MOVE IT ON THE BACKBEAT (Part Four)
MOVE IT ON THE BACKBEAT!
JOSIE + THE PUSSY CATS IN LONDON
1960-61
PART FOUR:
UNDERNEATH THE OVERPASS
A previously unissued, soon-to-be Top Twenty hit, “The Forgotten Man” had just been serviced to radio when Joe Meek booked The Pussy Cats into his brand new studio. Having fallen out with his partner at Lansdowne, he’d sold his share in the venture and opened a new recording facility. Would you believe it was in his flat? Xandi was not impressed and said so in no uncertain terms: “Are you joshing me, Joe? You simply can't be serious!” Even Sebastian, making a return studio appearance after a long absence seemed underwhelmed (in fact, the cat was absolutely lethargic - something I’d never seen in the past)!
Triumph X 761
THE FORGOTTEN MAN
featuring GREG/
DON’T SAY I DIDN’T TELL YOU SO!
featuring MELLY*
JOSIE + THE PUSSY CATS
A CABOT TWINS PRODUCTION
Arranged by “PEPPER”
*A FAMOUS MUSIC PRODUCTION
Arranged by BREE SPELLMAN
- June 1960, Top Twenty hit
I’ll never forget that chaotic first session at what he’d later christen “RGM Sound Studio”. It was far too small for recording purposes; yet baffles were set up all round, and the floor was a mass of microphone wires. You could trip and damn well break your neck if you weren’t careful! The girls were huddled up in Joe’s sitting room, strumming their guitars; the horn section was standing in the bloody stairwell, and poor Greg was sent off to sing in the loo! “The natural echo in there is marvelous,” Joe raved.
Before long, Alexandra threw up her hands. “Rubbish and bother! Who the hell can produce a record in this three-ring circus?” she raged. However, Joe did a preliminary sound mix, and what we heard sounded amazingly good. Lex and I decided that this was the perfect time and place for Joe to produce his first record. The man was over the moon when we told him! “I shan't let you down,” he promised. “I’ll give The Pussy Cats the biggest smash hit they’ve had yet!”
PUSSY CATS AT RGM SOUND STUDIO
WITH JOE MEEK, ALEXANDRA,
SABRINA AND SEBASTIAN.
One day into the sessions, who should arrive but Bree Spellman, bearing gifts in the form of several new songs with tailor-made arrangements. As usual, Alexandra had carefully planned the session out and chosen all the songs. She gave Bree a curt dismissal: "Sorry, luv! We don't need anything more."
However, Joe Meek was now in charge. What Sabrina brought in was so damn good, Joe scrapped Xandi’s plans and subsequently concentrated on the new material. Xandi was fit to be tied! She got into a screaming row with Bree and quickly learned that this cool blonde was no shrinking violet. Their exchange was bluer than the deep blue sea: Tone-deaf bitch! Cunt with no sense of rhythm! Red-headed twat! Bleach-blonde slag!
I suppose it was inevitable that two strong women, both breaking new ground in her own way, would see each other as a threat; the A & R side of the music biz has never made much room for females. It must’ve seemed like they were playing a zero-sum game! However, rather than professional ambition, personalities or creative differences, I sensed that competition over Greg James was the main reason their conflict was so heated. Both ladies had more than a professional interest in him! Of course, the brat was basking in the attention!
The only thing they agreed about was the choice of Greg as lead singer. Accordingly, he fronted all of the tunes recorded except for “Underneath The Overpass”. That was a jazzy Big Band-era throwback that Bree had written for an aborted Paramount picture. Josie requested to sing it since it sounded like music from her generation. Her sassy interpretation was wonderful, but Alexandra didn’t hear the playback - by then she’d gathered up Sebastian and left the session in a huff!
On the spot, Lex and I decided to release an EP - the first one ever tracked by The Pussy Cats, and in stereophonic sound to boot! Only one previously-recorded track made it into the lineup: “Move It On The Backbeat.” This was the 1957 demo recording, which Xandi and what remained of The Kool-Time Katts had overdubbed to create a finished master. Joe Meek mixed it to stereo, and it became the EP’s title track.
That ranking was meant as a peace offering to Alexandra, and for the first time she was credited as music director on the label; but these good faith gestures didn’t settle anything. The die was cast! Going forward, Xandi refused to attend Pussy Cats record dates. Fortunately, Sabrina stepped in to replace her, so we didn’t miss a beat.
