SO IT GOES

SO IT GOES...

There are those books that you struggle to read , in which you re read each sentence over and over in the hopes of maybe understanding what in the ten types of instant cake mix they are trying to say, I've read a number of those, and my brain will ever be the poorer for it, naming those that you had high hopes for will remain fodder for another post...
Then there are those that are page turners like you were actually there, I suppose it all depends on the interests of you dear reader, but  as good old David Coverdale would say "Here I go again on my own"
This wasn't an epiphany in any way as I am familiar with the most famous person you have never heard of, THE Jesus of Cool, you know pure pop for now people, but hearing the words as they jumped off the page and piecing the information together chronologically, made me realize how blessed I was to have grown up in an era where this mans influence on the life and times of music of my misplaced childhood were foremost.

Kudos's must of course go to Will Birch for this classy Biography "Cruel to be Kind... the life and music of Nick Lowe".

As you read, its clear the author loves his subject, and has a talent for writing it down, which can also be seen in his previous recants of the life of Ian Dury or the great pub rock revolution " No sleep till Canvey Island", check out the man his own self on his blog or twitter accounts as he's a force in his own right as lyricist, drummer, erstwhile rock writer and so it seams all round good guy, I will shake your hand one day Mr Birch
As a teaser for those not as familiar, the ride Nick Lowe has taken is not the path well trodden, more the lets just push through and see what happens, and as if blessed by the music Gods in a time before we wish we knew what we knew now when we were younger, otherwise we just wouldn't understand anything "about peace love and understanding"... "So it Goes"
I mean the connections to The Marquee, Dr Feelgood, Huey Lewis, Elvis Costello, Nashville, Christmas and the man in black himself to namedrop a few into the Rockpile of time gone by...see what i did there!

It was earlier this year before this bio was released I had my own full
circle, I mean sitting in my comfortable coffee shop in San Diego, Its not lost on me that I've pushed my own path forwards since the days of growing up in the depressed industrial North West of England, whether its an unfair amount of shows seen at the Apollo in Ardwick Green Manchester, traipsing around a non commercialized Soho and Carnaby Street, witnessing shows at the The Marquee on Wardour Street, or for that matter embracing the Dingwall's side of life Rhythm and booze its all about the music ...

Flash forward an obscene number of years to an equally dingy and exciting venue on the Beautiful Pacific Coast line of Sunny Southern California, I'm sitting enjoying four truly great and innovative American singer songwriters of the late 90's early 2000's

who were doing the songs and stories acoustic tour they felt an endearing public wanted to see, I mean its been a while since i saw Elvis Costello and the Attractions perform a 3 hour set in their last show together in the USA, i digressed again to name drop, but here I am enjoying Art Alexakis of Everclear , John Wozniack or Marcy Playground, Max Collins of Eve 6 and Chris Collingwood of Fountains of Wayne.
As they tripped the light fantastic of memory lane, they all four took the stage to relay and sing a song that had influenced all of their careers, and led by Chris, sang an incredible homage to Nick Lowe by singing "So it Goes", from the Jesus of Cool Album, I wondered to myself will anyone ever write a Biography about the most famous man no one knows..
Surely now you can hear the sound of breaking glass.....
Ask me about that time I was with Phil Lynott in a bar on the Isles of Scilly, maybe when I shake your hand Mr Birch we can swap stories, dear readers do yourselves a favor and read this book...

@will_birch #bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain @bennysantiniproductions

CATCH A FALLING STAR

CATCH A FALLING STAR.

It's just as you imagine it to be, picked up by that Kansas tornado, and flung westwards only to crash and lodge itself into the seventh floor of Jacobs Hall the engineering dept. building on the UCSD campus.

What in the twelve realms of suspended reality is happening here.

My brain is seriously on overdrive, not because I fell and twisted my ankle as I was on the hunt for this little hidden nugget, more because it really can't figure out whats going on. Visually from down below I'm are already thinking nah, can't be, but as I hobble towards the elevator that's going to take me skyward, and I alight on the aforementioned seventh floor, there are two signs, to the left is the Deans office, ugh flashback, don't want to go in there again, on the right however, and I remind you again that I am in fact seven floors up, I step gingerly (at this juncture more of a limp) out onto a brick path, i'm wondering if at some point it might indeed have been painted yellow, surrounded by a well manicured lawn,with signs inviting one to please not step on me! East Coast style shrubbery and plants adorn the rim of the garden, a couple of Adirondack chairs sit invitingly around a small table by the entrance to this beautiful off kilter Cape Cod Cottage...

