Who I Am: A Memoir (34 page)

One evening, in March 1981, as I was leaving the Embassy Club, I ran across Ron Nevison, whom I hadn’t seen since he mixed the
Tommy
movie soundtrack six years before. He was standing on the stairs that led up and out of the club, trying to persuade a girl to go home with him.

She looked as though she was being hassled. She was wearing a white jumper, with broad navy-blue horizontal stripes, and black skirt. Her hair was wild, unkempt and bleached, about shoulder length and gently permed. I could hardly see her face. She looked small, crumpled and down. Ron walked away in frustration. She looked at me for a split second, her eyes misty and tired. She was very pretty.

‘Let’s go to Tramp’s, then I’ll take you home,’ I said. And that’s how my love affair with Louise Reay began – an unrequited obsession that would nearly cost me my sanity.

A few weeks later, in April, I flew to New York so I could do some demos for my second solo album. As usual I stayed at the Navarro. My sessions were at Atlantic’s studios on Central Park West, a legendary place where Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin had worked with Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler in the halcyon days of ATCO records. I cooked up a couple of interesting tracks with keyboards and echo delays, working with Michael Shrieve, the drummer from Santana. And I got to see some of Mick Jagger, who was doing some studio work there for his first solo album.

On the morning of 8 April I woke up at the Navarro to someone pounding at my door with the horrific news that Kit Lambert had died the night before in London. He had fallen down some stairs at his mother’s home. Looking out the window of the Navarro I could see the Dakota on Central Park West, outside of which John Lennon had been shot. My head began to swim. Sobered by the terrible news about Kit, acutely aware of how fragile life could be, I decided to go to the Twin Cities and visit Eric Clapton, whom I’d heard was in hospital there. Alan Rogan, my friend, guitar tech and minder, and Jody Linscott, who played in the James Taylor band, went with me.

When we got to the hospital it turned out that Eric had simply taken too many painkillers. Still, I was glad to see my old friend.

My little posse went from there to Los Angeles. We planned to do some sessions with Jody’s friend, one of James Taylor’s backing vocalists, David Lasley. I also did a gig with one of Jody’s other friends who had a band; it was in the venue on Sunset now known as the Viper Club. While in LA we visited my friend Joe Walsh, who’d played with The James Gang, and then with The Eagles until their break-up the year before. His house was in Santa Barbara. It was a long drive. When we got there Joe had laid out a line of cocaine at least three yards long. Jody snorted the entire line in a single drift from one end of the marble countertop to the other as we watched in amazement.

‘That’s all there was, Jody,’ drawled Joe.

Of course it wasn’t.

Kit’s memorial service was to be held in Covent Garden on 11 May 1981. I gave a heartfelt eulogy to the tearful gathering. The London Symphony Orchestra played the overture from
Tommy
by Will Malone, ‘Pinball Wizard’ arranged by my father-in-law Ted Astley, an excerpt from Constant Lambert’s
Rio Grande
and the poignant Chaconne from Purcell’s
The Gordian Knot Untied
. It was an extraordinary affair. Everything about it was perfect. Afterwards Chris Stamp and I scored some coke and hung out, which also seemed appropriate somehow.

Mark Macauley, a shareholder in the Embassy Club, had the brilliant idea that he should take me and my daughters to see
Cats
in London on opening night. He had seen previews and loved it. I asked Mark to pretend Louise Reay was his partner, so I could attend without losing a precious night out with her. Louise had done something with her hair, pulled it tighter to her head than usual, and worn a high-neck navy and white polka-dot dress; she looked exquisite and behaved perfectly. But my girls, although only ten and eight years old, saw through the ruse and went home to tell their mother I was with another woman.

Whenever I was separated from Louise I felt a unique anguish. In this case it wasn’t just the remembered pain of my childhood and my mother, but rather a longing for what was good about Louise to remain above the high-tide line of our lives. I wanted her to last, to linger as she was that night of
Cats
at the New Theatre in Drury Lane. Even compared to Bonnie Langford, the show’s star, who gave me a knowing wink as she meowed and pranced up and down the aisle, Louise was transcendent.

