Robert
Neate was born in Edmonton, north London, in 1940, at the height of
London's blitz. In his early years, young Robert was a persistent
banger of knives and forks on tables. His dad got fed up with the
damage and noise Robert was making, so decided to create a drum kit
out of materials to hand, such as biscuit tins. This home-made kit
was Bobby's first.
Bobby
honed his skills and showed a natural flair and ability. He had no
formal musical training, didn't take one drumming lesson and could
not read a note of music. Within six months of his first kit, his
parents treated him to a real kit from a real store. Being
surrounded by drums was like being in paradise for Bobby. He chose a
kit and focused totally on drumming, practicing six or eight hours a
day to the exclusion of everything else, to the point where he would
slow records down so that he could hear the finer details of
technique from his heroes, like Ted Heath's drummer Ronnie
Verrall.
Bobby
had a strong inclination towards jazz and a total lack of interest
in doing a 'proper job'. He left school at fifteen and he wanted
nothing else but to be a musician. Having toyed with skiffle, he got
a chance as a 'real drummer' at a north London coffee bar called The
Witch's Cauldron once a week. He played his beloved jazz, now as
Bobby Graham, but in 1960, an opportunity came to join a rock
and roll band. An old school friend, Billy Gray, needed a drummer
for a seasonal stint at Butlins up in Yorkshire. Despite his strong
leanings towards jazz, the chance of earning good regular money
playing in a band as well as the availability of women and booze
proved irresistible to Bobby and he became a rock and roller.
Bobby Graham (left) with The Stormers
Playing
covers of Cliff and The Shadows, Billy Gray and The Stormers did
their one season at Butlins, and there attracted interest from (now
legendary) producer Joe Meek. They disbanded when Billy got married,
so re-formed and re-named with a new frontman as Mike Berry and The
Outlaws, with Bobby Graham on drums. The Outlaws backed Mike Berry
as well as John Leyton, both of whom were big names in the early
sixties under Joe Meek's unpredictable and eccentric, albeit highly
original and successful, patronage.
Bobby
showed a creativity, consistency and ability that was already well
respected amongst his peers. He was a technically brilliant drummer
and very distinctive. Light years ahead of many of his
contemporaries, he was also very reliable and not prone to error.
This was amazing given his lack of formal training and was all down
to his many youthful years of hard work practicing while his friends
were out playing football or chasing girls. This reliability would
soon hold him in good stead.
Joe Meek at the controls of the gadgets he
loved
Bobby
worked with Meek and found him to be extremely difficult. For
example, he would throw tantrums for minor and petty infringements
and worse, would not credit Bobby when Bobby had been instrumental
in the production of a song. They had lots of rows and Bobby
describes Joe as "A sad little man. A very lonely person. He
couldn't relate to people" In the end, Bobby managed to find a
way out by being offered the drumming seat in Joe Brown's band, The
Bruvvers. Whilst Joe was also a hard task master, he was also very
successful at the time, and by joining the band Bobby had been
thrown into a world of police escorts, screaming fans, TV and radio
slots and hectic schedules. Joe Brown was very professional and
strict about his band members not moonlighting with other bands. At
one performance where Bobby was filling-in as drummer with The
Outlaws, Joe Brown was in the front row and went ballistic when he
saw his drummer on stage.
A very young Joe Brown
'John,
Paul, George and Bobby.'
Bobby
tells the story of how, while with Joe Brown and The Bruvvers, and
with a number one record in 'A Picture of You', he turned-down The
Beatles. "We were on tour in June 1962 and played at
(Liverpool's) Cavern and Litherland Town Hall. After the show we
went to a club called the Blue Angel with Brian Epstein. Brian
offered me the job with the Beatles. They wanted to get rid of
Pete Best as they were having problems with Pete's mother.
Brian didn't like her, so he decided to get rid of Pete, and asked me if I
was interested in joining the band. I said 'why would I want to join a
band in Liverpool that nobody's ever heard of?"
Brian Epstein
Soon
after this, Joe and Bobby agreed to part company. Bobby now sees
this as being much his fault as he was still very rebellious and
hot-headed at that time. He was soon to become much more
disciplined. Both Marty Wilde, a big star at the time, and producer Tony Hatch were impressed with
Bobby, and Bobby quickly found a spot in Marty Wilde's Wildcats:
"Marty knew my reputation as a drummer and invited me to
join". At around the same time, Hatch recalled how good
Bobby was at the recording session of 'A Picture of You', and asked
Bobby to do more session drumming for him with other acts.
