80@80 (Spencer Leigh autobiography)

 

 

I have just finished reading Spencer Leigh's autobiography 80@80: A Liverpool Life in 80 Chapters, which was published in February of that last year, and can warmly recommend it. As the title suggests it has eighty chapters to tie in with its venerable author reaching the milestone of his eightieth year, despite the still-boyish features displayed on the cover. (How does he do it?)

A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish for the musically inclined, it covers a wide range of genres, as you'd expect from his show On the Beat, a former fixture on Radio Merseyside, but there is much else besides. I didn't realise, for instance, that broadcasting and writing about music had been, in effect, merely a hobby for him until the mid-1990s and that for over thirty years he had a day job as an actuary - and appears to have been efficient and well-respected in that entirely different field too. 

Personal chapters entitled "A Day in the Life" alternate in the book with those more focussed on music, though the distinction isn't a hard and fast one, as music is bound up with so much of his life anyway. The memoir draws on material in his many existing books, taking to heart the advice of his friend, Beatles press officer Tony Barrow, "Rework your catalogue", but the chapters about his day job and his schooldays also have considerable interest because of his knack for selecting the telling detail.

And the resulting work seems all of a piece: this is the life of an enthusiast who has written and broadcast only about the artists and groups who have interested him. And - possibly because he didn't have a long apprenticeship as a broadcaster and never had to play records which weren't his personal choice? - he never seems to have become battle-hardened, even if that youthful appearance could be attributed in part to the fact that he doesn't smoke or drink. 

As I've written elsewhere in this blog, the fact that he knows whereof he speaks means that his interviewees open up to him, apart from the odd determinedly awkward or cautious customer, such as the former Cavern DJ Bob Wooler, with whom he was attempting to write a book. When pressed about the date of his birth and his real name, Wooler is uncooperative, and matters aren't helped when Spencer goes to the lengths of producing a copy of his birth certificate, pleading:

We can't have this deception. If the book is published with wrong information someone who knows the real picture can tear it to shreds.

"No one knows," said Bob, "And you wouldn't have if you hadn't gone prying. I can't stand this. The book is off." (Silence) 

One amusing feature of the book, as above, is when he senses danger signs but plunges on anyway, another example being when Bill Martin (of Martin-Coulter songwriting fame) wants him to ghostwrite his story. Not short of a bob or two, Martin lived in Belgravia; Spencer saw him talking down the offer of a Polish decorator to do some work on his house, not only beating the man's initial quote of £500 down to £350 but later getting his wife to claim that even that sum was too much and getting it  reduced to £300:

The alarm bells should have been ringing in my head. This man doesn't want to give me a penny if he can help it.

As to how his collaboration with Martin eventually worked out, well, you'll have to read the book ... 

I won't try to go over all eighty chapters other than to say that there are many such funny, occasionally bizarre, stories and cautionary tales along the way: Russ Conway answering a call, pretending to be his own manager; the failed attempt to boost the career of a talented singer-songwriter called Timon; Spencer's insight into the inner workings of a briefly reunited Scaffold (who unanimously decided not to pay him for his services as a compere); the perils of the trusting ghostwriter and much, much more. There is also, of course, a great deal about the Beatles and other Merseybeat groups, the writing often striking you with some unexpected and amusing detail: did you know, for example, that Pete Best's dog was called Satan?

Spencer mentions that he never got to interview the very biggest names in music, his day job meaning that he couldn't go chasing around the world in search of stars, relying instead on the old-school method of writing a letter enquiring whether an interview might be possible. But this emerges as a strength, a USP: he has interviewed countless lesser-known people in the business, especially with a Liverpool connection, who might not otherwise have been approached by anyone, giving posterity a wider range of viewpoints about aspects of the Beatles' story, and extensive research done for radio documentaries has meant a fund of material for later books. 

It's also interesting to read his thoughts on Craig Brown's book on the Beatles, One Two Three Four, which received a disproportionate amount of praise (in my view) from reviewers who didn't seem to have read many Beatles books themselves as it didn't explore anything new:

He had read many existing accounts of the Beatles, taken what he wanted and then put his own humorous take on top of it. It made for a very lively story but it didn't honour what the original researchers had written.

On the Beat had been under threat in the past, as I've written about earlier in this blog, when local radio services were at risk, but it was lockdown which finally put an end to it:

The BBC could still broadcast but I couldn't enter the premises as anyone over 75 was seen as vulnerable ... I thought that even when things get back to normal, I'll never be there again. The BBC would realise that this old guy was on his own in the station on Sunday afternoons and anything could happen.

It's a particularly sad and, dare I say, downbeat end to a remarkable programme whose strength was its unpredictable content, but the good news is that recordings of many of the programmes, an invaluable resource for future music historians, have been given to Liverpool Central Library and the British Library, and Spencer hopes to archive his files for Liverpool Central Library - further evidence, along with this book, of a life well-lived. I would advise the reader not to try to devour it at a single sitting - at 440 pages it'd be a challenge, anyway - but to savour, as I have done, a few chapters at a time. Spencer says at the end that he had fun writing it; reading it will brighten your day.