Sunday Mercury - Bev Bevan

Bev Bevan pictures: Taking to the field for Gary Newbon's Central TV All Stars

2012-03-03T16:34:50Z

NOW here's a football team to be reckoned with.

I can't remember the year, but I was proud to turn out for Gary Newbon's Central TV All Stars.

And what a line-up!

Among the soccer star legends here are Tony Want, Ron Atkinson, Ron Wylie and Jimmy Greaves!

You'll also spot Gary in his suit and trademark glasses. He's the manager, of course.

And, yes, that's your friendly neighbourhood rock and roll drummer taking centre stage in the bottom row.

Can you identify any of the others? Let me know!

There'll be another photo from my album in the Sunday Mercury next week.

Bev Bevan pictures: Backstage at Rock With Laughter

2012-02-25T15:48:26Z

OVER the years, I've been proud to have played a part in the Rock With Laughter shows that were started by my best mate, Jasper Carrott.

Here's a backstage shot from 2008, taken at Birmingham's NEC Arena.

That's me on the left, with songbird Bonnie Tyler, Jasper and Phil Tree, who's the bassist in the Bev Bevan Band.

Welsh wonder Bonnie is a great pal, and had huge hits with It's A Heartache, Holding Out For A Hero and Total Eclipse Of The Heart.

She's still touring at the age of 60, and plans to release a country-rock album recorded in Nashville later this year.

Bev Bevan pictures: The Tony Iommi Band

2012-02-18T16:25:43Z

THERE'S been a lot of talk lately about the big Black Sabbath reunion.

But here's a band that'd still go down an absolute storm these days.

It was 1995 and the Tony Iommi Band was recording an album.

We were locked away in Monnow Valley Studios, deep in Wales.

From left to right in the photo, that's me (yes, the one with the dodgy facial hair), keyboardsman Don Airey, Black Sabbath axeman Tony Iommi, bassist Neil Murray and guitar genius Gordon Giltrap.

Bev Bevan pictures: My huge ELO drum kit for NEC gigs with Moscow Symphony Orchestra

2012-02-18T16:04:15Z

REMEMBER the photo a fortnight ago of me proudly sitting behind my first-ever sponsored drum kit?

It was quite a modest affair but, boy, was I proud of it.

Fast-forward now to 1991 and you'll see that things got bigger - and how!

This is a photo taken during rehearsals for ELO Part 2's gigs with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

The venue was Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre and the shows were fantastic.

It was such a thrill to hear those ELO songs played by one of the world's top orchestras.

And, of course, the band added the rock and roll riffs. It was a musical marriage made in heaven!

Watch out for another photo from my album next week in the Sunday Mercury.

Bev Bevan Diary: I'm back - Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T19:33:33Z

Having a pretty good time of late as I haven't updated this blog in four months - So here's
a quick re-cap of what I've been up to, work wise these past 4 months.

September
9th. The Move (featuring Trevor Burton and Bev Bevan), played a charity gig in aid
of "Greyhound Rescue Trust" at Hall Green Stadium in Birmingham.
17th Bev Bevan Band and others played open air festival in Henley in Arden in
Warwickshire
23rd The start of this year's "It's only rock'n'roll" tour ( Bev Bevan Band plus Raymond
Froggatt, Geoff Turton, Trevor Burton and Danny King). Opening show at Leamington
Spa Centre, followed by two nights at Solihull Arts Complex on the 28th and 29th.

October
14th Bev Bevan Band, plus special guest Rick Wakeman on keyboards, recorded
a spot on BBC's "One Jasper Carrott TV Special ( to be aired on January 9th,
following "Eastenders" ).
16th I played drums at a concert at the beautiful Birmingham Symphony Hall along
with staff and pupils of Dorridge School of Music at their annual charity concert. I also
became the school's patron that day.
29th
Gig for The Move featuring TB and BB. At the Ivy Leaf Club in Sheldon, B'ham.