I've forgotten about the pain in my ankle for now as I step through the door, I fight with my brain to come to grasp with what I see verses what I am feeling, somewhat woozily I scan around looking for my horizon, that thing I hope will stop the impending doom of vertigo, maybe I should have stopped and read a
book, maybe Gail Russel's biograph "Fallen Star"
There is a bookcase full of literature, a desk, couch, lounge chairs, beautiful brick fireplace, large round rug, family pictures grace the walls all seemingly in the right places, they aren't moving, spinning, why am I.
Rescue comes in the form the calming voice of the septuagenarian I see sitting, with her newspaper by the fireplace, calm as you will, like she's spent the last six months a drift at see and has come to grips with the fact she will never be rescued....wwwwiiillllsssooonnnn...

She asks me to alight my eyes on the one thing that cannot defy gravity, quickly again my eyes fumble, but what, the pain in my ankle is coming back, I'll need to steep outside if....ahhhh I get it
Gravity works, I smile, I even sit down with my new friend for a chat, she asks me not to mention what Billy Crystal is looking for in City Slickers, you know that one thing...that will remain a mystery till you go for yourself.

Turns out this is a piece of art from Do Ho Suh, yep that one, do you know any others?
Born in 1962 in Seoul South Korea. Suh arrived in America in the early nineties to study at the Rhode Island School of Design. Fallen Star ( built in 2012) along with other works came about as he transformed his own feelings of displacement, as if he had been in his words "dropped from the sky", and then he continues to explores the notions of home, cultural displacement, along with ones perception of space and how one builds a memory around it ( maybe he also saw the move "Blinded by the Light" lets hope this calliope doesn't crash to the ground) What is Home after all?

All the aspects of this cottage I find out are exact replicas of the home he lived in on the east coast, and as I look at the family photographs all around the walls, they are of Do himself along with his parents and family. the more time I am here, the more its coming to feel like home.
I'm in need of ice for my ankle at this point, so I make my excuses, stumble past a few other bemused guests, struggling to make sense of their brains that have turned to jelly, I sign the guestbook, I smile and realize that David Cassidy had it wrong all this time and yes you really can go home again.

Fallen Star is only open limited hours so if your planning a visit (and you should) Tuesdays and Thursdays 11am. to 2 pm. No reservations necessary come on in the kettles on....

#bennysantiniproductions   #grahamsataconcertagain

THE CALLIOPE CRASHED TO THE GROUND

THE CALLIOPE CRASHED TO THE GROUND

Luton Sucks !.
It could well have been any erstwhile depressed factory town in England at the time.
I'm finding that as I grow a little longer in the tooth, that which was just an aspect from my past, the experiences, sights, sounds, feelings all of which shaped me to be who I am today, are  fast becoming fodder for today's movie going public.

I head into the affluent Cineplex of the American, Southern Californian suburbs, desperate to spend an hour or so escaping the pressures of life, and hoping that Gurinder Chadha can again truly "Bend it Like Beckham", and send me back on that magic carpet ride to my British roots.

As I watch this cinematograph unfold Its not lost on me that I "got out" and became an immigrant in another country searching for that better life, I always was set for leaving, as far back as I can remember, way before the calliope crashed to the ground....

Blinded By The Light , the latest offering from acclaimed British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha is more than just an hour and a half's worth of  escape from the ritual of daily life, Yes a fabulous movie of that there is no doubt, and particular kudos to the cast and crew, most notably to you Sarfraz Manzoor.
Thank you for sticking to your dreams writing and writing as you did and showing what can be done, I hope one day to silently shake your hand, and share a smile knowing words have already been written, you are an inspiration and in fact seamed to have climbed the mountain, rode the river and drank from the magic fountain, not unlike Jesse James...

I squint walking back out into the sunlight, allowing the warmth and brightness to wash over me, I find it hard to capture the flashbacks that recur in my minds eye after walking the story of Javed in parallel to my own.
The driving angst of Springsteen's Born to Run, its all I can do to stop myself running down the street as the gravelly voice of the working class man known simply as the Boss echos deeply ...

