I played in bands all over Europe, including the raucous and seminal Third World War, and was a pick-up drummer for all the Detroit soul bands who toured England, ran into Robin Trower around the corner from my house (see "album covers"), did three album covers for him in England, and was generally in rock 'n roll heaven, rubbing shoulders with all the English greats. Many gigs with various bands and musos at the Speakeasy (the "Speak"), the Marquee, the Flamingo, the Revolution, the 100 Club, the Pheasantry, the Cafe des Artistes, the Lyceum, the Tally Ho, etc, etc, etc. Everybody in the business knew everybody else and we were constantly running into each other either at gigs, rehearsal rooms, Doc Hunt's drum shop, or muso pubs like the Ship, just up from the Marquee. Then one day I got a call: "Funky? This is Graham Bond. I'm down in the country rehearsing with a band and we need a drummer tonight, can you come down?"

Graham Bond! Could I come down??? Could I ever! I had an audition the following day with a new band a bass player friend of mine had just joined, but the chance to play with the great Graham Bond was too much to pass up. So what if I stayed up all night, and then went to the other gig, I could do it. I was a former Marine, remember? Tough. Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce had been in Graham's band before they formed Cream with Eric, so you can see why this was such an opportunity.

I arrived at the country house near East Grinstead and felt a little foolish setting up my double bass drum kit in front of Graham, who had encouraged Ginger to play two bass drums, which became Ginger's musical signature. Graham eyed me as I set up in the huge lounge and said, "So, you like Ginger Baker, eh?" Well, we played all night, and it was fan-fucking-tastic, as Funky Sam would say in his usual prosaic fashion. I called my bass-player friend in the morning and told him I had joined Graham's band, and he congratulated me. The band he was playing in was Kiki Dee's band, managed by Elton John's company, Rocket Records. The drummer who took the gig, Roger Pope, (it was mine if I wanted it) later went on to play with Elton and then Hall and Oates. Oh, well.

Graham lived with Lesley and I when he ran out money and we couldn't get anyone interested in signing the band because Graham had such a bad reputation in the business for being too freaky (and he was...totally over-the-top...but an amazing man by any standard...I loved him dearly). Lesley lovingly made him a beautiful patchwork leather jacket (she was a whiz with fabric design and sewing). One day Graham didn't come home...he had dropped out of sight for three weeks, apparently back in West Hampstead and stayed with his friend, John Hunt, when a policeman knocked at the door on my birthday. He held a black plastic trash bag open and asked if I could indentify the bloody remains of Lesley's beautiful jacket. Graham had fallen in front of a tube train at Finsbury Park station and was instantly killed. Ginger thinks he fell because Graham was so clumsy, I am convinced he jumped deliberately, and Long John Baldry thinks he was pushed. We'll never know, of course.

I do know one thing: this monster of a talent, who inspired Elton John, Keith Emerson, Tony Kay and all of Yes, and god knows who else, but probably just about every serious rocker in England, became so depressed because he couldn't make any money playing....nobody wanted to touch him. The only gig he could get was a Thursday night at the Club Calabash in Finchley Road, a funky reggae hangout in Swiss Cottage, for a measley £5 a night. That didn't even pay for his beer. He would go out and somehow find the money to get blitzed, then treat Lesley and I (and all our very straight neighbors) to 3 am shouts from the middle of the street, "FUNKEEEEE!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!" I caught Graham one day calling Chingford Organ Studios, a large organ salesroom in the northeastern suburbs of London who sold organs to churches and little old ladies and always ran ads in the Melody Maker. They had advertised for a demo organist, and Graham was so desperate, that he swallowed his pride and was trying to get a job there. They wouldn't believe him. Same thing with cruise ships...nobody believed it could be the Great Graham Bond asking for that kind of job. While all this was going on, the Melody Maker ran a special on keyboard players, and Elton, Tony Kay, and Keith Emerson ALL lauded Graham and said that but for him, they would not be where they were. After being turned down so many times, Graham left one day to visit cronies in north London and make his fatal appointment in Finsbury Park.

