Bonham John Bonham

The Powerhouse behind Led Zeppelin
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-904915-44-7
Verlag: Southbank Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Bonham is a complete portrait of the drummers' drummer written by his brother Mick Bonham. With exclusive interviews and previously un-published photos from the Bonham collection, as well as a complete Led Zeppelin chronology and history of Bonham's earlier musical career.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bonham, Mick

Leseproben

Chapter 2

TIN DRUMS TO TIN PAN ALLEY

“I was so keen to play when I left school, I’d have played for nothing. In fact, I did that for a long time, but my parents stuck by me.”

– John Bonham

Above
Mick and John

John never lost his love for playing the drums throughout his early school years and this was encouraged by a lovely man called Charlie Atkins. The name won’t mean much to you, but the music industry owes quite a lot to Charlie Atkins, as it was he who first saw the potential in John Bonham the drummer. He also gave John his first gig.

Now as I mentioned earlier, Jacko had made a few shillings, so we had a caravan and a boat (named Isobel after Mum’s middle name) down in Stourport-on-Severn, a riverside town about 15 miles from Redditch. We spent most weekends and some of our holidays there, and this is where we met Charlie Atkins. Charlie would spend his weekends in the caravan next to ours, and he was the leader of a dance band. The kind of setup where the band use Brylcreem and the drummer uses brushes. If you were hip to a tango, waltz or a foxtrot then these were the boys to see. It may not sound exciting now, but to John, this was the business and he would sit and listen to Charlie talk about paradiddles and other such drumming terminology until the cows came home. It was after one of these meetings that Charlie gave John his own set of brushes, which was fine by me because there was no way they would hurt as much as sticks.

By now it had become apparent that this was not a fad John was going through, so he was given a white, pearl snare drum to encourage him in his musical quest. After much practice and more chats with Charlie, John finally got his big break. Charlie asked him to sit in and play drums with the band, at the Caravan Club’s Members Dance, and for a kid of 11, this boy “wasn’t half bad”. There he sat, behind the drums, head full of Brylcreem and brushes in hand giving it his best. This, I believe, was the turning point for John Bonham, and I don’t think that from this point onwards, anyone or anything was ever going to stop him becoming a drummer.

‘When it came to bullshit, John could stand with the best of them.’

During the years down at the caravan, John and I spent many happy times together. We’d go swimming and, when allowed, take the boat up the river on our own.

Many years later we’d return to the river with John’s own boat Staysea. Typically John became a dab hand at taking Jacko’s boat out on his own without Mum or Jacko knowing, until one lazy Sunday afternoon.

There we were on the boat, having a picnic, when an irate man pulled up alongside in his own boat and started giving Jacko grief about the “laws of the river” and having more respect for other boaters. Jacko, needless to say, was somewhat baffled by the intrusion until the gentleman pointed out that on that very morning Isobel had been seen travelling up the river at a rate of knots, causing a wash second only to Moses parting the Red Sea. The effect of this had caused this gentleman to deposit his breakfast all over his nice clean deck. Jacko duly apologised and assured the fellow it would not happen again. Throughout the entire conversation it amazed me how Jacko kept one eye on the irate sailor and one firmly fixed on our John. Yet, somehow John came out with some inspired bullshit and got away with the entire escapade. When it came to bullshit, John could stand with the best of them.

All too soon those days of sun and fun came to an end and it was back to different schools and different friends. Yet whether he was on holiday or with friends, John’s mind was never far from drumming. So, during the following months, John saved his pocket money and other monies he had earned, doing odd jobs, and went off looking for items to add to his snare drum and brushes. After a while, he built up a drum kit of sorts, consisting of a snare drum, bass drum and floor tom, all of second-hand origin. He loved it and it would do the trick for now.

