Pablo.
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« on: March 01, 2019, 06:45:50 AM » |
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Blondie Chaplin appears on the Hello/Goodbye feature of the latest Mojo (Keith Richards on the cover)
Blondie Chaplin &The Beach Boys
They called as he was taking tea with his mum. But after a scuffle with the manager at Madison Square Garden, he was gone.
HELLO LATE 1971 I was playing with a group called The Flame. In 1968, Al Jardine saw us at a club called Blaises in Kensington. The Beach Boys were looking for talent to sign to their label, Brother, so he got Carl Wilson in and one thing led to another and we signed. I didn’t think too much of it, to be honest. It was nice they took an interest in us, but we weren’t from a very Beach Boy-orientated background, we were playing a lot of R&B,Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding kind of stuff, so itwas really just meeting somebody well-known. Musically it wasn’t a connection to anything we’d been close to, back in South Africa. A few years later, The Flame disbanded and we all went back to South Africa. Iwas in Durban, sitting with my mum, having a cup of tea and listening to the radio. I got a call from Jack Rieley, who was managing The Beach Boys at the time, to hook up and come over to Radio Luxembourg, to start working on a live radio broadcast. So I travelled from Durban to Johannesburg, to England and on to Luxembourg. Radio Luxembourg was a big radio station then. The first gig I playedwith them, I played bass. We played Heroes And Villains, and I had to learn the song with Carl in a hotel room. After that they asked me to [join, in February 1972. NB: some sources date the Radio Lux show as May 10.] It was strange coming from South Africa, jumping into this West Coast kind of thing, and getting adjusted to the Californian lifestyle. You’re foreigners, you know, itwas a bit of a shock. And we came from such a different point of view, musically. I wasn’t thinking in terms of that surf stuff. But thenwhenwedid join, the musicwas more experimental, it moved it alongand took a different turn,which [ex-Flames drummer and new BeachBoy] Ricky Fataar and I liked.We worked very well togetherwith Carl, I think, andworkingwithDenniswas easier, andAl at times. And a little bitwith Brian, because he was inadifferentworldat that time, so to speak. The other guys wereOK. To get comfortable in thatmusical situation, and those personalities…like any newband or newadventure you get into, there are always adjustments.
GOODBYE DEC 19, 1973
Ricky and I were included. We had some of the songs on a couple of the albums [1972’s Carl And The Passions – “So Tough” and 1973’s Holland]. I don’t know, you always feel that you can do more. They were in such an established situation, it was a little different for us, coming in. I’m sure there was some frustration, but I can’t say it was an overall frustrating situation. We’d done a long hard tour, quite gruelling, and everybody was a little burned out. We ended up at Madison Square Garden. It was a great show, a very, very good show. That night I got into a scuffle with Mike Love’s brother Steve Love, whowas managing the band, and I was so hurt and annoyed, I just said, “f*** it.” AtMadison Square Garden, that was it forme. Whatwas the scuffle about? I don’t want to get into that, into the details. I’ve already said enough. Except to say it was completely stupid, and not on my part! I spoke to Ricky about it a little bit. We were all disappointed. But there’s no point hanging out with that kind of behaviour. I was like, “I’m not going to go through suppression in an organisation”, it felt like that. Some people were like, “What, you’re leaving?!!” But it was an easy decision for me. I just didn’t show up for the next gig. That was my way of quitting. Immediately afterwards, I started writing some songs and thought about recording and getting some stuff out. It was one of those things. You just keep moving forward. I don’t want to say that everything in the whole thing culminated in a negative, but that’s how my involvement ended. I still work with Brian and Al right now. Brian likes me to sing Sail On Sailor and I don’t mind – it’s a classic, and I do Wild Honey and some other stuff. I have fun and keep going. Holland just turned 46 years old, so I’ve been doing it for close to 50 years now! Ha! It’s a long fucking time.
As told to Ian Harrison
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