Category: Real Life

Seining Along Chesil- Sarah Acton (2022)

On By philshanklinIn Real Life, UncategorizedLeave a comment

From the upstairs room where I am writing this I have glimpses between the houses opposite of the sea at Chesil Beach.  This extraordinary 18 mile stretch of “storm driven barrier” was the inspiration for Ian McEwan’s tale of doomed love (2007) and JM Falkner’s classic adventure tale “Moonfleet” (1898) and its unique attraction has been celebrated by poets, including Sarah Acton, the author of this non-fiction work.

The fact that this is somewhere special impresses on every visit.  For an eight-mile section within 10 minutes walk from my house it can only be accessed by crossing the Fleet Lagoon, in past times, flat-bottomed boasts known as “trows” helped with this.

As well as being a place of great geological interest (I visited here on a school Geography field trip as it was part of my O Level syllabus) for many, many generations it provided a source of income for Dorset people.  A method of catching the mackerel which at certain points of the year swarmed into the shallows was developed using nets, thrown most often from a specially designed boat, a “lerret”.  This now almost lost form of fishing, “seining”, is the subject of Sarah Acton’s book subtitled “Voices From A Dorset Fishing Community.”

I have never fished and like most omnivores have no real understanding of how the food we eat reaches our plate, neither in the present nor the past but there was something very captivating about Sarah Acton’s study.  It helps that she is a poet and can talk about the Beach as it “roars and stings, silver shoals of memory dart beneath the sea surface like fragments of mirrors, as memory triggers memory”, finding every opportunity to reinforce the uniqueness of this location but she has also produced an oral history, reminiscences of the last generations who attempted to support themselves financially in this way.  These are men and women who lived their lives according to the sea, men who missed the upbringing of their children, youngsters who skipped school, the elderly who chose to spend much of their retirement on the shingle, all hypnotised by the thrill of the catch and the ebb and flow of the sea.

These were people who did not always do things by the book, large catches were unpredictable, the mystique of smuggling had always touched these coastline families and their ancestors.  They spent their hours in the water yet many could not swim.  They talk of individuals whose achievements have become the stuff of legends, of the most successful families, of crafts and activities which are pretty much redundant.  The same experiences are given a viewpoint form different individuals with the repetition in this case enhancing the sense of the oral tradition.  As the demand for mackerel declined their earnings became more sporadic but they lived with one eye on the waters.  There is a perhaps apocryphal story of pall-bearers who abandoned their fisherman friend’s coffin as they got the call of the sea.

It is all a bit of a fish-stew this book as the author is supported by contributions by different authors on the geology, on boat building and the history of the Fleet Lagoon and this all adds to the layering of this location which is very much brought to life here.  I’ve lived in Dorset just over a year and have barely dipped my toe into local history since I’ve been here (see “The Village That Died For England” by Patrick Wright and I have read the very successful 2022 debut novel by Joanna Quinn, “The Whalebone Theatre”).  There is still a huge amount to discover about my local environment and Sarah Acton here makes the history of this particular location very memorable.

Seining Along Chesil was published in the UK in 2022 by Little Toller Books.

The Flame Of Resistance – Damien Lewis (2022)

On By philshanklinIn Real Life2 Comments

Damien Lewis is the celebrated author, documentary film-maker and historian who is most famous for writing a number of best-selling non-fiction books (as well as a couple of fictional thrillers) about the SAS.  I haven’t read any of his books prior to this and it was his subject matter here which got me interested- the extraordinary performer Josephine Baker.  This book is titled “Agent Josephine” in the US and I wonder why the UK has gone with this less satisfactory title- I hope it wasn’t a commercial decision in case it put off what is probably a large male readership for this author’s work.  In both editions the same subtitle adds a little more information – “American Beauty. French Hero. British Spy.”

Josephine Baker (1906-75) is a twentieth century great.  Born in St. Louis, Missouri where her talent for performing helped her escape a life of poverty.  Her career limited by racism she moved to France where she became a sensation, her vibrancy, often risqué costumes, dancing and singing talent as well as her beauty led to her becoming one of the most famous and most photographed women in 1920s/30s Europe.  Her love for her adopted homeland and its acceptance of her was compromised by the rise of the Nazis and the fall of France.

