Post by wingsj0 on Apr 2, 2006 15:22:53 GMT
Where your parents and family supportive of your musical ambitions?
Roy Young: My parents were very happy that I got into music but never quite understood what rock ’n’ roll was all about. They felt that it was a two minute wonder. At the beginning of rock ’n’ roll I also had the feeling that it may last 1-2 years and then fade out. But over all these years it grew stronger. When I landed a position to appear in a rock ’n’ roll TV show which was featured every Saturday night, my parents were proud of my achievement. After the show I returned to my home town, Oxford, and my Mom was always so proud she wanted to take me around the pubs to show me off. Many times when we were sitting down having a drink, she would tell me how great the show was and which was her favorite song in the show. In the same breath would say, “Roy, why don’t you get a proper job?”
How did you eventually end up working in HAMBURG Germany?
Roy Young: After touring up and down England extensively with Sir Cliff Richard, I met up with a promoter named Reg Calvert in Rugby. He had a lot of look-a-like artists of famous stars of the time. I was the only one that didn’t resemble anyone, but, sounded like Little Richard (that’s my forte). I became known as “England’s Little Richard”. It was at this time that Reg told me about Hamburg and told me I should go there. He felt that I should be known in Europe. We drove to Europe in his car. I had no idea where we were going. When we arrived in Hamburg, he pulled up outside the “Top 10” club on the Reeperbahn and said, “This is were your going to appear for the next couple of weeks.” I was so excited to see my name up in lights on the front marquee. After those 2-3 weeks, my show was such a success that Peter Echorn, the owner, offered me a lifetime contract. I played for about three months and decided to go back to England for a couple of weeks break. When I returned to the “Top 10”, I was getting out of my taxi in front of the club, when Paul McCartney and John Lennon ran over to me. First John would pick me up and put me down, then Paul would do the same. This went on several times. I wondered what the hell was going on. I really didn’t know who they were, and at first, thought they were starting to have a fight with me. In their excitement they told me they hung around for a couple of hours while they were loading all their instruments into a van, hoping they would meet me. They had just finished their appearance at the club and were returning back to Liverpool that day. They then said, “We’re The Beatles, la, let’s go for a coffee”. They had watched my TV appearances in England and became quite big fans to me. This is very difficult to explain at this time because today they are the biggest band in world and I am a huge fan to them. Back then they were practically unknown. They told me that Stu Sutcliff, who was leaving the band to carry on his artwork in Hamburg and would pop into the club sometime in the next couple of days to introduce himself to me, which he did, along with Astrid Kirscher (famous photographer of the early Beatles photos) and Klause Voorman (close friend to The Beatles).
During one of my shows, Tony Sheridan came into see me, and said that we should put a house band together for the “Top 10” club, and call it “The Beat Brothers”. We should invite Ringo over from Liverpool to come and join us, which we did.
Can you tell us about Roy Young The musician in the 60s and what memories do you have of your time on OH BOY?
MEMORY 1:
Roy Young: Each week, Adam Faith and I had different songs to perform for the show, “Drumbeat”. We would spend one week at my house where we would learn the songs standing in front of my Mom’s bedroom mirror, and the next week at Adam’s doing the same thing. One time during our rehearsal at my house, Adam brought a song that he wanted to record, “What Do You Want”. He asked me how I thought he should sing it. It was a natural song for him, and when I heard those memorable words in the song, “wish you wanted my love, baby”, I told him to exaggerate the word “baby”. I remember making him go over and over it to make the song commercial. We spent hours in front of that mirror perfecting it.
