Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat:

Jon Kremer: He and I go to see the Beatles perform and I said to Alan, I said, ‘What’s that guitar John Lennon’s playing?’ He said, ‘I think it’s a Rickenbacker,’ I said, off the top of my head, ‘Why don’t we go to the manager of the theatre’s office and tell him we’re representatives of Rickenbacker Guitars, we can’t get through to see our clients, the Beatles. Can you help us?’ We go to the manager’s office, knock, knock, go in. And he actually said, ‘Okay.’ Picked up a phone, intercom whatever to the stage door. He said, ‘Mr. Kremer and Mr. Stewart are coming round. Let them in.’ Comes out from the dressing room, opens the door: It’s John Lennon.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. Story Beat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how. Talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and Entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, the writer Jon Kremer has lived in Bournemouth, a town on the south coast of England, since he was a teenager, coinciding with the start of the 1960s. That famous decade of cultural change allowed him to experience many aspects of the UK music industry via, ah, both the ownership of his town’s original vintage vinyl shop, Bus Stop Records, which opened during 1960 Seven’s summer of Love and a long standing friendship with Year of the Cat. Singer songwriter Al Stewart, a sixties music highlight, was meeting the Beatles at the height of Britain’s Beatlemaniae. The story of Jon and Al finding themselves in the backstage company of John Lennon moments after the Fabs had first performed she loves you live for an audience days before the record’s release became known as the Men from Rickenbacker. The tale of two teenagers pretending to be representatives of Rickenbacker guitars and needing to talk with the Beatles, eventually was retold many times in books, magazines, newspapers, tour programs and on tv and radio. Jon’s first book, Bournemouth, a, Sixties Memoir, visited the StoryBeat: In depth as it takes a look back at the Bournemouth music scene in the early sixties, featuring future members of the police, King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer, Andy Summers, Robert Fripp and Greg Lake. A long time fascination with the often obscure or overlooked key history making moments that created and energized the story of pop and rock led to Jon writing the book chain rock and pops magic moments, I’ve read chain reaction and can tell you it’s a fascinating exploration of how artists influence one another as they build out their careers, especially so in the music industry. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s my distinct privilege to welcome the outstanding author and music historian Jon Kremer to StoryBeat today. Jon, welcome to the show.

Jon Kremer: Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to be with you on StoryBeat Steve, thank you for the invitation.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s a great pleasure to have you. So let’s go back in time a little bit. At what age were you when you first started listening to music and you had some understanding that music was important and important to you?

Jon Kremer: Well, the music that’s become important for, western pop culture over the last 60, 70 years, as a shorthand, we’ll say rock and roll. I actually became aware of when I was only about eight or nine years old. This is because when I think I’m right, it was Columbia Pictures. Rock around the clock. Yes, it was Columbia Pictures. When rock around the clock reached, the UK, my parents, I’ll explain perhaps why in a moment took me to see this Film. So this would have been around 55, maybe into 56 by the time I hit the UK. And I was excited by that. Then I didn’t realize for some years to come, probably till I was about twelve, that this was something that would mean an awful lot to me. It started then partly as a defense from the other bits of life, like school days. Pop music was a huge, huge avenue out of that. And it continued basically from then to now. I could actually say, funnily enough, I had musical influences that I was aware of retrospectively that went back to being very, very, very young. there was a huge movie.

Steve Cuden: You were listening to lots of music, even as a kid.

Jon Kremer: Well, yes, but partly partly because my father, although he was never a professional in this regard, was a musician of sorts. And during World War Two, when he was in the forces, he actually once, sang a song on radio, Roma, to the forces. He always had an interesting music. Before I even probably knew of rock and roll. Through his collection of records in those days, they were mainly seventy eight s. I knew of people like, Sunny Terry and Brownie McGee, who were famous blues artists. And because of this, it wasn’t an odd thing that I wound up seeing rock around the clock at that age. Partly also to the fact that I was an only child. And in those days, probably in the US as well, people used to go and see an, awful lot of movies. It wouldn’t be unusual in the fifties for somebody, you know, see, one or two films a week. And very often, if they were suitable enough, my parents would take me as against maybe leaving me with an aunt or uncle or someone to babysit. because it just struck me that it sounds a little odd that I maybe wound up seeing Bill Haley’s flick back then. Actually, the wonderful thing was, many years, 64, I actually saw Bill Haley live well past his prime. And actually it’s still. It still meant something. I thought, my goodness, you are Bill Haley.

Steve Cuden: Wow. Well, that’s amazing. You saw Bill Haley way back in the day. And it’s interesting that you had an early influence in the blues because the blues really is what ultimately led to rock. Am I correct?

Jon Kremer: Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve always thought, rock’n roll has many, many origins. But the basis of most of it is this extraordinary fusion of black rhythm and blues music. Unfortunately, before the mid fifties, probably known as race music in the USA and basically not known anywhere else. Anyway, and probably, country swing music. I mean, Bill Haley and the Comets were originally called Bill Haley and the saddle men. So it gives you an idea of what direction they traveled from. Of course, the classic fusion of all this is when this guy from Memphis, an ex truck driver, I think his name was something Presley. You’ve probably heard of him.

Steve Cuden: Anyway, something Presley is right.

