Lowlife No 6 - Don’t Let the Teardrops Fall

Don’t Let the Teardrops Fall

It is a bad ticket being a prison lifer, a rougher deal being on death row but it is arguably even worse than both of these being a Lowlifer, that is a regular reader of this column.   It is puzzling in many respects that people are avid followers of anything, most of all football clubs, which have an uncanny way of providing on balance at most clubs a lot more disappointment than gratification.   My long time acquaintance Chompa Babbee recently attended an Aston Villa game at the invitation of the Imp.  He lamented that he followed no particular club but wished that he did, so that he could feel the enthusiasm and passion of the partisan supporter.  On the dismal journey home after a crushing 4-0 defeat, when the mood of the Imp, Alfie C and I was lower than a limbo dancer’s underpants, Chompa no doubt retracted his wishes and was glad to remain as the impartial, unexcitable neutral. 

Talking of being an avid follower, that describes my interest in the blues band Magic Slim & the Teardrops, who I have revered for nearly a quarter of a century now after first seeing them at the Redcar Blues Festival in the 1980’s.  Soon after Redcar I met Slim (real name Morris Holt), his late bass player brother Nick Holt (lovely man) and the rest of the band (including the infectiously enthusiastic and idiosyncratic showman, the late Lefty Dizz) at a gig at the Bear Tavern, Bearwood, Birmingham.  I was smoking a cigarette and Slim, needing a light, came out with the immortal words, “stick your red end on my dead end”, which as a doe-eyed teenager I found highly impressive.

Anyway,  I have heard distressing reports via the Zoo Bar, Lincoln, Nebraska (where the Teardrops have a residency) that Magic Slim is currently unwell and in hospital.  One of the problems with the internet age is that information is almost instant and that can be unwelcome when the information being relayed is disappointing or upsetting.  In the past the main way I had of knowing about the welfare of Slim was via the excellent quarterly magazine Juke Blues.  On delivery of the magazine I would morbidly turn first to the obituaries page and breathe a sigh of relief when Slim did not make an appearance. Next, to Dick Shurman’s column on the Chicago blues scene which produced a beaming smile on my face when I read reports on Slim’s recent gigs.  In this way I could relax about Slim’s welfare until the next issue of the magazine in 3 months time.

All of which made it even more chilling when on Sunday evening in the Flagon I learnt about the sad and upsetting news of the death of my favourite writer, Jonathan Rendall, via the traditional method of newsprint.  

I was on cloud 9 (or at least on cloud 7 1/2 ) after my beloved Aston Villa procured a much needed 3 points in their ongoing relegation struggle by seeing off West Ham 2-1 at Villa Park.   I had a few minutes to spare after my early evening drinking cohort Toby in Tents had departed and I awaited the arrival in the Flagon of regular Sunday nighters Colly Coren and Richie Ramone (Fudgkins was AWOL for reasons unknown).   I causally picked up a copy of the Observer Sport supplement from the table next to me and read the Scottish football results, as I tend to do on a Sunday evening. In the Scottish Third Division East Stirlingshire lost at home to Peterhead in front of 278 hardy souls and with Stirling beating Montrose, it leaves the Shire with only a two point advantage with Stirling having two games in hand, so the perennial losers of the Shire may well at long last haplessly fall out of the Scottish Football

League with automatic relegation from that division being enforced next season. Tense times at Firs Park.  In the words of the diminutive Ronnie Corbett, I digress.  In the bottom right hand corner of the page a small notice read, “JONATHAN RENDALL – read online Kevin Mitchell’s tribute to the former Observer writer whose death was announced last week.”    I was, to say the least, devastated.   

Such are the cruel twists of life.  Rendall was only 48. It is rumoured his body lay alone in his residence in Ipswich for two weeks before it was discovered. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.  In addition to his (mostly boxing) journalism and his wonderfully entertaining Drink - Last Chance Saloon column for the Observer he only had three books published but they represent a concise and fine body of work: This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I own, about boxing, Twelve Grand, which is about gambling and Garden Hopping about his adoption, parts of which represent some of the bravest writing I have had the painful pleasure to read.

Following the Publication of Garden Hopping in 2006 I would intermittently search on the internet for news of Rendall or in the vain hope that a new book would be published.  Tantalisingly it was mooted that a new book, Scream, a biography of boxer Mike Tyson, would be published in 2007 but Amazon’s entry for the book has always read “currently unavailable”.  The book was never published and now, I sorrowfully surmise, it never will be.

With the disturbing news of Magic Slim’s hospitalisation, Villa’s ongoing and acutely real relegation threat and the body blow of Jonathan Rendall’s untimely demise, it has been a less than satisfactory week.  It might be a wise idea for the Pirate, the Landlord at the helm of the good ship the Flagon, to be wrapped in cotton wool as if the Flagon’s doors were to close it would be too much to bear, especially as its welcomingly peaceful sanctuary is immeasurably needed at this difficult and testing time.

© Dominic Horton, 12^th February, 2013.