See Adam Faith’s book, “Acts of Faith” Chapter 8, pg. 59: (see photo)
MEMORY 2:
Roy Young: The very 1st TV show I did in the 60’s was, “Oh Boy” with producer Jack Goode. I believe he was one of the greatest producers in rock ’n’ roll history. When I arrived at the theatre, I found out I was sharing the dressing room with Lonny Donegan who I was a huge fan of. He could tell I was a newcomer by my nervousness. He said, “son, don’t worry about anything, you’ll be great. Just do what you do naturally and you’ll become a big star one day.” It really made me feel at ease until a voice came over the studio speaker saying, “Roy Young, come to the studio floor.” I thought my heart was going to stop, but I kept thinking about what Lonny said, and it was a huge help to me. I walked out onto the studio floor and Jack introduced me to all the members of the Lord Rockingham 11 band. As we were going into our first rehearsal for the cameras, they showed me the white mark where I had to stand and that’s were I would start the song from . The cameras were all around me. I had no idea what was going to happen. The song I was about to perform was a Little Richard song called, ‘Heebie Jeebies”. It was a real fast rocker. Jack shouted out, “silence in the studio, we’re about to run through Roy’s song.”
As the band started up, I immediately jumped right across the floor from the white mark. The cameras were following every move I made, I was going absolutely wild, going on to my knees, doing hand stands. I even had the idea of jumping on top of one of the camera technicians back, but I quickly dropped that idea incase I got into trouble. At the end of the song, the whole of the studio, musicians and technicians, stood up and applauded me for such an exciting performance. When the applause stopped, I started to look down on the floor and noticed white marks all over the place, I had no idea what they meant. A few moments later, Jack said, “that was great, fantastic, were just going to run through that one more time, can you go back to your mark.” There were so many marks that I didn’t know which one was mine until Jack pointed it out to me. The band kicked off the song again and I started to jump all over the place. I was noticing the cameras were running into each other. After about a minute into the song, Jack came running out and said, “Whow! Stop the music! What are you doing Roy? I’m up in the engineering room and I never saw you once on the screen. You obviously aren’t going to the same places as you went before. If you do this no ones ever going to know what you look like, so just remember the spots that you went to.”
At this time the band were all laughing their heads off, they could see the funny side of it. I looked down to the floor at the marks to see if I could remember where to go. I said, “Jack, you gotta be bloody joking, I’ll never remember all this.” I thought he was going to send me home. He said, “Stay on the mark that you start from and we’ll have you on camera.” In the solo, I couldn’t contain myself again, and leapt across the floor. I told Jack it was difficult because I get excited by the music. He came up with a brainwave, and brought a chair out on to the floor for me to sit on and tied me to it with a piece of rope. He smiled and said, “I don’t think we’ll lose you on the TV screen now.”
MEMORY 3:
I was known as a rock ’n’ roll artist standing at my piano which I learn to do by watching Little Richard’s performance. As my confidence was growing more and more my show was getting more erratic and crazy. I would often take a run across the stage with the microphone, jump up onto the top of the piano and start singing and dancing on it. The audience would go wild and the more they went wild I would do the same. One night, I had this crazy idea, instead of jumping on top, I would jump inside and pull the lid down, the audience loved it. In another incident I was appearing at John Barry’s father’s theatre. During one of my crazy moments, I walked to the front of the stage by the footlights, the microphone I had in my hand was so heavy, it felt like a sledge hammer. I was standing right on top of the footlight and could see this big black box that I thought was some kind of platform. I decided to jump on to it not knowing it was actually a glass organ with a black cloth over it. As I landed on top, I went straight through the inside of the organ up to my neck. The audience thought it was all in the act and I thought to myself, how the hell am I going to get out of this one. I eventually pulled myself back on to the stage by the footlights, but then had a big problem trying to get the microphone back on to the stage. The audience started to chant, “heave, heave” for about 15 minutes. Then the front curtain started to close. I didn’t realize that I had done 100’s of pounds worth of damage to the organ. John’s father came on to the stage with an expression on his face like he wanted to kill me, and in a loud voice said, “leave my theatre, now!” He had 2 huge bodyguards that escorted me to the backstage door. Outside were 100’s of screaming girls from the 1st show. As the back doors opened, they went into a loud scream as I was thrown out. You should have seen their faces, they were all curious to know why I was being thrown out of the theatre were I was appearing. I told them what had happened and they all felt so sorry for me that they insisted on escorting me back to the hotel.
