A good few years ago now, one blues track in particular sneaked out of my radio, lodged in my brain, and made sure that I would always look forward to the latest James Harman Band release. The track was ‘Stranger Blues’ from the Black Top Album ‘Do Not Disturb’, an album which is still in my all time top ten. In the engine room of that band was a gentleman by the name of Jeff Turmes, on Fender bass, bottleneck guitar, baritone and tenor saxophones. Three albums later, an interview with James intimated that Jeff was leaving to work with his partner Janiva Magness; I thought ‘I have to watch out for that!’. Fast-forward a few years …. the Janiva Magness Band’s album ‘My Bad Luck Soul’ appears in the pages of Blueprint …. Janiva and Jeff put in stellar cameo appearances with the Fabulous Thunderbirds guitar man Kid Ramos. Their star is rising, and on a recent visit to California I managed to catch up with them both.

Janiva Magness’ vocals light up each and every record she appears on; she can sing passionately, or seductively, growl and shout too (I’m not going to compare her to anyone else, she sounds like herself, and she sounds great!). I heard that voice first over the telephone: Janiva told me that she and Jeff had just returned from a trip to the Handzame Festival in Belgium, where they played to appreciative audiences and a great reception. She was convalescing when I spoke to her, and unfortunately I wouldn’t be in the US long enough to take in her next appearance at the Covina Bluesapalooza 2000 where Janiva and her band would appear alongside Kim Wilson and James Harman, and share a stage with Kid Ramos. I was recommended however to take a trip to Jeff’s next gig, which would be in Long Beach.

Jeff and regular Magness band drummer Dave Kida were moving an interesting and eclectic variety of equipment into the Blue Café as my party arrived. We introduced ourselves and settled in at a table to enjoy the show along with the happy-hour patrons and a couple of bottles of Dos Equis. It became apparent very quickly that these guys were up there to have fun as well as put on a show.

I was delighted by the world-weary good humour of two songs, the Turmes original ‘Once In A While’ (what, no kazoo solo?!) and a personal favourite of mine, Mose Allison‘s ‘Nothin’s Gonna Be Alright’. Firm favourites also were the infectious good-time boogie of ‘Happy Hour’, Jeff’s “…tribute to the presidential debate, ‘Making Money’…” and a sterling version of Jimmy Reed‘s ‘Bright Lights, Big City’. Jeff exercised his glass bottleneck slide many times, to no better effect than on his version of ‘So Glad You’re Mine’. Dave pounded and thumped a wonderful selection of drums (“..one African and one South American..”) and kept up the pace, cross-stage smiles, nods and chatter confirming that these were two outstanding musicians, well used to working together. Another highlight was the lazy lope of ‘Take A Number’, from the ‘Bad Luck Soul’ album.

In between sets, the amiable and instantly likeable Jeff told me about his musical background. Most recently, he’s featured on Kid Ramos’ two most recent Evidence albums. “Yeah, it was good to get the chance to work with Kid and get some great experience arranging the horn charts. I played also with Richard Thompson on the ‘Mock Tudor’ album…they spelled my name wrong on the sleeve though!”. He grins wryly. I mention the thing I’ve always liked most is that great blues sound, that tone. ”Sure…you know, that old Guild guitar, I got it 20 years ago when I didn’t know what I was doing! Sounds pretty good now though”. James Harman’s bands always had that good sound too? “Of course, but what a lot of folks miss are the lyrics; you know, I worked on the ‘Takin’ Chances’ album, and there’s a gambling song on there called ‘Five’ll Getcha Ten’ that just has the most imaginative lyrics”.

So what comes next? “Well Blues Leaf have asked us to do another record, and we’ll probably try and fit that in before the end of the year. Janiva’s got the songs…you know, I think she should put a record out, just her.” And who else have you been working with? “I’ve been doing stuff with Doug McLeod – do you know his work? – ah you should come back and see him sometime, he’s great. He records for Audioquest, man, those records sounds fantastic. I’ve also been working with Rick Holmstrom and Kim Wilson”.

