Maggie Bell 

It was a pleasure to chat in detail with Scottish vocal stylist Maggie Bell at an eaterie in downtown Fulham…she is lively, friendly and full of great stories. Having shared the stage a few times with Maggie and guitar ace Dave Kelly, I can vouch for her musical fluency and sense of fun..and man, that voice…

JLTT: I remember seeing you and the late Les (Harvey) with Stone The Crows at the Lyceum in London..three act bill, revolving stage

MB : Och yes! I remember the revolving stage well..we had one also at the Locarno, in Glasgow in Sauchiehall Street. And I remember that gig you mention, I was waiting for a taxi with Les outside the Lyceum and somebody stole bag with all my stuff in it, a shopping bag…anyway, we had Colin Allen on drums, John McGuinness and Jimmy Dewar

Was John any relation to Tom?

No, I met Tom though, when I did the Manfreds Tour

Absolute legend to me, Jimmy Dewar…

(Warmly) Yes! just fabulous, unsung hero

Robin (Trower) credits all their US success to Dewar’s singing

It was me that told Jimmy to strike out, I knew he could hold a band together, no doubt about it

His voice and yours..incredible

(Laughs) A Glasgow thing, Pete – survival of the fittest!

He was in Lulu & the Luvvers

That’s right – with Alec Bell. Lulu used to come down to watch Alex Harvey..Les’ brother

I saw Alex do a solo gig in a Soho basement, him and a Telecaster..’Don’t Put Lights on The Xmas Tree, Warden – They’re Burning Big Louis Tonight ‘

I knew him all my life, from when I was fifteen. He had a great band back in the day, The Alex Harvey Band, a soul band doing all covers, Isley Bros, Josh White numbers, all like that. A group to be reckoned with, George McGovern on drums. After I’d finished working evenings at the Locarno I would go down to the Cave to see them play.

Were you singing at the Locarno?

Oh yes – and Dave Mattacks was the drummer

Fairport! I last ran into Dave on tour with Mary Chapin Carpenter

That’s how we all met , cos of the Locarno gig. Alex and the band were going to Hamburg to play The Top Ten Club and I said I’d love to come along. My parents wouldn’t allow me, too young. And Alex said, well my young brother’s got a band..that’s how it all started, Stone the Crows. It was called The Kinning Park Ramblers! That became STC

It was a whole group of stars coming together, really

Yes – Frankie Miller was involved, Jeff Allen and he went on to play drums with..er

East of Eden

Yes! East of Eden. All kids coming out of Glasgow

Your contemporaries then would have been Grace with the Airplane, Janis…

I met Grace Slick when she came to see us, at the Fillmore West..she was very straight..she had straightened herself out a bit by then. Absolutely charming, she was a fan of mine, knew the records, we sat and talked for hours. Good woman, good egg.

So when you do a song by someone else, what are you aiming at, Maggie?

To try to make it my own. Put my own interpretation on it. I don’t play an instrument, so I have to do that with my voice

One of the cuts on these STC albums is Hollis Brown, the Dylan song

I still do that song, do it with Dave Kelly. Always loved Dylan. First album I ever bought! I was working as a window dresser in the day and someone tried to rob me and I was taking eighty quid somewhere when I was working at a bank..a lot of money in those days…this chap with a car engine running outside the bank, tried to hold me up for the money. There was blood everywhere, including HIS blood, kicking me down. I was thinking if he gets away with this, they’ll think I’m in cahoots with him. So I started beating hell out of him. He cleared off.The boss gave me an afternoon off work and 29 pounds 19 shillings! I put a deposit on a radiogram and with the money left I got Bob Dylan’s Freewheeling LP.

Which female singers influenced you? I always wondered whether you liked Nina Simone

Oh yes! I met Nina…we did the Montreux Festival

For Claude Nobs?

Claude, God love him..and she was standing at the front of the stage. I think she’d not long had a brain operation, then. Just standing looking up at me. When I came off, she came by. Didn’t say a word. Just looked at me, one of those long stares, y’know. I said can I get you a drink? are you OK? She said where did you learn to sing like a black woman? That was her opening line. I said you don’t learn to sing the way I do, I was a Salvation Army girl, started singing there. Oh and another person did that to me, a few years later. A black man who sings Country & Western

Charley Pride?

Yep – he asked what is a Scottish woman doing singing the blues like that? I said excuse me, Mr Pride – how is it YOU are singing Country & Western? We both started laughing ten. He was charming to me. Told me I had a big future but should watch out for the sharks!

Nina had an awful lot of bad experiences, moved to Paris eventually. Has the music business overall been kind to Maggie Bell?

Yep. Do you know why? I had a manager called Peter Grant who told everyone to eff off! If you don’t like it, eff off ! The people that were most important to him were the artists he was looking after, he was the first man I ever heard who’d deal with promoters who were saying 80/20 in their own favour, he was the man who changed all that around.

On the Radio Sessions record here, Raining in Your Heart has two versions, Dewar singing then you come in. Kind of Delaney & Bonnie territory, the only other act with that two-voice power was my friend Robert with Elkie..