On a dreary, damp, dark, dare I say depressing evening, in the cold baron outskirts of Sheffield a town itself struggling with the closing of the stainless steel factories, I've crossed the Pennines as if running from my own screaming desolation, Bolton whose cotton factories long since gone, and simply replaced by only the promise of Thatchers increased taxes to the unemployed, this is the early eighties, living the eighties not quite as bright as the pop songs of the time would have you believe.

The singer I've made my pilgrimage to see, is the guy who's songs I am exposed to, and just as Javed hears the Greetings from Asbury park icon, Springsteen in his head, I am inspired by my own working class hero.

Its a bit early for the show at Dingwall's night club, whose tag line Rhythm and Booze flickers in faded neon attached to the dirty brick wall, so, trudging across the street to a Wimpy Burger joint, hardly the James Dean Diner of route 66 fame, our band of friends united as a group to see "Our own" as Depeche Mode would write in the future "personal Jesus"
The food very much reminiscent of Lindisfarne's "sickly sausage rolls" but as the darkness outside gets deeper and time gets later, the passenger tucked into the corner of the same lame British burger joint looks familiar.
Long before the internet, social media and paparazzi telling you where the celebrities of the moment hang out, fate seams to have shone its light, and the closer i get, the better it looks.
I have now somehow gone, nay glided it seams, from there to here and am standing now in front of my own musical hero.

That was my first time meeting Chris Rea. Likely only a short conversation but time froze, in one

instant every lyric and thought flashing through your mind, what in the world should I ask.
This wasn't at all where I thought this movie would take me, I've seen first hand the 80's, the ugliness of depressed industrial northern towns and the underlying urge to get out.

A short while later at a different show I once asked him about his first album .. Whatever happened to Benny Santini? his reply simply with a glint in his eye, and in his wonderfully colorful Middlesbrough accent said "I dunno you're here aren't you?" the name stuck as you can see if you're reading this blog.

Gurinder's accuracy as she tells the story of Sarfraz from his  biographical book "Greetings from Bury Park" is uncanny  and unnerving all at the same time, the reality of the National Front in the 80's to her spectacular cameo as the teller in an Athena store at the mall, wow.

She made time travel possible, as I walk up Bradshawgate in Bolton circa 1982, chips and peas in a tray with gravy, the sustenance of champions, a pint in the Clarence, but this thriving little town will soon again bow to the winds of change and the boarded windows will reappear... "Badlands, you gotta live it every day, let the broken hearts stand, as the price you've gotta pay, we'll keep pushin' till it's understood
And these badlands start treating us good..." BS

Her use of Springsteen's lyrics confirm her fandom, and tell the story perfectly, so if you are looking for that silly coming of age movie that intends to waste the next hour and a half, don't go see this movie, if on the other hand you want to smile, laugh, be inspired, cry, cheer, go see this gem of a picture, and i hope you get transported as i did.

It took me rather a lot longer to discover my love of writing, but I've always loved music and love to live life through those well written lyrics still. 

"I've been ten thousand miles from this place and seen it I swear
I've woke up happy thinking that I was there
It's the place I love, it's where I wanna be
And I won't give up until I get to see
A little something in there to call my own
Pass the time of day and head off home
The evening shadows on the dry stone walls
The night draws in and the ale house calls
And happy I will be
When the road goes no further than what I see
When past here it's nowhere to go
And I ain't gonna give up until I get see
Those angel eyes looking up at me
The prince of peace and time is standing still
On Chisel hill"

Chris Rea once described as England's answer Bruce Springsteen, and most recently described as everyone's fourteenth favorite singer, is a survivor and his music and lyrics do for me what Blinded by the Light did for Javed.

Go see this movie its bloody brilliant...

#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain 

THE LOLLIPOP GUILD

THE LOLLIPOP GUILD

San Diego has its own way of keeping you interested, and most definitely still connected to Hollywood of yesteryear so as I set out thinking by the left lets grab a coffee, today's poison quite corporately and  ostentatiously happens to be Starbucks very own veritable iced cloud caramel macchiato, its more of an English lesson than a drink, but that's how I roll, so drink in hand I wanted to check this urban legend out for myself.