Jeff has a wealth of experience from his role as sideman, but let it be said right here that the best Jeff Turmes as songwriter and musician is to be found on the all-original thirteen tracks of ‘It Takes One To Know One’, recorded with Janiva. The album is a real cross section of styles, all perfectly executed: West Coast shuffles, booting R&B, touches of New Orleans funk, complemented by Janiva’s sometimes sultry, always soulful vocals. It was a real pleasure to meet the man.

Speaking to Janiva again the following day, I learnt that she comes from Detroit (which of course has produced some of the greatest blues and R&B stars): “I’ve been singing for 25 years…there was always music in the family when we were growing up”. Jeff and Janiva first met in Los Angeles club ‘King King’ (famous here for the residency of the Red Devils), they got together to work out a song, and the rest is history. How’s the blues scene out here on the West Coast? “Well, it’s still ‘up’, there’s a lot of music about though, it’s a little saturated right now, but hey, we make a living!”.

And Europe was fun: are you coming back some day soon? “Yeah, we took over the full band to Belgium and it was great; we have an agent over there and it would be great to come back to England”. Listening to the ‘Bad Luck Soul’ record, the vibe is great, the sound is just right and it’s very fresh and spontaneous: she told me that it was recorded in just two days. The duo work she’s been doing gives her and Jeff the chance to work out new songs, in addition to having fun: Janiva confessed a fondness her rub-board and snare which she uses in the act: “They’re my favourite things….oh yes, and my dresses and shoes!” So you’re the Imelda Marcos of the West Coast? “Sure, that’s it!”.

Following my conversations with these two stars, it’s obvious that things can only get better for Janiva and Jeff. I left California with the distinct impression that the future looks bright; their talent is undeniable, great original songs, fine sound. SoCal, so good!

The Captain: The new book….a long hard road you travelled but it’s finally here. Could you give our esteemed readers a rundown on how it all came about?

CSM: When John Lee had his massive comeback with The Healer, he and his manager, Mike Kappus, decided that it was time that a proper, authoritative full-scale biography of John was written since his life and career had never been properly examined before, and the only information about him in the public domain was in a few articles here and there, and on a bunch of often hilariously inaccurate liner-notes. In the immediate wake of the success of Crosstown Traffic and scoring a Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, I became one of a group of short-listed writers who were considered for the job. Eventually it came down to me and the late Robert Palmer, who’d already written Deep Blues, one of the definitive books on Delta music. He was actually the first choice, as I understand it, but he had two books on the go at the time and was late with both of them. I was initially somewhat daunted, since I’d just spent several years in Jimi Hendrix’s life and had an idea for a novel which I wanted to write, but then I was kidnapped and tortured by Mike Kappus and Pete Townshend, who talked me into doing it. As Mike put it, ‘If you’re capable of writing a novel you’ll be able to do it anytime, but John Lee isn’t necessarily going to be around forever.’ That just about clinched it. I signed the line and agreed to deliver a 100,000-word manuscript in 18 months. Eight years later, Viking Penguin received this THING that weighed in at around 270,000 words.

The Captain: …both ‘Crosstown’ and the JLH book are shot through with cultural references and history of black music….

CSM: Yep. That’s pretty much what I do!

The Captain: Your best writing deals with singular talent…Hooker, Muddy, Alex Harvey, Patti Smith….?

CSM: As a critic, you write about music, and about what the music’s about. As a journalist, you’re drawn to people and personalities. The best stuff happens when you can pull the two together.

The Captain: I guess you don’t have to like em all the time to write good stuff though (thinking here about the ‘Shots’ pieces on Wings-era McCartney and ‘Black and Blue’ period Stones)…?

CSM: Ultimately, you gots to call it like you sees it. I just went in there, and what I wrote is pretty much the way it came down, except that in the case of the Stones piece I had to do all that ‘dream sequence’ stuff because there was so much in there about drug use: mine as well as theirs!

The Captain: Why Hooker? A big influence from the word go?