Jon Kremer: His first record, that’s all right, Makeba-Mama, is, you know, big Makeba-Mama Thornton record in which this is a great story You probably know Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller indeed wrote this. There was a point where I think Jerry Lieber’s been away, comes back and Mike Stoller says, you know, that’s all right. Mum is climbing the charts. And he says immediately, what? Big Makeba-Mama Thornton? And he says, no, no, it’s some white kid called Elvis Presley. And I think, at first they didn’t really think so much of his version. But so the story goes, when the royalties started coming in, they started to see the merits of it.

Steve Cuden: Money has a way of getting under people’s skins in a way that makes them feel good about things.

Jon Kremer: Yeah, it might start, us up, the time it reaches our ears. It’s commerce.

Steve Cuden: That is true. So let’s talk for a while about chain reaction. Describe for listeners what chain reaction really is all about. I gave a little description upfront, but really give us an idea of the depth of it.

Jon Kremer: Well, the 16 basically standalone chapters. But due to the nature of the cast list involved, there is some sort of crossover and it’s really examining what have possibly been under the radar moments or just slender lines of linkage that have never been magnified enough to be really noticed, are inflection points that if they hadn’t have happened, what we know in this universe, at least in pop and rock and how it’s affected, well, basically the world over the last 60, 70 years, would just never have happened. the punchline to all of this, which I won’t reveal because it’s like, a spoiler would be in the very last chapter, which examines what I think is the greatest chain reaction of all, which is basically how rock and roll comes to be as we touched on just now. Rock and roll comes from many directions. It does exist for many years before most people are aware of it. I suppose it certainly comes from Alan Fried and, his radio show that makes it go to a bigger demographic. But the most important thing to me was telling stories in the book, because if you’re talking about the Beatles or Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones, Roxy music, they’re all very, very well known. The stories are very, very well known. It’s not meant to be biography, though, that touches on that. So I wanted to find something that made it to me more interesting, which was how certain things came to be that, might not have been. I mean, a case in point, the most famous bit in pop rock history might be deemed the day Jon Lennon meets Paul McCartney. That’s easy to say, this doesn’t happen, the rest doesn’t happen. And that’s a given to write about. I think it was a delay in July, day in July, 19, 57, when, Jon Lennon, 17, Macartney’s barely 16, and a mutual friend introduces them. While there was every reason why Jon Lennon says Hello, Paul McCartney says Hello. And to quote one of their records, it’s Hello, goodbye, and the future doesn’t happen. Something does happen. And, it’s just in the intro. So it’s not spoilers of the book at all, which is McCartney picks up a guitar and to impress Jon Lennon that he can actually play. And it is cool, he plays a great rendition of Eddie Cochrane’s 20 flight rock and Jon Lennon instead of saying, okay, bye bye. You know, you’re a young kid. Basically, to him, two years difference at that age is significant. He doesn’t. And soon after that, he invites him to join his group. The rest, as they cliche says, is history. So my point would be, if Eddie Cochrane doesn’t write and record 20 flight rock. Maybe this doesn’t happen, maybe m not such an interesting story but, he does. But something else happens. And, I think one of the underwritten things of the story of rock’n roll and rock and pop is the place that Hollywood and movies play in it. And for some reason, this kind of just taken as read and forgotten. Mainly, if people think of it, they think of the many movies, sort of, exploitation movies that were made that weren’t very good on pop and rock. There were obviously a few great exceptions. but if certain things happened, happen, didn’t happen with Hollywood and films, I don’t think rock and roll happens at all. And, ah, one very key thing is Eddie Cochrane writes 20 flight rock. It’s in a movie. The girl can’t help it. And before they’ve even met, Jon Lennon and Paul McCartney have both seen this Film. And it makes a huge underwriting of what then becomes, well, the most important thing in that element of modern m pop culture.

Steve Cuden: The Beatles exist, and it’s all chain linkage. One thing that has led to another, that has led to another. And you can probably, if you wanted to, you could go back even further to find out where the chain linkage is. The chain reactions, as you write, where it comes from, when you say from other cultural touchstones like movies or radio or books or wherever it comes from, you could probably go way back in time. But you choose to start basically around the 1950s in rock and roll, and you focus on rock.

Jon Kremer: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And I’m just curious, is there any particular story from the book that you think is as important as the one of the Beatles meeting that’s seminal toward the history of rock happening?

Jon Kremer: Well, without going into too much detail, the last chapter, very much centers on a sequence of movies that were made. And, one of those is the clock can’t help it. M so that, in a sense, is the most important thing, but the thing that explodes it all. If going back to the movies, the song rock around the clock probably should never have been released as a record. It had a very checkered history on its way from being written to being a record. And the fact that it was used in the movie Blackball Jungle was such an astounding thing. It took this record from nowhere to being the first genuine number one rock and roll record. And then I’m trying to think. I think MGM made blackball jungle, but then Columbia make a Film, rock around the clock and rock around the clock itself. Many people might be amazed to realize it’s one of now still the biggest selling records ever. It’s up in the 30 million mark.

Steve Cuden: Oh, for sure.

Jon Kremer: People always exaggerate in the record industry. It’s the nature of things, what’s sold. And obviously sales figures are confidential. Ah, but also some of the accounting in the record industry, particularly in those days, was probably less than that accurate. But it came about through what was basically, in modern terms would be called cross marketing. I mean, something that happened probably first of all in the late sixties with Mike Nichols graduate movie, in which instead of having a soundtrack written for it, right, he uses Paul Simon’s songs. He uses. Simon writes a few new things for it, but he’s basically writing, using, their songs, Simon Garfunkel recordings. And this, this kind of cross marketing that, back with the movie, of rock around the clock. That’s a very unusual thing in that you kind of have a Film that’s become a Film because of a song that’s featured in a previous Film. Now, this had happened before that with, ironically, what is the biggest selling, probably due to cross marketing record ever, which is Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.