We all make our own choices in life, but Graham deserved much more than he got. Here's to you, matey...you were a lovely man and I treasure every minute I spent in your company--on and off the stage. I can hear your gruff voice years later like it was yesterday.

at our last "proper" gig...Dingwall's Dancehall in Camden Lock. There were a few more informal gigs at the Club Calabash in Swiss Cottage...Graham's last ever gigs....to maybe six or eight people, tops. Such a shame.

Graham taking a break from an all-night rehearsal in the Sussex countryside near The Hundred Acre Wood.   we lived at this big house in the woods for a month while we got the band together...chopping wood for the fireplace, picking up home-made sausages from the local butcher that were as good as the best seasoned steak (really!)...and we all got on great the whole time. Brian Holloway was on guitar and Pete MacBeth was on bass. I remember seeing the funniest comedian I have ever seen (Tommy Cooper) doing the funniest show I have ever seen while we were there. Tommy walked out on stage in his famous fez and just stood there looking at the audience. I think it's the longest recorded laugh in BBC history.

Dingwall's...I made the huge pentagram as a backdrop for all our gigs (it was a bitch to construct to make it symmetrical). At Graham's funeral in Streatham, I set up the pentagram and the clergy stormed out in a huff. I left it there for them to deal with. Jack Bruce played a jazzy dirge on the organ at the rear of the chapel.

Pete MacBeth, our wonderful bass player, demonstrating how it's done, me old son

The Hundred Acre Wood was just miles away over the rooftop...if you look closely you just might see Owl or Rabbit!

Graham was also the most generous person I've ever met, and in my experience, if you ever want a rock-solid basis for judging anyone, if they are naturally generous, you're a long way to a good friend. But Graham's generosity worked in both directions: whenever he was in funds, so were all his friends...he was endlessly giving and generous....and he always assumed the same from them when he was skint, and of course it didn't work that way, but he never understood why. A crazy, hugely talented, lovely man.

Many of his contemporaries dismiss Graham...he was one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met.

Let me tell you a wonderful story about him: he was arrested for public indecency (I never found out why, but I can imagine) and was committed to Summerfields mental home in Streatham, south London, for 6 weeks. They had a piano in the arts and crafts studio, which was the most beautiful art studio I have ever seen in my life. The battered upright hadn't been tuned since the Crusades. Graham had figured out how he could transpose all the out-of-tune keys in about two minutes of running his fingers over the ivories (a minor miracle), and began belting out songs on this crazy instrument, bringing all the inmates in to find out what the hell was going on. They were all delighted, smiling and laughing at Graham's monumental attempt to wring some music out of this impossible instrument. The patients were so starved for any kind of stimulation, they kept him there all day. The whole place had changed...it buzzed with LIFE and humor and everyone was talking to everyone else. It was decided we would bring the rest of the band (The New Graham Bond Organization) to play for them one day. We did, and it was the best audience I have ever played to anywhere. They were knocked out and so warmly appreciative. It was heartwarming and tear-making...a lovely experience. I had inmates of both sexes come up to me and hug me with tears in their eyes, saying, "Thank you" and really meaning it like no other audience I could imagine.

One of the inmates who found out I was an artist, pulled me to one side and showed me a spectacular, smiling bust he had sculpted of himself. He then turned it around to reveal another, screaming-in-agony face which was frightening. He watched my reaction and then said, "That's why I'm here."

Jack Bruce played a jazzy funeral dirge at Graham's funeral in Streatham...Ginger couldn't make it because he was deep in the Nigerian bhundu rallying his Land Rover.

Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Graham Bond, Dick Heckstall-Smith
The Graham Bond Organization
(spelled the American way with a "z")
when frayed ends began to show, Ginger and Jack split...
Ginger called Eric, and....well...you know the rest.

