CLUCKSVILLE

Queen are everywhere, still; not quite the Coca Cola Company or Ford, but not too far behind. Freddie Mercury died in November 1991 and the group folded immediately afterwards, but the cliche is authentic and the legend really does live on. It endures because we live in the age of the rewind. Digital remastering, video technology. CDi. CD ROM - no one dies any more, bands no longer split up, the song goes on forever. We play them, pause them, hold them as our own at that moment we cherish the most. And. simultaneously, across town, where the housing estates wash up against the business parks, someone is dreaming of lunch time or home time as she packs the traditional Queen memorabilia into cardboard boxes. The records, videos, T-shirts, posters, badges, postcards, bedspreads, and sew-on patches are set for the lorries and markets. Queen and Freddie Mercury are as alive as they ever were.

We can, of course, bequeath to anyone we choose this virtual immortality. At the very least, we are each of us on a wedding video somewhere or have mumbled into a tape recorder. Thankfully, there is a natural selection of sorts. Cameras and cassettes are placed in front of alt pop stars, but not to the same extent as Queen. In simple terms, they had the songs and knew how to present them, in the studio and in concert. Their songs, from the Neanderthal pomposity of ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Hammer To Fall’ to the outlandish muse of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Killer Queen’, were consumed voraciously by the public.

Between March 1974 and December 1992 Queen had forty-one UK Top 40 hits (one of them, ‘Under Pressure’, with David Bowie) and amassed nearly seven years’ worth of Top 75 chart placings. Only one other group, Status Quo, have had more hits, and they had a six-year start on Queen, in fact, if the solo hit singles by members of Queen are added to their overall total, only three artists ~ Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley and Elton John - have had more UK hits. Queen, of course, also sold albums, more than 80 million at the last count, and rising.

They were, on the surface al least, an unlikely force to acquire such widespread adoration. Fronted by a vainglorious bisexual, their music was schizophrenic; at different times absurd, choral, linear, funky, far-out, inane, rocking, mawkish or pulsating. Critics, and few had much regard for Queen save for a grudging acknowledgement of Freddie’s stagecraft, claimed Brian May knew just one guitar solo, while Roger Taylor and John Deacon were supposedly nothing more, and nothing less, than rock journeymen. And yet few groups, if any, have honed so many styles of music into gilded hit singles. Their very appeal lay in their sheer size, and the other world - all glitzy and glamorous - stage side of the footlights. They were juggernaut rock incarnate, too bulky and brazen to embody any substantial cultural worth, but unsurpassed as entertainment value. When Freddie clenched his fist and Roger Taylor pounded the snare, Monday morning, the rain, the queue at the bus stop, the electricity bill, the smell of the office or the workshop, they were gone.

The Queen story routinely begins with Freddie Mercury and the tang of the exotic, of Zanzibar and the boy from the sun, the dusty street bazaars, the saffron curtains and drapes across the doorways of whitewashed buildings, a starched colonialist tradition; a most distinct upbringing, Of course, much of what made Freddie also defined Queen; without him they were merely a model rock band with a bent for a commercial tune, but like most stories of remarkable success, the prosaic qualities of graft, reliability, loyalty and organisation were the cardinal elements. These were largely Made in England, in Leicestershire, Cornwall, and Middlesex to be specific.

«John who?».

The courteous lady sitting at her desk in Oadby Library is eager to please.

«Was that Dea-kin or Dea-con?».

She can’t help, but thinks she knows a person who can, possibly. She calls the mam library in Leicester: they have some books there on Queen, gracious smile. She passes over a leaflet too, for the Leicestershire Record Office. On its cover is a photograph of a bearded man holding a magnifying glass. They have some newspaper cuttings there which might be of use, another gracious smile.

Oadby is six miles south of Leicester, the last real conurbation before the flat, sodden plains of green around the belly of England. Crows bicker in damp churchyards, villages have quaint names like Great Glen and Smeeton Westerby, and tomorrow will probably be much like today.

