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Hero's of My Career Len Tucker Len Tucker how did I get involved with him ? - Anyone at Pye records in the 1970's would have known him, but anyone outside the music business would only know him from what the newspapers said, sadly what they said was only a part of the story. Yet he bought, to millions of people, the music they loved. He had been an entertainer himself. He did a double act with Penelope Keith, the English actress who is remembered for her classic role in the BBC TV series 'The Good Life'. One companion of his told me that Len had more talent in his little finger than all of the acts he was involved with put together. As I was one of his boys it was a short phrase that also put me in my place. 'Opportunity Knocks' was an enormously successful programme in the 70's it consistently played to bigger television audiences than all the other programmes. Aspiring entertainers would get their day on TV and the public would vote as to which they liked that week and which they like most over the series. My name was sent in by a young girl who liked my singing and I was invited for an audition. It was in a Church Hall in, I think Malden. I had seen Arthur English, a great actor comedian, speaking about an early audition which, he had attended. He said that none of the acts were able to finish their piece because the director would shout 'Next' almost before they had started. Arthur decided to do his audition piece very quickly to get the whole thing out before the Director shouted 'Next". This strategy was impressive enough to get Arthur the job. So faced with the chance to appear on 'Opportunity Knocks' I decided upon the same idea and I wrote a song called the 'Marvellous Restaurant' it told the story of a terrible restaurant and lasted 30 seconds. I then sang a song that sounded like a gentle love song but the twist was that it was actually about the sea and you only found this out in the last word of the song 'The Old Grey Coat'. Anyway the plan paid off and Doris Barry and Len Marten were thrilled, so I passed and they passed me on to Norman Newell, who you can read about on another page of Hero's of my career. Later the 'Opportunity Knocks' folks invited me to another audition, this time in Twickenham, at the Military Band School. I had written 'Your New Song' for this occasion and then Doris asked me to sing the 'Marvellous Restaurant' and 'The Old Gray Coat'. When I had finished she turned her head away from me and looked at a man who looked a bit like my Grandfather had looked. He was not so tall had had a 'wide parting' in his hair and wore glasses. He looked like many other people you would find walking down many different streets in London. He had a strong East End of London sound in his voice. She said to him "Well do you want to see him or not Len ?" Len Tucker literally jumped out of his seat and said "Don't be silly Doris, of course I do !" He ran across the room and grabbed my arm, as if some other person was about to grab me too and he wanted to be first. He pulled me out of the room and we stood in the entrance hall and he said "Ok son, we are going to make a record and you are going to be a star." - well this was the kind of thing I had been hoping to hear. So I said thanks and got back on the train to Berwick-Upon-Tweed to complete my Summer Season. I heard nothing from Len until I returned late in September. The day I got back there was a phone call from him. He said "How long will it take you to get into London ?" I said a couple of hours he said "Dress up smart and be here in an hour, I have some people who will put up the money for your record." I put on my best suit and hurried off. The financiers didn't think I looked like a 'Pop Star' because I had my Sunday Best on, however, Len smoothed talked them into it and a few days later Contracts were signed. A few days after that I had a message from Len asking me to call him. I was in a public phone box and he played a song over the telephone to me, I recorded on a Phillips cassette recorder through the telephone. He said "Learn the song it will be the A side of your record." This was where the problems began for me, it was not my song, and although I sang songs by many people and was happy to do so the songs I wrote were the songs from inside me and the songs which I really believed. There is an important thing here, also it was the songs I had written that had bought me to this position, and all of a sudden I was singing songs of other people on my record. It got worse, we selected 'Only You' for the 'B' side. 'Only You' was a song, that in hindsight, I really did not understand. The David McWilliams song 'Didn't it Rain' was a fine song but I was around 19 years of age and one of the lines in the song said "I've been moving like a train since I was 20, living like a Gypsy on the road," It was hard for me to imagine this and to be convinced by it myself. Besides at this point in my life I thought it was all about getting the words and the tune right and understood nothing about emotion and so it was simply chance that any emotion formed a part of this record. Len and I went to see Kenny Woodman, he was an arranger of music and worked with many famous people at that time. He made the arrangements for the music and a short while later we met with 21 of London's finest session musicians, the backing vocal group 'The Lady Birds' and they got on with it. I stood in the control room and looked through the glass into the studio, Kenny raised his baton and the music came through the speakers. It was like a stream of plasma and it all but knocked me to the floor. It a short space of time the backing track was made and then it was my turn to try and live up to what these great people had created. I think I was out of my depth, I was too young and inexperienced to know what was really going on but I went along as well as I knew how and I gave what I had, and after all they would not have done all this if they had not thought it worth while. Unfortunately things were not going so well for Len he had troubles with another act which he had made very successful, and he had troubles with some of the folks who were running 'Opportunity Knocks'. It is a hard business and I am not sure that, at least in those days, it was/is possible to have a hit record without someone like Len. Len was the doer, the fixer, the man who knew who you had to know, and how to help them decide to put your record on the top of the pile. Without being on top there is no possibility of being heard on the radio and without big radio and television exposure, there is little chance of selling enough copies in the shops to make a hit. People like the familiar and Ken knew how to put a record in the places which would make it familiar. I know that Len continued on and worked with many famous pop stars. for me it was a baptism of fire and it put me at the white hot centre of the music business, but the problems which surrounded the whole thing stopped my career dead. Some years later I went to Thames Television and auditioned for a job as a compare the lady who was doing the auditioning did not warm to me in the way Doris and Len had and during the interview she carefully dropped my file on the floor it contained much information which I instantly recognised, anyway it matters not all these years later I have a story to tell to you. The feelings I have, now, for Len are thanks for showing me what it was like and sorry we could not have made it work better. Len is one of those guys you cannot help liking I don't blaim him that things didn't turn out the way we both wanted, I just wish that I had been then what I am today, when surely I could have used the firer cracker who is Len Tucker and he could have used me to create a huge success story. If you are an aspiring music maker who would like to be a star just pray that you find yourself a man as good as Len because you won't loose - one way you will become a household name the other you will grow up very quickly, and that won't hurt you. At the end of this I was wondering 'Now What ?' so I took what I had and made a business that took me to twenty two countries and fed my family and I for 3 decades. Now at the age of 50 years I use the lessons I learned then every single day. As I write this I have recently spoken with Len and he suggested I sing another of David McWilliams songs on my next CD helping myself and David's family now there is an idea. I could put so much more here but I think what I have said is enough and I hope that it counters some of the unkind things which I know Len had to endure. Thanks Len you helped make a man out of me what I learned from my time with you has been valuable each day since.
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