By Ryan Sparks
Not every supremely talented musician or band in rock ‘n roll
ends up getting the accolades or notoriety they deserve. Whether
it’s due to shady management and shoddy promotion from the
record companies, not being in the right place at the right time
or everyone’s favorite excuse ‘musical differences’ putting a
fork in the spokes, the list goes on and on. In the case of
Scottish blues band Stone The Crows it was the death of their
founding member guitarist Leslie Harvey in 1972 which sealed
their fate before they could really get off the ground.
Formed in the late 60’s by Harvey and vocalist Maggie Bell, the
band also included drummer Colin Allen, keyboardist John
McGinnis and bassist James Dewar, who later went on to front
Robin Trower’s band for many years in the 70’s. The band was
managed by Led Zeppelin’s Peter Grant and over the course of
approximately five years the band released four albums that
combined a passion for blues and progressive rock. While major
success had continued to elude them at the time of Harvey’s
tragic accidental death (he was electrocuted onstage), his
passing would effectively put a halt to everything they had
accomplished. Maggie’s gritty, soulful vocals along with
Harvey’s exceptional talents as a guitarist and songwriter were
the centerpieces of Stone The Crows’ sound. While Dewar was in
the band, his warm, heartfelt vocals were the perfect match for
her as the two would often trade off brilliantly.
After the remaining band members went their separate ways in
1973 Bell began to assemble a solo career. She released a few
albums in mid 70’s and was involved in another esteemed, but
ultimately short lived project in the early 80s called Midnight
Flyer. She eventually moved to Holland and worked on various
different projects over the next twenty years. She returned to
the UK in 2006 and joined a band called The British Blues
Quintet or BBQ for short. This band includes her former drummer
in Stone The Crows, Colin Allen as well as British R&B legend,
keyboardist and bandleader Zoot Money.
Since her return to British soil Maggie hasn’t stopped working
and at sixty four years young she assures me she is having more
fun now than she ever has. I recently had a chance to talk to
her about the fabulous new archive release which compiles all
of Stone The Crows’ radio sessions. This double CD is put out
through the folks at Angel Air who are the premier heritage
label. During our conversations I was able to get a little more
insight into her time with Stone The Crows, as well as her
thoughts on some of the musicians she has worked with over the
course of her career, including Led Zeppelin and Rod Stewart.
Maggie Bell is an absolute jewel and I strongly urge you if you
haven’t done so already, to check out this great new Stone The
Crows compilation or any of her impressive back catalogue of
work, much of it also available on Angel Air
(www.angelair.co.uk)
Ryan: Angel Air has just released a fantastic new collection
from Stone The Crows called Radio Sessions 1969-72. I know there
have been quite a few live albums released over the years by
various different labels, including a couple of volumes of BBC
sessions on the Strange Fruit label about ten years ago. This
collection doesn’t get into the specifics about where each track
was culled from, were any of these recordings previously
unreleased?
Maggie: No they’ve all been released previously.
Ryan: Speaking of Angel Air they’ve been responsible for issuing
quite a few Stone The Crows albums along with your own solo and
live albums as well. They’ve been great at keeping your music
alive and in people’s minds.
Maggie:
Meeting Peter Purnell from Angel Air is the best thing that ever
happened to me. He’s a fabulous guy, he’s straight and honest.
He’s just wonderful.
Ryan: How did you originally hook up with them?
Maggie: I lived in Holland for twenty years and when I was there
I got a call from Peter and he said “Look I’d like to re-release
some of your solo albums, what do you think about that?” and I
said “Well carry on”. It’s really been successful, and then of
course I come back to this country, I’ve been back for four
years now and I haven’t stopped working. I’ve done two tours
with The Manfreds, they’re not called Manfred Mann, they’re
called the Manfreds now because he’s not in the band you see,
and it’s been really successful. At the end of this year I’m
about to go on the road with Alan Price and Chris Farlowe, we’re
doing a tour.
