HE’S OUT OF MY LIFE

Well dear reader, I had such a lovely-but poignant-surprise last night.

Years and years ago (and I mean YEARS!! Back in the 70’s and 80’s) I got to know a local legend of a drummer called Derek Morgan. I first met him in the musical instrument shop where he worked-John Ham’s…where I bought most of my gear from-there and Picton Music.

He played drums at some clubs in South Wales and I worked with him a few times.

It was always brilliant to walk into a club and see someone of the calibre of Derek playing there, because you KNEW you’d be in safe hands…and in my case, as a pianist, I’d also know that he would only work with a GOOD organist, so it would be a chance for me to get away from the keyboard and sing with the organist playing-a very rare opportunity for me!

Anyway, just before Christmas, I was contacted by Derek’s son Paul who had been going through his Dad’s belongings after he passed away and he found numerous cassette recordings of gigs his Dad played at-and in amongst them was one where we played together!

It was recorded at a club in Trebanos, South Wales sometime in 1981 we think-going by the release-date of the songs I sang that night….which were:

SET 1:

  1.                 OPERATOR

  2.                 DO THAT TO ME ONE MORE TIME

  3.                 ABBA MEDLEY: GIMME, GIMME, GIMME/MAMMA MIA

  4.                 I’D RATHER LEAVE WHILE I’M IN LOVE

  5.                 HE’S OUT OF MY LIFE

  6.                 DON’T STOP/I WILL SURVIVE

 

SET 2:

  7.                 COTTONFIELDS

  8.                 9-5 (MORNING TRAIN-SHEENA EASTON)

  9.                 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN

10.                   SUPERTROUPER

11.                   PEARL’S A SINGER

12.                   STOP THE CAVALRY/WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS/MICHAEL ROW YOUR     

                BOAT ASHORE/SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT/AMEN/SHE’LL BE COMING

               ‘ROUND THE MOUNTAIN

It’s amazing that I still sing all of those songs….and they are still requested too-and not just by people my age, but by younger people, which is lovely.

What ‘got’ me is the audience respect. There is no riotous shouting or screaming during a song…they didn’t clap just because there was a key-change….they listened. Oh they sang along to the more upbeat songs, but the ballads…particularly this one…well you could hear a pin drop. And this is just a bog-standard workingmen’s club with probably 500-600 people in the audience.

Brilliant people.

They particularly responded to the Michael Jackson song ‘She’s Out Of My Life’ (I changed it to ‘he’), for which I gave Derek a rest and it was just me and my beloved Fender Rhodes Suitcase 88 piano.

I know all of this, because last night, Paul contacted me again to say that he’d converted the recording to Mp3 and was sending it to me.

I wasn’t expecting much and thought the quality would be poor-but bearing in mind, this was just an old cassette recorder…it’s really rather good!

Listening to it last night made me cry.

It reminded me of such a happy, hopeful, exciting time.

I was 23 and had already been performing for 8 years…can’t believe it, but this year marks my 45^th year in showbiz…..my first gig was in 1973.
I sound so young.

The following year I met my husband-to-be and father to my 2 boys….you know the rest, dear reader.

Anyway, I wrote about all of the above on Facebook last night and it roused great interest and overnight I had a dozen messages asking me to put one of the tracks on.

Well, bowing to pressure from a few peeps, I put together a little clip from the recording sent to me by Paul Morgan yesterday….I isolated the one track and I’ve used photographs taken around the same time as well to illustrate it.

How ironic, dear reader, that it’s that song…the words now are so moving and so poignant…and so true…but for all the wrong reasons.

Thank you SO much Paul-this is a lovely memory and I will treasure it.

Hope you all enjoy listening to it.

HE’S OUT OF MY LIFE-LYN LAWRENCE