Johnny Adams
was a songwriter and lead / rhythm guitarist / vocalist who was in a range of bands during the 70's and 80's. Bands include Flying Circus 72 / The Mick Green Blues Band (72) / Eli 73 / Fission (Rock band 73 /4) / Blue Jays (pop band 74) Squad 79 - early 80's was in a band blending 3 cultures - The Panjari, Jamok, Punk Reggae Band. In 1981 Johnny wrote to me in Middlesbrough (my new home) about his experimentation with Asian, punk and reggae music. Though interesting, unfortunately the combination didn't work out for them as his letter says "firstly to tell you the Panjari, Jamok, Punk, Reggae band fell through, not surprisingly with all the different ideas and cultures, didn't work." His letter said said he was 'doing freelance for a few Country and club bands, nothing serious. I'm beginning to get involved with this musik called Rock a Billie, I still like punk and reggae and I'm still writing a lot of songs and poems." This gives an idea of his wide musical range. He was, at the time, considering his next move and going solo was an option also being considered. Johnny also wrote to me Oct 1980 telling me that Squad had split up, he said "I'm forming a new band with Paul Hesket on Sax (Ex Swinging Cats and session musician with the Specials) - Charley Anderson (ex Selecter)) - Desmond Brown (also Ex- Selecter) and an Asian lady on Vocals" Of Course Johnny was also on Guitar. I'm not clear if this was the the Panjari band or that was another band formed after. Either way by 1981 he was considering other options. I lost contact with Johnny after 1981- my life becoming more centred around getting things going on Teesside. (Note - These bands will be blogged about later here in the forthcoming bands directory). This list isn't exhaustive!
Johnny was a punk before punk! I met him in 72 at one of the band nights at the Lanch Polytech (now Coventry University). He was wild! My friend offered us both lifts home and I had a Spanish guitar with me which I'd borrowed off a friend. She told me to take care of it so I looked askance when Johnny, who was in the back of the car, asked to have a go on it. I figured he'd wreck it! Risking all I let him have a go on it and couldn't believe the music he was playing! Medieval tinged classical guitar work follwed by gentle self penned ballads like Gipsy Lady (lyrics posted here). Johnny was a showman and extovert on stage but underneath he was a sensitive and quiet bloke with a well accomplished and wide ranging guitar talent. Much to my surprise we became close and creative friends around 72 - 74 period. I was a lyricist learning guitar, he was a guitar player but also with a talent for lyrics. We influenced each other - my guitar playing was stretch to the limit jamming with him - using 3rds and 4ths etc. (as in Blackbird), incorporating unusual chords into the normal GDC sequences to make it fresh, lead styles, power chords, mixing first position chords with barre inversions, little classical and medieval sequences that he often used as intros to his rock numbers and much more. He strove for catchy, accessible tunes but used his classical knowledge to make them fresh and original at the same time. He never gave me lessons as such but I learnt a lot just hanging out with him, travelling around with his bands and playing solo or with their backing at gigs. We'd hang around town with Eko Jumbo acoustic on our backs, playing outside the Dive bar or museum or Cathedral grounds. Making up songs or playing our own. He learnt from my lyrics too. First impressions were right but only a fraction of the truth. Beneath the wild punk, the showman, was a very gentle sensitive soul with a great musical talent. He put music to one of my lyrics - Well I Don't Know -origianlly a blues influenced lyric but his version owed more to Streets of London style finger picking ( a far cry from the Hawkwind style material of Fission! Although redeveloped and arranged for Keyboards by my Teesside band in the 80's Trev and Collective Unconscious, an instrumental version can be heard on my My Space with the lyrics in the lyric part of the Mp3 player ( The mono recording of Johnny singing the original version has been lost unfortunately and the new version has an added Bridge) - Trev and the Collective Unconscious
Johnny later played with Squad
- I think after Terry Hall had left and was featured on the Sent From Coventry c 1979 with a song about a Flasher!! Punk was made for him! Here are some of his early lyrics from the time we were mates.
GIPSY LADY
On a country road, roams a gipsy
Following the stars, she looks so happy
Gipsy princess, can you see her
She’s the wind that howls..hear her murmur
Gipsy lady, you’re my angel
Just words won’t ever describe you
Gipsy lady, be my sunshine
Be my joy…will you be mine.
I’m so tired, till I see you
You’re my coloured star..where you going to.
Be my thunder, be my lightening
Be my queen.. my silver lining
Gipsy lady, talk to me
Gipsy lady , talk to me.
Johnny Adams 1972
HANGMAN’S GONE - Johnny Adams Jan 72
The hangman’s gone to hang another man
The hangman’s gone, there’s another man to hang.
The hangman’s gone to the black of night
The hangman’s gone, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Chorus
The hangman’s gone yes the hangman’s gone
The hangman’s gone, yes the hangman’s gone
A son was born, a man was hanged
Thou shalt not kill, is man damned.
The hangman’s gone to the black of night
The hangman’s gone, two wrongs don’t make a right.
But you must realise something’s got to be done
Something’s got to end this inhumanity.
..................
HIDDEN NIGHTMARES
Hidden nightmares
Sword of darkness
Thrust upon me
Like a howling wind.
Rain of blood
Falls at my feet
Like a pool
Of wasted teardrops.
Trees of fire
Burning fiercely
My mind is jumbled
Like a twisted tree trunk.
I’ve left my soul behind me
In a cloud of dust
Making pretty pictures
Of ornaments.
Johnny Adams.