The library is a sunny building situated behind The Parade on the main road winding through the centre of Oadby, past Threshers. Woohvorths, Boots and the Old Manor Inn where fine ales have been served for more than 300 years. The library was opened on 1 November 1969 by ohn Peel, not the DJ who gave Queen their first radio session, but the MP who represented the town in Parliament at that time. Us staff have heard of Queen, but not John Deacon. In its files only two famous sons of Oadby are commemorated, both of them felons. George Davenport, a highwayman, and James Hawker, a poacher. Quite clearly, John Deacon does not have enough colour or verve to pass muster and make the town’s annals. Eventually, a solitary one-line mention of John is found. This fabulously wealthy, internationally famous musician has his name on a tiny index card housed in a wooden drawer in the local studies section. The cards cross-reference to newspaper clippings. Even here, poor John is allowed no rightful station. ‘Deacon. John ~ rock musician, April 1974.’ is placed between ‘Daynight Electrical Contractors, Trade Boost, 25.2.74’ and ‘Deane, David, Marriage to Pauline Valerie Smith. 15.3.62.’.

John Richard Deacon was born on August 19. 1951 at St Francis’ Private Hospital, London Road, Leicester to Arthur Henry Deacon and Lillian Molly Deacon. The family lived at first in the Leicester suburb of Evington where John attended Lindon Junior School. Oadby, fast becoming a dormitory town for Leicester, was expanding rapidly in the Fifties, with an extensive network of new redbrick houses seeping over the countryside. Arthur Deacon had a certain amount of security with his job at the Norwich Union in Leicester so. in 1960 John and his younger sister of five years, Julie, moved with their parents to a detached house in Hidcote Road. Oadby. The road is on the edge of a large estate where cul-de-sacs and crescents are packed snugly into the available space. The properties are all strikingly similar, only the names of the streets change - Ash Tree Road, Brambling Way. Pine Tree Close, Rosemead Drive, rustic names for a rather monotonous suburbia.

After a short time at Langmoor Junior School in Oadby, John attended Gartree High School and Beauchamp [pronounced Beecham] Grammar School, both of them situated on the same site, just a few minutes walk away from Hidcote Road.

During his time in Oadby John Deacon wasn’t so much quiet, as not really there, more a ghost of a boy. There was, of course, a physical outline, but even this was magnificently ordinary: short hair, briefcase, shirt tucked in the trousers, shiny shoes, a courteous ‘Hello’ or nod of the head as he passed. He read electronics magazines and built gadgets out of transistors: fished with his dad on the canal; did his homework; collected locomotive numbers; tried to please his parents, and no one noticed him very much.

«I don’t remember him doing anything, what a boring character! There’s no point in pretending he was anything else because he wasn’t. I mean, he always seemed very nice, but he was just a bit quiet. I don’t have any remarkable memories of him,» says Jenny Hayes (nee Fewins), exasperated, unable to summon a single anecdote about John Deacon after an hour’s thought. And Jenny should know some, she was part of the gang which spawned John Deacon’s first musical venture. The Opposition. For a short period of time, two or three shows at most, she was also the group’s go-go dancer with her friend, Charmiane Cowper.

«The clearest memory I have of him is being in a dressing room and everybody getting changed after the show and larking about. John never said a word. He never said anything, never spoke. Ever so strange. He just got on with it, did it. but you’re talking about a completely unremarkable character,» said Jenny.

The Opposition fell together in the summer of 1965, before John had turned fourteen; this young age may explain his formal, remote manner at the time. They decided on the name simply because it was easy to remember. They were one of about four groups thriving in each school year at Beauchamp Grammar School, Leicester, like the rest of England, was clearly swinging. Fired by the chipper coffee bar pop of Herman’s Hermits, Peter and Gordon, The Hollies, The Rockin’ Berries, and. of course. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, every teenager in the country had a guitar. Most strummed it a few times and then left it in the spare room, unable to fathom the re-tuning. Some, like the four members of The Opposition, saw it as an extension of their friendships and began to practise regularly.

John Deacon, or ‘Deaks’ as he was universally known, would seem an unlikely band member when he teamed up with his best friend from nearby Rosemead Drive. Nigel Bullen (drums), along with Richard Young (vocals/lead guitar) and Clive Castledine (bass). «John was quite keen.» said Clive Castledme. «I was amazed with his academic background that he stuck with music. He was extremely intelligent and worked very hard at school. I think he took to learning the guitar in possibly the same way he looked at education. He was keen and did it properly.».

