Andy Fairweather Low They Sold a Million

MUSIC: "(If Paradise Is) Half as Nice" by Amen Corner

Most people remember Andy Fairweather Low

as the baby-faced lead singer of '60s teeny-boppers Amen Corner.

MUSIC: "Spider Jiving" by Andy Fairweather Low

Some may recall his solo years in the 1970s.

# My feelings depend on my thoughts... #

By 1980, he'd dropped off the radar completely.

But over the next 23 years,

he was busy making a living as a session guitarist

for the likes of Eric Clapton, Van Morrison,

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and George Harrison.

Now he's back in front of his own band again,

just like in the beginning.

Good evening.

AUDIENCE: Good evening.

I'm on the road, I'm in Glasgow, this might have been not this year

but last year.

And we've gone out to have a bit of a coffee,

come back in and as we're coming back in, the audience are coming back in.

This happens all the time.

I'm walking by and someone says, "That's Andy Fairweather Low."

To which this woman says...

GLASGOW ACCENT: "Is that him? Is that him?!"

I pointed her out and said, "Which woman asked if it was him?

"I'm telling you it is him.

"I'm 65, and I'm playing, and I'm really enjoying it.

"But I'm sorry I don't look like whatever your last memory was.

"You should have followed me in between."

This is the story of his extraordinary journey,

told in his own words.

Went round the world three times. Twice with Roger and once with Eric.

Endless amounts of dates across America.

And round Europe. Played the Albert Hall 105 times.

I mean, how does someone from Ystrad Mynach get to play the Albert Hall?

I don't know. It baffles me that that journey...

The reason I'm getting involved in this project is that, if I don't

do this, the only time someone's going to say it is when I'm dead.

And I just want to be around to hear it. That's all.

I'm lucky enough to be a collector of things.

Hotel keys, rooming lists, laminates.

And I'm lucky enough to have worked with so many people.

Me and my mate Steve.

Me and my mate Jeff.

Me and my mate Pete.

Me and my mate Roger.

Me and my mate Bill.

Me and my mate Jerry Reed.

Me and my mate Eric.

Me and my mate Rabbit.

Me and my mates...Jimmy, Jeff, Ronnie, L and me.

How did I get in there?

Andy and his band The Lowriders are rehearsing for a tour to

promote their new album Zone-O-Tone.

# There's a shout out on the street

# There's a promise in the air

# When the sun goes down

# I hear a whisper and a prayer

# And we both don't give a damn

# Go out and get it while you can... #

All right. Hit them a little harder for me.

INDISTINCT SPEECH Yeah.

Andy was born in Ystrad Mynach in the Rhymney Valley.

One of three brothers.

When he was still a child,

the family moved to Llanrumney in Cardiff.

I started off in school, and football was every waking moment.

In school, at the break, home in the evenings

and the weekend was football.

I had a bit of an issue because I had a cyst on the back of my leg,

so I couldn't run and I couldn't kick a ball.

It's a bit of a problem, playing football. So I was the goalkeeper.

Sport was big and so was music.

Mr Sillman, the music teacher, he got us somehow to do The Magic Flute.

He'd audition everyone in the class.

And somehow I'm sitting there and he's playing this

song from The Magic Flute, and I somehow know the melody.

And he said, "Have you heard this before?"

And I said, "No, I've never heard it before."

So I was in.

MUSIC: "Not Fade Away" by The Rolling Stones

And that stayed with me

until someone persuaded me to go and see The Rolling Stones in Cardiff.

February 28th, 1964.

And that was it.

That's what started me thinking, you know what, I've got to do this,

I've got to learn to play.

I would spend my days not in school but in the music shop.

This is me in Barrett's.

In the music shop. Wearing my green jumper. Height of fashion.

I mean, the belief, the self belief I had. I don't have it now.

I wish I did, but I don't.

But then I got up and I played and I sang.

I thought I could get away with it. Funny thing is, I did.

In 1966 Andy formed Amen Corner.

They were quickly spotted, signed and moved to London.

Soon Andy's face was on the front cover of every

teen magazine in Britain.

This was the first tour we ever did. The first night.

Jimi Hendrix, The Move, Pink Floyd, The Mice,

The Outer Limits - they used to play one number.

Then us.

