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My Wise Monkey Story - JC Carroll
In was introduced to Lee Fergusson by a guy called Tony Allen ( Tony Allen is often refferred toas the father of Alternative Comedy in the UK) in a pub called the Warwick Castle in Portobello Road in 1988. Tony said to Lee if you want an accordion player this guy is good. I had just moved back into the area and it seemed I was in a band they invited me to rehearsal high up on Trellick Tower my rehearsal was the night of the big storm in November 1988 I remember meeting the band who at that time comprised of Nettie Vaan , Ashley Lees, Lee Fergusson and Steve Grocott in Ashley‘s flat and I remember the floor beneath our feet swaying as we walked back to the lift with 120 mile an hour winds battered the famous tower block in West London.
The next day lots of trees have blown down and I was in a new band I was in a new band and in a new relationship and I had just started a business. It was a busy time for me. I joined the Wise Monkeys as an accordionist I had not been in a folk group before and I had lots to learn the band played a mixture of Irish jigs and reels and And Cajun two steps and waltzes and it was an education for me. At the time Nettie was the front person of the group and she was a fabulous fiddle player and singer and she had a secret book on Cajun music that she wouldn’t show anybody. We even went on a date to go and see a movie called the big easy. I think she called me jean marie as well which nobody else does apart from my mother. There was a whirlwind of activity and suddenly the Wise mMonkeys were playing every week at a place called The Tabernacle in Notting Hill Gate. The Tabernacle was a converted Jewish temple that had been the scene of some very famous Pink Floyd concerts and I had played with The Members a few years previously. we became the house band of tony allen’s comedy club and played every Friday night which was great. One day we played at the tabernacle we were noticed by a guy called Frank Tovey Frank was electronic musician who had decided to make an acoustic album and he wanted us to play on his record. He particularly liked one song that we was doing called Sam Hall he had half of us to play on his record made Sam Hall the lead track which was nice and not nice it was like “you stole our song” The band changed personal quite quickly when Nettie and Ashley left to form a more professional unit called Zum Zeux by this time we had recruited the wonderful Elliet Mackrell as a violinist and we had the incredible Paul Rodden on Banjo and a lovely man called Charlie Llewellyn playing the drums I think during this period I started singing a few songs Steve and I would alternate singing and I introduced them to some of my own songs which included the Night Shift and we began to incorporate a Balkan tango feel to our sound. I had only just learnt to play the accordion recently and I didn’t like to tell the rest of the band some of the songs I brought to the table were in the first two books that I learnt to play accordion from. One book was was called “a tune a day” by hohner and the other was called contemporary accordion which had some great Clifton Chenier French-Canadian and a nice German waltz in it. So now we had a brilliant band and Lee was our de facto manager! Lee and Tony were sort of managing us a breakthrough came when we decided to play at my wedding party at a place called Cobden club. Word got round that we were great for weddings and we got a whole summer book playing posh weddings in the country it was a real whirlwind time as I was starting a business a relationship and soon a family. Round about this time we were also performing with a guy called Rory McLeod who was a very promising solo folk musician who had won some awards and was very good at everything he did, we did some shows with him and backed him up the sound was really good and it was really fresh and it was part of the new folk movement. Then we went through a quiet period where there was no work and Elliet and Steve drifted off to do other projects Paul went off to join Frank Tovey full time. So Lee and I were left on her own holding the baby that was the wise monkeys. Lee never stood still and was always hustling and very soon we had recruited two members of Gazes Mayalls, Trojans. Gaz was the son of famous blues man John Mayall and from him we got a great drummer called “Lucky” Peter and bass player who also played really good Keyboards, who was a friend of mine called Andrew Crawford. We need the violin player so the next person to join the group was a great violin player who played with a curved (rather like a bow and arrow) bow and his name is Anthony Aldridge I still played the accordion by added the electric guitar to the sound and we became a bit rocky Lee was the brains behind the operation and he quickly hustled us some gigs above a pub in the All Saints Road of Portobello Road called the Pelican. At the time lee was also running a painting and decorating business and happened to be decorating the house of a famous singer called Sinéad O’Connor one day he persuaded her to come and sing with us so she did a quick rehearsal and rocked up and sang backing vocals and a few numbers with The Wise Monkeys in a room above a pub She was at a time when she was an international superstar and it was a very special night caught on video bye Jason Mayall (Garys Brother) . There were other brilliant nights above the pelican such as the night Mick Jagger came to see us and sat in the corner smiling as we went through a raggedy set of polkas Irish songs Cajun waltzes and the odd Jimi Hendrix number. One night when we were playing at Gaz’s rocking blues club in Soho a young girl attached herself to Lee and it was love at first sight she was an American girl who came from a good family who were in the theatre business in New York, they had a nice apartment in 5th Avenue and Lee disappeared off to America and married this young girl but in typical Lee fashion Lee decided that his old band The Wise Monkeys would have to play at the wedding so he kind of wangled it that we would all fly over to the USA and play a gig in New York at another friends club called Nells. Little Nells was a