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Q&A Hilton Valentine
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F lagpole sat down with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
inductee Hilton Valentine (original lead guitarist for
The Animals) this week to talk about his new project,
Skiffledog, a return to his earliest musical roots in the 1950s
British skiffle scene. Recording at Chase Park Transduction with
Jeff Walls and Dave Barbe, and joined by his wife and auxiliary
percussionist, Germaine, Valentine was eager to discuss his
recording endeavors both new and old, and gamely tossed out
a few stories about his younger, wilder years paling around
with the likes of The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.
Flagpole: What brings you to Athens?
Hilton Valentine: We wanted to record some
stuff that we'd been playing for the last two or
three years. I've got this band—we go out under
the name of Skiffledog and under me own name.
My wife Germaine thought it would be a good idea
to ask Mr. Jeff Walls to produce it. We met Jeff
with The Woggles up in Connecticut. He's worked
with the engineer Dave Barbe a few times, and
they know each other very well, so it was a perfect
opportunity to do these songs.
FP: Can you give us a little background on skiffle?
HV: Back in the '50s in England, rock and roll
was just startin' to happen. There was one guy in
particular, called Lonnie Donegan, who was playing
skiffle music, and he came from a tradition which,
I guess, you would call New Orleans Dixieland Jazz.
And he was playin' banjo in a band called the Ken
Collier Band, so he was aware of people like Woody
Guthrie and Leadbelly, and he was playing and
singing these songs, so he broke away and formed
the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group, playing this American folk
music but pepped up quite a bit. And at that time for us,
skiffle music and the rock and roll that was coming out—Little
Richard, Elvis, Bill Haley—to us it was all the same. So, for the
kids that were living in England at the time, the simplest thing
to play was skiffle. You didn't have to have electric guitars; we
used washboards, tea chest bass. My first skiffle group had a
little plastic saxophone with one note workin'. One guy played
a comb and paper... It was kinda like the jug bands in the
States. And we're now playing some of the songs that I played
way back in the mid-'50s.
FP: Are you using any homemade instruments on this record?
HV: No, no. We've progressed [laughs]. We've advanced from
the tin box to an actual snare drum played with brushes. And
we've got a bass guitar, and Germaine plays washboard, eggs
and tambourine.
FP: Whut kind of acts did you play with when you first
started out :
HV: The first tour that The Animals played on was the Chuck
Berry tour in England. His backing band was called King Size
Taylor and the Dominoes. They did their own little set, and
then Chuck came on. So, Chuck's locked himself in his dress
ing room, and he won't come out until he's paid. Peter Grant,
who ended up managing Led Zeppelin but at that time was the
tour manager, is on his knees feeding pound notes under tne
door to Chuck. Backstage people were shoutin' at King Size
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(I to r) Jeff Walls, Hilton Valentine and Skiffledog drummer, Pat Quinn
Taylor "One more! One more!" but meanwhile, the audience was
shoutin' "We Want Chuck! We Want Chuck!" Then they started
wreckin' the place. So, eventually he gets paid, he comes out,
and the whole place goes wild. He finishes his show, walks
back offstage, band's still playin', he's straight off down the
stairs, out the back door, into a car, and he's away. The band's
still playin', the audience is still shoutin' "YEAH, MORE, MORE!"
and we're just in awe. But that came from his experience of
playing and not gettin' paid.
FP: In a lifetime of performing, is there one show or one
moment that stands out as the biggest or most memorable?
HV: Coming to America at the time "House of the Rising
Sun" was number one—that was a pretty big deal. To actually
fly to New York and have this cavalcade of English sports cars
driven into the city—it was quite an amazing thing—and, of
course, meeting The Beatles.
One night we were playin' at this club, and Brian Epstein
and The Beatles were there, and we were invited back to Brian
Epstein's place to have some more drinks. So, we're there,
drinkin' and smokin', doin' the business, and there was this
stuff called amyl nitrate. They were these vials wrapped up
in bandages, and if somebody was having a heart attack they
were snapped and poured down their nose and made the heart
beat really fast to get the circulation going. So, as all good
druggies do, you try everything. You got high for about 30
seconds, but that's what was going around. They smelled like
sweaty socks. Anyhow, at this point, all the amyl—
we called them poppers—we were snortin' em and
gettin' the rush, and there came a time when John
Lennon shouts out "We got anymore of them pop
pers?" and Terry says "Nah, John, sorry, we're out."
So, Lennon just lifts up his arm, puts his nose in
his armpit and goes "Oh, well [takes a big whiff]."
Jeff Walls: I remember you told me a great story
one time about sittin' in Mike Jeffries' office and
George Harrison callin' on the phone.
HV: Yeah, I was in The Animals' office, and the
secretary says, "Hilton, there's a Jeff Chandler on
the phone." And I said "Jeff Chandler?" (he was an
actor). So, I answered the phone and heard "Hello.
Hilton, it's George here." He wanted to know about
an acid trip that I had. There were similarities
between some acid trips he had taken... and so he
invited me down to his house to discuss the results.
FP: You've mentioned the Rolling Stones, too. Did
you ever have any run-ins with them?
HV: Yeah, in fact, Brian Jones was the guy that
first turned me on to add. I don't know if this is good stuff for
your newspaper.
Germaine Valentine: So, Hilton carried on the tradition
and turned Steve Winwood onto add [laughs].
HV: And Jimi Hendrix. And Eric Burden. And Chas Chandler.
It was my idea to call it The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Because
of the book I was reading at the time: The Psychedelic
Experience by Timothy Leary [laughs].
GV: He was a bad influence [laughs].
HV: I'm alright now, though. I don't do them things any
more. I just drink Newcastle Brown Ale.
FP: Do you think you’ll be back to play Athens at some point?
HV: Yeah, I'd love to. Maybe Jeff can help us out with
that—get us fixed up.
David Fitzgerald
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