Please note all articles on this site are (C) to The Beat Goes On And On Fanzine and may not be used without permission.
Roy Young: My parents were very happy that I got into music but never quite understood what rock ’n’ roll was all about. They felt that it was a two minute wonder. At the beginning of rock ’n’ roll I also had the feeling that it may last 1-2 years and then fade out. But over all these years it grew stronger. When I landed a position to appear in a rock ’n’ roll TV show which was featured every Saturday night, my parents were proud of my achievement. After the show I returned to my home town, Oxford, and my Mom was always so proud she wanted to take me around the pubs to show me off. Many times when we were sitting down having a drink, she would tell me how great the show was and which was her favorite song in the show. In the same breath would say, “Roy, why don’t you get a proper job?”
How did you eventually end up working in HAMBURG Germany?
Roy Young: After touring up and down England extensively with Sir Cliff Richard, I met up with a promoter named Reg Calvert in Rugby. He had a lot of look-a-like artists of famous stars of the time. I was the only one that didn’t resemble anyone, but, sounded like Little Richard (that’s my forte). I became known as “England’s Little Richard”. It was at this time that Reg told me about Hamburg and told me I should go there. He felt that I should be known in Europe. We drove to Europe in his car. I had no idea where we were going. When we arrived in Hamburg, he pulled up outside the “Top 10” club on the Reeperbahn and said, “This is were your going to appear for the next couple of weeks.” I was so excited to see my name up in lights on the front marquee. After those 2-3 weeks, my show was such a success that Peter Echorn, the owner, offered me a lifetime contract. I played for about three months and decided to go back to England for a couple of weeks break. When I returned to the “Top 10”, I was getting out of my taxi in front of the club, when Paul McCartney and John Lennon ran over to me. First John would pick me up and put me down, then Paul would do the same. This went on several times. I wondered what the hell was going on. I really didn’t know who they were, and at first, thought they were starting to have a fight with me. In their excitement they told me they hung around for a couple of hours while they were loading all their instruments into a van, hoping they would meet me. They had just finished their appearance at the club and were returning back to Liverpool that day. They then said, “We’re The Beatles, la, let’s go for a coffee”. They had watched my TV appearances in England and became quite big fans to me. This is very difficult to explain at this time because today they are the biggest band in world and I am a huge fan to them. Back then they were practically unknown. They told me that Stu Sutcliff, who was leaving the band to carry on his artwork in Hamburg and would pop into the club sometime in the next couple of days to introduce himself to me, which he did, along with Astrid Kirscher (famous photographer of the early Beatles photos) and Klause Voorman (close friend to The Beatles).
During one of my shows, Tony Sheridan came into see me, and said that we should put a house band together for the “Top 10” club, and call it “The Beat Brothers”. We should invite Ringo over from Liverpool to come and join us, which we did.
Can you tell us about Roy Young The musician in the 60s and what memories do you have of your time on OH BOY?
MEMORY 1:
Roy Young: Each week, Adam Faith and I had different songs to perform for the show, “Drumbeat”. We would spend one week at my house where we would learn the songs standing in front of my Mom’s bedroom mirror, and the next week at Adam’s doing the same thing. One time during our rehearsal at my house, Adam brought a song that he wanted to record, “What Do You Want”. He asked me how I thought he should sing it. It was a natural song for him, and when I heard those memorable words in the song, “wish you wanted my love, baby”, I told him to exaggerate the word “baby”. I remember making him go over and over it to make the song commercial. We spent hours in front of that mirror perfecting it.