Petula Clark and Tony Hatch
John Barry
The
session musicians were an 'elite' group of musicians, sometimes
jokingly called 'The Musical Stuntmen', who were used by record
producers on their varied recordings. The idea was that studio time
was expensive, very expensive, and often a fresh-faced band coming
into a recording studio would be so overwhelmed by the experience
and by the technology and make lots of mistakes. Not so with
musicians like Bobby. He could be relied upon to do his part in one
take. Also at about this time, John Barry, now legendary for his
film and TV musical scores, asked Bobby to drum for him in the John
Barry Seven. Bobby was hugely in demand and at the top of his craft.
John Barry with Bobby in 1963
By
1963, Bobby was established as the leading session drummer. Often he
would work at three separate studio sessions in a single day, transporting
his entire kit around the streets of London's west end and lugging
it up and down stairs, then setting up the kit before the session
commenced. "One of the sessions I did with a fairly big
orchestra was for Petula Clark. I remember walking in to the studio
and thinking - 'oh my God there are all these guys I've looked at
for years'. People from the Heath Orchestra, big names. I was
terrified. I was half their age. I couldn't read music, and in those days,
arrangers would write all the drum parts. I remember doing a session
with Tony Hatch. Tony hadn't realised I wasn't a reader. I'm
playing away, and he said 'I've been sitting up all night writing
those bloody drum parts and you're not playing them'. I was too
afraid to say in front of everyone 'I can't play them because I
can't read them', so I said 'I thought I'd improvise'. He was
very gracious and said 'It's working; you play what you want."
And Bobby did.
The
following are just a fraction of the numerous sixties hits on which
Bobby drummed as session man:
Animals Baby Let Me
Take You Home
Animals We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
The Bachelors I Believe
The Bachelors Ramona
The Bachelors I Wouldn't Trade You For The World
Dave Berry The Crying Game
Dave Berry Little Things
Petula Clark Downtown
Petula Clark I Know A Place
David And Jonathan Michelle
David And Jonathan Lovers Of The World Unite
Marianne Faithfull Come And Stay With Me
The Fortunes You've Got Your Troubles
The Fortunes Here It Comes Again
Hedgehoppers Anonymous It's Good News Week
Herman's Hermits Can't You Hear My Heartbeat
Benny Hill Harvest Of Love
Cilla Black You're My World
Engelbert Humperdinck Release Me
Tom Jones It's Not Unusual
Eden Kane Boys Cry
The Kinks You Really Got Me
The Kinks All Day And All Of The Night
The Kinks Tired Of Waiting For You
The Nashville Teens Tobacco Road
Gene Pitney That Girl Belongs To Yesterday
Brian Poole/Tremeloes Do You Love Me?
Pretty Things Rosalyn
Pretty Things Don't Bring Me Down
P.J. Proby Hold Me
Dusty Springfield I Only Want To Be With You
Dusty Springfield Stay Awhile
Dusty Springfield I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
Dusty Springfield In The Middle Of Nowhere
Dusty Springfield You Don't Have To say You Love Me
Crispian St. Peters You Were On My Mind
Crispian St. Peters Pied Piper
Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde Yesterday's Gone
Them Baby Please Don't Go
Them Here Comes The Night
The Walker Brothers Make It Easy On Yourself
The Walker Brothers The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
Whilst
relatively highly paid at the time, Bobby and the other session men
were the unsung heroes of their day. They would rarely, if ever, get
a credit for their work and often the studios were doing so many
sessions that no permanent records of recordings were kept. And when
a song became a huge international hit, the session man would not
reap the rewards - he had received his few pounds of payment on the
day of the session.
Bobby
has always insisted that it was him on a number of recordings made
by The Dave Clark Five, and several technicians and musicians who
were present at these sessions have backed-up Bobby's claim,
although this is still often disputed by a number of Dave Clark fans
and people who weren't there or who weren't involved, or whose
memories seem to have faded. There's no
reason to doubt the suggestion, however, given Bobby's pedigree and
track record above and the tendency for producers in those days to
use session men rather than the actual drummer of the band.
Controversially, because Bobby was used on these Dave Clark
Five sessions, it was also, by implication, him who was responsible
for the invention of the distinctive beat of the band which led to
it being so successful and this has also been strongly
contested.
What
cannot be contested is the fact that Bobby Graham is Britain's most
prolific session drummer and one of the most talented and individual
drummers we have ever produced. His catalogue of recordings stands testament
to that.
A
book, ' The Session Man', is available about Bobby's life and times
and career. There's also a CD of the same title with tracks
featuring Bobby's drumming. These are available here: www.thesessionman.co.uk
For
further information and further reading:
www.bobbygraham.co.uk
www.tonyhatch.com
www.joebrown.co.uk
www.johnbarry.org.uk
www.brianepstein.com
Bobby Graham - Britain's top session drummer and the
man who turned down The Beatles.
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