Where’s My Guitar?: An Inside Story of British Rock and Roll

6.

Dance on the Water

I met Gary Pickford-Hopkins, the excellent lead singer with Wild Turkey, in Berlin, when I was still with UFO. Doug D’Arcy of Chrysalis managed the band which had been formed by bassist Glenn Cornick after he left Jethro Tull.

Gary told me that their guitarist, Tweke Lewis, was leaving to join Man and to speak to Glenn. Where could I find him? Gary pointed up to the sky. Glenn was in a lighting tower 40 ft above us. I climbed up to make a pitch for the job.

‘Yes, that all seems fine. I’ll see you next week, old chap, rehearsals in Richmond, ask Gazzy for details.’ And that was it. I was the new guitarist in Wild Turkey.

The band played bluesy, hard, melodic rock, and their songs had clever chord progressions. They had a strong UK and European following and were growing in the USA, mainly because of Jethro Tull. It’s hard to put it into words but I felt that I belonged in Wild Turkey, a feeling I never had with UFO. The music was so much more to my own taste, and working with Mick Dyche on guitar was a joy. It was the first time I’d worked professionally with another guitarist which, on reflection, totally prepared me for Whitesnake.

The guys in Wild Turkey were all very good players and interested in their own musical development. Glenn Cornick had been a big influence on Jethro Tull’s music – listen to the bass parts of ‘Living in the Past’ and you’ll see why. Wild Turkey had recorded two albums for Chrysalis Records by the time I joined and I was thrust into heavy touring.

We went off with two roadies, a three-ton truck, and six musicians on the payroll. We covered some ground, that’s for sure. At the 76 Club in Burton Upon Trent, the dressing room was in the next-door chip shop and we had to get changed for the gig in the window that looked out onto the high street. Nobody cared, it was part of it all and the gigs were always a joy to play. Chrysalis had us out almost seven nights a week. The gigs were endless, usually followed by a curry or fish and chips in the car on the way back to London. We saved money by staying out of hotels when possible.

This was the turbulent time of the three-day week: power cuts, strikes and heavy petrol restrictions had been imposed on British industry to conserve power supplies due to the miners’ strike. Oil had quadrupled in price, there were new speed limits to curb fuel use, and petrol was rationed to £5 per person. This was awful for everyone, but it was hopeless for bands. We had a very thirsty Chevy and would plead with the petrol station owners in hope they’d let each of the six of us have a fiver’s worth. Thirty pounds of gas was a lot in 1974. The queues were huge, but we never missed a gig.

When we did stay overnight it was usually in some of the worst places you can imagine. There were damp beds and walls and landladies literally pulled us out of bed at 7.30 a.m. in the morning for some breakfast (a dirty mug with a hint of tea). But staying in anything better, such as a proper hotel, was still a bit of a thrill for me – waking up in a strange room as a pro guitarist was a good feeling. We encountered some magnificently busted ladies in their forties and fifties who’d create the biggest breakfast on Earth as they told us how Arthur Askey, Norman Wisdom or the Troggs had stayed with them. They were rough and ready, but they were very motherly towards us wretched-looking lads.

Glenn Cornick would fire up the Chevy each day and he never stopped mid-trip unless we absolutely begged. He once drove from London to Madrid only stopping for petrol. His taste in clothes is also worth mentioning. Glenn used to go to fabric shops to find material for suits that would depict the tales of Robin Hood, the Lone Ranger, or the Battle of Britain. He also had magnificent thick, black hair down to his waist with a matching headband, a Zapata moustache, and red cowboy boots. You get the picture.

The rest of the band were talented guys – apart from Mick Dyche there was Steve Gurl on piano, Gary Pickford with vocals, and Jeff Jones on drums, who lived for his brilliant solos. I felt encouraged to write. All this was new territory, and I loved it.

Chrysalis booked a double headline gig in Germany with UFO, which I knew was bound to be interesting. Chelsea told me that Phil Mogg was determined that UFO would blow Wild Turkey off the stage and had even specially rehearsed John Lennon’s ‘Cold Turkey’. As it turned out, the only thing UFO blew away that night was their reputation. We went on first and Glenn played a fantastic bass solo while Gary sang his heart out. It was one of those special nights. I was astonished by how much I enjoyed being with this band.

Phil Mogg tried every trick he knew to upstage Wild Turkey and it all failed. Michael Schenker grinned at me from the stage as I watched from the side. He came up laughing afterwards to say Mogg was going completely crazy in their dressing room.

We had a friendlier experience with Yes, who asked Wild Turkey to open for a short tour of Germany in April – a truly mystifying package, but it worked. I had garnered a good following in Germany and Glenn Cornick was very pleased to hear the roar when Gary announced my name. After a gig near Stuttgart we ended up in a very crowded steam room in a Holiday Inn. Steve Gurl, Yes bass player Chris Squire and members of the Turkey and Yes crew were drinking beers with a host of very pretty and naked German female fans. It was all pretty innocent really, the men wearing small towels.

Gary Pickford arrived in a pretty drunken state, his customary plastic bag of fresh fruit and nuts to hand. He would always have an apple and then light up a Marlboro. ‘These things won’t hurt ya,’ he’d say. When he lit up in the sauna there was uproar. The girls ran out coughing and spluttering and jumped into the swimming pool. Gazzy looked very confused, Chris Squire was very amused and a watching Rick Wakeman cracked up.

Rick was very down-to-earth and hung out with the support band although he was a big star. I can confirm the legend that he really did order and eat curries during the gigs – washed down with a nice bottle of wine. His band were always pleasant and I realise that I was fortunate to be on the road with them.

