[78-L] RIP Mick Green

[Kristjan Saag]

None of the early Johnny Kidd & Pirate HMV's (1959-1962) were issued on 78 
rpm - and by the time Mick Green joined the group all the major labels in 
Britain had abandoned the format.
Sorry.
Kristjan
--

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lewis" <uncledavelewis at hotmail.com>
To: "78-l" <78-l at 78online.com>
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 12:57 PM
Subject: [78-L] RIP Mick Green



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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