Walli said: ‘The madder the better.’
He and Rebecca were in upbeat mood as they drove to the Reeperbahn in the van she had adapted for Bernd and his wheelchair. El Paso had been empty during the afternoon, and now it had only a handful of customers. Dieter in the Stetson had been less than friendly earlier, and this evening he was grumpy. He pretended to have forgotten to ask Walli to come back, and Walli feared he was going to withdraw the offer of a try-out; but then he jerked his thumb towards a tiny stage in the corner.
As well as Dieter there was a middle-aged barmaid with a big bust wearing a check shirt and a bandana: Dieter’s wife, Walli guessed. Clearly they wanted to give their bar a distinctive character, but neither had much charm, and they were not attracting many customers, American or otherwise.
Walli hoped that he might be the magic ingredient that pulled in the crowds.
Rebecca bought two beers. Walli plugged in his amplifier and switched the microphone on. He felt excited. This was what he loved, and what he was good at. He looked at Dieter and his wife, wondering when they wanted him to begin, but neither showed any interest in him, so he strummed a chord and started singing ‘If I Had a Hammer’.
The few customers glanced at him with curiosity for a moment then went back to their conversations. Rebecca clapped along with the beat enthusiastically, but no one else did. Nevertheless, Walli gave it everything, strumming rhythmically and singing loudly. It might take two or three numbers, but he could win this crowd around, he told himself.
Halfway through the song, the microphone went dead. So did Walli’s amplifier. The power to the stage had obviously failed. Walli finished the song without amplification, figuring that was slightly less embarrassing than stopping in the middle.
He put down his guitar and went to the bar. ‘The power’s gone dead on stage,’ he said to Dieter.
‘I know,’ said Dieter. ‘I switched it off.’
Walli was baffled. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to listen to that rubbish.’
Walli felt as if he had been slapped. Every time he had ever performed in public, people had liked what he did. He had never been told that his music was rubbish. His stomach went cold with shock. He hardly knew what to do or say.
Dieter added: ‘I asked for American music.’
That made no sense. Walli said indignantly: ‘That song was a Number One hit in America!’
‘This place is named after “El Paso” by Marty Robbins – the greatest song ever written. I thought you would play that sort of thing. “Tennessee Waltz”, or “On Top of Old Smoky”, songs by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Jim Reeves.’
Jim Reeves was the most boring musician the world had ever known. ‘You’re talking about Country and Western music,’ Walli said.
Dieter did not feel he needed to be enlightened. ‘I’m talking about American music,’ he said with the confidence of ignorance.
There was no point in arguing with such a fool. Even if Walli had realized what was wanted, he would not have played it. He was not going into the music business to play ‘On Top of Old Smoky’.
He returned to the stage and put his guitar in its case.
Rebecca looked bewildered. ‘What happened?’ she said.
‘The landlord didn’t like my repertoire.’
‘But he didn’t even listen to one song all through!’
‘He feels he knows a lot about music.’
‘Poor Walli!’
Walli could deal with Dieter’s boneheaded scorn, but Rebecca’s sympathy made him want to cry. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to work for such an asshole.’
‘I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,’ said Rebecca.
‘No, please don’t,’ Walli said. ‘It won’t help to have my big sister tell him off.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said.
‘Come on.’ Walli picked up his guitar and amplifier. ‘Let’s go home.’
* * *
Dave Williams and Plum Nellie arrived in Hamburg with high hopes. They were on a roll. They were becoming popular in London, and now they were going to wow Germany.
The manager of The Dive was called Herr Fluck, which Plum Nellie found hilarious. Not so funny was the fact that he did not like Plum Nellie much. Even worse, after two evenings, Dave thought he was right. The group was not giving the punters what they wanted.
‘Make dance!’ Herr Fluck said in English. ‘Make dance!’ The people in the club, all in their teens and twenties, were mainly interested in dancing. The most successful numbers were the ones that got the girls out on the floor, bopping with one another, so that the men could then cut in and get paired off
But mostly the group fell short of generating the kind of excitement that got everyone moving. Dave was appalled. This was their big chance and they were fluffing it. If they did not improve, they would be sent home. ‘For the first time in my life, I’m a success at something,’ he had said to his sceptical father; and in the end his father had let him come to Hamburg. Would he have to go home and admit that he had failed at this, too?