After World War II Josephine was awarded, amongst other acknowledgements, the Legion D’Honneur, France’s highest service medal.  In succeeding years it has gradually been publicly recognised that hers was a vital role in supporting the Allies through Secret Service work.  On researching her life the author has uncovered just how important this work was, how long she managed to escape enemy attention and how team, partnered and solo missions had a significant impact on events of the war years.

Before war broke out her pilot’s licence saw her flying in aid and support and when Paris fell she refused to perform in Nazi occupied France but demand for her unique brand of morale boosting celebrity elsewhere enabled her to smuggle intelligence, information and documents within the trappings of costumes, music scores etc.  In the early years she was often accompanied by her menagerie of adored animals which added more chaos to her travels and actually helped her to carry out intelligence undertakings in plain sight.

Damien Lewis does well to bring the story alive of this extraordinary woman and her colleagues but even so, the secret nature of this work suggests that perhaps there is much more that she achieved which will never be uncovered.  His focus is very much on her war work and I think I do need to read a general biography to flesh out her many other achievements and to provide a greater context for these activities.  Recognition of just how unique this woman was, as a performer, as a member of the Resistance and as a British spy has begun to build up slowly over the decades.  In 2021 she became the 6th woman and 4th person of colour accepted for interment in the crypt of the Pantheon, alongside French greats such as Marie Curie, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo.  I’m not convinced that she has gained the level of recognition her achievements demanded in her homeland and in the UK but hopefully this book will shine a light on this woman whose glamorous depiction of celebrity masked sheer bravery, determination and adherence to her beliefs.  Hers is a tale of extraordinary missions, invisible ink, microdots, secreted documents alongside her desire for peace and uncompromising insistence on equality.  This is a trail-blazer whose story demands to be known.

The Flame Of Resistance was published in the UK in 2022 by Quercus.

An Iron Girl In A Velvet Glove- Triona Holden (2021)

On By philshanklinIn Real Life, Uncategorized2 Comments

Back in the late 1980s/early 90s I lived in Crouch End in North London where close by a recording studio used by Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics was a café called Josie’s. The first time I went in there it was like being in some parallel universe.  Around the café were photos of big stars from two or three decades before with a glamorous blonde woman, not unlike Diana Dors, often photographed in sparkly gowns and leotards.  This lady was obviously the same lady who was now making our coffee.  From the magnitude of the people she was photographed with and the lengthy span when these photos would have been taken this was someone who I clearly should have known, but I didn’t.

Finding out some information nowadays would involve ten seconds on Google but things were different then.  I felt I couldn’t just ask her.  I eventually discovered that this was Joan Rhodes, a long lasting star of variety and the early years of tv, famed as a strongwoman and for tearing up telephone directories and now the subject of Triona Holden’s book published by The History Press, which seems a fitting publishing house for this unique talent who was very much of her time but whose attitudes and qualities will still very much resonate today. 

Joan Rhodes (1921-2010) went down a storm on variety bills, bending nails and steel bars with her bare hands, lifting weights and members of the audience, tearing up phone books, being a one-woman tug of war team and once, famously, tripping and dropping comedian Bob Hope.  Looking very much a showgirl and not overly muscular she was billed as “The Strongest Woman In The World” and “The Mighty Mannequin.” She toured the world, performed for royalty, appeared on the “Ed Sullivan Show” in the USA and latterly ran a café in Crouch End where I encountered her.

The author befriended Joan in 2003.  By then retired and living in the garden flat she occupied for decades in Belsize Park she didn’t let that many people into her close circle but was a fiercely loyal long-time friend to luminaries such as Quentin Crisp, artist Dame Laura Knight, Marlene Dietrich and Larry Grayson.  She had an extraordinary tale to tell, was ripped off through attempting to self-publish an autobiography and so it was left to her old friend to tell this story eleven years after Joan’s death at the age of 89.

It’s a fascinating glimpse into the recent past, where things seem familiar and yet so far removed from today.  Joan did love to tell stories and had amassed large amounts of memorabilia and written accounts of events in her life and yet the author still discovered things she had chosen to hide.  Born into poverty, abandoned by her mother as a toddler, Joan credited the rage this caused within her to be the motivation for her feats of strength.  A street performer who worked her way up the variety ladder into becoming a highly recognised performer much feted by the popular press who loved to print stories about her. 

