Experiences: Stories From The Past...

Recently the powers that be INSISTED, for the sake of better artist/listener relations... that Billy provide some details about his colorful history in the music and entertainment business. Now Billy Michaels isn't one to go on and on about his past... NOT his style... but below you'll indeed find some very fascinating recollections! READ ON!!

These stories will not have ‘dates’ or be in any kind of ‘chronological’ order. They are just accounts of ‘happenings’ from the past that are a sort of travel through my career in the business up to now. They may or may not be entertaining. Some will be short. Some will be longer. BUT, they are TRUE! So let’s START.


GUY MITCHELL (Hit singer circa 1950s)
I worked with Guy over here; I think it must have been around middle sixties or something, it is suffice to say I was youngish. We were on stage in this, theatre, doing a show, I was guesting. We did a number together and it went fine until we came to get off. He was a little ‘under the weather’ if you know what I mean and had not quite found his ‘sea legs’. As we walked off, he walked through the band to the back of the stage and tried to find a door in the curtains and of course there wasn’t one so he just kept pulling at the curtains and cursing. The band was great as they just kept playing. I came on again, bowed, walked to the back of the stage, took his arm, walked to the front with him, we both bowed, and then he waved to the audience, who gave him a tremendous applause and then we were off. IT WAS GREAT! And funny now! But at the time………. wowoo!


GERRY DORSEY (Better known as ENGLEBERT HUMPERDINCK)
This is a little ‘gone’ on the actual time but anyway it went this way. I was playing a large ‘Club’ in the North of England and he (Gerry, as he was known then) was on also. He was before me to close the ‘first half.’ and I was to come on after. We were in the dressing room (he didn’t have his ‘own’ at this stage) and we got to talking. I asked how he was doing and he said it was going fine. He said he had just signed a contract with Gordon Mills (who was Tom Jones’s manager at the time) and he had just cut this record called ‘Please Release me’ and also Gordon was changing his name to one that Gerry was not sure of. This of course was Englebert Humperdinck, anyway we were laughing about it. So, he went on and came off stage, fine! Then there was a break. He was going to another place to do another show and his ‘roadie’ was packing up all his stuff. I wished him well and went to the bar. He left and I went back to the dressing room, maybe 10 minutes later. I thought I would get ready to go on. When I looked for my ‘stuff’ it wasn’t there, oh my! The ‘roadie had taken mine too and they were long gone. Music, everything and I had nothing. The manager of the ‘CLUB’ was not impressed at all and said GO ON or clear off and you will also lose all of the bookings on the ‘circuit’. Well, I was young, scared, and not as confident as I should have been. I had no music, nothing, and didn’t feel I could do the job so of course I ‘Crashed’. Oh well, water under the bridge now but lousy then. OF COURSE it was an accident, not the fault of ENGLEBERT (who eventually discovered it and I got my ‘stuff’ back, alas too late). The laugh was on the both of us about the NAME. I think now he is estimated to be worth around £100,000,000. Good eh!

TOM JONES
I met Tom back stage at the London Palladium when he was doing a series of shows (this again was the 60s if I remember). My manager at the time knew him and he asked him if I could watch his show from the ‘wings’ and he said fine! He was very good to me and gave me a lot of ‘tips’ on audiences and how to ‘handle’ them. He was very kind and a gentleman.

DAVID ESSEX
I met David on TV in the ‘JOE BROWN SHOW’ we were both appearing in it. I was plugging my latest record ‘Alice Long’ and I think he was doing ‘his’. We got on terrific and lucky for him he had a GREAT manager who stuck by him through thick and thin and eventually he made it very BIG TIME through WEST END SHOWS in London. He liked my record and told me that he ‘dug’ me as a singer.


BOBBY DARIN
I met him during a Canadian and American tour I did after flying on from a European tour. I had had ‘hits’ in Germany, and Spain and had toured around to great success and got the ‘States’ tour from it. My managers were re-doing some ‘mixing’ on my next record and I was in the studio doing little bits on the voice. Bobby and some of his friends happened to be in the studio at the time and heard me. He came over and talked to me. I was very nervous as he was a HUGE star. He said ‘I like your voice young man, it has something’ (his words) He asked me if I had ever thought of doing ‘his’ kind of music. I said I had but did not think I could be good at it. He said ‘Well, that aint my feel, why don’t you think about it some more and give it another try. I WILL NEVER FORGET THOSE WORDS, EVER! I remember these as though they were only yesterday and they have stayed with me all these years. HE WAS A VERY KIND MAN.

JOHNNY MATHIS
I met this man (who I consider to be one GREAT singer) after one of his shows in Britain. I was invited backstage with another guy who was an impresario who booked BIG acts. Mr Mathis said that he had caught my ‘act’ a few days earlier in the theatre I was appearing in and he said ‘I like your voice and I like the way you deliver a lyric’. I could have dropped through the floor and now I can’t remember what I said back, maybe like a ‘girdle’ you know, like a squeezed swallow. I dun no. Anyway I remember now I was flattered, very.

ELTON JOHN
This is a story not really so much of meeting Elton (which I never have) but of turning down his ‘tunes’. This is when I worked for ‘Dick James’ NORTHERN MUSIC in London. I think he got the rights to all the BEATLES stuff at one time, er, I forget. Anyway they did not know what ‘bag’ to put me in and found it difficult to find songs for me. NOW, in the basement of the offices there was a young musician who seemed to pound out tunes all day and his name was Reg, (Elton before he was ENORMOUSLY RICH!). So, Dick James kept sending me his stuff, things like ‘Take me to the pilot’ and tunes like this and I kept knocking them back, OH DEAR! I think you get the picture, and suffice to say eventually my contract was revoked because they said, and I quote: UNCOOPERATIVE. Anyway I went to PYE RECORDS after that and got looked after by a very successful group.

In my career I have met and associated and been on stage with lots of successful star names. Some are now not around and some will not be so known with American audiences. British audiences will remember them well. Names such as: Frank Ifield, Ken Dodd, Les Dawson, Freddie Starr, Danny Williams, Bob Monkhouse and lots more.

I am amazed that I have remembered all these things because I truly believed I had forgotten them. By going back over them they came clearer and clearer until they were so easy to get.

Well I can’t think of much more, although I know there are other people and other stories but some are REALLY vague. You may like these I have put down here, or some of them, or none of them but you have them none the less. Maybe you will want to use some portions of some, or maybe not, but you did ask me. You will know if there is value in any of it. As I have said earlier, this is another ‘being ness’ for want of a better word and another time. It was a great time, I had a lot fun, and I did fine financially. I ‘retired’ from the ‘Pop’ business in 1980 and went into business. I made money and lost money and eventually sold my ‘stuff’ in 93. I went to ‘Acting School’ for 3 years from 96 to 99 and then started doing TV work and Films and some Stage work. Acting jobs are VERY difficult to get at times and many, many times I was living on the monies I had previously made and they were getting thinner. It was a chance meeting with an old Band Leader friend of mine that changed things. He asked what I was doing, and I told him, and the pitfalls. He came right back at me and said ‘Why don’t you sing?’ I said who wants an old codger like me singing to them. I got the reply ‘rubbish’. Well, I tried it, this was 2004 (birth of BILLY MICHAELS) and I have NEVER looked back. So there you have it to NOW!