November
"It's only rock'n'roll" concerts at Aston Wood Golf Club in Sutton Coldfield, the "Robin
2" in Bilston, the Atrix in Bromsgrove, Ludlow Assembly Rooms and Frome Theatre in
Somerset.
Also an appearance at the Burlington Hotel in Birmingham for the Bev Bevan Band at
Blind Dave Heeley's charity fund raising dinner and gala ball.
On Sunday the 6th I was compere at "The World's Greatest Drummer" concert at
Warwick Arts Centre.
Also, on Friday 18th, prior to the Ludlow gig, The Move featuring TB and BB performed
in aid of BBC's "Children in Need" at The Mailbox in Birmingham. Recorded live on
BBC WM's Paul Franks show and televised for "Midlands Today". Great fun, but as we
were playing outside -- bloody freezing !

December
18th The final show of this year's "It's only rock'n'roll" tour at the Rover Club in
Solihull.
Also over this past four months there have been around twenty "Bev Bevan and Jimmy
Franks Shows" on BBC WM 95.6 fm. Listen every Tuesday evening between 10pm and
midnight or tune in anytime via BBC I-Player. Also check out my "Bevan's Heaven" CD
review column and "Bev Bevan's Photo Album" every week in the "Sunday Mercury".

May I wish you all a happy and healthy 2012.

Bev's Picture memories: Performing Tonight on Top Of The Pops

2011-12-31T13:19:52Z

TONIGHT was The Move's first single for the prog-rock Harvest label back in 1971.

The original plan had been to release a song titled Ella James off our Message From The Country album.

But label bosses had a change of heart, and decided that Tonight had a better chance in the charts.

The song, one of Roy Wood's, wasn't actually on the album and was only added to a 2005 re-issue!

Anyway, here we are on Top Of The Pops performing Tonight, with Jeff Lynne and Roy on guitar, and yours truly on drums.

Catch another picture from my photo album next week in the Mercury.

Bev's Picture memories: Flying with The Move, The Animals, The Nice, Colliseum and the Jimi Hendrix Experience and going on Tiswas

2011-12-03T15:55:27Z

OVER the past year Midland pop legend Bev Bevan has been opening his rock'n'roll tour diaries in the Sunday Mercury.

Today the Move and ELO legend turns instead to his photo album. Each week we'll be featuring a pop snapshot from the past.

We kick off at the double - with two of the pictures from Bev's archives.

"The first shot, taken back in 1968, shows members of The Move, The Animals, The Nice, Colliseum and the Jimi Hendrix Experience about to board a flight to play a festival in Switzerland," says Bev.

"That's me just behind our singer Carl Wayne, resplendent in dark jacket, hat and shades, on the left. And you can spot Roy Wood to the right of the passengers.

"My second photo shows me with lovely Sally James on the classic TV show Tiswas, on which I appeared in 1978. You had to watch out for that phantom flan flinger!"

The Move hit the hippy capital of the world

2011-11-19T14:45:47Z

OUR gigs at the Whisky a Go Go had been a huge success.

But after a wonderful 1969 week in the 'City of Angels', we loaded up our U Haul trailer once again, hitched it to our rented Dodge sedan and hit the road again.

Our route was due North. Our destination: the the hippy capital of the world, San Francisco.

This was the city, of course, "where little cable cars reach halfway to the stars" and where you had to "be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!"

If you believed the Scott McKenzie hit, that is.

In spite of a week of mellowing out in Los Angeles you wouldn't find these five working class lads from England's industrial heartland Birmingham wearing any flowers in their hair!

We were in San Francisco to rock - and rock we did!

Greatest

Being put on the same bill as Joe Cocker's Grease Band and one of the greatest rock 'n' rollers of all time, the brilliant Little Richard, was all the incentive we needed.

Plus we were playing two sets a night at the legendary Fillmore West, where almost every great Sixties group had played, and where every great Seventies group would go on to play.