All this made me feel that I wished I had spoken more to her when I visited the café.  The author does a very good job of putting Joan Rhodes into context for a modern audience, even for those who might not now know what a telephone directory was! The book was inspired partly by the interest of the young production crew of BBC TV’s “The Repair Shop” where the author had one of Joan’s stage outfits she had inherited restored.  This felt both a nostalgic and empowering tale of a very special woman, who lived life on her terms, who used a unique physical talent extraordinarily and who also possessed great warmth, determination and resilience.

“An Iron Girl In A Velvet Glove – The Life Of Joan Rhodes” by Triona Holden was published in 2021 by The History Press.

Unleash The Magnificent You! – Christopher Bradbury (2022)

On By philshanklinIn Real Life, UncategorizedLeave a comment

January is the month for self-help books. “It’s February now!” I hear you cry, “we don’t have to bother with any of that New Year’s Resolution stuff! ” but indulge me a while.  Firstly, I read this in January and more importantly, as we all suspect, the first month of the year is not the best for lasting, positive change.  On a recent health-check a very astute nurse said weight-loss plans are probably not best begun at this time of year when there are unopened Christmas treats lurking and that three quarters full bottle of Baileys calling out to you on the cold January nights so I’m pleased to tell you that Christopher Bradbury’s inspiring self-help book is not just for January and that Magnificent You can be unleashed the whole year round!

There’s no doubt the author’s an optimist- just look at that cover promising us a “Gazillion ways to turbocharge your life”.  I didn’t count up to verify but certainly any of even the smallest changes suggested has the potential to transform lives.

What is provided here is an overview in short snappy chapters full of pearls of wisdom.  There’s little new in the world of self-help, the reason why some succeed more than others is the way in which help is presented and how it is taken on board by the individual.  I like this general overview approach.  It starts by getting the reader to examine personal values, identifying the most important for you as an individual and encouraging thought on ways to stick to them.  Potential is unleashed when these values are combined with your vision and Christopher Bradbury is on hand to help with this.

He does so in 60 sections and 380 (in the hardback edition) motivational pages.  He suggests we can pick and choose the sections which feel most appropriate- I’d say don’t do that, find time to read the whole thing.  I’m not a parent so I might have decided to skip the parenting section, for example, but there’s so much good advice therein which I could apply to other situations that I would be missing out.

I made notes and I’m glad I did as I now have a little personalised handbook on areas such as kindness and compassion, fear, flexibility, thoughts and emotions, worry, gratitude – the list goes on.  He’s practical as well and there’s the odd good statistic to back things up, which makes me happy.  Here are my Top 3:

Only 10% of what we worry about actually happens- therefore 90% is wasted energy.

Only 3% of people write down their goals and these people achieve 5-10 times as much as the other 97%

And one to stop you in your tracks:

The average smartphone user checks their phone 63 times a day, 70% within 5 minutes of waking up.

I also want to add a couple of sayings to help with everyday life.  Take a bow the one beloved by “Love Island” participants, “It is what it is”- but then it really is and taking this on board would remove much stress over what you cannot control and slightly cheesy but none the less effective for that is “Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery.  But today is a gift, so enjoy it before its gone.”

There will inevitably be moments when the author’s whistlestop tour approach will have you wanting more detail and I for one would welcome a bibliography or further reading suggestions linked to the areas raised but he does always provide enough information to start you well onto your road for change.

As a general self-help book this is strong and the emphasis and linking to personal core values (if you only do one exercise make sure it is the one that starts the book which encourages you to identify these) makes it stronger and seem more relevant.  Go on, get that Magnificent You unleashed!

Unleash The Magnificent You is published by Lightning Source and is available to purchase on Amazon.  Many thanks to the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Yeah Yeah Yeah- Bob Stanley (2013)

On By philshanklinIn Real LifeLeave a comment

This book’s scope is so huge that it is difficult to be able to succinctly describe it.  In 2022 Bob Stanley published “Let’s Do It” (number 2 in my current Books Of The Year list) and that book was in many ways a prequel to this written more or less a decade on.  This earlier book focuses on pop music really from the introduction of the first UK charts in 1952 and has as its focus the vast seismic shift – The Beatles, whose presence seems almost there from that point on but actually do not dominate proceedings here as much as I had expected them to do.

