Graham Parker & The Rumour – Don’t Ask Me Questions

27th August 2021 · 1970s, 1976, Music, Reggae

By the mid-Seventies you had to forage far and wide for rough-and-ready roots music in a music world dominated by prog dinosaurs and disco.

If I’d been old enough, I would have found it hiding in plain view in London pubs, where bands like Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, Dr Feelgood and Bees Make Honey were making stripped-back RnB-influenced music.
 
When several of those bands splintered, they were gathered together by Dave Robinson – soon to found Stiff Records – to make a backing group for Graham Parker, a wiry little guy with the voice of a soul singer and the aggressive attitude of a punk even before punk had been invented.
 
The Rumour – Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont (guitar), Bob Andrews (keyboards) Andrew Bodnar (bass) and Steve Goulding (drums) – were a crack outfit with years of experience and a depth of knowledge of blues, country, soul and reggae.
 
Parker, sneering and snarling, was the perfect front man.
Their debut album, Howlin’ Wind, came out in early 1976 and I bought it immediately. Soon after, they released a bootleg album, Live At Marble Arch, which gained legendary status when I left school and was starting to go to gigs on my own.
 
The album was recorded in May at Phonogram’s basement demo studio, hoping to convince the label’s US partner, Mercury, to sign them (which they did, to mutual dissatisfaction).
 
Released only as a promo, and subsequently a collector’s item, the producer was Nick Lowe, soon to release the first single on Stiff, and the engineer was a young man called Steve Lillywhite.
 
I never found a copy of the LP but I knew it contained an incendiary version of this song, which was always the highlight of their live shows – including the life-changing one I saw at the Victoria Palace
 
I was lucky enough to see them several times, including the life-changing one I saw in 1976 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, where they were supported by The Damned.
 
This clip from soon afterwards captures them at their best.