In 1972 I was invited to play at various Streetpress mixed media gigs in Birmingham - Moseley and in New Street. Me and my acoustic guitar. On two occasions I took some of Fission on jaunt around Birmingham, meeting my friends there and backing me. Johnny Adams on lead acoustic, Anthony on Bongos. Local poets, songwriters were on alongside names like Graham Bond. Johny wrote a humourous song about one of the gigs, adapting a Yorkshire accent! Ant and myself threw in a few lines! it was nothing serious though!
JOHNNY’S MYSTERY TOUR (1972)
Tu found my way
Tu Birmingham station
I got off train alright
Got chucked outa-coffee bar
Told tu go on way.
Tu sun was shining
It was a lovely day
Got chucked of a bus
Got told to piddle on way.
Tu stood standing
In chippy bar
Eating ma pasty and chips
Took devouring glance at pooch
Tu left chippy
And went tu Bulls head
Tu what cider they serve
T trever fell flat on arse
Sitting in the Bull
Wanting chocky bar
When Tony said
Tu ‘backy shop ent far.
Tu sitting in the Bull
Going nowhere
Waiting for the lad
Tu finish booze
Tu Tony bongo-ing away
While Tu sweet play on Jux
Tu people yapping away
Supping away their blues
Count tu money
10 and half P for ash sticks
24p left
Now find way tu door
On way now
Tu have play on banjo.
By Johnny Adams + Ant and Trev.
Below are the lyrics to a song I wrote with Johnny Adams. The original lyric was written in 1970, walking home from the GEC where I worked also alongside Pete Waterman and Bill Campbell ( bassist of Coconut Mat / The Eggy). I was reading Paul Oliver's Story of the Blues
at the time and the lyric was a kind of blues influenced thing. In 73 Johnny took the lyric and and wrote and played some music to it. It was fingerpicked number, a little influenced by Ralph McTell's guitar style on Streets of London. It completely changed the feel of it but I loved Johnny's music to it. In 1986, in Middlesbrough, I redeveloped the song with my keyboard band - Trev and the Collective Unconscious. Although main chords were based on Johnny's version, I added a bridge and partly updated the lyrics. I used to have a version by Johnny on tape but the tape's been lost along the way. (I may have my own version osmewhere that might be good enough to upload at some stage. Here, on my MY SPACE Trev and the Collective Unconsciousis the 1986 keyboard instrumental version can be heard, developed with Steve Gillgallon and Steve Ingledew and which we recorded on a Fostex 4 track Portastudio.
WELL I DON’T KNOW
I don’t know
I got no stone to throw
Well I don’t know
I Got no ball to catch.
My friend the sun
Fled to
Oh please come back
And dawn on me.
Oh I don’t know
Perhaps I’ll leave here
Perhaps I’ll go
Far far away –ay.
I don’t know
My soul’s a star
Trapped in a jar
It just seems so far –
(Bridge)
The road is calling but I
Can’t go on
This restless feeling is calling
Me on and on
The lake she sings to me
Says I have no fish to give.
The tree he watches me
With no place to live.
Well I don’t know
I got no way to lose
All I possess
Is the blues.
Well I don’t know
I’m on my own now
I’m so alone now
Along way from home.
(Bridge)
The road is calling but I
Can’t go on
This restless feeling is calling
Me on and on
The lake she sings to me
Says I have no fish to give.
The tree he watches me
With no place to live.
I don’t know
Guess I’ll write a song
Well I don’t know
It all seems so wrong.
Lyrics by Trev Teasdel 1970
CONNECTIONS
by Trev Teasdel 1972. I was round at Johnny's bedsit in Stoke Heath when I wrote this. John was writing a song and I wrote this about the creative process of looking for connections and inspirations. People used to write young people off but it was a very creative period
From a ceiling rose; musty with age
Hanging limp – earrings of dust,
Clinging from a bent burnt flex
Leading to a cracked-brittle lamp holder, holding
Secure a lifeless light bulb; waiting for connection.
I can see this quite clearly from the untidy chair
On which I’m sitting writing this.
John is sitting on the other untidy chair
In his Stoke Heath attic bedsit,
Trying to write a song on his Eko-Jumbo
Guitar, but his words keep tripping over
His melody line, but he’s waiting, playing
Patiently for the right connection.
I can hear this quite plainly from
The untidy chair on which I’m sitting.
On this untidy chair, on a unswept floor
With drawn-back curtains and spying landlady,
I am writing this like “A hungry husband eats a meal
with ‘man appeal’ “. Leaning on Leonard Cohen’s
Favourite Game; but the words may be as useful as
A burnt pea, but I’m writing, waiting, waiting for the right connection.
I can feel this quite fiercely from the
Untidy chair on which I’m sitting.
Upon the stereo unit
Balanced finely upon the deck
Sits an album of Pink Floyd music.
The stylus lies perched upon its rest
Like an unmated hen bird, the needle
Gloved in fluff – protected from
The piercing cold felt by the cawing
Jackdaw outside the window of this
Tiny room. Trailing from the unit
Is a lead, twisting and trailing to the socket
Where a plug lurks waiting, waiting for connection
As I watch from this untidy chair
In which I sit writing this.
Later in 1980, Johnny sent me another song lyric he'd written (I'd just moved to Middlesbrough at the time)
Solidier
Step in line, better be on time
No deserters
Disciplined to use your own mind
The Sargeant keeps you all in line.
The light brigade, school boy game
Winston Churchill's on his horse again
Grenadier, you can't hear
'cause you're dead on the battlefield
You're a soldier.
Dead heros lie in their graves
Telling us the world's been saved
The paper's say the boys are brave
No one else could do the same
By Johnny Adams, Coventry 1980
Comments