My interest in music development was awakened by the time that I discovered, at the tender age of fourteen that I was allowed into Shebeens. Also, my step dad, who fixed radios (amongst other things) for a living, exposed me to all manner of world music in his workroom at our family shop in Granby Street and he had a vast collection of records covering every taste imaginable. I spent a lot of time in his company.

By the time I had turned eighteen I'd bought a guitar for £9 and failed miserably to tune it. Obviously, I had the idea the wrong way round. I believed that if I couldn't tune it, I couldn't create music and therefore I shouldn't even try to play beyond three chords.

At the age of twenty I bought a clarinet from Rushworths. The most tuneful item that I copied verbatim was Acker Bilk's 'Stranger On The Shore.' I pawned the clarinet at Crown Street/Huskisson Street and never redeemed it.

Throughout, I could always play simple piano chords but never had the confidence to stand on stage and develop my own style and I was shit scared to open my mouth and sing.

Therefore, my facilitator talents developed. My passion for music development was so deep that I just had to create the circumstances within which others could thrive musically. That's how I started promoting my brother-in-law Paddy Berry and others.

Having returned to Liverpool from military service in Germany during the late fifties, I was by then able to view the city objectively as well as my usual subjective view. Unfortunately, the city was, as far as I could see, still Class and Race driven. There, within that environment we young people co-existed and co-operated whilst our peers, black and white and all colours between, were locked in mortal combat. A race war was raging and our district was 'ring fenced' by the most obnoxious types that ever walked the planet, implicitly supported by the authorities.

In my opinion the undeclared but quite obvious policy of racial containment pursued by the City Fathers had a profound effect on our cultural development. Personally, I am mixed race Arabic/Norwegian. Consequently and by choice, I always identified myself with the 'contained ones', the underdogs.

Without a doubt, in spite of and regardless of the racial problems, I was able to bridge the racial divide and view it all. Sometimes I got a whacking for my insolence in straying too far from the ghetto and getting 'uppity', but that's another story.

What was happening musically was very, very special throughout Liverpool. It could be tested and tasted. It was fine wine and excellent food, it was our own creating. We were parochial but knew instinctively that, overall, the sound was unique to Liverpool.

Return to main section