Pete Townshend has written a lovely heartfelt foreword for Hollywood Dream: The Thunderclap Newman Story, a fabulous new book by Mark Wilkerson, author of the epic 2006 biography, Amazing Journey: The Life of Pete Townshend.
The book details the fascinating story of this unique English rock band and its three completely disparate members; John ‘Speedy’ Keen (a quirky singer/songwriter who worked as Pete’s driver), Andy Newman (an eccentric jazz pianist and kazoo player who Pete first saw perform at his art school), and Jimmy McCulloch (a 16 year old lead guitarist prodigy who later played with Wings).
Pete had a major role in Thunderclap Newman’s creation, and is featured prominently throughout the book. He gathered these individual artists together to form a band and produced all of their music, in an effort to bring new talent to Track Records, the record label run by The Who’s managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp.
Thunderclap Newman's first single, Something in the Air, was released in 1969 and became a surprise No. 1 hit single in the UK. Pete was able to stitch together the unique sounds of Speedy's falsetto vocals and drums, Andy's Ragtime style piano solo, and Jimmy's soaring electric guitar, to create an absolute masterpiece. The song has been featured in films, TV and advertisements over the years, including the Magic Christian, and the wonderful music and powerful lyrics calling out for a revolution have a timeless quality that makes it still sound fresh and vibrant today. Their only album, Hollywood Dream, followed over a year later in 1970. It featured many great songs, but didn't produce any more hits for the band.
The recording sessions took place at Pete’s tiny home studio in Twickenham, and IBC Studios in London. The book provides a great perspective of the early production and demo work Pete did around that time, which was a very busy and creative period leading up to the release of Tommy. It also discusses the early home recording that Andy Newman did, which was a big influence on Pete's home studio demo work.
In addition to helping out as a mentor and producer for the band, Pete played bass on the recordings under the nom-de-plume of Bijou Drains, which he got from the Bijou Guest House that he would pass by on his way to Ealing Tech art school. He also arranged the strings on Something in the Air.
The book covers the really interesting period in the mid-sixties leading up to the bands conception, including Pete’s time at art school. The prologue has a great story about a band Speedy Keen was in with Chris Thomas (who produced three of Pete’s solo albums) called The Cat. They recorded an early version of Run, Run, Run that Pete produced and played guitar on, before The Who released their recording of it in 1966.
Mark did extensive research to follow the rise and fall of Thunderclap Newman, recounting their recording sessions and scarce live performances, as well as their personal lives. The book is packed full of quotes from a wide range of family members, colleagues, and friends of the band. Mark interviewed more than fifty people, getting fresh accounts from Pete Townshend, Andy Newman, Richard Barnes, Chris Thomas, Angie Bowie, Richard Stanley, Trish Keen, Chris Morphet, Arthur Brown, Mark Brzezicki, and so many others. He also drew from a wide range of articles and interviews, and included excerpts from an unfinished memoir that Speedy Keen had written that was provided by his daughter. He did an excellent job compiling everyone’s detailed memories, which really brings the story to life.
Pete Townshend said in the foreword, “I will turn to Wilkerson’s book again and again to be reminded of my three dear friends who comprised the band Thunderclap Newman. It’s carefully and devotedly researched with lots of input from all kinds of other friends of mine who shared their journey.”
This book was clearly a labour of love to put together, and it’s a real joy to read. For anyone interested in early work Pete did outside The Who, this is a must have for your collection!
Hollywood Dream: The Thunderclap Newman Story will released by Third Man Books on October 1st (US) and November 14th (UK). A special edition Hardcover will be available in November, limited to 1,000 copies, which are signed by the author and Pete Townshend, and include a fold-out 11” x 17” poster created by Josh Townshend, Pete’s nephew and a member of the final version of Thunderclap Newman.
To order the book, please follow the links below.
US Hollywood Dream standard (paperback) edition
US special Hardback signed edition with poster
UK/EU customers shop here
A full-size version of the poster
Many thanks to Mark Wilkerson for the following writeup he provided for this article!
Here are a few words from author Mark Wilkerson.
