Undiscovered Dinosaur: Adventures with Rock Legends of the 60s, 70s and 80s

By Mick Lee

From the late 1960s until the late 1980s, American expatriate Mick Lee was a working musician in the United Kingdom and other European ports. His gigs covered a wide spectrum, from playing for beer to opening for the Moody Blues at Wembley Arena. During these years he forged close friendships with some of the legends of the London music world, including Graham Bond (a founding father of the British blues and jazz scene), Chris Wood (member of the band Traffic), and Paul Kossoff (of the band Free.) These friendships plus Lee’s own career development led to associations—and sometimes ‘adventures’—with an assortment of musicians and other characters within the music business, including Gladys Knight, Sheryl Crow, Sting, and even a couple of lads from Liverpool. The result is a personal memoir recollecting a life in music, a life that includes experiences with musicians of all types and conditions—from celebrated rock & roll royalty to anonymous street-corner buskers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canopic Publishing
• Release date: Oct 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463195468

Mick Lee

Mick Lee has moved through a range of jobs including historian, private investigator, and criminal psychologist. More recently he has even made a living from locking people in rooms and asking them questions (sometimes called “Market Research”).

Book preview

If I were to reconstruct my life memory by memory, the central building blocks would have names and faces—they’d be people. The earliest memory within reach, to the best of my ability to make such a distinction, is of my mother softly singing a lullaby as she rocks me outside on a starry night. This primal recollection would be a pretty good model for any attempt to intellectually define my life: interactions with the natural world infused with artistic nourishment. And for me, music is a vital conduit for that nourishment.

Important to this self-evaluation is the fact that I am not a musician. Mine is a sensual experience compounded by a sometimes annoying curiosity for details. If music moves me, I try to understand the full process. Mick Lee, who is a musician, says I am an avid (ah-vēd). Once I got past the reflexive anxiety caused by this casual nouning of a handy adjective, I accepted the identifier. My name is Phil, and I am a music avid.

Mick Lee first came to my attention via social media. He had posted a YouTube video featuring Magic Hands, a song he had written and recorded for his friend Chris Wood, a member of the band Traffic. Chris Wood’s music is intricately woven into the fabric of my life, so naturally I gave the tune a proper listen. The emotional pull of the song is strong, lyrically and musically. The production itself is uncomplicated and sincere. Magic Hands is simply a loving tribute to a friend. It works.

Traffic, whose musical prime was from 1967-1974, was a band built around Wood (sax, flute, keyboards, percussion), Jim Capaldi (drums, percussion, vocals) and Steve Winwood (guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals). All three were composers, with Capaldi being the primary lyricist. There were several other extraordinary musicians joining this magnificent triumvirate over the years, but they were the creative force. The music they brought, whether in the studio or on the stage, was inseparable from their own life energies. That’s what drew me in as a teenager, and it’s still a strong attraction as I navigate my middle-age years.

This may sound a bit dramatic, but during my teen years Traffic taught me how to listen to the music that stretches inside and beyond a song. Soon I could separate and rejoin the sounds of each instrument—including the vocals—in my head while staying firmly locked within the groove itself. From that point on I would experience music on a holistic level beyond the lure of lyrical hooks.

Mick Lee understands the language I use when describing music, but he doesn’t speak it; he speaks about music as a musician, which is its own language. This is why when he is in a room with someone such as Delbert McClinton, there is a recognition that transcends performer and audience. As Mick describes it,

At an outdoor show in Stratton, Vermont, Delbert started pulling women up on stage to dance during ‘Giving It Up for Your Love.’ I hopped up there and danced over toward him. When the choruses came around I sang the harmony right in his ear. He looked at me in happy surprise and stuck the mic in my face. We sang the choruses out together on one mic. Magic. After the gig we discovered we had friends in common, including Scooter. I was glad to make Delbert’s acquaintance; the man is one of my favorite singers.

There was recognition between Delbert and Mick in that encounter—not recognition about status or commercial achievement, but recognition of vision. In that moment, they were peers.