Bob Stanley completed a gargantuan task in relating the developments and shifts in popular music up to his publication date- maintaining a good balance between the UK and US markets and touching upon almost every form of popular music which had a moment in the spotlight in the past 70+ years.  He does it in a way that I’m equally fascinated with reading about the major and minor performers in genres I’m not even interested in (US Country, Metal, Britpop etc) as in those areas of music I feel I know well.

There is so much to be enjoyed in this book but I must admit that compared to “Let’s Do It” I sometimes felt a little fatigued by it all here with so much information in rapid succession.  I felt we were given more space in the later book and that “Let’s Do It” actually had a greater freshness because I hadn’t lived through those years.  I didn’t have the feelings about acts I’d built up watching “Top Of The Pops” and reading “Record Mirror”.  I felt this affected how I responded to the author’s writing.  One telling point of difference is that when I read “Let’s Do It” I went overboard on looking up more about artists and putting them into Spotify playlists.  This time, hardly any, I didn’t have the same openness to what I thought I might like or not like because I had lived through much of the period examined and had my own ideas which proved harder for the author to shake.

What I do love is Bob Stanley’s turn of phrase and his enthusiasm for what is joyful in music which is often laugh out loud funny, as it was in “Let’s Do It”.  Once again, I love his apt descriptions.  Here he is on 70’s glam-rock legends Slade;

“Dickensian singer Noddy Holder had a voice like John Lennon screaming down the chimney of the QE2; rosy-cheeked bassist Jim Lea looked as if he lived with his mum and bred racing pigeons; Dave Hill on guitar had the most rabbity face in the  world; while drummer Don Powell chewed gum and stared into space- even after he’d been in a horrific car crash and lost most of his memory, he looked exactly the same.”

This book is nearly a decade old which makes The Epilogue where Bob Stanley does a bit of projection into the future fascinating.  After decades of glory days there was a definite decline in the way pop music was perceived from probably the mid 90’s.  The stalwart barometer of taste “Top Of The Pops” fizzled out, the UK music press lost major titles and the UK chart became about marketing, with tracks attaining their highest position in the first week of sale there wasn’t the excitement of watching singles climb their way to the top.  He states he misses going to a record shop and that “Without the detail, pop music doesn’t have the desirability it once had; it’s not as wantable. Instant downloads require no effort and so demands less of an emotional connection -it’s less likely that you will devote time and effort to getting inside a new record, trying to understand it, if you haven’t made a physical journey to track it down in the first place.”

Ten years on and the unpredictability of pop means that this statement is both more so (with the predominance of streaming and the vast choice of instant access music) and less so (with the revitalisation of the vinyl market).  That is one of the great things about pop music, you never really know what is going to be around the corner but something will be.

This is an essential book about pop history even if it did not fill me with quite the same love and awe as “Let’s Do It.”  For anyone wanting an overview of popular cultural life in the last 50+ years this is a dream of a book.

“Yeah Yeah Yeah” was first published by Faber in 2013.

Fire Island – Jack Parlett (2022)

On By philshanklinIn Rainbow Reads, Real Life2 Comments

In the nineteenth century it provided poetic inspiration for Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde reputedly visited.  In the 1930s it became the summer home for a trio of artists who some describe as “The Fire Island School Of Painting.”  Literary and artistic giants saw it as an escape to write or to party- Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Noel Coward stayed here.  American poet Frank O’Hara was killed on the beach here.  Patricia Highsmith got drunk here.  David Hockney looked pale here, Derek Jarman made a short film, James Baldwin came to write (and felt out of place).  Perhaps the first example of gay pornography to filter into the mainstream was filmed here in 1971.  It developed into a symbol of hedonism where the landscape and fantastic views felt slightly at odds with the loud disco music from tea dances and cruising.  The Village People sang about it offering us a “funky weekend” as long as we “don’t go in the bushes.” Edmund White and Andrew Holleran used it as a setting to enrich their fiction.  AIDS decimated it, for a while it became a ghostly memorial with ashes of those taken sprinkled into the sea.  It became a film location in that first-wave of AIDS related films like “Parting Glances” (1986) and “Longtime Companion”(1989)- important movies which proved so difficult to watch.  It became once again part of the well-heeled gay circuit with accusations of elitism and poor inclusiveness and it has recently been the location in the available on Disney+ in the UK bright and brash gay rom-com “Fire Island” (2022).  I’ve always been fascinated by the contradictions of this place – Utopia for some, Hell for others.