Here's an incredible rock 'n roll story for you:

During this time I met Lou Reizner, a record producer who shared the floor of a fancy apartment building in Knightsbridge with another record producer, Shel Talmy. They had the only two luxury apartments on this floor. It turned out that Lou and Shel had both produced the Who, were born in the same hospital...on the same day in Chicago! (different years, though). What are the chances of two record producers who had both produced the same band, were both American, from the same city, born in the same hospital, living on the same floor in the only two apartments on that floor...IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!!!??? What are the chances of that happening? I still don't believe it.

I had dinner at Lou's with his friend, the charming and very proper English gentleman, Christopher Lee (that's right, Dracula himself!) who kept us laughing 'til very late in the evening (did he have an ulterior motive, ya' think?).

Lesley and I fell apart, England was falling apart as a result of the Arab oil embargo, and the English music business had fallen apart and was busy making plans to high-tail it out of town and make for sunny LA. My Aussie rock singer friend, Ron Charles, and I went to Supertramp's "moving to America" party at their big communal house in Lime Grove where I met a sassy girl who was an artist and wanted to move to America, too! We threw our lot in together and flew to New York, then drove across the country with me hitting the accelerator on the big V8 Olds we were driving every time she took a sip of soda---drenching her, and keeping things lively during the trip. We landed in LA and went our separate ways, but always remained friends. I instantly ran into most of my old English muso cronies and was playing on Melrose one night with Steve Hammond when a lovely woman who was starting her own band made my acquaintance (is that polite enough, 'ya think?) and we settled in together. This was Charlotte, and her band was the Go-Go's. I got busy in one direction, and Charlotte got very busy changing lead singers to Belinda Carlisle (and changing from bass to lead), and we split up. In the meantime I met Peter Lloyd, the famous illustrator, and through him met Bob Hickson and Ed Scarisbrick, two more incredible illustrators. Ed called one day and asked, "Paul, how would you like to paint the Starship Enterprise?"

What do you think I said?

I got into the wonderful movie business on the back of my airbrush skills, thanks to Peter, Ed, and Bob, who had taken me under their wing to teach me the ropes with this temperamental instrument. My next door neighbor, LA Johnson, invited me to his girlfriend's birthday party at a mansion Charlie Chaplin built on Fountain for income property. As I walked through an interior archway, my way was blocked...by Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee! I stood there as they chatted...they looked at me, their faces lit up, and we all went upstairs to the bar for a drink and a nice long chat. They were both new to LA then, and I gotta tell ya, they made me feel like a million bucks.

The "La Bamba" house in Silverlake built by Sorianno in 1932, and now torn down, sadly.

I was travelling back and forth to England, and courtesy of Gary, played with Eric Clapton on two occasions where I met a stunning blonde who was hanging out with Eric. Nice girl. I started designing and rendering movie titles, moved into the house where Richie Valens recorded "Come On, Let's Go" "Donna" and "La Bamba" and ended up working with James Cameron on the Abyss and Terminator 2 main and trailer titles, which I designed and rendered for him.

An English friend named Liz called me and said she was coming to LA with her best friend whose sister was getting married to Ian Wallace, an English drummer and would I like to join them? I did, and Liz's friend was lovely and blonde and vivacious and intoduced to me as Pattie, and we started talking at the reception in Ian and Jenny's house in North Hollywood...she said, "I heard you played with Eric!" I was pleasantly surprised that this beauty knew this about me and also suitably humble and started going on about how much I liked his playing ever since I saw him at that first gig at the Fillmore, how I played with Graham, and what an honor it was to play with Eric, blah-blah-blah (you can see it coming, can't you?). She kept pumping me about Eric, and I was only too happy to oblige, with everyone at the table enjoying the conversation (including Henry Spinetti, a drummer who plays with Clapton regularly). Then she said, "Paul, you don't remember me, do you?" Well, actually, she looked familiar, but the penny hadn't dropped yet. "We met at the Parrot!"