Pete Townshend. Probably the first image that comes to mind for most people is the mid-Seventies guitar hero who bounded around the stage with The Who like a wind-up toy, sneering at the crowd, windmilling his arm and thrashing his Les Paul, the subject of the iconic THIS GUITAR HAS SECONDS TO LIVE poster. But is this the real Townshend? He has often said that performing live doesn’t move him; that indeed he is frequently bored with it. Which is difficult to believe, given the aforementioned behaviors, and of course the fact that he is so damn good at it.
“The weird thing about me,” Pete explained to the Toronto Sun a few months ago, “is that compared to most artists, despite the fact that I look sometimes like I’m enjoying myself… I think I’m a really good actor, because I don’t really feel very much at all. It’s not that I don’t feel good about performing; I just don’t know who that guy is that’s up there on the stage – he isn’t me.”
Townshend is first and foremost an artist, and just like any artist, whether musical or visual, he is most at home in a creative environment. “I’m happiest in a studio,” he told the Toronto Sun.
Pete Townshend began building home recording studios back when he was still attending art school in the early ‘60s, the first example being in an upstairs room in his childhood home. Each subsequent iteration was an improvement on the last, as both experience and resources grew. By the late 1960s, Townshend’s studio, in a tiny upstairs converted bathroom in his home on the embankment of the Thames in Twickenham, was a state-of-the-art affair. This studio boasted two of the U.K.’s first Dolby A301 Noise Reduction units, one for each of Townshend’s Revox stereo tape recorders, and in the coming months would receive one of the first 8-track tape machines in the country.
This was the space that Thunderclap Newman – Speedy Keen, Andy Newman, and Jimmy McCulloch – first assembled in late 1968, and where they went on to record most of their work: A handful of singles, including the hit ‘Something In The Air’, and an album – the inimitable Hollywood Dream. The Thunderclap Newman sessions, which stretched from late 1968 to early 1970, remain a treasured memory for Townshend. “Thunderclap Newman were my invention and my most enjoyable recording session, better than any Who session for me, and as far as I know my only genuine Number One in any role at all in the business,” Townshend told me. “I still publish Speedy’s Thunderclap songs by the way. I’m immensely proud of them and my part in their genesis.”
Townshend’s initial plan was to record separate solo efforts by Keen, Newman and McCulloch, but his increasingly frenetic life and career meant that there was no time for this. By late 1968, Townshend was neck-deep in the writing and recording of the biggest album of his career, Tommy, and his wife was pregnant with their first child. It was one of the most hectic periods of his career, and yet he found the time to work with Keen, Newman and McCulloch – three ‘outsiders’ who had practically nothing in common. It was Kit Lambert who came up with the seemingly ridiculous idea to lump all three together. Somehow, it worked. Both Pete and Speedy referred to that first session as “magical”.
Perhaps in part this fondness for working with Keen, McCulloch and Newman was because, in contrast to Townshend’s present work with The Who, there really was no pressure. Thunderclap Newman was comprised of relatively unknown musicians, and the music was written by them – not by Townshend. Expectations were minimal; there was nothing to lose. This was the complete opposite of what Townshend was going through with The Who at the time – the massive pressure of coming up with something to revive what was now a sagging trajectory. This particular work, at this specific time, provided a needed respite.
Plus, of course, Townshend was in his favorite setting: The studio, a setting which he still finds essential today. “I must admit that I learn more from working with other artists than I do working alone, and through them all have, like Rick Rubin, produced a philosophy of recording studio craft that sustains me every day,” Pete writes in the foreword to my new book about Thunderclap Newman.
Box of 1000 bookplates signed by Pete Townshend. Photo credit: Mark Wilkerson
To promote the release of Hollywood Dream: The Thunderclap Newman Story, Mark Wilkerson will be doing a book tour to help promote it, where he will be doing Q&A's and signing books. Here's the current schedule of dates he has planned.
Eddie Vedder, Mark Wilkerson, Pete Townshend backstage at The Who TCT Royal Albert Hall show, March 2024. Photo credit: Mark Wilkerson