This thin strip of land some 32 miles in length off the Long Island coast is perhaps the second most recognised gay location after The Stonewall Inn.  Its cultural and literary significance has lasted for decades and alongside the thousands that adored it there are detractors with very valid objections as well as confusingly detractors who also adored it- this is the enigma of Fire Island.

And the person who has decided to record this cultural and literary history in this new publication from Granta is a 30 year old British man.  This is a good idea, it gives a fresh perspective on an area bogged down in its own history and inconsistencies.  Jack Parlett visited first whilst researching the poet Frank O’ Hara who wrote, partied and died here.  Parlett experienced the same feelings of alienation and belonging which has affected so many of its visitors over the years and in this work subtitled “Love, loss and liberation in an American Paradise” he incorporates memoir to explain why.

From the relaxed development of Cherry Grove with its communal mix of renters including families and lesbians and gay men to the growth of the more hedonistic, wealthy white gay male dominated area of The Pines (together with its cruising area The Meat Rack) Parlett effectively tracks developments and their significance in gay history and sensibilities.  There’s a potent mix of the literary and academic, the political and the positives and contradictions of this location.  It’s imbued with a nostalgia for past times – I found myself thinking I would have liked to have visited at that point in time, oh and at that point in time….which makes it an intoxicating subject for a historical examination.

I loved the idea of this book, I loved the British perspective which added another layer and Jack Parlett has handled his material well.  I might have liked visual representations for some of his references but a few seconds on Google will find things and no doubt saved the publishers from forking out for reproduction rights.

Fire Island was published in 2022 by Granta in the UK.

All The Lies They Did Not Tell- Pablo Trincia (2022)

On By philshanklinIn Real Life, Uncategorized1 Comment

Amazon had this as one of their monthly free Prime Reads choices back in July 2022.  Its subtitle “The True Story Of Satanic Panic In An Italian Community” had me interested and remembering my desire to read more true crime I went for it.

This investigative work focuses on what became known as the Devils Of The Bassa Modenese Case which I had not heard of but which caused a huge furore in the late 1990s and led to 16 children being removed from families, convictions and acquittals and a number of deaths of adults associated with the case.

Pablo Trincia’s research into this led to a podcast with investigative journalist Alessia Rafanelli and evolved into this book which has been translated from the Italian by Elettra Pauletto.  Structurally, it does resemble a podcast eschewing a strictly chronological approach to focus on those involved and their stories with the interweaving and retreading of material that this structure involves.  Initially, I found it a little confusing to separate the families but this soon falls into place.

The events are extraordinary.  It is hard to imagine what happened here and the snowballing of such panics but similar things were happening in other countries and can be attributed to the way children were questioned by authorities.  Concerns about a family of vulnerable children led to tales of horrific satanic abuse involving almost everyone these children knew of.  Sexual abuse, torture, rituals, decapitations of cats and children killing other children in buildings and cemeteries horrified authorities who began widescale arrests, family separations and trials.

How much was true and how it came about became the author’s obsession.  He says;

“The story was like a black hole.  The more I looked into it, the more it seemed to bend social and behavioural norms and alter the relationship between cause and effect- things I’d always taken for granted.  It seemed like a parallel universe where everything was deformed.”

The author got lucky as he got hold of much information from a couple of people who had been totally driven by the cases and had lots of documentation and who had both died since the trials and from that he began to piece together what had actually happened.  Was this a case of false memory and how could that have affected so many children or was Satanism thriving in this small part of Catholic Italy in the 1990s?  It’s a sobering, involving account.  It is hard to believe that something like this could ever happen again, it reflects a terrifying moment in the history of abuse investigations where circumstances proved ripe for these life-destroying accusations.

All The Lies They Did Not Tell was published by Amazon Crossing in 2022.

The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho – Paterson Joseph (Dialogue 2022)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, Real LifeLeave a comment

Paterson Joseph is a noted British actor of stage and screen.  I saw him most recently in the Suranne Jones starring BBC TV Drama “Vigil” playing the Commanding Officer of the beleaguered submarine.  He has now joined the sphere of actors turning to fiction writing with very worthy intentions to fill some of the gaps of pre-Windrush Black British history by giving us a fictional account of the life of this notable 18th Century character, who became the first African man to vote in a British election.  The author has been researching this life for twenty years, and has written and performed a one-man play. He has now rightly decided (if not only because of the gaps in what is actually known) to recreate the man known as Sancho as Historical Fiction.

