Farewell, Philip Seymour Hoffman

I don't pretend to be the biggest movie buff in the world. For many years, I worked nights as a newspaper reporter and copy editor, and never really developed a movie-going habit. Still, when I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Owning Mahowny" in 2003, I knew I was seeing something special.

My editor at the Chicago Sun-Times had handed me a preview tape of the movie, and asked me to write something from a gambling standpoint.

Hoffman died on Feb. 2 at age 46, of an apparent heroin overdose, according to the New York Times. I'll not get into his particular demons, but I will say he portrayed a man suffering from a different addiction brilliantly in "Owning Mahowny."

In his memory, here's the 2003 piece I wrote for the Sun-Times.

***
When I popped a preview copy of Owning Mahowny into my VCR, my mission was to see whether the gambling, and the portrayal of a problem gambler's descent into bank embezzlement to the tune of $10 million, rang true.

I knew it was based on a true story. In the early 1980s, Toronto banker Brian Molony supported his gambling habit with more than $10 million in fraudulent loans from his employer, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Molony's story was chronicled in Gary Stephen Ross' 1984 book Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony, which now is back in print. It is Molony on whom Philip Seymour Hoffman's character Dan Mahowny is based in the film "Owning Mahowny."

It didn't take too long for a nagging feeling to set in that there was something familiar about the story. That feeling reached a crescendo the first time Mahowny spoke the words, "I don't have a gambling problem. I have a financial problem."

Suddenly, I wasn't thinking about Dan Mahowny or Brian Molony, and I wasn't thinking about multimillion-dollar embezzlers. I was thinking about Carol O'Hare, and something she once told me.

"I was having financial difficulties, but I was able to convince myself that they weren't that great," she told me in 1995 as she described her personal nightmare with gambling. "Compulsive gamblers have a tremendous capacity for lying to ourselves. I told myself I enjoyed it, I had a good feeling. It took a while before I realized that good feeling didn't exist anymore. I was gambling to stop the pain, mostly from gambling the day before."

Since 1996, O'Hare has been executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling. She put her life back together in a big way after being on the brink of suicide in 1991. With the help of a co-worker, she realized she needed help, went through a 12-step program and has been helping others practically ever since.

She didn't gamble at Molony/Mahowny's level. She played quarter and dollar video poker, not baccarat for tens of thousands of dollars a hand. But she found that compulsive gamblers have to hit bottom, much like alcoholics and drug addicts, and really understand that they NEED help before they can turn things around.

For Molony/Mahowny, the bottom was a long way down. In the film, the motivation behind the first fraudulent loan wasn't so much the $10,000 he owed his bookie for race and sports bets, but that the bookie wouldn't extend any more credit. Mahowny couldn't get back into action if he didn't pay the debt.

From that start, it's an easy slide through ever-bigger fraudulent loans; bigger, more reckless sports bets; trips to the blackjack, roulette, craps and baccarat tables of Atlantic City and Las Vegas, playing for an enormous stakes in the vain hope of winning everything back.

Is the gambling true to life? I can't really say. This is not a movie about whether Mahowny knows his basic strategy at blackjack or stays away from the sucker bets at craps. We don't see enough of the gambling to know whether Mahowny knows his stuff, or whether the dealers are following proper procedure.

But the descent, for a man who doesn't know his limits and doesn't know himself all that well, for whom the game is the thing and little else matters, that's all too realistic.

To the bitter end, Mahowny tells himself, "I don't have a gambling problem." And when he can't admit the problem to himself, he can't be helped.

Nearly all the players I know play for fun and stay within their limits. They're not losing their life savings and they're not stealing to play. They're spending a few bucks and having their day's entertainment.

But we can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend there aren't some who have a problem, who lose control in the casinos. For them, the first step is understanding they have a problem, that they aren't alone and that help is available. One second step is to call (800) 522-4700, the National Helpline for Problem and Compulsive Gambling.

A 2008 conversation with Elisabeth Sladen

When the Chicago TARDIS convention announced in 2008 that Elisabeth Sladen would be one of the special guests that November, my first thought was that she was the absolutely perfect choice. She’d played Sarah Jane Smith for one “Doctor Who” season with Third Doctor Jon Pertwee, then for two full seasons and part of a third with Doctor No. 4 Tom Baker. Sarah Jane, a journalist with a nose for stories that often got her into trouble, was one of the most popular characters in series history.

In the 1980s, she came back to star in a special, “K-9 and Company,” meant as a pilot for a series that was never picked up. No matter. When the revived “Doctor Who” series wanted a touchstone with  the original series, they brought Sarah Jane back in “School Reunion” with Tenth Doctor David Tennant in 2007. By the time of the 2008 Chicago TARDIS, she’d appeared in two more “Doctor Who” episodes and been spun off into her own series, “The Sarah Jane Adventures.”

She was the ideal bridge between old series and new, appealing to young and old fans alike. I sold the Weekend editor of the Chicago Sun-Times on featuring Lis Sladen in a preview of the convention. Lis was a great interview, gracious with her time on the phone, and equally gracious when I met her backstage at the convention.

Sadly, Elisabeth Sladen passed on in 2011, and she is sorely missed.

As with the Beatles-related interviews I’ve posted on this blog, I was able to use three or four short quotes in the Sun-Times story, pulled from a much longer interview. Here’s a transcript.

JG: Lis, this is a real pleasure for me. I loved your era in “Doctor Who” with Tom Baker. And they keep bringing you back, with “K-9 and Company,” appearances in the revived Doctor Who series and now “The Sarah Jane Adventures.” Why do you think the producers keep returning to Sarah Jane Smith?

ES: We were bloody good, for one thing. And people just seemed to like her. I do.

JG: There’s a core to Sarah Jane who’s the same character we knew in the 1970s, but she’s evolved.

ES: Just as you evolve yourself. Just as you evolve yourself.  I bring things to it now, I think of doing “The Stolen Earth” [with 10th Doctor David Tennant] and meeting Davros again, and I have so much to scavenge from in reality in the past that’s tangible. You go on a journey in your life, Act One, Act Two, Act Three.