I stared at her as it began to dawn on me. Everybody at the table started laughing..."Oh...you're THAT Pattie!" I said with as much aplomb as I could muster (not much). "Yes, Paul," said Pattie with mock condescension, "I'm THAT Pattie!" Everybody broke up!

For those of you who don't know, "that Pattie" is Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's ex-wife, Eric's ex, and "Layla" in Eric's classic song about her and also the subject of "Wonderful Tonight." and "Old Love."

"That" Pattie, second from left, with Liz next to her, second from right. The two other girls are from England as well, but I don't know them.

I met a beautiful, young English girl on holiday in LA. We had a great time together, but were chalk and cheese. Then she went home. She called three weeks later and said, "Guess what?"

Ha! I was nailed. Tracey came out to LA, we travelled back and forth to England, her mother was not amused, and finally when Alex was one, Tracey moved permanently back to England. I tried to keep going in LA, missing my son and his mother and crossing back and forth the Atlantic to see them, and they were doing the same. Good thing I had work!

I was taking drum lessons from Ginger Baker out at the Trancas Inn (which has been torn down to make room for a four-lane coast highway)...Ginger had moved to just north of LA where he could stable his polo ponies and live peacefully with his lovely, charming, and beautiful wife, Karen. In a selfless moment, I gave Ginger the two Cream Fillmore posters from the first time I saw them. He had the nuts artwork from Disraeli Gears up on his wall. We talked about Graham, and Ginger brought in a photo of himself and his rally partner, Colin, taken in Nigeria at the time of Graham's funeral. I remember that picture clearly. Two weeks after my last session with Ginger, I moved to England, but Tracey and I parted almost immediately. Oddly enough, she was much more conservative than I, and we just didn't belong together.

I put an ad in the trusty Melody Maker "musicians available" section and received a call from Saiichi Sugiyama, a blues guitarist and Clapton fan who needed a good drummer for his band, Bluewater. With me in the band, Saiichi's great little blues band gradually transformed itself into "Creamy," a kick-ass Cream revival band (sorry, Sai). But before that happened, I went to one of Gary's Christmas charity gigs in Chiddingfold and was knocked out by the girl who was singing with Clapton and had done two world tours with him. I asked Franky to introduce me, and Franky delighted in being the go-between for me, as always. At the end of the gig, when I was fairly well-lubricated, Franky dragged the stunning singer over to me and said, "Paul, this is Maggie Ryder. Maggie, this is Funky Paul!" In my state, the first words out of my mouth were an incredible, "Hi, Maggie...I love you!"

Franky's eyes lit up and she scoffed good naturedly, "Paul! I can't take you ANYWHERE, you terrible man!" Maggie was blushing and smiling, and we got on great. Charming girl. I asked if she would like to come down to see about joining our band...we needed a lead singer, and Maggie not only sang like a nightingale, she played keyboards and wrote songs, as well (a mega talent...well, obviously, or she wouldn't have been with Eric). She came down to Terminal Studios one day and ran us through Bonnie Raitt's "The Letter," and we played better than we had ever played, with Maggie strolling about the studio like she owned the place, belting her considerable lungs out. Maggie would join our band. No, Maggie wouldn't join our band...she was made a huge publishing offer a few weeks later and moved to New York.

One of Saiichi's friends, the beautiful and charming Yuki, started coming to all our gigs. Yuki invited me back to her house after a gig and we talked about her late husband, Colin, who had been Eric Clapton's tour manager and was killed in the helicopter crash that took Stevie Ray Vaughn's life. Eric was in the other chopper.

"Creamy"

Yuki said, "Paul, since you're such a Ginger fan and know him...I have a picture of my husband to show you I think you'll be interested in." Yuki disappeared upstairs, then returned with THE VERY SAME PHOTO Ginger had shown me less than six months previously in LA!!!!! Ginger's Colin was Yuki's husband. I had seen the ONLY two copies in existence of this picture in two disparate parts of the world with NO connection between them! Just the ad in the Melody Maker, which Saiichi confessed he had never used to find musicians.

You tell me.