Book Review: 'Just Backdated – Melody Maker: Seven Years in the Seventies'

Chris Charlesworth was "slap band" in the middle of the '70s, with a dream job and access to the biggest names in rock music

Oct 18, 2024

It may seem slightly unruly of me to review a fellow music journalist’s memoir, but when said writer is Chris Charlesworth and he’s extolling the virtues of his 1970-77 period at the venerable weekly music paper Melody Maker in Just Backdated – Melody Maker: Seven Years In The Seventies, mark me down for the ride.

For those unfamiliar with his work, Charlesworth was among the crop of newbies setting up shop at Melody Maker when the old guard were starting to fall away from the pillars that held up music coverage in the UK since 1926. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that as part of the post-WWII generation, his brain was imbibed by the intoxicating drink from the well of The Beatles. In fact, Charlesworth was fortunate by location, age and his savvy parents to attend one of those precious screamfests in late 1963. Obviously, there was no turning back.

After the obligatory scrum at a local newspaper, Charlesworth landed himself at a desk within the confines of Melody Maker’s Fleet Street offices. Flanked by the “old boy” dry disinterested know-how of the old timers, and his fresh-on-the-beat cohorts Charlesworth spins off his beginning in laid-back style, with detours into awestruck-land courtesy of Led Zeppelin, Free and The Who. In a charming anecdote that puts on display how the music scene was brimming with talent, he describes his encounter with an unknown piano player named Elton John, who Charlesworth considered even back in August of 1970 as a consummate professional.

Charlesworth has a gift for recounting what now would be the incredible access allowed to someone in the music press. While Pete Townshend yelled his greeting “What’s the fucking Melody Maker doing here?” when Charlesworth appeared unannounced at a 1971 Lifehouse rehearsal, the opposite could just as easily transpire when he unexpectedly befriended folk-rock band Lindisfarne and became an unadulterated fan. However, as he recounts during a very high-profile soirée in Nice, France for the unveiling of The Rolling Stones new record label, Keith Richards was the suspect who nipped his birthday-gifted, gold-plated lighter and seeing Richards unleash his fury at an earlier time, chooses not to confront him. Amusingly, Charlesworth notes, “Never forgot though.”

Stories abound with someone whose job it was to attend rock concerts, fly to far-off places, and sometimes demur to the groupies that inevitably would hang out in a shared band member bedroom situation. Charlesworth, while certainly no angel in that department, has a refreshing tone that conveys genuine journalistic curiosity, mixed with a down-to-earth observational vibe. As the News Editor for Melody Maker and the defacto Who correspondent, he casually reminisces about the band early on, including their stunning club opening for The Rainbow, the first rock venue located in London proper.

Charlesworth and The Who’s Pete Townshend at the Tommy premiere in New York City, 1975. Photo: ©Bob Gruen

It could even crossover to the types of parties that led to his first interview with Paul McCartney in 1971. That talk, as it has gone down through the decades, showed that McCartney wanted out of The Beatles in lieu of the formation of Wings. “I just want the four of us to get together somewhere and sign a piece of paper saying it’s all over, and we want to divide the money four ways,” McCartney relayed to the writer. That kind of confessional was not unique to Charlesworth. Nor was extending his first American visit in November to accompany The Who on the inaugural date of their 1971 US tour, complete with Keith Moon throwing a TV out a window in a hotel in North Carolina. No, this was all in the line of duty, all for the greater good of rock and roll.

By the spring of 1972, Melody Maker was the top-selling music paper in the world, with a circulation of 200,000 print copies a week. So influential was that number, that the paper deemed it worthy enough for a staff writer to live abroad and report the findings as the US Editor. While not the first pick to go, Charlesworth busied himself home-bound with one of his more profound meet-ups in July, when he visited the pre-Buckingham/Nicks iteration of Fleetwood Mac and concluded that “Christine McVie was the secret weapon that catapulted [them] to mega-stardom later in the decade.”

Fleetwood Mac – Moses (Lay It All Down)/℗© Conexion Media Group, Inc, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd./YouTube

Led Zeppelin, as Charlesworth notes extensively, was a group that despite their phenomenal success, was hard to warm to. An innocent criticism or wrong word in the press and the offending gaffe would be amplified, consequently fueling the band’s aloofness, courtesy of their confrontational and shrewd manager Peter Grant. In stark contrast, Charlesworth was welcomed into John Entwistle’s home and observed a museum’s worth of instruments, bric-a-brac, and new-fangled recording equipment that would put any musician worth their weight to shame.

Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones of the Faces with Charlesworth at the Century Plaza Hotel, 1973. Photo: © Richard Creamer

In August 1973, Charlesworth finally got the call that he would become the US Editor for Melody Maker and started work in Los Angeles. His first interview was with Karen and Richard Carpenter and like most rock journalists, he was taken aback by their naivety about the heavy-hitting music industry. His rollicking adventures flow together seamlessly from Laurel Canyon to the Hollywood Bowl to his time as the occupant of left-wing activist and singer Phil Ochs’ apartment.

In his quest to connect with another Beatle, Charlesworth was able to meet John Lennon in October of 1973, first at a party gathering and then an arranged interview where they discussed all things music-related, including a quote on the inevitable ‘will they or won’t they?’ question: “I think we’re closer now than we have been for a long time. I call the split the divorce period and none of us ever thought there’d be a divorce like that. That’s just the way things turned out. We know each other well enough to talk about it.”

Yoko Ono, John Lennon and Charlesworth (with invisible microphone) at the Grammy Awards, Uris Theater, March 1975. Photo: © Bob Gruen

Stories continue to be plentiful after Charlesworth gets word he’s relocating to New York City: Engaging in a 4,000-word interview with Gregg Allman in Macon, Georgia. Whisked off by private jet to witness the birth of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Virginia in January 1974, stunned by the storytelling and ferocious performance. Front row seats at Madison Square Garden to drink in the master himself, Bob Dylan, aided and abetted by The Band. Acknowledging an interview with a testy Lou Reed did not go swimmingly and another later with Sly Stone that went off the rails is par for the course.

One person who served well with his interviews was photographer Bob Gruen. Charlesworth describes him as “laidback as anyone I’d ever met, unflappable, Mr. Cool,” and Gruen became his go-to lensman, someone he could call up at a moment’s notice to accompany him to interviews. Gruen could also drop advice about the underground scene at CBGBs or Club 82. “There’s this singer, a blonde girl, looks just like Marilyn Monroe,” he enthused on the phone to the scribe. “Check her out man, you won’t believe it.” Charlesworth was then introduced to Debbie Harry.

Undoubtedly, Charlesworth’s most personal stories are ones that concern The Who, Pete Townshend specifically. In June 1974, after a disastrous gig at Madison Square Garden, his despair over The Who’s future, coupled with the stress of performing and composing weighed heavily on his psyche. “Without becoming alarmist about it I guess that I don’t get as much out of performing on the stage as I used to,” he admitted. “I don’t have the same lust for gut feedback that I used to and more and more I want to get feedback from pure music.” As Charlesworth grimly noted, The Who would not play together for 14 months.

After a two-month layover at home, Charlesworth was back in the US in January 1975. His time spent jetting with the Led Zeppelin entourage (and the unmentionables mentioned here) could probably fill the entire memoir. However, the denouement for these recollections was a sit-down with Lennon to talk about life back in New York and his just-released covers album Rock ‘N’ Roll.

Charlesworth continued to ping-pong across the Atlantic into 1976 and through interviews with Robert Plant and David Bowie, he notes with poignancy a handshake with Lennon receiving his green card in New York City, allowing him to work and stay indefinitely in the US. Charlesworth was there and outside he pointed out to Lennon that in fact, his green card was actually blue. “He laughed. I wasn’t to know it but these were the last words I would ever speak to him.” 1976 was also the last time he would see Keith Moon play drums with The Who.

His decision to leave Melody Maker was what he deemed the best for him in the early part of 1977. He revisited his old apartment in 2021 and barely recognized it or the neighborhood he once knew. The lingering stories of his life were still there, some visible, but mostly not. And as he surmises, he realizes “the past is a foreign country.”

Just Backdated – Melody Maker: Seven Years In The Seventies by Chris Charlesworth, published by Spenwood Books Limited is available at Bookshop.org, and Amazon in the US and UK. Charlesworth also runs the blog Just Backdated, now in its 10th year over at Blogger.