I remember coming back with David for the first time  [in “School Reunion]. I would get letters from people who had never seen the show before but had bought the videos or the DVDs. Although it was a dead program to television at the time, it was never dead to the public, because people would buy it and see something that had been on before they were born. So I would still get letters from youngsters who’d never seen the character or Doctor Who as a television program, and quite a lot of the questions would be where would she be now, and especially from the older fans. Where do you think she would be? And Toby [Whithouse’s] story tied up so perfectly with where I thought she would be that it wasn’t exactly a stretch. It was a gift.

JG: In “The Sarah Jane Adventures,” you essentially have the Doctor’s role …

ES: Yes.

JG: … with companions of your own to look after. How does that change your approach?

ES: Whereas before the character could leap before she thought, now she has to think before she leaps. Because you are responsible for these little people. I thought I might get a lot of stick actually over the sonic lipstick, which I think is wonderful. It’s difficult to use, actually. David is so lucky. All he does with the sonic screwdriver is point it and light it. With the lipstick I have to take the top off and swivel it up, and then light it. I thought the fans watching might think “Who does she think she is?” But I haven’t heard any of that. I was quite prepared for it because you know fans of any series, especially sci-fi, are quite proprietorial in their likes and dislikes, but they’ve been very kind.

We never talk down to them. Russell T. Davies started his career writing for children’s television, and to actually go back and write for it now, because this is his baby, I think is just great.

JG: In the ’70s, you were companion to two Doctors, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and now you’ve appeared with David Tennant. How do the Doctors differ?

ES: Jon’s Doctor, he was thought of as  protective, even with his uniform as the Doctor, his cloak, protective around the little chicks. That was Jon as well. He very much wanted to be the one who would be the protector. Tom’s Doctor was very much more do it on your own come back and report. And going from Jon to Tom was really lovely because you can only see what the Doctor gives you. So if you get different things from each Doctor it enlarges you as a character, different facets come into play, how you handle people in reality, in real life. And all the Doctors are so different that I’ve worked with that that was actually a bonus. And David being a younger Doctor you just look at him … “Oh, THAT’s the Doctor now.:

JG: Do you think you and Tom both being from Liverpool had anything to do with you working so well together?

ES: I wonder you know. I think maybe there’s something in the sense of humor. We got on so well. It just was so easy with Tom. For me anyway.

JG: Not everyone got along quite so well with Tom. But you enjoyed working with him?

ES: Oh, he was an absolute love, and still is. I suppose, you see, I was with him at the beginning. Tom says, “Oh, Elizabeth and I got on so well because she always laughed at my jokes.” That’s just Tom, that’s what he’s like. He always stands back a little bit and not give the real reasons sometimes. I think just it worked well with Tom and I. When he went on after me, he played the Doctor for a long time. When I was working with him you’d still get things in the script and go, ‘Has that happened before? How can we make that different?’ And that was the challenge. When it stopped being a challenge for me, I left. I suppose people change as time goes on, you know. But he was never difficult with me. He was great fun. He wanted it right, but don’t we all.

JG: How did your return to the new series come to pass?

ES: My agent phoned up asked me they wanted to take me for a meal, Phil Collinson  and Russell T. Davies, and it was about Doctor Who, and I thought, it must be Sarah Jane. And I’d seen some of the early episodes that they’d done with David and with Christopher Eccleston. I knew that that they were fans of the time that I was in the series. So I thought that’s a lovely little homage to Sarah Jane, uniting the two factions, the old and the new.

But I left it on such a high [when she left at the end of the Tom Baker story “The Hand of Fear”] I thought, “Do I really want to do something? I’d rather leave her where she was.” I thought, “By the time I finish this meal I won’t have an agent.” And we went along and they immediately put forth the story. And they said if you don’t want to do it, we won’t do this story, but this is what we would like. But they went into detail and it was just so lovely. It was kind of done deal and we just ordered more wine and had a lovely evening. And I thought what a lovely place to leave her. How really special. It went down well, and after it had gone out that New Year, the agent said they’d like to take you out for another meal, Julie and Russell, and talk about something else. And I thought, “Is Sarah Jane going to grow up at last and be in Torchwood?” And then Russell put it forth and said he had absolute faith in it. I don’t know that I did. I thought, “My God, can this work?” I think I said that to him. He said “Yep. We’re going to call it the Sarah Jane Adventures.” He knew right from the start exactly what he wanted.

JG: Now that you’re into “The Sarah Jane Adventures,” are you happy you said yes?

ES: It is an absolute joy to do. When I was in Doctor Who, the actors who’d come to join us as guest stars, they’d say, you have such a wonderful time. How lovely. What a gorgeous job. And it is just a joy. That’s due to the people behind the cameras as well. The crew are great, they really are. We have the same production values as Doctor Who because we have the same crew. We’re very lucky, because Sarah Jane’s a five-day week and I think Doctor Who’s a six-day week.

JG: I was looking at your bio on IMDB, and being an old fan of ‘60s music, it jumped out at me that you were in “Ferry Cross the Mersey” with Gerry and the Pacemakers.

ES: Oh I was at drama school. I was doing a play in the evening, a Shakespeare, so it was a full day, and I don’t know how long we were on it actually. It was just literally to be there for Gerry, and I remember the boat going back and forth to Birkenhead or wherever it was and turn around and come back. That was my first pay packet, a pound a day or something.

JG: You were the right age, growing up in Liverpool, to have this fantastic music scene all around you. Did you go to the clubs, experience all that?

ES: Oh yes, because when I was in school the Beatles were all up and coming. Although I actually preferred Elvis, but you support your home team. I did, and was great. They really took the heart out of Liverpool when they took the docks away. City of Culture, fifth year, I haven’t been back for about four years now. If I went back today, it’s changed a lot. When I first went into theater it was at the Liverpool Playhouse. I worked there for a year and I loved it.

JG: During fan conventions, you’re at work. But besides the job, what do you get out of conventions?