Steve Cuden: White Christmas for sure, because this came.

Jon Kremer: From Film White Christmas. But the Film White Christmas, the song had been used originally several years earlier in the Bing Crosby Fred Astaire Film called Holiday Inn.

Steve Cuden: Indeed.

Jon Kremer: And in a sense, Hollywood’s importance to all this, I think, if anything, in the book that might come through as the most significant underwritten thing, in modest.

Steve Cuden: Opinion here, where did it come from for you? Your very first original thoughts about this is connected to that. And without that happening, this won’t happen. When did that first occur to you? Was it a long time ago or was it a fairly recent phenomenon?

Jon Kremer: Okay, it comes back to two interests. One is an obvious one. another one is like a layman’s interest in things to do with, shall we say, particle physics and the stories of the two grand theories that don’t match up, which is Einstein’s relativity, and then I think, niels Bohr’s quantum mechanics theories. And it’s when you think of things in those terms. And then it allied to my interest, obviously lifelong in pop rock. It seemed that there was a sort of an avenue to write about this in that way. But originally, as you’ve mentioned, I owned a vintage vinyl shop, for many, many years. And I don’t know if, anyone listening to this is familiar with the. A british writer called Nick Hornby wrote a book called High Fidelity. It was made into a Film starring Jon Cusack.

Steve Cuden: Indeed, many people know who Nick Hornby was.

Jon Kremer: Oh, Good. Well, he wrote high Fidelity. It was a Jon Cusack movie. In which the story is transported from a shop in London to a shop somewhere in America. But anyone familiar with that would understand that these sort of shops have a kind of weird, almost club like, camaraderie that sort of built into them. So I. Over many years, although still owning it. I would sort of not be actually in it. And people running it for me when I was at various times. There would be great conversations. And I’d be able to express my thoughts and stories and interests. Other people would interact with them. is actually partly the reason I wrote a book in the first place. Because so many people kindly said, oh, you should write one. But in these sort of conversations, a kind of voice that comes through that, I then started to put into writing it. And I had a story that I would tell that, many years later. after writing Bournemouth go go, people would say. They would always say. Maybe they say this to anyone who’s written a book. And I’m not talking of a lot of people, because it’s not that successful. But they would come up and there’d usually be two questions like, oh, is it selling well? And, are you writing something else? And the strange thing is, having written the first one got it published. It hadn’t even struck me at that point that that’s the next logical thing. But when they did, I thought, you know, I’d like to write something else. Because I enjoyed writing. And I thought, this is an. I’ve got an idea. One of the stories that I’ve been maybe telling my shop, funnily enough, relates to Simon Garfunkel. And there’s a chapter on them. In fact, it’s the first chapter that written in the book. It’s not sequentially the first chapter. And as I said, without making a spoiler to the book. And giving the stories away. Let’s kind of give this one away as an example. I thought if I write a book, maybe I’d write it on the idea of the Simon agar Funkel story Which is, why this huge success may never have happened. I thought, people always find it interesting. So maybe if I write it down and I like reading it, then maybe I should write more. For some reason, it took me years and years to actually start doing this again. And after I wrote that one, I noted down, three or four ideas that I thought, well, yes, I know this and that and this and that. And that would fit it. And I started to build up a whole book full of them. If you like, I could tell you that, Simon, I’ve got a funkel. I’m sort of. Praise thee of it.

Steve Cuden: Sure, if you want.

Jon Kremer: It basically revolves around the fact of revolt that they, had a career. They were acoustic Act. They’d been recorded. Simon recorded Sounds of silence. No one took the slightest notice of it. Ah, he recorded it with our funkel. Then he gave up and he came to England and he was playing around the clubs of London mainly. And then, he made an lp in England just by himself, the Simon songbook. And he had another go at Sounds of silence. Absolutely meant nothing at all. And that was about, it. He had a very minor career and for reasons that had to do with my long standing friendship with Al Stewart who, if you’re listening to this and, know at all, would probably be from you of the cat. Yes, it was a double platinum album and singled in the late seventies. And also another double platinum album. He had time, pastures. But way back in the mid sixties when he was beginning as a single writer, in England, he actually used to share a flat in London with then unknown Paul Simon. And I used to hear all sorts of things through this connection. And I know that Simon was going nowhere. He’d split from Garfunkel and gone back to, I think, maybe Cornell University, maybe Columbia University was going back, study, English. And it was all over for them. And then something happens which changes all that, which is A producer at CBS. Tom Wilson used to produce Bob Dylan did something with Sounds of silence. Quite unknown to them. He, dubbed on a folk rock backing like an embryonic folk rock record. Instead of just the acoustic things. They put it out again. Radio stations start playing it. Simon’s still in London playing small clubs and small gigs. And suddenly he gets. And I know this because my chum Al was in the room next to him. He gets a message, a phone call, actually. CBS saying, paul Sounds. The silence is now number one in Boston. It’s climbing the billboard hot hundred. It’s time to come home. He does. And their entire career starts. But, my story is about why Tom Wilson did this. And just to unwind this going backwards and totally ruin this chapter for anyone who actually does decide to buy the book. But there are 15 others, so why not?

Steve Cuden: Oh, it won’t ruin it because you have so much detail in there, Jon. you have so much detail in the book. It won’t ruin it for anybody.

