{"id":881,"date":"2020-02-04T08:14:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T08:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=881"},"modified":"2020-02-04T08:30:14","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T08:30:14","slug":"words-from-the-writer-larry-yaskiel-an-exclusive-interview-for-sidetracks-and-detour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/02\/04\/words-from-the-writer-larry-yaskiel-an-exclusive-interview-for-sidetracks-and-detour\/","title":{"rendered":"WORDS FROM THE WRITER: LARRY YASKIEL an exclusive interview for Sidetracks And Detour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JUKE BOX\nJUDGE AND JURY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diligently undertaking the depth of research our readers demand of us, I googled Larry Yaskiel before conducting our interview with him, and unearthed an extensive on-line presence, though some of those entries that come up first on the page are my own previous articles about him published on Lanzarote Information web site. There is, however, a great piece posted on line at Lanzarote Business People a while ago and I have editorialised here some of its information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been looking forward to a chat over a cold\nbeer on a sunny day but Lanzarote had the last laugh, throwing out one of its\nhandful of cloudy, chilly days we get in any one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry was\nmuffled up against the Lanzarote winter, which we don\u00b4t have, of course, but it\nwas chilly enough that I, too, had gone all Ilkeley Moor Bah \u00b4Tat so I think we\nlooked more like The Last Of The Summer Wine than All The Young Dudes. We sat\nhuddled on the outdoor terrace of the San Antonio Hotel, in early January,\nholding our cups of tea and coffee between our hands to keep our fingers warm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconversation was piping-hot, though, as we talked of Herb Alpert, Johnny Kidd\nAnd The Pirates, Elvis and Chuck Berry. We spoke of Larry\u00b4s collection of\nphotographs showing him with Joan Baez, the princess of sixties folk music.\nThese photographs, displayed on a wall in his home, also show him with The Bee\nGees, members of Led Zep and Fleetwood Mac. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Burt Bacharac<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There is the composer, Burt Bacharac, in one frame, and a shoeless Sandie Shaw and in another, Billy Preston and there\u00b4s even one of Tom Jones in conversation with the Queen of England. With a photograph of Rat Pack member Dean Martin alongside a picture of the Supreme, Diana Ross, this is a collection of extremes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking\nof these snapshots seemed appropriate as Larry has a photographic and\nchronological memory of every step of a career that ran from the mid-fifties to\nthe late nineteen seventies. In that period serving as a business adviser cum\nLiaison officer to British rock groups working or touring in Germany. He\nstumbled into the industry almost by accident, as he recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I was\nworking in Germany as a door to door encyclopaedia salesman, selling English\nlanguage editions to America GIs serving over there, and was becoming very\nbored,\u00b4 he told me. \u00b4I packed it in and instead took some work as a doorman at\na club called Bar Rumba, that had a jukebox in the corner. Hearing its records\nas a constant soundtrack throughout the day all the time I worked there absolutely\nchanged my life. Then, my mother heard that the Pye Recording organisation was\nundergoing some international transition that had them needing somebody with a\nwide knowledge of the rock and roll record industry, who could speak English\nand German.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry\nticked all those boxes and fortunately his mum knew someone he should talk to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry\nwent on to explain that his parents were importers of vinyl rock and roll\nalbums by artists such as Little Richard and so it was that Larry, having grown\nup to that musical soundtrack, contacted Pye and began a twenty year stint\nworking in an era of rock and roll that saw four lads from Liverpool playing\nfrequently in The Star Club in Hamburg, alongside former school-fellows in\nanother group called The Searchers !