Our gigs at the venue were recorded for posterity and are about to be released as a double-CD set titled (surprise, surprise!) The Move Live At The Fillmore.

These were some very special performances.

We knew that they were the last dates of the long-awaited American tour.

We hoped to return to the East Coast to play the venues in New York and Chicago that we'd missed due to our visa problems, but Britain was calling.

It would soon be time for us to go back home to Brum.

Don't miss the concluding part of my US tour diary next week to see how the gigs went, and what we played.

The day we had a brawl with rednecks on Route 66 after they called Roy Wood a girl

2011-11-05T14:29:48Z

SO there we were, trundling along Route 66 on The Move's 1969 tour of the USA, stopping often to take photos of the old Wild West.

It was all going fine until we pulled in to Hank's Truck Stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

As we were filling up with petrol, some real redneck cowboy types began taking the p**s out of Roy Wood.

Woody had his hair down past his shoulders and one of these cowboys, who resembled Mongo from Blazing Saddles, began tugging it.

"Hey are ya a boy or a girl?" he demanded.

"We want no trouble," we said. "We're English!"

We assumed that would end all conversation immediately.

But no.

We had just started to get back in the car when other rednecks began shouting "Cissies!"

Our road manager 'Upsy' Downing then made an appearance, after paying for the petrol.

Trouble

"What's the trouble?" he asked. "These guys are in a band and they're with me."

Now, Upsy fancied himself as a bit of a hardcase, but the smallest of the cowboys hit Upsy just once on the jaw and down he went like a sack of spuds!

We dragged him into the car as Carl hit the accelerator, dust flying everywhere and the rednecks chasing after us, yelling and screaming: "Come back here and fight, you English faggots!"

We didn't stop again until we finally checked into a Holiday Inn in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Since leaving Detroit we had travelled around 1,700 miles over two days and a night.

To put it mildly, we were all completely shattered, but after a coffee, Coke, hamburgers and eggs we set off to complete the last 500 miles of our epic trek through Kingman, Barstow and San Bernadino, finally arriving on the Pacific Coast and our destination of Los Angeles.

Upsy somehow got all five us into one room at the Continental Hyatt House Hotel on Sunset Strip, a place where he had stayed before when working with our pal Jimi Hendrix.

We were checked in for a full week and got into a nice routine, spending half the day by the luxurious, rooftop swimming pool.

Bev Bevan: bye, bye American high

2011-10-02T15:01:56Z

BACK in 1967 the importance of having a high profile was summed up by The Troggs.

Not only did they get lots of press because of their wild stage shows but they had a huge hit with Wild Thing.

I picked up the music paper one week to discover that Reg Presley's band had been given gold awards at the Mar Del Plata festival in Argentina.

They were somewhat strangely dubbed "the new interpreters of youthful rhythm in international dancing music" - but at least they got to America on the strength of it.

The headlines now said that my group The Move were actually leaving for New York for the legendary US tour.

But they were only headlines.

There had once been some semblance of truth in the idea.Our manager Tony Secunda had once talked on the phone to someone in the US who agreed that it might be a good idea, but that was all there was to it.

Difference

If we had actually gone to the States in 1967, it would have made a huge difference to us.

We started out with Jimi Hendrix and Cream - at the same time, doing the same sort of shows, almost like the same family - but they carried on with underground music while we got swayed by the screaming girls and Top Of The Pops, Jackie magazine and all that sort of stuff.

They really stuck to their guns and went to America to get away from the pop scene back in Britain. They became album bands while The Move became a singles band.

If we'd have gone out there, and persevered with our music in the same way that Cream did, we could well have become really big as a 'serious' band.

As it was, we never really got the chance. A lot of it was our own fault. We were reluctant to leave home, for starters.

Looking back, we were very baby-ish. If we'd come back from the States as an album band then the entire course of our careers would have changed.

By the end of The Move both Roy Wood and I wanted to get serious, but we let the ideal drift away again.

It was the story of our lives.