Jon Kremer: The chapter would set it in a different chronology. It goes this way. Tom Wilson does this because the year before the animals, a group from Newcastle in England, had become part of the british invasion, so called of America, and had a huge hit with their record house of the rising sun. Now, this is an old folk blues song, and they’re doing it as a rock record. And, apparently Bob Dylan, when he first heard it, was in a car on his car radio, stopped the car and got out and danced around the car. He just couldn’t believe he was hearing house of the rising sun in rock. Because he’d recorded it in a straightforward way on his very first album called Bob Dylan. Tom Wilson, hearing this house, the writing sun, produced by a guy called Mickey Most, thought, just for fun, he would take some guitar, some drums and pop it onto the Bob Dylan version just for his own interest, to do a version of House of the rising sun. He then put it to one side and forgot all about it. About 18 months later, he suddenly remembered it. And that’s why he decided to put folk rock backing on Sounds of silence. If that doesn’t happen, probably they don’t become what they do, which is the biggest selling duo in pop rock. 100 million records plus, et cetera, et cetera. And also due to Mike Nichols and the graduate, they’ve become even bigger that it wouldn’t happen. So my story is all about the fact that Mickey most became a record producer, which is after having been a failed pop singer in the late fifties in England. And he was a failed pop singer, who was part of a duo called the most brothers. They weren’t brothers and it wasn’t their name. And they made a record or two that failed. So my whole thing in the chapter heading is, if it isn’t for, a completely failed duo, would Simon and Goffunkle ever become the biggest selling duo in the world? That’s basically what the stories are all like and about.

Steve Cuden: Right, right. You know, I’ve had. Suzy Quattro has been a guest on this show. And she was, you know, originally, I think, founder. One of her early mentors was Mickey most.

Jon Kremer: he did producer for his own label called Rat Records. And actually, yes, she becomes a. I’m sure she credit Mickey with this. He’s now the late Mickey Moe, sadly. But he did, in fact, do that, actually. The year of the animals big hit was 64 with house rising sun. He also produced, a UK band called Herman’s Hermitz, who, with the exception of the Beatles, who sell probably 30 or 40% of every record sold in North America. In 1964, the next biggest selling Act were actually Mickey Mose Herman’s, Hermitage. Extraordinary enough. So he was very, very successful. Not a successful singer, but a successful record producer. And, yeah, Susie Quatro. Susie Quattro still is tremendous performing Life now. Has written autobiographies and, I think, books of poetry. And, you know, it’s a very interesting character.

Steve Cuden: That’s what she sells a lot of poetry, and she’s still touring, she’s still all over the world. She’s still quite popular. Tell me about this fellow who I didn’t know anything about until I read it in your book, who was so influential early on. Andrew lug Oldham. Tell me about him and what his story is.

Jon Kremer: Really, really, really. Well, that’s interesting. Actually, he had slightly faded from kind of popular consciousness in England, let alone America, by the end of the 20th century. But then he published in 2001 the first volume, what turned out, to be a trilogy, of autobiographies called Stoned. And then, he published a second one called two stoned a couple of years later. I can’t recommend them highly enough. they’re extremely readable books. Well, Andrew Lou golden is the person who brought the Rolling Stones into everyone’s lives without him. The Rolling Stones, well, I’m not even sure they’ve got to make a record, frankly. They were originally called the Rolling Stones with no g at the end, taken from a muddy Waters record, the song titled Rolling Stone Blues. And they’d got together, they were playing around a, few clubs in northwest London, West London, rather. They were probably going nowhere, when they are basically discovered by Andrew Luke Oldham. Now, Andrew Luke Oldham is an extraordinary figure, because when he discovers them, he’s 19 years old, he’s never produced a record. He wouldn’t even know how to begin. But he not only winds up managing them, he becomes their record producer. within a year or two, he’s actually learned how to make records. And by 1965, satisfaction becomes one of the biggest records of the sixties. And, he’s done all of this by basically inventing himself in the first place. And then for the first five years, he’s really the mentor of the Rolling Stones. And almost all the things that are taken for granted to do with rock bands in five decades plus since the sixties, come from him. Before him, musical acts would wear identikit suits, they would be dressed the same. Now, of course, you just take it for granted. They’re wearing whatever they want to be wearing. That was not the case. It wasn’t the case probably until about 1964. The idea was that acts would be, I suppose in modern parlance, user friendly. The demographic they were aiming for was originally maybe teenage, but they were really happy to become all around entertainers, maybe movies. It’s well known what happens to Elvis Presley goes into the army, somebody wants to take you on a walk down lonely Street and he comes out wanting to see him rock a hula baby and a string of not very good movies. Well, most people wanted there, Andrew Luigolden invents to the Rolling Stones initially the idea of, I don’t know, to paraphrase the James Dean movie of rebel without a cause. they’re rebels without a cause. By just being, in a sense, he amplified what they were themselves. They were going to be sometimes uncouth, they were going to be not friendly to parents, they were going to be the anti Beatles. And this was an extraordinary stratagem and it worked for about five years. But, you know, beyond that, what can I say? This is somebody who, when Bob Dylan first comes to England and he’s completely unknown, it’s in, the winter of 62, 63 to be in a BBC play, a drama in which he plays the part of a coffee bar singer, and actually sings blowing in the wind in passing. It’s completely unknown. When he turns up in London at his hotel, they’re to meet him and Al Grossman, his manager, he’s Andrew Luke Oldham. This is before he discovers the Rolling Stones. This is when he is probably 1718. Before that he’s worked with Mary Quant who was extremely famous designer and probably still well known in America as a 16 year old he’s working with her but in the evenings he’s working in a jazz club in London called Ronnie Scott’s which was a very famous jazz club. He was just extraordinary. Phil Spector comes to England, he’s completely unknown. Meeting him at the airport is Ashley Luke Alton. The Beatles are just about to make their biggest jump in England with their second record. It’s please please me and it’s in early 1963. There’s a tv show called thank you lucky stars and Andrew Oldham is there, meets Brian Epstein and convinces him that he should be the pr for the Beatles in London at least for a week to promote please, please this guy, remember, he’s only in his late teens. It’s an extraordinary story, that’s about all I can tell you about him without me picking up my book and reading it while I’ve read it.

