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SUNDAY SONG STORY: The previous two stories have included Toni Haliday and this is the third and final in a song story trilogy. You may have noted in the preceding stories that I was striving to develop material that would work for Toni as an artist. She was young and edgy and I needed material that reflected that. I felt I was getting close with Paris By Air. I also looked around for younger musicians for her to work with as my session guys were decrepit 25-26 year olds!

I attended many scruffy rehearsal rooms auditioning bands for Toni and As I eventually hooked Toni up with Hot Snax who were a cooking young band of the time with quite a large following. We arranged a TV show “Check It Out” where Toni and Hot Snax performed live and she and I recorded an interview to camera in the recording studio for inclusion on the show. The day after the show I got a call from Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. Toni had said in the interview that one of her influences was Annie Lennox. Dave said, The Eurythmics were on tour and although Annie had gone off to Scotland, Toni could meet him for a chat if she wished. I arranged a car and took Toni over to a cafe in Sunderland (Daves home town) where he was holding a kind of royal court. I don’t recall much of this but after a couple of hours I had to head back to the studio in Wallsend to do a session and Dave came with us. I just got on with the session and the entourage went off to the green room.

Anyway, afterwards I started to develop the song that is the subject of this weeks story. “Empty Pockets”. This has some elements of “Paris By Air” but is far more edgy. I wove into it some of the things Toni had told me such as the fact she had her handbag stolen at a party. She was bemused that such a thing should happen at a “posh” party. I recorded the track and gave it as much edge as possible even double tracking the snare drum with a dustbin lid. I called Toni to come in and have a go at Vocals but could not raise her after several tries. I then sent a couple of letters which went unanswered. This was frustrating as I believed I now had the track that would achieve what we had been striving for. Then one day I got a call from a Lawyer. He said “do you realise that this girl is below the age of consent to enter into contract”. I just said “yes, I do” and hung up. Everything that we’d done had been done with Toni’s Mothers approval and clearly Toni had desperately wanted every opportunity that had been put her way. However, when an artist decides they want out there is little point in discussion or coercion so I just let it go. From the day I introduced Toni to Mr Stewart I never heard from nor saw her again. Your conjecture about what happened that day will probably be as accurate as mine. I believe she went on to have a fairly successful career but I never received any gratitude for the efforts I made in her formative stages. This was not the first nor the last time this had happened so I did not spend too much time thinking about it.

And what of the track? Well I shelved it because it was very hybrid and not suitable for pitching about to other artists. However, in the studio one day there was a young guy called David Baird and I cajoled him into to singing it. He did a fine job and added a blistering sax. In retrospect, maybe we should have put his version out.

Anyway, here it is after 32 years: EMPTY POCKETS by Rewind. Available for download now (follow the link below). Lets see if we can beat the X Factor to the Christmas number one!

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“I walk down the street with time on my hands,
The sign on the walls show far off lands,
But I don’t know a soul in this neighbourhood,
Can afford the fare, I’m stuck here for good.”

I was drawing on some of the things Toni had told me about her life. I always planned the song would be for her. Back home in Whitley Bay I put together the song. The first sequence on the sound file is my rough demo from the time. Toni was young and an unseasoned singer at the time and I put together a very simple melody which revolved mostly around just three notes. The next part of the audio sequence is Tonis demo. I had a bunch of mates record the track with me and I’m on a Rickenbacker 12 string.

Now at this time the house I was living at in Whitley Bay contained various members of The Tygers of Pan Tang. Singer Jon Deverill and also oddly the singer he replaced Jess Cox. I seem to recall this led to the odd bit of tension. Also living there was guitarist John Sykes. John Sykes played his guitar through an old record player incessantly. When I came home from the studio each day he would stop and ask me what I’d been recording that day and been doing and I’d often play rough or finished mixes of tracks. Rocky, the bass player didn’t live there but he must have been visiting on the day I played them “Paris By Air” because I later learned that Rocky had lobbied the band to record the song for a year or so. And so it came to pass that the Tyger recorded Paris By Air for their fourth album, The Cage. This necessitated some changes of lyrics to suit a male singer. For me the lyrics don’t work quite so well in the male context. John Deverill made his own minor changes (misunderstandings perhaps) that again threw the context off. I had Toni sing that she didn’t know anyone in her neighbourhood who could afford the fare so they were stuck there. Jon sang that he didn’t know anyone in his neighbourhood AND HE couldn’t afford the fare so he was stuck there. Subtle, but a world of difference. However, it had no effect on the songs success and it came out as a single and became a minor hit. The album was a huge success and went top 20. The third segment on the audio collage is the Tygers version and the fourth is their live rendition.

Paris-by-air by Stevie_T

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The single came and that’s the second segment you hear on the audio collage. When I returned to Newcastle, Keith Satchfied asked me about the sessions and who had played on the track. I said the drummer was called Simon and the bass player had an unusual name. Keith said – was the drummer Simon Philips, I said yes. So was the bass player Mo Foster. I said yes that’s it. Keith says F*** me, you’ve only been playing guitar with the Jeff Beck group!!

Unfortunately Micks single did not set the world alight and did not sell well. About a year later I was at Odyssey doing something else and Wayne introduced me to Chris Farlowe. Chris had come in to sing his own version of the song and that’s the third segment on the collage. I don’t even recall if Chris’s version got released or not.

 
Looking For Love In A Stranger by Stevie_T

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