John Cameron

'J.C' is for John Cameron - "Jazz Rocker"

70s Kid talks to John Cameron, one of the UK's most successful and talented arrangers, composers and musical directors, about his diverse career.

'Afro Rock', 'Jazz Rock', 'The Trendsetters', 'Voices in Harmony', 'Themes Suite/Mustang' - these are among the most sought after LPs in the entire catalogue of the KPM recorded music library, and with very good reason, too. This is because they contain some of the most outstanding and stunningly hip examples of the jazz-rock that was being produced in Britain between the early and mid 1970s. A large percentage of the music contained within their grooves is the product of the fertile and forward-looking musical imagination of British arranger, composer and conductor extraordinaire, John Cameron. Only in an inconsequential, chronological sense is John's music on these albums the music of yesterday. In the most important terms, the creative and the artistic, it is without a doubt the music of the future, in that when it is heard today it still sounds as if it was made tomorrow.

For proof, one need not look any further than his fascinating blend of razor-sharp beats, deep and funky bass lines and unique, angular brass writing found in 'Hobo part 1' from the 1972 'Themes Suite/Mustang' LP. Further examples include 'Go Getter' from 'The Trendsetters' LP, released the following year. Here we find John creating interesting textural colours, achieved in part by having a piccolo double a bass guitar line, producing a wonderful juxtaposition between the higher and lower registers. Once again, everything is underpinned by exhilarating and muscular jazz-rock rhythms. By way of contrast, the moody grooves, intricate orchestral arrangements and soaring, romantic themes of 'Half Forgotten Daydreams' and 'Liquid Sunshine' from the 'Voices in Harmony' LP indicate John's innate gift for melody and harmony of a more traditional nature.

Many of these compositions have been the subject of the plethora of library music compilations released in the last eight or so years, highlighting the cream of British library music recorded during the 1960s and 70s. The continual inclusion of John's music from this era stands as a testament to its qualities as timeless and truly creative, innovative music.

His credentials as a jazz pianist are also of the highest order, having played and recorded since the 1960s with the biggest names in UK jazz such as Tubby Hayes, Harold McNair, Ronnie Ross, Danny Thompson and Tony Carr to name but a few. In this area, John also has to his name the influential and highly respected 'Off Centre' LP, recorded in 1969 with his own quartet for the Deram label. Versatility also plays a key part in the musical world of John Cameron. Equally at home conducting and writing for the London Symphony Orchestra as he is working with a small jazz-rock combo, John is a perfect example of the musician who understands that good music is good music, regardless of whether it is a symphonic overture or a piece of avant-garde jazz.

This visionary approach has enabled him to cross with ease and skill an array of so-called musical boundaries; as a result, he has produced some groundbreaking music.

In the realms of musical theatre John has, among many other projects, written the orchestral score for each version of the hit show 'Les Miserables', culminating in him winning The National Broadway Theatre Award for best score in 2002. He has to his credit outstanding scores for classic films such as 'Kes', 'Psychomania' and 'A Touch of Class', while also serving as musical director, arranger and co-composer on the score for David Essex's 1980 film 'Silver Dream Racer'. As a commercial producer, arranger and composer he co-formed the CCS band for Mickie Most's RAK label which recorded top forty hits such as 'Whole Lotta Love', used for many years as the BBC's 'Top of the Pops' TV signature tune. Cilla Black's 1960s hit, 'If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind', that reached eleventh place in the UK charts was written for her by John and he is responsible for the arrangements on a variety of Hot Chocolate chart successes including 'Everyone's a Winner' and 'You Sexy Thing' as well as arranging the song 'Sunshine Superman' among others for the folk-pop singer Donovan.

70s Kid: How did you first get started in music, and what instrument(s) did you play? Did you come from a musical family?

J.C: My father played violin - he studied with Beatrice Lutyens - and my mother played piano, she played during the war in a Canadian club. In fact, they both used to play in various bands playing straight music and lots of swing music. My father was a semi-pro musician, he was in advertising, but I grew up with music all the time. I started to learn piano at the age of six and at the same age I also joined the church choir. I kept my musical studies going privately and eventually went to Cambridge University on a history exhibition because the school I was at really wasn't up to teaching A-Level music and wouldn't let me do it independently, but then halfway through university I switched to music.