Steve Cuden: Sure, sure. Well, he fascinates me because he’s sort of in the middle of a lot of very, very vital and important things early on in all these, like you say, the Stones and the Beatles and so on. And there he is, sort of in the middle of it, almost kind of just out of nowhere. It’s not like he worked his way up, because he was only a kid at the time. So I think that’s a fascinating thing to have happen.

Jon Kremer: Yeah, it’s just, again, it comes back to movies. He was very, very wired into the music side of it, pop and rock. He very much also was wired into movies, both Hollywood. He loved the, Tony Curtis Burt Langston movie, the sweet smell of success. and, particularly a UK movie called Expresso Bongo, in which the main character, Lawrence Harvey, discovers somebody, coffee bar singer, and makes a huge hit of him. And in a way, in his mind, he always used to imagine he was himself in a movie. Excellent script, great lighting, probably with the main character played by Andrew Luke Holden. And it was something in which his fantasies of Life suddenly fused together with the Rolling Stones. He discovered his own version of a coffee bar singer. and he then just went out and invented all of this stuff. It really is a very interesting story I should just mention in passing that he and I have an occasional correspondence, and, he’s actually read the chapter about him in chain reaction. very kindly pointed out one little geographical error. actually started off by saying, this is a lot to take in, and I can only spend so much of my time reading about myself. But anyway, he then, went on to tell me a great story that relates to his dealings with, Dick Rowe, who was the head of Anr at Decca, ah, Records, the label in England that Rolling Stone signed to. So, he is still around, and he splits his time, I think, between Seattle, and for some reason. Not for some reason. It’s very good reason, actually. bogota in Colombia. He sometimes says, you know, the wi fi isn’t very good at the jungle here, and that’s because his second wife was, I don’t know, a colombian movie star. He, spends a lot of time there.

Steve Cuden: so explain how we don’t get David Bowie without Anthony newly.

Jon Kremer: Okay, I’m assuming that if Anthony newly is known at all still to Americans, it’s simply as this very mannered singer, of songs, many that he’s written himself, from musicals from the 1960s, the most famous being stop the world. I want to get off and the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd, which he co wrote with his partner, the late, Leslie Brickus. He comes though from England and is in England, though sadly not remembered well enough or recognized as a very, very, very versatile person. I sometimes think it’s the fate of those who are very versatile to not be recognized as much as if they were just for one thing. And Einstein newly had a career as a, child actor in movies, very successful ones involving people like Sir Alec Guinness or directed by Peter Euston. And then he managed to make the jump, which is quite hard if you ask Macaulay Culkin. From child actor to an adult Film star, maybe, with the UK films. And then he reinvents himself due to one Film in England which was a take on the Elvis Presley being drafted into the army story And it was a sort of semi lightweight comedy called Idol on Parade in which a, late fifties british pop rock singer gets drawn, called up into national Service in british army, and anti newly plays this figure and in it he’s called upon to sing some songs. And they suddenly realized that one, he could sing them and two, one of them was extremely commercial song, I’ve waited so long and it gets released as a record and suddenly it’s top three. And suddenly he’s got a recording career and it’s making pop records two or three years, a couple of number ones. One was a cover of Frankie Avalon’s why. And then he meets Leslie Brickus and they write stage shows. Well, this is already kind of a bit of a jump from child actor to Film star, to pop singer to your co writing songs. And then he stars in them both in West End, in London and on Broadway. They’re huge hits. Sammy Davis junior sees him in London. They became firm friends and Sammy Davis Junior goes back and tells everyone in America, by that I mean Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin newly comes over. He’s on all the major shows, chat shows and starts having a very big career in America. then later, his wife at the time, an actress known as Joan Collins, also becomes rather well known. So here’s the newly story As might be seen, he then winds up in Las Vegas and then eventually, as you know, time moves on and he moves out of the picture. But back in England, one of the things he did along the way was he had a very successful television show in 1960, a kind of variety spectacular. It was very unusual, it revealed his kind of very quirky sense of humour. And he’s then given an opportunity, commissioning editor at a tv network in England. There were only two at the time to do a six part television show. He does it. It’s extremely unusual and weird. Very, very strange. Very, very good. Critics love it, young people love it. Almost everyone else doesn’t get it. It gets kind of more or less canned. But within 18 months they’re showing it again because the british Film industry about ten years ago put out a box set of this thing, the BFI, and they wrote of it as being one of the key things in television that led to a big thing by a guy called Patrick McGoohan called the Prisoner. it’s not like it, but it’s new tv. And then to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, etc, etcetera. It’s one of these great breakthroughs. Well, David Bowie, and sadly no longer alive around my age, is sitting as a 1314 year old watching this thing called the strange world of Kearny Slade and becomes totally enamored with Angie newly. When David Bowie starts to sing. He wants to sing like David Bowie. Sorry, like Angie newly. By the time he’s making records, his producers are saying, you keep singing like Angie newly, just stop it. And he said, no, no, this is how I sing. Very early Bowie records pre space oddity, his first big hit. He sounds exactly like Hachiman uni. And here we have it. But then in later years, of course, he comes up with Ziggy Stardust in which he paints his face white and he has a different Persona. Well, Angie newly started this with, in the strange world of Gurney Slade, he plays this character, Gurney Slade, but he’s not playing a character. He used a novel thing at the time, which is you could hear his thoughts. He’d pre recorded his voice, which they would play over it. And it was full of so many extraordinary things. When he does stop the world, I want to go off, which I actually saw. I met Anshin newlywed when I was 14 and I saw his stop the world show. he’s got his face painted white. He’d often come to the edge of the stage and kind of the equivalent of breaking the fourth wall, really. Bowie became so entranced by so many things he knew he did. It wasn’t just the voice. And without going through the whole chapter and etc. Etc. My idea is that the influence of newly wasn’t just the voice. It was so substantial that maybe, well, certainly the David Bowie we know, would never have evolved. I still think he would have been something because he was just destined to be that.

