[78-L] RIP Mick Green

[David Lewis]

The name Mick Green may not mean much to many of you, but his pedigree in English rock goes back prior to The Beatles. Possibly some of his first records with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were released on 78s; here, too, is a hilarious clip of Green playing with The Pirates in later years,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggq5bJ5Ta5o

If you appreciate traditional English rock n roll, The Pirates were terrific.

Mick Green 
 By Pierre Perrone 
 Saturday, 16 January 2010 
 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/mick-green-guitarist-wit... 
 The guitarist Mick Green didn't like to boast about his 
 prowess as an instrumentalist, yet he was one of the most 
 influential musicians to come out of the British Isles in 
 the early 1960s. 
 While The Shadows' lead guitarist, Hank Marvin, pioneered a 
 clean sound, Green, who joined Johnny Kidd & the Pirates in 
 1962, was a gutsier, louder, raunchier, more exciting kind 
 of guitar hero. 
 He managed to simultaneously play blistering lead and 
 staccato rhythm parts on his Fender Telecaster, a trademark 
 style that would soon be emulated by The Who's Pete 
 Townshend and Wilko Johnson of pub-rock legends Dr Feelgood, 
 and was greatly admired by Slade frontman, Noddy Holder. 
 Though Green became a Pirate two years after Kidd's British 
 No. 1 "Shakin' All Over" - a mainstay of The Who's 
 repertoire throughout the Sixties and early Seventies - his 
 driving guitar epitomised the band's high energy, 
 high-octane approach, on stage and on their subsequent 
 singles, including their storming covers of Arthur 
 Alexander's "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues" and Bo Diddley's "I 
 Can Tell", the Top 20 singles "I'll Never Get Over You" and 
 "Hungry for Love" - all issued in 1963 - and "Always and 
 Ever", their last chart entry in 1964. 
 Green subsequently joined Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas, and 
 later plied his trade backing Engelbert Humperdinck in Las 
 Vegas. Kidd died in 1966, but Green reunited with the 
 Pirates mainstays, the bassist and vocalist Johnny Spence 
 and the drummer Frank Farley, as a back-to-basics trio a 
 decade later. The Pirates proved a natural fit with the pub 
 rock and the punk generation and enjoyed success with their 
 own Out of Their Skulls album in November 1977 and the Hope 
 & Anchor Front Row Festival, a double set documenting a 
 three-week event at the London pub venue which also featured 
 The Wilko Johnson Band, The Stranglers, XTC, X-Ray Spex, The 
 Saints, 999 and Dire Straits, which was released in March 
 1978. Over the last three decades, Green occasionally 
 performed with The Pirates, but also recorded and toured 
 with Paul McCartney, Van Morrison and Bryan Ferry, an 
 indication of the reputation and standing he enjoyed as a 
 sideman. 
 Born in Matlock, Derbyshire, he grew up in Wimbledon in the 
 same block of flats as Spence and Farley. By the 
 mid-Fifties, the three boyhood friends had grown into 
 teenagers, in thrall to the skiffle craze, and were eagerly 
 trying to figure out the chords to Lonnie Donegan's 
 chart-topping version of "Cumberland Gap". They quickly 
 formed their own skiffle group with fanciful names such as 
 the Wayfaring Strangers and the Ramrods. 
 Green was the inquisitive type and backtracked from skiffle 
 to the blues of Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy 
 Waters. He also studied classical guitar for 18 months. His 
 playing was inspired by the American guitarists he admired, 
 Chet Atkins, the Johnny Burnette sideman Paul Burlison, and 
 especially James Burton, whose feel and sound he 
 successfully emulated and moved on into a new era. 
 He was still at school when Kidd hit with "Please Don't 
 Touch" in 1959 and "Shakin' All Over" the following year, 
 and became a Pirate when he replaced Johnny Patto in March 
 1962, two months after Spence and Farley had come on board. 
 A stint at the Star Club, the Hamburg venue where The 
 Beatles had honed their craft, helped the powerhouse trio to 
 develop a near-telepathic understanding and Green blossomed 
 as they opened with their own 15-minute set before backing 
 Kidd, the swashbuckling front man, who wore an eye-patch and 
 used a cutlass on stage. 
 "We didn't have a rhythm guitarist and our sound needed 
 filling out," Green said of his distinctive and pioneering 
 approach to his instrument. "You can only play that way with 
 a trio, you can't play like that with another guitar or a 
 piano. It's achieved by bashing out the chords loudly and 
 twiddling around with the things. It's quite an easy thing 