I was playing at jazz clubs, writing string quartets and I was vice-president and musical director of Footlights roundabout the time Eric Idle, Clive James and Germaine Greer were there. We'd sit in the Footlights club and discuss what we wanted to do, and some people would say things like "I'd like to be a film director" or "I'd like to work in the theatre", and I always fancied writing movie music. After leaving Cambridge I did some cabaret work with Eric Idle and through doing that I met David Frost. From meeting him I got some work in a jazz/supper club in St.Martins Lane, and through doing that I met Donovan's manager and Mickie Most. That led to me doing the 'Sunshine Superman' arrangement and it all kind of went from there, really.

70s Kid: Was it your ambition to be a composer rather than a player?

J.C: I always wanted to compose more than play, although while I was up in Cambridge I did a lot of jazz playing with guys like Ronnie Ross, Kathy Stobart, Danny Moss, Jimmy Skidmore and Dick Heckstall-Smith. This whole litany of great musicians used to come up and we were the 'town' rhythm section. Then there were players like Lionel Grigson, John Hart and Johnny Lynn and they were the 'university' rhythm section and tended to be a bit cerebral and played more like a Bill Evans-type rhythm section, whereas we used to play more like a Charles Mingus rhythm section. My drummer Colin Edwards was an electrician with the gas board and my bass player Mike Payne was a photographer, so we were the alternative. These two guys had been in Cambridge for years and it was through them I got to play alongside people like Ronnie Ross, who then became a firm friend. When I came down from Cambridge I sat in with his band at the Marquee club and they became my central core of musicians that I used on sessions. I found that jazz musicians were a good compromise for working with people like Donovan because they were flexible, good readers and had good musical ears.

70s Kid: Where did you learn the arts of arranging, conducting and composing, and who taught you?

J.C: I studied some composition locally before I went up to Cambridge, but at Cambridge my director of studies was a guy called Peter Tranchell who was an academic and had also written a successful musical, 'Zuleika'. He was very good at looking at some kind of wild, Charlie Mingus-type inspired score and saying "Well, wait a minute, if you just move that voicing there and change that bass line there". You know, the kind of guy who was very good at analysing what was right or wrong with a score and showing you how it could be improved.

A lot of what I learnt in these areas was by just doing the job. Before I went up to Cambridge I did a summer season with the Ronnie Rand Blue Rockets, which had been an old RAF band and West End band, and then they moved on to doing summer seasons. I started writing charts for them and this kind of 'hands on' experience helped me greatly. When I came to the end of my time at Cambridge University I went to see Richard Rodney Bennett and he looked at the compositions I had written and the first thing he said was "I think you ought to go out and earn a living from doing this". At that point I was thinking if I should go on and do a Masters Degree, but he said "No, go and learn the craft, you're halfway there already, go and actually do it". That was probably the best advice I ever had.

70s Kid: How did you get involved writing library music for KPM, and later for the Bruton Music company?

J.C: Someone introduced me to Jimmy Phillips, one of those old doyens of Tin Pan Alley, an avuncular guy with large white hair who encouraged young composers, and it was for him I wrote the song 'If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind' that Cilla Black used to sing. Robin Phillips (who started the KPM '1000' series) was his son and that was the connection. Jimmy introduced me to Robin who asked me if I fancied writing some library music - I think it was called 'mood' music in those days - so it was basically through Jimmy that I started to write library music. Robin then set-up Bruton Music in the later seventies with Aaron Harry and I continued to compose for them because I liked working with them.

After that, they formed the Music House company. Robin went over to Music House first and Aaron and I stayed on at Bruton for a while and I did a few more projects for him, and then I moved over to Music House when Aaron did.

70s Kid: Which musicians did you use on the recording sessions that yielded the 'Themes Suite/Mustang', 'Jazz Rock', 'Voices in Harmony', 'Afro Rock' and 'The Trendsetters' KPM albums? Were they musicians you liked to work with regularly?

J.C: On the 'Afro Rock' sessions I know we had reeds-player Harold Mcnair, and on a variety of percussion instruments we had Tony Carr. I think Danny Thompson is in there somewhere on stand-up bass, too. There were a variety of electric bassists we used including Herbie Flowers and Brian Odges, whose nickname was 'Badger'. I tend to remember the upright bass players more than the electric bassists, but Herbie was around doing a lot of sessions at the time and I'm sure it's him on a lot of those albums. Herbie was a part of the CCS studios set-up so it probably was him, and the guitarists would've most likely been Alan Parker and Colin Green. I used Colin a lot, particularly when Alan was very busy with Blue Mink and those kinds of projects.

