Chris Charlesworth Interview

Chris with Debbie Harry.

Chris Charlesworth is the Commissioning Editor at Omnibus Press, the world’s biggest publisher of music books. Previously he had worked as a staff writer for the Melody Maker. He has also written a number of biographies and commissioned over 500 books.

 

Prior to joining the staff of Melody Maker you wrote a pop column for the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. What do you remember about that period?

Well, I was brought up near Bradford, spent three years training on the weekly paper in Skipton and going to college, then moved to the T&A after passing my journalism exams. A T&A sub-editor called Leon Hickman and myself approached the editor with the idea of having a half page a week devoted to pop music and he went for it. Funnily enough I found out later that several of my future colleagues on MM who also worked on provincial newspapers did the same thing at around the same time. I remember reviewing The Move and Joe Cocker at Bradford University, and also interviewing Jimmy Page on the phone when the first Led Zep album was release in 1968. He told me his new band wouldn’t release singles or appear on TV which was quite revolutionary. “We’re not like Herman’s Hermits,” he said. Indeed not!

 

What made you want to write about pop music in the first place?

I just loved it since I bought my first Elvis record in 1957. I played guitar and bass in various local semi-pro covers bands from the age of about 15, the same year I saw The Beatles on stage in Bradford. I saw the Stones at Nelson Imperial around the same time. Since I was training to be a journalist it just seemed natural to combine the two. I knew I’d never make it as a guitarist so writing about rock was the next best thing.

 

How did you become a staff writer for Melody Maker?

After the T&A I worked on a paper in Slough, and also covered rock. I answered an ad in MM around February 1970 and went for an interview but didn’t get the job. Then a couple of month’s later MM editor Ray Coleman called me and asked me whether I was still interested. Apparently another vacancy had arisen and they didn’t want to advertise again. I was second on the short-list. Around that time Sounds was launched by a former MM editor and he poached a lot of MM staff, so I was part of a big intake in the summer of 1970. Joined MM at the beginning of May 1970.

 

What memories do you have about the first couple of years at MM?

Incredibly exciting. MM was selling 200,000 copies a week in those days and after I’d been there for three months I was made news editor which meant I had a bit of power. All of a sudden I was pitched into the middle of the rock business, hanging out with the stars, drinking in the Speakeasy, Marquee every night, going on the road with big bands, seeing all the best concerts and being given all the free records I wanted, right in the thick of it. Did wonders for my sex life too!

 

Who were your fellow MM scribes?

The editor was Ray Coleman, assistant editor Richard Williams (now the senior sports columnist on The Guardian), features editor Chris Welch, writers Michael Watts, Roy Hollingworth, Mark Plummer, jazz critic Max Jones, subs Alan Lewis and Geoff Brown, a few others came and went. Allan Jones, now editor of Uncut, joined after me, also Carol Clerk.
As it happened Richard had written a pop column in the Nottingham Evening Post, Roy one in the Derby Telegraph and Mick one in the Wolverhampton paper, so we all had this same background experience. Ray Coleman liked to employ reporters who been trained up this way, as opposed to graduates straight out of college.

 

What was the daily MM routine?

Monday was news day which was very busy for me. Tuesday the paper was printed at Colchester and was always quiet. Wednesday we gathered for our 12 noon conference to decide what the next week’s paper would contain, Thursday and Friday were spent doing interviews, features and writing… anything could happen on those days or over the weekend if you were on the road. Everything always had to be finished by five o’clock on Monday, always a big scramble to get it all done. Then at six, we’d all go over to the pub, the Red Lion in an alley off Fleet Street, and get drunk… the week was over on Monday nights for us. We worked hard and played hard.

 

You became the NYC correspondent for MM. What do you remember about being in New York and covering the American music scene of the seventies?

The New York job was created in 1972, the idea being that one staff member would do it for six months, followed by another and then another. Roy H did it first, then Mick W, then me, but by the time I did it the term had been extended and, in the end, I spent three and a half years doing the US job for MM, far longer than anyone else. It was the best job in the world, a free flat, living allowance, everything paid for, just fantastic. London was great but in New York, as MM’s sole representative, I got red carpet treatment everywhere. I covered the CBGBs scene for MM, picked up on that before most people. I travelled around the US a lot to, including private planes with Zep, Elton, Alice Cooper, Sabbath…I loved San Francisco and New Orleans, both great music cities, spenta few months in LA too, and met Lennon there during his ‘lost weekend’.

 

Who did you interview for MM?

It would be easier to say who I didn’t interview! Starting at the top – Lennon, McCartney, Bowie, Led Zep, The Who, Rod & The Faces, Byrds, Springsteen, Elton, Beach Boys, CSN&Y, the Band, Sabbath, Slade, Paul Simon, Alice, Traffic, Free, Santana, Eagles, Deep Purple, Yes, Zappa, Iggy, Bee Gees, Steely Dan… the list is endless, just hundreds. I never actually interviewed the Stones or Dylan (though I saw them many times). A lot of my interviews from this period are on the website Rock’s Back Pages.

 

Who gave you the most uncomfortable interviewing experience?

Neil Diamond tied with Sly Stone. Diamond was just too full of himself and Sly Stone wouldn’t communicate at all, just mumbled. In fact he left the interview half way through and went into the next room to shag his girlfriend. We could hear him at it. Very embarrassing for his (female) PR who was with us!

 

And the most enjoyable?

Lennon, Bowie and Townshend – because they all had lots to say and were endlessly fascinating. Elton was good too. I got on well with him because I’d seen him before he was famous and predicted big things for him, and he never forgot that. I also loved Lowell George from Little Feat, probably the most humble man I ever met but a superb slide player.

 

Were there any artists you would have liked to have interviewed but didn’t?