In preparation for the release of MOVE IT ON THE BACKBEAT, mischievous Lex Cabot devised a brilliant promotional gimmick. At his urging, I hired twenty dancers and five brass musicians from West End musicals and sent them to mill around Trafalgar Square. On cue, Josie, Val and Melly arrived on the scene wearing the biggest A-line coats anyone had ever seen! Naturally, Melody and Myrna Munro collaborated on the design. Greg was off with Xandi somewhere, but Lex and I didn’t care. We didn’t need his help; it was all about the girls!
Throwing off their bulky outerwear, The Pussy Cats stood revealed in tight midriff tops, tiger-stripe armlets and boots, and Melody's sheer dark leggings. Their guitars were strung over their shapely shoulders, but not for long; after Josie counted off the intro, the girls began to sing and play the title song of their forthcoming EP. Suddenly, numerous bystanders in ordinary street clothes started to prance and twirl about! Others removed brass instruments from their coats and raised them to their lips.
People were astounded and transfixed where they stood, watching this . . . this flash mob! I don’t know what else to call such a deceptively spontaneous burst of creative energy. Somebody rang the police, and the dancers and horn players fled when they heard whistles and sirens. That was also done on cue! However, the ladies stayed put. They were arrested and charged with causing a public disturbance . . . but guess what? That was the whole point of the thing! We wanted to create a spectacle.
The subsequent publicity was worth the cost of bailing The Pussy Cats out of jail; how could tabloid photographers resist shots of three gorgeous birds swathed in animal print leaving New Scotland Yard? We correctly predicted everything that would happen, except for what Melly accomplished: She charmed the bloody pants off the judge and got the charge dropped a month later! That was like icing on the cake.
Triumph XEP 599
Who’s Got The Action?/
Move It On The Back Beat*/
Always Something There To Remind Me/
Underneath The Overpass
MOVE IT ON THE BACKBEAT!
JOSIE + THE PUSSY CATS
AN RGM SOUND PRODUCTION
*A CABOT TWINS PRODUCTION
with ALEXANDRA CABOT MUSIC
- October 1960, Top Ten hit
By January of 1961, MOVE IT ON THE BACKBEAT had become a Top Ten smash - our “flash mob” mission had been accomplished in spectacular fashion! Yet there was another surprise in store. Even more than "Who's Got The Action?" and the title track, which went into heavy rotation on pirate radio stations, the most popular song was “Underneath The Overpass!” The BBC’s Light Programme latched onto it hard. The song’s Swing Era elements appealed to older listeners, but the British beatnik crowd seemed to fancy it, too.
It arguably became The Pussy Cats’ biggest hit; they loved that record all over Europe, and it was big in Japan as well! Triumph Records’ Japanese distributor begged us to send the group to Asia for a brief tour, so we did. For a while now, The Pussy Cats had been using a quartet of horn players on stage, but this time they had a full brass section! Never did Josie fail to get standing ovations when performing “Underneath The Overpass” in concert; at one show, I glanced over and was surprised to see Greg beaming with pride for his mum! There was hope for the lad yet!
The only thing to distract from the sensation we’d stirred up was the unexpected return of London Lizzie. After several years free of them, horrific hatchet murders suddenly started being committed again! Once more, fear was rampant among men in the upper classes. Alarmingly, one of Lizzie’s new victims was a friend of mine; I had a luncheon appointment with Ashley John Stackhouse on the day his body was discovered. I barely missed discovering it myself! He’d been slaughtered in his sitting room. There were reports of a blonde seen hurrying out of the building, but I personally didn’t see anyone. Even if I had, I’d likely have been too traumatized to remember!
During this time, Josie was in a constant state of trauma. What caused it? Not bloody murders, but the extra-curricular activities of her young bandmates. For someone with a show business background, she could be quite prudish about sex! Possibly that had to do with how her extended family rejected her for bearing a coloured man’s child.
“If certain people would keep their knickers pulled up,” she groused, “it would be a much better world, wouldn’t it?” Not only did Josie disapprove of her son’s dalliance with Alexandra, she also frowned on Val “living in a state of sin” with Lex (which she began doing near the end of 1960). Scurrilous whispers about Melody having “Sapphic” interests upset her, too. Yet women are nothing if not complicated: Miss De Carlo herself pursued a “forbidden” romance with a seventeen-year-old!