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several\nsongs by The Beatles were becoming popular with German audiences when the band\nplayed them live, long before they were ever recorded. Among them was She Loves\nYou, then unheard of above The Cavern or outside The Star Club, because in\nthose days, as Larry reminded me, The Beatles were not yet a phenomenon. Larry\nhad it translated into German for the boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly,\nthe young Yaskiel also helped arrange tours of Germany by \u00e1 couple of unknown\nvirtuoso guitarists, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, before Larry returned to\nLondon as the chief of the then emerging A & M label to become involved in\nthe burgeoning British rock scene. That move saw him sign Humble Pie, with\ntheir star in the making, Peter Frampton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A musical\nsoundtrack had always been a constant in Larry\u00b4s life, first from the radio,\nthen from that jukebox in the bar and now it was being supplied by the pirate\nradio ships. Larry was keen to remind me how they changed the sound-shapes of\nmusic on the \u00b4wireless.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst the\nBritish Broadcasting Services were playing what young people of that time\nthought to be \u00b4light and boring\u00b4 music, the likes of Radio Caroline delivered\nthe pop music the kids loved, that was so much a part of the \u00b4swinging sixties\u00b4\nscene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry,\nthough, also had a latent love of classical, and even opera, music and although\nhe achieved so much he reminds me that the pop industry was still a risky\nbusiness, and any failures could easily offset every huge success.\nNevertheless, Larry\u00b4s catholic musical tastes helped him successfully calculate\nthe risk of signing Miguel Rios who, in 1970 recorded his Ode To Joy, in itself\na celebration of Beethoven. EMI had rejected him but, believing the recording\nto be suitable for all audiences, Larry bought the rights and, helped by three\nappearances on Top Of The Pops, with its average seventeen million viewers per\nweekly show, the young Miguel reached number three in a top ten chart that\nincluded The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Elvis Presley !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry says he always had great respect for the artists he worked with,\nand saw it as his job to accompany them through the business machinations of\nrecordings, concerts, press and financial management so they could be left with\nthe time and space they required to \u00b4create something from nothing,\u00b4 knowing\nthat he believed in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has become widely recognised now that a new band or artist recording\ntheir first album will, through their writing and \/ or performing of it, pour\ntheir life story into the album, Then comes into play what we now call the\n\u00b4second, difficult, album syndrome\u00b4 which, having used up all their energies\nand creativity on their debut album, artists find more difficult to fill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry believed in some longevity, though and recognised that a third\nalbum usually offered a wider overall picture of the creativity of the artists.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He named Supertramp as a group that perfectly epitomised that theory\nwho, after selling less than a combined total of a thousand of their first two\nalbums, then released Crime Of The Century, which earned them a gold disc in a\ncareer that eventually saw them sell 57 million albums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rock music industry, though, was lived at a frantic pace, and\nalthough Larry was very happy working in an industry he loved, with a\nsoundtrack he adored, he found himself beginning to seek some respite from that\npace of life. So it was that in 1973 he took a vacation in Jamaica, but even\nthere the evidence of this still relatively new music was apparent. Therefore,\nwhen he met a record producer who invited him to a boat party, Larry was in\nneed of some peace and solitude and so headed, instead, to the other end of the\nisland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was there he heard music from a nearby house and discovered several\nRastafarians playing, and in their midst was Keith Richards who along with some\nfellow members of The Rolling Stones had rented five houses in the area where\nLarry joined them for a while as they recorded a new album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a tendency these days to label those times as the era of \u00b4sex,\ndrugs and rock \u00b4n roll\u00b4 but Larry remembers it as a gentler period, full of\nartistry and creativity, and he still carries a vivid picture in his head of\nso-called wild child Jimi Hendrix, relaxed in the home of his manager, former\nAnimals bassist Chas Chandler, chilling out by enjoying some cross-stitch work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now, though, Larry was ready to find his own \u00b4place in the sun\u00b4 and\nspent his \u00b4first holiday in years\u00b4 here on Lanzarote. Having received \u00a327,000\nfor a recording contract in Argentina for Leo Sayer, he and his wife Liz\ndiscovered an apartment over here on sale for precisely that same sum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They bought it as a holiday home, but were soon living here permanently.