ES: One to one contact with the fans. You get exactly what they like and exactly what they don’t like. Sometimes they’ll pose questions and you’ll think, “Oh, I really haven’t had that, I really didn’t think of that.” And how lovely for people to appreciate to tell you all these things you never thought of. It’s not an audience you have to fight for. I don’t know any other audience like it. How lucky am I? And there are people who are not around anymore who obviously I miss, and when questions are asked about them, how lovely to be able to reminisce about them.

A conversation with Denny Laine

Denny Laine has been to the Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans several times, and always is a crowd favorite. A member of Wings from beginning to end, he was the one stalwart who accompanied Paul and Linda McCartney to Nigeria for sessions that turned into the band’s best-loved album, “Band on the Run.”

Before Wings, Denny was the original lead singer in the Moody Blues, when they had a simpler, bluesier sound than the orchestral approach that later backed singer Justin Hayward. It’s Laine’s voice on “Go Now,”  a 1965 No. 1 hit in the U.K., No. 10 in the  U.S., and later a Wings concert staple.

I spoke with Laine via a phone call to his Las Vegas home in August 2010 for a Chicago Sun-Times preview of the Fest for Beatles Fans. The newspaper story had three or four short quotes. Here’s a longer transcript of the interview.

JG: Denny thanks for taking the time for this. It’s going to be great to have you back in Chicago. You know, last time you were here, you and Laurence Juber (lead guitarist in Wings’ final lineup) did a panel that I thought was the best Beatlefest had ever had. It was “Beatles Under the Influence,” tracing music that had influenced the young Beatles, and you and Laurence played some things I’d never heard, some blues, old English folk and music hall stuff.

DL: Did we really? You know, Laurence and I weren’t necessarily going through the same experiences. We come at this from different backgrounds. He’s got a lot of knowledge on the other side of the business as well, a more classical training. He doesn’t  just know the groups and the bands, but he has a completely different background of trained musicians and session work and all that kind of thing.

We [British musicians] got it all from the folk world, and that went to America and came back via folk, blues. It’s an exchange thing. I think.

JG: What have you been up to of late? I understand you’re recording again.

DL: It’s taken me a couple of years, but I’m just on the downhill as far as a new album. It’s just being mixed with the last few songs being mixed. The artwork is going to be based on my new website, dennylaine.com, so you can see the style of artwork that is going to be there. It should be already packaged about a month from now. It’s called “Valley of Dreams,” and I’ve been writing over a two-year period or more because I wound up going to England for a year and working over there. I started to write a book.

The album has taken time because I had that year in England. I had to come back and finish here in Vegas with the producer. I didn’t want to go off the beaten track, I wanted to keep the same people, so I just finished it off in the last couple of months.

The other thing is that I’ve had this musical around for 20 years or so that I’ve been trying to put around, an ecological musical. And it didn’t see the light of day earlier on. We did do it with some college kids once. But now UNLV is starting to look at it with their people. It’s called “Arctic Song.” It’s all about the environment. It’s sort of science fiction meets ecology, the world problems, the green issues. Now of course, it’s become so current people may pick up on it.

JG: That sounds like something I’d like to see.

DL: I hope you do.

JG: Wings fans and Beatles fans will want to know, do you have contact with Paul? There was a difficult separation at the end of Wings.

DL: I bumped into Paul one night when we went to UB40, we’re both big reggae fans. We all hooked up. The newspaper got hold of the picture we had taken together, so that went nationwide the next day. It at least showed me and Paul were back on the same page, so that was good.

JG: Looking back, how do you feel about what you did with Wings?

DL: I’m starting to look at stuff again. Who knew that we would still be popular 30 years later, or the music would? It’s been taken over by the kids, the children of the parents who were fans and what not. And I’m getting children who are 12 years old coming to see me. It’s across the board all that music --- especially the Beatles, of course. The music has just lasted and lasted and lasted. And now it’s going into musicals, so you have the “Love” musical, the ABBA musical, “We Will Rock You.” So all those songs have a complete re-emergence.

I’m looking at it with new eyes, I suppose. There are people around me, working with me, who were big fans in the day, and have all the stuff, things I haven’t looked at. I haven’t played a Wings album for years. But now I’m starting to listen, and thinking that was a good band, it was tight, it worked. Especially the ’76 tour [JG—the tour from which “Wings Over America” is drawn]. That really did work. The band was tight, everything was great. Me and Paul had a great relationship. We knew each other really well before Wings even got started. I mean, the Moodys did the Beatles second British tour, we were good friends before all that. And that really came across to me, that we really just gelled in writing together and working together.

I’m more interested at how the band was onstage, and I was quite impressed looking at some the new stuff.

JG: When you were with the Moody Blues, you were playing blues and blues-based rock and roll, and had some good success. Later, they evolved into something completely different, with the lush productions and orchestral backing, a totally different sound. Do you have an insights into the change?

DL: I was watching the Moodys documentary which I am on of course, and found out why they went in that direction. It’s quite hilarious. It’s an uncanny thing

I think [keyboard player] Mike Pinder said since I left, they started getting into more melodic stuff, they weren’t as much of a blues band any more. The original Moodys before the “Go Now” album were a real blues band. We didn’t play any R&B. And it developed into R&B, and “Go Now” came from that batch of songs. But we had the harmonies, we had all the voices, we had singers, so it became an R&B band with harmonies.

We were part of a whole different scene in the ‘60s. We were friends, the Beatles, the Stones, Rod Stewart, the Animals, Tom Jones. All these people were friends of ours. We’d have parties and we used to play each other’s music to each other. If the Beatles had a new song, they’d drop by and play it to us and vice versa. It was a much different world then. People weren’t stars to the point they were off doing their own thing and not mixing with people. The whole thing was kind of a mish-mash of exchanging ideas.

JG: I’ve always loved the “Go Now” album. It’s one I bought in 1965, and I still like to put it on the turntable. I liked that bluesy feel a lot.

