Harry Goodwin

I have to record the news that Harry Goodwin has died.

Harry was the resident photographer on Top of the Pops for the first decade of that programme, from 1964 to 1973. Since his job was to shoot everyone who appeared on the show, and since that meant virtually everyone in British and American pop music (with the exception of Elvis), he ended up with a portfolio that was probably unique in its breadth, covering everyone from the Beatles to Bowie, Jimi Hendrix to the Jackson Five.

I worked with Harry on My Generation, a book of his photos published to accompany an exhibition of his work at the V&A. The main problem we had was his reluctance to let me use some of his better stories about Top of the Pops - he could be infuriatingly discreet. In due course, the tales will no doubt emerge.

Technically, he was - to be honest - not a great photographer, but his irrepressible enthusiasm did ensure that most of his subjects were put at ease, and the results were often really rather charming. So in memory of the late Harry Goodwin, here's one of my favourite photos of his, Brian Jones looking anything but a tragic figure. As Harry would have said, 'It's a Rembrandt.'

Please don't call me Reg (it's not my name)

I still find it a little disconcerting when Radio 4 news programmes pretend to be interested in popular music. But there they were again today, passing on the fact that Reg Presley of the Troggs has died.

Presley was one of the very best rock stars we ever had. And the Troggs were the subject of the first piece of rock history I ever had published in a book - I wrote the entry for the Rough Guide to Rock, back in the 1990s. That was three decades on from their chart career, but they were a band that made more sense as time went on.

Primitive even by the standards of 1960s garage rock, they really came into their own when the Ramones turned up, doing much the same thing: stripping pop music down to its essential components and forging new songs from the same basic three chords. Which is why their Live at Max's Kansas City album, recorded in the late 1970s, is one of the really great live albums. Not quite at the same level as Jerry Lee Lewis Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, of course, but then nothing is. Maybe somewhere around the Modern Lovers Live.

And they were, at that stage, still capable of coming up with new classics, even if the public weren't paying much attention. The 1973 single Strange Movies, about porn films, is one of their finest records. It's trumped only by the magnificent Night of the Long Grass, from 1967, when it was assumed to have drug connotations. It didn't, of course. 'None of us were drug-mad,' observed guitarist Chris Britton. 'We had enough trouble with beer and scotch.' Instead, Night of the Long Grass was a buccolic dream about sex, just as most of Reg's songs were.

Similarly, I always thought that Love Is All Around wasn't an anthem about hippy dippy love, but rather Reg trying to get off with a woman by pleading that free love was the norm these days: 'If you really love me, come on and let it show.'

In fact, he only really had the one subject, did Reg. And on stage he was a wonderfully lascivious figure, while the Troggs were a joyously liberating force of nature.

This photograph was taken by Harry Goodwin and comes from My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock.

The best of British?

I have no faith in the United Kingdom winning the Eurovision Song Contest this evening, but at least it's an excuse to remind myself of my favourite photo of Engelbert Humperdinck, wearing a suit of two halves:

The photo is by Harry Goodwin and comes from the book My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock, published by the V&A.

The Unswung Sixties

Sometime last year I recorded an interview with Doubleband Films for a programme about the less fashionable end of the 1960s. I don't remember everything we covered, but I recall Mr Acker Bilk and Engelbert Humperinck turning up in conversation. And I remember it as being great fun.

Anyway, the documentary is titled Cilla's Unswung Sixties and it's on the UKTV Yesterday channel next Monday evening at 9 p.m.

(This photo of Cilla Black was taken by Harry Goodwin and is included in the book My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock.)

My Generation @ The Public

... and talking of Harry Goodwin, it's nice that the BBC website is publicising the My Generation exhibition of his photos, which arrived yesterday at The Public in West Bromwich. Do go, and make sure you pick up a copy of the excellent book that (I hope) is on sale.

What a very strange man he was

In memory of the late Jimmy Savile, here's a picture of him taken by Harry Goodwin and taken from My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock (V&A, 2010):

Phone-in

As I was on my way to bed last night, I turned on Radio Five Live to hear Tony Livesey hosting a phone-in about whether pop music was better in the 1970s than it is now.