This is how Mick writes about encounters with musicians such as Graham Bond, Sheryl Crow, and Gladys Knight—not that they are equals in accomplishment or talent, but that they possess a vision which only pure musicians share. Whether the business world or the fickleness of fandom recognizes this special vision is irrelevant to its existence. The vision—experiencing the vision—is what matters. Unfortunately, one can’t satisfy a mailbox full of blues with a big dose of vision. And thus the never-ending struggle of reconciling artistic awareness with worldly demands. That’s the conflict powering the story of Undiscovered Dinosaur; the theme—and this is essential to understanding the energy nourishing the book—is music.

Undiscovered Dinosaur isn’t a history of the music scene, nor is it an autobiography. As an author, Mick doesn’t even dance with such pretensions. His book is a personal memoir written in the voice of a musician recollecting a life in music, a life that includes friendships and experiences with musicians of all sorts and conditions—from celebrated rock & roll royalty to anonymous street-corner buskers.

The names and faces come and go, but the music lives forever. In the end the music is the discovery.

Prelude

For fifteen years, I was able to keep body and soul together by writing and playing music. I was very fortunate to learn my craft as a songwriter, singer and musician from some of the best in the world. This book offers a glimpse into the lives of some of the rock legends who came into my life, seemingly out of nowhere, and took me under their wing. They taught me amazing things that you can't learn in school, not even at Julliard or The Berklee School of Music (neither of which would have had me anyway).

Through three different decades I lived some magical days and nights that not many people get to experience … and survived. Lucky, right? Very.

I also lived some really bad blues, which may be why I've been able to sing them with people like Taj Mahal, Graham Bond, Paul Kossoff, Mick Taylor, Dr. Feelgood Potts, and many others, finding myself accepted and appreciated. Four of my best friends died young, casualties of the rock and roll life, which, of course can be deadly, and the beast that was the music business in the 60's 70's and 80's.

I took that roller coaster ride and, thanks mainly to my family and friends, survived. But I discovered that you can only be 'the next big thing' for just so long, before people begin to wonder what's wrong with you, and why you haven't 'made it.' I've always thought that was a very vague way to describe success, anyway. And in some ways I did 'make it,' if by that you mean 'made some excellent music with some of the finest players in the world' or 'made many people happy, and entertained them with my music' or 'made people think about personal and/or political issues in ways they might not have before'. It all depends on your definition of 'it'.

I also discovered that old musicians never die, they become advertising executives, and produce jingles.

This is a view of the British music scene during a very creative time in popular music, as seen by someone in a quirky, chaotic orbit through, in, and around the center of it. There are some famous names, some infamous names, and some that few people have ever heard of. I make no apologies for name dropping, as these are simply the people who came into my life. I value all my friends, famous or not, for who and what they are, not for their fame or notoriety. I was very fortunate to catch the tail end of a time when many talented musicians got together informally to play for the pure pleasure of it, when it was just the music business, not the music industry, which is when it became a lot less creative and enjoyable. I can’t put my finger on exactly when that change happened, but subjectively I’d say sometime in the late eighties or early nineties.

Sadly, of all the amazing musicians I've been privileged to play with, maybe half got the recognition and rewards they truly deserved. I'm inclined to believe that I fall into the latter category, based on the way both audiences and other musicians responded to my work. But that's just my not-so-humble opinion, though there are some people who are well qualified to have an opinion who agree with me. And, of course, I'm not alone in this. Some people with little or no talent make a name for themselves and get rich while others who truly have the goods fall by the wayside.

Record labels hated eclectic music and musicians like myself, which is why a massively talented person like Eva Cassidy couldn’t get a record deal without agreeing to stick to one genre, which, to her credit, she steadfastly refused to do. Years after her death from cancer at the tender age of thirty three, BBC Radio’s popular show host Terry Wogan played just one of her songs on his show, which set off a massive popular wave of appreciation for her incredible talent and music. To date (but only after her death) tens of millions of Eva’s albums have been sold and are being enjoyed by people around the world, eclectic song choices and all. Years later, artists like Sting and Sheryl Crow thankfully broke that convention, thanks mostly to their unshakeable determination and the skill of their managers.