Bev Bevan Diaries: My summertime and some important dates for you

2011-09-10T12:42:43Z

sMost Tuesday evenings throughout June, July and August I could be found at The Mailbox in Birmingham, broadcasting live on air, the Bev Bevan and Jimmy Franks show on BBC WM 95.6fm, 10pm 'til midnight. The programme is also repeated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on bbc I player, available on your computer by clicking on BBC WM and going to "Programmes".

Wednesday June 15th
I played in a "Celebrity Tour" charity golf day at one of my favourite golf courses, The Forest of Arden.

Friday June 17th
Went to see Peter Kay at the LG Arena in Birmingham. He was very, very funny when he, eventually, got on stage around 8.15, following the expected 7.30 pm. There was a long interval too, during which we had to endure some dreadful, overloud disco style music, The evening not helped either by me being sat behind a guy the size of an American basketball player who never sat still. Took an eternity to get out of the car park too. Enough hassle in fact to put me off going to any more Arena style concerts.

Saturday July 2nd
Gig for "The Move, featuring Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton" at Kings Heath Cricket Club. Two 45 minute sets to an enthusiastic crowd.

Thursday July 7th
My annual charity golf day at Aston Wood Golf Club in Sutton Coldfield and a lovely, sunny day for the 24 teams of four who had paid to play. My team consisted of my oldest pal Jasper Carrott, Rocking Berrie's Geoff Turton and Tony "Show me the way to Amarillo" Christie. Great guys to play with, but we did not score well. My group, The Bev Bevan Band played on the evening, following the fund raising dinner, and joined on stage by my good friends Trevor Burton, Geoff Turton and Danny King.

Sunday July 17th
Went to the Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston, Birmingham for a celebratory dinner to mark the 70th birthday of my BBC WM colleague, the legendary Ed Doolan. From September onwards Ed's show moves to Sunday mornings, 9am to midday on BBC WM 95.6fm.

Sunday July 24th
Gig at Wakes Festival in Burntwood, Staffordshire for The Bev Bevan Band. An all day event bathed in glorious sunshine, The New Amen Corner and Dave Berry on before we took to the stage around 8pm, and , as with my golf day, joined by Trevor Burton, Geoff Turton and Danny King.

Thursday August 4th
Went to see "We will rock you", the Queen / Ben Elton musical at the Birmingham Hippodrome. The third time I have seen the show and still really enjoy it - great songs , fine singing and acting, and the hidden, live band just excellent.

August 8th/9th/10th
"The Move featuring Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton" played Ypres Festival in Belgium. We flew from Liverpool's John Lennon airport, which must be the friendliest airport in Britain. Flew to Brussels and met by minibus for the two hour drive to Ypres. Following day got the opportunity to visit the museum and the cemeteries in the area, where thousands upon thousands of young soldiers are buried, all victims of the dreadful and ultimately pointless 1914 to 1918 First World War .

A very moving experience.
The concert on the evening went splendidly, playing outside to a huge crowd, in the beautiful town square, Ypres ( Ieper ), a serene and peaceful place, with not a single piece of litter to be seen anywhere. Meanwhile, in my hometown of Birmingham, the riots raged, As a foreigner abroad it was not a time to feel proud of being British.

Friday August 26th
I went to Birmingham Children's Hospital to be given a conducted tour and handed over the £16,200 cheque, the money raised from my "Bev Bevan charity golf day" at Aston Wood Golf Club on June 15th. The money we all raised that day and evening is going to a most worthwhile cause,

That's all folks!

Please do tune into my radio show and read my columns in the "Sunday Mercury every week. Here's a list of upcoming gigs for the "It's Only Rock'nRoll" tour dates, plus a few for the Bev Bevan Band..

