Tommy.

Where do you begin when writing about a musical that sets the bar so high that no one has managed to reach it?  It starts with the birth of a young wartime baby, whose father is thought to have perished in a RAF bombing mission over Germany. When the lad is six his mother meets Frank at a holiday camp, Uncle Frank Hobbs (Oliver Reed) soon moves in with Nora Walker (Ann-Margret). One night while Frank and Nora are making love the boys father returns and witnesses the love making, the young boy witnesses the fight that follows, which ends with Captain Walker (Robert Powell) being killed. His mother and stepfather tell the boy "you didn't hear it, you didn't see it, you won't say nothing to no-one". From that day on young Tommy Walker (Roger Daltrey) hears nothing, see’s nothing and says nothing, in fact he’s now psychologically blind, deaf and dumb. Yes you’re right this is Ken Russell’s truly inspired adaptation of Pete Townsend’s 1969 rock opera Tommy (1975).

 

Eyesight to the Blind.

Both Nora and Frank attempt, via various doctors, to cure the boy of his malaise but without any success. Moving on ten years and the pair still believe that the boy can be cured, this time by taking him to a gathering of the faithful in a church that worships the cult of Marilyn Monroe. To the music of Sonny Boy Williamson’s Eyesight to the Blind a cleansing is taking place where a sacrament of drugs and alcohol is being served under the control of a preacher, who looks remarkable like Eric Clapton and a priest who you’d swear was Arthur Brown. When that does not work the next stop is a visit to the Acid Queen (Tina Turner) a prostitute who administers LSD, she sends Tommy on a ‘trip’ of a lifetime but still it does not bring back his senses. After a couple of unsavoury episodes involving a Cousin Kevin (Paul Nicholas) and an Uncle Ernie (Keith Moon) and a strange occurrence in a scrapyard its discovered that the deaf, dumb and blind kid can sure play a mean pinball beating the local champ, a Pinball Wizard played by Elton John who wears the famous giant pair of Doc Martins. This changes all their lives with Nora and Frank cashing in on Tommy’s messiah status. I could go on with the story but I think you’ve got the idea, suffice to say the scene with the inspirationally cast Ann-Margret and the beans is worth your admission money all by its self. Russell said that this scene was a revenge parody of real life TV advertisements he had directed early in his career!

 

The Acid Queen.

The movie deals with some pretty serious matters like the cult of fame, drugs, and prejudice towards the disabled and sexual abuse. I first saw this film on release but I must admit I’d forgotten how good it was, seeing it recently on a rare screening on the BBC. The film has no dialogue at all, its narrative is carried solely by the words and music of Townsend and the Who and the episodic cinematography directed with great flair and imagination by Russell.  This combination of the eccentricities of Townsend’s writing and Ken Russell direction show how modern day musical’s should be made, with class and that slightly off kilter humour that the director is famous for rather than the dull conformity that appeases the majority of the culturally dead masses who revel in the mediocrity of such films as Mamma Mia (2008).

Ken we really miss you -  more than ever these day’s. 

Beware of Mr Baker.

Jay Bulger with Ginger Baker.

For me personally Jay Bulger’s film is a hugely entertaining 92 minute documentary mainly because its subject matter was the drummer of THE best rock band to ever to commit to vinyl and perform on a concert stage. No band has ever emulated Cream or its line up which included lead guitarist Eric Clapton, vocalist and bass guitarist Jack Bruce, the man my son was named after, and its powerhouse drummer Ginger Baker who’s 20 minute drum solo’s were feats of colossal energy and aggression. The band burst on to the rock scene 47 years ago on the 29^th July 1966 at Manchester’s Twisted Wheel and the final time they appeared live was at the Royal Albert Hall on the 26^th November 1968 in the company of this blogger who along with his bride of nearly four months managed to get tickets on the side of the stage. Beware of Mr Baker (2012) is not just about Lewisham born Peter ‘Ginger’ Bakers most prestigious working period when playing with Cream but demonstrates his complete working career, starting from his days as a jazz drummer.

 

Cream 1966 - 1968.

Blind Faith 1969.

Although Bakers first instrument was a trumpet he soon realised that his temperament was better suited to playing the drums. At the age of 16 he joined Bob Willis and His Storyville Jazz Men, quit his day job and spent the next year touring. During this period he played trad-jazz with Acker Bilk and Terry Lightfoot but really wanted to play modern jazz. Encouraged to play with various modern jazz outfits by his mentor Phil Seamen who heard him play at the All-Nighter club at the Flamingo in London’s Soho, a brilliant but troubled drummer I was fortunate to meet at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London when he played with the blind multi instrumentalist Roland Kirk. Bakers career really started to took off when he replaced Charlie Watts in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated in August 1962. In February 1963 Baker along with a young Jack Bruce on double bass and Hammond organist Graham Bond left Korner to form The Graham Bond Organisation Along with Dick Heckstall-Smith on tenor sax this significant band when on to record The Sound of 65 which ‘may have been the greatest album of the sixties and one of the most exciting and influential of its time’[1] which along with their second and last album There’s a Bond Between Us are now considered ‘essential listening for anyone who is seriously interested in British blues of the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.’[2] Again I was able to witness this line up on stage at the Gaumont Edmonton in 1965.  Baker stayed with Graham Bond for three and a half years until the formation of Cream in 1966.

 

Ginger performing with Hawkwind.

After Cream, Bakers career moved around from one band to another starting with the Steve Winwood’s Blind Faith who released their only album Blind Faith in August 1969.  In 1970 he formed Ginger Bakers Airforce releasing two albums before moving to Nigeria where he lived from 1970 to 1976 setting up a recording studio, studying African drumming and playing with the African musician and singer Fela Kuti.  During this period he recorded 3 albums with Baker Gurvitz Army, which broke up in 1976. During the 1980’s and 90’s he embarked on various solo projects as well as playing with such diverse bands as PIL and Hawkwind also joining Jack Bruce and Gary Moore in BBM who released just one album entitled Around The Next Dream with Ginger on the front cover resplendent in angel wings!

 

Ginger sprouted wings with BBM.

This fabulous documentary really gets behind the man as well as his music. Filmed in South Africa at Bakers gated estate where we see the reason for the title of the film, its here that Baker breed polo ponies before he had to sell up and move back to Britain. The documentary starts with the former heroin addict whacking the director on the nose with his walking stick because Bulger suggested that he would go and interview the 73-year-old drummer’s former associates! Not the easiest person to get on with then? I can remember when Ginger knocked Jack Bruce out on stage because he played across his drum solo! I lost count of the ex-wives, and his relationship with his kids leaves something to be desired. The man has spent fortune after fortune, lived all over the world, has more enemy’s than friends, uses bad language like its going out of fashion, but that not the point. He is and will remain the best rock/jazz drummer of them all, and that’s what counts and that’s what this mesmerising documentary succeeds in demonstrating.  Long may he remain attached to those sticks?

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[1] Chris Welsh - The Melody Maker

[2] Allmusic review.