What is done really well here is in the feel of the piece. Paterson Joseph has obviously submerged himself in the fiction of the time and without doubt in “Tristram Shandy”, the author of which, Laurence Sterne makes a brief appearance here. With a combination of a memoir intended for the main character’s son, diary entries and letters to and from his betrothed we get a real sense of Sancho and the world he inhabits.

Initially, as a child, a dress up doll/valet for three spinsters Sancho finds an entrée into society under the eye of the Duke of Montagu.  It is a precarious arrangement and there are many turns of fortune for this black man in 18th Century London.  Deemed at various times a novelty, a creative talent, a threat and a runaway slave Sancho has to wrestle with his own inconsistencies and this makes for fascinating reading.  In the eyes of some he is seen as deserving of a place in high society for others he is the lowest of the low.  How does a man come to terms with his own self-worth in such circumstances?

The early sections of this book are just splendid, as Sancho ages it grows more reflective, the tale shifts significantly to his wife-to-be Anne’s experiences in an epistolary section of the book which serves to contrast experiences outside of Britain but doesn’t work as well as the London-based writings.  Throughout there is a feel of authenticity, even when the structure (as in all actual eighteenth-century novels I have read) feels jerky.  There were areas of the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho which I felt could have been fleshed out more but I welcome the opportunity of getting to know this man through this novel.  I am thinking this could be the best actor-turned-writer novel I’ve read since 1960’s icon and model Marsha Hunt’s “Joy” from 1990.

The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho is published by Dialogue Books on 6th October 2022.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

And Away…- Bob Mortimer (2021)

On By philshanklinIn Real LifeLeave a comment

Although I’ve really enjoyed a healthy amount of the work of Bob Mortimer over the years I probably wouldn’t have bothered with this best-selling autobiography if it had not been for his appearances on BBC TV’s “Would I Lie To You”.  I came to this series quite late and have been watching catch-up earlier editions almost daily throughout this summer, and one thing I’ve learnt, is that if Bob Mortimer is a guest you are in for a treat.  His anecdotes on incidents of his life (not always true as that is the nature of the game but usually so) made me want to find out more.

Some of these anecdotes make it to the book and are very representative of the life of Bob Mortimer.  Born in Middlesbrough in 1959 we get a childhood shadowed by the early loss of his dad, his eventual decision to become a solicitor until an invitation to see a comedy show at a South London pub introduced him to Vic Reeves and in the fullness of time led him to being one half (although he wouldn’t credit himself with an equal fraction) of one of the best-loved comedy duos of our time.

I think those “WILTY” guest spots where Bob allows himself to shine through and his downbeat fishing shows with Paul Whitehouse were significant in the germination of this book but central to it is his 2015 quadruple heart-bypass and recovery.  Alongside this narrative thread which continues for most of the book is the chronological tale of Bob’s life.

The latent hypochondriac in me found the health stuff unsettling and I might not have chosen to read this had I known it was so central but we know that this has a happy ending and the Bob who recovers is a person more at ease with himself.  For much it is a tale of chronic shyness, of not fitting in, of undervaluing achievements (Who knew that his acting in the BBCTV reboot of “Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) caused him such anxieties?) and yet coming much closer to calm, even a wisdom in his present life (well a wisdom that gets him to share; “As you age do not fear the elasticated waistband; it can be a good friend”).

His acknowledgement of the importance of comedy partner Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) is also central and it is here that the laugh out loud moments (not as many as I was expecting) tended to come.  There’s a good balance of the career and personal life which is something I always appreciate in a biography.

I really enjoyed spending time with Bob Mortimer and despite his self-effacing nature I felt he shared so well and I got a good understanding of him professionally and as a person.  You don’t get that in many celebrity autobiographies.  I’m delighted this book has been such a success.

And Away was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster.  The paperback edition is now available.

Let’s Do It- Bob Stanley (2022)

On By philshanklinIn Real Life, Uncategorized3 Comments

This is the second non-fiction work with this title I’ve read this year.  First up was a five star biography of Victoria Wood by Jasper Rees, this second “Let’s Do It”  also merits my highest rating.  Subtitled “The Birth Of Pop” by music writer, DJ, film producer and founding member of classy pop act Saint Etienne, Bob Stanley.