Ryan: As good as Stone The Crows was in the studio this
collection definitely highlights the bands real strength as a
live unit.
Maggie : Yeah we worked six nights a week. We worked in
Universities and Polytechnics, we were a working band. The thing
is all the people that are coming to see me nowadays are the
people who have grown up from those Universities and
Polytechnics you know what I’m saying? They’re still coming out
and supporting me, it’s been absolutely wonderful.
Ryan: Between yourself and James Dewar the band had two great
vocalists to be reckoned with. The tradeoff vocals on songs like
“Raining In Your Heart” and “Touch Of Your Loving Hand” were
fabulous. What do you remember most about working with James?
Maggie: Oh Jimmy I knew from Glasgow, we were both born and
brought up in Glasgow. He was always a fantastic singer in my
eyes, even when we were working in the pubs in Glasgow. He was
originally one of the lovers in Lulu and The Lovers, he was in
the backing band. Poor Jimmy god rest his soul he’s no longer
with us, he never really got the recognition that he deserved,
but I think he did with Stone The Crows because he had a lot of
singing to do, and for the first time in our lives we were
actually writing our own songs.
Ryan: Did you manage to keep in touch with him over the years?
Maggie: Yeah after he went with Robin Trower. He was working and
I was working and it was one of those things, but our paths
would cross occasionally.
Ryan: What about towards the end of his life?
Maggie: No I hadn’t seen Jimmy for years.
Ryan: He was vastly underrated I think as a vocalist.
Maggie: Oh absolutely.
Ryan: I’m sure you’ve heard it a thousand times over the years
but Stone The Crows certainly had all the ingredients in place
to be quite big, you even had Peter Grant in your corner.
However, Les’ unfortunate passing effectively ended the band,
although you did continue briefly for a year afterwards. He such
a huge part of the band’s sound that you never really recover
from it.
Maggie: It took the heart and soul out of the band and it was
never the same after that. Nobody was writing any songs. Peter
Green was going to join the band, he rehearsed with us for four
weeks but then he let us down the day before we had to do this
festival. We got Steve Howe from Yes to step in, then we got
Jimmy McCulloch but it really was never the same without Leslie.
He was the founder of the band.
Ryan: Les was a truly unique player and was known to use some
interesting female tools to augment his playing is that true?
Maggie: Yeah absolutely, and before anyone else was doing it,
before the Jimmy Page’s were doing it. He used to use this
little kit thing that you could buy, it was like a small
cassette radio and it had this thing like a pen that would make
this (sings) deeda leet deet dee sound. It had a pen and you
could work the notes, like a battery driven keyboard.
Ryan: What else stood out for you about him as not only a
musician but as person as well?
Maggie: He was my fiancé and we were engaged to be married. He
was a great guy and we were with each other since childhood. He
was a great person and a wonderful musician. He taught me a lot
about music, him and his brother Alex. That’s all we used to do
was live, breathe and talk music.
Ryan: What was the songwriting process like within the band, was
it a collaborative effort?
Maggie: Yeah Colin would bring a couple of songs in and Leslie
and I would bring some in. It was just whatever we said “Well we
could do this, this would work”. This was back in the day when
the record companies actually believed in bands and wanted you
to write your own material. We were with Polydor at the time and
they said “Go away for a couple of weeks, write your own stuff
and we’ll make you an album and we’ll support you”. Whereas I
don’t think you could get that these days you know what I mean?
All these companies have writers that write hit pop songs and
that’s the way it works. I wouldn’t want to be coming up through
the music business as a teenager these days. It’s all about
who’s going to have a hit, do you know what I mean? The other
thing is, that’s all very well and ok but that’s why all these
kids are going off the rails in this country. Somebody hands
them a million pounds and gives them a deal, but you can never
go and see them anywhere where they’re playing. These kids have
got all this money, they have a couple of hit songs, and then
what else do they do with the rest of their life thank you very
much.