Throughout the early 50s, the music scene was being dominated by names like Al Martino, Doris Day, Frankie Lane and Nat King Cole, yet by the end of the decade a distinctive change was starting to take place. It was a change that would take John with it. Until this point, the only real influence of John, bar Charlie Atkins, had been Edmundo Ross and his Band, who, for those that don’t know, were one of the best, if not the best, Latin American music bands to travel the airwaves. The very pronounced drumming riffs and heavy percussion inspired John even more. We would sit in front of the ‘wireless’ every Saturday and listen to Edmundo’s show, which was a rare treat seeing as there were only three choices of music at home: Jacko’s Lena Horne albums, Mum’s Frank Sinatra records, and Children’s Favourite for us kids. Nevertheless, it was all making way for a new era of sound drifting over from America, namely Rock’n’Roll.

Above
John Henry Bonham (Jacko)

Suddenly names like Little Richard, Bill Haley and Elvis Presley were coming to the forefront of popular music and encouraging home-grown artists like Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, Adam Faith and good old Lonnie Donegan, who John would eventually meet many years after when he was invited to play drums on Lonnie’s comeback album.

Above
Joan Bonham

Until now, the only drummers really heard of were of the Big Band variety. As both Mum and Jacko were big fans (the latter a keen Harry James Band devotee, the former fond of Benny Goodman), John was repeatedly playing a record called ‘Don’t Be That Way’ and ‘Swing, Swing, Swing’, which featured a drummer called Gene Krupa. John had decided that this was the drummer he wanted to emulate and he spent many hours listening to and learning Krupa’s technique. But then it happened. In the penultimate month of the 50s, Sandy Nelson’s ‘Teen Beat’ entered the UK charts and John was mesmerised. So was I, but if you had to sit and listen to it over and over again for three days on the trot while he tried to learn it, you’d be bloody mesmerised as well! It was like kick starting a Harley Davidson – John was off, saying he was going to form a band.

I was going to be involved in this venture too, given the highly honoured title of ‘lyricist’. “Lovely job,” I thought, but let me tell you that it meant something totally different back then. It meant that I was to be the dipshit that went to the record shop to buy the records and then sit down in front of the stereogram, listen to them repeatedly, and write down the words. A boring job, but I guess someone had to do it, and it was for the good of the band. My first assignment was ‘Running Bear’ by Johnnie Preston, a nice song but it hardly inspired me. The next record, however, did move me. In fact, I reckon it was one of the best singles ever released – ‘Till I Kissed You’ by The Everley Brothers.

Apart from the American artists that were changing the mood of music with their influx of Rock’n’Roll, Britain was raising its own fine talent. One of these was Joe Brown. He’d originally formed the Spacemen skiffle group in 1956 and, with a change of direction and name, Joe had his first hit in 1960 with his version of ‘Darktown Strutters Ball’. Now under the handle of Joe Brown and the Bruvvers, a string of hits would follow. During this period John and I were holidaying in Brighton, on the South Coast of England, and we managed to get tickets for a Joe Brown show. With our parents’ permission, we set off with baited breath. What we saw that night left us quite stunned.

There was Joe Brown, guitar behind his head, playing a solo as he tore into a version of The Spotniks’ 1963 hit ‘Have Nagila’. I remember saying to John after the show, “Shit, that was good.”

It was after this holiday that John returned to school and made friends with another aspiring young musician called John Hill, who played guitar.

Together they decided to form a band, but before they got started they would spend many a night setting up the drum kit, leaning the guitar against it and standing back staring at their mock stage set up – moving it every now and then for better effect. I was never involved in these rituals because I was still sitting in front of the bloody stereogram, listening to more bloody records and writing down more bloody lyrics! The name of the band would be the ‘Avengers’ but they unfortunately never got a gig.

Above
John (on tour) fourth from left

Still, time was passing and the day finally arrived when John had to put all his belongings into a satchel and leave Lodge Farm School. This wouldn’t leave him too upset; John had never claimed to be an A1 student, always preferring to use his hands, rather than his head. This latter fact was made clear by the headmaster Mr Gordon Antiss, a tall lean man who ruled by the cane. At the final school assembly, whilst addressing the pupils, Mr Antiss said that John would probably not even make a good dustman. Now maybe he was right, but our John wasn’t going to hang around to find out – he was already a none too shabby drummer and was set on achieving a much higher accolade.

During his transition from school to work, all John could think about was how to form a band and how he could earn money from playing his drums. At the time, this proved a bit more difficult than he’d have liked, and so he...