 to do; there's nothing magical about it." 
 This line-up lasted two and a half years and appeared all 
 over the UK, including at the Cavern in Liverpool, and 
 topped the bill over The Beatles at a Liverpool Riverboat 
 Shuffle event held aboard the Royal Iris on the Mersey in 
 August 1962. The Pirates also issued their own single, 
 pairing "My Babe" and "Casting a Spell", but after the 
 "Jealous Girl" single flopped in August 1964, Green left for 
 Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. He played on their 1965 hit 
 "Trains and Boats and Planes" and co-wrote its B-side, 
 "That's the Way I Feel", and several more tracks, and 
 recorded two Kramer-less singles with The Dakotas in 1967 
 before backing Billy Fury for a spell. 
 The guitarist's lengthy tenure with Humperdinck started in 
 1968. It brought steady income for the newly married Green, 
 as well as the occasional side benefit, like meeting Elvis 
 Presley in Vegas, but it was creatively unfulfilling. In 
 1974, he formed the band Shanghai with the Thunderclap 
 Newman songwriter John "Speedy" Keen, and they released two 
 albums and supported Status Quo on tour in 1976. By then, Dr 
 Feelgood, named after the Piano Red song covered by The 
 Pirates, had become all the rage. They had included "Oyeh!", 
 the Green instrumental first recorded by the Dakotas, on 
 Down by the Jetty, their 1975 debut. "The first time I heard 
 the Feelgoods on the radio, I really thought it was us," he 
 remarked in 1977. "Fine, so the Feelgoods made it by using 
 many of the things that the Pirates developed. That's great 
 and shows how valid our approach always has been." 
 Green and Johnson became friends and co-wrote "Going Back 
 Home" which became a high point of the Feelgoods' set and 
 was included on both Malpractice, their 1975 follow-up, and 
 Stupidity, their 1976 No. 1 live album. Johnson pestered 
 Green to reform The Pirates and the guitarist eventually 
 relented. Planned as a one-off event at Dingwalls in London, 
 the reunion attracted rave reviews and became permanent as 
 the group upstaged Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Roundhouse. 
 They signed to Warners, recorded Out of Their Skulls live at 
 the Nashville in London and at Rockfield Studios in Wales 
 with Feelgoods producer Vic Maile, and toured the UK and 
 continental Europe. Their mix of the covers and originals 
 which had constituted their Sixties repertoire, plus new 
 compositions like "Don't Munchen It" and the guitar ode 
 "Gibson Martin Fender" went down a storm, and they recorded 
 a second album entitled Skull Wars. As they had done with 
 Kidd, they wore thigh-high boots and other piratical garb 
 and inspired the look Adam Ant sported at the dawn of the 
 Eighties. 
 Another fallow period followed and Green made do with 
 accompanying Freddie Starr, getting the occasional 
 opportunity to shine as the comedian impersonated Presley 
 and other rock stars. 
 Given Green's pedigree as one of the originators of British 
 rock'n'roll, it was fitting that McCartney recruited the 
 guitarist to make the Ñíîâà â ÑÑÑÐ/CHOBA B CCCP album of 
 rock'n'roll covers originally conceived as a USSR-only 
 release in 1988. Eleven years on, when McCartney revived the 
 idea for Run Devil Run, and added three of his own 
 compositions to another dozen rock'n'roll classics, Green 
 headed a stellar cast of sidemen including the Pink Floyd 
 guitarist David Gilmour, Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, and 
 keyboardist Pete Wingfield of "Eighteen With a Bullet" fame. 
 In December 1999, they even played a landmark gig at The 
 Cavern in Liverpool which was webcast and issued on video 
 and DVD. 
 Indeed, the last decade saw Green in great demand, as he 
 toured with Morrison and participated in the recording of 
 six of the vocalist's studio albums, starting with Back on 
 Top in 1999 and including the Top Ten albums Down the Road 
 (2002), Magic Time (2005), Pay the Devil (2006) and Keep it 
 Simple (2008). He also contributed to the Ferry solo albums 
 Frantic (2002) and Dylanesque (2007), and performed with him 
 as well, though he suffered a heart attack while in New 
 Zealand in 2004. Farley retired from The Pirates in 2006, 
 but Green and Spence released the Skullduggery album the 
 following year. 
 "I enjoy all gigs. If I didn't really enjoy the playing, I 
 wouldn't be doing it," Green said in 2004. 
 Michael Robert Green, guitarist and songwriter: born 
 Matlock, Derbyshire 22 February 1944; married Karen (two 
 sons); died Ilford, Essex 11 January 2010. 

Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis at hotmail.com

 		 	   		  
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