Mick Interviewed in Baldry Book

[michelej1]

Interviews with MICK FLEETWOOD, PAUL McCARTNEY, ERIC CLAPTON, ROD STEWART, ELTON JOHN and many of Britain's rock-and-roll superstars uncover the eccentric life of Long John Baldry,in a new book,

It Ain't Easy: Long John Baldry and the British Blues, just released by Greystone Books.

San Francisco fans should come out to the San Francisco launch of Myers' book on Friday November 9th at 7 pm at Booksmith bookstore, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA, 94117 • (415) 863-8688 *FREE TO THE PUBLIC (note Mr. Fleetwood will NOT be in attendance).

Musician and journalist Paul Myers draws on intimate anecdotes from Baldry's legendary friends, lovers, and professional acquaintances to reveal the man behind the mythic persona.

As early Fleetwood Mac fans will recall, Long John Baldry opened FLEETWOOD MAC and SAVOY BROWNS 1972 USA tours in America, where he was supporting his own album, It Ain't Easy (produced by his proteges Rod Stewart and Elton John).

Speaking to Myers from his home in Hawaii, Mick Fleetwood is one of many big names who recalled the importance and the influence of Baldry on the nascent British blues scene which spawned the early Mac.


"We all used to look up to John," Fleetwood tells Myers. "I always have this happy memory of his very English music hall sense of humor. He had a dry wit and he loved telling little stories and then you know would make a sort of quip, then 'well, that's enough of that' Then off he'd go into a song. He had a great rapport with his audience. We were all young-ish, the generation after Cyril Davies' and stuff, you know? In these little tin pot bands trying to make a go of playing Bo Diddley, but John and Cyril and those guys seemed like the real blues to me. As a young musician looking at that, I thought, 'How cool is that?' Then it sort of filtered down, vicariously, to guys like myself, Peter and Jeremy, and John McVie who was such a great bass player. We just had a connection."

Baldry and McVie, as it turned out, shared a unique family connection in that their fathers had once gone into business together.

"Reg McVie and my father had a carpeting and furnishing store in Acton High Street, when dad retired from the police force," Baldry told Nick Orchard. "They had called it Celebrity Carpets and Furnishings. In fact, Christine McVie, who was then Christine Perfect, actually married John McVie right there in this damn shop. At that particular time, they couldn't afford to have any kind of a function other than this wedding breakfast in the shop. So they had stuff brought in drinks and minor catering and got married right in the store."

By 1971, however, Fleetwood Mac's fortunes had improved and now it was John Baldry who was on the bottom of the bill, along with second-billed Savoy Brown, as they brought the blues home to the arenas of America.

"We always enjoyed his music," says Mick Fleetwood, "and he was always surrounded by high caliber players like Micky Waller, a great, swinging drummer, who had also played that classic loose drumming on Rod's 'Maggie May'.


A driving force behind the British blues explosion in the 1960s, Baldry's passion and support for American blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Lead Belly and Howlin' Wolf influenced scores of UK musicians including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, The Rolling Stones and the Beatles. While Baldry is credited for launching the careers of Rod Stewart and Elton John, he died in relative obscurity in Vancouver, Canada in July 2005. Myers invested two years of research into Baldry's life and managed to secure exclusive interviews with family members including his 20-year partner Oz and his siblings Margaret and Roger; and other notable figures such as the Rolling Stones' former manager Andrew Loog Oldham

"After a lot of string pulling and journalistic sleuthing," says Myers from his home in Berkeley California, "I was thrilled by how many famous and integral names turned out to speak about their old friend John."

Myers' biography celebrates the wild life of Long John Baldry and, as a history of blues, it gives new insight into a cornerstone of rock-and-roll.