CSM: The first Hooker music I heard was ‘Dimples’, which was a Top 30 single in ’64, and a couple of older tracks on Pye International R&B series Chess compilations. I came to blues via the Stones and then this compilation called ‘The Blues Volume One’ – you know, ‘start here, kid’ – and there he was with ‘Walkin’ The Boogie.’ I’d never heard music that seemed so strange but felt so right. If you’ll pardon the awful pun, I was hooked.

The Captain: What was on the teenage CSM’s Dansette? And his radio?

CSM: The first record I ever bought was by Cliff Richard, but in my defence I have to state that I was only nine at the time! Then came Elvis, but even then I preferred the ’50s sides I heard on an album belonging to a friend’s older sister to the post-army stuff. Then when I was 12 along came The Beatles and a few months later the Stones, then The Yardbirds, The Animals and The Who, then Motown and Stax, plus I was trying to follow up on the blues, so I guess it was equal parts pop, rock and soul: the standard early ’60s mix.

The Captain: The NME years……a great time to be a music writer, so much happening…?

CSM: Yep, I have to say that it was a wonderful era. ‘Rock journalism’ came of age in the late ’60s and early ’70s as a response to the needs of both the musicians and the audience, but then it seemed as if the party was almost over: all the politics had drained away and idealism had degenerated into hippie cliche. So the new generation of writers championed those few artists who genuinely excited us and agitated for a return to music with some urgency and vitality about it whilst taking the p*** out of former heroes who’d come over all disappointing, like the Stones and ex-Beatles and Lou Reed. And then came punk! For the first time, believe it or not, I was dealing with musicians who were younger than I was!

The Captain: Blast Furnace and the Heatwaves, as much fun as it sounded? Best memories? (The Roundhouse?)

CSM: The Blast band was definitely tons of fun, despite a little too much bickering within the band. The front line of the band stayed the same, but we had rather too many changes of bass player and drummer for my liking. We toured with Wilko Johnson, Joe Jackson, Rockpile and The Pirates, and we opened shows for The Damned, The Clash and the Boomtown Rats. The basic idea of the band was to take the basic Dr Feelgood model of stripped-down, in-yer-face R&B, mix in a hefty dose of MC5 and rev it all up even further until it reached as cranked-up a level of hysteria as the best of the punk bands.

The Captain: You were legally threatened by a disco band about your use of the name Heatwaves!

CSM: Yeah, that was a farce and a half. I’d originally coined the name ‘Blast Furnace & The Heatwaves’ during endless drinking sessions with Alex Harvey, and we’d improvise comedy routines about fictional ’50s rockers and early ’60s beat groups. He was ‘Brett Falcon’, I was ‘Blast Furnace’ and we then expanded it to include their backing groups. Then in 1975 Alex had this Christmas gig at the Apollo in Victoria, and he came up with this idea that he wanted his opening act to be a bunch of music journos. He offered to pay for rehearsals, instrument rentals and beer, so a bunch of us from various papers formed the first Blast Furnace band. We did the one gig, had a laugh and then forgot about it. Fast-forward two years: it’s 1977, everybody in the world has a band, and I meet a couple of guys who’re Feelgoods fans and fancy doing a punky R&B group. They suggest reviving the old Blast name and then Heatwave start hiring m’learned friends and accusing us of ‘passing off’ as them. Well, if I’d wanted to pass a band off as Heatwave, I’d've assembled seven black guys in satin jumpsuits and had them play Earth, Wind & Fire knockoffs, but we were five punky looking guys in leather jackets playing amphetamined R&B, so I couldn’t quite see how anybody could get the two bands confused. Nevertheless, they went for it, papered us with writs, and blocked the release of ‘South Of The River’, which we’d had in the can for awhile: we were gigging all over the place and going down great, but we couldn’t put our record out, and that really gutted the band. By the time we’d agreed that it would simply come out as ‘Blast Furnace And?’, the group had pretty much broken up. If we’d got it out earlier we might have had a minor hit, because it sold 6000 copies in the first two or three weeks, which wasn’t massive but it was very respectable indeed.

The Captain: I always though ‘South Of The River’ would’ve made a good cop show theme like ‘Hazell’ or ‘The Sweeney’

CSM: You think you’re going to get an argument on that? I still think it was a very snappy little tune indeed.