John had been strumming the acoustic guitar he bought with his early morning paper round wages since the age of twelve, firstly with a school pal. Roger Ogden, with whom he’d play along to records. He was already proficient when The Opposition began scratching out covers of The Yardbirds, The Animals and Tamla Motown classics. Richard Young was the driving force behind the group; rehearsals were held at his parents’ and since he was from a fairly wealthy background (his dad owned an electrical wholesaling business) he loaned the others money to buy equipment. From the start they each had quality gear: John’s guitar cost £60 which he promised to pay back to Richard on a weekly basis. Richard had no qualms about lending the others money, especially John, since he knew John’s mother would never consider buying him one; she would have seen it as an impediment to his studies.

The group was infused with a warm camaraderie. They took a bus ride to Leicester together and brought back pieces of Nigel’s kit on the bus and Richard cycled home from Cox’s music store in King Street with a Vox AC30 amp on the handlebars, unlikely as it may seem. They played for friends at a party at Clive Castledine’s house in September 1965 and at a dance at Gartree High School soon afterwards. Their first authentic public performance was at the Co-operative Hall in Enderby in December 1965. They soon became regulars at youth clubs in the villages dotted around Gad by. Their image was clean-cut, usually running to ties and suits. «We weren’t cool or weird or anything, it was before those sort of days,» said Clive. «We had really short hair, it was well before everyone went hairy and weird.».

Unfortunately, after barely ten months in tenure, it was apparent that dive’s musicianship was trailing the others, all of whom were surprisingly adept for their ages. «I was the least proficient, to put it mildly,» he recalls. «They had to bang the bass playing into my head. My heart wasn’t in it and I wasn’t giving it my best by a long chalk. I was getting outside interests called girls and bikes.» Richard Young would coach Clive painstakingly through his parts, only for him to forget them on stage and drift out of key. «We al! had a good idea about music except for Clive,» says Richard. «He was a great chap but he had no idea at all. I once spent about two hours teaching him one song but he’d just play any old thing on stage. We had to sack htm at the end.» Unbeknown to anyone at the time, Olive’s inept bass playing was a catalyst in John Deacon’s journey to Queen. John had hitherto considered himself a guitarist, but magnanimously switched to bass to answer The Opposition’s call. The moment was recorded in vivid detail in the band diary, fastidiously kept by Richard. The entry for April 2, 1966, reads: «We threw Clive out and had a practice in Deaks’ kitchen with Deaks on bass - played much better.».

The Opposition had been encouraged to dispense with Clive by Peter ‘Pedro’ Bartholomew, the singer with another local band, The Rapids Rave. The extrovert front man had been guest on one or two songs when the two bands were on the same bill, but his days with his own group were numbered. His dad had ordered him to leave The Rapids Rave because their busy schedule was affecting his engineering apprenticeship. Peter saw The Opposition, with their somewhat lower profile, as an ideal alternative, and they were keen for him to join. As Peter explains: «I said, ‘Yes. I’ll join you, on one understanding: you’re all very talented, but your bass player’s crap.’ He just wasn’t very musical. Clive really looked the part though, he was a good looking lad. but he just couldn’t play. I told them they were a great little band but the bass player was spoiling it.».

Clive, known within the circle of friends as ‘Cluck’, had, in fact, looked the part more than any of the others. He was one of the first in Oadby to own a Vespa scooter and properly embrace mod culture. It was, of course, a diluted version of the one colouring the streets of London but, all the same, skirts were getting higher, suits sharper and bellies were filling with attitude. «I was buying and selling scooters from home.» said Clive. «Obviously the environment of Oadby was quite affluent so we were mainly mods. We weren’t extreme at all. The background we all had was quite sheltered, we were brought up in a decent way with a good lifestyle. We’d have run a mile if we saw any rockers.».