It was less than a year ago that Jerry Maren the last surviving munchkin from the Wizard of Oz, the one who welcomed Dorothy Gale to Munchkin land by singing to her and handing out an over sized lollipop, (its a lost art we should bring it back)... passed away on 24th May 2018 in a nursing home here in La Jolla he was 98 and had been a long time resident of the area, so, putting two and two together and clearly getting five as an answer I pointed my overly ambitious nose towards Mt. Soledad.
It has long been rumored that in 1939 around the same time the Oz movie came out the little people moved south to San Diego and formed their own colony.. what a delicious urban legend, one I so want to believe.
Turning left onto Hidden Valley then wending my way almost vertically upwards, a quick right before I get to the top, at 7477 Hillside Drive,
wouldn't you believe it, nestled into the cliffs and trees, blink and you will miss it, are the very munchkin style homes of lore that I have long heard of. The stories from the locals exist for sure, be it Barnum and Bailey performers, Chinese smugglers, European millionaires and mysterious dwarf sightings, everyone seems to have a mothers, brothers cousins third daughter from the left who knew someone, who went school with a munchkin...it is perpetuated even as I talk with locals today, all with wry smiles and a wink to each other, as if to say this guy will keep it rolling, we've got one here....

Sure enough they weren't wrong, though sadly knowing better, Cliff May an
architect and land developer had a penchant for accommodating his homes to the land rather than leveling the land and making the land fit the home. The houses are a fourplex sited into the treacherously steep hillside of Mt. Soledad, they were however built slightly smaller than usual, but the optics are that you can touch the roof from the roadway because you step downhill right!! and so here I am looking down. He sold the houses in 1939 and it didn't help that his decor was more in line with what one imagines a munchkin home to look like, small windows with green shutters, oak garage door, red tile roofs, mail box set at low level, arched door, more reminiscent of snow whites cottage than a contemporary residence... go on let your imagination run a little, I mean didn't Frank L Baum write his Oz books here in San Diego, and Maren really did live here.

Take the magical drive and explore the community, there's no yellow brick road to guide you so you will more than likely get lost, but the architecture and fauna combined provide an idyllic back drop to this urban legend.
I hope you are wearing the right footwear to get home, if you are click the heels three times, you know the drill.

#bennysantiniproductions
#grahamsataconcertagain

Photo's by Benny Santini Productions

WHERE THE TWO RIVERS MEET

  WHERE THE TWO RIVERS MEET.

Nestled in the Temecula Wine region of Southern California, lies an all too familiar family owned Vineyard, the sort you might see in the lazy Tuscany Hills of Italy, you know, the ones known for their easy like a Sunday Morning vibe, newspapers to be read, maybe a casual stroll to pick up a few necessities for the day, with that longing feeling of laying in a hammock the aroma of the fresh warm grass and grapes ripening on the vine, maybe drifting in and out of consciousness as the daytime luminescence of our favorite globe coaxes us to casual obscurity.

The Wiens Family Cellars owned and operated by Doug Wiens and his brothers since he opened the Temecula location on Oct 14th 2006, sits in the shadow of the much larger more gaudy yet somewhat imposing Ponte Cellars, at 35055 Via Del Ponte Temecula CA 92592. His goal as stated on their web site says he wants to achieve the "best" Reds in the business, "in bocca al luppo" my friend.

I've plugged the address into my Sat Nav and i'm pretty sure, I made the last correct turn, though second guessing myself and arguing with the very polite though stern ladies voice is always a great game to play, so, as I wend myself eastwards through the beautiful backwoods desert of San Diego County up past the Casinos that pop into view like the cactus flowers squeezing there way towards the sun, before flagging due to dehydration, i'm not really on a deadline, but I do like to get there on time, today it would seam i have time, yay me.

I am headed to this beautiful venue this evening, not for their libations, exquisite scenery or spectacular sunsets, though I will be treated to all of the latter as a bi-product of tonight's escapade.

Added into their summer dates for the latest Sigma Tour 2019 Mike Peters and his band The Alarm have yet again added this venue to the list. I'm not sure why, I've seen the Alarm in much larger venues, and their energy in a smaller club or concert hall would be apparent as they bounce their sound off the walls and they have two to three thousand voices screaming back at them.

Yet here we are, all four hundred of us at best. I discovered them at this venue by accident a few years ago, and have made a point to bookmark my time with Mike and his family, here in Temecula as a not to be missed experience, as opposed to their probably much louder House of Blues outing in downtown San Diego.



For those not as familiar with Mike's journey to this show tonight and the whys and wherefores of  how special this is versus just another show.

