The Greatest Living Englishman has delivered a first volume
of memoirs that, in spite of the highest of expectations and overdue wait,
refuses point blank to disappoint and, if anything, exceeds its remit.
Although it might look like another celebrity book from a
well-known personality, it differs from the vast majority of the rest of those in that
the author actually has a personality and it is written by the person whose
name appears on the front. And this book covers the years to 1982, the period of his progress towards being and
then being a pop music industry ‘insider’ rather than only a broadcaster in a league
of his own in an age when his 6.06 radio phone-in on Radio 5 was taken over by
David Mellor and only then received awards. If that is the required level of
mediocrity then it’s not so surprising that Danny Baker has been removed from
jobs at regular intervals. One can’t imagine Mellor throwing away such
remarks as when Alan Dicks, a desperate appointment by Fulham FC at their
lowest ebb, was inevitably sacked, ‘and with him went the best chant in the
football league’.
However, before I roll out the requisite paragraphs that
establish that I revere the wunderkind on this side of idolatry, it is worth
noting that some of his charmed career was spent at the NME and some of it passing judgement on pop records. And I’m not
enamoured enough to be persuaded by his choice of Steely Dan as his second
favourite act after the Beatles. I’m a big fan of Al Green but there’s more to
liking him than the fact that some of my name is in his. But it is, I’m told
less often these days, a free country, and so we can let Steely Dan be.
Somewhat less convincing is his insistence on a devotion to British progressive
rock. What Baker doesn’t seem to realize is that you are supposed to actually
listen to your stated favourite music from time to time and not just pretend to
like it so that people think you are outré and of a different stamp. That claim
is surely an affectation based in nostalgia for bygone days. Whereas his choice
of Cliff’s The Next Time on Desert Island Discs as ‘a last hurrah
for a lost innocence’ in pop music was by no means a contrary statement but a
beautiful observation. But he rates Queen very lowly indeed and so you lose
some but you win enough to end up in credit. And this is no sort of dull survey
of pop history, anyway, but an avalanche of anecdote and adventure by one who’s
naturally outgoing disposition continued to get its rewards by forever landing
him on his feet, in the right place at the right time, to make the most of it.
At 266 pages, it is all too short. I was expecting at least
900 pages of such exuberance but he is a professional and enjoys himself for
money so why would he want to do more than deliver anything thicker than the
approximately just acceptable length of this discourse. But it is LOL at regular
intervals and rarely less than absorbingly entertaining in between. And
well-written enough to make a few passages demand re-reading immediately.
His time at the coolest record shop in London brought him into contact with the biggest names in pop at an early age. Marc Bolan, Elton John and all were regular visitors to the shop. Bolan gets as good a report as any, famously giving Danny the very t-shirt that he was wearing only for that story to end tragically soon after. Queen and Mick Jagger come out of it badly. After buying a record with the help of his minder, Mick,
fixed me with a huge knowing smile that seemed to dare me to find him preposterous.
As he says, it is remarkable to reflect now that it was only seven years from Woodstock to the Sex Pistols (whereas now all that happens in seven years is that it progresses from series 5 of the X Factor to series 12). From involvement with punk in 1976/77, through Blondie and Paul Weller, we climax with the trip to America to encounter Michael Jackson but all these famous names are not the stars of the piece or even really the main point of it.
The most memorable character in the story is surely Baker's father, Fred, a docker with an uncomplicated way with words, money and life itself. When eventually Danny's sister's boyfriend has occasion to come to their house rather than entertain at his place, Mr. Baker answers the door, takes one look at the lad, unsuitably attired in his view, and says,
Well, you can fuck off for a start.
And the other star turn is Blackie, the genius dog who answers the door in more hospitable style.
It is over all too soon, this unplanned stumbling forward, living on his wits, from one piece of miraculous good fortune to the next but apparently always retrieving from adversity further gratefully received good times beyond imagining. It is further evidence, if it were needed, that talent is no use to one at all unless you have the right attitude to tie it to and make of one's allotment a fertile patch of good humour with so little side to it that nobody can see it if it stands sideways on.
It is one of the best books I've ever read.
It is one of the best books I've ever read.