I was desperate to hang on to her, and to have her illuminate my life. I invited her to New York where I thought I might do some more work at Atlantic Studios. We attended a party with Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, and hung out with Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams. Photographer David Bailey told me his wife, Marie Helvin, was a fan of mine – I think they were drifting apart and he was hoping I would take her on a date.

The partner-swapping mood continued when at the end of the evening Mick asked Louise for her number, and I was stunned when she gave it to him. She had done this once before when we went to a party thrown by Bernie Cornfeld, the international financier, and he had asked for her number and got a result. The trip turned even worse for me because Karen managed to find out where I was and called my room at the Navarro, complaining I had taken my new crush to
her
favourite hotel. I went to bed depressed, and Louise went out to watch Madness perform alone.

The next day Louise made it clear she’d had a wonderful evening without me. I felt sorry for having dragged her across the Atlantic only to be subjected to my possessive, childish behaviour.

The New Romantics all had glamorous and well-defined images – they had their own looks. Even the bands that defied this vogue, like The Clash, Madness and PiL, nevertheless took part in carefully choreographed photo-sessions. I wanted my next solo album to be part of this vogue. I might be an old rocker when working with The Who, but as a solo artist the field was wide open for me to do whatever I felt like doing.

In my new studio at Oceanic I mixed my demos of
Face Dances
and
Body Language
. Jackie Curbishley – who was effectively my manager, with Chris Chappel providing street cred – liked them, but Bill wasn’t so sure. I had decided to mix spoken word and free verse with the lyrics. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I was working on a
film noir
idea at the time called
Bilder von Lily
, and all the songs I was preparing for my next solo album were intended to illuminate this story.

Terry Rawlings, the music editor who had been so helpful to me on the
Tommy
movie, went to work on
Blade Runner
, directed by Ridley Scott. In the middle of May he sent me a script to read, and asked me to compose the score. Terry had told Scott I would do a great job. I could see this would be an incredible opportunity, and was pleased to be asked, but I knew there was no way I could take on a movie when I was about to go into the studio again.

When Bruce Springsteen came to London in the first week of June 1981 I travelled up to Birmingham with Louise to see him perform. I played with Bruce that night as Little Stevie van Zandt called out the chords. There is nothing quite like playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen on ‘Born to Run’, a hymn to breaking free. My role was to enforce the guitar part with Little Stevie by my side, while Bruce made that special connection with his audience.

A few days later the Oceanic sessions for my second solo album began in earnest, recorded by The Who’s soundman Bob Pridden. I’d decided I wanted to record all the tracks live, so the band gathered in the studio where we could all hear each other. I was playing my old Telecaster through a Fender twin amp, Tony Butler and Mark Brzezicki from my brother Simon’s band were the rhythm section, Jody Linscott was on percussion, and Peter Hope-Evans on the harmonica and Jew’s harp. For these first sessions Chris Stainton, who played with Joe Cocker and Eric Clapton, was on piano and Hammond, while Polly Palmer (from Family) played tuned percussion – glockenspiel, marimbas and vibraphones.

In one week we rehearsed ‘Face Dances’, ‘It’s In You’, ‘Stop Hurting People’, ‘Dance It Away’, ‘Man Watching’, ‘Sean’s Boogie’, ‘The Sea Refuses No River’ and ‘Communication’. The sound was epic. I didn’t drink very much, and although there was cocaine around, not much of it found its way onto the rehearsal studio floor.

Every night after work I’d loon off to the Venue, or some other place, hoping to see other bands. One night I performed with Taj Mahal, who name-checked me as an ally and supporter whenever I went to see him play. It was a joy. I ran into my sister-in-law Virginia at the Venue, and she agreed to play piano and keyboards on some of the forthcoming sessions. Rabbit had gone to ground, and I couldn’t even raise him on the phone. Since The Who shows in March I hadn’t seen or heard from him.

Before autumn arrived, I returned to The Temple at Cleeve and invited Mum to come and stay in the cottage there. She had drinking problems of her own, and had isolated herself in the villa in Menorca I’d bought for her and Dad many years before. I thought we might help each other. I suppose this attempt at solidarity in alcoholism was as mad as Mum thinking that sending me off to live with her crazy mother Denny might help me – but I found The Temple a peaceful and restorative place, and I imagined it might help Mum too.