Ryan: Speaking of writing your own material, you guys were also
known for picking some interesting cover songs and you would
really jam on them in your live shows.
Maggie: “Hollis Brown”, “Fool On The Hill”. I still do “Hollis
Brown” with Dave Kelly as a duo, it’s a great song.
Ryan: “Wishing Well”.
Maggie: Yeah I still do that one with The British Blues Quintet.
They’re good songs you know? I think “Wishing Well” is my theme
song these days because everybody always shouts it out [laughs].
Ryan: The band’s sound was described as progressive rock, but to
me Stone The Crows came across as just a good old fashioned
blues rock band, or what you’d call a classic rock band.
Maggie: Well that’s where are roots were really. The rest of it
was a bonus because we wrote some good songs.
Ryan: The band did manage to tour the US.
Maggie: A couple of times Yeah.
Ryan You were on Joe Cocker’s Mad Dog’s & Englishmen tour.
Maggie: Yeah. We actually worked with Miles Davis can you
believe that? [laughs] We did The Fillmore West with Miles.
Ryan: Bill Graham used to put some great bills together.
Maggie: Oh yeah. We worked with Canned Heat and Three Dog Night.
Mountain and Felix Pappalardi.
Ryan: What else do you remember about touring the US with the
Crows at that time, it must have been an eye opening experience?
Maggie: It was quite a heavy time when I think it of it because
we’d go to little places like Lubbock Texas, to stop in for a
cup of coffee and you’d hear from across the room “Is that a boy
or a girl?” We couldn’t get our heads around that at all.
Ryan: I think that was par for the course at the time, parts of
America seemed to look upon people with long hair as freaks.
Maggie: Exactly, freaks, drug addicts or rapists. Then if they
asked you where you came from and you’d tell them Scotland, they
would say “How did you get over the barbed wire?” They thought
it was bloody East Germany you know?
Ryan: After Leslie’s unfortunate passing you did bring in Jimmy
McCulloch as you mentioned what was he like?
Maggie: He was a great player don’t get me wrong, later he went
and hooked up with Paul McCartney and Wings. He just wasn’t
really inventive do you know what I’m saying? Jimmy was just a
rock ‘n roller. He came from Thunderclap Newman to join
us.
Ryan: After the breakup of the band Peter Grant got you signed
with Atlantic Records and your debut solo effort Queen of the
Night was produced by Jerry Wexler. All the pieces seemed to be
in place once again.
Maggie: I’d actually made two albums for Atlantic before that. I
made a whole album with Felix Cavaliere from The Young Rascals,
my good friend Luther Vandross, god rests his soul, he did all
the vocal backings. I also made an album with Felix Pappalardi
from Mountain and both of those albums were never released.
Jerry Wexler said “I would like a chance to work with Maggie”
and that’s how it came about.
Ryan: So you actually recorded two albums prior to your official
debut?
Maggie: Yeah and I can’t find them anywhere, they’ve
disappeared.
Ryan: How did you manage to record two albums worth of material
and not have it released?
Maggie: You tell me [laughing].
Ryan: You had some great players on that first album, and of
course Jimmy Page played on your second record Suicide Sal.
Maggie: That’s right. I was working with Steve Gadd and Cornell
Dupree on the Queen of The Night album.
Ryan: Top notch players.
Maggie: Absolutely and I’m proud of that album Queen of The
Night.
Ryan: You should be.
Maggie: I haven’t stopped really. Every once and awhile a little
gem comes up for me to do. I did the original Tommy album (the
stage production) which is now being re-released I hear. I’ve
done a lot of famous T.V. in this country, one show has been on
for twenty seven years called Taggart, I did the theme song in
that. I’ve always worked and I’ve always tried to better my
singing career. I’ve always tried to be progressive and not
regressive [laughs].
Ryan: It really baffles me as to why someone with your
capabilities as a singer, that you haven’t gotten more
recognition over the years.