The Captain: You got to hang out with The ‘Dublinaires’, and play rhythm guitar with Terence Trent D’Arby?

CSM: The Dublinaires, who sang backing vocals on ‘Can’t Stop The Boy’, a track from our 1977 EP Blue Wave, were Phil Lynott and Bob Geldof, who were mates of mine at the time. Incidentally, the lyrics to that tune were co-written with the poet Hugo Williams, who was also a mate of Wilko’s and collaborated with him on songs like ‘Dr Dupree’. We cut that EP over a weekend at Pathway Studios in Islington, where Stiff cut a lot of their stuff, including Nick Lowe’s ‘So It Goes’ and the first Costello album. Bob and Phil came down on the first day and we had to send them away because we were still doing backing tracks, but they came back the next day. When Phil arrived our bass player lost it completely. He was standing in the studio waiting for the tape to roll and he was saying, ‘Oh, it’s such an honour, I sing along with Thin Lizzy in my car all the time’, and we were just clutching our heads in the control room going, ‘Oh no, for f***’s sake shaddup’. I remember Zenon de Fleur from the Bishops, who was co-producing with fellow Bishop Johnny Guitar, hitting the talkback and saying to Philip, ‘Excuse me Phil, but have you got a cold?’ and Phil replying, ‘No, man, it’s just the way oi sound live’. My other main memory of the ‘Blue Wave’ session was somebody accidentally wiping my guitar solo from that track right at the end, with all the gear packed away and a reggae band banging on the door to get in. I had to borrow Johnny’s Strat, plug it in to the nearest amp, and do a one-take recreation of a solo I’d worked on for an hour the day before. Actually, it ended up better than the one we lost. A little more urgent! As for rhythm guitaring with Terence, I’ve no idea where that little story came from. It’s a wonderful urban myth, but unfortunately it never happened.

The Captain: Late 70s was a great time for Brit R&B (and blues too, my favourite Muddy is on those late 70s Blue Sky albums with Johnny Winter)?.

CSM: Hmmm here’s where I p*** everybody off. That era, with the Feelgoods and, subsequently, solo Wilko at the head of it, was the last time anybody did anything genuinely radical or creative with British R&B. The best of the Britbluesers I’ve heard since have been very musical, and a lot of them are Big Fun on a night out, but there’s nothing there that’s really distinctive or which adds anything major to what has gone before. The problem with the R&B scene was that it couldn’t move with the times, and a music that cannot do that won’t be able to top up its audience with younger fans, let alone grow artistically. I wish that Britain could have produced the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray – who sparked the last major blues revival in the US – but ’twas not to be.

The Captain: Memories of fallen heroes from that time, Lee Brilleaux, Zenon……Andy Eastwood said that when Zenon went it took a lot out of the R&B scene at that time>

CSM: Zen is, of course, still missed, but I doubt if musical history would have been much different if the Bishops had survived in their original form.

The Captain: Hendrix and Hooker: you picked two big guys to write about …. anyone you’d like to work on next? Musically oriented or otherwise? Or a novel?

CSM: The next thing is a novel, though not the one I was planning when the ‘Boogie Man’ project came up. That may well get written one day, though in radically different form, but right now I’m trying to finish the one I’m on at the minute. If it turns out good, it’ll be published towards the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001. If it ain’t, no-one but my agent will ever see it. As for big music biographies, I’d only contemplate doing another one if the subject was fascinating and the money astronomical. Writing books like ‘Boogie Man’ is not a cost-effective activity: on an hourly rate I’d have made more money working at McDonalds.

The Captain: And finally, it says in ‘Shots’ that your favourite cult objects are the Strat, the Mac and the Zippo. Got any more toys lately?

CSM: Nope, the big three still rule. Only these days it’s a different Mac and a different Zippo and, unfortunately, a different Strat. I made the mistake of loaning my salmon-pink ’63 to the wrong person, and it never came back. A gunmetal ’89 Strat Plus is not an adequate substitute. My current pet guitar is a Fender JD Telecaster; I miss the Strat’s wiggle stick, but the JD is the first Fender I’ve ever bought brand new, and it felt perfect the moment I pulled it off the shop wall.