What a night that was.

For their first single,

Andy chose an old blues standard called Gin House.

And the reason I grabbed it, it was very simple.

# Stay away from me... #

Yeah, open your mouth, Andrew. Well, I am.

Play more.

No, no. The thing is... The plot is...

HE PLAYS GUITAR

Can we all do that, lads? Yeah, can we change?

Right, we've got a song.

If you have a pop record played on the radio, you got to everybody.

If you did Top Of The Pops on a Tuesday or whatever it is,

anybody that had anything to do with music,

and was interested in pop music, they heard it and saw it.

The next day, it was that instant

the impact of being on Top Of The Pops, if it worked.

250,000 - 500,000 sales of your record the next day.

Amen Corner's management moulded them into the perfect boy band.

They also knew which palms to grease. And Gin House became a hit

reaching number 12 in the charts in 1967.

Dark forces were at work with the management.

But without those dark forces

Amen Corner would not have been successful.

We were successful because they wanted us to be successful.

And we weren't savvy in the music business.

We were just enthusiastic and obsessed with being part of it.

Absolutely loving it.

# We'll fly high in the sky

# Where rainbows go by, leave troubles behind

# We'll fly high in the sky

# Girl, just you and I

# We're two of a kind... #

Kids, quick money, the potential of lots of money.

I wanted this thing.

I was a bit of a people pleaser.

Certainly, you can tell it with the pictures.

You know, "Put your hand on that." And I'd do that. I hated that shot.

But we went with it.

That's because we thought, well, these people know what they're doing.

And they did. They were making more money for them.

But what I got out of it, and what the band got out of it,

was we became successful.

One of their biggest successes was a cover of a song already

a hit in America for another band.

It wasn't my favourite record in that it was suggested by our manager,

Ron King.

And I thought, I'll tell you what, we're not doing that version.

And I had a live album by Smokey Robinson. Live At The Whisky A Go-Go.

And it had this piano riff.

HE PLAYS RIFF

So I thought, what we'll do...

We'll take the melody, the verse, and we'll put that riff on it.

# You're the only woman I need

# And, baby, you know it... #

Noel Walker, the producer, I'll never forget,

he put the brass on it when we weren't there.

And it was like Herb Alpert. Da-da-da-da-da-uh-uh.

And I went, no. That's not soulful at all.

If you release that, I'm off. You know, all of that business.

And of course, I stormed out really annoyed at what had gone on.

And it came out and that uh-uh became the selling point. And it took off.

And I liked that.

MUSIC: "Bend Me, Shape Me" by Amen Corner

Bend Me, Shape Me reached number three in the charts in 1968.

Amen Corner were living the dream.

# I want you so badly... #

My pink car. I had a Sony television in it.

I had a record player in the glove compartment that would plays 45s.

All the cities in the door,

a little bit of a cooler for the Champagne in the back.

Fabulous.

MUSIC: "(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice" by Amen Corner

Andy was voted The Face Of 1969.

In the same year, Amen Corner scored their only number one single.

# If paradise was half as nice

# As heaven that you take me to

# Who needs paradise

# I'd rather have you

# They say paradise is up in the stars

# I needn't sigh because it's so far

# Cos I know it's worth a heaven on earth

# For me where you are... #

Amen Corner were making serious money. But for other people.

The cars, the guitars - it was all on the never-never.

Everything was bought on HP. And the band were paying for it.

# My heart always pounds

# Just like a brass band... #

We only made, even at the end with number one with

Half As Nice, I think we gave ourselves a raise up to £35 a week.

We never made it in America. Amen Corner were just big in the UK.

And we were big on other people's songs.

After three years together, Andy broke up the band.

We'd had our 15 minutes, and I knew it.

I instinctively knew...that that was over.

MUSIC: "(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice" by Amen Corner

Amen Corner was an empty thing in that I didn't do anything.

I didn't do any vocal exercises, which is obvious. And I didn't play.

I just turned up and became this personality.

This Face Of '69 where, you know, it's like...no.

I mean, yes. No! And that was going on all the time.

Couldn't get comfortable with it.

And just...you've got to make a decision.

And my decision was, I'm going there.

There turned out to be a band called Fair Weather.

Andy was now writing his own songs. And one became a top 20 hit.

