Writer Bob Solly (in ‘Record Collector: 100 Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Records’) accurately points out ‘there are all kinds of musical exaggerations going on in “Shakin’ All Over”, pizzicato-like dampened guitar-string riffs, ascending and descending guitar runs, quavering high-register chords crashing out of the blue, piercing guitar solos that make you feel the piece might run away at double time, but it doesn’t, the bass and drums keeping the beat steady, like a predator in your dreams that will get you no matter how loud you scream. In the ‘Record Mirror’ chart it reached No.1, in ‘New Musical Express’, it got no higher than No.3, whatever – nothing in British Rock comes close to trapping its energy levels. But – if the eye-patch, passed down from Bowie to Adam Ant, Boy George to Pete Burns, is the theatrical legacy – then “Shakin’ All Over”, thrown together by Kidd with manager Guy Robinson in just six minutes at a club date the previous evening, is the classic aural statement. And the cover of Marv Johnson’s “You Got What It Takes” c/w “Longin’ Lips”, which took the group back up to No.25 in February 1960. Better was Kidd’s own solo composition “Feelin’” (‘B’-side of the second single), which re-plays the “Please Don’t Touch” guitar-run while relating how his girl makes his heart-strings twang. There was always a slight edge of menace. With or without eye-patch Johnny Kidd was never going to be the clean-cut boy-next-door. But whichever way you count it, Rock was still too new to have built up an extensive repertoire, which meant delving back into pre-Rock compositions which worked only occasionally – the old Music Hall standard “If You Were The Only Girl In The World” became the ‘A’-side of their second single, done unconvincingly twee with sing-along chorus, then “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby”, the ‘B’-side of the fourth, also only a partial success. “Growl” explaining how ‘I tried barking like a hungry dog’ and ‘screeching like a dying hog’, but ‘I’m happy when you hear me growl… it’s as simple as that’. Born 23 November 1939 Johnny Kidd had taken the Skiffle route into Pop doubling guitar and banjo with Freddie Heath & The Nutters, before an appearance on BBC Light Programme’s ‘Saturday Club’ brought him to the attentions of HMV, leading to “Please Don’t Touch” c/w “Growl”, and a chart debut up to No.25. Yet their mix of hard Rock covers and original compositions provide a shot of Rhythm & Blues that applies electrodes to the tepid clean-cut mohair British Pop of its time. They played in front of a mock-up galleon, with Kidd wielding a cutlass. The EMI album conveniently slices the story into two phases – the swash-buckling pre Beat Boom side one, with a three-piece Pirates crew of Alan Caddy (guitar), Clem Cattini (drums) and Brian Gregg (bass) ludicrously decked out in Pantomime ‘Treasure Island’ candy-hooped T-shirts to back-up Kidd’s Errol Flynn, garbed in white lace ruffles, tight leather pants, thigh-boots, and eye-patch. The original vinyl EMI ‘Best Of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ (NUTM 12-0C05406613M) – a twenty-track compilation billed as ‘the ultimate collection’, came in 1978, followed by a deluge of vinyl and CD’s, re-combining existing material, and rescuing rare unreleased tracks and alternate takes from studio-vaults, plus radio sessions, all confirming the continued simmering interest in one of England’s most eccentric, most visual, and most authentic Rock pioneers. Although it was a career that managed nine Top 40 hits, while he lived, the vagaries of the record industry, complicated by Kidd’s erratic sales-pattern, never justified a full studio album, posterity has rectified that omission with a vengeance. Seventeen-year-old Helen Read in the Mini approaching from the opposite direction was also killed… For Johnny Kidd it’s a near-cliché Rock ‘n’ Roll death climaxing a flamboyant buccaneering chart run that plundered all the way from his May 1959 debut with “Please Don’t Touch” (later re-charting for Motorhead With Girlschool) through to his unlikely make-over of the Italianate ‘La Paloma’ as “Always And Ever” c/w “Dr Feelgood” in April 1964. His Cortina GT, driven by Wilf Irshwood, husband of his Fan Club secretary, also carried Nick Simper, a Pirate who survived the head-on impact and went on to form Deep Purple. Johnny Kidd (aka Frederick Heath) died auto-wrecked gig-wards on the A58 to Radcliffe, Lancs, near the junction of Ainsworth Hall Road, 9pm Saturday 7th October 1966.
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