Back In History – The Inmates

With two albums out and following a barnstorming gig at the Borderline in September, 70s R&B giants The Inmates are back on the loose again. Keith Shackleton talked to lead singer Bill Hurley over a couple of pints, and learnt all about the soulful and bluesy world of both Bill and the band…

The Captain: Tell me about the re-released records! How did you come to make ‘Meet The Beatles’?

BH: One of our first big breaks as a band, even though we were semi-pro …a Czech guy who was into blues came to watch us quite regularly, spoke to a friend of his who had a good rock club in Paris. They asked us to do a gig there. Little did we know that this particular guy had set it up with Radio France to be broadcast, so almost overnight we were big stars! The French newspaper ‘Liberation’ was a big fan of the band and in 87 they had an idea of celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper album, with a rough and ready band just like the early Beatles and Stones.. so they asked us!

We did the concert in the suburbs of Paris, 6000 people present, and Vic Maile did the production on the mobile. It was a tall order since the Beatles had three main singers; of course in The Inmates I’m the only lead singer.. but we did it! The album did well in France and was #1 in Scandinavia and it re-established the original band; I had left The Inmates in the mid 80s because of illness.

From 87 up to today we kept the original line-up. Gil from Riverside Records had been a fan of the band from his days in France, and I got to know him when he came to London. He called and asked who had the rights to the Beatles record; we weren’t sure, Mute/Sonet who released it originally had closed down, and we didn’t even have a tape or album of the gig. In the end I think Gil found an original copy and put it out.

The Captain: And with great timing, the release ties up with the Warners ‘Best Of’ which is out now…

BH: Another guy at Warners who is a fan! He has license to do special projects and someone in France also had the same idea a couple of years ago. The two of them together with Pete and Tony from The Inmates made the selection of songs.

The Captain: All the original line up on the records?

BH: Myself singing, Peter Gunn and Tony Oliver on the guitars, Ben Donnelly on bass and Eddie Edwards on drums.

The Captain: There’s a story there from the ‘First Offence’ album isn’t there? The drummer billed as ‘Eddie, courtesy of CBS Records’.

BH: We didn’t have a drummer at that point. Vic Maile recommended Eddie to us, and he was playing with The Vibrators (which he still does even now, we share him). But he was always just known as ‘Eddie’ in those days… Jim Russell joined the band for the second album when The Vibrators were busy again.

The Captain: How did it all begin? Have you always known the guys in the band?

BH: My dad was a singer, did all the big bands in the 50s, recorded for HMV, and so I was originally influenced by a lot of the people he liked: Dinah Washington, Jimmy Rushing, Joe Williams. That’s why I wouldn’t run away from doing a ballad. But I took my own influence from rock and roll and rockabilly – Presley, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent – then all the sixties groups when they came through – Yardbirds, Pretty Things, Small Faces.

I was working for IPC Magazines and was offered a job with The Count Bishops, but couldn’t leave my job to do that. I kept looking through the Melody Maker and finally saw an advert for a band into Wilson Pickett, Stones, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf… looking for a singer. So that’s when I met Pete and Ben. The three of us sounded good! Then along came Tony Oliver from The Cannibals and also John Bull, the drummer who played on the ‘Dirty Water’ single. John left a little bit before we got our deal.

We thought we’d just be semi-pro, but we managed to get a gig from John Eichler at the Hope and Anchor on a Monday night. He liked us and gave us four more Mondays: by the fourth Monday, there was a queue round the block! Then we got the Nashville and it started to build. Max Bell reviewed one of our gigs in Melody Maker, Andrew Lauder from Radar saw it and signed us up.

We’d already recorded the Standells song ‘Dirty Water’, did the rest of the tracks and that became the ‘First Offence’ album and I quit my day job when it was going up the charts!

The Captain: The Inmates influences always seemed a little more soulful that the other 70s R&B bands.