They were the guys I liked to use regularly as they were all very good rock and jazz session musicians. Tony Carr was a great jazz drummer and conga drum player - he played the congas on the Hot Chocalate hit 'You Sexy Thing'. Harold McNair was the flute player on CCS's 'Whole Lotta Love' - he was the one guy who could play that Rahsaan Roland Kirk 'singing flute' thing. He's the flute player on so many of my sessions from that era. He's the alto flute player on 'Kes', so I used Harold a whole lot. People like Danny Moss, Ronnie Ross and Tony Coe I used on a lot of my stuff; Greg Bowen was often on lead trumpet, and other trumpeters I used included Les Condon and Henry Lowther. They were very much the kind of jazz/session players that were great at being flexible but at the same time could read fly shit and tramlines! The 'Jazz Rock' LP was a kind of CCS clone - on that session I used as many guys out of the band as I could get.

I also used the vibes and keyboards player Alan Branscombe on a lot of stuff. He played on the theme tune I wrote for '24 Hours', a TV programme that was sort of pre-'Panorama' that was on everyday. The theme was a very intricate vibes-jazz thing in 7/4 time, and Alan was going through some problems with drugs and somebody discovered that he hadn't woken up and went and dug him out. We were in the BBC studios with everybody in suits and ties and everybody was going "Tut-tut-tut", as was my contractor who'd already disapproved of the fact I'd turned up in a red t-shirt and a pair of jeans for a BBC gig! So there was this great scene going on and eventually Alan arrived an hour and a half late looking a bit dishevelled, and I put this very intricate set of parts in front of him.

He sight-read every one and we did a first take on everything, and we ended up finishing half an hour early! Alan was just an amazing player. Incidentally, I changed contractors after that; a trombone player called Johnny Watson introduced me to an Australian string leader called Pat Halling who had played on a load of Beatles tracks and who I've used ever since!

70s Kid: Your KPM LPs are exceptionally well recorded, especially the 'Afro Rock' album on which the drums and bass have an amazingly clear and deep sound. Which studios did you use to record these LPs? I've heard that 'Afro Rock' was recorded at Morgan studios in Willesden, London.

J.C: 'Afro Rock' could well have been done at Morgan, I can't remember exactly.

70s Kid: Was any of your library material recorded overseas due to the Musician's Union ban on recording this type of music, that was in place in the UK during the early to mid 1970s?

J.C: No, I never worked overseas, all my library music was recorded in London. I remember the ban - there was a period when we just didn't record. My library career tends to be quite chequered; I usually wrote library music when I had some downtime between movie scores. As we had a successful product with CCS, rather than have other people rip it off we thought we'd rip it off ourselves, hence the 'Jazz Rock' LP.

If I did a movie that had a certain feel to it then I'd phone Robin up and say "We've got a movie coming out, it's all motorbikes and electric guitars, how about we do a library LP along those lines?". For a lot of sessions from this period I used Barry Morgan and Barry de Souza on drums, as well as Simon Phillips when he started out, although that was in the later seventies. CCS of course used Barry and Tony Carr on drums, but usually Barry was the drummer and Tony was on Latin percussion.

70s Kid: Much of your music on these KPM LPs is very exciting, futuristic jazz-rock. What music were you being influenced by when you wrote these tracks?

J.C: When we set-up the whole CCS thing, that was kind of the result of listening to Blood, Sweat and Tears more than anything. Then I went to see the Don Ellis band at Ronnie Scott's when the club was tiny, so there's this 22-piece double rhythm section band and I was about nine foot away. It was like being pinned to the wall! It was fantastic. I do remember him saying "Now we're gonna play a number in thirteen, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13" bang! The funny thing about the way CCS got set-up was having come out of university as a jazzer if you like, I got involved with Donovan and then I got involved with Julie Felix and all the kind of Stan Dorfmann TV stuff. I started to get more and more into the folky and country stuff, which was nice and I quite enjoyed it, but it wasn't actually where I was coming from.

