Table of Contents

Part One (a rewritten All This and 10%): 1. The noise that will drive you mad. 2. A fateful step 3. Mick Mulligan and Bert Ambrose 4. Cheap and cheerful 5. Carefree Mulligan and true-blue Melly 6. Renegade traditionalists 7. It's Polo at 'Urlingham 8. Don and the visiting firemen 9. Bombshell hits the profession 10 Musty smell of 78s Part Two: 1. What is there to learn, migawd 2. Are you electric? 3. A sturdy Englishman 4. It's the Yids, Innit? 5. Meter reader/author 6. Loser/pessimist editor 7. You can't emasculate a harlot 8. A Flock of Blutmores Index

About the Author

Jim Godbolt became manager of George Webb's Dixielanders in 1946 after demobilization from the Royal Navy. He ran a band agency with Lyn Dutton and Humphrey Lyttelton in 1951 and formed his own agency in 1952, representing Mick Mulligan's Magnolia Jazz Band, the Sandy Brown-Al Fairweather All-Stars and various pop groups. He left the entertainment business in 1971 to concentrate on a career in writing and supported himself by working as a meter reader. In 1979 he founded Jazz at Ronnie Scott's, the house magazine of Ronnie Scott's Club which he edited until 2006. His other works include A History of Jazz in Britain 1919-50, also republished by Northway, A History of Jazz in Britain 1950-70 and The World of Jazz in Printed Ephemera and Collectibles.

Reviews

'A warm, human autobiography... Godbolt writes with great insight about both the musicians and social changes of those heady times.' Listener 'Some of Jim Godbolt's passages had me laughing uncontrollably.' Times Educational Supplement 'Highly intelligent and articulate... He has an excellent eye and ear for the quirks of others... irrisistible.' George Melly, Guardian 'More than a chuckle guaranteed.' Financial Times 'Hilarious... essential reading to anyone with an interest in the bizarre machinations behind the glossy front of showbiz' Music Week 'His book gives us the whole spectrum of post-war pop music - the explosion of the Beatles and the demise of the big bands, written in an easy conversatioal tone.' Spike Milligan, Mail on Sunday 'A jazz book by a man who understands that jazz is struggle not perfection.' Mike Zwerin, International Herald Tribune.