\nAfter a couple of years of \u00b4doing nothing\u00b4 Larry learned from a friend that\nLancelot publishing was looking to buy a German magazine and would require a\ntranslator with a good coverage of Spanish, English and German. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry got the job, and that led to him setting up the magazine in\nEnglish and to thus target those British people looking to holiday and \/ or\nsettle here on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have now been around 150 editions of the quarterly Lancelot\nmagazine, and a copy of each of the first 120 editions was given to The Centre\nFor Teachers. The magazine has always spoken of Lanzarote\u00b4s culture and has\nplaced the island firmly in a historical context, highlighting, for instance,\nhow it was mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. Larry has also been heavily\ninvolved in finding the descendants of those who, centuries ago, founded San\nAntonio in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this aspect of the Lancelot that had my wife Dee and me ardently\nreading it from cover to cover whenever we came here on holiday, and by some\nstrange osmosis, the Lancelot magazine played a large part in our own eventual\nretirement here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realised from some of the articles Lancelot carried that there is a\nwide diaspora of emigrants from Lanzarote that accounted for the similarities I\nhad identified between the Texan and Mexican strands I loved in country and\nwestern music with elements of Spanish and Canarian folk lore music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, Larry is a much loved and respected \u00b4man of the island\u00b4 and\nhe and Liz are ubiquitous figures at arts events all over Lanzarote. Liz still\nsmilingly groups artists and fans alike into poses for the news pages of their\nmagazine, and Larry has enjoyed the past eighteen months or so promoting his\ntwo books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst one seems to be the story of the emergence of rock and roll and\nthe other a more factual, and traditionally historical, book listing the\nconnections between Lanzarote and the UK, both are viewed by politicians and\neducationalists as being a source of invaluable information to those who want\nor need to know more about this island. Copies are therefore available in\nschools libraries and our houses of culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry is part of the history of rock and roll and one of his nephews\neven asked him last summer in London to talk with children to help them pass\nthe subject of \u2018History Of British Rock\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It is amazing to think that what I did is now a discipline in some\nschools,\u00b4 Larry told us, \u00b4and I did not know at that time that the industry I\nwas involved would create a history of its own.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nseemed somehow a fitting closing comment on how we, and times, all change, so\nafter nearly an hour of the most enjoyable chat of my life, I was ready to go\nwith my first question. It was that cover picture of La Rocola del Bar Rumba,\nshowing Larry looking for all the world like a young rock God, which led me to\nask a cheeky \u00b4opening\u00b4 question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHO<\/strong> was Larry Yaskiel then, and WHO<\/strong> is Larry Yaskiel now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
the Carpenters
visit The White House<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4At that time, I was living in Germany, in a period from 1958 to 1969,\u00b4 Larry recalled, \u00b4and at that time I returned to London as European manager of A & M Records. You remember the label had Herb Alpert, Sergio Mendes and The Carpenters \u00a0 on their list of artists but they wanted to get into rock and roll and that\u00b4s what they hired me for. They hired me to get them into rock and roll. The first group I singed to the label was Humble Pie and the second was Supertramp. They were big groups and I signed Rick Wakeman as well, then I was offered a record that was already a hit. It was number one in Spain and was a recording by Miguel Rios and it was his first number one ever. He had recorded an English version of it, which EMI turned down, saying their promotions people didn\u00b4t know whether it was rock, or whether it was rock or whatever and they didn\u00b4t know what to do with it. The Spanish label then sent me a copy and I said \u00b4I love it\u00b4 and the song was a contemporary working of Beethoven\u00b4s Song Of\u00a0 Joy. I told our promotions people to get to work on Top of the Ops and tell them that you have got something totally different. At that time Pink Floyd were in the charts, and I think Mango Jerry with In The Summertime and Elvis Presley was at the top with Now or Never. Nevertheless I saw this as something new, a wonderful balance a mix of rock and classical, being