I went to see Mickie Most who I did the Donovan stuff with, who was producing six tracks for Mary Hopkins for Eurovison, and he wanted me to arrange them. It came to the end of the meeting and he said "What's new, have you got anything you want to do, any ideas?". I said "I saw this band at Ronnie Scott's the other night and I figure we can do something like it, but make it much more kind of Blood, Sweat and Tears-ish, commercial and rock-based. He said, quite by chance, "I've just signed Alexis Korner and his mate Pete Thorup and I need a vehicle for them, let's talk about it". So that's how CCS was born - out of the end of a Mary Hopkin's Eurovision Song Contest meeting, which I always find quite incongruous!

70s Kid: In contrast, you're writing on tracks such as 'Sunny Speed' from 'The Trendsetters' LP and 'Half Forgotten Daydreams' from the 'Voices in Harmony' LP is very melodic and romantic, but still backed by those powerful, funky rhythms. What were your influences on this side of your writing?

J.C: That was more allied to movie music, people like Francis Lai. I suppose I have a romantic streak. I had two big routes, there's always been a fairly hefty orchestral straight route and there's the movie route. The rock/jazz/funk end of things was always there, but sometimes there's more of one or more of another.

70s Kid: It does seem that a certain kind of library music composer like yourself, Alan Hawkshaw and Keith Mansfield more than others were into the jazz/rock/funk style. You used these influences in much of your music whether it was for the libraries, for commercial LPs or film scores.

J.C: I suppose it was. In lots of ways I've moved away from it over the past twenty years. It just felt right for the time.

70s Kid: How much of the music was committed to manuscript paper when you wrote these tracks?

J.C: All of it. Even the acoustic guitar lines I write. 'Les Miserables' has a very intricate classical guitar part for which every note is written. Obviously, you occasionally change things on the session and you want to give musicians a certain amount of input into the 'feel', but I do tend to start with a fully figured part for everybody and then if you want to change it, you can. Also, library music tended to be recorded at a phenomenally high speed - you tried to get sixteen to twenty minutes of music into a session with a full brass and rhythm section. You didn't have much time to say "Let's try it this way, let's try it that way".

70s Kid: For your jazz-rock style compositions, were the drum parts scored out?

J.C: Yes, even the drum parts!

70s Kid: That's very interesting, because even though there's a definite structure to those parts, they still have a loose and spontaneous feel about them.

J.C: This is why people like Barry Morgan were phenomenally good musicians, because they can look at a fully figured part, pick the bones out of it and maybe put their own thing into it. I've never written a part that just says 'time'. I mean, if you're going to write a nice bass guitar lick, you need to put the bass-drums in the right place for the bass, and then for the snare and rimshot and any raised hi-hats etc, to be placed correctly. If it's going to feel funky, you have to plan it. It's a bit like somebody's wardrobe. If someone goes out looking wonderfully casual, you can be sure they've spent hours making themselves look that way!

70s Kid: Were there any particularly memorable places your library music got used in the 1970s?

J.C: Well, the 'Crimewatch' BBC TV series used one of them ('Rescue Helicopter 1' from the 1980 Bruton BRK6 'Emergency' LP) and recently Nespresso (Nestlé) used 'Half Forgotten Daydreams' on one of their adverts, and that was heard all over the French and Swiss airwaves. I didn't really keep track during the seventies of where my library music got used, my Dad used to, though. At that time, I was more concerned with the plays the Hot Chocolate or Heatwave albums I had done were getting, or whether I had a movie score to write. It was incredibly busy - there was loads going on and keeping track of things like where my library music was being used wasn't high on my list of priorities.

I do remember being in Los Angeles, and on a sports programmes they re-ran the Grand National from the day before in England and they put a piece of music on it and I went, "That's mine!" I also remember being at a firework display in the mountains in France and as the display started there was a piece that I'd written for the Classics album, 'Pagan Rite', suddenly booming out all around the mountains and I turned round and said, "That's mine!" Now and again it captures you wonderfully by surprise.

70s Kid: I do know that 'Half Forgotten Daydreams' was used in the 1970s on the UK cinema trailer for the 'Emmanuelle' film!

J.C: That's bizarre! The funny thing is 'Half Forgotten Daydreams' has always done more business in terms of royalties, and these have always come from countries like France and Switzerland. It obviously has become very much associated with over there and 'Emmanuelle'! It was, I think, based on a Francis Lai track at the time. The idea was that it should have that laidback, sexy and groovy kind of feel!