I read Bob’s work in “Record Collector” and even when I have no connection with what he is writing about (just a glance at my 100 Essential CD Countdown will show I’m pretty much on the margins for what “Record Collector” considers significant) I always enjoy his column and when I heard about this book decided that this author would probably be up to the gargantuan task he has set himself.

Over nearly 600 pages in the hardback edition Bob Stanley illuminates the history, the chronology and the connections of popular music, giving pretty much equal weight to the US and UK- a parallel history which had points of convergence and divergence over the decades but one in which the UK, until the British Invasion of the 1960s pretty much took the supporting role. 

This is very much the story before the British Invasion.  I haven’t read his critically acclaimed “Yeah Yeah Yeah” (2013) which is a chronicle of modern pop and for which this is a much needed prequel of what went on before and I would say this history, maybe because of its further distance from us could be the more fascinating.

Is there a starting point in the development of popular music?  It wouldn’t be too far off the mark to cite Ragtime and Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” from 1899, the sheet music of which was the first to sell a million copies and  from this point the author is able to track the separation of “serious” classical music to what came to be considered “popular” and its huge significance to our world.  He succinctly sums up the appeal and influence of the major players along the way including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra as well as shining lights on people whose positions attained in the pop hierarchy may not have been as stellar, for one reason or another.

Bob Stanley is a brilliant guide because you do believe he has absorbed all this music from decades before any of us were born and his love of popular music, in all its forms, shine through.  He can be great when he’s not buying it (Al Jolson, Rice/Lloyd Webber, much of Tom Jones) but in a book where the scope is so huge and there’s so many names to be mentioned that half a page suggests an artist who has really made an impact his writing can be outstanding. 

On Nat King Cole;

“Gradually his style became sleeker, soft and comforting, but slightly rough, like corduroy.  His delivery, like his piano playing, was relaxed, economical and emphatic.  When he sang you felt like you could trust him completely, and when he told a story, it sounded as if he was making it up off the top of his head.”

On the (still) under-rated British singer Matt Monro, who Stanley acknowledges “there was never anything but kindness and warmth in his singing”;

“He still looked like the bus conductor he had been before turning pro, like he’d just given the school bully a clip round the ear and chucked him off the 68 to Chalk Farm.  No matter what the exotic setting on his album covers, you could cut the shot of Monro and place him on a Watney’s pub backdrop and it would fit just as well.  A pint of bitter at his side, a fag in his hand.  Never a cigar.  Part of his classiness was that he never looked down on his own.  Monro was a working man’s hero.  In this respect certainly, he was Sinatra’s equal.”

On Shirley Bassey;

“When she sang Sweet Charity’s “Big Spender” in 1967 (wouldn’t you like to have fun, fun, fun?) it was like the hardest girl in school had taken a shine to you and was repeatedly slamming you against her locker door.”

If you had never heard of these three artists Stanley’s interpretation of what made them fit into the pop canon would be enough.

Is there a central character in the way that I suspect (but don’t know) that The Beatles would dominate “Yeah Yeah Yeah”?  Answer- not really because the fickle nature of pop suggests there’s always something else around the corner, those who survive were able to reinvent themselves or their timing was just right to take them onto the next big thing and judging by index references that would be Frank Sinatra (who Bob Stanley really wishes had stuck to his original retirement plan of 1971), Duke Ellington (so influential and who moved back and forth from “serious” to “pop”) and Bing Crosby (who was so popular).  Also hugely significant is the body of songs now known as The Great American Songbook from the greatest songwriters of all time and whose influence can be felt throughout the 500+ pages (and played a very important part in the careers of those I’ve mentioned above).

Reading books about music nowadays is a treat because with Spotify you can be seconds away from listening to performers whose work you would probably never have accessed.  Here are some of the artists I added to playlists whilst reading this book who I feel need to be discovered/rediscovered by me: –

Reginald Foresythe, Henry Hall, Art Tatum, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson, Dick Haymes, Frankie Laine, The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Roy Hamilton, The Tokens, Caterina Valente, Chris Connor, Nat King Cole, Earl Bostic, Sammy Davis Jnr

Reading this book has been a joy and I feel there is more to come in discovering some of the music I read about.  Highly recommended for all music fans and I will very soon be purchasing “Yeah Yeah Yeah” for the next part of the story.

Let’s Do It was published in hardback by Faber in May 2022.