based on Beethoven\u00b4s ninth symphony. Our promoters came back to me soon afterwards saying there\u00b4s good news, we\u00b4ve got Miguel Rios on to Top Of The Pops but the bad news is it has to be this Thursday. I immediately phoned Madrid where Miguel was based and spoke to his manager at his label who was Louis Calvert and told him to get Miguel on a plane from wherever he was, withy whoever he was with, and get him to London. In those days Top of The Pops had seventeen million viewers and I knew we couldn\u00b4t miss the opportunity. It was great promotional tool and after the programme I sent a telegram (there was no Facebook, texting, or tweeting then, just telephones and telegrams). The message said DEAR MIGUEL RIOS. I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR MY FIRST HIT IN TWO HUNDRED YEARS. SIGNED, LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Larry Yaskiel (left)
with Miguel Rios<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4We blew up a copy of that telegram and had it erected as a background for a press conference at the Washington Hotel in London, where the picture of the cover of the book was taken. In fact, you can see on the photograph the word Beethoven behind him on the poster.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry\nremembers too that the management of the German division of A & M were even\nconcerned about whether they should release the record over there, as they\nfeared that it might be seen as almost sac religious re-interpret the music of\nBeethoven, perhaps their greatest ever composer. They became happier, though,\nwhen they took the risk and the single went to number one and stayed in the German\ncharts for thirty seven weeks.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry and\nI then took a couple of Sidetracks and Detours as we remembered other pieces of\nrock and pop that were touched by the classical movement. Larry led with a\nreference to Emerson Lake and Palmer recording Pictures From An Exhibition and\nthen when I said I thought I remembered Night Of Fear, the first single by The\nMove that borrowed a catchy riff from Tchaikovsky.\nLarry mentioned Ballad From A Teenage Opera by Keith West and I restrained from\nmentioning John Stewart adding lyrics to Paconbell\u00b4s canon, as a song called\nLouisianne, because it only ever released on a track that sold only a handful\nof copies, but check it out, folks, it is brilliant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry is\nfirmly of the opinion that the young person shown in his pomp on the book cover\nis very much the same man as is sitting here on Lanzarote in so-called\nretirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask him\nWHAT<\/strong> kind of life it has been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4In some\nways,\u00b4 he says, \u00b4my life has always been the same. It has been a life of\nputting out records, literally, of course, in my time in the music industry. I\nalways say I was dancing by night to the music I was selling by day. It wasn\u00b4t\njust product for me, it was all about the artists. I liked them and got close\nto them in an artistic sense.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I always\nmade sure I was with them when they were in the studio on the first day of\nmaking a record and was always trying to be with them on the first day of a tour,\ntoo, to make sure they had all they needed. I never learned anything about\ntheir kind of creativity and I never really learned anything about that kind of\nstudio technology, but that was maybe a blessing in disguise. You must always\nremember that, in the music industry, the higher up you go the farther away you\nare from the man on the street. I wanted to remain as much as possible with the\nman on the street.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was\nthose people on the streets, I suggested, who, of course, bought the records\nand made stars out of musicians. The charts reflected public taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Of\ncourse,\u00b4 agreed Larry. \u00b4I wanted my taste to be their taste, that of the man on\nthe street. I never suggested a bit more bass here, or a trumpet there. That\nwasn\u00b4t my cup of tea.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music had\nbeen, and very patently still is, a huge part of Larry Yaskiel\u00b4s life, so I was\nwondering about the seemingly quite seismic career change he made when coming\nto live here on Lanzarote. It begs the question that, although it seems on\npaper to be such a sea change, were there actually transferable skill sets he\ncould employ to smooth the transition WHEN<\/strong>\nhe made the change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I was\nworn out. Absolutely worn out,\u00b4 he recalls. \u00b4My best friends, though, were the\nartists\u00b4 own managements who said to me that usually when they were dealing\nwith labels they would only briefly deal with the person in my equivalent\nposition and then would be introduced to the promotions people. What they liked\nabout working with me, they said, was that, without lording it over my\npromotions department, I would be hands on and energetic in the early\npromotional process.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry had\nexplained some of that to me, in a conversation that took place before we\nswitched on the recorder, and somehow for a few minutes we lulled into examples\nof that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lonnie Donegon<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