The original Alarm ceased to exist after Mike surprised everyone and announced
from the stage at Brixton Academy in 1991 he was leaving the band and literally went out in a blaze of glory...
Forming the Poets of Justice with his wife Jules, they bounced around for a few years until 2000 when they released a box set of Alarm songs and Mike went on tour as The Alarm MM++.
In an effort to see if the Alarm were still relevant they pulled off the biggest hoax in British rock history when in February 2004 they went undercover to see how his latest song would fare, calling themselves The Poppy Fields, they released 45 rpm and it shot into the top 30 ...

In 2005 Mike was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia, not giving up he formed the Love Hope Strength foundation and between bouts of chemo fought the disease three times and bounced back to be cancer free... in an unfair real life story, you cant make this up, his wife Jules in 2016 was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent major surgery and chemo, even I didn't know as I saw her perform at Wiens a year later with the band, she wore a wig and a hat and had the energy of a twenty year old.

Please do look up their story and the Love Hope Strength foundation, I call them my friends, I've met them, followed them on Instagram, etc. i'm a fan sure, but more than that, they have my admiration and respect and love XX

I'm used to the show scene by now, nervous anticipation, support bands you don't know trying to win you over. This time round I'm curious as The Alarm have teamed up with two other 80's bands, "Gene Loves Jezebel" and "Modern English", this means Mikes set will be shorter, that's OK, lets see what we have here.
Its still 80 degrees when Jay Aston walks his Gene Loves Jezebel onto the stage, wearing a bright pink ladies T shirt and black panama hat, he sings and dances and seams encouraged, though to be honest, no ones listening or watching, I'm sat about thirty feet from the stage, in the cheap seats as it ever so much were, my legs propped up against a tree and I watch as they smoothly go through songs I know and don't, "Motion of Love" and "Desire", I respect their effort and as if I blinked they were over at the merch table selling their wares, its about twenty feet behind me, I'm not stirred.

Now here's the reason I ever so much wasn't going to write anything about this experience, I love the Alarm, that's why I am here, and should the guys decide they have nothing better to do on the tour bus than read this ( here's hoping actually) ....

I await the next set, crowd gazing, I don't remember getting older but as I look round at my fellow music aficionados we are now of a certain age, then there's a certain number of us I am sure have torn themselves from their couches and early bedtimes, and yet another other sector fascinates me, maybe its a So-Cal thing as you see a larger than normal, mutton dressed as lamb group, you know the types with the the nips and tucks and enhancements! they shop at forever 21 and H&M but realistically should be arrested for even looking in the window, I digress. Welcome to the party ...

Modern English decide its their turn, I know you are all thinking it, I am too, they have one song and its obviously going to be their party piece to end the set.
Robbie Grey walks the band on stage takes one look at us, in our out of this world location, and clearly defined age group and decides he will go with, How the F*** are you? do we look like we are 16?? OK, faux par, I get it, but then you stall, take a look around again and say "Interesting... yeah i'll probably use that word a lot tonight. Interesting.." what are we a bunch of Trolls out here?
They start their set thinking they are the hep cats, you know everything and a bag of chips, their misplaced direction is clear and have a hard time keeping the crowd, and insulting us doesn't help, then asking us to sing, and telling us it was S*** , great encouragement!! their music seams like a complete rip off of other bands and notably, David Bowie's "Hero's" that's not an homage that's blatant rip off, and honestly, dated, do you need to sing that many forgettable tunes from the "After the Snow" album? finishing up as expected with "I Melt With You" we as a crowd raise our cell phones and sing along, Hey 1982 called and wants their money back...

Now the sun has set sail and we have a warm balmy evening, the removal of the debris from the stage to leave us with the familiar, three mic's left, right and center for Mike, with single drum at the front of the stage, the backdrop tonight is simple, creation itself ...

With the energy of a teenager Mike bounds on stage, silver jacket, black pants, chain holding his wallet, and silver fronted sigma guitar slung around his neck.

