Giorgio Gomelsky ‘For Your Love’ E-Book

Francis Dumaurier

• Herausgeber: Supernova Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Giorgio Gomelsky was at the centre of the counterculture in 60s’ London and 70s’ Paris before running a studio for avant-garde musicians in New York. He was the original manager of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds in London, then managed the French supergroup Magma and developed the career of Gong.
Dumaurier recounts his friend Gomelsky’s love of life, his dynamism, and the creativity that made him “push the envelope”. With a keen eye for talent, Gomelsky’s ideas helped shape the rock music we know and love today – acting as a catalyst for change and innovation.

About the author
FRANCIS DUMAURIER
Born and raised in the neighbourhood of Montmartre in Paris, Francis wrote his
“Portrait of Jack Kerouac after Desolation Angels” thesis for his Masters’ at the University of Paris X before going on the road to travel and see the world. After a year in the Amazon jungle of Colombia as a rainforest safari guide, he spent 5 years in Rio de Janeiro working in the travel and hotel industries. Moving to New York City (where he still lives) he began working in the entertainment industry, first as a host and producer of primetime daily programs on Manhattan Cable TV, and then as an actor in films, tv and voice-overs. He spent his first weekend in America at the original Woodstock Festival.
Since then he has also hosted and produced “The Wine CD” as a Compagnon des Vins de Bordeaux with a group of 14 other wine specialists.
Fluent in 4 languages (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) and in the York and Scottish rites of Freemasonry, Francis also loves to play rock’n’roll music on his Stratocaster guitar and Marshall amp.
He was a close friend of Gomelsky for over 30 years and this biography was originally published in France.

Leseprobe

Francis Dumaurier

Born and raised in the neighbourhood of Montmartre in Paris, Francis wrote his Masters thesis on Jack Kerouac at the University of Paris X before going on the road to travel and see the world. After a year in the Amazon jungle of Colombia as a rainforest safari guide, he spent five years in Rio de Janeiro working in the travel and tourism industries.

Moving to New York City, he began working in the entertainment industry, first as a host and producer of primetime daily programs on Manhattan Cable TV, and then as an actor in films, TV and voice-overs. Since then he has also hosted and produced “The Wine CD” as a Compagnon des Vins de Bordeaux with a group of other wine specialists.

Fluent in four languages and well versed in the rites of Freemasonry, Francis also loves to play rock’n’roll music on his Stratocaster guitar and Marshall amp.

www.francisdumaurier.com

First published in the UK in 2023 by Supernova, an imprint of Aurora Metro Publications Ltd. 80 Hill Rise, Richmond, TW10 6UB

[email protected]

T: @aurorametro Instagram: @aurora_metro

Giorgio Gomelsky ‘For Your Love’ copyright © 2023 Francis Dumaurier

Foreword copyright © 2023 Rick Rees

Cover design copyright © 2023 Aurora Metro Publications

Cover Photo © 2023 Shawn Brackbill

Editor: Cheryl Robson

All rights are strictly reserved.

For rights enquiries including performing rights, please contact the publisher: [email protected]

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed on paper which has been sustainably resourced.

ISBNs:

978-1-913641-34-4 (print)

978-1-913641-35-1 (ebook)

To my wife, Lilian, who was a great friend of Giorgio’s.

Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi

[Because it was him, because it was me]

– Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais, 1580

Acknowledgments

Thanks to: Nicole Devilaine, Ronald Mehu (Bird), Bob Gruen, Jesse Malin, Madeleine Carr, Brian Godding, Larry Birnbaum, Raul Gonzalez, David Godlis, Roman Iwasiwka, Daniel Lesueur, Rick Rees, Brad Schreiber, Jean-Marc Gagnioud, Bradley Rim, Amy Madden, Jon Sadleir, Donatella Guichard Gomelsky, Cheryl Robson, and Lilian Dumaurier.

Pull Quotes

Thanks to Jon Sadleir for the inclusion of material from his video interviews with Gomelsky.

