(Previous: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14)
Memoirs Of A Busker: Epilogue
For several years after we emigrated, my South African buddy Trevor and I would pick a random part of the United States every year – somewhere neither of us had been before, and drive around for a few days with no planned route or plan, looking at this part of our adopted country with new eyes, and reminding ourselves just why we’d taken that big step across the ocean to start our lives all over again.
On one occasion, we found ourselves in Maine, traveling up and down the coast. On our last night we ended up at some hotel on the coast, with an outside bar.
Turns out there was a family reunion or maybe a class reunion of some sort, and their party was loud and raucous, as these things are, the participants were all about my age — mid-thirties — and letting loose without the kids to hold them back. At one point, a couple of guitars were brought out and they started singing songs.
The problem was that the two guys playing the guitars knew hardly any songs: in fact, I think they ran dry after only three or four.
When they started repeating songs, Trevor nudged me and said, “Why don’t you go and play some?” I started to protest, but the skunk went over to one of the guitarists and said, “Hey, my buddy can play guitar and he knows a whole bunch of songs. D’you mind if he plays a bit?”
Well, the guitar was handed to me and thus, after not having touched a guitar of any sort, nor having sung a note outside the shower pretty much since I’d left South Africa, I started playing.
I have no idea how it happened, but somehow the old songs all started coming back to me: the ones I’d learned from Ricky Hammond-Tooke’s songbook back at the College, a whole bunch of the old rock ‘n roll songs from American Graffiti, and more than a few of the songs out of 101 Hits For Buskers that I’d played in the cocktail bar at the Hunter’s Rest Hotel. They all flowed out of me as though I’d only just played them the day before: I remembered the music, the lyrics, the little touches I’d devised to make them sound different: it turned into a real show, and I ended up playing nonstop for two whole hours.
(note the groupies)
And so, after nearly a decade of silence, I played my last gig pretty much as I’d played my first: busking away like I knew what I was doing, on an instrument I could barely play — but this time (thanks to many years’ experience) I did manage to fool pretty much everyone.
The End
Since then: a few people have written to me to ask if I know what happened to all the people I knew and played with over the time these memoirs covered. Indeed I do, although not very much on some of them. I’ll start with the bit players.
Mike du Preez, who gave me my first gig as a bassist, is at time of writing still alive (!) and still teaching.
Robbie Kallenbach, who was responsible for me and Knob getting Pussyfoot together, ended up as president of EMI Records, and passed away in 2009.
Stand-in keyboards player Selwyn (“Zell”) Shandel ended up running a recording company.
Stand-in guitarist Buddy (“Bluddy Buddy”) Slater now lives, I think, somewhere in the U.S.
Stand-in drummer Neil Fox played music for the rest of his life, and died of a heart attack in 2020, much loved by everyone who ever knew him.
Hogwash drummer Franco del Mei played for Circus, and then with Ballyhoo until 1989, and I think he still sits in with them occasionally. To this day, he’s one of the best drummers I’ve ever heard, let alone played with.
Hogwash guitarist Danny Bridgens played with Circus for a long time. He’d studied music at Oklahoma U. (or maybe Oklahoma State), and he now lives in California. Danny was likewise one of the best guitarists around, an absolute wizard.
Hogwash keyboards player Craig (“Boze”) Manning married Isobel, his high school sweetheart and ended up as an accountant for an ice cream company in the U.K.
Hogwash vocalist Stan Greenberg married Billie, his high school sweetheart, and stayed in the hotel business.
Martin (“Farty Marty”) Coetzer moved to Durban and when last heard from, plays solo gigs in bars.
My dear friend Eddie (“Eds”) Boyle played bass for Stingray, then quit and opened his own music shop in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. He died of a heart attack in, I think, 2013.
And finally, Rory (“Max”) McKenzie emigrated to Oz and now lives in Perth. His account of his days with Shalima inspired me to write my own story.
Now for the main players:
I’ve written about Kevin here.
Mr. Filthy Perfectionist Donat still lives in Johannesburg.
Keyboards wizard Mike does likewise, just across the road from my old (pre-St. John’s) primary school.
Gilly had a serious career in South Africa (I talked about her here), and now lives near Salisbury Plain in England.
Gibby moved to the Cayman Islands, where he still lives today with Sue, his high school sweetheart/wife. Although we correspond often, we’ve only met up in person a couple of times over the past many years: once in London for dinner (pure coincidence that we happened to be there at the same time), and once in Dallas when he came over here on business:
(at Hard Eight BBQ, 2019)
Knob lives in the south of France, just outside Monaco. He and I correspond pretty much on a daily basis.
(Knob and me, somewhere on the Italian Riviera, 2017)
Although the Atlantic Survivors, as we call ourselves, hardly ever see each other, we still keep in touch often via a chat group, to which we contribute stuff every day — new (“don’t you wish we could have played this?”) songs, old memory lane songs, foul jokes and insults. In other words, nothing has changed.
But for the fact that we all live on different continents together (Seffrica, Britishland, France and the U.S.), if by some miracle we could snag a gig whereby we could play some nightclub dance music (Mike du Preez Trio stuff), with Gilly on vocals, Mike and Gibby on keyboards/guitar, Donat on guitar, Knob on drums and me on bass, we would not only grab it with both hands, but we would be the best frigging dance band ever.
And we all think Kevin’s a total dickhead for dying on us before we could put it all back together, one last time.