I have some work to do now myself, as I am still sitting in the cheap seats.
The winery set up is simple, the hoity, toity sit front and center with bottles of wine, champers and nibbles, the rest of the working class are held back in the general admission and in this class enforced environment, this kid from Bolton Lancashire has to find a way. So sauntering up and standing next to the "rest" of the band  at the mixing desk, I have a great view, great sound and I love hearing the dulcet tones of the harmonica and the safe sounds of lyrics I can sing all the way through, and new songs, yes new and relevant songs from the band that has survived everything and is still reinventing itself, "Blood Red Viral Black" and "The Stand" all followed by "Rescue Me", "Knife Edge" and "Sold Me Down the River', they know me now, I've been singing, dancing, clearly I need to be invited to the ball, the inner sanctum. We British are a polite reserved bunch and as I watch folks try to jump fences, sneak, poke and other wise seduce their way through, I assess what my course of action is, I so badly want to be front and center with the madding throng as they bounce around the poppy fields....
Best foot forward, "excuse me would you mind terribly... etc.?"
I am now two or three feet from Mike as he sprays us with water from his water bottle, I love feeling the rain in the summertime, now as the Mersey lights shine bright in the distance we are shouting like teenagers for them to come back on stage, who am I transformed to?

There is something magic about seeing a live show and you just immerse yourself to the experience and, we very much could be a 1960's Glasgow street gang as we follow the 68 guns...
Love and hate divide us, and we may well be on the other side of the barricade, its as if  Mike knows this and despite our size in numbers, he is inspired to forge the two rivers and I find myself shoulder to shoulder with Mike, as he has now moved from stage to crowd, and we sing into his microphone, hug him, pat him on the back, its a flurry of excitement, thrilled, I glance to the stage and I see Jules smiling at her husband...

This is NOT an unsafe building,he is more than safe, he is with family, I want to say thanks for sharing, I want to, but they are now back to being Instagram images, one day, one day, I will give them each a hug of encouragement, the lights are on now, there's no one on stage, for now the music has stopped, I'm energized, he gave it all to us, with love and understanding, from the other-side of the barricade.

The Alarm with Modern English and Gene Loves Jezebel at Wiens Family Cellars Friday July 26th 2019

#bennysantiniproductions  #grahamsataconcertagain
#thealarm  #jules_peters  @jules_peters
pictures by Benny Santini Productions taken at the show, (except for the one of Jules and Mike that's snipped from Instagram)

DELA

DELA

Putting words to paper is special, there are those times you do not know what will come out. Life’s events spur you to write, scribble, jot, so as I begin this I really don’t know how to start this....Johnny Clegg has just passed away, I didn’t realize how that would affect me, he’s been a part of my fabric long before I began my own African Adventure, so, now, here the words will tumble out, but in what form, punctuation or direction as I search for that spirit of a great heart..?

I still remember where I was when I heard John Lennon had been shot, I was sitting in an open carriage on a British Rail train from Piccadilly in Manchester on my way to Bristol, a mind numbing clickety clack journey, where sleep eludes the traveler, the skies were darkening, the day was losing its shine and I had this urge to write something down, as if I had to communicate in some fashion to everyone around the anger I was feeling, why anger ? My lack of understanding of death perhaps, but it is as real now in my memory as that day when I thought the music really would die.

I still have that musing, those words came out in the form of a song, silently on paper but I was screaming at the top of my lungs. Yes, I still have the original draft in my youthful scrawl. Those were the days long before laptops and the ability to type anywhere, or the avenue of social media to share the teenage angst, a fairly simpler time I dare say.

I have some experience now, I should be calmer, but words need to be said.

“A bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a bottle of rose instead
We'll get a table near the street in our old familiar place
You and I, face to face

A bottle of red, a bottle of white, It all depends upon your appetite
I'll meet you any time you want In our Italian Restaurant…..”

Songs and music conjure up every emotion and as you understand the lyrics of a song they can get into the fabric of your being. I have no idea why the Billy Joel song is in my head as I so desperately want to share about Johnny Clegg, shouldn’t I be using the cliché of “The Crossing” or “Take my Heart Away” even “African Shadow man”

It’s as though stories in song can have parralletic affect,( made up word alert)  the parallel of maybe a different song to avoid the wave of emotion, who knows… let me just apologize, it works in my head as i hear the tune and these are those words tumbling out, you know, just a story, plain and simple from beginning to end. None the less the sense of feels you get as you listen to Billy and how he orates to us through the narrative, you could indeed start your relationship with Johnny as you sit down together to enjoy a meal.

