Glam rock star Steve Harley on leaving Fleet Street behind… and why his iconic greatest hit still makes him smile
Tim Newark
STEVE Harley never set out to be a chart-topping pop star. The original ambition of the man whose megaselling hit Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) is still played all over the world, was to become a successful journalist. As he celebrates the 50th anniversary of forming his band Cockney Rebel, Harley recounts how it all started – and the origins of the song he describes as his pension.
After leaving school at 17, his first job was for the Daily Express at its original, imposing headquarters at 120 Fleet Street in central London. He was based in the accounts department but his heart was elsewhere.
“I used to leave at 5pm on the third floor accounts and go down to the second, which was a massive, open-plan newsroom and they’d all be banging away on their Remington typewriters with slogans slung across their desks saying ‘Keep it brief’,” he smiles. “It was magic. I was in awe.”
Born in Deptford, London, in 1951, Harley was the son of a milkman and a part-time jazz singer. His father had been a semi-professional footballer and in the summer of 1953 noticed his young son was clumsy during a kick-about. When he began sweating at night, he was rushed to hospital and diagnosed with polio.
Spending the next decade in and out of hospital, he was often in excruciating pain as surgeons put pins in his good leg to even up his limbs, using crutches until he was 16.
“When I was studying for my O-levels in a hospital bed, Antony Harding, the head of my English department, would send me books to read: he sent me Hemingway and DH Lawrence, poetry and novels,” he recalls.
“Hemingway was my first love because he wrote like a journalist.”
Determined to become part of the magic, it took Harley nine months, but finally he bagged a job as a reporter with Essex County Newspapers in Colchester, where he trained for three years, working on many local papers and improving his writing skills.
TODAY, it is for another form of writing he is best known. Fifty years ago, Harley founded one of Britain’s top 1970s glam rock bands: Cockney Rebel. With iconic hits such as Judy Teen, Mr Soft and, of course, Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), he stormed the pop charts.
Selling more than 1.5 million copies, Make Me Smile is one of the most widely played records in British broadcasting history, with at least 120 versions by other artists.
After being at No1 for two weeks, “the worst thing anyone has ever said to me”, says Harley, “is that I was knocked off the number one spot by Telly Savalas”.
Despite this, the single remains hugely important. “It’s my pension”, he says.
“My wife and I were in Montenegro and it came on this taxi driver’s radio and he started singing it all in English, beating the steering wheel, saying it was the best record ever made.”
When they got out, Harley’s wife Dorothy urged him to tell the driver who he was, but he refrained. “I didn’t want him to blank me!”
The song was recorded in Abbey Road studios. “We knew some magic was happening. The managing director of EMI popped in that night and said ‘Number One’.”
Newspapers aside, as a teenager, his other great passion was music.
“I was a big rock fan. I was at every festival, both in 1969 and 70, with my mates from south London. But when I started writing songs I wanted them to be more literary and theatrical than blues based. I wanted to dress it up a bit.”
Learning his musicianship by busking in Tube stations, he filled in for David Bowie at the Beckenham Arts Lab at The Three Tuns pub. Controversial movies at the time shaped his striking stage appearance of face make-up and bowler hat. “Cabaret and A Clockwork Orange were big influences in terms of style.”
It was early in 1972 that Harley pulled together a band called Cockney Rebel, named after a teenage autobiographical poem he wrote while in hospital, and they performed their first gig in July at the Roundhouse supporting The Jeff Beck Group.
A notable addition to the line-up was Jean-Paul Crocker who played electric violin on many of their early hits, in distinct counterpoint to the guitar-heavy rock of the time. After a summer of concerts, they were eventually signed up by EMI who released their first album, The Human Menagerie, in 1973 which included the classic track Sebastian, which demanded a 50-piece orchestra.
Next came their first hit Judy Teen which peaked at No 5 in the pop charts.
It was the height of glam rock, with rival performers including David Bowie, Roxy Music and Marc Bolan, who became a friend. “He was something else,” says Harley. “Marc was always on, as they say in show business. He was bonkers. I liked him a lot.”
Deploying his journalistic training, Harley knew how to feed juicy stories to the music press. Dubbing himself “Muhammad ‘Arley”, he enjoyed baiting them.
“I hope that when Bowie hears Cockney Rebel it’ll knock him sideways,” he told reporters at the time. “I’ll chase him until I either fall flat on my face or make him run.”
Adopting a flamboyant on-stage personality, he once had one of his roadies dress in a top hat and tails to serve him
‘The second floor was a massive newsroom, they’d all be banging away on their Remington typewriters’
drinks on a silver salver. “As a young man and single and in the charts, life was a lot of fun,” he admits.
Cockney Rebel’s second album, The Psychomodo, was a top 10 hit and included the epic Tumbling Down as well as the second successful single Mr Soft, but tensions over money saw the original band split and Harley went on to record his next album,The Best Years of Our Lives, with a new line-up.
IT SPAWNED his biggest hit, Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), with lyrics partly inspired by the band’s acrimonious break-up, which finally gave Harley his first number one spot in February 1975.
By the late 1970s, Cockney Rebel’s star began to fade, and their cover version of George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun in 1976 was their last top 10 hit.
Despite touring with The Kinks in the US, their distinctive sound never quite caught the imagination across the Atlantic, though they remained a favourite in Europe. Today, 50 years on, Harley is not exactly excited by much of pop music today.
“There’s no guitar heroes since [The Smiths’] Johnny Marr.There isn’t a rock band out there anymore that matters.”
Now living in North Essex, Harley, 70, and Dorothy, who celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary last year, have two children, Kerr and Greta.
He mentors young musicians but admits to feeling they “don’t have the confidence we had. My wife plays the radio all day and I can’t help but shrug and ask, ‘Will it be played in 10 years’ time? It’s more disposable.’”
Playing up to a hundred concerts a year, he was less than impressed by Adele’s lastminute cancellation of her Las Vegas shows last month. “Christ, don’t get me on that.
What a trouper…” When his own first band deserted him just before a Reading Festival appearance, he just got on with it.
“I was brought up by my dad because of my leg and crutches just to get up and get on. No self-pity. It wasn’t allowed in my family.”
In 1977, the second Cockney Rebel disbanded and Harley embarked on a solo career. He co-wrote songs for Rod Stewart and sang the title track of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera with Sarah Brightman to reach No 7 in 1986. Rehearsing for the role of the Phantom, he was disappointed to be replaced by Michael Crawford. With a new band in the 1990s, Harley re-established himself as a much-loved live performer with a strong following in the UK and across Europe. “It’s been 50 years and I can’t wait to get back on the tour bus,
‘I’ve got 50% of three thoroughbreds... It’s like treading £50 notes in the turf, but it’s therapy’
it’s just so exciting, the vibe you get, it’s in your blood, it’s what you do.”
He set up his own label Comeuppance to re-issue earlier material and, in 2002, received a Gold Badge of Merit from The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. He has also raised money for charities, helping disabled children and victims of landmines around the world.
Lockdowns played havoc with Harley’s live schedule, but since summer 2021 he’s been back on the road with several concerts scheduled later this year as part of his celebratory 50 Years A Rebel tour.
Owning racehorses since 1984, he is keen on the sport.
“I’ve got 50 per cent of three thoroughbreds for flat racing. It’s like treading £50 notes in the turf, but for me it’s my therapy, a release from other stresses in life,” he admits.
Definitely something to keep him smiling...
Steve Harley kicks off his 2022 tour next month, see steveharley.com for information and tickets