As a mature-aged person, I have spent all of my life in and around music and activism. From the time that I was taken by my mother to concerts by Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Lonnie Donegan and the likes, to my early teens, when I stepped out to save the foxes from the savage sport in the English countryside.
I have met and befriended many people in the music world, some very famous (the music scene being a huge part of my life, as I didn’t become a father). I’ve been active in putting on events and festivals. I’ve been a big lover of books and reading. Over the years, I have read many autobiographies and biographies of artists and performers ranging from blues, jazz, folk, and rock and I must say I’ve never been too impressed by their attitude and behaviour.
Although I still love their music from the ’60s particularly, The Stones are a shining example of the ‘bad’. A fine example of the ‘good’ is Peter Gabriel, who went on to use his wealth and fame for the betterment of others in the world, as an active member of Amnesty International, as an outspoken voice against Tony Blair’s illegal war on Iraq. He was a founding member of the WOMAD festivals that take place around the world, where he nearly went broke because of bad weather and circumstances surrounding the first event in England, until Genesis, his previous band, reformed to pull him out of the financial hole.
I am proud to have known Peter in the first half of the ’70s, as I knew all the other guys in the band. They were all lovely, intelligent, considerate young people. There was no evidence of drunkenness, heavy drugs, or womanising, and I spent a lot of time with them.