But Fair Weather's time together was fleeting.

In 1971, burnt out and broke,

Andy returned to Cardiff to live with his mother.

He spent the next three years hustling for a record deal,

before eventually being signed by A&M.

With his first solo album and single, he was back in the charts.

# There was a time when I wanted so much more

# But I only ended on a stairway to the floor... #

It was the chance discovery of an old Gibson guitar which

inspired Andy's biggest solo hit.

Friend of mine, Mickey Gee, no longer with us,

guitar player, fantastic guitar player from Cardiff,

found this guitar in a skip.

It was sunburst, more than this, light sunburst,

and it was rippled and burnt.

No strings on it, no nothing.

Mickey put it back together...

And I fell in love with it straightaway.

And I asked him if he'd sell it, cos he wasn't playing it.

This is one of your parlour jazz guitars.

So somehow a major-7th came in. So I wrote Wide Eyed and Legless.

And it was just...

PLAYS GUITAR

Wide Eyed and Legless became a top ten hit,

and an anthem for hard drinkers everywhere.

MUSIC: "Wide Eyed and Legless" by Andy Fairweather Low

# Wherever I go

# And whatever I do

# I seem to spend all of my time

# Trying to turn my black nights blue

# Well, I'm tired of it all

# It's the same thing every night

# But the rhythm of the glass

# Is stronger than the rhythm of night

# Wide eyed and legless

# I've gone and done it again... #

I wrote a song about drinking, is what I did.

Then maybe I started to live it.

And then maybe I was expected to be it.

# Again... #

There's not many songs that will have been hits will have the line,

"This world is full of my shame." I can pick the moments.

I'm not going to mention them but, you know...

I can remember a pilot once,

with his arm out of that little window going,

"Come on!" "There in a minute.

"I'm a little delicate."

Success in the singles chart was not converting into album sales.

As Andy started work on his third solo album, Be Bop 'N' Holla,

the pressure was on, and the mood in the camp was decidedly downbeat.

# I'm a man of means...#

I've got a band I'm on the road with that I can't pay enough money.

They're unhappy. I'm not making any money.

Nobody is...

I'm struggling with how to live on the road.

I've drunk my way, I've drugged my way,

I've had a cup of tea and a biscuit through.

None of them worked and made me happy.

But Andy's problems were just beginning.

Because in the late '70s, he was swept aside,

together with many of the old guard, by a musical tsunami called punk.

It was needed. Music needed a big kick.

The Pistols came along and went... Yeah, it changed.

Maybe I was done and dusted without the Pistols, who knows?

But it's a fact. My last single was Travellin' Light.

I liked it, I thought it was a good version

but it was the wrong song at that time.

From that moment on I couldn't get arrested,

I couldn't beg to get a deal.

I remember going to one record company

and thankfully they never took me up. I said, "I'll sing anything."

I needed money, I needed work.

Dropped by his record company, Andy came back to Cardiff again.

He was so hard up he was forced to sell his guitars,

which had been with him since the early days.

I just needed to sell things to get cash so I could live.

So they all went.

It was Andy's long-time friend and producer, Glyn Johns,

who came to the rescue.

He got Andy a gig with an all-star band doing a series of charity concerts.

Andy shared the stage with some serious musical heavyweights.

I had the greatest time.

Could not believe it, that I was in that company.

Andy's unassuming professionalism did not go unnoticed.

Next came a phone call from Pink Floyd's Roger Waters,

who was putting a band together for a world tour.

The phone call went something like this.

"Hello, Andy?" "Yes, who's this?"

"Roger Waters." I'm thinking, Roger. Waters. "Pink Floyd?"

"Yes." "Yes, I get it now."

"Guitar player?"

They liked it that way, that you didn't know,

that they were anonymous.

"Roger Waters, bass player, songwriter." "Oh, yeah."

"I'd like you to come up during this tour,

"I'd like you to come up to see whether we get on."

Not would I like to play. Whether we get on.

I found out that we didn't just get on, we got on really well.

HE STRUMS INTRO TO "THE WALL" BY PINK FLOYD

# All in all

# Another brick in the wall. #

Once the front man, Andy was now one of the band and loving it.

Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.

What's going to happen when I step out then?

Great big set of balls going to be swinging in the wind?

