Dave Dawson has been commanding stages (and other venues!) around here for decades. Entertaining, certainly and with a wealth of experience (and many, many tales to tell). Also an author. ‘Pop Idle’ is Dave’s fifth book and he describes it as ’30 years on the road as a professional singer’, but (in his words) ‘lifting the lid on 30 years on the bottom rung of the showbiz ladder’.
Dave has played many places in this area, and many beyond as well. But for him, playing care homes, particularly here and in other parts of Wiltshire has been ‘his salvation’, as it’s a part of ‘the circuit’ that only too often gets overlooked and ignored. But playing to the residents of care homes is giving them something which can be of great value and importance, and for them, very entertaining.
Dave notes that ‘Pop Idle’ is a ‘brutally honest account of my life on the circuit, but is also very funny (not my words) and a vital read for anyone setting put on a career as a muso’. Dave’s been based around here for many years, and Marlborough has been a regular location to play and in the same way that his audiences – elderly residents in the care homes he’s played, or you/me in the pubs, clubs, cruse liners that have featured on his list of ‘having played’ – have been entertained, ‘Pop Idle’ will also keep you in good humour…..
Copies of Pop Idle’ available from Amazon – click here.
Another book about the music industry – with a strong local connection – but one from the ‘other end’ of the business is ‘Rough Notes’, Bruce Thomas’s spellbindingly open and entertaining commentary on the music industry of the sixties, seventies and eighties and beyond, even to the current day. Bruce was, for many years the bass player of The Attractions, Elvis Costello’s band. He was a key part of creating the band’s very successful catalogue, inducted into the ‘Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame’ in 2003, and still regarded as one of the great bass players of recent decades, particularly so by the American audiences. Why mention Bruce here? He’s local, part of the Marlborough community (and has been for the past couple of decades or so) and ‘Rough Notes’ has become widely regarded as one of the commentaries of the music industry across this period, but importantly, from the inside.
Copies of ‘Rough Notes’ available from Amazon – click here.