Pop was changing fast in the last half of the 1960s. 1965 had ushered in “fusion,” the idea that any instrument could go with anything. As early as 1964, Sonny and Cher had featured an oboe on “I Got You Babe.” Paul McCartney sang “Yesterday” accompanied by a string quartet. In 1967 Sgt. Pepper took things still further, including adding the merest hint of a narrative structure. By the end of 1968 even the Rolling Stones were recording with the London Bach Choir. I was learning the rudiments of classical orchestration at exactly the time as its marriage with rock was romping all over the zeitgeist.
In that summer of 1966 the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” kicked off a genre that was to spawn perhaps the ultimate Sixties “fusion” single, Jimmy Webb’s six-minute “MacArthur Park” with Richard Harris. Then there was the concept single. The most successful was “Excerpt from ‘A Teenage Opera,’ ” a sort of mini-opera in itself with a kids’ choir. The “Teenage Opera” never was completed but the idea hugely caught the spirit of the moment. None of this passed me by.
THE UNWANTED ACTS TIM was assigned to humanely lay to rest were pretty dire – with one notable exception. This was a handsome 23-year-old singer called Murray Head. EMI had unsuccessfully tried to launch Murray and had put a fair bit of clout behind him. But now he was “de trop” and Tim was ordered by Norrie to cut his last contractual single. Murray had, however, been cast as one of the leads in a Roy Boulting movie titled The Family Way opposite John and Hayley Mills. Paul McCartney composed the soundtrack and Murray had written a song called “Someday Soon” that was supposed to feature in the film. This was the song Tim recorded.
Murray had a light tenor rock voice, really rather lyrical yet passionate and earthy when he wanted it to be. Tim was very good about letting me meet Murray who must have thought me highly curious. I was hopelessly out of place and felt very shy in his dope-filled flat. But he would often accompany himself on guitar. What struck me was his incredibly musical riffing. It was always melodic and always highly individual. I shared Tim’s belief that given the exposure Murray and the song would get from the movie, Tim might have produced his first hit. Unfortunately this was not to be. Most of “Someday Soon” ended up on the cutting-room floor. But I agreed with Tim. Murray was very special.
1967 dawned with still no Likes of Us script from Leslie Thomas, though I vaguely remember a synopsis appearing that had no relation whatsoever to what Tim and I had written. Hopes of a theatre production pretty much evaporated. I continued to take my orchestration lessons. Mum negotiated that we rented an additional flat at Harrington Court, primarily so she could move John Lill in. To be fair it also had a decent room for my increasingly arthritic granny. There was one spare room which Mum wanted to rent. I suggested offering it to Tim, who accepted, and at a stroke a ménage à trois was created to rival South Kensington’s weirdest. Add me and my turntable next door, Julian on cello and Dad on electronic organ and new meaning was given to the words “bohemian rhapsody.”
AT THE END OF February I got a letter from the music master of Colet Court School, the junior part of St Paul’s School in Hammersmith. His name was Alan Doggett. Alan had taught Julian at Westminster Under School and had become friendly with our parents. Alan was openly gay but not, he pointedly professed, a predator of little boys. Indeed Julian, who was not bad looking himself, knew of no such baggage at the Under School. But nonetheless Alan made no secret of having adult gay relationships. He also loved early classical music.
This caused Julian and me to have a private joke at his expense. There was a flat near ours in Onslow Gardens whose occupant left the window open in summer from which emanated hugely precious harpsichord music. You could see enough of the decor to know that it was not the home of a rugger ace. Julian and I used to call places like this doggett houses. Alan proposed that I compose a “pop cantata” for his charges. His choir had premiered and recorded two such epics already, The Daniel Jazz by Herbert Chappell and Jonah-Man Jazz by Michael Hurd. Their main attraction was telling a Bible story in light pop music, nothing too dangerous, just enough novelty to make parents smile and keep a class of unmusical kids out of detention. Lyrics were not their strong point. Apparently the educational publishers Novello and Co. had done very well with them. Novello published Dad’s church music and he confirmed that this was true. The Daniel Jazz was their top seller.
So on March 5, if an old diary doesn’t lie, I met with Alan for a drink. He explained that he wanted something for the whole school to sing but there must be a special role for the choir and school orchestra. There could be soloists too, but he reiterated that it was vital that there was something for everyone to perform, even the tone deaf. Skirting around why he thought I was the right bloke to compose for the latter, he suggested a collection of poems by American poet Vachel Lindsay called “The Congo” as ideal fodder for me to musicalize. One of them read like lyrics for the Eurovision Song Contest – I quote: “Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, / Bing. / Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.” “The Congo” is full of similar nonsense words based on Congolese chants. Somehow I wondered if the poem would ring true in the hands of the very white pupils of a posh, fee-paying West London preparatory school, although I could see that kids could have a lot of fun making silly percussive noises with it. However I broached Alan’s offer with Tim.
Tim wasn’t instantly ecstatic at the thought of writing something for a bunch of 8–13-year-old school kids. It was a bit of a comedown from hopes of a West End premiere and the white-hot heat of EMI in the year that company launched Sgt. Pepper. But Tim had schoolday memories of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and Gilbert’s witty lyrics in particular. Also the notion of a “pop cantata” did chime with what was happening at the time. We liked the idea that there would be no script – not that we ever had experience of one, since Leslie Thomas had still failed to deliver anything for the increasingly dust-gathering The Likes of Us. So we tossed a few ideas around. At first we felt another Bible story wasn’t cool. Maybe something from English history? I don’t remember if the subject we subsequently toyed with, King Richard I and his minstrel Blondel, surfaced at the time. We certainly combed our history books but nothing grabbed us. A James Bond themed idea was temporarily our frontrunner but it was soon shown the egress as we thought it would date and anyway it needed a plot.
Salvation came in the form of The Wonder Book of Bible Stories. Books like these are excellent source material for musicals. They save a lot of reading time and effort. The plots are nicely condensed, the print is big and there are lots of pictures to bring important moments to life. Tim fell on the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours. I liked the idea. It had the primal ingredients of revenge and forgiveness. There could be humour, particularly if Joseph himself was made out to be a bit of an irritating prick who in the end turns out to be OK. And then there was Pharaoh. I wondered what would happen if we built and built Pharaoh’s entrance and he turned out to be Elvis. Plus there is a nice happy ending when Joseph is reunited with his dad and family. It seemed a natural.
At first Alan Doggett wasn’t convinced. This would be the third biblical cantata the school would have done. Couldn’t we think of something more original? But he melted when one evening I played him the opening two songs. He beamed at Tim’s turn of phrase:
And when Joseph tried it on
He knew his sheepskin days were gone
His astounding clothing took the biscuit
Quite the smoothest person in the district
It’s the use of everyday colloquialisms that makes Joseph’s lyrics so great. It was 1967, we were writing a “pop cantata” and who cared whether rhymes were perfect. Confirmed bachelor Alan melted still further when I introduced him to Tim. Soon Joseph was slated for the Colet Court End of Easter Term Concert, 1968. The work that launched our careers was under starter’s orders.