Photo Credits

Giorgio Gomelsky in his studio, Shawn Brackbill ©2014, Giorgio Gomelsky on his bicycle in Manhattan at night, David Godlis ©GODLIS, Birthday party for Julie Driscoll, Madeleine Carr ©1967, Brian Godding at the BBC, Brian Godding ©1969, Portrait of Bill Laswell at Moers Festival, Michael Hoefner ©2006, The Volcanos at Max’s Kansas City, George Bezusko ©1982, Roman Iwasiwka, Peter Iwasiwka ©2016, Portrait of Jesse Malin and Giorgio Gomelsky, Bob Gruen ©2005, Larry Birnbaum’s selfie, Larry Birnbaum ©2017, Portrait of Giorgio Gomelsky on a wall, Bob Gruen ©2015, Giorgio and Janice Daley, Bob Gruen ©2009, Portrait of Giorgio Gomelsky and Bob Gruen, Bob Gruen ©2006, Portrait of Jesse Malin, Gillian Stoll ©2015, Portrait of Brad Rim, Brad Rim ©1982, Portrait of Amy Madden, Leland Bobbé ©2016, Raul Gonzalez at the memorial ceremony, Raul Gonzalez ©2016, Raul Gonzalez sitting with guitar, Raul Gonzalez ©2015. All the other photographs are either publicity photos, in the public domain, or from the personal archives of Francis Dumaurier.

Giorgio Gomelsky

1934 – 2016

“People have said to me “Write a book, write a book, write a book!” and I’ve thought about it... the things behind the scenes interest me more than biographical crap. Being a witness is important.”

– GOMELSKY

“When I got to London, the pubs closed at 9:30... I came from Paris to London. And guys were up all f***ing night, talking, smoking, and arguing till seven in the morning. No problem. And there, 9:30! Nothing. Nowhere to go.”

– GOMELSKY

Giorgio Gomelsky backstage at Wembley with Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts c.1964

CONTENTS

Foreword by Rick Rees

1. Waiting for Giorgio

2. Growing up in Georgia, Iran, Italy, Switzerland

3. Swingin’ London and the Crawdaddy Club

4. The Stones & the Beatles

5. The Yardbirds

6. Paragon Publicity and Marmalade Records

with recollections from Madeleine Carr and Brian Godding

7. Paris: Soft Machine, Gong, and Magma

8. New York and the house at 140 West 24th Street

9. Meeting Giorgio

10. Rehearsing at Giorgio’s

with recollections from Roman Iwasiwka

11. Friendship and Brotherhood

12. Double Rebirth

13. Looking Back, Looking Ahead

14. And Now, The End Is Near …

with recollections from Larry Birnbaum, Bob Gruen, Jesse Malin, Brad Rim, Amy Madden and Raul Gonzalez

15. Adieu Magus

Gomelsky records

FOREWORD

Rick Rees

Giorgio Gomelsky was the first manager for the Rolling Stones. If you know his name at all, this is probably the one fact that you associate with him, even though their time together was brief. If you happen to know a bit more about Gomelsky, it’s likely to be that he next managed the Yardbirds and helped them produce their biggest hits. Or maybe it’s that he produced the first solo album Extrapolation by John McLaughlin. Or did some of the first recordings with Soft Machine … or helped Daevid Allen and Gong do their early tours and recordings … and Magma … and Bill Laswell’s band Material. And on and on. Yet, in spite of this impressive resumé, of which I’ve just barely scratched the surface, few people know his name. A few years ago, I was among the ignorant, even though the name Giorgio Gomelsky had been staring me down in my record collection for decades.

Meet Francis Dumaurier. He encountered Gomelsky in New York in the early 1980s and they became close personal friends in the decades that followed. By the time they met, most of Gomelsky’s legendary stories were behind him. Over the years he would share many of them with Francis. When Gomelsky died in 2016, without making progress on his autobiography, Francis decided to create a memoir of his friendship with Giorgio. And here it is. What started out as a personal life story ended up becoming a personal oneman crusade to get the name Giorgio Gomelsky enshrined into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Francis is a French expat who moved to New York in the late 1970s. After meeting Gomelsky, the two shared many a romp together in New York City. These stories are not only penetrating and touching, but for me, who never met the man, they were a way to get to know him, not just as a band manager and record producer that had been interviewed many times over the years, but as a person.

About a year after Gomelsky passed away, I developed an obsession about him that would put me on a collision course with Francis. While reading a book about a favourite band of mine from the prog era of the early 1970s, I came across a quote by their recording engineer. He said that after his prog band albums, he did some recording with another band that I also loved. It was a few years later, on another continent, and in a completely different genre consisting of a tight-knit group of artists in New York City forming bands in a post-punk landscape that had rejected prog rock long ago. How could these two disparate worlds have connected? Who could do such a thing? I had to know more, which soon led me to the name Giorgio Gomelsky.