Wild Turkey found life in General Franco’s Spain was a lot less easy-going. Driving from Zaragoza to Madrid we were unknowingly trailed by police and the military. The dictatorship viewed us as the worst kind of influence on the youth of Spain. I didn’t know the history then but the very fact that a British rock band was on tour in the country still amazes me.

As usual, Glen didn’t want to stop but it got so hot that we had to beg. We pulled into a roadside taverna and six of us piled out, dodgy-looking and long-haired. Mid-drink, soldiers appeared, shouting at us in Spanish. A younger soldier explained in English that we could be in trouble for drinking on the roadside. We were sobering up fast until a local policeman saw Glenn and shouted, ‘Living in the past!’ A Spanish dictatorship Jethro Tull fan. We were free to go and were given a high-speed escort. To this day whenever I gig in Spain, someone will talk about that Wild Turkey ’74 tour. I always enjoy that.

The band split on our return. We had no management and Chrysalis had not signed a new album. Endless gigs were the future and none of us wanted that. With them, I’d had my first sessions at BBC radio, Maida Vale and we had been the last touring band to play the original Cavern Club in Liverpool. I still remember the smell – old beer, body odour, cigarettes and Dettol. It sounds disgusting, but it was fabulous. Gary Pickford and Glenn Cornick passed away in 2013 and 2014. They were both wonderfully talented and good-natured individuals. Both very much respected and missed.

I moved on from the bedsit in Shepherd’s Bush as Fran and I took a basement flat in Paddington that we christened ‘The Dungeon’. It was shabby without the chic, but we were very fond of it and the location was fantastic. I was keen to find a new band and I didn’t have long to wait.

I had first met Cozy Powell in his dressing room at Manchester University after a Wild Turkey and Bedlam double-header. We immediately got along. I loved his can-do attitude. Here was a truly phenomenal player who had played in the Jeff Beck Band and yet he was much more interested in talking about football and racing cars. He said Bedlam was falling apart, Cozy’s hit record ‘Dance with the Devil’ having a negative effect.

Cozy called me at The Dungeon some weeks later to ask me to join his next band, Hammer. I was over the moon. I think it had upset him personally that his solo success had caused a problem. I said that I had experienced something similar with UFO, and he revealed that he knew all about that. He had been checking me out …

He was signed to Rak Records, owned by super-producer Mickie Most, and the new band would comprise singer Frank Aiello from Bedlam, Clive Chaman from the Jeff Beck Group on bass and Don Airey as keyboardist. Don was a classically trained musician with little experience on the road with a rock band but when he arrived at the rehearsal room, everybody’s face lit up. I heard a Mini Moog for the first time that evening and Don was already a total master, bending single keyboard notes the way I could bend a string on a guitar. It really was something else. His solos would scream just like a guitar.

Cozy’s double red Ludwig kit, shining in the centre of the room, looked ominous even before he sat down at it. Hearing him play was a real eureka moment, totally unlike experiencing him with other bands or on record. He held the sticks in the traditional way and could be very subtle with his playing but then the power of those bass drums would knock me for six. I was blown away by his timekeeping. I had to keep myself together with this man.

Our set opened with an instrumental, ‘Super Strut’ by Eumir Deodato, an old bluesy song by Elvis Presley, ‘Trouble’, a couple of Cozy’s hits – ‘Dance with the Devil’ and ‘The Man in Black’– the Clive Chaman song ‘Who’s That Girl’ and a couple of songs I had written, ‘Hold On’ and ‘Keep Your Distance’. A Marquee gig was heard by the likes of Queen’s Roger Taylor and Brian May, along with Cat Stevens, Brian Auger, Max Middleton, Suzi Quatro and Jeff Beck. Clive was quite unbelievable that night. ‘Super Strut’ had me open-mouthed at his dexterity. Cozy eventually leaned over to Clive and whispered, ‘Clive, listen, I know all your famous mates are here, but do you fancy playing the next fucking song with the rest of us?’ I was in hysterics!

Football would become almost as loved in the band as music. We played at any opportunity – in rehearsal rooms, outside gigs on the car parks. The mere sight of goalposts on the way to a gig would result in a stop-off. ‘Surely we can spare twenty minutes for a kickabout?’ Cozy would say.

We carried our kit everywhere, Powell in bright-red Swindon Town gear, Don with his Sunderland stripes, Frank in Arsenal away kit, and Clive in a gold Brazilian shirt. I looked more like Dave Mackay after too many nights in the pub. We were late for a Swansea gig after stopping for about an hour in the heavy mud of a Welsh field. Don was injured in a filthy Aiello tackle. He hobbled to the venue entrance, moaning and groaning, the rest of us covered with mud. The Welsh doorman was having none of it. ‘Fuck off yew lot, I’ve got Cozy Powell and the Hamsters ’ere in ’alf an hour.’ We explained that we were indeed the Hamsters.

Here is some inside info hardly anyone knows about. Cozy put a team together to play in the showbiz league, with members of the Average White Band, Humble Pie, Hammer and David Gilmour (a fine footballer). Cozy was a raiding winger, fast and dirty on the right. Don Airey played in midfield and was dreaming of and trying to channel Jim Baxter. Frank Aiello, on the inside right, was a real nuisance to opposing teams. Alan Gorrie was our superb goalkeeper. Hamish Stuart, a powerful centre-forward, was brave beyond the call and headed any ball. Jerry Shirley never stopped swearing. Dave Clempson was a fast and brilliant forward.

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