See Adam Faith’s book, “Acts of Faith” Chapter 8, pg. 59: (see photo)
MEMORY 2:
Roy Young: The very 1st TV show I did in the 60’s was, “Oh Boy” with producer Jack Goode. I believe he was one of the greatest producers in rock ’n’ roll history. When I arrived at the theatre, I found out I was sharing the dressing room with Lonny Donegan who I was a huge fan of. He could tell I was a newcomer by my nervousness. He said, “son, don’t worry about anything, you’ll be great. Just do what you do naturally and you’ll become a big star one day.” It really made me feel at ease until a voice came over the studio speaker saying, “Roy Young, come to the studio floor.” I thought my heart was going to stop, but I kept thinking about what Lonny said, and it was a huge help to me. I walked out onto the studio floor and Jack introduced me to all the members of the Lord Rockingham 11 band. As we were going into our first rehearsal for the cameras, they showed me the white mark where I had to stand and that’s were I would start the song from . The cameras were all around me. I had no idea what was going to happen. The song I was about to perform was a Little Richard song called, ‘Heebie Jeebies”. It was a real fast rocker. Jack shouted out, “silence in the studio, we’re about to run through Roy’s song.”
As the band started up, I immediately jumped right across the floor from the white mark. The cameras were following every move I made, I was going absolutely wild, going on to my knees, doing hand stands. I even had the idea of jumping on top of one of the camera technicians back, but I quickly dropped that idea incase I got into trouble. At the end of the song, the whole of the studio, musicians and technicians, stood up and applauded me for such an exciting performance. When the applause stopped, I started to look down on the floor and noticed white marks all over the place, I had no idea what they meant. A few moments later, Jack said, “that was great, fantastic, were just going to run through that one more time, can you go back to your mark.” There were so many marks that I didn’t know which one was mine until Jack pointed it out to me. The band kicked off the song again and I started to jump all over the place. I was noticing the cameras were running into each other. After about a minute into the song, Jack came running out and said, “Whow! Stop the music! What are you doing Roy? I’m up in the engineering room and I never saw you once on the screen. You obviously aren’t going to the same places as you went before. If you do this no ones ever going to know what you look like, so just remember the spots that you went to.”
At this time the band were all laughing their heads off, they could see the funny side of it. I looked down to the floor at the marks to see if I could remember where to go. I said, “Jack, you gotta be bloody joking, I’ll never remember all this.” I thought he was going to send me home. He said, “Stay on the mark that you start from and we’ll have you on camera.” In the solo, I couldn’t contain myself again, and leapt across the floor. I told Jack it was difficult because I get excited by the music. He came up with a brainwave, and brought a chair out on to the floor for me to sit on and tied me to it with a piece of rope. He smiled and said, “I don’t think we’ll lose you on the TV screen now.”
MEMORY 3:
I was known as a rock ’n’ roll artist standing at my piano which I learn to do by watching Little Richard’s performance. As my confidence was growing more and more my show was getting more erratic and crazy. I would often take a run across the stage with the microphone, jump up onto the top of the piano and start singing and dancing on it. The audience would go wild and the more they went wild I would do the same. One night, I had this crazy idea, instead of jumping on top, I would jump inside and pull the lid down, the audience loved it. In another incident I was appearing at John Barry’s father’s theatre. During one of my crazy moments, I walked to the front of the stage by the footlights, the microphone I had in my hand was so heavy, it felt like a sledge hammer. I was standing right on top of the footlight and could see this big black box that I thought was some kind of platform. I decided to jump on to it not knowing it was actually a glass organ with a black cloth over it. As I landed on top, I went straight through the inside of the organ up to my neck. The audience thought it was all in the act and I thought to myself, how the hell am I going to get out of this one. I eventually pulled myself back on to the stage by the footlights, but then had a big problem trying to get the microphone back on to the stage. The audience started to chant, “heave, heave” for about 15 minutes. Then the front curtain started to close. I didn’t realize that I had done 100’s of pounds worth of damage to the organ. John’s father came on to the stage with an expression on his face like he wanted to kill me, and in a loud voice said, “leave my theatre, now!” He had 2 huge bodyguards that escorted me to the backstage door. Outside were 100’s of screaming girls from the 1st show. As the back doors opened, they went into a loud scream as I was thrown out. You should have seen their faces, they were all curious to know why I was being thrown out of the theatre were I was appearing. I told them what had happened and they all felt so sorry for me that they insisted on escorting me back to the hotel.
Please note all articles on this site are (C) to The Beat Goes On And On Fanzine and may not be used without permission.