He recalled Lonny Donegon\u00b4s career, naming all his single releases, including Does You Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bed Post Over Night, to Michael Row The Boat Ashore and on to My Old Man\u00b4s A Dustman. I find this fascinating because although Donegon occasionally caught my eye with one of his novelty pop-song hits or when he appeared bow tied and suited on a Sunday Night At The London Palladium it was only much later in my life that I realised how profound had been his influence, through the skiffle scene, on generations of musicians to come. It would also be through his version of Tom Dooley that I would find my way to the Kingston trio and so begin my life-long love affair with Americana music. One of the favourite tracks in my own cd collection is Donegon\u00b4s Gone, recorded by Mark Knopfler after he left Dire Straits. It is a genuinely warm eulogy of Lonnie, in which Knopfler thrillingly displays his own genius and in doing so perfectly recaptures the energy and talents of the man to whom he is paying tribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry\nalso mentions Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, which I guess serves as a reminder of\nhow eclectic and all consuming, then, was what we now call the rock scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
memorial to Eddie Dochran<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4The emergence of rock, was so natural, though,\u00b4 Larry argues. \u00b4It was so natural. It wasn\u00b4t forced and maybe that is why there seemed to be such wide diversity. It was something we had never had before in England, but we did help develop rock \u00b4n roll, too, with Johnny Kidd and The Pirates Shaking All Over. Yet I can still remember waiting for the juke box to play Three Steps To Heaven by Eddie Cochran. was so exciting, especially when I was working in The Bar Rumba, which gives my book its title, and it was my finger on the juke box button. There I was surrounded by dirty glasses and stinking ash trays but all I lived for was what was coming out of that jukebox. I just loved it.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry is\nreceptive to all our questions, on any subject, but it is his love of music\nthat constantly illuminates his replies so I feel bound to ask WHERE<\/strong>, both geographically and\nspiritually, his love of music has taken him throughout his life. I was a\nlittle surprised by his initial response, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a8Well. My\nlove of music took me to a huge gap at first in some ways. When we first came\nhere we live in small apartment made out of breeze blocks, so when somebody\nsneezed five doors along, the whole row shouted Bless You ! So you can imagine\nthat it wasn\u00b4t easy to listen to the radio, I could never stop listening to\nmusic, but it was difficult. I never lost my love for that music, though. I\nhave never lost my love for any music I\u00b4ve listened to. My first love, in fact\nwas Italian Opera. I used to listen to Opera and I have a story in the book\nabout how, when I was head of A & M; I had to go to Italy to find a\ndistributor. Having the right distributors was hugely important. One of our contracts\nhad come to an end, and I went to see a new prospective distributor with a\ncouple of colleagues. It was a company called Recordia, but the biggest player\nover there was RCA Recordia who had 80% of the market. I asked Recordia for\ntheir credentials I asked if they had a long history in the business, thinking\nperhaps a company with twenty or thirty year\u2019s experience would know what they\nwere doing. Imagine my surprise when I learned that had been in existence for\n150 years! They had worked with Verdi and Rossini and all the great opera star\nof that time, and had moved into distribution of rock records too, perhaps fifteen\nyears ago. I saw an opportunity here, and without seeking a bribe in any way, I\npointed out that I was going to make a decision between them and one or two other\ncompanies, and it might help make up my mind if I could see some of those original\nmanuscripts. They told me they were kept in a building just outside Milan, in\nsome kind of thermatically controlled environment to ensure these precious\ndocuments were preserved. I told them my favourite opera was Verdi\u00b4s Don Carlos\nand wondered if there was any chance I could see those original parchments. The\npeople I was talking to had to get permission from their board, but it was\narranged and they took me there and I saw a manuscript of the opera with\nVerdi\u00b4s signature on it. I have never forgotten seeing that, as Opera was my\nfirst love.