The rock’n’roller and the wartime heroine

Last week witnessed two landmarks in the music industry, one sad, the other sort of sentimental but quite uplifting. The death of the great Chuck Berry at the age of 90, who many regarded as the king of rock’n’roll, prompted an unprecedented outflowing of tributes from just about every band you can imagine, led by the Rolling Stones.

Across the pond another singer, Dame Vera Lynn, was celebrating her 100th birthday with the first album ever released by a centurion. The singer, dubbed the “forces sweetheart” during World War II, also had her image projected on the white cliffs of Dover, a tribute to one of her most famous songs.

The music of these two performers couldn’t have been more different, but they both made a huge impact in different ways.

Berry’s records were not played that much on British radio until the pirate radio stations surfaced in the mid-1960s. But go into any London pub with a live band at that time and there was a good chance you would hear his music. When bands launched into Johnny B. Goode or Reelin’ and Rockin’ it created such a positive atmosphere that you didn’t mind if the big bald bloke who bumped into you had made you spill half your beer.

I was not a huge fan of Vera’s songs, which seemed a bit maudlin, mawkishand simply old-fashioned. But my mum and dad loved her. Whenever the forces sweetheart sang on TV it drew a teardrop from my mum, who was admittedly bit of a softy. It was what Vera represented that was most important, a time when everybody pulled together for the sake of the nation.

I subsequently began to appreciate how much she had meant to people who had lived through the war. She was a genuine wartime heroine. And White Cliffs of Dover must send a little shiver down the spine of anyone who experienced those times.

Tuning up

When the Rolling Stones first emerged in the early 1960s, one song that really grabbed me was Around and Around, a real belter with wonderful guitar work. I didn’t know at the time, but it was a Chuck Berry song as was another Stones’ favourite, Carol.

Other early Stones’ hits like Down The Road Apiece and Route 66, had previously been recorded by Berry and he was clearly the source of band’s interest in rhythm and blues. So the Stones were my introduction to the great man’s music.

It was pleasing to see that last week the Stones acknowledged Berry’s influence. Keith Richards, who has admitted that he learnt every guitar riff that Berry played, commented “one of my big lights has gone out”. Mick Jagger added “He lit up our teenage years and blew life into our dreams of becoming musicians.”

It was after hearing Around and Around that I bought my first guitar for a fiver and after two days wondered why I didn’t sound like the Stones. Looking back on it, I was lucky I wasn’t arrested for guitar abuse.

The right tonic

Back to the forces sweetheart. You know someone has made it when there is a drink named after them, and that’s what happened to Vera. Born in the East End, the plumber’s daughter has maintained her cockney accent through all the years. During and after the war she had become such a national icon it was common in London pubs for patrons to ask for a “Vera” (Lynn), Cockney rhyming slang for a gin. However, don’t ask for this in a Bangkok bar — goodness knows what lethal concoction you might end up with.

In the UK, hand-painted Vera Lynn cocktail mugs still sell well, with the good lady in her green army outfit.

Vera wasn’t adverse to the odd glass of champagne, but for her 100th birthday she sensibly settled for “lemonade with a dash of red wine”.

In the Pink

Vera’s stature sometimes infiltrated the unlikeliest of settings. The music of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, whose father was killed in the war, has long been influenced by those grim times. Waters held a particular fascination for the wartime singer and wrote a song called simply Vera, one of the lesser-known numbers on the hit album The Wall. The song opens with “Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said we would meet again some sunny day?”

In another tribute to the grand lady. Vera’s biggest hit, We’ll Meet Again, was played at the start of live concerts of The Wall.

As time goes by

One of Vera’s memorable achievements was topping the charts back in 2009 at the sprightly age of 92. I recall a letter to The Times from an expat paying tribute to her with:“What a lady, one of the few things of the Britain that I knew, loved and left.”

Certainly, Britain in 2017 is very different from the one Vera used to sing about 70 years ago when life was a lot simpler and everything cost sixpence.

Sadly, it’s not all bluebirds, white cliffs and cups of tea anymore. She knows this first hand, having been burgled nine times, the intruders even stealing her wartime mementoes.

With the horrific events at Westminster this week, it looks like Britain will once again be calling on that same communal spirit Vera invoked all those years ago.