Transcript of interview on The Bob Harris Show, July 2007:

Opens with the track Payback from Human Spirit.

BH:  Gary Fletcher in the studio with us now … and I played that track a few weeks ago now, Gary, & the reaction I got to it was just absolutely fantastic.  I really was amazed, you know, by how many emails I got and how enthusiastic everybody was about that track.

GF:  That’s great to hear, that’s wonderful.

BH:  And one of the things I like so much about it, you know, the slide guitar playing is so good … Micky Moody’s playing slide isn’t he?

GF:  He is, he is.

BH:  You’ve got Rob Townsend there with you on drums …….

GF:  Rob’s on drums and my son Jack plays bass on it and there’s a lovely guitar player back there in the mix a little bit called John Evans who’s a local Twickenham lad but yeah, the slide is Micky – wonderful guitar player and fantastic slide player – the most accurate slide player you’ll ever come across, tremendous.

BH:  Because it’s amazing isn’t it, the community of musicians that exists in Britain.  I mean, to a certain extent here we’re talking about musicians who’ve really got 25/30 years’ experience under their belts and I also think about people like – I mentioned him earlier -  Bernie Marsden – y’know what a fantastically good player he is, and you’ve got everybody around you in The Blues Band.

GF: Well, yeah I’m very lucky in the sense that when The Blues Band first started all the other four guys were pretty well known …. y’know to a lesser or greater extent but certainly within their own chosen field, and although I’d been a pro player for a long time – I’d been in Sam Apple Pie and bands like that – I wasn’t the kind of name player ….. and Gerry McAvoy was originally supposed to do that gig - ‘cause it was only ever supposed to be two gigs …. that was all that was intended - and I think Rory didn’t really like his boys playing out of school so Gerry, I think, decided that discretion was the better part of valour at the death, as it were, and in the end Dave – well you would have thought Paul and Tom between them would have known a bass player but they said ‘Do you know a bass player?’ And Dave said, ‘Yeah Gary, I’ve been playing with him’, so that’s how I got the gig – right place, right time.

BH:  Absolutely.  And you’ve brought your guitar in with you to play tonight, so what’s the first song going to be?

GF:  This is a song that’s also on the album, it’s a song called May You Now Find Peace, and I wrote it really in the aftermath of a personal situation that I had to deal with which was that my son had a really really bad accident, but the lyric really applies to anybody who - and I’m sure that anyone listening would join with me in wishing anybody who’s been through a kind of tragedy or personal injury loss … whatever it might be … or a natural disaster - one might wish them nothing less than a bit of peace, a bit of hope and a bit of love.  And I know that that sounds like a bit of a hippy message but there again I am that way inclined.  So …. May You Now Find Peace ……..

BH:  What was that Nick Lowe song that Brinsley Schwartz did …. What’s so funny about Peace Love & Understanding? 

GF:  Oh that’s right, yeah ….

BH:  But it’s Gary Fletcher playing live here on Radio 2 …. So how big a step was it then, Gary, sort of stepping forward into the idea of putting out this new album and making this album?

GF:  It was a big departure for me.  I had put out one album before, it was called The Official Gary Fletcher Bootleg Album which of course is an outrageous nick from the title of the first Blues Band album, but that was really a compilation of the demo’s that I’d made over the years of blues tunes I’d written for the band, some of which they used, like Greenstuff and one or two others, some of which didn’t pass the committee, but that was very much me in the context of The Blues Band.  This is for the most part me in my own context and there’s 3 or 4 tracks on it which are definitely blues songs, no denying that, and there’s a blues tinge to much of what I do, but this, with the best will in the world, much as I’d like to claim it’s down home blues when I’m trying to get blues gigs, in all honesty it’s not, and it was quite a big step to step out from, let’s face it, the giant vocal shadows of Dave Kelly and Paul Jones.  But in recent years Tom McGuinness and I have started to do the odd song on lead vocal and Tom’s put a couple of albums out - and in fact I’ve got a copy of Double Take, his latest album, for you - and the pair of us have kind of edged our way forward if you like, but it is a big departure and I was very nervous about it.

BH:  This is your All Things Must Pass.

GF:  It is a bit, yes!  Gosh I wish it was as successful as that!  I wish it was as GOOD as that!

BH:  All these songs building up, y’see, just like George – didn’t have an outlet for them in the band so you made a triple album.

GF:  You know I could easily because I do write quite prolifically, um, and I’m not very good at writing to order or anything like that, but I write quite a lot of songs, maybe not quite as prolific as Martin [Joseph] cause that’s stunning – 18 albums since ’98 – boy that is impressive, and y’know it wouldn’t be if they weren’t good but they’re fantastic.  Yeah so, I’m not George Harrison … aspirationally perhaps ….

BH: But the album … it’s been a gradual process, hasn’t it?  Sort of pulling the strings of the album together ….

GF:  Yeah, the songs, some of them date … well in fact there’s one song that dates way back to 1981 I think which was on one of the Blues Band albums but I always wanted to do it my own way, and again that actually features Micky on dobro and Bernie on lead, but the rest of them I think spring from around the sort of 2001 period onwards in terms of the composition of the songs, and some of them are very bang up to date.  Some of them are, as I mentioned earlier, like May You Now Find Peace, definitely sparked off by the circumstances that surrounded my son’s accident and various other domestic dramas which befell me during that period.

