Meet the Leeds man who wrote pop songs for 1960s stars
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Meet-the-Leeds-man-who.6283815.jp
10 May 2010
By Neil Hudson
Sammy King wrote one of Roy Orbison's greatest hits, and worked
alongside many Sixties stars, from The Beatles to Lulu.
A one time sales rep from Batley who penned a song which outsold The
Beatles and The Rolling Stones has written a book about his life
rubbing shoulders with the stars.
Sammy King, 68, can remember the exact time and place he wrote the
first lines to the song Penny Arcade, which he later pitched to Roy
Orbison, who had a world-wide smash with the single.
Mr King said: "The inspiration for the song came to me during a
camping holiday with some friends in North Wales in 1969. I was
enjoying the final moments of an unbelievable sunset. Within a matter
of moments I had the first two lines of a song."
The song went on to become the hit Penny Arcade, which reached the
top 20 in the UK charts but shot straight to number one in Australia
and New Zealand, outselling The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Mr King said he wanted to write the book to set the record straight:
"There are a lot of myths about how Roy Orbison swindled me out of
the song for a fiver and none of that is true. He was the perfect
gentleman and very polite. I can't say it made my fortune because at
that time I had to pay a lot of tax on the royalties but I still get
them today and it pays for a few little extras for me and the wife.
Over and above that, though, it was the prestige which mattered."
He went on to write three more songs for Roy Orbison: Say No More, I
Got Nothing and After Tonight.
Mr King had been involved in numerous bands up to that point,
including The Dingos and The Voltaires, who at one time acted as
backing group for Sixties stars Cilla Black, Craig Douglas and Danny
Williams of Moon River fame.
He was also good friends with the singer Gene Pitney, who tried to
persuade him to release solo records.
Mr King, who is married to Linda and has one daughter, Amanda, by his
first marriage and a step-daughter, Julie, said: "I would send demo
tapes to Gene, who I knew well, and he would always want to release
them as they were, but it was a big commitment in terms of time. You
were expected to promote them and it meant being on the road a lot."
Mr King, who spent two years in hospital as a teenager after
suffering a hip infection, knows about triumph over adversity.
"I was devastated when I had to go into hospital. I had always been
interested in music but football was my first love. When I came out,
my pronounced limp put paid to any thoughts of my playing football ever again.
"I bought a drum kit and started playing in pubs and clubs with my
elder brother Brian in a band called The Southside Skiffle Group. A
little later Brian and I teamed up with a friend, Betty Gledhill, to
form The Three Lloyds.
"With The Voltaires, we released a song called What's the Secret? It
wasn't a massive hit but it had a big enough impact for us to get fan
mail, which surprised me. We went on to support Cilla Black, then did
the cabaret circuit for a while."
The list of people Mr King has worked with is a Who's Who of Sixties
showbiz. He was on the same bill as Acker Bilk, The Beatles, Johnny
Mathis, Louis Armstrong, Dame Shirley Bassey, Cliff Richard and Lulu,
not to mention The Rolling Stones and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates,
and many more besides.
But he was always willing to lend a hand in any capacity. He said: "I
was once working at Batley Variety Club and I used to help my first
wife, Dorothy, who worked in the cloakroom. One night, I took this
woman's coat and then later I was on stage and I saw her pointing at
me and gesturing to her husband, saying, 'that's the man from the
cloakroom'. Next thing you know, I was playing guitar in the
orchestra when Cliff Richard came on and she was gesturing 'it's him again'.
"Then when she was leaving, I was back in the cloakroom helping out
and I gave her her coat. She couldn't believe it. I only wished I
could have found some way to be her taxi driver for her trip home."
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* Mr King's book, Penny Arcade Or What Did You Do In The Sixties,
Daddy? is available now from amazon online, priced £14.25.
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