Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer. Chris Salewicz

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СКАЧАТЬ Britain. The next time that David and John went to Persia, they flew. Arriving in a taxi at their parents’ residence, they climbed out of the vehicle to pay their driver, at which point he drove off, stealing their luggage. John Mellor thought this was hilarious, spluttering as he recounted the story back at school.

      John (right) and David Mellor (left) share a donkey ride in Tehran with an unknown friend. (Phyllis Netherway)

      In 1963 John Mellor and Adrian Greaves appeared together onstage at a school drama evening; previously, John had performed in an ensemble, playing recorder onstage at the age of ten. Inspired by the satire craze of the time, the evening’s performance took current television advertisements and twisted them into skits. A regular appearance during ‘commercial breaks’ was an ad for indigestion tablets called Settlers, which concluded with the catch-line ‘Settlers bring express relief’. Johnny Mellor and Adrian Greaves took to the stage in cowboy outfits as they acted out a scene in which they were part of a wagon-train besieged by Indians. ‘What we need is some settlers,’ said Adrian. ‘Settlers bring express relief,’ Johnny delivered the punchline. At the carol service that Christmas, Johnny and Adrian sang ‘In the Deep Midwinter’ to the tune of ‘Twist and Shout’, a recent hit for The Beatles.

      By the autumn of 1963, in the sports’ changing-rooms and in the showers after games, Johnny Mellor, Adrian Greaves and their cohorts would join in off-key spontaneous renditions of a song that had swept the country late that summer, ‘She Loves You’ by the Beatles. ‘We’d all sing along to “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,”’ remembered Paul Buck. ‘The first record I bought would have been probably “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles,’ said Joe Strummer of the follow-up to “She Loves You”. Throughout Britain the image of the Fab Four was ubiquitous by the end of that year; and at CLFS John Mellor’s illustrative skills played a small part. ‘He had a job drawing The Beatles on the covers of everyone’s rough book,’ said Buck. ‘And he’d get the guitars the right way round.’ Plugging earphones into their tinny transistor radios, the boarders would listen in bed to the newest pop sounds on Radio Luxembourg’s evening English service, sailing through the airwaves and clouds of static from the European royal principality; this was especially popular on Thursday nights, to drown out the weekly bell-ringing practice in the nearby church. There was greater listening choice after Easter 1964 and the launch of Radio Caroline, from a converted fishing-boat anchored outside the three-mile limit of the British legal restrictions, pumping out the British ‘Beat Boom’ non-stop; soon Caroline’s 24-hour pop service, a symbol of rebellion for teenagers against the staid BBC, was joined by a flotilla of competitors, including Radio London, Radio City and Swinging Radio England, whose name alone defined the cultural change taking place. On Sunday afternoons the boarders could watch the ATV pop programme Thank Your Lucky Stars, presented by Brian Matthew. ‘That’s the first time I saw the Stones, way down the bill on Thank Your Lucky Stars in the sort of dead-end slot, singing “Come On” by Chuck Berry,’ Joe told Mal Peachey. ‘And we just flipped when we saw it: the whole school was sort of gathered in the day room to watch it and we didn’t need anyone to tell us this was the new thing. We all flipped, and likewise with the Beatles. In fact, I can’t imagine how we would’ve got through being at that school without that explosion going off in London: the Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Kinks. Without that rock explosion, I don’t think we would have been able to stand it. It just got us through. Every Friday a new great record. We couldn’t have survived without that music, definitely. We were very young at the time this really happened, and the older boys would bring in the records and on Saturdays they’d let them play them on this huge radiogram that had speakers all over the hall.’

      It was not the Beatles or other avatars of the ‘Beat Boom’ who inspired Johnny Mellor to become obsessive about popular music. This came through the California group who became great rivals to the Liverpool quartet, the Beach Boys. ‘Johnny came back to school one term with a copy of a Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits compilation. It knocked him and me out,’ says Paul Buck. John Mellor began to try and grow his hair as long as he could, which was not very long at all, tucking it behind his ears to avoid the attention of teachers.

      The boarders’ communal room, a small, badly heated square space intended for the reading of improving books and serious newspapers, also contained a Grundig mono record-player and a large valve radio, both put to purposeful use by Johnny Mellor and his cohorts. Another contemporary, Andy Ward, recalls hearing ‘Little Red Rooster’ by the Rolling Stones blasting out of the window, Johnny Mellor silhouetted in the frame as he mimed exaggeratedly to the Stones’ cover of the blues classic. (‘Johnny Mellor was actually a strong little man, a tough little bugger with a quiet strength,’ he said. ‘He would surprise people, because he was small.’)

      In 1988 Joe Strummer told the NME’s Sean O’Hagan that one record had changed his life, the Rolling Stones’ ‘Not Fade Away’, which came out in February 1964, about a year before ‘Little Red Rooster’: “Not Fade Away” sounded like the road to freedom! Seriously. It said, “LIVE! ENJOY LIFE! FUCK CHARTERED ACOUNTANCY!”’ Later he expanded on this: ‘I remember hearing “Not Fade Away” by the Rolling Stones coming out of this huge wooden radio in the day-room. Very loud – they always kept it on very loud. And I remember walking into the room and that’s the moment I thought, “This is something else! This is completely opposite all the other stuff we’re having to suffer here.” It was really a brutal situation. That’s the moment I think I decided here is at least a gap in the clouds, or here’s a light shining. And that’s the moment I think I fell for music. I think I made a subconscious decision to only follow music forever.’

      Although Johnny Mellor was a willing participant in the annual school dances, held in the dining-hall, this was the extent of the boy’s musical education: ‘I was non-musical all my childhood. I wasn’t in any choir, didn’t learn any instrument, couldn’t be more completely away from the music. But we were fervent listeners and it was only after I left school that I began to think that I could actually play. I mean, I had a big problem with getting over that, which is why I called myself Joe Strummer. Because I can still only play six strings or none, and not all the fiddly bits. That was part of my make-up, that it was really impossible to play music, and so when I managed to get some chords together I was chuffed. That’s all I ever wanted to do: play chords. Jimi Hendrix said that if you can’t play rhythm guitar you can’t play lead, and I think he’s right, but I haven’t got to the lead guitar playing. But, still, rhythm guitar-playing is an art.’

      Anne Day, who was two years below him, insists John Mellor was a member of the fifteen-strong school choir who sang in St Giles church on Sunday mornings – he also seems to forget his ability with the recorder. There were advantages to being a choir member. ‘You had about half an hour’s start on everyone in going over to the church and having a sneaky cigarette if you were in the choir,’ she said.

      One abiding memory of life at City of London Freemen’s for Adrian Greaves was the appearance in 1964 of him and John Mellor ‘as woodland sprites in The Merry Wives of Windsor: it was just an excuse to get off school. He was very keen on amateur dramatics. Especially from around fifteen upwards.’ The plays would be staged in the Ashtead Peace Memorial Hall, off Ashtead High Street, and parents would be invited – though Johnny Mellor’s could never attend.

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      BLUE APPLES

      1965–1969

      When the two Mellor boys went out to Tehran in the summer of 1965, Johnny came across a Chuck Berry EP that included the great American R’n’B performer’s version of a song that he thought was a Beatles’ original on their For Sale album, released the previous Christmas. ‘I remember putting on Chuck Berry’s СКАЧАТЬ