Peter Bartholomew lays claim to being the person who first suggested ohn Deacon should take over on bass. The group resorted to subterfuge for their first practice at Oadby Boys’ Club featuring John on bass and Peter on vocals. Without informing Clive, they arranged to meet early so John could borrow Olive’s equipment and run through a few songs At the time the band was ‘managed’ by Anthony Hudson, an acquaintance who adopted the title of manager though no one could remember him ever earning it. «Anthony stood at the door of the club with his foot jammed in it,» said Peter Bartholomew. «He was on the look-out for Clive and was going to signal to us if he saw him coming. John Deacon was brilliant on the bass straight away, he really took to it.».

After a failed attempt to appease his parents by training as an accountant, Clive went on to make a career out of his hobby. Caslledine Scooters became Clive Castledine Motorcycles, the mam Honda and Suzuki dealer in Leicester, with a workshop and saleroom on the busy, shuddering dual carriageway of Humberstone Road. During the busy summer period he will sell ten bikes a week, and he is already planning to pass the business on to his son. In the shadow of two ugly tower blocks, surrounded by cans of Swarfega, oily rags, zips waiting to be stitched into motorcycle suits, and rows of burnished bikes, he has never coveted the lifestyle of his former musical colleague. «It has never gone through my mind to wish I’d followed the musical route,» he points out. «It seems so long ago, almost insignificant really. I nearly gave music another go during the punk era. I liked the rawness of bands like The Stranglers and Sham 69, but I was working 60 hours a week on my business. I wouldn’t know which way up to hold a bass guitar now.».

Without Clive the band were able to develop at their own pace and there was no shortage of bookings. Leicester, like the rest of the country, was teeming with venues, from church halls to working men’s clubs to theatres, and for the first time the UK had an infrastructure to support live music made by young people. Pop was also on television on its own terms, rather than ys an addendum to light entertainment programmes, and everyone read the Melody Maker.

Although, like every other group, they harboured covert ambitions, The Opposition were largely content to learn their craft, become one of the best bands in Leicester, and then trust to the future. They appeared almost every Saturday night at the Co-op Hall in Enderby, They received a fee of £4 for their performance at the Co-op Hall, though by the end of 1966, when they were playing venues like Market Harborough Working Men’s Club and Leicester Tennis Club, the lee had risen to £12.

Many of the shows were as support to Peter’s former group, The Rapids Rave, whose membership comprised slightly older tads managed by Les Taylor Eventually Les, whose stepson Robert Prince played lead guitar in The Rapids, also became manager of The Opposition. «I wanted to keep an eye on Robert.» Les recalls. «They were playing in some rough places and I thought if I was manager at least I could keep a watch on what he was up to. The Opposition were just their back-up group. I didn’t know them very well at all.» Les often sold both groups as a package to venues, but his interest was always primarily in the well-being of his stepson, ‘the Eric Clapton of the Midlands’ as he refers to him. He remembers John Deacon as ‘a lovely kid1 but It was only decades later when he learned of John’s phenomenal success. «I never had any ambitions in the music business,» he says. «I just wanted to stop Robert falling into bad company. I used to just get them a few bookings here and there, it was easy in those days.».

David Williams, another school friend, joined on lead guitar in July 1966 and Richard Young moved to his first love, keyboards. Appropriately, they added covers by The Zombies and The Spencer Davis Group. They made random attempts to write their own material, but a few instrumental in the mode of Booker T and The MGs was the limit of their success.

When he first heard The Opposition. Dave Williams was unimpressed. He had already played in local bands The Glen Sounds and The Outer Limits and knew some of the elementary factors of life in a group, like tuning. «1 went to a rehearsal and they sounded awful, like they hadn’t tuned up.» he recalls. «They had tuned up. but only to their own instrument, so they were all out of tune with each other, I advised them to get a pitch pipe and after that they didn’t sound too bad.».

John Deacon was a dedicated group member, anxious that the songs were arranged and performed properly, his perfectionism was already evident to the others. He was also, along with Richard, the group’s archivist, collecting every newspaper cutting, even the tiny adverts for shows published in the Leicester Mercury.