famous hang out in New York owned by a woman that was in the Rocky horror show and it was run by a friend of ours called Tex Axile. By this time we had a more different people in the band we had sadly lost Andrew who tragically committed suicide after we played a gig in Horsel Surrey. We had recruited a keyboard player called Hoagie and a great guitarist called Chester Kamen who played with lots of famous rockstars like Bryan Ferry and Roger Waters what he was doing playing with us I don’t know. But we played Nells in New York and I remember meeting the ballerina Darcey Bussell who was a young girl at the time and then we got ourselves a gig in a redneck Roadhouse in Massachusetts quite by our accident called the Silverbrook Tavern before finally playing at Lees wedding. it was quite a thing to bring a whole band over from the UK to play a wedding in America but it was a fantastic night we all flew back to England and Lee stayed in America with his young wife and we thought well that’s the end of The Wise Monkeys; because Lee was the engine that drove everything along. Lee lived in New York but every winter he used to go down to Miami and I got a call from him saying I think I’ve got a gig for you down in Miami can you bring Accordion over there’s a great guitarist that lives there and has a good drummer and that is how the Miami version of The Wise Monkeys was born. Lee sent me an air ticket and I flew over to Miami and met Paddy Kelleghan and French Uruguayan Serge and we did a couple rehearsals and played a show in Miami Beach in November for our friend Miami Charlie‘s birthday. Going out to Miami turned into a yearly thing for me and I use the fly every year do a show with Lea and then we used to have a short holiday down in the keys, one time we took our instruments down to key West and hooked up with a great musician called Barry Cuda there we did a little impromptu show with him in a club called the Hogs Breath tavern (reputedly owned by Clint Eastwood) right at the end of the Key West, it was a great lineup I played the accordion Lee played bass Barry played the piano honky-tonk style and we had this amazing tuba player playing sort of Mardi Gras New Orleans funk bass on the tuba , it was a really good night real mixture of Cajun and New Orleans. I wish I had a video of it because it sounded really awesome. Things went a bit quiet and I didn’t do any shows for awhile and then in 2008 I decided to go back to the states I had given up my shop and I wanted to hook up with Lea again but this time I did an Wise monkeys show with him in miami . We went to guitar Centre in Miami and i bought me a squire electric guitar which would kickstart my shows in London with The Members . We did the Miami show with Paddy and then I flew up to New York and did an electric show with Lee and a great pick up Drummer in New York we were a three-piece rock band and then I packed up my Accordian I’ve got the Greyhound bus up to Toronto where I hooked up with Lucky Pete he had recruited a bass player and we did the one and only gig of The Original Canadian Wise Monkeys - that was me Guitar and Accordian Pete on drums and a guy called Greg Sweetland on bass ‘! We played a fabulous show a place called the Dakota Tavern. When I returned to London with the red guitar I knew it’s time to put my original band back together again so The Wise Monkeys went on the back burner again so I could reform The Members! The Members kept me busy for a few years until we got to do a American tour and Lee arranged for me to do a acoustic show up in hells kitchen in New York with a bunch of mates he’s been jamming with incredibly I had bought my accordion all round the US just for one show in New York with Lee I can’t believe I did that. A few years later he came back to England and said he wasn’t very well he had cancer and so I said maybe I’ll call Elliet and Steve and see if they fancy doing doing a show. We managed to get a slot on an open night night up at the Paradise in Kensal rise a club where we had opened up about 10 years later earlier. I think Nick Cash played the drums the band still sounded good and we still knew some of the songs that Lee however was not well he had been diagnosed with cancer and did not have long to live. When Lee lost his battle we arranged a show for his week at the Hope and anchor in Islington and we played some of the old songs and they sounded good so we decided maybe we get back together again and make a record in honour of this wonderful man that had encouraged me to play the accordion and drag it round the world to play shows with interesting people. So at the end of 2021 we went into Powerhouse Studios by New Haw lock and recorded 14 songs 12 than you will find on this record. After a lot of discussion we finally arrived on some mixes and this CD contains them the first wise monkeys record ever despite the band starting in 1988 the record did not come out till 2021 34 years later. I tried to play the bass Like lee would have played it and Nick Cash from The Members came in and played brilliant drums for us (Nick Cash coincidently played in Frank Toveys original band Fad Gadget). There are a few people who have played in The Wise Monkeys over the years who are no longer with us Lee Fergusson, Andrew Crawford, Hoagie on keyboards and Tony Aldridge. But this record is mainly dedicated to Lee . To call this a labour of love is an understatement it is the labour of a lifetime and the labour of people who are no longer with us principally Lee. Strangely enough the night I finished working on the my mixes for the album there was a massive storm in London and the south of England the biggest storm we had had since the storm in 1988 when I first played with The Wise monkeys.I would not say it was an easy record to make and felt sometimes whilst we were making it that it was possibly one of the most difficult I have ever done but I am proud it is finished it may be The first Wise Monkeys record and it may also be the last Wise Monkeys record but he is definitely a Wise Monkeys record. And as a bonus we have included 12 tracks that we recorded as demos over the years to show how the band had changed. Enjoy JC Carroll 2022.
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