DL: Donovan did our liner notes on the back of that album. He was another friend who was hanging around. Brian Jones was another very close friend. We watched everybody make it and go through all their changes. We had a lot of support and a lot of feedback. And we were playing live all the time. We weren’t going into the studio for months on end. It’d take a few weeks to make an album. And then we would go on the road, and on the road you’d get feedback all the time.

JG: Will you be playing any songs from the new album at the Fest?

DL: I won’t be doing it with the band [Liverpool, in its night-closing concerts]. Maybe in my own session. With the band, I sing “Go Now,” “Band on the Run,” “Mull of Kintyre,” “Live and Let Die” ---  sort of my tribute to the Wings thing. Uusally I just do my songs that I did --- “Time to Hide,” “No Words” and stuff like that. I try not to copy Paul’s version if I can help it.

JG: I know you work hard at the Fests. But besides a job for the weekend, what do you get out of the Fests.

DL: Meeting people. Although I don’t do a lot of them. It’s meeting the fans. I get involved in the nostalgia of the whole trip from all our points of view. Most of the time I have some little story people haven’t heard.

I like the thing of all fans being together in one place, because it generates a certain energy that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s not like a normal gig. It’s an occasion.

A conversation with Ronnie Spector

At the Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans in 2009, the band struck up the opening chords to “Be My Baby,” and from the wings came THAT voice … “Uh oh, uh oh oh oh ... ”

Enter Ronnie Spector, looking great and sounding just like she did as lead singer of the Ronettes in 1963. 

Ronnie, former wife of Phil and one of the most distinctive voices of the Wall of Sound, was an early, close --- VERY close --- Beatle friend. Through the highs of the Ronettes’ success, lows of her troubled marriage to Phil Spector, lean times and a comeback that included touring with Bruce Springsteen, Ronnie has continued to give music her all.

I spoke with her a couple of weeks before the Fest for a Chicago Sun-Times preview. At the time, she was putting the finishing touches on her CD, “Last of the Rock Stars,” released later that year.

The running theme of these posts has been that I can only use three or four short quotes in a 400-to-500-word newspaper story, and these folks have had so much to say. Here’s a longer transcript of my conversation with Ronnie Spector.

JG: I’m really looking forward to seeing you in Chicago, and I understand you’re working on a new CD. What can you tell me about it?

RS: The CD is coming out now, I’m just finishing up on the bonus album. And the rest is a secret. The minute I tell people what I’m doing, it spreads like a disease. So this time, I’m not saying anything. The CD is all finished and I’m just putting on the bonus tracks.

JG: You’re still enjoying recording after all these years? 

RS: I’m in  studios, out of studios. It’s what I love, it’s my passion, to be in the studio and have the record come out and see if it’s going to be a hit or a bomb. Either way, I don’t care, I’m moving. I always go up, up, up. I never stay with the oldies or the classics, I’m just there. And I love where I am now.

JG: There’ll be a little looking back at the Fest, though.

RS: Just Beatlefest, because I love them. We were close friends, and I knew them before Beatlemania and all in America, and so we became really good friends, and they took me to places on Carnaby Street, so I could get the hippest outfits. So they were like real friends. 

How it happened was we were on Decca Records, and the Beatles, they were here and there around town, the café and all that, but they wanted to see us, these three girls with the looooong black hair, and the skirts up the thighs. So Decca Records gave a party, because our record over there was like No. 1, and the Beatles weren’t heard of in American yet. Decca threw us a party, and it was so great. John Lennon and I became instant friends. To the point of he was pushing me back into this room, and I had to get like a whip and a chair to get him back to this party, we were having so much fun. He would make you laugh. 

JG: How long was it before you saw them again?

RS: After the Decca party, I don’t remember if it was a couple of days later, you have to remember this was a long time ago, before the Beatles had Beatlemania. And so we went to [disk jockey] Tony Hall’s house, he had given a party at his house, and he had this beautiful townhouse. And so Tony Hall’s wife was showing us all these expensive vases. They had gone all around the world. I didn’t know all this stuff. Here was a girl from Spanish Harlem who had a beehive. What I do I know about all these artists and antiques? Not a thing. But I’d say, “Oh, that’s so beautiful.” John knew I didn’t know, and he came over and told her, let me show her. And she got disgusted and threw her hands up in the air and said, “Oh, you show her the rest of it.”

The other Ronettes were there, and John starts taking me on this tour. Forget about the vases and antiques, because he knows I don’t know, so we go down this long hall, and we try to jiggle on the doorknobs, and most of them were locked, and we go and jiggle on another one, and my sister and George were there. They weren’t having sex or anything, they were just talking. So John and I finally found a door that was open, so we went in. In England, they have sofas right where you can look out the window, and there was a soft sofa and we were looking out the window, and I said, “This is the most beautiful view I have ever seen,” and it was in London, and John said, “She sure is,” and he was looking straight at me. We had giggles, he would make me laugh.

He said, “I see you’re a serious girl. Do you want to talk about rock and roll, and what makes it happen?” Cause I did, I was young. And he said, “OK, let me get an ashtray,” and I’ll never forget that either, he had an ashtray because he was a chain smoker, and he started telling me the dos and don’ts --- and he didn’t know either, really. In the magazines over there, they had like every other page, the Beatles are coming, and I’d say, “What’s the Beatles,” because they weren’t big yet, only in Liverpool town. 

 JG: On that trip, you were on the same bill as the Rolling Stones …

RS: The Rolling Stones were on MY tour, and so was Eric Clapton, so were the Yardbirds, and all those. We were the headliners. All those guys love us. Eric Clapton was dying to see us, so he waited outside the hotel. So we knew all those groups for that era.

 JG: I’ve heard you had some scary moments at the Beatles’ Shea Stadium concert [in 1965].

RS: What happened was I wasn’t on their tour. The fans knew exactly what I looked like because all the papers in America had me coming out of  the Plaza where they stayed, so they knew the Ronettes and the Beatles went out together all the time. So we were leaving Shea Stadium, and it was a guy named Jerry Schatzberg and Scott Ross [a New York DJ and one of the show emcees; Schatzberg was his agent at the time], and they shouted, “There they are, the Ronettes!” And there I was. The car was rocking back. 