It did help us both for a few days, but I quickly became impatient with Mum’s self-obsession. I went to the local bookshop in Wallingford and bought
Remembrance of Things Past
by Proust. I took long walks while Mum cooked food I couldn’t eat – usually strange Spanish fish dishes – and did endless crosswords in the puzzle magazine she bought in the village when I wasn’t reading.

In September 1981 Chris Thomas and Bill Price started in on my solo album
Chinese Eyes
at Oceanic. We only worked for a week or so before we got stuck. The problem was that the songs I’d written were incredibly hard to perform. Chris had to start work on an album in Paris with Elton, so I was forced to face the fact that I wouldn’t make the revised November delivery date Atlantic was hoping for.

I had to find a way of putting Louise out of my mind, and Barney suggested I start dating Krissy Wood, Ronnie’s ex. I went to visit her, and she was still adorable and slightly flaky – she lived at Wick Cottage with her son Jessie – and still spoke often of her ex-husband ‘Woody’.

I took Krissy out to a trendy club in Baker Street, where I was having a very good time – until I woke up in a Chelsea hospital with a six-inch Adrenalin needle sticking out of my chest. Apparently I had been found unconscious in the club toilets, having overdosed on cocaine. I was technically dead, but luckily for me I’d been resuscitated in time.

I went to Twickenham to let Karen know what had happened before she read something in the tabloids. When I told her she hit me so hard I saw stars. I think she may have been holding a wooden spoon. It damned well hurt. It was the first time either of us had ever hit the other.

‘I don’t think you had better do that again,’ I said quietly. ‘There’s no refuge yet for battered husbands.’

I wrote to Bill Curbishley on 24 September, saying I needed time off. He replied the next day.

I feel it is definitely for the best, and I think you need a complete break of two or three months. Some sailing, tennis, sunshine wouldn’t go amiss, and no dope, booze or [nightclubbing]. No London or New York and most of all you have to
mean
it.

He went on in the most understanding way. The album would be postponed until the spring, everything would be dealt with, and I shouldn’t worry.

More people cared about me than I realised (or probably deserved), but there would be no more Who shows that year. Bill set aside his optimistic projections for the planned American tour of autumn and winter.

Still in Louise’s thrall, I pleaded with her to give me some time, and we spent a few days hanging out around Portobello. One evening, after I’d been introduced to her sister and her husband, Louise told me the story of her unhappy early teenage years. When I railed at her that until she had a child she would never be truly happy, she ended up weeping and telephoning an old boyfriend who arrived quickly to smooth things out for both of us.

Louise later suggested we go and spend some time at The Temple. While we were there, playing Scrabble, I got a call from Chris Thomas asking if I would go to Paris to put some acoustic guitar on one of Elton’s tracks. I made arrangements very quickly, then suggested to Mum and Dad that they come with me and Louise. In a crazy fantasy I was creating an instant family. When Mum met Louise she said simply, ‘She’s beautiful’ (she approved) and ‘She’s very young’ (she disapproved). Louise was 23 and I was 36, an age gap that didn’t seem particularly large to me.

The session with Elton in Paris was superb. I was using a little cocaine and drinking Rémy, and after a few takes I started to feel in the presence of God. My playing got tighter and tighter when the reverse should have been happening, but we kept doing retakes because Chris said the drummer’s ‘feel’ wasn’t quite right. The next day Elton, battling his own demons, didn’t show up, and I used the time to record the track for a song of my own, ‘Vivienne’.

We stayed in Paris for a couple of days. John Entwistle and his entourage were in town, so I threw a dinner for twenty people. Then we went to a club to drink and eat, where I vomited into a champagne bucket.

Home alone at Cleeve, I chatted to the devil himself. He was so close to me – sitting right on the end of my bed – that I could actually smell him. The odour was nauseating. Next morning I called my doctor, who arranged for me to meet a hypnotherapist specialising in addiction and alcoholism treatment, which saved my life. The doctor also prescribed me Ativan and sleeping pills. To celebrate this good turn of events I bought myself my first Ferrari, which I was certain I wouldn’t drive when drunk. I was turning into Keith Moon.