Steve Cuden: It’s a fascinating story how someone who is doing something you wouldn’t necessarily associate with what ultimately winds up being David Bowie. And yet there it is. There’s this strong influence. Anyone that wants to hear or read more of these really interesting stories about how one thing leads to another, you definitely need to check out chain reaction, Jon Creamer’s book. I’m wondering, have you thought about writing similar books or other books with different genres or different artistic takes? have you thought about doing another book that’s this sort of chain reaction in different ways?

Jon Kremer: It’s actually an absolutely excellent thought and suggestion. Until recently, I hadn’t, in the sense that, after I wrote my memoir about the sixties, I kind of felt, you know, if I’m writing something again, I’ve done me. It’s not going to be me. When I came up with chain reaction, part of the writing process of it was, it could have been a lot longer, but the way I wrote a. I was every 2000 words or so, maybe every two or three pages, I like to sort of stop and kind of edit it. I kind of like to edit as I was going along. And part of that was trying to shape it, because with all the information, I still wanted it to be like storytelling. I, wanted people to have a certain shape, and I could have loaded so much more data into it, that I thought, no, I’d rather have the shape of it and not do that. By the time I finished writing it, I kind of thought, well, that’s done, until it’s published. It took a while to get published, and then my publisher came on board and published it very quickly, which has been absolutely wonderful. And beyond that, I’m still sort of in a mindset of things to do with chain reaction. But, I had half thought quite recently, along with the idea of your suggestion, Steve, of there is scope for writing, but if not necessarily to do with other things to do with music, or maybe even to do music, movies and pop culture, I could see a thing to do with, the way stories have evolved, which are political stories. We won’t story be with anything to do with politics. But, there are many, many sort of incredible inflection points in that. I was thinking, quite recently.

Steve Cuden: there are lots of different cultural interstices that you could work with, whether it’s in fashion or whether it’s in movies, or whether it’s in books themselves and authors that influence other authors and so on. And of course, politics too. Architecture. There’s all sorts of different ways that you could show how, as the phrase goes, one is standing on the shoulders of giants. Isn’t that a famous phrase? It is indeed that believe Isaac Newton was saying that. So that’s what you’re talking about, is one is standing on the shoulders of other giants.

Jon Kremer: Yeah. Well there is, in music, the way things evolved. I think it was Keith Richards who actually said, It’s like a tapestry being woven. You know, you’re just adding another bit to it, you’re taking from something else. It’s not m being, etcetera. But, One of the points I thought I’d like as a takeaway from Jane reaction would be people every now and again pausing and thinking, but, you know, this might easily not have happened. Now there are all these physicists, theories on more extreme theory and things to do with multi universes. which, by the way, I don’t, don’t personally believe the sort of many worlds theory. A guy called Hugh Everett in 1957 came up with this originally, which is more or less anything that can happen, does happen. It’s just that we, with, good fortune, our five senses, we take all this data on board and then eventually everything becomes just ghostly outright as to what might happen. Only one thing does happen. But it is so interesting to think on so many things that wouldn’t happen. It’s, actually the politics side of it, thinking quite recently. And when Richard Nixon has failed in 1960 to become president, in 1962, he then fails to become governor of California, and he gives it all up. He goes off for six years to be in a law firm in New York and he comes back into it. And many reasons why and how it happens, happens to be. But it almost certainly wouldn’t have happened to be, if Robert Kennedy had managed to survive that, evening, I think, on the 5 June 1968, in the ambassador’s hotel in Los Angeles. So many things can change things, but some of them, I think, are worth exploring. And Yeah, well, you know, one could write that. Having said that, a little bit of me, I think everyone thinks they can write a novel. In a sense, everyone can. It’s just whether or not anyone would ever want to read it. I gained a certain confidence from having a couple of books published, partly because other writers, a couple of authors in terms of music books, Mark Lewison, who’s without question the doyen of historians on the Beatles. And his absolutely magnum opus, all these years. So far, he’s only published volume one, which is called tune in. And, in the basic edition, there’s a kind of author’s cut edition that’s twice as long. His book runs to a thousand pages, and it only takes the Beatles story up to the beginning with their first record, love me do, in 1962. He’s spending about 30 years of his Life writing this and this because I shared a story with him many years ago that, he might intend to have in his second volume, to do with myself and my old friend al Stewart meeting the Beatles. He reading a version of this story we have. Alan, I called the men from, Henry was very complimentary. It was very sincere. and it kind of encouraged me to the idea that I would write the first book I wrote, and one or two other people who’ve published authors have said nice things about the writing. So I thought at the back of my mind, Steve, I thought, you know, maybe one day I’d write a novel. So part of me is thinking the next thing I might write might be that. The only problem is the things you need for that. a narrative, the characters, this and the other, are not in my mind yet. What is in my mind is a style. an author, you probably know, Thomas Pynchon, famous book, Gravity’s Rainbow, and the kind of stream of consciousness type thing. I don’t sound egotistical and say, oh, it could write like that. I couldn’t. but as an influence or something, like Salinger is an influence on everybody. I kind of think maybe, ah, I could, you know, jump from writing nonfiction to fiction. So this is a very long winded answer to your question.