Vinegar Joe – that’s right ! Funnily enough we never met them, never played on the same bill anywhere. And I would have liked to meet them, for sure. I have a lot of respect for Elkie, she’s still doing it. She’s become a big star, can sell out places.

Touch of Your Loving Hand – gospel feel

Well we hadn’t been writing songs before, before all this. We were signed to Polydor in Germany, they backed us, said go to a rehearsal room and get writing. That then was one of the first songs we ever wrote. The thing with Jimmy is, the voices blend beautifully…it’s very hard to get people to harmonise, it’s an old fashioned thing, do you understand? (do I ?! – PS) .It’s like an extra instrument.

Freedom Road – it’s almost like a prog rock suite, then in comes this roaring vocal, about five minutes in. Colosseum stuff but you also had the soul/rock thing!

(Sighs) I know, I could cry thinking about it, sometimes. It just wasn’t meant to be. One of those things.

Could I ask you about the song Friends? I love it

Well that was written by Ronnie Leahy. His wife came down from Scotland with us, she went and married Richard Branson, she’s now Lady Branson.

Lovely Hammond on this and a kind of West Coast vibe about the song. You sing that as though you are conversing with us

Thank you. I take that as a compliment!

It is – you’re not shouting at us. I like that style. Mad Dog is good, the attack..

(Sighs) Delaney And Bonnie..it was very much that sort of approach, to put the song over with that edge, I suppose

Things Are Getting Better – It’s like that’s from a musical

(Sings the melody) Yeah but I had been doing things like Vikki Carr’s Where Are You Now My Love, Nancy Wilson, Martha & The Vandellas, The Shirelles! Sarah Vaughan, I’ve done it all. All that trains you to take on a song in the style you might be after. You’re prepared. You collect all that stuff, you keep all that stuff. Then you can just bring it in to different songs.

The second release for STC I have here the broadcast tracks, it’s a somewhat heavier sound. It’s maybe closer to Quicksilver or Jefferson Airplane in its impact. You’re singing up a storm and there’s a version of Going Down on here as well.

A fabulous song, especially to perform live. I do another song made famous by Freddie King with the Hamburg Blues Band..(Ponders) Living In The Palace Of The King. Because so many bands now do Going Down and it’s nice to step sideways

I always liked Woman Across The River..

Really?! That’s a good song…

Air Wizard is great, it has this very deliberate tempo like Free. Good Time Girl has fine pub piano

Yes! That got into The Charts. We did Top Of The Pops with that.

Where did you hear Penicillin Blues?

Alex Harvey. He did that on a Polydor record fifty years ago.

The radio sessions, they’ve stood up well, I think.

We liked John Peel a lot, we looked up to him as someone who knew quality and was open-minded. He was like a god, not just one of those trendy pop chart guys, y’know ? And I think we really wanted to do well and sound our best for him. We didn’t want to let him down at all. He had us on his radio show quite a lot of times.

And he was a good guy, giving a lot bands chances that others would not.

He introduced me to The Misunderstood which led on to the UK-based Juicy Lucy, with Ray Owen singing and then Paul Williams

Och great singer – Pete, who was the guy singing with Spooky Tooth?

Mike Harrison.

I met him. Awesome vocalist

He came out of the audience once to say Hello when I had been playing harp..was I honoured?! What were the most memorable STC shows, for you?

Now people do talk to me about this quite a lot, but I haven’t spoken about it to a music journal. We opened up for Led Zeppelin and we did very very well. Folk remind me we got an encore..(Laughs) opening up for Zeppelin ! In America we were on with Joe Cocker and Mad Dogs & Englishmen.

Glenn Ross Campbell, Chris Stainton..

Oh yes – great guys and players.

Did you meet Nicky Hopkins? I loved him with Jeff Beck and onwards

Oh I did ! In that time, Peter Grant took me away from Glasgow and he opened my eyes musically. I was like a kid in a sweetie shop, when I came down here. The Marquee and all the acts..later on we toured with Taste. That’s what Peter Grant did for me, gave me a chance. And of course the producer was Mark London. He was a comedian in The Catskills back in the day. He was the funniest man I ever met and he made Stone The Crows. Peter was executive producer but the music was down to Mark. As you know, everybody helped each other in those days, in and around Denmark Street.

I knew at the time, this is a fantastic era to be in, it was so exciting. Is this Percy Mayfield’s Danger Zone on here?

Yep. Still do it, in shows. The lyrics in that song – well, it’s happening all around us today !

I had a chance to thank Steve Stills in person for writing For What It’s Worth..when Les passed, that must have knocked the stuffing out of everybody

It did. He was telling the audience there was something wrong with the stage equipment and to just bear with us. He put his hand on the microphone and on the guitar and that was it. Peter Green was going to join the band, he rehearsed with us. The night before we were due to play a festival he called up and said he couldn’t do it. Steve Howe stayed up all night learning the songs and did the gig for us.

Which was the spirit of the time..

Exactly! As I was saying just now.

Pete Sargeant