I’ll tell you, it was the scariest moment of my life. That car. And it was more than a hundred kids around the car. Thank God it was a Bentley. That’s what saved us. Can you imagine? Because it was a Bentley it was so heavy. We were lucky. We inched along, and I’m telling Jerry, you’ve gotta move the car. You’ve gotta move. I’ll never forget. I was so scared we were gonna die. So he inched it along and inched it along, and then you’d see those kids just flopping off. You didn’t want to hurt the kids. But you didn’t want your name in the paper, singer murdered or killed trying to get away from the Beatles concert. 

JG: Did you stay in touch with the Beatles after they broke up? 

RS: I saw John in New York, walking down the street with May Pang, I was with Buddha Records, and I hear this voice “Ronnie, Ronnie,” and it was May Pang. And she said, “John Lennon’s upstairs, and he would die to see you. Come on up.” I went up and John was on a top bunk, and he was ragged, he looked like he had been on drugs and had been drinking, and he had a beard that was like Santa Claus, only darker and stuff. He was such a mess, and it just hurt my heart because he was such a great writer and great everything. 

And the next time I saw him, I heard a voice, and he said, “Ronnie,” he called me “Ronnie Ronette, Ronnie Ronette,” and I turned around, and John was dressed immaculately, no beard. He hadn’t drank or taken drugs for months. He looked great. And I was so happy.

He wanted to help me. And I was with [producer] Jimmy Iovine at the time, he wasn’t big then but he’s huge now, and John said, “Jimmy, set it up at the Hit Factory, and I’ll be there.” He wanted to help me. He loved my voice, and he knew I wasn’t getting anywhere with it, but we won’t talk about that part, he knew, and I knew he knew. So he introduced me to Jimmy Iovine, who introduced me to Springsteen, and that’s what got me back out there in the rock and roll world. Springsteen put me on his tour. So I have all of that, to look back for John Lennon. He got me into the recording studio, he got me onto the Springsteen tour. He knew I loved it, and he knew what took it away from me.

 JG: At one point, you recorded for Apple, with the single “Try Some, Buy Some.”

RS: I go in there, and I see this guy, his hair is so long, I can’t see his face. And I walk up, and I say, I guess this is the guy I’m supposed to go over things with, and he slowly looks up, and it’s George Harrison. And when he sees me, and when I see him, we go …. And we’re hugging and kissing. And we sit down at the piano, and we start going over this song, and it’s Try some … buy some. And I’m wondering, what is it that I’m trying to buy? It’s the most weird song for the “Be My Baby, “Walking in the Rain” girl. I said, “George, what kind of lyrics are these?” And he said, “I don’t know either, and I wrote it.”

  

 

A conversation with Beatles Fan Club secretary Freda Kelly

Freda Kelly was hired by Brian Epstein in 1962 as a secretary, and not so coincidentally to run the Beatles’ official fan club. She was a fan, a 17-year-old who spent many a lunch hour from her previous secretarial job in the Cavern Club for the Beatles’ lunchtime sessions. When Epstein made her fan club secretary, she quickly was caught up in the worldwide tidal wave that was Beatlemania.

I interviewed her in August 2012 for a Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans preview in the Chicago Sun-Times. At the time, work had begun on a documentary about her life and her years running the club, from 1962-72. The documentary, “Good Ol’ Freda,” has now been completed and was previewed at the 2013 Fest for Beatles Fans, where Freda made her second Chicago appearance. It’s a fantastic, award-worthy work, filled with smiles, laughs and some tears. At the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It’ll have a limited theatrical run, as documentaries tend do, then be available on DVD in December 2013. I highly recommend it.

As usual, I gathered far more material than could be included in a newspaper story. So for those who’d like more than the three or four quotes I used in the story, here’s a transcript.

JG: It’s great to hear you’re going to be at the Chicago Fest. Have you ever been to Chicago before?

FK: No but I do have family there. I have six cousins in the Chicago area. I haven’t met three of them. I’m coming beforehand with my daughter and grandson, and I’ll have a chance to see them.

When Mark [Lapidos, the Fest for Beatles Fans proprietor] invited me to Chicago, I said I haven’t any holidays left. He said, “What do you mean? I’ll ring your boss and see if he’ll let you off.”

In New Jersey [at a February 2012 Fest, six months before her first Chicago appearance], I was really overwhelmed. Everyone was so nice to me.

JG: How did you get involved with the Beatles and the fan club?

FK: I just saw the Beatles at the Cavern and got involved with a lot of followers. I found out they had a fan club and helped a girl who ran the fan club. They [the Beatles] also lived by me, so I got to know them and they gave me lifts home and everything. And then Brian Epstein got to know me through them.

Then he decided to start his own fan club. I originally worked in the offices [as a secretary, in Epstein’s offices] and then ran the fan club afterward.

I have been involved with them since 1962, and then I stayed with them until 1972. There was no Beatles anymore, for want of a better word. And I wanted to have more children.

With me knowing them. I went to see them when Pete Best was with them, and then of course Richie [Ringo Starr] joined them. I lived and died in the Cavern in those days. I would go on my dinner hour, and whenever they were on then. I liked the lunchtime sessions more than anything. It was a lot more intimate and it wasn’t just a show, they talked to the audience, and you could shout up to them what numbers you wanted them to play, and they’d fire back at you, “We’ve already done that!” And we’d say, “Oh, come on, do it again!” We all had our own little spot in the Cavern as well. You’d sit in a certain seat or lean against a certain wall. I was always on the left hand side --- well, I tried to.

I suppose really that’s how I got to work for them, because Brian Epstein got to know me through them. We all knew he was the manager of the biggest record shop in the north of England. He’d acknowledge me and I’d acknowledge him. To me, in those days he was a lot older than me. I was only 16, 17. Until one time, they were playing and he was there, and I said hello to him. I can’t remember the exact words because it’s a long time ago. And he started talking to me and telling me he was going to start his own fan club. He had a secretary and he was looking for another one, and he knew I was a secretary. He said would I like to come along and have a chat with him, and that’s how it started. So I had to type their contracts and their wages.