September

15th The Place, Oakengates
16th Tivoli Theatre, Wimbourne
17th Henley in Arden Tennis Club
23rd Spa Centre, Leamington Spa
24th Babbacombe Theatre, Torquay
28th Arts Centre, Solihull
29th Arts Centre, Solihull.
October
9th Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon.
28th Aston Wood Golf Club, Sutton Coldfield
29th Ivy Leaf, Sheldon, Birmingham.
November
10th Robin 2, Bilston
12th Artrix, Bromsgrove
16th Garrick Theatre, , Lichfield
18th Assembly Rooms, Ludlow.
19th The Barn, Aston, Birmingham

24th Macmillan Gala Ball, Birmingham Hotel.
27th Memorial Theatre, Frome.

December
17th Rover Club, Sheldon, Birmingham.

Cheers!
Bev.

Bev Bevan Diaries: Keeping the girlfriends hush hush

2011-09-10T12:31:28Z

AFTER our run-in with Harold Wilson in 1967, Flowers In The Rain had reached No 2 in the charts and we'd got a new deal with Regal Zonophone, a label that used to be exclusively for the Salvation Army!

The Daily Mail reported that I was proud of my red waistcoat edged with bobbles. Mind you, I was only 22 at the time. It was serious business, I tell you!

Ace Kefford told the world that he was ready to vote for a new Prime Minister - as long as it was Jimi Hendrix. He wanted Jimi to stand with a view to replacing Wilson.

Our brush with authority was seen to have given us credibility and maybe we should, at that stage, have lived up to it.

But if anything we were more a pop band. We went out of our way afterwards to play the Wilson thing down, to say that no, we were really nice guys despite all the publicity.

When the next record, Fire Brigade, was released in 1968, it was definitely more poppy. It was as if to say, well it's only pop music after all.

Christian

Cliff Richard wasn't sticking to his guns either. He'd announced that he was ready to quit to be a full-time Christian. In the end he decided to carry on regardless.

Tom Jones was about to become a millionaire thanks to a 13-week booking in Las Vegas. What were we doing wrong? We still had whip-rounds before buying a round at the local pub.

There was a new Sunbeam Rapier out that did a ton, and we wanted one. Badly.

There was something else we wanted badly, to be able to tell the truth. After the Wilson controversy we'd drifted apart from our manager Tony Secunda, who was responsible for all the hype.

Trevor told the press that he didn't think girls had much sense of humour (he was probably stoned at the time) and that resulted in a flood of angry letters from female fans.

In fact, we all had girlfriends but we weren't allowed to admit it. The image of the pop star was far too important to let your personal life intrude on it. We had to keep it secret.

Buses permitting, I was going out with Val, and Ace had been living with a girl for years but it all had to be kept 'hush hush.'

The Bev Bevan Diaries: How a brickie saved the day

2011-08-06T16:46:33Z

WE'D enjoyed hits with Night Of Fear and I Can Hear The Grass Grow, but back in April 1967 it was still hard work coming up with singles.

More worrying for all of us was the album that The Move was supposed to be making. It was due out in May, and we were nowhere near finishing it.

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That's when a brickie called Fred Lynch popped up to save the day.

Rather than admit that we just hadn't been able to get our act together, our manager Tony Secunda invented a story that, in tabloid talk, came down basically to 'Beat Group's Tapes Stolen.'

He told the press that the album had been nicked and it made banner headlines in the Daily Mirror - a real national scandal!

"The tapes were the only copies of ten songs that The Move had recorded over a seven-month period," read the report.

"Manager Tony Secunda appealed to the thieves, for the sake of the fans, to bring the tapes back."

The story was that they'd been taken from a white Mercedes saloon owned by our agent and parked in North London.

But, let's be honest, it was total hype.

To give the story that little bit of extra excitement, Secunda offered a £200 reward for anyone who could give information leading to the recovery of the tapes. That meant, of course, that they would have to be "found" by someone when we were ready to get the LP out.

And that, miraculously and by coincidence too good to be true, was just what happened. Fred Lynch arrived on the scene...

A little later, the newspapers carried the story "Move Tapes Found On Building Site."

A 20-year-old bricklayer named Fred Lynch had stumbled across them during his lunch break and so qualified for the reward.