A few hours on the internet produced a mind-boggling list of band names that Gomelsky had worked with. Almost every one of them was in my record collection. It seemed to me that a person this influential must already have a biography written about them. I found none. My obsession grew. I read dozens of interviews spanning decades. I found a couple of books with maybe a chapter about Giorgio. Eventually, I did find this book that you’re reading now; except that it was only available in French. I don’t speak French. I moved on, continuing my search elsewhere. The more I discovered about Giorgio, the more I kept coming back to this French book. How could I read this book?

I decided to contact the author. Hoping that he spoke English, I sent him an email. His response was quick. It read something like this: “Who the hell are you?” He used a few more words and was much more diplomatic, but that’s what I read. My assumption that this French author lived in France was completely wrong. He was living in New York City and had been for decades. Like most New Yorkers he’s suspicious of everyone, until he gets to know you, of course.

We corresponded a bit over the next few months. By then I’d bounced the name Giorgio Gomelsky off my many musician friends and acquaintances. I live on the west coast of America in San Francisco. Like me, no one from the west coast knew the name. Only my New York friends had heard of him. Some had even worked with him and knew him quite well. They agreed that there should be a biography written about the man. Well, I might just know where to find one. I made plans to visit one of my New York friends. I let Francis know. Could we meet?

I called Francis from my friend’s place in Brooklyn. We set a time to meet. He lives in Manhattan, so I’ll just go to his apartment at the agreed upon time, right? Wrong. He instructs me to go to Columbus Circle and meet him at the base of the statue there. Wow. My visits to New York are always interesting, but this time it’s turning into something out of a spy novel. Is his Gomelsky book some kind of contraband in the USA? Is that why it’s only available in French? We don’t even know what each other look like. I think I sent him my picture after we hung up.

Of course, we had no trouble finding each other. I’ll never forget the giant smile he greeted me with. It was a swelteringly hot summer day in NYC. He ushered me into Central Park, and we started talking about Gomelsky. I had a lot of questions for Francis and not a lot of time to ask them. No matter. All I had to do was listen. We sat on a shaded bench in Strawberry Fields. In the background were tourists listening to street musicians play Beatles songs. The stories started flowing. Should I take notes? Should I start recording this? I just took it in as much as I could. I’m not very good at living in the moment. On this hot day, listening to Francis, I don’t think I had any choice.

By the end of our meeting, the only thing I could think of was getting Francis’s book published in English. And soon. So, I could read it. It would be a long process involving many people, but here we are.

The influence of Giorgio Gomelsky cannot be overstated. His connections in the music world were so vast and varied that no one person, not even a close friend like Francis, is aware of them all. One person who worked with him said he was “the vibe master.” He brought the right people together at the right time and made things happen. And judging by what happened with me and Francis, I’d say he’s still doing it.

Rick Rees 2022

1. WAITING FOR GIORGIO

“Music is a tool for revolution.”

– GOMELSKY

Back in 2011, when I was writing my autobiography, Expat New York,1 it became obvious that my passions for travelling and rock music have been the two main threads of my life.

My father was an officer in the French army during and after World War II, and moving from one place to another in France, Germany, and Morocco was the normal thing to do until I turned ten, when we finally settled in a bourgeois building located at Place Jules Joffrin, where the city hall of the 18th arrondissement of Paris is also located.

My closest friend at the local primary school introduced me to Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” in 1957, and some of the altar boys at the Catholic church of Notre Dame de Clignancourt played instrumentals made popular by the Shadows, a famous English band of the early 60s. One of these young musicians introduced me to the music of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in 1962, and my musical passion took off.

My high school, Lycée Condorcet, was located on Rue du Havre, close to Gare Saint Lazare, and after school I used to go to the second floor of the Printemps department store. I spent hours listening to all the latest rock ’n’ roll records. The store began importing records from England during the winter of 1964, and this was how I discovered the Rolling Stones and all the other great bands that came to us from England after the Beatles.

I would ask the English girls who walked by to help me understand the lyrics of the records I was playing, and one of them even had enough patience to write down the complete lyrics of Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land,” which I listened to endlessly on the store’s tiny speakers.