Songs, you use them to escape, sometimes to drive you, to express anger, to get you through, to get you to dance, to meet people, to express feelings, to get married to, my brother hit a home run with Sixpence None The Richer’s “Kiss Me”

 Or however irrelevant or even irreverent, it’s the song or music played at a funeral, my sister gets that home run, with “Dancing Queen” by Abba playing as everyone filed past her casket.

Songs.

 

“Things are okay with me these days, got a good job, got a good office
Got a new wife, got a new life and the family's fine.
We lost touch long ago, you lost weight I did not know you could ever look so nice after So much time

Do you remember those days hanging out at the village green
Engineer boots, leather jackets and tight blue jeans
drop a dime in the box play the song about New Orleans
Cold beer, hot lights my sweet romantic teenage nights”

For Fifty pence ( earned from mowing graves at the local churchyard) in the late 70’s early 80’s I was buying up 45’s bringing them back and stacking them on my turn table, I had this urge to pick up for about a pound this great looking African shaped clear vinyl disc, looming large from the center was this white guy amid these cool tribal looking Zulu warriors, I didn't know what the song was all about, nor did i know the musical journey i was destined now to take, what i did know was that the disc looked Hella cool !!

That disc stayed pinned to my teenage wall for some time before I even thought of playing it, the name Juluka was already indelibly stamped, but what about the music…….African Idea, Make the future clear…We are the ....

Brenda and Eddie were the popular steady’s and the king and the queen
Of the prom. Riding around with the car top down and the radio on,
Nobody looked any finer or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner
We never knew we could want more Than that out of life
Surely Brenda and Eddie would always know how to survive.

Brenda and Eddy were still going steady in the summer of '75
When they decided the marriage would be at the end of July
Everyone said they were crazy Brenda you know you're much too lazy
Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life.
But there we were wavin' Brenda and Eddie goodbye’

I don’t know if the boy from Bolton knew he would follow the boy from Bacup to South Africa, but there I was waving England goodbye.

Johnny Clegg was born in Bacup, Lancashire, England on 7^th June 1953. When his parents divorced six years later, he moved with his Rhodesian mother to Zimbabwe before finally settling in South Africa.

I know this because I thought it was kinda cool that I was also a kid from Lancashire, Bolton, Lancashire to be precise, the absolute metropolis of exactly nowhere, just down the road quite literally from Bacup, As it always does, Time Passages and now, a few years on, I’m moving to South Africa, turns out it wont be the last time my path with Johnny will cross in life.

Already right up there in South African music culture, I had now seen the man I lovingly called Johnny Legs, due to his penchant for Zulu tribal dancing at his shows, albeit from a distance among a crowd of road weary,musically deprived South African youth, at the then named Ellis Stadium. Big hair always prevalent in those days, the country still under oppressive apartheid rule, the radio station ( for there really was only one !!) decided to put on its “Big Birthday Bash”, so, as the forty thousand strong ran onto the Springboks hallowed ground, really with no idea of how to act or behave, this remember had never happened in South Africa before, and even if I had some experience, by already being front and center for the global jukebox at Live Aid, Knebworth Park for Queens final show with Freddy and Wembley stadium, to see Genesis get their Invisible Touch with Phil Collins in their heyday… 

It didn’t matter, the tension was real, would the mix work, just two days before there had

been major uprisings as people marched on Jo’burg demanding fair wages…. 

We danced the night way to Brenda Fassie, Stimela, Mango Groove, Die Gereformede Blues band and the worst kept secret of the night Johnny Clegg reuniting with Sipho to perform as Juluka for the first time since their split, I think I might have mentioned I have the knack of being in the right place at the right time sometimes….

Now however, a wee bit older and debatabley wiser, with many, many concert experiences under the proverbial belt the chase was on.

 I knew Savuka were about to play the Village Green in Durban, for the first show of their 1990 Savuka world tour. 
Remember this is the musically starved apartheid ravaged South Africa of the 80’s, but somehow crossing the cultural divide Johnny was as big in South Africa as …. Well name any western artist who’s had any success …just ask Paul Simon, or Peter Gabriel…

Posse now in tow, friends, curious as to how we would pull off this general admission show, that was expected to haul in twenty thousand to a tented venue capable of holding realistically maybe twelve at best !!  It’s a knack I have for some reason, so with this band of pals we now filed into the tent pitched on the Durban beachfront, this small troupe dodged left, ducked right, crept, pushed, danced, our way through the warm up act of Claire Johnstone's Mango Groove until, there we were face to face with the white Zulu himself, yellow painted trousers, black waist coat. I was entranced and elevated to another level, I do truly remember the experience i still now want to remain wrapped in that existential flow, for the life of me couldn’t give you the set list, it just happened.
For good measure however, documentation of events were transposed to the Natal Witness by Anthea Garman, one of the shorter members of our troupe. 
You can’t shake these moments….. I haven't, and as if proof was needed to explain this out of body experience, i kept all the original press clippings. Fortuitous?