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It speaks\nmuch of Larry\u00b4s love of music that his response to almost any question begins\nwith a musical anecdote. It really is as if music has provided all the\nsignposts and signals of his life, and so wandering down these Sidetracks and\nDetours with him is a delight, especially as, from Opera to rock for instance,\nthey meander all across the arts. Who would have ever drawn a line on the arts\nmap from Opera to rock. It seems incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4It is\nincredible,\u00b4 Larry confirms. \u00b4CNN run a series about the world\u00b4s top hundred\ncompanies, and I watched their programme the other night about a company that\nbegan from the origins of some device that conducted sound, and is now called\nPanasonic. Incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this\nobvious love of music, and its history, and of all things tangential to the\nindustry explain WHY Larry wrote his book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jimi Hendrix<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Originally I wrote the book because I thought there was a market for it. I wrote it in English five years ago, but I couldn\u00b4t get arrested for it. Fortunately, I still have friends in the music business one of whom is Chris Charlesworth formerly head of Melody maker and now head of a company called Music Books. He gave me really honest advice saying that if my name was Mick Jigger the industry would be snapping up the book,\u2026but basically Larry, nobody knows you ! I was advised that I should perhaps \u00b4sex it up a bit. \u2018I was reminded that I knew what Jimi Hendrix used to get up to with girls, and if I could talk about that,\u2026 but I said no way. Those musicians had been like brothers and sisters to me, and I wouldn\u00b4t do that. Publishers told me that is what people expect to read these days, but to me that was absolutely irrelevant to the music and this was to be a book about music. So I put it away until something happened a year and a half ago. At the Lancelot magazine we worked on a project tracing the original Lanzaroteans who were part of the founding of San Antonia, the families of whom are now parts of the Canarias diaspora. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4We made several\nvisit to that part of Texas, at our expense of course, but the Cabildo\n(government) of Lanzarote and the Ayemeuntia (local council) of Texas expressed\ninterest in our findings they paid for those details by purchasing advertising\nin our media outlets. Somehow, though, I could never persuade a president to\naccompany us an on a trip there but last year, the former President, Pedro San\nGines and his councillor for Culture Oscar Perez came with us and were blown\naway by the sense of history and by the hospitality. It was the 300th<\/sup>\nanniversary of the city, founded sixteen years before the first settlers\narrived from Lanzarote. There were people on the streets wearing badges or\nplacards that stated tenth or twelfth generation Lanzarote and Liz and I loved\nit, and of course got to know several of the important executives from various councils\nand Canarias governments. When Don Pedro San Gines saw all the Lanzarote flags\nhe realised how important was this historic connection,\nand he and Oscar began discussing what they could do to help me secure it and\nprotect it. Oscar had worked with me on my first book that had then just been published,\n(with English and Spanish text between the same covers) about the historic\nconnections between Lanzarote and The UK and he was also aware I had written my\nEnglish language music biography. He had seen all the photographs on the walls\nof my house and he suddenly suggested the Cabildo should consider printing a\nSpanish version of the music book. So, the book came into publication, really,\nas a thank you from The Cabildo for all we had done to foster relationships\nwith San Antonio for all those years.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Liz,\nhis wife, had been mentioned by Larry as being so instrumental in the San\nAntonio project, I ask how big a part she has played in bringing the Lancelot\nmagazine to fruition and helping bring Larry\u2019s two books into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Everything,\u00b4\nhe says firmly. \u00a8She has played a huge, important part in everything. We got\ntogether in 1974 and all I could do then, and all I can do now, is write and\nresearch. That\u00b4s all I can do, and all these years Liz has done everything\nelse. She has managed our contact list, our diaries, our accounts and\nabsolutely everything else to do with everyday management of life and a\nbusiness. I\u00b4m not the greatest diplomat and I don\u00b4t have a lot of patience but Liz\nhas got all that. She is always nice with everyone and she never has a problem.