Molly Deacon still considered the group a frivolous aside in her son’s life. Her husband had died in 1962 when John was just ten and she was determined to hold some discipline over him, especially in directing him towards an academic career. In September 1966 the band had been booked to play the Tudor Rose pub in Atherstone and. wary of Molly’s strictness, they coaxed John out of the house and into the garden while they related the details. Unfortunately the kitchen window was open and she overheard. «She came storming out saying.’John’s not playing in any pubs’, and that was it.» said Nigel Builen. «We had to get a stand-in for the night. He was only about sixteen at the time and under age, but that’s just the way she was, a bit strict.».

A small club scene developed in Leicester and The Opposition were part of it, appearing regularly at Granny’s and The Casino in London Road, on the same circuit boasting gloriously unknown bands like Strictly For The Birds. The Executives, Sweetheart, Cedar Set and Wellington Kitch. The Night Owl was perhaps the most hip club. Geno Washington appeared there and the all-nighters were said to attract hipsters from as far afield as London. Much of it was a parody of the scene in the capital, but at the time Paris, New York, and the whole world was two strides (in zip-up, knee length plastic boots) behind London anyway.

Earnest rather than intense. The Opposition were still far from provincial clods. David Williams, who quickly became their MC as well as guitarist, brought with him more than an essence of style, refulgent in make-up and bearing the nickname ‘Pussy’ after the television glove puppet, Pussy Cat Willum. He was later to attend Loughborough Art College, but in the meantime his artistic bent led to some experimentation with drugs, mainly dope but a ‘little bit of acid’; his home-made cakes were always popular at parlies. If it was OK for The Beatles.. was Dave’s doctrine. The band, anxious to culmaif an image, began to wear silk shirts, each member in a different colour.

They might have appeared unerringly normal, but they were actually characters in their own right. Richard Young («He was so straight, he was weird» - Dave Williams) was known for the odd touch of eccentricity. He would over-tune his car so it ran fast, so fast that it would move without anyone touching the accelerator. He would park it, leave the engine running, pretend to close the door, and then run alongside it in fake panic as if it was driving itself away. Another routine was reserved for the chemist’s shop. He would burst in clutching his throat, frothing at the mouth, imploring the assistant to «Get me my pills, quick.».

The Who were a prevailing influence on The Opposition and eventually even John Deacon had the regulation scooter, a Vespa 180. «We all had the parkas and everything,» said Dave Williams. «I remember there was a ford at the bottom of our road and John was coming round to my house one evening. He skidded and came off the scooter. There was quite a lot of blood and he was pretty stressed out when he got to our place, in fact, it’s about the only time I ever saw John stressed out!».

London had wanton go-go girls m cages decorating trendy clubs where kids smoked French cigarettes and wore sunglasses, forever waiting for the film crew to arrive. The Opposition had two giggling school friends who, tired of watching but not joining in, volunteered their services Jenny Fewins and Charmiane Cowper had the nerve, if not the candid sexuality or polish; all the same, sometime in 1967, they became the band’s go-go girls, and Dave Williams was quite appreciative: «I thought they were quite sexy, they had bosoms before most girls.» Their routine was completely improvised. «We used to get up on stage and do this very, very simplistic dance. It was frightening really, especially when you realised we should have- worked it all out a bit before we got up there, but most things weren’t planned in the Sixties.» said Jenny.

It was still a worthwhile experience for fenny. On her seventeenth birthday her mother paid for an intensive modelling course and it led to three years’ work via the Kathy Parker Agency in Leicester. Her good looks (listed as follows in her modelling brochure: Height: 5’ 5». Bust: 3h», Vausl: 25», Hips: HV, Shoes 4-4 1/2} and trained poise helped sell packels of Player’s cigarettes among other products. She also appeared at parades in seaside towns, usually to open summer seasons by celebrities.

Peter Bartholomew was the outsider in the group, not really a member of their clique: he was three years older and quite single-minded. He told them he could secure more bookings than Anthony Hudson who had now adopted the name of Anto Hudson to reflect his status in the pop business. Ante soon went the same way as Clive ‘Cluck’ Castledine. or, as the lads preferred, he went Clucksville.

Peter wanted the group to go up market, to shop at Leicester’s premier music emporium. Moore and Stanworth’s in Belgrave Road, rather than at Cox’s where the guitars hung by their tuning pegs and flapped against the wall every time someone walked through the front door. He took ohn Deacon to buy an Ampeg amplifier for his bass: it sounded fine but more importantly, it had a luminous green glow in the dark.

