his arm he carried an old-fashioned glass medicine bottle full of a lurid green liquid. I told him not to drink too much of it: whatever was inside looked as though it might kill him. I could not have been more wrong about that – he had actually been prescribed it to treat a cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Brian passed away later that same year. I was deeply shocked. He was so young, just 21, and I was only 19. Brian had always encouraged me to be a professional musician. He championed my ability and said that I shouldn’t ever give up. I still think about Brian Davies a lot.
At every milestone I have reached, a little piece of Brian has been there with me. Whether it was stepping off the plane for the first time in Japan, getting the phone call to say ‘Here I Go Again’ had reached US No. 1, or receiving my honorary degree from the University of Buckingham, I’ve always thought of him.
1.
On 9 October 1980, the Whitesnake tour bus driver drove over the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan. My mind was racing and I was full of excitement although I tried to appear cool. At last I was in New York City.
David Coverdale walked up the bus, smiling, and shook my hand. He knew what it meant to me. He had been the one to shake my hand the first time I landed in the USA, in San Francisco. He had felt the same the first time he came here, with Deep Purple. I stared at the skyscrapers. It seemed as though there were so many. I couldn’t wait to see Times Square, the Brill Building, Radio City, and Carnegie Hall.
My thoughts drifted to the shows I had done at school concerts, carnivals, wedding receptions, pubs and birthday parties, and in village halls. I felt a huge sense of nostalgia. I looked around the bus, taking in the musicians I was playing with: Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Neil Murray, Micky Moody, and David Coverdale, all now in the same band as me.
Madison Square Garden – here I come.
This had been a huge goal for me since my teenage years, when I listened to live boxing on my portable radio from MSG. I explored the venue by myself when we arrived. I felt like a kid. I wanted to find those boxing dressing rooms and be able to stand in the very spots Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali and the Raging Bull himself, Jake La Motta, prepared for the biggest fights of their lives. Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to JFK here, and the likes of the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and Alice Cooper had performed there.
Whitesnake would open for Jethro Tull that night in front of some 15,000 people as part of our US tour. I had been frustrated many times in previous years by tours in the US being cancelled for various reasons but now all of that was unimportant. It had taken less than eight years to go from my local town hall to Madison Square Garden. No time at all really.
We stayed at the famous Navarro Hotel, a magnificent gothic building overlooking Central Park. Its residents included film stars, poets, musicians, singers and artists and Jacqueline Susann wrote Valley of the Dolls there in the 1940s. Musical guests included Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and Jim Morrison. I shared an elevator with actor James Caan when I arrived. Sonny Corleone and me in a lift! I tried to be the cool Englishman as Mr Caan smiled, ‘Nice socks.’ I had completely forgotten that I was holding a spare pair lent by Mick Moody. ‘Take care with those socks,’ said James Caan as he got out.
Whitesnake had no creative management whatsoever but had managed to get to America. That was testament to how together we were at the time. We were ready and it was our time to go global. I was back on the bus and heading for Madison Square Garden in no time. The gig was over far too fast. Jethro Tull’s audience liked us a lot, although we were practically unknown in America. Jon Lord and Ian Paice received the biggest recognition as Deep Purple still meant something to the fans.
Time to break America – that was the plan. But plans don’t always work out, do they? Let’s go back to the start.
2.
I was born on 7 May 1951 in Westfields estate in Buckingham, an extremely quiet town of between 2,000–3,000 souls. My mum and dad were working-class parents and, boy, did they work hard. When I was four we moved to a brand-new council house in Overn Avenue. This was a triumph – my parents had earned their new house, and they loved it. It was my castle.
Buckingham had old-fashioned shops, rather than supermarkets – butchers, greengrocers, a wool shop, a saddler, two gentlemen’s outfitters and a very good toyshop. Walter Tyrell, the fruit-and-vegetable man, delivered to our estate twice a week, his overloaded cart drawn by one of his small ponies. Brook’s Dairies delivered milk and orange juice daily, also by horsepower.
My Victorian-built primary school was in Well Street. I got on well with the teachers, except deputy head W. T. Benson. I don’t know why he took such a dislike to me. When I was seven he ridiculed me in front of the class for a spelling mistake. All he did was make me realise that I rather enjoyed being the centre of attention – a sign of things to come!
I failed my eleven-plus and went to the secondary modern. I never did go to university, but in 2015 the University of Buckingham honoured me with a master’s degree for services to music and Buckingham! I accepted with a great deal of pride. My dad was there with my wife, Fran, and daughters Charlotte and Olivia. I wish that my mum could have seen it, but she passed away the previous year. I did find it ironic to be mingling with brilliant academics who had years of hard study under their belts when I had received only a very average education myself. Some of my teachers had also taught my mother some thirty years earlier. Imagine that! How could they possibly relate to my generation?
I was twelve when President Kennedy was shot in November 1963. I remember being scared by my mum’s reaction. ‘There will definitely be a war if the Russians did it.’ I went to the pictures that night, but I couldn’t take my mind off JFK and impending doom. I had butterflies in my stomach the whole time. Young people in that cold war period lived in constant fear of the Russians and another world war. But the USSR was innocent, this time, and therefore not going to bomb us off the planet.
Beatles records had started hitting the charts that year – they cheered America up, and they cheered the world up. In my head, it was the Beatles who beat the Russians – I was convinced of that fact. They also ended the reign of the artists I had grown up with in my household – middle-of-the-road stars like Joe Loss, Jess Conrad, David Whitfield, Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson and Perry Como. Meanwhile, Lonnie Donegan, Joe Brown, Cliff Richard and the Shadows survived and managed to stay with the new army. I had become a fan of a few of them: Joe Brown, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde. They seemed splendid. Their shiny guitars fascinated me. I watched them on Ready Steady Go!, Juke Box Jury, and Thank Your Lucky Stars.
My cousin Sylvia Chalmers was a huge fan of Elvis, but she was older than me. Merseybeat was the happening thing and all I could think about was guitars. But now came the hard bit for an almost-teen. Just how do I learn to play the guitar?
There were no musicians in either side of my family. The first person I ever saw playing the guitar in the flesh was Roger Williamson from Northampton. He played ‘Apache’ by the Shadows at my cousin Jean’s wedding reception in 1961 and I think he had a gleaming red Fender Stratocaster. I didn’t really know how to judge but I thought he played really well. He played ‘Shakin’ All Over’ by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, a seminal song with the guitar riff of the period. Guitarists today still rate it. London session guitarist Joe Moretti plays those brilliant parts on a white Fender Telecaster.
I was fortunate at a ridiculously young
