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One Sunday afternoon in the early 1980s, I was making
a guest appearance on a Radio One music show. We were
playing an ‘exclusive preview’ of tracks from my
latest album. My attitude to the media in those days
was not famously co-operative. Nevertheless, the DJ
was attempting some matey small talk. He had willingly
played one or two of my records in the past, so we
were not actually enemies or anything.
The programme stumbled on through another of our new,
not very Radio One-friendly cuts. As the music faded
away, my host began a new line of enquiry in his still
youthful and confidential Canadian delivery, ‘So,
Elvis,’ . . . always an unlikely opening for a
conversation . . . ‘If this were a regular Sunday
afternoon at home, what would you be doing?’ Without
hesitation, I answered truthfully if with careless
disregard for his feelings. `Listening to Benny
Green.’
Benny, I should remind you, was broadcasting on Radio
Two at the very same moment. I was just being honest.
At that time, I hardly ever turned on the radio to
hear the pop music of the day. I had a shelf full of
records to play and I could talk rubbish all by
myself. However, Sunday afternoon was completely
different.
Over on Radio Two, Benny might take one song and
present us with its history, tales of the writers and
performers, then play several recorded versions that
would turn the tune inside out and reveal all its
charm and beauty. He seemed to revel in playing the
Ella Fitzgerald version of ‘Bewitched, Bothered And
Bewildered’, the one with all of the vaguely risque
verses. Perhaps it was also here that I first heard
Louis Armstrong’s rendition of ‘Let’s Do It’ — a
nine-minute virtuoso lesson in delivering a punch
line. It was the kind of show that took the time and
had the pace to appreiate riches. When it came to the
art of Coleman Hawkins or the debt that the Benny
Goodman Orchestra owed to the genius of Fletcher
Henderson, Benny Green could take a theme, sustain it
and embellish it delightfully.
The result of these Sunday masterclasses in jazz and
vocal music appreciation was that I could nearly
always be found in Potter’s Music Shop at the foot of
Richmond Hill on a Monday afternoon hunting for
something played on the Benny Green show the day
before. I had bought my first serious guitar in this
shop when I was thirteen; my mother had worked there
for a while in the 1960s, so I had been as regular a
customer as pocket money allowed. Now, the owner,
Gerry Southard and his wife Ann must have wondered
about me coming with my new pop star cash to burn,
seeking rare Lee Wiley records. Gerry and I would
discuss the merits of Benny’s selections and I would
sometimes be directed to yet another valuable
interpretation of the tune in question. More often
than not I went home with a selection of titles first
heard on Sunday afternoon. I should have a Benny Green
shelf for all those discs. It’s either that or we’ll
have to burn some of the furniture to make room for
all this music.
This book is a wonderful collection of Benny Green’s
writings. The musical appreciation and anecdotes are
sometimes founded in the experience of a working
musician. Other times, obscure quotations, pieces of
background detail or the vivid descriptions of people
and places are teased out until the glorious main
point emerges. That dry and laconic radio manner can
also be detected in print.
You may find compassionate estimation more than
combative criticism in these pages. Everybody has an
opinion but when it is surrounded and supported by
history, humour and she telling of a wonderful tale
you are more gently persuaded. Most of all, this is a
voice that likes to celebrate more than to break down.
There is nothing quite like it in the brittle and
trite cacophony of modern critical posturing. At the
risk of sounding like an old fool who longs for days
that I can barely remember, I shall be diving into
these writings from time to time to remind myself of a
voice, in every sense, to which I shall always be
grateful. In the end, it all leads back to the music.
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