A friendly young salesman sold electric guitars and amplifiers at a nearby stand. He was also a member of an instrumental band, and he taught me some basic chords and rhythms. I was soon playing blues on guitar as well as the harmonica. When Bob Dylan traded his acoustic for an electric guitar to the dismay of folk purists, naturally I became a huge fan.

Every once in a while, the store promoted special products, for example, wigs styled in a Beatles mop-top hairdo. It also had promotional events with famous French singers like Pierre Perret, but on a surprising day in November 1964, the Beach Boys came to sign autographs and promote the concert they were giving at the Olympia music hall that same night. The store manager asked me if I would agree to act as their translator, since nobody spoke English on the floor, and I accepted with pleasure. I was already familiar with their music – thanks to the hit “I Get Around,” which I had discovered in England a few months earlier – and I arrived on time wondering how this adventure was going to turn out.

I found myself with the original group: the brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine. I translated what I could on the fly and collected their autographs. It was their last tour with Brian, who had decided to stop travelling and to stay in Los Angeles, where he could better focus on writing songs and producing recording sessions in the studio.

Autographs of the original Beach Boys band members in Paris on November 18, 1964

Dennis was restless and could not stay in one place – he disappeared quickly – but the others stayed and flirted with the girls. Brian asked me to take him to the perfume area as he wanted to buy something special for his future wife. I was 17 and this was my day in heaven.

To thank me, the store manager gave me two tickets for their evening concert on November 18, 1964, at L’Olympia. It was my very first concert and I had royal seats. Some girls were screaming out in English, others were flocking to the stage, and it was sheer pandemonium. I could not believe my eyes and ears, but it was an amazing experience which I wanted to repeat again.

As I walked by L’Olympia on February 7, 1965, I noticed the stage entrance. The VIPs who had just seen Chuck Berry’s first concert in France were coming out, and one of them looked at me and giving me his backstage pass, he said, “Take this and enjoy!” I knew that it would allow me to sneak in through that door for the evening concert.

Backstage pass for Chuck Berry’s first concert in France at the Olympia music hall on February 7, 1965

Although I was nervous about getting caught, I walked in confidently and arrived backstage just as Ronnie Bird was leaving the stage in a sweat. Ronnie was one of the first French rock stars to adapt the English songs with French lyrics and he dressed like a “mod” rocker. I’d never have guessed that 15 years later, Ronnie and I would strike up a friendship in New York that would last for more than 35 years.

Ronnie’s musicians stayed on stage, as they were the backup musicians for Chuck Berry, and I tried to make myself invisible backstage, watching by the side of the curtain. Nobody stopped me and I couldn’t believe my luck. When Chuck left the stage, I followed him to his dressing room, where I met another French rock star, Eddy Mitchell, with whom I had a brief but very pleasant conversation.

Outside L’Olympia, a large group of fans gathered in the middle of the Boulevard des Capucines and yelled, “Chuck Berry for president! Chuck Berry for president!” When I got back home, my father yelled at me for not calling to let him know that I would be so late. I went straight to bed and fell asleep, exhausted but happy.

Thanks to my newfound method of getting in backstage at the Olympia, I went on to enjoy free concerts by the Rolling Stones in 1965 and 1966, and also James Brown, the Kinks, Roy Orbison, the Nice, Barry McGuire, Bo Diddley, the Walker Brothers, Them, and later, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

Since I had a membership at the Locomotive Club, I used to go there on Sunday afternoons and saw a lot of great 60s artists such as the Pretty Things, Gene Vincent, the Moody Blues, Tom Jones, and the Zombies. Another memorable Paris concert was on June 20, 1965, when I saw the Yardbirds open for the Beatles at the Palais des Sports.

It wasn’t long before I ventured across the channel to England, where I saw the Who, the Troggs, and the Animals – and this was also where I bought most of my records.

I visited the United States for the first time, landing at JFK airport, on August 10, 1969. I had an incredible experience on my first weekend there at the Woodstock Festival. Then six weeks later, on September 13 and 14, I found myself at the Big Sur Folk Festival located on the coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Another notorious music festival from that time which I attended was the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6 where the Rolling Stones performed. The unfortunate events which occurred at Altamont were very well documented in the movie Gimme Shelter.

Tickets and program for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969