BH: I’d say that Ben and I are the two soul fans in the band: Wilson Pickett is my favourite singer, Otis Redding, Bobby Womack, people like that. The other guys, well, Pete is into Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy, Merseybeat, and Tony likewise. I like 50s rock and roll as much as 60s Stax and 70s soul. I was never quite sure what I should be when I was a bit younger, a mod or a rocker!

I’ll tell you a funny story.. I’d just come back from a tour in France in 1981, wanted something to do so I got the newspaper, Etta James is on that night at Dingwalls, so I just had to go. I couldn’t get in, sold out. I was just walking away when I heard this voice say ‘Who was that?’. ‘It’s Bill from The Inmates’. I was called back and Etta hadn’t turned up, stuck in Paris fog-bound, the band was there so I had to rush in, make a set list and we did it! Every soul song I knew…

The Captain: You came back after your illness very strongly with the ‘Double Agent’ album.

BH: I put a band together called The Blueberries which was Geoff Britton, Gypie Mayo, Johnny Guitar and The Rumour horn section, so fortunately I got some very good players. That was a start but what really got me back into singing was Juice On The Loose, they used to invite me down to get up with them. I was given the chance to do the solo album; I paid the guys what I could afford and it got me gigs in France too, including one great headlining gig replacing Eric Burdon as top of the bill. This was alongside The Inmates who had Barrie Masters singing for them at the time!

I was trying to get something more serious together and met Drew Barfield and Brad from The Specials, which gave me a change to do the JB’s All Stars record… and then on to The Big Heat. I took round the demos for that band and the record companies were telling me it was too authentic, too ‘black’.. which disillusioned me a little. However I’d send a tape to Elvis Costello just to ask what he thought and he came on board as producer. Of course record companies were a little more interested!

But touring with a twelve piece band without big record company backing was a problem.. and then Ben called and asked me to come back and sing with The Inmates because Barrie was reforming the Hot Rods, so the Beatles album was around the start of that second period.

The Captain: You took a little sideways turn with the Elvis album, which was a big challenge. You didn’t just do the rock and roll songs but his whole career, the Vegas songs.

BH: I don’t know, he is really a favourite singer.. it was strange, it was something I’d always wanted to do but I was wary of doing it because of the Beatles album, I didn’t want us to get pegged as a covers band. It was a fun project but there were times I thought it would never see the light of day.

The Captain: And you’ve been doing some more straight-ahead blues too.

BH: I know some of the people on the current blues scene too, the guys in the Blues Connection poll. Corrine Grayson calls me up to sing sometimes, I know Todd (Sharpville)… I like going out and about to jam sessions if I’m not playing. A friend Andy Neill phoned me up out of the blue and I’m hoping to do an album with The Enforcers line-up.

In the 60s quite often I used to go and see blues acts like Freddie King, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush when they were here. I remember seeing Freddie on a Tuesday night blues club in 1967 in Finsbury Park! I looked in the newspaper regularly for that gig. One time it said ‘Next week – The New Yardbirds’. We pop down there with our mohair suits on (I suppose we were mods actually!) and the name is crossed out on the posters. Underneath of course is written Led Zeppelin. We thought it was some third-rate rock band and as it was raining we decided to go in to while away an hour, and we watched Jimmy Page and his mates do the whole of the first album!

The Captain: What now for The Inmates? Interesting times…

BH: I definitely want to do some dates, there are various festivals in place for next year and we’re talking to European agents. There’s a possibility that we might go to Japan too. Gil’s masterplan is that he would love us to go out with Nine Below Zero, the Hot Rods and the Feelgoods as a package.

The Captain: The Japanese do seem to like R&B so much, I’m sure you’ll do well.

BH: There were two other occasions when we would have gone there but didn’t; once with Wilko and once with the Feelgoods. I know what you’re saying about Japan, a fanatical guy set up a web site for us and we helped him when he came to England and wanted to see Southend and the R&B scene.. we put him in touch with Chris Fenwick. I think they like the music because of the aggression and power in the playing. Touring the continent too, they take an interest in you, before, after and during the gig. Great audiences!