Did he get it? Well, there was one small difficulty. He didn't exist.

It's a scam that's been pulled by other bands several times since.

About this time The Move appeared in the 14-hour 'Technicolour Dream' at the Alexandra Palace in London. It was the official stamp of authenticity to play on a bill that included Pink Floyd, Tomorrow and a band called John's Children which featured a newcomer by the name of Marc Bolan.

Bev Bevan Diaries: I was penniless and catching the bus despite Move success

2011-07-31T11:44:55Z

DESPITE all the attention The Move were getting early in 1967, we were still penniless.

We'd play gigs in London and then motor back to Birmingham in the early hours of the morning because we couldn't afford to stay over.

Our van was owned between us and wherever the van went, we went.

It used to be embarrassing at times. I was banned from driving for quite a while after an accident.

My girlfriend Val, now my wife, used to work at the Cedar Club in Birmingham and whenever we had the odd night off, I'd have to get the night bus into Birmingham to meet her.

I was very conscious of the fact that here I was, a pop star, having to use the bus!

I used to pull my collar up and pray that no-one would recognise me as the guy in the gangster suit with the Rolls Royce they'd seen in the press.

It was like living another life. The fans saw you on 'Top Of The Pops' and assumed you were millionaires.

If you did it these days, you'd probably be canonised as a man of the people, making a virtue out of the situation. I bet that Bono still uses the buses from time to time. It's okay to do that sort of thing when you can afford NOT to do it.

So when Woody wrote I Can Hear The Grass Grow it really had to be a hit. We were petrified that we might become one-hit wonders after Night Of Fear, which we'd released in December 1966, had got to No 2.

I used to save as much as I could because I was terrified that even if we had two hits, then we might become two-hit wonders and so on.

The whole band was very conscious of the need to save some cash. Money was the last thing that hip bands were supposed to be interested in, but we had a reputation for being careful.

Photographer Bobby Davison gave Roy the title for I Can Hear The Grass Grow. It was a line out of the Tennessee Williams play Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Everybody assumed it was all about drugs and smoking grass. It wasn't. Woody wouldn't even smoke a Woodbine, let alone anything like that!

Bev Bevan Diaries: The Move were way ahead of MTV!

2011-07-23T14:31:55Z

THERE came a time in 1967 that The Move decided to make it in the movies.

This was long before the advent of MTV, of course. That was still 14 years or so in the future.

Music videos hadn't even been invented yet - and VHS tape recorders wouldn't be launched until the 1970s.

But we decided that we wanted to make a film to promote what would be our next single, I Can Hear The Grass Grow.

We always liked to be the band who were willing to try something new, and making a movie seemed like a great idea.

To be honest, there wasn't much of a script. We were all sitting in the middle of a wood and we had a butler serving us tea and biscuits!

I seem to recall that it was filmed on Wimbledon Common.

Suddenly all these girls appeared from the trees, saw us and started tearing us to bits. Or, at least, that's what the script called for.

There was a tramp rambling round in there as well. We'd actually found him in the woods, slipped him a ten bob note, and asked him to appear in the film.

That was his bit of history in the making. He's probably a stockbroker now - or maybe he's sitting in the House of Lords.

When it came to movies, everyone wanted to get in on the act. The Beatles and The Monkees had already announced plans to make new films and suddenly it was the bandwagon to jump on to.

Cliff Richard, it was reported, was toying with the idea of making a serious drama about the Vietnam War and the Dave Clark Five were being lined up for roles in a thriller, neither of which materialised.

Brian Jones of the Stones wrote the soundtrack for a movie too, inspired no doubt, by the fact that his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg was to have the starring role.

The movies were still big business in '67. There was The Graduate with its Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack; the shockingly violent Bonnie & Clyde; Paul Newman eating boiled eggs in Cool Hand Luke.

And, of course, there was Sidney Poitier breaking the race barrier in the utterly brilliant In The Heat Of The Night.