My rock and blues novel Heartbreaker is free this weekend over on Amazon, so I thought I’d use that as an excuse to tell you a bit about the book.
Heartbreaker tells the story of the band with the same name, and rambles on over six decades. With such a lot of ground to cover, what I tried to do was to give a flavour of the times, from the sixties when the story starts, right through to the present day. I used music (of course) and also wee social references to try to peg a scene to the time in which it was set. Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll come in very useful for this, and I was undoubtedly influenced by some of the stuff I’ve read about bands over the years. Here’s some of the music and the sorts of anecdotes that influenced the book.
First up has to be the two tracks that gave the band and the book their name:
Heartbreaker — Led Zeppelin
Heartbreaker — Free
Following the demise of Free, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke got together with Boz Burrell and Mick Ralphs to form Bad Company, which was one of the first bands to sign to Zep’s Swansong label. There’s a tale that the bands were touring the US (by plane) and ended up in the same place at the same time. Both bands were a bit fed up with the groupie entourage travelling with them and fancied a change, so the girls simply trooped out of one plane and got onto the other.
Bad Company — Bad Company
There should really be at least one track each by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, since I use them to peg things in time. (For example, Johnny Burns’ line: ‘That year the Beatles got MBEs, the Stones got done for insulting behaviour, and I got my first electric guitar.’)
Come Together — The Beatles
I Wanna Be Your Man — The Rolling Stones
One of my fave stories about these bands is more or less as follows. Mick and Keith were wandering along a road in London when a big flash car pulled up, the door opened, and Paul and John shouted for them to hop in. Off they all went and during the course of the conversation, Mick and Keith mentioned that they needed a song, pronto, to release as a single. Paul and John chirped up, ‘We’ve got one that’s almost finished that you can have,’ so off they went to finish it off. That’s how come the Stones released ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ before the Beatles did.
One of the events mentioned in the book is the Human Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in January 1967. The usual suspects were in residence: The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with the amazing Janis Joplin, of course), and Quicksilver Messenger Service, to name just three.
Truckin’ — The Grateful Dead
Piece of My Heart — Big Brother and the Holding Company
Fresh Air — Quicksilver Messenger Service
There’s a tale I read that explains the gap you’ll spot if you care to look in QMS’s recording history. The Dead had pulled a great prank on QMS (invaded the house they were all living in at dawn pretending to be red indians, if I remember correctly) and QMS had plans to pay them back. The intention was to ambush them at a gig they were playing at The Fillmore, but Bill Graham got wind of it and told them they could do what they liked after the gig, but they’d interrupt it at their peril. Hence QMS sat in the back of their van having a wee smoke, waiting for the show to finish. They were in there a while — Dead shows were never short — and in the meantime a curious copper got interested in the van with all the smoke leaking out through the back doors … Half the band got busted for possession of marijuana, and the gap in their recording history was caused by the band having to wait until their missing members got out of chokey so they could carry on.
There are other bands and musicians that are peppered throughout. A random selection:
Cocaine — Davey Graham
Seven Nation Army — The White Stripes
Cradle Rock — Rory Gallagher
I read somewhere that back in the day, Rory and his band would finish whatever gig they were playing, pile in the van and head off to a festival if there was one to be had. Some time after midnight there’d be a squeal of tyres and a screech of brakes, the van doors would fly open and they’d pile out, find somewhere to set up, and start playing just for the sheer joy of it. Gotta love that approach to life and music!
Heartbreaker tells the story of the band with the same name, and rambles on over six decades. With such a lot of ground to cover, what I tried to do was to give a flavour of the times, from the sixties when the story starts, right through to the present day. I used music (of course) and also wee social references to try to peg a scene to the time in which it was set. Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll come in very useful for this, and I was undoubtedly influenced by some of the stuff I’ve read about bands over the years. Here’s some of the music and the sorts of anecdotes that influenced the book.
First up has to be the two tracks that gave the band and the book their name:
Heartbreaker — Led Zeppelin
Heartbreaker — Free
Following the demise of Free, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke got together with Boz Burrell and Mick Ralphs to form Bad Company, which was one of the first bands to sign to Zep’s Swansong label. There’s a tale that the bands were touring the US (by plane) and ended up in the same place at the same time. Both bands were a bit fed up with the groupie entourage travelling with them and fancied a change, so the girls simply trooped out of one plane and got onto the other.
Bad Company — Bad Company
There should really be at least one track each by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, since I use them to peg things in time. (For example, Johnny Burns’ line: ‘That year the Beatles got MBEs, the Stones got done for insulting behaviour, and I got my first electric guitar.’)
Come Together — The Beatles
I Wanna Be Your Man — The Rolling Stones
One of my fave stories about these bands is more or less as follows. Mick and Keith were wandering along a road in London when a big flash car pulled up, the door opened, and Paul and John shouted for them to hop in. Off they all went and during the course of the conversation, Mick and Keith mentioned that they needed a song, pronto, to release as a single. Paul and John chirped up, ‘We’ve got one that’s almost finished that you can have,’ so off they went to finish it off. That’s how come the Stones released ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ before the Beatles did.
One of the events mentioned in the book is the Human Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in January 1967. The usual suspects were in residence: The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with the amazing Janis Joplin, of course), and Quicksilver Messenger Service, to name just three.
Truckin’ — The Grateful Dead
Piece of My Heart — Big Brother and the Holding Company
Fresh Air — Quicksilver Messenger Service
There’s a tale I read that explains the gap you’ll spot if you care to look in QMS’s recording history. The Dead had pulled a great prank on QMS (invaded the house they were all living in at dawn pretending to be red indians, if I remember correctly) and QMS had plans to pay them back. The intention was to ambush them at a gig they were playing at The Fillmore, but Bill Graham got wind of it and told them they could do what they liked after the gig, but they’d interrupt it at their peril. Hence QMS sat in the back of their van having a wee smoke, waiting for the show to finish. They were in there a while — Dead shows were never short — and in the meantime a curious copper got interested in the van with all the smoke leaking out through the back doors … Half the band got busted for possession of marijuana, and the gap in their recording history was caused by the band having to wait until their missing members got out of chokey so they could carry on.
There are other bands and musicians that are peppered throughout. A random selection:
Cocaine — Davey Graham
Seven Nation Army — The White Stripes
Cradle Rock — Rory Gallagher
I read somewhere that back in the day, Rory and his band would finish whatever gig they were playing, pile in the van and head off to a festival if there was one to be had. Some time after midnight there’d be a squeal of tyres and a screech of brakes, the van doors would fly open and they’d pile out, find somewhere to set up, and start playing just for the sheer joy of it. Gotta love that approach to life and music!
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