Steve Cuden: Writing is writing is writing, and then it’s the question of what kind of genre and what style and what kind of tone and so on does it take, and whether you’re developing characters that are fictional, whether they’re characters that are from real life. Like, you’ve written a whole book that’s on the characters from real Life, so you create characters who are fictional. Well, I’ve been having the most interesting conversation here with Jon Kremer about writing and music and chain reaction, and, I hope if you’re interested in music and the history of music, you’ll check it out. But we’re going to wind the show down a little bit right now. And, Jon, I’m wondering, in all of your experiences, including writing the book or all the way back into your youth, doesn’t matter. Where can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny?

Jon Kremer: Well, yeah, funny enough. I just mentioned meeting the Beatles with my friend Al Stewart. This is actually in Bournemouth where we live, the south coast town in England. It’s at, the beginning of the Beatlemania story for England, which happens in 1963, the year before. Absent in America in the August of that year, they’re performing in our hometown and already they’re a news phenomenon. Already there are crowds in the streets. Wherever they’re performing. I have to sort of paint this context. I’m involved in lateral beat groups in our town and so is Al Stewart, though at a much higher level. He’s a really good guitar player. One day he’s going to become a really great songwriter. But at this stage, he and I go to see the Beatles perform. In those days they would play two shows a night. It would be a first house, second house. And, we go and see them perform. It’s just a few days before she loves you is released. And they’re fantastic. As it finishes are still fairly high from this sort of endorphin rush of seeing them. They really are exciting. And we start talking because we’re interested in guitars, about the guitar Jon Lennon’s playing now. I know everyone knows Rickenbacker guitars now, like Fender guitars, Gibson guitars. They weren’t that well known then. They become well known, actually because of the Beatles. And I said to Alan, said, what’s that guitar Jon Ems playing? He said, I think it’s a rickenbacker for some reason. I’m only 16 there now, 17 that we looked quite a bit older. And this story makes no sense unless I say there were so many young guys involved in the rock pop business then, that what I’m going to say next isn’t maybe that extraordinary. I said, wouldn’t it be great if we could talk to him about it? It was as simple as that. and he looked at me and said, well, that’s. That’s absurd. How are we going to do that, get backstage? Because literally in the area near to the stage door, it was packed with girls. Outside the theater where they’re performing, there was maybe a thousand. The streets were jam packed, there were police holding people back. It was ridiculous. I said, off the top of my head and even now I have no idea why, I said, well, why don’t we go to the manager of the theatre’s office and tell him we’re representatives of Rick and Bakker, Qatar. We haven’t just seen the show, we’ve just come from London. we can’t get through to see our clients. The Beatles, can you help us? We go to the manager’s office. Knock, knock, go in. It’s just one guy there. Middle aged guy. Looks at us. Yeah, can I help you? And, I said, well, yes. I said, my colleague at this point, Al Stewart, standing behind me near the door, waiting to make a speedy, embarrassed exit. And I said, exactly what I’ve been saying. Oh, we’re trying to see our clients ripping back a guitar. Ah, representatives, we can’t get backstage. All these screaming, you know, kids who are our age, by the way, what can you do about it? Can you help? And instead of sort of saying, just go away. He actually said, okay, picked up a phone, intercom, whatever, to the stage door. What’s your name? I said, well, my name is Nakrima and this is Mister Stewart. He said, mister Kremer and Mister Stewart are coming round. Let them in. Oh, fantastic. Came on. We go out, we force our way through this crowd to the stage door where the stage door guy opens it and says, basically, you know, if I open the door, they’re all going to come rushing in one way or another. we managed to get in. He slammed the door behind us suddenly. Well, our story means nothing. We’ve got there, but we’re not from Rickenback guitars. Okay, I asked someone, where’s the Beatles dressing room? You know what it’s like backstage at places there are people moving around. They’re artists. If you’re there, there must be a reason. Oh, they indicate where I go and knock on the door. The guy that opens it is the, road manager, a chap called Neil Aspinalla. Remains close to them all his life and winds up being managing director of Apple label, and companies. He owns a store. And I just said, we’re in a compete groups. We want to talk to Jon Lennon about his guitar. He looks in like mad. Probably thought, well, how the earth have we got there? Well, we must know somebody. Okay, for a quiet life. He said, wait here. Goes in door and shuts the door. Comes out from the dressing room, not him. Opens the door, it’s Jon Lennon. Comes out into the hall, apologizing. In those days, everyone knows he wears glasses. In those days, no one would see that, not for two or three years to come. But he was wearing black warm rim Buddy Holly style glasses. And he changed out his stage uniforms and blue denim shirt. And he said, yeah, you want to talk to me? You want to see me or something? And we start chatting with him and he’s great. It’s terrific. And he says, hold on. He goes back into the dressing room, comes back out again with his guitar. The Rickenbacker, 20 minutes earlier. We’ve seen their penultimate number with she loves you. And then they did twist and shout. And then he hands it to me. Well, I was very poor guitar player then and still am I playing it. Hand it to Al, who’s much better. And we start chatting. Tremendous. Excellent thing. And then the next day we managed to walk our way into their hotel. And it’s a whole other story basically. My first book, born with a kogo, is based on all of this. But one thing happened and this makes for the anecdote, if you like. He said, what was the show like? They could still be bothered enough about that. And it was genuine. And we. In fact, I think it was. Al said to, him, well, George Harrison’s guitar was much louder than yours. You know, we could hardly hear yours. The reality actually was we were on that stage of the stage, like stage right. Right in front of George Harrison’s hand. But that’s, by the. By, about 50ft away from it. And then I said, ah, remember they played two houses? He said, I’m going to have to go soon. I’ve got to get changed again. He said. He said. He said, george. He said, I’ll see to that. I’ll see to that. Well, The next day, Al and I are about to talk our way into the hotel and we open a Bournemouth newspaper called the Bournemouth Echo, published daily as an evening paper. And they reviewed the show and they said the Beatles were stunning, of course, but then they said, except in the second half, which would basically ruin. Because Jon Lennon’s guitar was just much, much too loud. And we looked at each other and cracked up, and realized, inadvertently we managed to. Spoiler Beatles gig. That’s my weird story