We didn’t just have the Beatles on our books. We had Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Billy J. [Kramer], and the Fourmost, and Cilla [Black], and Tommy Quickly. They were in and out of the office all the time. I know it sounds wrong, but they were just ordinary people, because we all grew up together, and they went on to be massive.

JG: As a fan, did you expect the Beatles’ success? I don’t mean the magnitude, because we’d never seen anything like Beatlemania. But did you think group you knew in the clubs would be famous and make hit records?

FK: I always had faith in them. There were two groups in Liverpool. Some girls didn’t want them to be famous because they knew if they did, that was it, they’d leave the city. One of my friends was in that group. She just didn’t want to lose them, where I was in the other camp, I wanted them to be as big as Cliff Richard, which was what you thought about in those days. But nobody visiualised how big it was going to get.

JG: They do a shout out to you on their 1963 fan club record. Were you surprised? [Note: on the record, the Beatles yell, “Good Ol’ Freda,” which has become the name of the new documentary about her,]

FK: I was, because was in work at the time, and Cilla came in, and she was the one who told me. She said to me, “Have you heard the fan club record?” And I said no, and she said, “Oh, they mentioned you in it.” And I said, “Oh, no you’re joking.” And I went sick because I knew they’d probably say something funny, and they might say, Oh, we don’t like Freda, or something in joke. I was on edge waiting to see what they said. (Cilla wouldn’t tell). But then when I heard, I thought it was very nice they acknowledged me.

JG: How involved were the Beatles in the fan club?

FK: They were very involved in the fan club, especially in the beginning. I’m not just saying it because you’re on the phone. Any chance I got, especially ’63, ’64, when they were on the road a lot and they had to make records, when they were in the office, I threw photographs and autograph books at them, while they were talking they would sign, or if they were going in to see Eppy they would take a bundle of photographs to sign.

JG: What kinds of requests did you get from fans?

FK: I hadn’t experienced kids writing in saying, “Can I have their pillowcase, or “Can I have a bit of his shirt,” and I’d think. “Oh my God.” I was very close to the parents, because I’d go to the homes with the mail and help out with the fan mail. So in the end I asked, “Can I have the shirts they don’t wear anymore” or “Can I have the pillowcases?” You have to remember I was a fan as well, so I was on the same wavelength as them. I was quite young, 17 years old Although I do have a serious head, had my feet on the ground, anddid my job properly. Otherwise I wouldn’t have lasted.

JG: What was the most unusual request?

FK: They’d ask, “If Paul is coming in on Wednesday, can I come in and have a cup of tea with him?” If he was around on a Wednesday, he’s going to spend the time with his dad and his brother.

JG: Tell me about the documentary, “Good Ol’ Freda.”

FK: The video started through New Jersey [at the Fest]. I laid low for a long time. Just now Mark invited me over. Over the years people have asked me, “Why don’t you write a book?” or “Why don’t you do this or that?” And I’m the type of person that thinks, “Oh no, don’t want to do that.” I’m not being flippant or rude, but I think there are too many books on the Beatles. I’ve got it all in my head. Then when my grandson came along, somebody said, “You should let him know what you did,” and that planted the seed. You know what? I would like him to know what his grandmother did in her youth. I didn’t just work for the Beatles. I had a ball in the ’60s. The ‘60s were a really great time. I just loved the ’60s and I crammed so much into my youth. We hitched all over the country, seeing groups. I never told my parents I hitched.

JG: You have so many great memories. Is there one lasting impression of those days you’d like to share?

FK: I just wish Beatle fans got to see, to me, the real Beatles, what they were like when they played the Cavern. I know people say that was the raw Beatles, but to me, that was the Beatles. I know they’ve done so much since, all those songs they’ve written and Sergeant Pepper. To see them live in their youth was just mind-blowing. You just knew. You just had this good feeling that here is something that’s entirely different.

A conversation with Billy J. Kramer

Way back in 1964, I was a 12-year-old boy with typical 12-year-old boy interests: Sports, especially baseball; science, especially dinosaurs; and avoiding weeding the peonies. I’m still a sports guy --- I played baseball through Pony League and football in high school, and have written and edited sports for much of my newspaper career. I still read science books for fun, and have picked up on science fiction along the way.

But 1964 awakened me to music, and that has remained a passion ever since. It was the year of the British Invasion, and I was one of the first wave of U.S. Beatlemaniacs. The Beatles always were --- and are --- No. 1 with me, but I loved all the other new sounds coming from the U.K., too. The Animals, Manfred Mann, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones. All made it into my growing record collection.

One of my very favorites was Billy J. Kramer. I bought all three U.S. LPs by Billy & the Dakotas, and played them to the extent that even now, 49 years later, I can put them on the turntable and, as each song ends, anticipate the opening of the next. He was one of the first wave of stars to come out of Liverpool, and friend of the Beatles who had played in the same clubs, often on the same cards as them, and he was managed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

I recently interviewed Billy for the Chicago Sun-Times for a preview of the Aug. 9-11 Fest for Beatles Fans. It’s a preview I write nearly every year, and one of my favorite assignments. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure to speak with many old favorites, including Gordon Waller of Peter and Gordon; Ronnie Spector and Billy Preston.

You can find this year’s Sun-Times Fest preview at http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/people/21773040-421/liverpools-billy-j-kramer-headed-to-beatles-festival.html. Newspaper space limitations being what they are, I couldn’t begin to touch on everything I’d have liked to use. So I thought it would be fun to post a longer transcript here. In it, he talks about his new album, “I Won the Fight,” as well as the old days.

By the way, I received a copy of the CD shortly after this interview, and loved it. I played twice through on the first day.

JG: Thanks for setting this up Billy. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Fest.

BJK: I’m really looking forward to it. It’s always fun, but we had such a great time this year in New Jersey [at the February Fest for Beatles Fans]. I took my band along and played all my new songs and my old songs, and the people who came --- I was very pleased they seemed to really get off on it. It’s very hard with new material, it can go either way. It’s a worry because an artist never knows if they’ll like it or just wanted to hear the old stuff. But they were very responsive. It was great.