Maggie: Well I’ve always been a singer’s singer you see, other
singers like me and I do have a great following in this country.
Believe me and this is the truth, but I would rather be where
I’m at today at sixty four years old, still going out there and
doing it and drawing crowds, than maybe having a couple of huge
hit albums and then disappearing do you get what I mean? That
means a lot to me, my voice still sounds the same as it did back
then and I’m still working. I’m happier now with no pressures
from management or record companies or whatever. I go out there
and I do what I do and I’m enjoying it more now than I did forty
years ago and that’s the truth. Peter Grant was a wonderful man
and he remained a friend of mine until he died, but Peter had
Led Zeppelin and Bad Company. Peter Grant had me but he didn’t
know what to do with me.
Ryan: I think your first record Queen of The Night was
supposed to be on Swan Song but they didn’t have the label up
and ready.
Maggie: No they didn’t.
Ryan: I think it’s surprising as to why that record didn’t take
off or why you didn’t break through in the States.
Maggie: I think Queen of The Night did get to number ten
in the American charts. I know it stayed there for a good couple
of weeks. I’ve got so many friends in this business, great
musicians and great singers who ended up doing nothing. They had
the fame and the glory for a couple of years, now everybody is
over sixty and still doing nothing. I thank god I’ve still got
my health and the strength to be able to go out and do it.
Ryan: I want to ask you about the Midnight Flyer album.
Maggie: That was a real flash in the pan believe me.
Ryan: Yeah but that band was pretty powerful live as well.
Maggie: Oh yeah absolutely. We did a couple of tours of America
as well.I just got to the point where I said “I don’t want to
tour America all my life and get nowhere”. I would rather live
in my own country and tour; it just didn’t have any flavor for
me anymore. We did a tour with AC/DC for gods sake! I just
thought “Where is this going, what’s happening here?”
Ryan: Would it be safe to say that by that time perhaps you were
getting a little disillusioned with the whole industry as well?
Maggie: Not disillusioned with the music industry and the whole
business. I just wanted to spend some time on my own for myself.
I wanted to have some kind of home life. I’ve done a lot of
tours of America and I’ve never stopped working you know? I
figured I would spend some time in this house that I had bought
which I was never in. I was going to spend some time there and
spend some time with my family and my parents. That’s exactly
what I did and it was the best thing that I ever did.
Ryan: And you can’t get those moments back.
Maggie: No and if you think back to that time in America the
music business was going nowhere really. There wasn’t much
happening was there? You had your Crosby, Stills and Nash’s,
they were all passed. It was disco and Madonna and stuff like
that. Why should I tour America knocking my head against the
wall every night, and putting in good performances when people
are out buying Madonna records?
Ryan: You kind of dropped out of sight there for awhile, quite
awhile in fact. You said you kept working and you moved to
Holland where you lived for about twenty years.
Maggie: That’s right. I did a lot of acting and recording for a
friend of mine in Paris who has a company called Utopia Records.
He records people from all over the world. I had a family life
in Holland and I would get away for weekends, as long as I could
get back. Believe it or not I was asked to do a bit of acting In
Britain for the BBC and I got to work with Harvey Keitel and
Billy Connelly. I did a good bit of acting, I’m not an actress
but they asked me and I did it. I’m proud of what I’ve done.
Ryan: As you mentioned earlier you’ve been back in the saddle so
to speak playing with a few different acts; one is BBQ the
British Blues Quintet in which you play with Colin Allen, Zoot
Mone, Miller Anderson and Colin Hodgkinson.
Maggie: Colin (Allen) is still with me from Stone The Crows yeah
[laughing]. He lives in Sweden because it’s close for gigs and
stuff. We’re off to Russia next week.
Ryan: All of these musicians are seasoned veterans with enough
experience to fill a rock n roll history book.
What is like sharing the stage with these guys?
Maggie: They’re my friends I don’t think about it like that.
