Part 28
This afternoon, my wife Hero and I had the completely unexpected pleasure of being given tickets for a big band concert being held in a delightful small theater in East Grinstead, England, where we currently live.
The band Conchord gave us a wonderful afternoon of nostalgia. Music ranging from Irving Berlin, to my “My Fair Lady,” Glen Miller, Benny Goodman and many others was delivered with gusto, aided by two excellent singers and a remarkable dance duo.
More than once, both Hero and I were moved to tears of pure joy as the music took us back to our youth, especially the ‘50s and ‘60s. We didn’t know each other then, but both of us in our own way were connected to music. Hero had studied art, piano, ballet and had been a leading Greek Dancer in Johannesburg in her teens. Later, as a Flamenco Dancer she appeared briefly in two movies, the most notable being The Naked Maja based on the life of the Spanish painter Goya.
For my part, I worked for BBC Television in London and later ATV in Birmingham. I loved music but had no musical skills whatsoever, couldn’t sing and certainly couldn’t dance. How my nimble-footed wife was able to forgive me for that when we married in 1965, I’ll never know!
Ironically, most of the shows I worked on were in the category of what was then called “Light Entertainment.” For BBC I worked on the first ever Rock ‘n’ Roll TV show in Britain, “6.5 Special.” It was also a pioneer in that we did a number of the earliest outside broadcasts around Britain to the intense excitement of the places we visited such as Newcastle, Glasgow, Weston-super-mare, Portsmouth and Leeds.
In the late 1950s the crop of British Rockers was not exactly world class! The Beatles only arrived on the scene in the early ‘60s. As an analogy, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier in athletics in 1954, with numerous other runners following suit once he had shown the way. The Beatles did much the same for British Rock. After their global success, more and more British groups made it onto the international stage.
Nevertheless, there were many other talented singers and musicians in Britain in the1950s. Balladeers such as Dickie Valentine and Frankie Vaughan and the incomparable Vera Lynn all appeared on shows I worked on, including “6.5 Special.” Bands such a Johnny Dankworth with Cleo Laine, Humphrey Lyttleton, Cyril Stapleton and Billy Cotton were all BBC regulars. I would include Lonnie Donegan and a young lady that made me go weak at the knees, who had grown from a child star to a world-class singer. Her name, Petula Clark.
“6.5 Special” was also unique at the time in that we allowed an audience onto the studio floor itself. Part of my function was to prevent the audience from getting run over by the cameras on huge dollies with a crane mounted on them, for high-angle shots. They probably weighed a couple of tons in those days, so we were constantly herding the audience away from them as they crossed the studio.
In rehearsal, I would often have to stand in for various people. One day, we were rehearsing a song with Petula Clark, who was to walk along a path with the audience on either side of her. In rehearsal I was the “audience” and had to move down the side of the path so that Petula could sing to the “audience,” in this case me all the way. It was a love song, and having this glorious creature stare into my eyes and sang to me all the way down the path was both unnerving and a moment I shall never forget. I never plucked up the courage to ask her out, but I treasure the experience!
Another remarkable person brought to “6.5”, a male singing group of eight young men all smartly and identically dressed. They were great and so was their music, which was not surprising. Their leader was none other than John Barry, who went on to compose some of the finest movie music ever written (two James Bond movies, “Out of Africa” and many more).
We had a number of visiting US singers and bands on “6.5 Special,” such as Bill Haley and Comets, the Dave Brubeck 5, Duke Ellington, Ella FitzGerald, Eddie Fisher, Mel Torme and the Canadian Paul Anka.
The point of all this is that the concert this afternoon reminded me that there are many hugely talented people who live successful lives, but what does it take to rise up another notch to become a superstar? What separates the man or woman from Superman or Superwoman? The intelligent from the genius?
I would suggest that key elements include talent, of course, but also self-confidence and certainty and importantly persistence – a refusal to give up!
I’ve met only a handful of such people, but I include in my list the creator of ExoBrain, Peter Warren. His software will simplify how computers communicate with us and with one another, rescuing us from “Computer Speak” and making it far easier to make computers assist, not resist, us in what we want done.
He proves, in my opinion, that it’s not enough to simply be a genius. And that a genius has to work to make sure the product of his remarkable talent is brought to market so it can be used for the betterment of man. So, just as I played a part in seeing “6.5” set the stage for many world music talents, I write in the hopes of doing it again for the world of computing. It’s a big ambition for a writer, but I have no regrets … except for the fact that, as far as I know, Petula Clark has never written software.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.