To be fair, Michael Phillip Jagger was a very mature boy for his age; but he was still in secondary school when he became The Pussy Cats’ most ardent male groupie. The lad followed the band to every performance! Mick’s passion was and is the Blues, but he has wide-ranging tastes that include Jazz, Latin, Country and Western music and . . . redheads. His flirtation with Josie was quite bold and a source of irritation for Greg - although his own romantic pursuits on the road stopped him focusing much on his mother’s activities!
First Mick’s attentions flustered Josie; and then she was flattered; and the next thing I knew, she was making time to teach Mick the fine points of Flamenco guitar. That’s what led to their fling! The tabloids got wind of it and had a field day - Is Miss Pussy Playing Games With Her Toy Boy Tonight? That sort of thing! Of course, the paparazzi were keen to catch them in flagrante delicto; but to their credit, Josie and Mick were always very discreet.
WAY-OUT AND WIGGED-OUT:
MISS DAGMAR DIAMOND!
Their brief affair ended up benefiting a famous children’s charity. Mick was attached to the British beatnik scene, and he knew a woman named Dagmar Diamond; she owned The Madhouse, one of Soho’s most popular beat clubs. I met Dagmar a couple of times - a queer sort of bird who wore her hair like Elsa Lanchester in the movie Bride Of Frankenstein! That lady was so eccentric, she made Joe Meek look like Winston Churchill at his stodgiest!
However, Dagmar had a philanthropic heart. She longed to hold a benefit concert for Barnardo’s Home for Children. It was to be a “beat” poetry reading with musical guests. She’d gotten a couple of Jazz trios to commit but she wanted an act with broader appeal, one that could draw a moneyed crowd. When she learned that Mick was “in” with Josie + The Pussy Cats, she enlisted the lad to help her get the group booked.
I was skeptical when Josie approached me about it, but Lex convinced me that a booking of this sort would be good public relations. There was such a huge turnout that, at the eleventh hour, Dagmar had to forsake the premises of her smallish-sized club and rent a nearby parking garage!
Angry about Mick Jagger’s role in the event, Greg James refused to appear - the only time his petulance ever resulted in a missed performance. Dagmar didn’t mind his absence, though: Josie, Valerie and Melody were the only draw she needed, and they certainly delivered the goods! The lasses had far more going for them than their tiger-striped Capri pants. Just listen to this glowing New Musical Express review:
GARAGE ROCK, PUSSY CATS STYLE!
Josie + The Pussy Cats gave their all at the recent Doctor Barnardo's benefit. No longer a Calypso group, they straddle the fence between Skiffle/Folk, Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll. This was evidenced by the SRO crowd of folkies, beatniks and Trad Jazz enthusiasts who turned up for the date, which took place in a hastily converted garage. The ladies gave a contribution’s worth of entertainment and then some, even without their vocal star, Greg James; Misses Josie De Carlo, Melody Rutledge and especially Valerie Santiago sang glorious renditions of several Burt Bacharach songs. Included were the recent smash hits “With Open Arms”, “Underneath The Overpass” and “Are You There With Another Girl.”
If anything, NME wasn’t glowing enough in its praise; the girls were bloody sensational! This was the first time I saw just how complete they were as an all-woman unit, and it was something I wouldn’t forget. Mick’s fling with Josie came to an end soon after the charity show, but not before I landed The Pussy Cats a week-long gig at Liverpool’s Cavern Club. You’d think this was no great shakes; they were home towners, after all, and a very popular act to boot. However, by now the Cavern was the hottest beat venue in England and not easy to book.
Another reason why it was a tough booking is because the club had become Rock-orientated, and Josie + The Pussy Cats weren’t considered a Rock band. At least, I didn’t consider them one. Neither did Xandi and Lex, and Bree “Burt Bacharach” Spellman was adamant that she never wrote Rock songs! All the same, without really trying the group - the girls in particular - had cultivated an avid following among the Rock ‘n Roll set. That’s what clinched their residency at The Cavern.
I’m sure Joe Meek’s wild and wooly production style had a lot to do with it; but it was also down to how The Pussy Cats looked, the aggressive way they played music and the proud working-class aura they projected. That cockney side sometimes made it difficult for me to book them at top venues, but what was I to do? Ask them to tone it down? I’m sure Melly would’ve shoved her tiger-striped high heel straight up me arse if I’d ever dared!