Dylan. Elvis Presley. I never saw Elvis which is a regret. I actually had a ticket to see him at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island on the tour he was about to start when he died.

 

From the MM period what were the best gigs you attended?

Always the Who. I saw them about 50 times with Keith on drums, travelled on the road with them too, sometimes seeing them 2, 3, 4 nights running. I saw some great Led Zep shows too, and once in Montreux in Switzerland spent an afternoon watching them rehearse, doing a set of Elvis covers. Fantastic. I asked them if they’d play at my wedding… very cheeky of me! I saw a lot of shows on Dylan’s Rolling Thunder tour in 1976, chased after him around New England. I loved going to Beach Boys concerts too, because it was just one big singalong, especially in California. I was lucky enough to catch Springsteen in clubs in pre-Born To Run days. He was fantastic, obviously destined for great things. He was really shy offstage in those days but once he had a guitar strapped around his shoulders he was a completely different person.
I had a great relationship with The Who and was just heartbroken when Keith died. He was just so… so mad for it all the time. In the 90s I was involved in producing The Who’s box set, selecting the tracks, and also repackaging their back catalogue for upgraded CDs. I loved being on the road with The Who, just so much fun, great people to be around and some of the concerts were just jaw dropping. Hand on heart, at their 1968-72 peak, The Who were the greatest band ever.

 

How long did you work for MM and why did you move on?

Seven and a half years. I moved on because I was offered a job working for Peter Rudge in NY who at the time managed The Who’s US affairs, looked after the Stones on the road and also managed Lynyrd Skynyrd and three other, smaller bands. I wanted to learn about management. I went on the road tour managing the smaller bands. Then there was the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash (I’d have been on their plane if it had happened a day later) which put the kibosh on things there. So I came back to the UK.

 

What are your thoughts on the demise of MM?

Very sad. Towards the end the circulation was around 20,000 a week. It was ten times that in the 70s. But there wasn’t much competition in those days, only NME and Sounds. Nowadays there’s so many magazines, monthlies, MTV, websites, commercial radio stations. None of that existed in my MM era. It’s amazing to think now that MM, NME and Sounds sold about half a million copies between them every single week of the year. You have to remember that the national press didn’t cover rock, so if you wanted to know what Led Zeppelin were doing (or even what they looked like) the only way you could find out was to buy one of the weekly music papers.

 

Can you tell me about the books you have written?

I’ve written books on The Who (three), Deep Purple, Cat Stevens, David Bowie and Slade. I’ve commissioned and edited over 500 books now.

 

What are your favourite music books?

Dear Boy: The Life Of Keith Moon by Tony Fletcher, and Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story by Nick Tosches.

 

Do you have an extensive personal collection of music books and records? How do you store it?

Not any longer. Well, probably about 1,500 CDs now. I’ve let my vinyl go, all bar about 300 albums which I’m hanging on to for sentimental reasons. At one time I probably had about 3,000. The last time we moved house I gave a lot of them to charity as I just had nowhere to store them. I sold over 1,000 books in the Helter Skelter shop in Denmark Street a few years ago, before it closed. Again space was the problem. I have about 150 now I guess, but I keep loads more in my office. I commute now and listen to music (new and old) for about three hours a day on my iPod.
            I have a big Who collection of course, absolutely everything, singles, vinyl albums, CDs galore, probably over 100 bootlegs too, plus as much video/DVD footage of the Keith Moon Who as I’ve been able to lay my hands on, not all of it kosher.

 

How does contemporary music journalism in this country compare to the seventies?

I don’t think contemporary music writers have anything like the access we had. Take John Lennon. I met him socially a few times and asked him for his phone number. He didn’t know it – ‘Yoko deals with all that’ – but he said that if I wanted to get hold of him I could send him a telegram at the Dakota and if he was in NY he’d call me back. So I did and he called me back – ‘Hi Chris, it’s Johnny Beatle here’ – and we’d have a chat or arrange to meet for an interview. That’s unheard of now. On MM we interviewed who we wanted when we wanted, not just when the artist had product to sell. Nowadays it seems PRs have more power but in my day MM had the power. Everyone wanted to be in it so we had all that access. On tour we saw everything, work, rest and play, but we were discreet about the sex and drugs of course. Nowadays people are too worried about tabloid exposure. ‘Rock star takes drugs and shags model shock horror.’ No-one gave a toss in my day. Also, nowadays I get the impression that buying advertising space can guarantee positive coverage. That’s bollocks.

 

In your opinion what are the best music magazines in the UK?

Mojo and Record Collector.

 

Who are your favourite artists?

Loads really… The Who of course, R.E.M., Springsteen, Beatles, Dylan, Van Morrison, Byrds, the Band, Bowie, Marley, Marvin Gaye, many more… Elvis started it for me, Hendrix was a genius, I really loved Little Feat, great band, and Richard Thompson is as good a guitar player as anyone I think, more recently Arcade Fire, and I like this Elbow album too, also Bloc Party (thanks to my daughter). I also have a weakness for Abba. My all time favourite songs are ‘Waterloo Sunset’, ‘Don’t Worry Baby’, ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and ‘I Fought The Law’ (by the Bobby Fuller Four).

 

What advice would you give to aspiring music biographers/journalists?

Take a camera with you wherever you go. My greatest regret now is that I didn’t have a camera with me when I saw all those bands in the 70s. I would have had a huge portfolio of pictures which would be worth a mint.
            Also, be professional. I was trained as a journalist at college and spent four years reporting on everything, courts, councils, accidents, fires, sport, old ladies 100th birthdays, the lot, and all of this stood me in good stead as a rock writer, taught me how to work speedily and efficiently. I could even do shorthand

Interview by Neil Daniels 2008