PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH A RULER Howard Werth’s first solo album, “King Brilliant” was full of potential hit singles and it’s a mystery one or other didn’t score. My personal choice would have been “Roulette”, simply because it featured the remarkable accordion playing of……oh yes….ME!! The reality was that my accordion playing was rapidly deteriorating. I had little interest in it, never practiced and, as a result, I didn’t notice anything was wrong until I checked the instrument just before I left home for the session at Marquee Studios 40 years ago today. I quickly discovered there was a problem with the casing, which was pressing on an off-centre middle Ab key causing it to wheeze out a breathy harmonic every time the adjacent keys were depressed. As trills and arpeggios involving G and A featured heavily in the arrangement Ab had nowhere to hide! Thankfully, I was able to resolve the issue by use of panic, a twelve-inch school ruler, a bulldog clip and a number of elastic bands, which gave the accordion the appearance of having a wooden aerial tethered by guy ropes. Unfortunately, it affected how I held the instrument and having once been peppered with dislodged elastic bands I was distracted from controlling the bellows properly, meaning I was obliged to press the air release button between the passages I had to play. I glanced up at the control room at one point to see Howard and producer Gus Dudgeon in a state of hysteria – stern engineer Phil Dunne possibly less so. “Come in and listen!” shouted Gus, wiping away tears. At first I couldn’t hear anything untoward, and then he turned the faders down until all that was audible was the sound of an erratic life-support machine, plus a thwack and a wheezing moan as I misjudged the position of the school ruler and momentarily opened the dodgy key. I wasn’t happy with my performance by any means but times were hard and I took my session fee and ran, supposing the accordion track would never be used. Surprisingly, it was. It remains there to this day – albeit well back in the mix - but such were the skills of Gus Dudgeon that neither taint of school ruler nor inappropriate semi-tones can be detected. Sadly, Marquee Studios closed in 1988 when it, and the iconic Marquee Club on Wardour Street were demolished. Standing on hallowed ground that, over the years, presented to the world everyone on the UK music scene worth hearing, is a Spanish restaurant and cigar shop. How is that progress? I’d take my accordion up there and threaten to play it, but I don’t think the Spanish are as afraid of accordions as we Brits. https://youtube/watch?v=C3gcv61m2ak
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 08:13:04 +0000
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