70s Kid: During the 1970s and 80s you were very active as a film composer. Was it hard juggling writing film scores with library music and all your other musical activities?

J.C: Because you've got deadlines, any film you're working on has to come first, so I'd duck and dive with the library music in between it. As I've said, occasionally you would rip your own musical ideas off, rather than have someone else do it, with the library music. But sometimes you did it the other way round where I'd have an idea for some kind of texture or whatever, and actually go in and do an album that then gave me ideas.

I'd say "Oh, I can use that idea somewhere else". Some of the stuff I did for Bruton in the middle of the eighties ended up on my scores for TV films like 'Jack the Ripper' and 'Jekyll and Hyde'.

70s Kid: Yes, I have noticed things like that. Sometimes you hear something a composer has written for a library record, then you'll hear a film score by the same composer and in it will be a piece of music that is a variation or adaptation of one of their library compositions.

J.C: Often people will say "I like that library track of yours", and obviously you can't use it per se, as it's got to be bent to make it work with the film, so there are sometimes noticeable similarities between library and film music.

70s Kid: Some of Alan Parker's tracks on the 'Afro Rock' LP are quite similar to parts of your 'Psychomania' score.

J.C: We were all working in the same genre so a lot of it had to rub off, really.

70s Kid: How did you get your foot in the door as far as scoring films is concerned?

J.C: At the time, I was looking after Donovan in terms of his recordings and he'd written a song with Christopher Lowe for the front titles of the Ken Loach film 'Poor Cow'. We were recording it in Advision studios I think, although I was working a lot down at Olympic studios doing movie score stuff. It was at a time when it was quite hip to have people sit round the screen and improvise - you know, the way Sonny Rollins scored 'Alfie'.

The film's executive producer turned round to Donovan and said "Well, you're supposed to be writing the music for the film", which I didn't know about, and he then said "Who's actually going to score it?". So Donovan turned round, pointed at me and said "He is". So the producer said to me "Can you have it done by next Tuesday?", and this was the Tuesday before, and I said "Yeah!" So I went home and phoned up Elizabeth Lutyens, who was the niece of Beatrice Lutyens who had taught my father. Elizabeth was quite a heavy-duty avant-garde composer but did a lot of Hammer film scores to earn a living. I said to her "How do you score films" and I was given a quick twenty minute seminar on the subject over the phone. Donovan had written all the tunes they wanted to use in 'Poor Cow', but they needed to be arranged and synced up to the film itself. I think we spotted the film on the Thursday and I got the measurements on the Friday. On the Saturday I was playing Rugby, so I wrote it on the Sunday starting just after breakfast and finishing at about one a.m. the following morning. We had the orchestral parts copied on the Monday and recorded it the next day, because they were dubbing it on the Wednesday. I found out after that that it was quite hard work writing film scores! It was from this that Ken Loach asked me to do 'Kes', so that sort of started it off and then I got involved in the 'Black Beauty' film. Lionel Bart and I wrote the front theme for that film and then I wrote all the rest of the music. After that I got involved with writing the score for the film 'A Touch of Class', for which I received an Academy (Oscar) Nomination, and this started the whole American connection and it all grew from there.

70s Kid: For 'Psychomania' you provided an innovative jazz-rock score. In which studio was it recorded and which musicians did you use?

J.C: It was recorded, I think, down in Shepperton and they were about to close the studio. The musicians, if I remember correctly, included Alan Parker and Colin Green on guitars. Spike Heatley was on stand-up bass as there was lot of bowed bass in the score, and I think it was Herbie Flowers on electric bass, and it was Tony Carr on drums. I'm not sure if it was Norma Winstone doing the voice, but I used her on a couple of things around that time so it could be her, but I wouldn't swear to it. I do remember that we had Bill le Sage playing vibes because I know he had this wonderful set of Mussa vibes that we could put wah-wah pedals and phase units on. Then I got inside the piano and started beating it with drumsticks to create some unusual effects.

John with Alexis Corner and Pete Thorup

The lovely thing is the studio was the old soundstage at Shepperton and it had a real collar-and-tie engineer. In fact, he probably had a three-piece suit on! He was this very well spoken guy and here he was in the studio with all these lairy jazz and rock musicians! On the tapes that I've got of these sessions, the music is interspersed with (John assumes a very posh voice) "This will be take 7-M-3". I can remember him sitting there in the control room saying, "This is rock-and-roll, I gather?" (laughs)

70s Kid: Can you remember who the engineer was?