JG: It’s your first album to be released in the U.S. since the 1960s. What have you been doing in that time?

BJK: I was just doing shows. It’s very difficult. When Brian [Epstein] died, it was a time when he was about to form his own label. I was going to record with Brian’s label, as I was finishing with EMI. I tried to continue making records independent over the years, and I thought some of them were pretty good, but some of them were pretty lousy. But I didn’t have the big guns behind me. So it was very difficult.

It was something that I always loved to do and wanted to do. I put out singles here and there, and they never came across the ocean to America, but they were out there in England.

JG: The new album is called “I Won the Fight,” which is also one of the songs. Is there a special meaning?

BJK: I won the fight to me … It’s strange, but I started to write the song here at home one day. My idea was about people, the hillclimbers, I never saw them again. “I had a girl called Maureen, and I never ever saw her again.” And it just developed into this song “Liverpool With Love.” Then “Sunsets of Santa Fe,” I have a house in Santa Fe and the sunsets there are magnificent. I actually wrote this song in New York, which is strange, but I went in and I sort of demoed them. One thing led to another till I had a whole CD.

It’s coming up to 50 years, and I said to myself, if you’ve been in show business for 50 years and been through what I’ve been through, good and bad, you’ve definitely won the fight.

JG: Your website says you’ve written four songs on the CD. Which four?

BJK: “To Liverpool with Love,” ‘Sunsets of Santa Fe,” “I Won the Fight,” and “You Can’t Live on Memories.”

JG: In the time between your last chart hits and this CD, did you stay in show business the whole time?

BJK: I was in show business throughout that time. I continued. I had a band. I just did shows. Cabaret became a big thing in England. You’d go and play for a week in one city, then go to another city. I played in Australia and Africa and wherever people wanted me to play.

JG: With audiences demanding the old hits, did you ever feel like, “I never want to do bloody ‘Bad to Me’ ever again?

BJK: I never said that. I feel it’s an artist’s duty to the audience who came along to hear these songs to do them. I’ve done other material but I’ve always included the old songs too.

JG: Turning back the clock, when your recording career began, how much of what you were doing on stage in Liverpool made it onto those albums.

BJK: Not much. I always tell people that this is is my first album because most of the songs on the old albums, apart from the hits and the B-sides, on most of the songs I’d get the lyric sheet put in front of me and I’d sing them, and I’d never sing them again. Also, when you think back, we only did like 20 minute sets. When I started doing the cabaret and the clubs and one-night stands, I would do an hour, and in the hour I would do the A-sides, my B-sides and some things that I thought were cool.

JG: In Liverpool before fame, what kinds of things were you doing onstage?

BJK: Mostly I would do like Jerry Lee Lewis songs, Rick Nelson songs, Fats Domino songs. A lot of cover stuff, things that were being played the radio that I liked.

JG: In November 1963, you came with Brian to New York. [Billy was the first artist Epstein brought to the U.S.] What were your impressions?

BJK: My first trip over here, when I saw the New York skyline, I thought it was unbelievable, but I felt totally intimidated by New York and I wanted to get on the next plane back to England. It overwhelmed me. It was very interesting. I was amazed by the time TV was on [JG---U.K. television had limited hours at the time]. I was amazed that I could buy records at midnight. Have dinner on the 47^th floor of a skyscraper. It really blew my mind.

JG: Why did Brian bring you on the trip [which was mainly to sign contracts]? What did you do?

BJK: At first, I think Brian thought I have this clean image that may be for America. I always think that maybe people think there was something going on with Brian. John Lennon went to Spain with Brian, and everybody thought … you know, I came to America with Brian, and nobody’s ever asked me that question.

JG (laughing): No, no, I wasn’t referring to that at all.

BJK: I did some local TV, I did some radio, and stuff like that, and I saw the sights. We saw some shows. We had a great trip together.

JG: Was John the Beatle you were closest to?

BJK: Yes, I think so. John and Paul. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about John Lennon. I’d really like to write a song about him, but I find it to be very, very difficult. The first time I met John Lennon was at Aintree Institute in Liverpool and he was so nice. I was asking about his guitar, and he said, ‘Do you want to play it?’ They were just cool guys to me. I did a lot of shows with them before they were famous. The song “Do You Want to Know a Secret” [a No. 1 hit for Kramer in the U.K.] was given to me by Brian on a tape. It was John singing it on his own on an acoustic guitar. At the end, John said, “Billy, I’d like to apologize for the quality of the tape, but it’s in the quietest room in the building, and he flushed the toilet, which I thought was hilarious.

I never asked the Beatles for an autograph, and I toured with them all over the place. When I got the song “Bad to Me,” [which Kramer to No. 1 in the U.K, No. 9 in the U.S.) funny enough, I was backstage at a theater and everyone was jamming on the stage. Paul McCartney, I remember, was playing drums, and John was reading a newspaper. He said, “I’ve got a great song for you.” I said, “Are you going to play it for me?” And he said, “No, I’ll see you the next time you’re at Abbey Road.” The next session I did at Abbey Road, to tell you the truth, I wondered if he was going to show up or what. There he was at 10 o’clock at the morning, and I can always say it was an unbelievable experience to sit in a room with John Lennon and have him play “Bad to Me” to me.

Then he said, “I have another one I’d like you to listen to.” And he played “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” I said, “Can I have that one?” He laughed and said, “No, no that’s our next record.”

Hello ... and a few words about the Fest

Some of you might know me through my CasinoAnswerman.com blog. Some may even have read my books on casino games, or followed me in newspapers, web sites, and magazines including Casino Player, Strictly Slots, Midwest Gaming and Travel, Casino Journal and Slot Manager. I didn't set out to write about games, strategy, casino trends and technology, but a series of accidents and circumstances made it the main thrust of my career. Life is what happens when we're busy making other plans.