He could not figure out what the problem was, but Lenny could. ‘It’s Geoff,’ he said. Geoffrey was the lead guitarist. ‘He’s homesick.’
‘Does that make him play badly?’
‘No, it makes him drink, and the drink makes him play badly.’
Dave took to standing right next to the drum kit and hitting his guitar strings harder and more rhythmically, but it did not make much difference. He realized that when one musician underperformed it brought down the whole group.
On his fourth day he went to visit Rebecca.
He was delighted to discover that he had not one but two relations in Hamburg, and the second was a guitar-playing seventeen-year-old boy. Dave had schoolboy German, and Walli had picked up some English from his grandmother, Maud; but they both spoke the language of music, and they spent an afternoon trading chords and guitar licks. That evening Dave took Walli to The Dive, and suggested that the club hire Walli to play in the intervals between Plum Nellie’s sets. Walli played a new American hit called ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, which the manager liked, and he got the job.
A week later, Rebecca and Bernd invited the group for a meal. Walli explained to her that the boys worked late into the night and got up at midday, so they liked to eat at around six in the evening, before going on stage. That was fine with Rebecca.
Four of the five accepted the invitation: Geoff would not come.
Rebecca had cooked a pile of pork chops in a rich sauce, with great bowls of fried potatoes, mushrooms and cabbage. Dave guessed she wanted, in a motherly way, to make sure they got one good meal in the course of a week. She was right to worry: they were living mainly on beer and cigarettes.
Her husband, Bernd, helped with the cooking and serving, moving himself around with surprising agility. Dave was struck by how happy Rebecca was, and how much in love with Bernd.
The group tucked into the food eagerly. They all talked in mixed English and German, and the atmosphere was amiable even if they did not understand everything that was said.
After eating they all thanked Rebecca profusely, then got the bus to the Reeperbahn.
Hamburg’s red-light district was like London’s Soho but more open, less discreet. Until he came here, Dave had not known that there were male prostitutes as well as female.
The Dive was a grubby basement. By comparison, the Jump Club was plush. At The Dive the furniture was broken, there was no heating or ventilation, and the toilets were in the backyard.
When they arrived, still full of Rebecca’s food, they found Geoff in the bar, drinking beer.
The group went on stage at eight. With breaks, they would play until three in the morning. Every night they played every song they knew at least once, and their favourites three times. Herr Fluck made them work hard.
Tonight they played worse than ever.
Throughout the first set Geoff was all over the place, playing wrong notes and fumbling his solos; and that put everyone else off. Instead of concentrating on entertaining people, they were struggling to cover Geoff’s mistakes. By the end of the set Lenny was angry.
In the interval, Walli sat on a stool, front of stage, and played the guitar and sang Bob Dylan songs. Dave sat and watched. Walli had a cheap harmonica on a rack that fitted around his neck, so that he could blow and strum at the same time, just as Dylan did. Walli was a good musician, Dave thought, and smart enough to recognize that Dylan was the latest craze. The clientele of The Dive mostly preferred rock and roll, but some listened, and when Walli went off stage he got a round of enthusiastic applause from a table of girls in the corner.
Dave accompanied Walli to the dressing room, and there they discovered a full-scale crisis.
Geoff was on the floor, drunk and incapable of standing upright without assistance. Lenny, kneeling over him, slapped his face hard every now and again. That probably relieved Lenny’s feelings, but it did not bring Geoff round. Dave got a mug of black coffee from the bar, and they forced Geoff to drink some, but that made no difference either.
‘We’ll have to go on without no fucking lead guitarist,’ said Lenny. ‘Unless you can play Geoff’s solos, Dave.’
‘I can do the Chuck Berry stuff, but that’s all,’ said Dave.
‘We’ll just have to leave the rest out. This fucking audience probably won’t notice.’
Dave was not sure Lenny was right. Guitar solos were part of the dynamic of good dance music, creating light and shade and preventing the repetitive pop tunes from becoming boring.
Walli said: ‘I can play Geoff’s part.’