The Cavern was the kind of venue she and Val loved; the crowd was raucous and chock-a-block with their friends and family members. Auntie Myrna was there, of course - a free pass for her! And Mick Jagger all but standing on stage with them. During that gig, which went down a cracking success, Josie urged Mick to follow his heart. “Go out there and found a band of your own,” she said. I hear that he’s done just that, and with the sort of connections he has, don’t be surprised if it takes off. I wish him the best!
Triumph X 779
RAIN FROM THE SKIES
featuring GREG/
THE LAST ONE TO BE LOVED
featuring VAL*
JOSIE + THE PUSSY CATS
A CABOT TWINS PRODUCTION
Arranged by “PEPPER”
*Arranged by GREG JAMES
- December 1960, Top Thirty hit
1960 had ended with a Top Thirty follow-up for The Pussy Cats: A Greg James-led midtempo outing called “Rain From The Skies.” It was yet another track pulled from an older session. Valerie was champing at the bit for more lead vocals, but Alexandra had the final say on releases, and she seemed to content to mine the backlog for new singles. Since Joe had taken the production reins, she no longer had a personal investment in The Pussy Cats’ music.
I missed her input, but the girls were ambivalent. Always the blunt one, Melly declared: “I right got me fill of her, always horning in on the harmonies!” Val hastened to agree: “A shame, isn’t it? Xandi knows all there is to know about tunes except how to carry one! Fortunately, Bree Spellman leaves all the singing to us.”
It still wasn’t widely known that Burt Bacharach was a female songwriter. In late 1960, Lex had met some music industry people from the States who insisted it wasn’t the case. “Burt Bacharach, a woman? That’s preposterous,” they scoffed. “This young lady you talk about must be an impostor.” They simply refused to believe that she could write such complex songs; but we knew Sabrina was no faker. Lee Hazlewood and other Famous Music executives we interacted with had vouched for her.
What’s more, we saw her both compose and arrange music on the spot, fine-tuning her songs for The Pussy Cats in the studio. Bree didn’t consider her doubters worth the bother of confrontation. “Let them say whatever they want about me,” she laughed. “I just do my work. I’m not interested in blazing trails.” She was focused on other things, like the prospect of cutting a Josie + The Pussy Cats album.
She’d begun arguing for one. Frankie Vaughan, The Avons and several other British acts had started covering her material. They were pulling hits, too, but she felt strongly that Josie + The Pussy Cats were her best song interpreters on this side of the Atlantic. “An album of my compositions would benefit everyone all round,” she insisted. Lex and I agreed, and with ten hit singles under our belts, well, wasn’t it high time for an LP?
JAPANESE PUSSY CATS BOOTLEG ALBUM.
Already, a bootleg live album was in circulation on the Continent, so there could be no question about demand; but Alexandra pushed back on this idea. “If The Pussy Cats are such good song interpreters,” she demanded, “why haven’t they been featured in a film, like Johnny Mathis and others who’ve recorded Bacharach songs?” Sabrina’s publisher Famous Music was the musical arm of Paramount Pictures, so this was an oversight that did want addressing. At the urging of Lex and I, Sabrina took the matter up with her bosses. This resulted in The Pussy Cats appearing in a new Paramount flick called Made In Paris.
The film starred Paddington bombshell Joan Collins and was very risqué: There were striptease scenes that left little to the imagination! The American director, Roger Corman, had a reputation for pushing the nudity envelope. That bloke couldn't get his fill of naked women! While in England he did the rounds of strip clubs, including a visit to Liverpool's Fish 'n' Chips bar. There he was buttonholed by a vengeful Holly "Chips" Peel, and from her he learned of Josie’s strip club background!
"I didn't recognize her with that flamin' red mop she's got now," the club owner admitted, "but that's her, all right. Miss Josie bloomin' De Carlo in the flesh! A nice rack o' titties on that one, don't you think so?" After Clive "Fish" Peel showed him some old lobby photos, he did think so! Corman fancied having Josie reprise a pole routine on camera. Naturally she refused: "The hell I will! This movie set is crawling with topless females. What's he need with another one?" When the director insisted, there was a bit of a kerfuffle! I had to step in and strike a compromise. In the end, The Pussy Cats were shown cavorting in fur bikinis as they performed the title song on the French Riviera.
Melody designed those swimsuits but her aunt Myrna didn’t sew them; that job was given to the production’s wardrobe man and unfortunately, Greg James suffered for it. He had to wear a fur Speedo that itched him in the crotch like the Dickens! I mean to tell you . . . there were several most embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions! The film crew got quite the big laugh out of it and frankly, so did I.
END OF PART FOUR!