“They got an apartment with deep pile carpet and a couple of paintings from Sears
A big waterbed that they bought with the bread they had saved for a couple
of years. They started to fight when the money got tight and they just didn't count on
The tears. They lived for a while in a very nice style but it's always the same in the end
They got a divorce as a matter of course and they parted the closest
Of friends.
Then the king and the queen went back to the green but you can never go back
There again. Brenda and Eddie had had it already by the summer of '75
From the high to the low to the end of the show for the rest of their lives
They couldn't go back to the greasers the best they could do was pick up the pieces We always knew they would both find a way to get by that's all I heard about
Brenda and Eddie can't tell you more than I told you already and here we are wavin' Brenda and Eddie goodbye…”

So, just like the song, there I was waving goodbye to South Africa. 
There is something about an African sky, it is hard to say goodbye to, it lingers in creational splendor supporting the southern cross, it wraps the guttural sounds of lions in the distance waking up from their slumbers, yet coaxes you to your own as you lay smiling under the thatched roof of your rondavel, I did hope that as I pursued life’s adventure some more I would once again find myself under its watchful gaze…

That gaze came a lot quicker and in a more bizarre format that I even expected as Johnny’s and my paths crossed once more, late 1990 this time in Seattle WA, at the Moore Theater to be exact,  Osiyeza, Osiyeza, proved true he was coming, Johnny brought that very same Savuka world tour to the eagerly awaiting predominantly ex pat South African crowd, for the next two hours i felt myself melted back into the African Sky Blue and as i stood mid front stalls, fist clenched in the air, I realized even then he WAS the Great Heart.

The lump in my throat needs to subside a little, these are beautiful memories that I have no idea at all how to put in words, they are vivid multicolored videos set on repeat in my mind, I can even feel the pulse of Dela as I dance, jump, sing at the front of many shows to come, too many to recall, but, I really do think I know why the dog howls at the moon….!

He called it the Final Journey, I knew he was sick, but the undertaking of a farewell tour this size lulled me into the false sense of security that he would always be around.

I did have two tickets for the show, it had had been marked on the calendar, on the fridge as a don’t you dare book anything else on this date, type of event, but something stirred that I needed to do something a little more special. So as the show spun dangerously close, I took that old concert approach you know where you move left, dodge right, scooch ever so much closer to the…. Front line of the ticket office! 
The young lady, staring blankly back, faded pink hair, pierced eyebrow, t-shirt advertising the Clash who I am not sure she even knew who they were... here goes nothing, excuse me I know that tickets often get returned or maybe just maybe…"would you like these two front row seats", she gets me..not sure if a transaction has been secured quicker, I thank the gal, I cant hold back the excitement, I tell her she must go and see the white Zulu, with a humdrum OK coming back through the glass, she has no history or frame of reference, sorry love your loss.

The tickets I had went to two South African friends who had never seen the legend but had always wanted to, and rushed to the venue they now thank me even more for the opportunity, we didn’t know how little time we had left.

I sat at the front with my wife, really not knowing how fortunate this was, The set list was what you wanted, stories, songs, more stories, dances, his son Jesse doing a duet with his dad, again the lively Dela resounding, this wasn’t a man ravaged with Pancreatic cancer, this was a guy dancing across the centuries.

It’s a Cruel Crazy Beautiful World…. and i am so glad you lived in it.

I am fortunate in life to live in it also, my experiences are not over, far from it, my words are not clever, so simply put I shall cherish the memory I have of meeting the man in person and for the many many shows.
hamba kahle my friend, go well...

The Final Journey Balboa Theater San Diego

Photos are all snaps taken by me #bennysantiniproductions
#grahamsataconcertagain



"If I could find the voice that says the words that capture you,
 I think I know why the dog howls at the moon."
Johnny Clegg, from  Dela 1989