Lenny looked scornful. ‘You’ve never played with us.’
‘I hear your whole act three nights,’ Walli said. ‘I can play all those songs.’
Dave looked at Walli and saw in his eyes an eagerness that was touching. He was evidently yearning for this opportunity.
Lenny was sceptical. ‘Really?’
‘I can play. Is not difficult.’
‘Oh, isn’t it?’ Lenny was a bit miffed.
Dave was keen to give Walli a chance. ‘He’s a better guitarist than I am, Lenny.’
‘That’s not saying fucking much.’
‘He’s better than Geoff, too.’
‘Has he ever been in a group?’
Walli understood the question. ‘In a duo. With a girl singer.’
‘He hasn’t worked with a drummer, then.’
That was a key point, Dave knew. He recalled how startled he had been, the first time he played with the Guardsmen, to discover the tight discipline imposed on his playing by the drum beat. But he had managed, and Walli could surely do the same. ‘Let him try, Lenny,’ Dave pleaded. ‘If you don’t like what he does, you can send him off after the first number.’
Herr Fluck put his head around the door and said: ‘
Raus! Raus!
It’s showtime!’
‘All right, all right,
wir kommen
,’ Lenny replied. He stood up. ‘Pick up your axe and get on stage, Walli.’
Walli went on.
The opening number of the second set was ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, which was guitar-led. Dave said to Walli: ‘Do you want to warm up with an easier one?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Walli.
Dave hoped his confidence was justified.
Lew, the drummer, counted: ‘Three, four,
one
.’
Walli came in right on cue and played the riff.
The group came in a bar later. They played the intro. Just before Lenny started to sing, Dave caught his eye, and Lenny nodded approvingly.
Walli played the guitar part perfectly without apparent effort.
At the end of the song, Dave gave Walli a wink.
They did the set. Walli played every number well, and even joined in some of the backing vocals. His performance lifted the group’s energy and they got the girls out on the floor.
It was the best set they had played since they got to Germany.
As they went off, Lenny put his arm around Walli and said: ‘Welcome to the group.’
* * *
Walli hardly slept that night. Playing with Plum Nellie, he had felt he belonged, musically, and that he enhanced the group. It had made him so happy that he began to fear it might not last. Had Lenny really meant it when he said: ‘Welcome to the group’?
Next day, Walli went to the cheap boarding-house in the St Pauli district where the group lodged. He arrived at midday, just as they were getting up.
He hung out for a couple of hours with Dave and Buzz, the bass player, going through the group’s repertoire, polishing up beginnings and endings of songs. They seemed to assume he would be playing with them again. He wanted confirmation.
Lenny and Lew surfaced around three in the afternoon. Lenny was direct. ‘Do you definitely want to join this group?’
‘Yes,’ Walli said.
‘That’s it, then,’ said Lenny. ‘You’re in.’
Walli was not convinced. ‘What about Geoff?’
‘I’ll talk to him when he gets up.’
They went to a café called Harald’s on Grosse Freiheit and had coffee and cigarettes for an hour, then they came back and woke Geoff. He looked ill, which was not surprising after drinking so much that he had passed out. He sat on the edge of his bed while Lenny talked to him and the others listened from the doorway. ‘You’re out of the group,’ Lenny said. ‘I’m sorry about it, but you let us down badly last night. You were too drunk to stand up, let alone play. Walli took your place and I’m making him permanent.’
‘He’s just a punk kid,’ Geoff managed.
Lenny said: ‘Not only is he sober, he’s a better guitarist than you.’
‘I need coffee,’ said Geoff.
‘Go to Harald’s.’
They did not see Geoff again before they left for the club.
They were setting up on stage just before eight when Geoff walked in, sober, guitar in hand.
Walli stared at him in consternation. Earlier, he had got the impression Geoff had accepted that he was fired. Maybe he had just been too hung over to argue.
Whatever the reason, he had not packed his bag and left, and Walli became anxious. He had suffered so many setbacks: the police smashing up his guitar so that he could not appear at the Minnesänger; Karolin withdrawing from the gig at the Europe Hotel; and the proprietor of El Paso pulling the plug halfway through his first song. Surely this would not turn into another disappointment?