Georgie Fame There's Nothing Else to Do Life and Music

500 pages, 104 black and white illustrations, size 6.14 x 9.21 inches. Previously published as a hard bound edition under the same title in Europe, this revised and updated softbound edition was published in 2016 by VelocePress. Georgie Who? Times are tougher than tough for a 70 plus singing Hammond organist working without a manager. Even if he's had No.1 hits like "Yeh Yeh" and "The Ballad of Bonnie & Clyde". Even if he played with Count Basie, Van Morrison and Bill Wyman - who supplies a short foreword here! London once sported the poster slogan "Georgie Fame - The Godfather of British R&B!" Fame deserves that claim to fame - he had shared the Godfather tag with both Alexis Korner and John Mayall. While Alexis would swing easy with the infant Rolling Stones and the Graham Bond Trio featuring Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, while Mayall "educated" Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor, Georgie Fame had fab musical ambassadors too: Guitarist John McLaughlin or prime drummers Jon Hiseman and Mitch Mitchell, the latter switching from Blue Flames fame to the Jimi Hendrix Experience! Georgie had the best reed players in town and legends sealed to his early band, like conga man "Speedy" Acquaye and trumpet ace Eddie "Tan Tan" Thornton. One of those guys has managed to stay with him for 47 years: sax veteran Alan "El Skid" Skidmore. As early as 1962, Georgie Fame was one of the first British piano players to master the Hammond organ. He was also the pioneer in putting sophisticated Rhythm into the Blues, as pioneered by his Mississippi/New York role model Mose Allison. For the sake of his often Afro-American and Jamaican audiences in London's night owl district Soho's "Flamingo Club", Fame made sure he would use Jump Jive grooves, Soul, Funk, Brazilian Sambas and Ska. A fine bandleader, Hammond hero and prime R&B singer at 21, Georgie sank his "Yeh Yeh" royalties into a Big Band concept LP, Sound Venture. The legendary US band leader Count Basie saw Fame's potential for mutual tours. Georgie "I'm still learning" Fame has always honed his craft of ballad singing and Vocalese, his hero Jon Hendricks' art of adding lyrics to Jazz solos, to such perfection that he may be the world's leading Jazz mastersinger. Still touring with his Blue Flames, his sons Tristan and James as well as the world's Big Bands, here's his story, including track-by-track appreciations of all his singles and albums, and interviews with many crucial companions then and now!