Steve Cuden: You’re one of two guys that ruined a Beatles gig.

Jon Kremer: Yeah, we try and keep that quiet.

Steve Cuden: That’s pretty funny, though. So. All right, last question for you today, Jon. Do you have a single solid piece of advice that you can lend to those who may be trying to figure out how to publish their first book or, what to do in the music industry and so on? Do you have a piece of advice that you like to give those who are trying to get in or maybe they’re in a little bit trying to get to the next level?

Jon Kremer: Well, it depends what they’ve written. If we backtracked the idea of, actually, should one write? And the answer is, if you feel like it yes, you should. To quote Jon le Carre, though everyone is a writer, but only a writer can edit and, devise that if anyone is sending something for publication or to an agent that they do spend time editing it themselves first, not let it get to the stage where a publisher will probably edit it. Anyway. I only say this from my experience. When I wrote both my books. Every 2000 words, I try and edit it. And I thought, that’s great because by the end of it, job done. then I would reread the whole thing and realise it wasn’t job done. M and there would be many, many, many drafts. so I would say, make yourself an editor. Besides also, being a writer would probably help. Also, while riding on the back of quoting Jon le Carre, the idea would be, if you’re writing particularly, obviously fiction, to try and be in mind telling a story And he used to say, le Carre, that a, very simple line that I thought was really good. He said, the. The cat sat on the mat is not a story The cat sat on the dog’s mat is a story And the idea is, make sure you are actually writing a story or maybe one other quote from somebody else. And this doesn’t apply just to writing or trying to move into the music industry or literary industry. Oscar Wilde, I think, is a great point to leave it on, for writing particularly or for anything. Oscar Wilde said be yourself, because everyone else is already taken. And I thought that’s very handy. If you really do want to write, just be yourself. Know what you’re writing about. That’s that cliche, you know, but I mean, I think write about what you know, but also be interested in it. And also think, is this a book I’d like to read? It sounds weirdly, egocentric and immodest, but both the books I wrote, part of the reason for writing them was the idea. I thought, you know, I’d actually like to read this. I think if you write a book, you might want to think, would you like to read it?

Steve Cuden: I think that’s extremely wise advice. Why work on something if it. It doesn’t appeal to you in the first place or if it’s nothing that you have any interest in? So I think what you’re saying is very wise. That if you want to be a writer, write those things that are of interest to you and that maybe would be something you would want to watch or see or listen to.

Jon Kremer: Must say, I’m not speaking to people who are professional writers in all sorts of ways. Collaborative screenplay writing, journalists. And of course there’s all sorts of other aspects to that. But, when someone’s writing in another way, non fictional fiction, I think it’s like any artist, it’s like a painter or a musician composing something. Just by default. The first thing they’re doing is they’re writing, in this case, for themselves. And then after that it’s, okay, can we get this published? Other people read it. And then you enter into a whole new world where, I, A great record by the kinks, written by Ray Davis in 1967, Waterloo Sunset. In it, he refers to two characters, the story of them, and their names are Terry and Julie. But when the record came out, many people thought he was referring to Terry Stamp, a well known actor at the time, and Judy Christie, also well known. This wasn’t actually true, but the record exists. And many people, what they brought to it was that it was a kind of roman clef about these two actors, but it wasn’t. In other words, it makes a whole new world. Once you put something out there, once it was yours, and then someone else listens to it and what they bring to it, it creates a whole new sort of world. But first of all, it’s got to be just for you, I think.

Steve Cuden: Well, Jon, I think that’s a very fascinating way to look at how to become someone who publishes or writes music or whatever is write it for you. Jon Kremer I cannot thank you enough for being with me today on story, for your time, your energy and your wisdom, and for writing this very fascinating book, chain reaction. Thank you so much, Steve.

Jon Kremer: It’s been an absolute delight and thank you for the opportunity.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat If you like this episode, but wont you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform youre listening to? Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tunein, and many others. Until next time, Im Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.