BH:  And are you through all that okay now?

GF:  Pretty much I think, yeah.  Y’know it has been a tough few years – y’know I kind of, I guess, lived the blues to some extent in a way although in comparison to people who have real real troubles I wouldn’t claim any sort of overt sympathy from anybody.  Yeah but my marriage broke up and stuff and that was hard to take, but you know, the worst thing to deal with was seeing my son go through what he had to go through and the marvellous thing  is to see him come through it, not entirely unscathed but as you can see he plays bass …. In fact  I’m the bass player in The Blues Band but I don’t play a note on the album, Jack plays it – he’s a much better bass player than me -  actually I shouldn’t have said that, I’ll probably get sacked now – he’s probably cheaper than me as well.  But, no, I’ve had a few tough times but things are definitely looking up …. I’ve met a wonderful lady and y’know, things are going pretty good.

BH:  It is incredible …. y’know isn’t it the case how we all do have things going on our lives at any given time …… y’know nobody said it was going to be easy, nobody said it was just going to be plain sailing throughout and everybody ……..  it’s incredible isn’t it as one talks to people and you discover about other people’s lives how much is going on in everyone’s life and you think even now, you know, about the flooding and Tewkesbury and the difficulties people are having ….

GF:  Well I was supposed to be playing in Upton on Severn last Sunday, I had a solo spot and then The Blues Band were supposed to be playing in the evening at the Upton on Severn Blues Festival, and y’know the horrors that people living in Upton and obviously Tewkesbury and anywhere that have gone through must be really hard to take, and y’know obviously it was a shame that we couldn’t do the gig but the most important thing is that they get straight again and …. It’s a real tough one … I would not want to be a politician at this time, that’s for sure, because y’know you’ve got to come up with answers and answers aren’t easy to find when things are as catastrophically out of the ordinary as that, and so good luck to all you guys out there who are having to deal with that and … uh .. I hope the music eases the pain a little bit ….

BH:  Yeah.  Well let’s have another song.

GF:  Right.  This one’s a short song about the little guy who really gets sort of dumped on from every which way – if it’s not the government turning him over it’s his gaffer and if it’s not his gaffer it’s his significant other.  So it’s called A Lie Is A Lie, and profoundly so I suspect …

BH:  Great stuff from Gary Fletcher who’s playing live with us here …. and our friend Graham Brown is here with us in the studio – of course better known as Stockcar Graham.  And it’s an interesting coincidence that Graham’s here this evening because of course your parallel life takes us into motorsport, Gary, doesn’t it?  In what capacity?

GF:  Well this year I’ve been driving what’s called a Sports 2000 car which is kind of single seater but enclosed bodywork sports protype type thing, but in the past I’ve driven Fiestas and – the picture that we were all laughing about earlier that’s on the internet of me, um, parking it in a very unconventional position at Brands Hatch –

BH:  Sort of mid-air wasn’t it?

GF:  It was mid-air, yes.  That was when I first started.  I didn’t start until I was too old and too slow because it’s – actually I’m not too slow, I’ve won a few races – but it’s the sort of thing I couldn’t afford to do either fiscally or certainly time-wise until the mid 90s really, so I was a bit sort of long in the tooth to be a next Lewis Hamilton, that’s for sure.  And I also do a bit of instructing, y’know helping people to learn to do it, & if you came to Thruxton for an experience in a Ferrari or whatever you might be unfortunate enough to get lumbered with me sitting next to you –

BH:  I tell who would.  I mean, my son Dylan, who’s 13 in September, Dylan knows everything there is to know about supercars, he can quote the brake horsepower of a Pagani Zonda or whatever it is, I mean he’s absolutely incredible ….

GF:  You’ve got to come down, bring him down.

BH:  He would love it, truly he would.

GF:  The pair of you come down and we’ll take you out in a few cars and bits & pieces …..

BH:  You’re on.  So if people want to know more about your album and more about your motorsport and racing activities –

GF:  Ha, that’s very subsidiary to the album, yeah ….

BH:  The website address?

GF:  It’s garyfletchermusic.co.uk.

BH:  And stage work coming up now with The Blues Band or otherwise?

GF:  Yeah, the Blues Band, we’re off to Norway next weekend and we’re doing the Halesworth Festival up in Suffolk, and I’m very much looking forward to being able to try and now assemble some dates in my own right and with my own little band, which has got Rob Townsend on drums, or if Rob can’t do it because of his Manfreds commitments, I have Pick Withers from Dire Straits on drums –

BH:  Oh excellent.

GF:  So it’s a good band.  And um … so …. gigs welcome!!

BH:  Yes!  And the new album is called Human Spirit and it’s out now on the BGO record label.  It’s been a real pleasure, Gary - thank you very much indeed for being here and playing so brilliantly.

GF:  Thanks for having me.

BH:  So the final hour still to come with such as The Drive-By Truckers, Steve Earle, Mary Gauthier and Crosby Stills & Nash in a couple of minutes’ time on 88-91FM.  This is Radio 2 from the BBC ….