Steve Thompson first dipped his toes in the North East music scene in the early 70’s as bassist with rock band Bullfrog who played the working men’s clubs and opened for Vinegar Joe and Wishbone Ash.
By 1977 Thompson was house producer at Wallsend’s Impulse recording studio and helped set up the legendary Neat records working with Raven, Venom and Tygers of Pan Tang earning him the title ‘Godfather of the North East New Wave of British Heavy Metal’.
Steve worked with top female vocalist Lorraine Crosby, also with producer and songwriter Gus Dudgeon of Elton John fame. He went on to write songs recorded by mainstream artists Elkie Brooks, Sheena Easton, Celine Dion and Wavelength who appeared on Top of the Pops with top 20 hit Hurry Home.
That was incredible, I had quit producing records to concentrate on my song writing career said Steve. I was 24 year old at the time and just quit a waged job to live on fresh air and follow a dream. I was either very brave, very stupid or both. I quickly began knocking out songs and pitching them all over the place. I knew I needed some action or I was going to starve.
One day I was at the dentist in Wallsend. I’d been called upstairs to the surgery when the receptionist called me back down and said ‘there’s a call coming in for you Steve’. It was my publisher they tracked me down to tell me ‘Hurry Home just entered the charts at 63’. You could’ve knocked me down with a feather, that was the break I was looking for.
From there on in incredible things happened it climbed the charts over a period of three months and peaked at 17. Here I am top 20, I had arrived! Then all sorts of things started to happen, the lyrics were printed in pop magazine Smash Hits, people singing it in the street, all the airplay on Radio One, name checks from DJ Mike Read on the Breakfast show, and of course Top of the Pops.
All this was happening but I was still broke. I went to the bank to draw out a fiver. The bank teller knew me and knew I was a songwriter – obviously the only one they had on their books – he said ‘one of those payments you get has come in’. I’d not received notification so I had no idea of this.
He asked if I wanted him to go check how much had come in and I said yes please. I waited with intrepidation. The largest royalty I’d received to that time was £500. I wondered, could it be more than that or just a 20 quid brush off?
The bank teller came back and gave me the figure. I almost passed out. It was an absolutely huge sum of money and this was just the first of many royalty payments to come. He said do you still want to draw that £5? As I walked home, in a daze I thought to myself “Stevie, you’ve arrived”.
Steve was also on the books as songwriter with MCA records working with Pete Waterman. The Tygers of Pan Tang top 20 single Paris by Air came from those sessions.
But it was while Steve was at Impulse Studio that he came across a young guitarist from the seaside town of Cullercoats who went on to achieve world-wide fame.
Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor invited me to his homecoming show in Newcastle September 2021. We had a good catch-up backstage at Wylam Brewery and talked about the two tracks that I’d produced with him back in the day that are soon to be released on the Cherry Red label.
I also mentioned I had a new album in production and talked about him guesting on a track I thought would be suitable called ‘I Will Go Back’. The song is about going back to the place where you belong.
Later Andy’s assistant told me he had said to her “Whatever you do, make sure Steve Thompson is at that show.” I thought that was a bit strange, but just let it go.
A week or two later Andy announced his cancer diagnosis and then went completely off radar. So, I ended up singing the song myself. Surprisingly for the first time in many years, I sang in tune.
Link > ‘I Will Go Back’ https://vimeo.com/643038136
Other people were pleased with the vocal so it gave me the confidence to do a couple more tunes on the album. There are four in total with me singing on the ‘Distant Destination’ album.
The final song, ‘The Parting of the Clouds’ is basically my life story and people who are anonymously referred to in the lyrics recognise themselves in there. I sing the final verse from beyond the grave.
Then totally out of the blue I heard from my nephew Martin who is also a singer songwriter as well as a rock show promoter “Uncle Stephen, this would be a good show for you”.
He was talking about a solo performance of my songs with acoustic guitar and vocal. I said don’t be daft I can’t possibly do that. But five minutes later I messaged him back “Oh okay, go on then”.
Then I thought, how the hell am I going to do this? I’ve never done anything like it before. Then Barry Race, percussionist on the album track I mentioned that I had sang, messaged me and offered to play percussion on the show, I was glad of the company.
Later my regular keyboard player Richard Naisbett mentioned that he had seen I was doing a show at The Carriage in Jesmond. He said it was his regular haunt and that he would be along to see me. I suggested he bring his keyboards and watch the show from the stage which he did.
Until the very moment I sang the first note of the first song I had no idea whether or not I could do it. It turned out I could do it so I arranged another show at the White Room in Stanley and for this I prepared an extended set.
It turned out to be a well received show and I was pleased with it. I’d gone from being a non-singer to singing a full 90 minutes on my own. It took me two days to recover from that show, so I decided a change was needed.
You will find a link to the Stanley White Room show via You Tube.
I invited two great singers to join the lineup on backing vocals, Jen Normandale and Kirsty Forster. They have a couple of featured slots as well. Rehearsals with this new line-up have sounded great.
I’m doing all the songs I wrote for people like Celine, Elkie, Sheena as well as stuff from my last two albums, including a hit I wrote for Tygers of Pan Tang and a whole bunch of other artists.
Although we are now a five piece it’s still basically an acoustic show with cut back versions of the songs I wrote for all kinds of people. And this line-up creates a really nice sound with an emphasis on vocals. We’ll be back at the White Room in Stanley on June 9th 2024.
For more information contact the official website >
Link > ‘Distant Destination’ album
https://bit.ly/2023Destination
Link > Cherry Red albums with Andy Taylor’s tunes:
Alikivi May 2024
ALIKIVI : NORTH EAST UK CULTURE 