Hanging out in Sixties London

He has rarely been in the media spotlight, yet his strong performances of original blues-based, country-tinged material have earned him accolades from fellow musicians, discerning fans and professional critics.

Although Chris, 65, lives a relatively quiet and conventional country life at his farmhouse in Somerset, he is a frequent visitor to the South Oxfordshire area.

One of these such trips will see him performing his music at the Crooked Billet pub, Stoke Row, on Tuesday, November 5. Music has been constant theme throughout Chris’ life which has seen him train as an actor, be involved in stage management, fashion design, radio, film and journalism and even driving taxis.

Chris has recorded a series of albums featuring his own songs and has toured extensively in the UK and mainland Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and the USA. However, these days, Chris plays to smaller venues, such as the Crooked Billet, where he appears regularly with an acoustic trio.

Chris had just been tending a small flock of sheep he and his wife Kari-Ann own when I arrived at their home to interview him ahead of his Stoke Row gig. “We really relish our lifestyle down here,” Chris said. “We have been in Somerset for more than a decade now.

“We lived in Glastonbury before we moved out here to the farm — and it is just so much better than living in Muswell Hill, North London, as we used to.

“Some of the highlights of the last few years have been performing at annual gigs for local people in the cider barn just yards from here.”

This bucolic existence is a stark contrast from his late teenage years at the heart of “swinging” London in the Sixties.

After a childhood in Dartford, Kent, Chris attended Eltham College in south-east London.

His father, a former history and PE teacher who worked for the Central Council for Physical Recreation and wrote books on sport, was not wealthy. So sending Chris to this prestigious private school meant a considerable financial sacrifice.

Chris won a place to study drama at Manchester University, but opted not to go, preferring to spend time in London where brother Mick was enjoying his first years of fame as a Rolling Stone.

“London was such a happening place. The thought of leaving all that action to go back to college to read Shakespeare up in Manchester was very unappealing. So I didn’t do it. There are times I’ve wondered what I missed but on balance I’ve few regrets.

“Instead I took a year off and hung out in London with some of the people Mick knew. I was mixing with them all — The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, all kinds of people. It was very exciting.”

He added: “Eventually I did work at Hampstead Theatre as an assistant stage manager which I enjoyed, especially some of the new, more avant-garde plays. “Many years after that I was in repertory at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, I was in one play with Pierce Brosnan. Plus I appeared in Hair in Tel Aviv for six months. It was a great learning experience.

“So I did do quite a bit of theatre over the years despite not having a drama degree.” Chris’ musical education was also informal.

Though he had sung in a choir at junior school in Dartford, where he showed more musical promise as a child than his brother, there was little opportunity for anything musical at Eltham College.

“The only tuition in music I ever had was when I travelled to India at the end of the Sixties. The scene in London was turning a little decadent by then; things were past their best.

“So, like many others, I headed off overland to India. While I was out there, I spent several months learning singing from a teacher in a little Himalayan town.

“This is my sole formal musical education, but he gave me a wonderful foundation in singing and taught me how to go on training my own voice. This helped me so much later when I was performing on the stage.”

On his return, Chris wrote songs and recorded two albums. There were US and UK tours but record sales were disappointing, so Chris focussed on other activities.

He managed the mobile recording studio at brother Mick’s country home, Stargroves, near Newbury, where he oversaw recording sessions by the likes of The Who, The Faces and Led Zeppelin.

It was those days of living in the country near Newbury that engendered his enduring love of the Berkshire and South Oxfordshire area.

Chris said: “Looking back, I was involved in a lot of things over time. I drove taxis at one point which I didn’t especially enjoy. I was in fashion design and I have done some journalism, too. I have written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, Rolling Stone magazine as well as The Oldie.

“I also made a film shown on Sky Arts about some of the original American blues men including Hubert Sumlin and Pinetop Perkins. And I co-hosted radio programmes about the blues for a station in Austin, Texas. For BBC Radio 2, I did a show on Alexis Korner.

“I was still writing music – including contributing songs for the Rolling Stones’ Dirty Work and Steel Wheels albums.” After collaborating with many musicians over the years, who did he consider especially impressive?

“From a young age, I was always in awe of the original, first generation blues players from America — people like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmie Vaughan, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, so many of them. When I was making the film Sky Arts showed, I was lucky enough to jam with Hubert Sumlin at a famous club called Antone's in Austin.

“When you heard some of these older people sing, you knew they had done a lot of living. They weren’t just writing about it, they’d been there, done it, which makes a huge difference.”

He added: “I have worked with a lot of talented musicians. I was particularly impressed when I worked with Dave Stewart. He produced some tracks for me and he added so much. He just had an instinctive understanding of how things should sound.”

Chris plays in two bands. The first, Atcha, created in the early 90s, has produced five albums. The latest of them, Concertina Jack, has quite a bluesy feel and features brother Mick on backing vocals and on a track called Diamonds and Pearls.

With his second outfit, an acoustic trio with David Hatfield on double bass and Elliet Mackrell who plays fiddle and didgeridoo, Chris tours smaller venues around the UK and mainland Europe.

“There's something special about performing in small halls where you feel you are really reaching out to a lot of the local community,” he said.

“For me, that beats the O2 any time.” Did Chris ever feel he would have preferred to have come of age musically at a different time in a different place, perhaps in Fifties’ Texas, Chicago or Nashville, for example?

“No, never. To have been lucky enough to be young in London in the Sixties was as good as it gets.

“There was always a huge amount of luck involved in success. I mean, why weren’t the Yardbirds as big as the Stones? They had Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck. Or the Kinks? Is it chemistry, marketing? I just don’t know.

He added: “There are so many talented musicians who struggle to get by and maybe it is a shame the riches can’t be spread around a little more evenly. But it has always been that way.

“I feel fortunate, though, that I have had the freedom to do new things, to follow my instincts and just do whatever I am interested in doing. In that sense, I haven’t been imprisoned by huge commercial success - and that freedom does mean a lot. There is always a price to pay for fame and fortune.”

He has also been spared the domestic scrutiny and pressure his brother has endured. Married to Kari-Ann for more than 35 years, they and their five sons have largely evaded the media spotlight.

“Kari-Ann was a successful model in London in the 60s,” Chris said.

“Although there are other versions of the story, my wife was the person the Hollies’ hit song Hey, Carrie Anne - misspelled as Carrie Anne in the lyric - was actually about.”

In the 1969 James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Kari-Ann was a Bond girl and later she and Chris both appeared in The Bitch with Joan Collins.

However, these days she devotes her time to her family and the country life she and Chris enjoy.

“We do appreciate what we have here. There may be uncertainties and challenges from time to time, but overall I am very glad to have the life I do - there’s little I'd want to change. And I still love live performance. As always, I’m really looking forward to returning to The Crooked Billet at Stoke Row on 5th November.”