I got a little thrill when I realized that this discussion was prompted by the forthcoming V&A exhibition My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock. Mr Livesey, it appeared, was querying whether the subtitle was accurate: were those really the glory years?

Since it was me who wrote that subtitle, for the book which accompanies the exhibition, I was somewhat surprised to find that it was in any way controversial. The phrase 'glory years of British rock' (apart from echoing the subtitle of our previous book Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock) seemed to me a fairly straightforward factual description: the decade we cover with Harry Goodwin's photos (1964-74) was self-evidently the era when British pop music had its greatest influence on the world.

It wasn't intended as a value judgement. Though as it happens, and just for the record, the decade was also quite clearly the time when most of the best British rock was produced. It won't ever be that good again.

New titles

April is the kindest month. Or rather, this April's pretty good, since I have two new books due to be published.

And so I've added new subsections to my website for each of them: Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s (Aurum Press), which is the sequel to Crisis? What Crisis?, and My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock (V&A Publishing), which is the sequel to Halfway to Paradise. Both should be in the shops in the next couple of weeks or so, but - for anyone who really can't wait - bits of them are now available for online viewing.

My Generation - the video

As is my wont, I've made a slideshow of images from my forthcoming book, My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock, which is scheduled for publication in April 2010. And here it is:



All photographs copyright Harry Goodwin.

A Prophet in His Own Land

I've had the pleasure over the last year of working on a project with Harry Goodwin, the stills photographer on Top of the Pops for the first decade of that programme's existence.

Harry's 85 years old now, and it seems as though his time is finally come round with some serious recognition of his work. This is footage of a civic reception given in his honour by the mayor of his hometown, Manchester, where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award, witnessed by an impressive guest-list that included - as you can see - Alex Ferguson and the legendary Ken Dodd:



Harry's work on Top of the Pops was extraordinary. He photographed every artist who appeared on the show between 1964 and 1973, which means that - with the exception of Elvis - he has shots of every major rock, pop and soul act during the greatest years of the music. I don't know of any other photographer whose portfolio even approaches the same breadth and scale.

In the spring, some of this work will be on show in an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, before going on tour in Britain and abroad. And to accompany the exhibition - here's that project I mentioned - there will be a book:


Time to salute the career of Harry Goodwin? Oh yes.

The Summer of 2009

It’s been an awful long time since I posted anything here (though strangely the world appears to have continued turning in my absence).

The reason for the prolonged absence is that I’ve been extraordinarily busy writing a couple of books, and I find it increasingly hard to write in more than one medium at a time. I get so involved in the project I’m on – not to mention the day-job of writing games – that everything else takes back-seat. Consequently I’ve been neglecting everything else, from emails to blogs.

The first book that will emerge from this period of work is a sequel to Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock, which came out last year telling the story of rock and roll in Britain from 1954-64. The new book, due out from V&A Publishing next Spring, is My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock, covering 1964-74. It’s centred on the photography of Harry Goodwin, the resident stills photographer on Top of the Pops for its first decade, including this shot of David Bowie and Mick Ronson miming to Starman in 1972:

Put together by the usual team – design by Isobel Gillan, editing by Clare Collinson, all under the direction of Mark Eastment – this is going to be a fine-looking book, I think. And it’ll be accompanied by an exhibition at the V&A, which will then tour around the country.

Talking of exhibitions, the photos of the great Harry Hammond are currently on show as part of the British Music Experience at the O2 Centre in London. I haven’t been to see it yet, but no doubt it’s very wonderful indeed. That exhibition will also be touring the country shortly – dates to be confirmed, but Cardiff next, I believe.

Around the same time as My Generation comes out, there will appear (I hope) my sequel to Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s. Predictably, then, it’ll be about Britain during the Thatcher years. I’ve only just submitted the first draft of the text to my editor, Graham Coster at Aurum, so there will be more work to be done before it’s all wrapped up, but it’s been a major undertaking by my standards, the longest book I’ve ever written.

And finally, to wrap up my current book production, I’m signed up to do a book with Brewer’s. But there are upheavals at the parent company that owns this venerable imprint, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.