Some of Peter Bartholomew’s designs were rejected and, eventually, his paternal concern was perhaps his downfall. «I was working at a shop at the time called Irish Linen which sold really trendy stuff,» he explains. «I made them all come in and kitted them out m polo neck shirts. John Deacon did not like it at all. He said, ‘We look like a load of poofs. I want to wear what I want to wear.’ I was a bit surprised by this. 1 was supposed to be the older, wiser person who knew, but he just said. ‘Noway!’«.

In November 1967, after eight months in the group, Peter Bartholomew left The Opposition, though there were differing accounts of his exit. «Pedro showed off. I felt ashamed! Told him that he was leaving,» was the terse entry in Richard Young’s diary after a performance he considered too effusive for The Opposition. «I have always been flamboyant,» conceded Peter. «I like to have a laugh and I was a bit daft. I said daft things. I thought it was absolutely brilliant when we put flash guns under Richard’s organ and things like that.» Peter’s version had him being ., tempted away to join his brother’s band, The Rivals, a group with a busier social diary and a greater rhythm’n’blues edge. He did return briefly to The Opposition, however, when he had a three-month stint on saxophone a year or two later.

Peter Bartholomew drifted out of groups, working as a milkman and on motorway construction before forming his own business installing telephone systems. He sold the firm to a French company and is now self-employed again in the same business, proud of a full order book. He still has an organ and guitar and sings in karaokes when he’s out with friends, but has no regrets about leaving the music business behind. «When I see a band, a good band, performing in a pub I sometimes gel the itch again, but when I see them afterwards loading up the van in the cold on the car park. I’m glad I’m out of it. I couldn’t be more happier with my life than I am now, couldn’t enjoy it more.».

He became a Queen fan, though it was some time before he realised his former musical colleague was a member: «I was such a fan of Queen and never recognised him. I used to sit there night after night listening to the albums.» It was only when John Deacon reverted to his original short haircut that Peter realised1 «We were watching television. I think he was on Top Of The Pops or something. I said to my wife, ‘Look who that is. it’s John Deacon.’ She said. ‘So?’, and I said. ‘No, it’s the John Deacon, from Oadby, from The Opposition..’ ‘Oh my God!’ she said’.” After the initial shock. Peter realised he wasn’t surprised by John’s success: «He was the most talented in The Opposition, it was as if he had been born with a bass in his hand. He was always brilliant. He really deserved to get on. He was so relaxed when he played, always so confident.».

Another member was Richard Frew who lasted just a month on guitar, before being replaced by the dextrous Ronald Chester. Ronald was an integral member. helping Richard Young with the band administration. For a month or two they were fronted by a singer called Carl, whose surname they forgot to log, but he left early in 1967. Whatever the line-up. The Opposition formed a merry crew as they drove through the hedge-flanked lanes of Leicestershire to another performance; arguments were rare and they had an unusual rapport. Sometimes the van would break down, venues would double book, amplifiers would explode, the band would bicker, someone would forget an effects pedal, the set list would change three songs in: this was John Deacon’s musical apprenticeship and it was extraordinarily thorough.

Word got round that there was another band called The Opposition, so Oadby’s Opposition became The New Opposition in April 1966, but then changed back again in January 1967. A few months later, on another whim, they became The Art, because, according to Richard Young. «Dave Williams was arty.» They were all extremely young, so even by the summer of 1969 when John Deacon finally left, he was still a few months from his eighteenth birthday.

John Deacon played his final concert with The Art at Great Glen Youth and Sports Centre in August 1969, his place being taken immediately by another local musician, John Savage. John had been accepted on a course to study electronics at Chelsea College, an affiliate of London University. He had been with the group for four years, during which time they had played an average of one show each week-While it was invaluable experience in the grist of life in a pop group, it was irrefutably a small town enterprise. Two of their typically homespun comical episodes are again related best in the staccato style of diarist Richard: ‘26 September 1966 - Blackbird Motors Annual Dance, very dusty from the straw bales.’ and 1 5 October 1966: ‘Suddenly Deaks had pains in his stomach and had to play near the open window at the side of the stage for fear of being sick.’.

