Why the 70s rock
Tiny Dancer
Why the 70s rock
Tonight the Odyssey Arena in Belfast will be packed with pop fans rockin'
away with David Cassidy, David Essex and the Bay City Rollers. Here four
writers pay tribute to their idols from a decade of glam rock -- including
one who won't be appearing (but still sets a girlish heart racing)
DAVID CASSIDY
Janet devlin writes:
Could it be Forever? Yes - and it still could be if David played his cards
right. After all, we grew up together. I am not, never have been, a
Daydreamer, but 30 years on I admit I still find Breaking Up is Hard To Do.
Despite the many poptastic heartthrobs vying for my pocket money and
attention, David Cassidy was the only one for me. His was the only poster
on my bedroom wall and I still Cherish his memory.
I loved his records, simple melodies, simply sung in a unique slightly
husky, boyish tenor. I loved his hip-hugging jeans and shoulder-hugging
T-shirts. We even had the same hairstyle.
In the early 70s you had to choose between David and Donny. That's
just the way it was then. Not quite Alien vs Predator, but you know what
I mean. Anyone could, of course, like Marc Bolan, The Bay City Rollers,
Sweet and Mudd as well. But you couldn't support David AND Donny.
That would be like a vegetarian tucking into a t-bone. Or preferring Band
on the Run to Changes.
There were fierce David v Donny debates in the classroom, where mascara
wands, coloured eyeliner and blusher were recent innovations. We were not
completely naive. We had Marje Proops, The Exorcist and Frank Finlay's
Casanova to thank for that.
But we were not completely cynical either. We still believed in
love-at-first-sight, snogging at the bus shelter and that 'going too far'
would get you a reputation - and not a good one.
Still, passionate hearts beat in our teenage breasts (supported by the new
underwired bras) and our senses reeled with buckets of Gingham perfume,
patchouli oil and oestrogen. To this day, an eau with even a passing
ollifactory resemblance to Gingham nearly makes me retch.
In the dark days of the Troubles, there was no fence-sitting when it came
to D&D. No peaceline, ceasefire or Sunningdale. You had to choose. And
you had to Stand By Your Man.
Donny Osmond had shiny hair, big teeth and loads of older brothers (one
of whom was particularly tasty). And one younger, fat, brother. Oh, and
Marie, who no-one liked until she sang Paper Roses.
They were a wholesome, energetic lot, much given to sparkly jumpsuits.
They were also Mormons, which me and my classmates were fairly sure
were Protestants. However, we were also reliably informed that Mormons
were invariably randy old men with beards and lots of wives. Someone also
suggested that in olden days they had eaten their babies.
The Osmonds were familiar to me through their many appearances on the
excellent Andy Williams Show. I had nothing against them. It just seemed
unlikely that Donny would ever pin me up against a lamppost outside the
youth club. And then there was the cardinal sin of Puppy Love. Puh-lease!
David was a different, more enticing, proposition. Even though I despised
the silly screaming masses who fell sobbing at his feet, I could imagine
catching his eye - had we not been starcrossed lovers.
I thought The Partridge Family just too naff (apart from DC's stepmum
Shirley Jones, whose superb soprano I remembered from the heart-wrenching
Carousel). But I watched for David's sake, even though I suspected he was
getting a mite too matey with co-star Susan Dey, and I disliked that wee
smart alec Danny Bonaduce (who, it recently emerged, suffered child abuse
throughout the series).
I have never actually met David Cassidy or even been to one of his
concerts. Perhaps it is better we never do meet. But he will always have a
special place in my girlish affections.
How Can I Be Sure? I just am.
BAY CITY ROLLERS
Helen Carson writes:
To an eight-year-old east Belfast girl, a pair of three-quarter length
tartan trousers was everything - at least it was in 1974, when the hottest
of boy bands was the Bay City Rollers.
The tartan trousers wavering above the ankles of the spiky-haired lads
were, I'm now so embarrassed to admit, the fashion must-have of the
day. Add to this, the boys' cute Scottish accents singing a heady mix of
happy or soppy songs like Shang-A-Lang or Bye Bye Baby and you've
got the stuff of teeny-bopper dreams.
It was the catchy pop tunes that first attracted me to the Bay City
Rollers. Like most of their fans, I was too young to go to a concert -
but the fashion was definitely something I could do. Or so I thought...
I hadn't counted on my freedom of expression (as I saw it) being stifled
by my mum, who responded to my pleas for a pair of the tartan trousers
with the retort: "No, they're disgusting - they're neither shape nor make."
The rebuke was to heap more humiliation on my sister, Dawn, and I,
who were the only children - or that's what it felt like - at primary
school who didn't have a pair of the much-coveted trousers.
And while in every class there was a child who had the lot - a satin bomber
jacket resplendent with three tartan stars, platform shoes and matching
Roller scarf - for us it was regulation, unadorned flares.
And the tartan army was everywhere! Local shops had rails teaming with
trousers and tartan clad paraphernalia. The Spice Girls may have picked
up most of their royalties from shrewd merchandising deals (unlike the
Rollers), but they weren't the first to do it.
The bomber jacket to me was the ultimate in cool and reminded me of
jackets worn by 'street' types in American cop shows that dominated TV
in the 70s and was staple viewing in our house.
Surely, my mum would go for that? But no, I was never to get the trousers
and, like the mighty Rollers themselves, it all faded into obscurity.
The Bay City Rollers, the world's biggest band since The Beatles, selling
£120m in records, ended on a sour note.
The good-looking Scottish lads with mostly working-class roots were all
washed up by 1977 when the new wave of punk left them looking the
way I feel now about those trademark trousers - very silly indeed.
