60 albums
1980 - Jackie Lynton - A Bit Near The Mark

The Jackie Lynton Band - A Bit Near The Mark

Jackie Lynton was, and I like to think still is, a bit of a local pub legend around the pubs of Surrey and South London. He’s had a long, long career from early 60s pop, playing the Larry Parnes circuit in the early 60s, a weird rock/psych cover of Teddy Bear’s Picnic, and, a stint as the singer with Savoy Brown (recruited while he was working on a building site). He also was the person you hear introducing Status Quo at the beginning Status Quo’s excellent Quo+Live!. However, by the time we started seeing him in the early 80s he was back on the local pub circuit, playing gigs of rock and roll, dirty jokes and songs, and obscene poetry!

… and we saw him a lot, I have memories of us celebrating our 100th Jacko gig. It was fairly easy racking up those sort of numbers, he played most weekends (and probably most weekdays) and if we were at a loose end and Jacko was playing, we’d go see him. One of his regular haunts was The New Golden Lion in Fulham, just around the corner from Stamford Bridge - it was probably where we saw him most - he’d often do a whole week of gigs around Christmas and New Year and we’d often go to them all!

A Bit Near The Mark is a three-quarters live album that was recorded at The Golden Lion in 1980, I don’t think we were at this gig though, although somebody shouts our ‘Wimbledon’ during the football discussion!? Side four is a studio recording. The sleeve is a nice big gatefold inside is a picture of the band and a quote from the late, great Denny Laine:

There we were The Moody Blues listening to the car radio waiting to hear our latest release and we heard a song called Teddy Bears Picnic by Jackie Lynton-it became a group favourite. When I finally met Jackie, I liked him immediately and with his own band he is a local star (he lives around the comer from me). One day, the world will know him as well as I do".

Denny Laine (Wings)

My copy was bought at a gig, and is signed by the band, although weirdly Jack’s signature is dedicated to someone who wasn’t me!? I must admit that I haven’t listened to this album (or any of my other Jacko albums) for probably close to 40 years… for most of that time they lived in my parents garage with a lot of my past, a lot of which is still there. Now to give it a listen.

Jack had such a good rock voice, and the band was tight, Grahame White was a great guitarist and the album rocks, it’s not in any way original but nobody expected that - and we all got what we expected. But the thing that is really hitting my nostalgia buttons is Jack’s between songs banter, his sweet humour and quick wit, he was just so charming. Thankfully this album is mostly spared the rude songs that Jack was almost more famous for by this time, his previous album Til We’re Blue in The Face (also recorded at The Golden Lion) had too much of that and while rude songs when you’re drunk in a pub are fine, they don’t really work on an LP.

There’s a song by the piano player Tony Leach, and I got a strange urge to go for a wee during it… my memory is that there were queues for the loo during this song!

This, of course was in the days before we all walked around with a camera in our pickets and took photos of everything, I almost never took a camera to gigs but I do have a few pics of Jacko and his band at The Wooden Bridge in Guildford from probably 1982 or 83.

The Jackie Lynton Band

The Jackie Lynton Band

I must admit I was expecting to feel a little distant and detached from this record, I’m a very different person from the one who went to see Jacko 100 times. A better person - I wasn’t particularly nice back then, but (and maybe approaching 60 has something to do with this) it really did make me nostalgic for that past.