Exclusive interview: Johnny Neal — finale
Our fascinating journey through the history of Mr. Johnny Neal and Birmingham’s rock’n’roll scene has reached its destination. This time, we go back a few topics to refresh some great memories and learn about future plans!
If you haven’t read, click for the 1st part — 2nd part — 3rd part!
Question 10: About the comedy antics that Geoff perform on stage, how did those take place?
JN: As mentioned before, nothing would embarrass Geoff and the band did try to do some comedy on stage in the early days but as we were not too good at it we didn’t continue with it. One sketch involved Geoff walking on stage from the dressing room at the back, wearing only pair of swimming trucks, and flippers passing all the other band members and when reaching me asking “Which way to the sea mate?”, to which I would just shrug my shoulders in amazement and then Geoff would walk off — short and sweet — this is typical British humour and did get a few laughs but to be honest none of the other band members would ever have done this — only Geoff — he would do anything for the cause!
He got the nickname “Cuckoo” because when we shared a bill with a Mexican trio, one of their songs was “Cucurrucucu Paloma”. Geoff could never get this name right so shortened it to “Cuckoo” and used to go around singing “Cuckoo, cuckoo”… instead of the right name so from then on we called him Cuckoo and the name stuck.
Always full of life, and never down Geoff was always the life and soul of the party, with an eye for the ladies. Whilst in Germany at a hotel where the band were staying, from the third floor with his head out of the window all we could hear was Geoff shouting the only German words he knew “Fraulein, fraulein” at the ladies that passed in the street below, much to their amusement. Some of the men walking below were not so amused…
Another amusing incident happened in Naples, Italy. We were there playing in American Forces Bases and whilst taking a break on the beach we noticed a group of young children walking behind Geoff. Geoff always adorned with chains and crosses around his neck, in his bathing costume, was walking along the beach, long hair flowing in the wind followed by this group of young children — when we asked the kids “why are you following this man?” they answered in broken English pointing to Geoff “He — Jesus” thinking that Geoff was Jesus!!!! We could then see what they meant.
Geoff was also known as the Tomato Sauce King by the various landladies where the band stayed when touring in the UK because no matter what the meal was, Geoff would always load the plate with half a bottle of tomato sauce, so killing any other flavours which the landladies had spent hours preparing — but no, Geoff had to have his tomato sauce!
Question 11: Could we talk a little more about appearing on Opportunity Knocks?
JN: As mentioned before, Opp Knocks was a hugely successful show for emerging new talent in the UK and Hughie Green, the presenter of the show (both loved or otherwise) was a huge star himself so it was bewildering to me that whilst we were waiting to be brought on to the set of Opp Knocks to perform with Hughie in front of me, I saw his hands visibly shaking with nerves — which made me more nervous than I was before! The shows were recorded each Sunday and aired on British TV the next day Monday — my first memory of standing on the TV set was the thought of millions of people watching me at home on their TV’s, which was daunting, but I had to put those thoughts aside when the bright lights came on and I heard Hughie’s voice saying: “For Johnny Neal and the Starliners, opportunity knocks”… this was it!
Each week’s acts were put up in a hotel on the Friday evening.On the Saturday the acts would rehearse their performances and on the Sunday the show would be recorded. On our first show, we arrived at the hotel on the Friday evening only to find that one of the other acts was a group of young dancing girls… but there was no chance of any hanky panky going on because on the stairs leading to the corridor where the girls were sleeping, each night their parents could be seen guarding each end of the corridor. I’ll never know if the parents were guarding the band members from the girls or the girls from the band members, HAHA.
When a new act was first introduced to the show, a person would be interviewed by Hughie Green prior to the performance to learn more about the act. The person I had asked to talk about me, pulled out at the last minute so I called on my poor old Mom who answered the call and appeared on national TV for the very first time in her life — and even before me on the show — much to the delight of my two daughters who actually screamed in delight to see their Nan on TV!
Question 12: You also spoke about the issues with Mr. Don Arden, Sharon’s father and music businessman. How did the band meet with him?
JN: After the band had appeared on Opp Knocks in 1970, we were approached by an associate of Don Arden and then went to meet the man himself. His daughter, Sharon (then called Sharon Arden- not having met Ozzy by that time) worked behind the front desk. When Geoff and I met Don Arden he expressed an interest in signing us and to get a record out as soon as possible riding on the success we had had on Opp Knocks .He wanted to get us a producer and my memory of that conversation was him picking up the phone to the front desk saying “I want a good producer for the boy… get me New Yor, get me San Francisco, get me Chicago... etc” — meanwhile he was just probably talking to his daughter on the front desk — pretending to be a big shot. He eventually got us a producer — Tony Chapman, a local staff producer, who we had been working with on another project for the past 3 or 4 months unknown to Don Arden — so much for an “international producer”!
Don Arden did come up trumps and got me a number called “Put Your Hand in the Hand” which I was told I was the first to record (but I believe the number appears an Anne Murray album earlier in 1970). Thereafter many artists covered the number including the great Elvis Presley using the same format that I had done — so you could say that Elvis copied me!!! HAHA. As mentioned before, Geoff’s number, “Now”, produced by Tony Chapman, some months before, appeared on the B side of “Put Your Hand”. Don Arden was a giant in the business at that time and brought over to the UK and Europe many stars from America and other parts of the world and he was respected in show business circles. I personally quite liked Don and was and still am appreciative of what he did for me at the time.
Question 13: How do you feel when you see that your music is very much alive in Brazil, being appreciated and even performed with reverence to this day?
JN: I am absolutely over the moon about this! I would never have imagined it! I have had records released in the UK, Australia, South Africa and even the USA but I am unaware of this happening in South America so even at my ripe old age I am still making history somewhere and this is a very rewarding feeling for me. I don’t have this problem in my home town of Birmingham as I have a very good relationship with the press and other media in the UK so I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to be introduced to your part of the world.
I am also very happy that the songs that Geoff Nicholls wrote for me, are now being heard and appreciated. Geoff was a great song-writer. One of the projects that I was working on before Gary contacted me last year was to collect all the songs that Geoff wrote for me and put them on one CD, but at that time I did not have all the songs. Luckily, Gary Rees then came along and was able to supply me with the missing songs so I now have about 14 tracks (11 of me singing and 3 of Geoff singing) that I did when Geoff was in my band, the Starliners, that I wanted people to hear. Before Geoff passed away I said to him that I would keep his name alive and hopefully I will be able to do that now. This is not a commercial venture for me — mainly for people within our circle and possibly further afield.
Question 14: What is going to be the next mission in your amazing career?
JN: As I said above, I was working on a CD of Geoff’s material before Gary came along and have since then I have been re-listening to all my other music that I have done over the years in my work caree,r with a view to making a master cd or cds of my best stuff. This has given me a great interest and is taking a lot of my time. In regard to any new material, I have not sung publicly for some time so obviously do not know what I am capable of and how strong my voice is, so I am very happy where I am at the moment, particularly lucky to be associated with the likes of you Paulo, Leticia and the exposure you have given me.
We’re the ones to thank you, Mr. Neal, from the bottom of our hearts, for allowing us to be spectators to your history, to your amazing quest through this universal language that is music. We are truly grateful to have learned so much, and please know that you have inspired us all to persevere in our own journeys. Thank you.
Long live Mr. Neal! May we all be able to witness many more stories.
From Paulo Franzmann and Leticia Sechini