The pin-up boys with squeaky-clean images became a parody of themselves
with scandals involving drink and drugs, attempted suicides and child-porn
charges.
Only former lead singer, Les McKeown (49) has had any sort of successful
music career. He is, ahem, big in Japan. The remaining 'fab five', as they
were called when Rollermania was in its zenith, are all in their 50s now.
Alan Longmuir went back to being a plumber; Derek resumed his nursing
career after a child porn conviction; and Stuart 'Woody' Wood and Eric
Faulkner are in music production.
A lively slice of pop mischief-making they may have been, but their
role-model status was just as misplaced as their fashion sense.
MARC BOLAN
Marie Foy writes:
I was unhappily stuck in a boarding school when T Rex's main man Marc
Bolan opened a whole new world to me at the age of 12 or 13.
Top of the Pops was the one programme we first years were allowed to
watch each week. Every Thursday, around 70 girls crowded into the only
classroom with a TV and perched on desks for a better view of the screen.
I can't remember who else was on the pop circuit then, Marc was the
only one to make a lasting impression on me. I could hardly have put it
into words at the time, but I know now part of what intrigued me was
his sheer sex appeal.
Never before, and I don't think since, have I been starstruck. I simply
hadn't known they made men like that who played music like that.
Marc was an icon of the time and, hungry for pop rock, we boarders loved
all his most commercial stuff, Get It On, Telegram Sam, Metal Guru, Ride
a White Swan, Rock On, Children of the Revolution...
My sister fell in love with Les McKeown from tartan-waving Bay City Rollers
fame and Sweet's blond Brian Connolly. My friends' bedroom walls were
plastered with David Cassidy, David Essex and even the odd Donny Osmond.
All pretty boys certainly but, after Marc, they were much too sweet and
saccharine for me with their wishy-washy love lyrics and cheesy smiles.
I knew those smarmy grins weren't for real. Okay, I knew all the words
of their songs too, but I never would have admitted it.
Marc had that cute little-boy-lost look about him as well, but he was
undoubtedly the bad one of the bunch with his tight trousers, petulant
pout, long, dark corkscrew hair and raunchy guitar riffs.
It was that fatal mix of a butter-wouldn't-melt baby-face and sultry,
teasing truculence that magnetised me. He oozed sulky rebellion and
I loved it. I held my breath when he was on the screen, couldn't take
my eyes of him.
Truthfully, I can't say I thought he was the best singer ever, but his
voice had edge and his music had rhythm. The glam face glitter and
feather boas that crept into his act did seriously threaten his street
cred. But he was so gorgeous you had to forgive him. He was a rock
star after all.
When T Rex's star began to fade, I confess I did forget about him.
I remember the disappointment a few years later when I saw pictures
of him after he had cut off those romantic long black locks of hair.
He was never as pretty after that.
Then in 1977, when he was just 30 years old and I was 19, the news
broke that he had died in a car crash on his way home from a night out
in London. I was surprised I felt so shocked.
But then he had been my first, and he had brightened up an otherwise
grim time in my life.
DAVID ESSEX
John Laverty writes:
My older brother often dines out on stories from the time when he was
"painter and decorator to the stars."
A rather exaggerated title of course but, to be fair to Gerry, he did
remodel the abodes of several famous people when working in London
in the 80s.
Tina Turner was one. Another was Ava Gardner ... and a thankyou letter
from the latter still occupies a hallowed space on the kitchen wall.
But David Essex was his favourite acquaintance from those days.
Charming and modest, the charismatic Essex effortlessly attracted another
fan from the Laverty household.
He already had one, in me.
Mind you, I'm not even sure why that was.
T Rex were the group who normally tested the speakers of my cheap
bedroom stereo in those early adolescent days.
David Essex? No. But his 1974 number one, Gonna Make You A Star,
got a regular blasting.
In retrospect, that hit was ironically titled because, after over a decade
of listening to people promising him just that, David Essex had finally
arrived at the threshold of fame and fortune - and had done it by himself.
The man born David Cook nearly 58 years ago had already tried his luck
as a pop star - and failed miserably.
Ten singles as singer with the little known Everons in the 60s; ten flops.
By 1970 he was still David Cook - and working as a window cleaner.
But the Cockney charmer still believed he was better than that and when
his name changed, so did his luck.
Some 600 hopefuls auditioned for the role of Jesus in the West End musical
Godspell in 1971; to everyone's astonishment, a unknown bloke called "David
Essex" landed it.
Three years later, it was hard to imagine Essex ever being "unknown."
He was everywhere. In hit movies such as That'll Be The Day and
Stardust, on Top of the Pops seemingly every week, on the front
cover of virtually every teen magazine.
All my fellow early-teenage girlfriends fancied him. Hell, I fancied him!
He was gorgeous, but appeared not to notice it; rich and famous yet
apparently unaffected.
He never seemed to take life seriously but obviously did ... and had to,
when the hits and film roles suddenly evaporated.
Back to the stage, methinks. This Evita lark looks interesting...
And, yes, sad old me can still recant the Latin bit at the start of Oh
What a Circus, Essex's comeback hit from the musical and an appropriate
commentary on his own unpredictable career.
It has been nearly a quarter of a decade since Essex seriously troubled
the upper echelons of the pop charts (A Winter's Tale, 1982) yet he still
retains a fan base that, numerically at least, many current boy bands
would envy.
He also retains the phone number of the "painter and decorator to the
stars" but, as usual, David Essex is busy remodelling his career, not his
apartment.
Cheers,
TD
Get you high heeled guitar boots and some groovy clothes
Get a hair piece on your chest
And a ring through your nose
Find a nice little man who says
He's gonna make you a real big star
from Queen's "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll"
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