Teaching Elvis Presley the Rules of Scrabble, and Other Tall Stories

Somebody in my class at primary school once alleged that the actor Tony Curtis was his uncle. Such absolute whoppers are part and parcel of the over active imagination of small children and in almost every case entirely harmless at the time, albeit utterly cringe-inducing if someone with a long memory reminds you of your childhood exaggeration at a smart dinner party in middle age.

Far stranger is the incidence of this sort of behaviour in adults. More than once I have heard a noted figure in the British entertainment industry rattle off a yarn about Elvis Presley making a secret visit to London in the late 50's and that our show business friend was charged with the responsibility of showing the King the sights of Town.

There's only one word for this, well, actually it's two words, the first beginning with B and the second with S.

Similarly many moons ago there lived in Coventry a guitarist who would, at the drop of a hat, regale you until the cows came home about how he had accompanied Sinatra in Vegas on countless occasions, and how in after hours jam sessions had constantly got the upper hand of George Benson in good natured guitar battles. As his name was Ford that rapidly became corrupted by all to 'Fraud'.

Some of these storytellers become minor legends and can gather a small crowd of those in the know, eager to hear what the next outrageously implausible anecdote will be; very much in the manner of Craggy Island milkman Pat Mustard, who "taught Elvis Presley how to play karate".

That's twice in a fairly short space I've mentioned Elvis already, I wonder if he will crop up again?

In our internet savvy, social media fixated times it only takes a few clicks to ascertain whether or not these types of tall tales have any basis on fact and it is likely the case that as a result of availability of information the great tradition of yarn spinning may be in sharp decline. Apart from one area. Musicians' CVs.

Before I go any further I think it's important to stress that as of the time of writing I have never played on a hit record nor have I toured with any chart topping, stadium filling artists. If you know anything about my utter distaste for arena shows (doing to live performance what Amazon is doing to your high street but I'll come back to that when in a less light hearted frame of mind) you won't find that particularly surprising. That's not to say that I haven't played festivals to thousands of people jumping up and down in a field somewhere in Europe, I have, but in the best tradition of Airplane, "that's not important right now".

Similarly I have had the (mostly) good fortune to work with some legendary jazz artists, plus a good many personalities from the then more connected worlds of pop music and light entertainment from many decades ago. One of the reasons for not mentioning their names (especially the latter category) is that to anyone younger than about 45 they would mean little or nothing.

We used to call it 'getting a break', sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. I was lucky to come through at a time when if you could play do a decent standard, read a chart and cover a range of styles reasonably well it was relatively easy to get a regular, paying gig. To what extent one's career would advance was largely down to the axis of preparation and opportunity, or 'right place, right time' coupled with 'who you know', all a long time before the word 'networking' had established its presence in the music industry lexicon.

Frequently our work as musicians is evaluated by a series of random associations with different people, all deemed to be more important than we are. I remember being about 20 and in Jones & Crossland music store in Birmingham when the guy who ran the drum department gestured towards a stranger in a leather jacket, and said to me with an awestruck, hushed tone of voice,
"That's the drummer with the Nolan sisters".

This to me is the key point. I know all manner of great musicians who have worked away for years; always busy, freelancing, playing, recording, teaching, often doing the sort of gigs where no one actually cares who's in the band. Players of the highest quality but never having been associated with a big name artist or a succession of hit records. I feel a strong kinship with these players as were it not for my activities as a big band leader and my work in the drum industry this would be the regiment to which I would belong. A lot of these musicians are some of the busiest players anywhere, even if their names are not known other than to the industry inner circle. Many times I have seen somewhat 'confected' credits where the most tenuous connections have been stretched to near breaking point and artists names have been used slightly dishonestly. Don't do it. People know and it looks daft, in the tradition of the quote usually attributed to Mark Twain about being thought a fool. It's not just an ill-informed attempt at career advancement either. There was once a legendary session musician right at the top of the tree who used to overegg his achievements and I couldn't help wondering why. Those who really know and really have influence will evaluate your playing based upon what you can do rather than with whom you may or may not have done it.

So anyway, I get this gig teaching Elvis how to play Scrabble. Turns out the only word he could spell was 'Uhhuhhuh' and as there are only two H tiles in a standard Scrabble set we were off to a bad start. Also he didn't really grasp the idea of each letter having a points value and would look at his tiles and repeat
"Well it's a 1 for an E, 2 for a D" and so on.

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