The photograph above – taken by a friend, Neal Purvis – captures one of the leading lights of London’s Ted scene at the height of his rabble-rousing powers.
Here is “Sunglasses Ron” Fahey taking to the stage of north London venue The Rainbow during The Sun Sound Show, which ran on the nights of April 30 and May 1 1977 and featured rockabilly giants Charlie Feathers, Buddy Knox, Jack Scott and Warren Smith.
Continue reading Sunglasses Ron in rocking rabble-rousing mode at The Rainbow 1977
Tonight I’m on Broken Hearts’ Jazz FM show Peppermint Candy talking about Teddy Boy style.
Year-ends and beginnings naturally bring a sense of loss, of time passed and experiences weighed.
For me, 2010 will always mark the deaths of two individuals of personal import and also of lasting significance to our culture: Charlie Gillett and Malcolm McLaren.
These apparently disparate individuals – Gillett 68 and McLaren 64 at their time of passing on, respectively, March 17 and April 8 – shared several characteristics, not least idiosyncratic and uncompromising viewpoints and an abiding interest in bringing vanguard music into the mainstream.
Charlie was among folk and popular music’s most prominent enthusiasts – though he never liked the phrase, it is his achievement that “world music” entered western lives – and, as art consultant Bernd Wurlitzer wrote in 2008: “Malcolm McLaren is and has been an artist in the purest sense of the word for his entire adult life.”