J.C: Oh god, no! (laughs again)

70s Kid: Do you know why at the time there wasn't a full soundtrack LP release of the 'Psychomania' score?

J.C: Because there weren't many soundtrack LPs. Even on 'A Touch of Class' which was Academy nominated and god knows what else, they produced an LP after the event, but at that time there weren't many movies that bore a soundtrack album. It just wasn't the norm.

70s Kid: There was, however, a 45-rpm single released at the time 'Psychomania' was made, featuring the film's title music.

J.C: That's right. Often they'd put out a promotional single to get a bit of airplay and help things, but they didn't tend to put out entire soundtrack albums. I think it's more over the last twenty years with Academy voting and whatever, everybody produces a CD because actually it's a lot cheaper to do now, which they then ship round to everybody and say "Go and listen to my film score". Regarding 'Psychomania', the other thing is we were lucky to have a stereo mix of it because essentially what you tended to do was go straight to optical for the dubbing. 'Kes' went straight to mono - I was very lucky to have a tape of it because we recorded straight to a mono mix in the studio as we played the score. But generally what you would do, even if you used some kind of multitrack, would be to mix-down to strings, woodwind, brass and percussion - the four main elements. You'd then give that to the dubbing guy and if he felt he needed a bit more woodwind, he'd push it up in the mix. People just weren't thinking in terms of stereo and soundtrack LPs. With the 'A Touch of Class' LP - it seems strange saying "LP" these days - we actually re-recorded quite a lot of the music at a later date so we could release the album in stereo.

70s Kid: Moving on to your career as a jazz pianist, you only recorded one album that highlighted your skills in this area - the 'Off Centre' album for the Deram label in 1969. Why didn't you record any more albums like this, and would you have liked to?

J.C: I would've liked to. I think events probably took over. I did an album called 'Cover Lover' way back in 1965 for EMI which was a kind of jazz piano album, but I was singing and the material on it was quite satirical. There was a number on it called 'Blue Monk, for which I also wrote the lyrics, and it was actually officially sanctioned by Thelonius Monk. Mark Murphy used to sing it and Danny Thompson used to also sing it with his band. I did some recording with Danny's band in the late eighties, but I didn't play much by then.

I played a fair bit of jazz - I've got a couple of tapes of a few jazz clubs I did with Tony Carr and Danny and Harold McNair. We played quite a few radio-type gigs, not just jazz clubs. John Waters, who was John Peel's producer used to get us on the John Peel show. He'd have a grunge band, then there'd be us playing some kind of strange jazz-rock stuff, which was great because this was in the days when radio didn't really have any boundaries, especially John Peel's programme! That whole era almost kind of culminated in the Deram album. I actually took the CCS project to Deram and Dick James turned it down, but he'd also refused The Beatles! I ended up getting very involved with CCS and Hot Chocolate, so it all kind of ballooned onto a different world.

Then I started to become a composer and arranger more than a player, which is a shame because I miss it. We used to do a show that was great fun with Ned Sherrin called 'The Eleventh Hour' for which I used to write topical songs with Esther Rantzen. We'd be in the studio on Saturday morning and say "Right, what's the news?", it was a bit like 'The Week that Was', and we'd write a song a week that took a sideways look at what was happening in the news, usually ending up being about some oddball character!

I remember there was a terrible moment when there was an eliminator round on TV to see who would fight Muhammad Ali, and there were a few fight fans in the band. I know Les Condon was a big fight fan. So all the guys are in the bar watching this fight on TV and they say "Can we watch one more round?", and we're going out live in ten minutes! So I say "Alright, alright, one more round", then I say "OK, we gotta go now!".

We ran like hell to the lifts and the first ones we got to were broken, so we ran to the good lifts, managed to get past some bloke who was loading something onto them saying "We've got to get down to studio seven", and by this time Ned must've been doing his head in! We ran into the studio and put the cans on while the last eight bars of the theme tune to whatever programme had been on before us was playing, like 'Match of The Day' or whatever it was, and then came the voice-over, "Now, it's The Eleventh Hour" and we were straight in playing the signature tune! (laughs)

70s Kid: The line-up for 'Off Centre' consists of an amazing array of UK jazz talent, such as Danny Thompson, Harold McNair and Tony Carr. What was it like working in a strictly jazz context with these players?