Ryan: I know what I meant was…
Maggie: We have to go through the same shit to get to the gig
you know what I’m saying? [laughing] We have to make sure
everybody’s parts are in order and everybody is getting on, but
they feel the same as I do. We just go out there and have a ball
it’s as simple as that.
Ryan: Speaking of books I heard that you are working on one
yourself is that correct?
Maggie: Yeah I don’t know when the hell I’m going to finish it.
Somebody said “You’ve got great stories to tell Maggie, the
people that you’ve met and the musicians you’ve met and you’ve
got quite the life story, why don’t you sit down and write about
it?” So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve only done about ten chapters
I think. I’ll work on it in my spare time if I’m in the hotel
and I’ve got a couple of hours, I’ll get my laptop out and I’ll
work on it.
Ryan: So you’ll finish it at some point and then search for a
publisher?
Maggie: I’ve had a couple of publishers approach me.
Ryan: Maybe you can get Peter involved?
Maggie: I know I love Peter, I trust him with my life. He’s like
the brother I never had believe me.
Ryan: He’s really done some great stuff with the artists on the
label hasn’t he?
Maggie: Oh yeah. He said to me “Mags you’ve never stopped
working since the day I met you. You go out there and I get
great feedback and stuff, you don’t cause anybody any problems,
you just go out there and do a great show”. It’s a great
relationship between him and me, and his wife Shirley, she owns
the company as well.
Ryan: In 2007 you appeared with The Rhythm Kings on the Ahmet
Ertegun memorial show at the O2 arena in London, also known as
the big Zeppelin reunion show. That must have been a magical
evening.
Maggie: It was fantastic. We only had one song each to do, Paul
Rodgers, myself and another Scottish / Italian boy, a great
singer called Paolo Nutini. It was one song each but working
with Bill Wyman and rehearsing with him, he’s a wonderful guy,
and I’ll tell you something he’s a very, very underestimated
bass player in my eyes. He’s so cool and it was such a thrill to
work with him and the band. It was fantastic.
Ryan: Obviously you stuck around to see Zeppelin.
Maggie: Oh yeah. I had to wear my spectacles when I was onstage,
but I put my hair up and put on a pair of jeans after the show.
I had my glasses on and I went up to Jimmy who was standing
there with these two big bodyguards, of course Jimmy has gray
hair now, he’s gone au natural. I said “I bet you don’t remember
me” and he said “Oh Maggie” [laughing]. So he was really, really
nice, and Jason Bonham played a storm. I’ve just known those
guys since I was very, very young you know? They still kick ass
believe me. There’s a touch of class with them, it’s always been
about that certain mystique about them. The arrangements on some
of those songs- Jimmy Page is a genius in my eyes. Did you ever
hear that album that he did with the guys in Morocco, did you
ever listen to that?
Ryan: The Unledded album with Robert sure.
Maggie: That’s one of the best CD’s that I’ve got in my
collection.
Ryan: Yeah they took their own songs and reinterpreted them.
Maggie: Yeah it’s absolutely incredible.
Ryan: Growing up as a young girl in Scotland in the 50’s who
were your musical influences?
Maggie: My parents were very, very musical. I had an uncle who
was in the merchant Navy and he used to bring me lots of, it was
78’s in those days and then it went to little 45’s. He would
bring them from America and I remember the first time I ever
heard Brenda Lee, it was when my uncle brought it from America.
“Speak To Me Pretty” and “Sweet Nothin’s” and all that. My
parents were listening to all sorts of music, Mario Lanza, my
daddy loved jazz and Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, there was
always music played in our house. My father was a good piano
player as well. I was brought up surrounded by music. There was
no T.V. in fact I think we were the last family on the street to
get a television.
Ryan: By the time you were a teenager had you already decided
that music was something you were going to pursue?
