load the gear and weave our way through the rainy tail lights of the last of the Friday or Saturday evening rush hours.
Some bands avoid having girl singers. I know quite a few liberally minded right thinking male musicians who simply won’t entertain them. It goes without saying that this is unfair. They have a reputation for prickliness, true. But a female singer has had a lot to put up with. For a start, usually, but obviously not always, they don’t play an instrument. This means they are dependent on the guys behind them, and it reduces their leverage in the ambient power struggles that all bands have. They have learned to fight this disadvantage by being assertive sometimes. They have had to contend with a frequent misogyny from in front of footlights and often from behind as well. And of course, they are judged on their looks as much as their talent, maybe even more. Now if the Cheating Hearts were judged on this, they might never play ever again.
Susan Boyle, to give an example, has had to put up with every sexist cheap gag ever made, but similar fun is never poked at the Frodo-like Phil Collins, or the craggy ruin that is Keith Richards. (Is it just me or does his hair always seem to be slightly smouldering nowadays?)
Girl singers get a raw deal, and I for one would like to clearly say it is unreasonable and unjust.
Having said that, Paulette could be a right cow.
Now I realise I have to qualify that. A) Because although I haven’t seen her since her 40th birthday, she might still know where I live, and, B) I became very fond of her over the years and she was and still is a treasured friend. I was exaggerating for a cheap laugh of course. She just had an uncertain temperament when she was in a band situation.
She could get particularly bad tempered and close to violence when she felt something had gone wrong and it wasn’t her fault. (It was never her fault). The mature thing of course, would have been to confront the issue like the adults we were, look sensibly at both sides of the argument and ameliorate the situation in a grown up manner. Whilst this would have been mature, it would undoubtedly also have been suicidal. Instead the band would just huddle round a table in the break for mutual reassurance and avoided eye contact while she vibrated with barely controlled rage.
Occasionally a friend of mine, Andy, would visit for the weekend and that meant he would have to be dragged grudgingly to a gig. He was innocently unaware of Paulette’s propensity to go for the balls when antagonised. At the end of the set one particular night we finished with one of her favourites, ‘Brown Eyes Blue’. Unfortunately she counted it in at double time. Alan the drummer looked wildly round at me and came in as counted, thinking he’d misheard which song we were doing. We finished the Pinky and Perky version of ‘Brown eyes Blue’ in one minute twelve dead. Probably a world record. Paulette stormed off to the dressing room in a rage and the rest of us grabbed our drinks and retired anxiously to a table in the darkest recesses of the club.
A few minutes later she spotted us and came marching angrily to our table and sat down with her eyes blazing. “What was all that nonsense about then?” She said aggressively. Nick the bass developed a sudden interest in the ceiling. Alan traced his finger through the beer suds on the table while keeping his head down. I tried to make myself as small a target as possible. “Well you counted it in all wrong,” said my visiting friend, suddenly revealing a hitherto undisclosed talent for musical criticism. “Oh God” moaned Nick the bass. Alan made a terrified kind of squeaking noise. My friend looked round the table and smiled; evidently quite pleased he’d been able to explain something Paulette had apparently missed.
We did eventually pull her off him, but it quite spoiled his weekend.
That was nothing however, to the night we forgot the PA.
Usually we were a 4 piece but I think that night Binks the guitarist might have been sitting in. We loaded the gear in, but there seemed to be less of it than was quite right. “Where’s the PA?” I said, “You’ve got it, you took it home last week, you had a rehearsal or something” someone replied. Ice settled on my upper slopes. “I didn’t” I said trying to sound convincing. Uncertainty crept into my voice. “Er.. Did I?” Paulette had just arrived, we were travelling separately, she was working late at her day job at ITN and wasn’t in the best of moods. “Is there something wrong?” she said, her eyes narrowing. She had realised that something was definitely wrong when she clocked everyone's body language as she walked in the club. “Nick’s forgotten the PA”. Someone muttered, not really wanting to be the bearer of bad news as that also meant being first in the firing line. We had the instruments, guitars, keyboards, amps and drums but nothing for Paulette to sing through. “Pardon?” She said, with barely concealed menace. “I can explain” I said, except I really couldn’t. An inevitable row began to develop when Harry, the social secretary, bingo caller and generally ‘Mr. Romford Royal British Legion’ came over; realising there was a situation developing.
“Problem?” He said genially. I explained wretchedly that the gig might be off, because as far as I could see the club didn’t have its own PA and I had somehow managed to misplace ours. “No problem, we’ll sort something out, I know what we can do, you lads get set up, you get your tutti on girl and I’ll sort it” Paulette shot him a look that said, ‘I’m going to overlook that act of male patronage under the circumstances, but just you wait’ and stomped off to the dressing room. The club was filling up by now. We set up the gear in a hurry, with no time now for a sound check. Paulette emerged, looking glamorous, in her new expensive stage dress. Harry disappeared into the wings of the small stage area behind a curtain and returned seconds later pushing a gaudily painted bingo caller’s machine on wheels, covered in bright yellow and green numbers with a filthy glass dome where the balls shot up at random and with a short gooseneck microphone attached to the top. Harry looked pleased with himself. “It’s got a loudspeaker and everything”, he looked at us proudly. “Told you I’d sort it”. Paulette, who was at heart, still a working class girl from Walthamstow, looked disbelievingly at it. “Oh for fuck’s sake” she said.
We did, don’t ask me how, get through the gig, Paulette leaning disjointedly over the gooseneck microphone and sounding like she was announcing the 7.50 to Benfleet, Harlow and Braintree, change at Bishop’s Stortford for Hythe. Her back was giving her gyp by the time the National Anthem came mercifully round, putting both us and the audience out of our respective miseries. I was just glad I was driving myself home that night and cleared off as fast as I could.
I may be giving the long suffering Paulette a bad press here, I do hope not, I love her dearly and to be fair I don’t know any singer who would have had the bottle and the professionalism to see the gig through that night. In those years we had many a laugh on those long journeys through Essex.
A word though, about Harry, the social secretary. Harry was also the club bingo caller. But Harry wasn’t just any old bingo caller. Harry was indisputably the world’s worst ever bingo caller.
Usually, during the inevitable bingo we would retire to the smaller bar, if there was one, so we could talk and gossip without being glared at. But in this venue I always stayed to watch Harry.
One night I sat enthralled, just listening to him
“Two little ducks. number 47”
“Kelly’s eye, number 15”
“Legs eleven, number 38”
“The key of the door, number 17”
And then, magnificently,
“Unlucky for some”
“ Bingo!”
(A pause) “12!”