A big plate of cheese.

Not having to worry about whether I could sing.

Not having to worry about whether I was well.

Not having to worry about whether I'd sold a ticket.

The history was already there.

All I was doing was walking in on someone else's life.

For the next 23 years, Andy was a constant fixture with

Roger Waters, on the road and in the studio.

The fact that I was there for that length of time to me says volumes.

It's because it was right.

Because I was treated unbelievably well by a very good man.

Andy's reputation as a side man was growing,

and pretty soon the phone was ringing nonstop.

1991. I get a phone call. "Hello, Andy."

"Oh, yeah, just wondering

"if you're available to do a George Harrison tour of Japan.

"George wants you to do all the intricate slide bits."

Oh, great, great. "Yeah, fabulous. Oh, great."

I'm going round in circles in the kitchen thinking,

"Oh, no! Intricate slide bits." I don't play slide.

So I tried to persuade George,

"Look, George, I'm a rhythm guitar player, that's what I do.

"You're the slide player.

"Why don't you play the slide and then you're free to sing the song

"and I'll get on with it?"

He kind of nodded and went away.

The next day he acted as if we'd never had the conversation.

That was another time that I didn't sleep for a while.

The other guitarist

in George Harrison's band was a certain Eric Clapton.

He had gigs of his own coming up in London.

He said, "Would you come and join us at the Albert Hall

"for the next leg of the tour, after we finish Japan?"

I went, "Are you serious?" He said, "Yeah."

I said, "Are we going to shake on it?

"And when we shake on it,

"I'm going to go to the phone box and phone my wife.

"And once I've done that we are done." He said, "Yeah."

So I did, I shook hands and that was it. My life changed big-time.

What do you feel about that, to go on with Barbecue?

No-one knows it yet but it kicks it off nice.

-They're going to go crazy.

-Yeah.

They're going to go so... I don't know how...

That's why Barbecue Bob is quite good in a way

-because there's a lot of hammering going on.

-OK.

See! I knew there was a reason for it.

Would I doubt you, O Great One? Would I doubt you?

Andy was Eric Clapton's right-hand man for the next 12 years.

Playing on his albums and doing over 500 gigs all over the world.

Layla was the hardest track to play.

You knew it was coming at the end of the set

and you knew you were going to have to do it

and you knew you were chasing the Derek and the Dominos.

I think every band he's ever had in any configuration

chases Derek and the Dominos.

So I would do this bit.

STRUMS FAMOUS GUITAR RIFF

Wouldn't have to do that, thankfully. PLAYS SLOWER RIFF

"Andy, you're playing it too fast." Right.

PLAYS RIFF EVEN SLOWER

And then you'd go...

So I'd be excused from any of the...

STRUMS FAMOUS RIFF AGAIN

And then one day, doing the Unplugged,

I went to see him for a cup of tea in the morning before we went in.

We were sitting in the kitchen and he said, "I think I'm going

"to do Layla but like a waltz."

I went, "Let's have a listen." He just went...

PLAYS "LAYLA" IN SLOW WALTZ TIMING

MUSIC: "Layla" by Eric Clapton

One of the reasons why it lasted as long, I must have been one of

the few people in the world that was happy being a rhythm guitar player.

Because I'm sure when you pick up a guitar

you want to be a lead guitar player.

Even the first time you do it, it's a lead guitar you aspire to be,

it's not the guy in the back.

"What's he doing?" "He must be good on the bus."

That was the Eric Clapton fanzine on me when I first joined.

"Why? Why Andy Fairweather Low?"

And then the line came out, and I've never forgotten it,

"Well, he must be good on the bus."

The truth is I'm very good on the bus.

You've got to be low maintenance, you've got to learn when not to play,

you've got to be grateful, you've got to be focused and respectful.

You can add a few others to that.

The gig is only a couple of hours.

You spend a lot of time in the company of the people

you're working with. It's very good to be self-contained.

My time when I start working, whatever it is, that's all I do.

I can come back to the hotel but I'll be working on whatever

we did that day or whatever we're going to do the next day.

I'm not out.

I remember when I worked with Eric he said, "Don't you ever go out?"

I said, "No." Because I was thinking, it's London.

"But there is everything going on," he said. "Nah, nah. I go to the gym."