If you enjoy reading about the ride I took half as much as I enjoyed living it, it'll be a good time.

Chapter 1: Sting

London, January 1986

Next door to Abbey Road studios on a bright winter's day, sun shining through the windows of my brother's apartment, where I was staying for a while. I was about to walk out the front door when the phone rang. A passing Angel smacked me upside the head, and I went back in to answer it.

Hello Mick, this is Sting. I've just been talking about you on the radio.

Well thanks. What did you say?

I said you were fucking great!

I lived near Sting at the time and in desperation had sent him a cassette with four songs along with a note asking for his help. Record labels considered my music 'too eclectic,’ and I thought if Sting produced an album for my band, the Phoenix, they might take notice.

He'd listened to the songs on his way to do an interview (promoting some of his first gigs as a solo artist at the Albert Hall) on Capital Radio in London. Apparently he liked our music so much he'd asked Kid Jensen, the deejay, to play one of our songs during the interview. The deejay refused, citing copyright issues, but agreed to ask Sting a question about the Phoenix instead. Sting responded by saying how much he enjoyed our music and that he understood my frustration because he'd spent a lot of his early years sending tapes in to people and wondering why he never got replies—or if they even listened to them.

We talked on the phone for almost an hour. Sting wanted to know who was in the band, what we were up to, and how he could help. I told him that maybe if he were willing to produce us, the record companies would take notice, adding that I loved the way that, as a producer, he was able to combine a clear, crisp sound with power and high energy—which was just what I wanted for the Phoenix. I told him I was coming to see the show with his new band at the Albert Hall that night. I'll wave, he said. Sting has a very dry sense of humor.

I'd sent the tape to him with no strings attached. What Sting didn't know was that one of my best friends was the PR guy on his tour or that my brother worked for the promoter, and that I'd spent time hanging out with the musicians in his band. I wanted him to respond to my music on its own merits, or not at all. I had a backstage pass to his gig at the Albert Hall that night.

I'd never played there, but many of my friends had, so I knew my way around backstage. After the show, I headed straight for Sting’s dressing room and introduced myself. He was friendly and never asked how I got in. Sting is very down to earth, and we had a good chat. It was no different than talking to any of the other very talented musicians that I'd worked with over the years. He hadn’t allowed fame or wealth to bend him out of shape or distract him from the process of making music for its own sake. That's much harder than it sounds. I've seen firsthand how the music business can twist people, and it's not pretty.

Sting and I shared some of the same interests. We both discovered yoga and tantric sex, which involves a man mostly retaining his semen during lovemaking, only ejaculating once in a week or less, no matter how often he makes love. After mastering this, you can experience a full body, very satisfying orgasm without ejaculating. Though it sounds strange to Western minds, in the Orient it is not uncommon. In my experience, this practice enhances the pleasure of lovemaking both for the man and woman, because a man is focused on the pure sensuality of it, not an end goal of having an orgasm. It also allows a man to make love for extraordinarily long periods of time, which many women enjoy. One ex-girlfriend told me that, after we broke up, she educated all potential future partners, insisting that if they wanted to hang with her, they’d have to master tantric lovemaking!

I found that it brought all my senses into sharper focus, which has been hugely helpful for me as a musician, particularly in developing my feel for rhythm, which is one of my strengths. Coincidentally, I also discovered that masturbating dulled my rhythmic feel, and I would almost never jerk off the night before a gig. I’d told my brother Dave about this, but he didn’t really understand it. He was on tour with The Police at the time, doing their security. One night after a gig (before I met Sting), Dave told him that his brother was a singer who had a theory that jerking off was bad for singers. Without missing a beat, Sting replied Oh no, that can’t be right. I wank all the time, and I’m a great singer! Sting has a great sensayuma.

Sting is a paradox, very down to earth, and all about music—but he also knows he's a star. He asked me to come back to the Albert Hall gig the next night with another cassette, which he said he'd give to Miles Copeland, his manager. Whether he'd agree