Maggie: Yeah the thing is I worked with dance bands. I was a
window dresser during the day and the money was really nothing,
it was something like two pounds a week, you couldn’t live on
that. Then I met Leslie and Alex and I joined Leslies band The
Kinning Park Ramblers. They’d been together since they were nine
years old, that band. Then when they all got to be eighteen,
nineteen, twenty years old they all started to go their own way
and start families. One of them opened up a music shop, one
worked at a printer. Then I thought “What do I do know?” My
Mother answered an advert for a local dancehall called the
Locarno, I lied about my age because you couldn’t work until you
were eighteen and was about sixteen and half at the time I
think. I worked with an eighteen piece orchestra covering
everything from Keely Smith, Dusty Springfield, Dinah Washington
all different kinds of stuff. That was one of the happiest
periods of my life because those guys played with the Scottish
National Orchestra and radio and stuff. They were great
musicians. I’ve always been surrounded by great musicians. They
taught me so much about chords and all the different stuff in
music. It was really for the money because I couldn’t survive
with the money that I was getting from the Window dressing job.
That helped to get me to where I eventually wanted to go, which
was to go with Leslie over to Germany for a year and rock the
American bases. That was the beginning of Stone The Crows.
Ryan: I’ve heard that Glasgow can be a pretty tough town.
Maggie: Yeah but it’s a port do you know what I’m saying? A lot
of good raw talent has come from there, writers as well. I feel
safer walking on Glasgow streets that I would say Birmingham or
Manchester [laughs].
Ryan: There isn’t enough time in the day to talk about all the
people that you’ve worked with, not to mention I know you’re
probably going to want to save some stories for your book, but
one of my favorite records that you were a part of was Rod
Stewart’s Every Picture Tells A Story.
Maggie: That was in the beginning of Stone The Crows. Roger
Daltrey was always very supportive of me as well. He would write
in magazines saying “Maggie Bell is a great singer” and Rod
Stewart as well. Rod came and collected me one night and he said
that was going to take me to the studio. This big Maserati car
pulls up and the neighbors were looking behind the curtains
wondering what was happening [laughing]. I went in and I did it,
and of course I was a good friend of Long John Baldry’s as well.
I sang on “Every Picture Tells A Story” and he thanked me in the
credits as Maggie “Mateus Rosé” Bell. I’ve never been a drinker
and I’ve never drank Mateus Rosé in my life.
Ryan: Maybe he was drinking it that night.
Maggie: Yeah probably.
Ryan: That album really sums up what’s great about rock ‘n roll.
It’s loose and you can hear the mistakes in there because they
left them in.
Maggie: Absolutely!
Ryan: Where as today everything has to be edited out.
Maggie: Today you can use computers; you don’t even have to be a
bloody singer these days. If you sing a bum note the computer
can fix it up. It’s not real is it?
Ryan: It takes something away from it don’t you think?
Maggie: Absolutely, that rawness and emotion. I’ll tell you who
I think is a great singer and who I like, is Bryan Adams. He’s
still got that rawness and I think he’s a great songwriter and a
great guitar player. That’s today’s equivalent of the Scottish
contingent as I call it, the Jimmy Dewar’s and the Alex Harvey’s
and all that. That’s who you’ve got in Canada is Bryan Adams. Of
course there’s Joni Mitchell as well, wonderful stuff.
Ryan: Thank for your time Maggie. I enjoyed talking to you.
Maggie: It’s been really nice talking to somebody that asks
intelligent questions because believe me I’ve had some real
corkers in my time [laughing]. There’s one thing I learned from
Jerry Wexler, I spent six months with Jerry and his wife out at
his house in the Hamptons. I spent a lot of time walking on the
beach with him and stuff and I loved him dearly. He said to me
“Maggie, do you know what I like about you? You do your
homework” That’s what you’ve done; you’ve done your homework.
Some people call me up to do interviews and they haven’t got a
clue. They don’t know their ass from their elbow really. You
want to get something else than just the same old byline don’t
you?