\nLiz and I are always one the same length. I remember that a lot of the artist\nmanagements I worked with telling me to go and get my own group. They said I\nwas earning peanuts with the record companies ! They were right in the sense\nthat whether I sold a hundred copies or a million, as I did, I was still on the\nsame salary. So I did. I \u00b4revived\u00b4 The Pirates after Johnny Kidd had died, and\nwe almost made it. From day one live shows were selling out and they were quite\nbig with the universities. With records, though, it was very different. The\nfirst record was called Out of Their Skulls but it only reached number 25 and\nthen they re-released a version, an incredible version I though, of Shakin\u00b4 All\nOver and that only moved a little bit. These were three members of Johny Kidd\u00b4s\noriginal group and I remember Roy Carr, of the NME, saying to me what they\nshould have done was recruit a new young singer to take on Johny\u00b4s role. No one\ncould have ever replaced Johny Kidd but they could have assumed the position.\nBritish teenagers had learned quickly from the American rock n\u00b4 roll catalogue.\nI remember Les Eckersley, who ran Liverpool\u2019s other club, The Iron Door, and\nhad on bands like the Searchers and The Kinks, telling me that when a child is\nborn in Liverpool, he takes milk from his mother\u00b4s breast as he\u00b4s learning how\nto play Memphis Tennessee. Nevertheless we toured America with The Pirates but\nnothing happened, and we had to let it go. I wouldn\u00b4t say it broke my heart,\nbut it was incredibly disappointing. And so we came here.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4We\ndidn\u00b4t know what we wanted to do, other than to take step back. I was forty two\nyears old, and was looking for something. Strangely enough I found it in a\nbuilding just across the road from where we are sitting now. In a place called\nPalmeros Beach, which was a tourist complex, we had a friend who had the seat\nof Slavonic Languages at London university and he had a neighbour who spoke German.\nWe got to know her and I could hold a chat with her in German, and one day,\nquite some time later she knocked on my door, and said she knew I was looking\nfor something to do and she might be able to help. It was true, but I didn\u00b4t\nwant to work in a bar or as a property salesman or whatever. She told me,\nthough, of  a German language magazine\nshe had just read, about Linarite and had read in it that they were looking for\nsomebody to translate it into English.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tell\nLarry that the coincidence I read into all this is that Lanzarote currently has\nthe same vibrant kind of arts scene that he and I both remember from the sixties\nin England, with artists from different art forms working together and all that\nkind of creativity and desire to experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I\u00b4m very\nmuch aware of that, too,\u00b4 he smiles. In fact, I noticed it the moment we came\nhere, almost. I remember asking, when I started to collate what\u00b4s on\ninformation for the new English language Lancelot, that for such a small island\nthere was such a plethora of concerts and exhibitions. Somebody told me I\nshould remember always that this is an island with no water, and is therefore\nan island on which nobody should live, indeed should not be able to live.\nTherefore the ability of these people to eke out a living, find a way of life\nand make it sustainable shows their creativity, and that is why there is such a\nfield of creativity on the island. They have had to be inventive and creative.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tell Larry\nthat during my last several years in England I had begun to feel that the arts\nsomehow sat less comfortably than they once had alongside the country\u00b4s\nculture, religion and politics, whereas here, the arts seem sensibly employed\nto complement that sense of family and morality and culture and community pride\nthat already exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a8It\u00b4s\npart of the scenery, part of the life over here. Arts are here and whichever\nparty or positives come in the artists are still here, working. We may have\ncouncillors with different viewpoints on the arts sometimes, but the arts will\nnever die out. It is too cemented for that to happen.