J.C: I played quite a lot of pure jazz with them because every now and again I'd sit in with them at the Marquee, or I'd do a gig with some of them up in Cambridge. In those days there was one price for earning a living and one price for enjoying yourself. People would phone up and say, "How much do you want for a gig in Cambridge?" and I'd say "If you can't afford it, I'll have my fare and a Chinese meal out of it!" I just wanted to keep playing. I remember having a

great blow with Tubby Hayes after hours at the Bulls Head in Barnes one night. It was just piano and saxophone and we just blew free for a few hours. There was just that thing with jazz musicians where you did something just because you felt like doing it. I like Danny Thompson's attitude when people ask him why he named his band 'Whatever', as people keep asking him what he plays - is it jazz or folk or rock? Danny always replies "Whatever", which is what I tend to play and that's part of why we enjoy doing this kind of crossover music. The people you mention were all great guys to play with. I mean, 'Off Centre' wasn't really different from all the other gigs we did, it was just nice that someone got us into a studio and spent so much time recording and editing it so well, and now I've got a record of a love of my life where I actually just play jazz.

70s Kid: Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s you arranged for many famous names from the worlds of pop, rock and jazz. These included Cilla Black, Maynard Ferguson, Donovan, Salena Jones, Hot Chocolate, Lionel Bart and your own band, CCS. Were there any artists you particularly enjoyed working with, and are there any of your arrangements of which you are particularly proud?

J.C: Well, you feel more about certain things. The funny thing is occasionally hearing something you did with Donovan in 1967 and you think, "Ooh, that was nice", probably because you haven't heard it for thirty-odd years.

The other day our eleven year old wanted to hear some "hippy" music, so we dug out a few Donovan tracks and she fell in love with them. We had to have "Sunshine Superman" playing all weekend! Probably the most satisfying guy to work alongside was Rod Temperton of Heatwave, who then went off to be Quincy Jones's sidekick. He's a very creative guy - a very good guy to be an arranger for because he would bounce ideas back and forth. I enjoyed working with Mickie Most - we had a strange way of working where we would put the rhythm track down and sing brass lines to each other, and I would scurry away and write down anything I liked the sound of. I think there's a freshness that comes out sixties and early seventies recordings to do with the fact that we used to go into a studio on a Thursday morning with a rhythm section and a few horns and didn't know if we'd end up with something we'd like. Whereas now, people can say things like "Oh, we can fix the bass later" or "We can put the drums through quantization" etc, and you lose the danger. When you've got danger, when it happens, it happens better. I think that in a way this is why so many people from our industry moved in to musicals in the eighties, because the danger was there. You've got an audience, and if you goof, they all know about it.

70s Kid: Looking back on your music from the 1960s and 70s, how do you feel about it now? Do you think it has stood the test of time well, and does the current ongoing interest in your work from this period surprise you?

J.C: The whole thing about it coming full circle is a surprise. It's been a bit of a shock having people call me up and say how much they like the 'Psychomania' score, as well as having ex-ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog recently covering 'If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind'. Mind you, when you hear Agnetha's version and it's exactly how you always wanted it sung, it is rather gratifying! It's rather a pleasant shock to find that things you did thirty-five years ago come back round again - and you thought you'd gone into a whole other realm! The one thing that's never been a shock has been the score for 'Kes', because I sit down today and watch that film and think, "Have I ever done anything better?". Sometimes, something is there and it exists and there's nothing you can do about it. In a way, 'Kes' is one of my favourite things that I've done because it's quite sparse and it's almost back to the way one's thinking now - it's not overdressed, it's not overblown, it's not splitting sync points in half, it's not trying to sound like the London Symphony Orchestra. It's exactly what it is - a little fragile piece about people, and the score is helped by the fact that it's such a fantastic film anyway. Thank god we had a quarter-inch tape copy of it lying about so Johnny Trunk was able to release the full score a few years back!

70s Kid: John, many thanks for your time.

www.johncameronmusic.com - John's website. (Both b&w portraits of John used in this article are courtesy of his site)

www.alexgitlin.com - CCS pictures courtesy of this website