Though that's what pays the bills, I've continued to write about other topics, mostly out of passion. I write a Fest for Beatles Fans preview each year for the Chicago Sun-Times. Yes, I get paid, but I pitch the stories because I love to do 'em.. Baseball has been love of mine since I was 7 or so, and now I'm fortunate enough to write a weekly sabermetrics column.

The limits of newspaper space means I can't get to everything I want to. Take this year's Fest for Beatles Fans preview at http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/people/21773040-421/liverpools-billy-j-kramer-headed-to-beatles-festival.html

It's a Billy J. Kramer interview, and I'm happy with the way it turned out, but it's just the taste of a much longer conversation. In the next few days, I'm going to post the transcript of the full interview --- there's some terrific material I just couldn't fit into the story. I'm going to give the same treatment to a few other interviews I've done --- a half-hour conversation I had several years ago with the late Doctor Who actress Elisabeth Sladen that wound up as a three-quote special in the newspaper.

Just to get the ball rolling, I want to start with my day-by-day of this year's Chicago-area Fest, the annual celebration of the Beatles and everything that is fab and gear. I originally posted these on Facebook the morning after each day at the Aug. 9-11 Fest:

*** Day 1 at The Fest for Beatles Fans was a blast, as always

Delivered a copy of my Sun-Times Fest preview/Billy J. Kramer preview to Billy and his wife Roni. I've written tons over the years, and mostly just leave one behind and move on to the next, but hearing "Thank you, that's a fantastic article. We saw it online, thank you for such a wonderful article" from one of my boyhood favorites does bring a rush.

Friday's a short fest day, so there were combined panels, one for authors, one for musical guests. At the latter, Chad & Jeremy talked of having a U.K. hit with "Yesterday's Gone," then were surprised when their manager told them it was rising in the U.S. .... on the country charts. They didn't even know it had been released Stateside. Success on the main Hot Hundred followed. Chad & Jeremy started as a folk duo, and when they broke through and found themselves booked into large arenas, they had to hire a band. Jeremy nodded to Billy J. Kramer, mentioning that he and others had started by playing it bands, but they had to learn on the job.

The one negative: The parking situation. With the Fest at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and Comic Con next door at the Rosemont Convention Center, the Hyatt is full. So Hyatt parking is taking only overnight guests. The rest of us were directed out to a different convention center lot, and from there it was a 20-minute walk to the Hyatt, then 20 minutes back late at night. Not sure these old bones are up to three days of that.

***Saturday, Day 2 at the Fest for Beatles Fans. Just outstanding. One of the best days in the history of the event formerly known as Beatlefest. The debut of the documentary "Good Ol' Freda" was just amazing. It focuses on original Beatles Fan Club secretary Freda Kelly --- lots of laughs and smiles, and not a dry eye in the house at the end. Award-worthy stuff. I interviewed Freda for her first Fest appearance last year --- very gracious, well served by a brilliant film. It'll have a short, limited theatrical run, as documentaries tend to do, then be out on DVD in December.

Closing concert by the house band Liverpool brought on all the musical guests to do their thing --- Billy J. Kramer did the old hit "Bad to Me" along with "To Liverpool With Love" from his new CD, "I Won the Fight." He had the crowd on its feet with the line, "Why Isn't Brian Epstein/in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?" Little known fact: Two artists took the Lennon-McCartney song "From a Window" into the Billboard Hot Hundred. Billy J. Kramer took it to No. 23, and Chad & Jeremy to No. 97. Billy & Chad sang it together in the closing concert.

Chad & Jeremy did an hourlong performance, singing their old hits including "Yesterday's Gone" and "A Summer Song," and told some stories. In the '60s, they did the rounds of American TV, doing "Batman," "The Patty Duke Show" and the "Dick Van Dyke Show." In rehearsal with Dick Van Dyke, Chad was given the line, "You have a beautiful home here, Mrs. Petrie," then Jeremy ad-libbed. He pointed to a piece of furniture and said, "You know what we call this in England?" Dick asked what. Jeremy said, "A chair." Dick liked it, it stayed in the show. Funnier than the line, Jeremy said was that just a couple of years ago, Chad & Jeremy were checking in at an airport," and the guy at the counter saw the names, saw the guitar cases, pointed at them and said, "A chair."

****Sunday, final day wrap up at the Fest for Beatles Fans, ‪#‎ChicagoFest‬. The musicians panel B.U.I. --- Beatles Under the Influence --- is one of my favorites every year. It starts with music that influenced the Beatles, things they would have listened to while growing up, and morphs into the changes they made that made the music their own and changed the course of rock 'n' roll.

The panel is free-form, unrehearsed, and a little different every year. Every year's panel seems to get around to "Rock Island Line" for a mention of Lonnie Donegan and skiffle, and Mark Hudson makes sure Elvis' "That's All Right, Mama" is part of the show. But Billy J. Kramer and Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland, both Liverpool guys, went all the way back to George Formby, a Liverpool actor/comedian/pop singer of the 1930s-1950s for an impromptu version of "Leaning on the Lamp," later recorded by Herman's Hermits. Liberty Devitto gave a drumming demonstration of the shuffle that survived the jazz age into early rock 'n' roll and how Ringo changed that to give us the big beat. And there was a demonstration of Everly Brothers harmonies, and how the Fabs took the traditional thirds-fifths harmonies and started using fourths. There are times I think this panel has become a little too programmed from its organic beginnings --- I winced last year when Mark Hudson headed Lawrence Juber off at the pass and stopped a fantastic diversion on musical forms of earlier centuries and how they evolved into rock 'n' roll. But there are always a few new wrinkles and some good rockin'.

Billy J. Kramer had his full band Sunday, the only day of the Fest they were all there. Their afternoon concert was terrific --- he's really assembled a great band. He sang the old hits, but the highlights were really his new stuff --- "I Won the Fight," "To Liverpool With Love," "You're Right, I'm Wrong." His new CD is a good one, and he sounded great doing the new material live.

And finally, I was able to park in the Hyatt garage on Sunday, so I didn't have those 15-to-20-minute walks to and from the Convention Center garage. Hooray!