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that\nbecause the arts have such a trickle-down effect into the schools over here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Seventy\nfive per cent of everything I\u2019ve ever written is in the schools over here,\u00b4\nLarry confirms. \u00b4The education system took 134 articles from pour magazine,\nmade summaries of the and they are available for reference in The Central\nEducation office, and every Canarian island has one of those to ensure Canarian\ncontent remains on the curriculum. It\u2019s called CEP,\u2026C. E. P. Central Educacion\nProfessorial. It happened because somebody came to me and said that he had a whole\nset of issues of Lancelot and he was going back to live in England and wondered\nwhether I wanted the copies back or whether I could suggest anyone who might\nwant them. I contacted a guy I knew who worked with CEP and he and an English\nteacher who worked there, chose 134 articles. And it\u2019s an add on, a complement\nto the curriculum. It\u2019s an extra educational tool, written in English, and\nthere\u00b4s a European Commission whereby different schools teaching certain\nsubjects can exchange articles on those subjects through the common language of\nEnglish, so those articles for the magazine down the years have become quite useful\nand important.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is certainly\ntrue that when Dee and I came over here for our first holidays Lanceleot was\nthe first , and for a long time the only, English speaking magazine we found,\nand it became our best friend over here for a long time. Nowadays, of course,\nLancelot exists on a platform alongside Gazette Life Lanzarote, Lanzarote\ninformation web site, and the Cooltura web site, too and various English\nspeaking radio broadcasters, and now there is even my own Sidetracks and\nDetours all across the arts blog. Are we like dinosaurs about to make each\nother extinct, or is there enough grass for all of us_<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I think\nwe\u00b4re all ok,\u00b4 Larry says in a relaxed manner. The closest to us at Lancelot\nwould be The Gazette, but it has less cultural content and is perhaps more\nclassified than we are and Lanzarote Information is more visual, and through a\ndifferent media. Remember England. In London I used to get the Evening Standard\nand The Evening News, and of course, there were all the daily newspapers, but\nthey all had their own identity, didn\u00b4t they?\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask\nthis man, picture of serenity that he is, one final time whether the boy on the\nbook cover would recognise the man sitting here now,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nconsiders for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I think\nso.\u00b4\u2026 He pauses\u2026\u00b4I\u00b4ve always been a straight-shooter.\u00a8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked at\nwhat he is straight-shooting these days, I am somehow not surprised when his\nanswer takes us back to music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a8Nothing\nfor the moment. I\u00b4ve just got my feet up. But I\u00b4ve had some very good news. I\nwas interviewed a couple of months ago, by a guy who is writing a biography of\nStevie Marriott (The Small Faces, Itchy coo Park et al and Humble Pie) and he\nsaid the Humble Pie\u00b4s drummer, Jerry Shirley, wrote an autobiography called The\nBest Seat In The House, and in it he wrote,\u2026\u00b4we went to the dogs when Larry\nYaskiel left. He was always interested in us from morning till night and the\nminute he left A & M we went to the dogs.\u00b4 I told this writer an anecdote\nabout Stevie Marriatt. Soon after we signed Humble Pie, A & M\u00b4s co-owner,\nHerb Alpert, came over to the UK where he had just enjoyed a hit with This\nGuy\u00b4s In Love, to play at The Royal Command Performance. He came over to me and\nasked if there was anyone working in the recording studio as he\u00b4d like to have\na look, to see how we did things. I said sure, and took him up, and there was\nSteve Marriatt, a very smart guy and I left them to get to know each other. A\nfew days later I phoned Stevie up and asked how it had gone and whether or not\nhe and Herb had got along. He was a great guy, said Stevie. He even dressed\nlike us with holes in his jeans except his holes looked like they had been cut\nby a tailor and cost a lot more money than ours had!\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so\ncame to an end one of the most enjoyable interviews (for me) I have ever conducted.\nWhatever indefinable greatness Larry has that made him a successful adviser and\nfriend to the stars he wears it lightly, and does so still even when he dons\nthe cloak of unofficial Ambassador for Lanzarote. He and Liz are a popular\ncouple and seem to have time for everyone and everything they touch seems to be\ngrowing from strength to strength. Long may that continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUKE BOX JUDGE AND JURY Diligently undertaking the depth of research our readers demand of us, I googled Larry Yaskiel before conducting our interview with him, and unearthed an extensive on-line presence, though some of those entries that come up first on the page are my own previous articles about him published on Lanzarote Information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}