For all the committed slog and sincere intent, four years after their debut. The Opposition had not strayed more than a few miles from Leicester: they had no studio experience (though, just weeks alter John lelt. they recorded an acetate of covers at Beck’s studio in Wellmgborough}; no dealings with the music business aside from one or two local agents; and. perhaps most importantly, were not writing their own material. Their parochialism was epitomized by their decision, early in 1968, to buy a seven-year-old Morris van. A group with wider horizons would have used the money to fund a record pressing, or time in a studio, train fares to London to see potential managers, a poster campaign, or a complete re-location to the capital, but this wasn’t The Opposition’s style. «We wanted to be one of the best bands in Leicester, or around the locality.» explains Richard, «I think I was under the misapprehension that the better you sounded and the more professional you got, you gradually went up the ladder, but it just doesn’t work like that. It took me a long time to realise you could be a load of shit but if you got the right promotion you’d go far; that’s what it is al! about.».

A new group came through in Leicester and The Opposition, especially Richard, were made decisively aware of the potency of promotion, style over content. In the space of just a few weeks a flash new group called Legay (named after the drummer’s surname) were packing venues in the town; the same places at which The Opposition had appeared repeatedly, where they had diligently - but slowly -augmented their fan base. «Legay used to annoy Richard intensely,» said Nigel Bullen «They really had got the image. They were doing heavy rock versions ol Tamla Motown and the places they played were packed with all the gorgeous women in Leicester. Musically they were very average.» Unknown to the rest, John Deacon was already making salient mental notes. Legav, tor their part, mutated into something far more routine; by 1970 they were Gypsy, stalwarts of the London pub circuit, eventually releasing two quietly received albums on United Artists.

Despite John’s impending departure. Richard continued taking bookings for The Opposition. Some of these were out of town, in Southsea and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A year after John’s departure, however. Richard also left, to take up the position of pianist with Fearn’s Brass Foundry. The soul covers band were appearing live five nights each week and had some of the finest musicians in Leicester; it was too much of a temptation to Richard who felt his own home-grown project had run its natural course. He drifted on to the cabaret circuit and stayed there for the next seventeen years. Music took him to many parts of the world when he became a performer on cruise bhips, but he quit roaming in 1986 and set himself up In Leicester as a piano tuner and teacher.

The period during which John Deacon had been in The Opposition had seen profound changes in pop music. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, to whom much of the decade’s Zeitgeist was subscribed, evolved from the radiant but callow pop of ‘Help!’ and ‘Satisfaction’ in the summer of 1965 to the ripened and urbane muse of ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘Let It Bleed’ just four summers later. Tommy Steete, Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield et al invented the British teenager, but dressed it in similar clothes and the same benign attitude as its parents. By 1969 it had learned to be sullen, enigmatic, insolent, anything it wanted to be. The British brothers of the blues like Eric Clapton. Jimmy Page, Roger Daltrey. Ian Anderson, Keith Richards and Ray Davies had grown their hair, shredded the suits, and the din from the WEM speakers was no longer apologetic or restrained.

The Opposition had tried to assimilate this new energy - they used a fuzz box as early as October 1966, but they were decent lads from decent homes with A’ Levels and college to work towards. John Deacon actually left Beauchamp with eight ‘O’ Levels and three A’ Levels at grade A. a remarkable achievement considering his fairly heavy workload with the group. The Opposition had invigorated their set by judiciously adding covers by the likes of Jethro Tull and Deep Purple. In fact, Deep Purple were a seminal influence on John Deacon. On one of the hist outings with his Leicester tnends before he Idt for college, John. Richard and Nigel saw Deep Purple at the Royal Albert Hall They were already enthused by Deep Purple s Book Of Taliesyn album and the concert in London was with a full orchestral backing to be released a year later as Concerto For Group And Orchestra It was an amazing night a big influence on all of us « said Richard «We were mesmerised by it the orchestra the plavtng we really thought it was something very special We talked about it in the car all the way back to Leicester.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 837