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 IDENTITY CRISIS
Name: Loudon Wainwright III
Time and Place: 1985, BBC1
Predicament: Farewell Jasper Carrott, hello oblivion.....
"There he goes,
there's whatshisname
We saw him on TV....."
Those lines, the refrain in my
song Harry's Wall, were written early in 1985, when I was appearing
as the resident American wiseguy singer-songwriter on the Jasper
Carrott Show on BBC1.
Every Saturday night for eight
weeks my job was to write and perform a topical song that would
interest and amuse not only a live studio audience, but also
the 10 million or so watching at home.
Some of the songs were quite
good like a talking blues about the recently inaugurated Ronald
Reagan, and a country-flavoured little thing about the freezing
weather we were having at the time. Some didn't quite make it.
There was a poppy little number about the upcoming Super Bowl,
for instance, but American Football was something the Britons
were only just beginning to watch, and were nowhere near comfortable
with yet. I died the death that Saturday night, letting down
the side, not to mention the 10 million and then some.
Harry's Wall was the last song
I wrote for the series. It's about a guy who becomes slightly
famous as a result of being on TV every week. He gets a smile
every morning from his greengrocer, prompt and friendly service
at the bank, and a place for his 8 x 10 glossy on the wall of
fame at the local dry cleaners - Harry's. But rather than becoming
famous, our hero becomes merely familiar - he's recognised but
no-one is sure quite who the hell he is.
My Carrott swan-song had just
a touch of irony to it - more dollop, in fact - but it also confessed
to the world just how much I wanted to make it. Songs, like dreams,
are wish-fulfilments. I had hoped that my appearances on TV would
catapult me to stardom and my rightful place in the showbusiness
galaxy.
Before the series started I'd
had plans of doing lots of stuff with the Carrott guy himself
- zany, wild, hilarious, ground-breaking shtick. I would be Jasper's
slightly bent straight man - or perhaps he would be mine. We'd
be great together, and in next to no time I'd be offered my own
show, at which point there'd be a painful parting of the ways.
Maybe Jasper sensed this, because
after the first show he rarely spoke to me. He mostly hung out
with his 11 gag writers. I did my little song every week, and
that was about it. There was a Carrott show the next season,
but sans resident singer-songwriter.
 Calendar
pages flipping, autumn leaves swirling - fast forward ahead nine
years to May 1994. I get a call from the BBC - well, BBC Scotland.
They've seen me do a gig in Edinburgh and wonder would I be interested
in hosting a live music programme?
My own show! I could have anyone
I wanted on it, goof around with the guests and the audience,
'jam' with my musical heros, and go on location all over Glasgow.
The show would be real and rootsy, mostly acoustic, and there'd
be none of that flashing-lights-and-dry-ice crap you see on most
TV music shows. And - this was the clincher - the BBC would buy
me some new clothes.
Of course, we had to come up
with a name for the programme. 'The Real Deal' was mentioned,
as was 'Live With Loudo'. In keeping with the whole unplugged
thing, I wanted to call it 'Untitled', but at the last minute
they settled on 'Loudon and Co. My name in the title. How about
that? My dream of 10 years had finally come true - I had my own
show. Maybe Jasper would like to come on as a guest, for old
times sake.
For 'Loudon and Co', we taped
five shows in five nights in an old fruit market in Glasgow,
and it was fairly real and rootsy, I suppose. We had on James
Taylor, Iris DeMent, John Martyn and Carlene Carter. I got to
hear Des'ree and Roachford for the very first time, and that
was nice. Paul Young was handsome and friendly, but Chris Rea
didn't want to jam with me, and Daryl Hall never took off his
sunglasses, and made it clear that he didn't appreciate my jokes
about his hair. I did a great backstage interview with James
Taylor's manager Peter Asher where we mostly talked about Gordon
but they didn't use it. They didn't use any of the interviews
or the goofing around. We never went on location. There was lots
of dry ice.
I
love my clothes, but there won't be another 'Loudon and Co'.
I guess the moral is, "it might be your name in the title,
but it's their show", or as I say in 'Harry's Wall, "c'est
le biz."
Don't get me wrong. I love being
on TV and I still want to be a household object of affection
- really I do. Maybe it's just a question of format - I'm still
looking for my kind of show. Perhaps Channel Five would be interested
in a late-night comedy somewhat topical sataric sports oriented
political pornographical magazine chat show, where every week
my special guest is a farmyard animal.....
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Loudon Wainwright
III - December 1995 |
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