Put the Walkman on and I do...

I stay working for whom I'm working for.

For me, I always knew the difference between standing out there

and standing at the back.

Standing at the back is easy compared to being up front and being the turn.

It's further than you can see.

It's a different gig altogether.

I've made a living playing guitar.

I live in this house because I've worked with playing guitar.

I made a living, I made money playing the guitar.

I didn't make any money, certainly with Amen Corner

and very little with A&M,

by the time I'd finished my third album with A&M,

Be Bop 'N' Holla, I was still paying back the cost of Spider Jiving.

Life is hard.

HE LAUGHS

That's me in the Bahamas, staying with Roger. At Compass Point.

Life is hard.

I mean, I just...

I used to wake up, and there was a butler there making tea,

come up in the morning, then we'd go and work

and then we'd come back to this.

And yet, after 23 years as a side man Andy decided he'd been

playing second fiddle long enough.

It had to stop.

That's where the damage is done. In some hotel room in Chile.

When you've been watching other people play and think,

"I want to play."

I realised I'm in the final third.

If I don't start playing guitar now, I never will.

I'm good. I say I'm good, not in a bragging sort of way.

I've been doing it for 49 years. If I wasn't good at it it'd be shameful.

The truth is I should have been this good when I was 27.

Now that would have been something. That would...

Then I'd have made a mark.

MUSIC: "One More Rocket" by Andy Fairweather Low

# Fire in the blood

# The blood red dragon won't be dragged through the mud... #

In 2006, Andy swapped the five-star lifestyle

of the side man for a transit van.

Setting off on tour to promote his first solo album for 26 years.

# One more rocket

# You give him one more rocket to go... #

I was naive enough to think at some point that when I did go on my own...

that if I could take a bit of those fans and a bit of those fans,

that, hey, we could do all right here.

But that didn't work out at all.

The last but one tour of Germany that I did.

One of the promoters, this lady promoter.

When I get there and there's not many people there, I'm a bit tense

because I've got three gigs in a row.

Actually, it was the first time we went to Germany,

about five years ago.

And she said,

IN GERMAN ACCENT: "Vat you have to realise, Andy,

"is that you're starting from the bottom again."

I've just spent 13 hours in a van.

I know I'm bloody starting from the bottom!

I'm not expecting anything, I'll take whatever's in front of me.

And I am tense

because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to sing tomorrow.

I went to Vienna.

On the last tour we drove God knows how many hours to get to Vienna,

there's no-one there. We do it, it's great to play.

I think, "What a waste of time but never mind, we won't do it again."

Some guy was in the audience and he filmed the whole gig.

He put it up on YouTube. You go, "It was worth it."

And it doesn't... Great gigs are not about how many people.

It's whether it's a great gig.

# There's a shout out on the street.

# There's a promise in the air... #

Now Andy and the Low Riders are setting out again with a new

album and gigs in Europe and Japan.

We are at the beginning of this thing.

So there's optimism, there is everything going on.

There is an expectation level.

We'll get to reality later, but at the moment we're feeling all right.

It's nothing big, just a couple of hundred people but, yeah,

that's what we'll keep doing.

I can play and I can make a living, I can pay the bills.

I won't get the Bentley but I can make a living.

And that's what I want to do.

Family is extremely important.

I've been married for 41 years, and there's a reason. It's my wife.

It was important that I just spent a bit more time enjoying this

bit of it and basically moving into my life as opposed to hanging on

the shirt-tails of someone else, which I did gratefully for many years.

They say, "Why Cardiff?" You go, "That's home, that's why." Yeah.

I don't mind going places.

Sometimes I've been to Japan for a couple of months,

two and a half, three months, we come home.

You do a European tour, Paris, Amsterdam, Switzerland

and then you come home.

When I'm home for too long I want to be away.

I need to play. I just need to play.

It's all I've ever done and it's all I ever want to do, too.

# I saw myself today

# I look good, yeah, I have to say

# Polished and a good shine no more

# Flying dragons around my door

# If I want to go crazy to my own self I'll be true

# Ain't nobody's business what I do

# Sing a hymn for my soul

# Stand by me as I go on

# I'm just tryin' to climb up nine hills in seven short days

# Sing a hymn for my soul. #