A Chat with Junior Giscombe
Interview with Jay Lowe (Guest contributor)
We spoke to British soul legend Junior Giscombe. We discuss the longevity of his career, the story behind ‘Mama Used To Say’ and upcoming projects.
How did you come to get the name Junior?
Junior: I was the last child of 8. It was great growing up with everybody and just learning your place within the household. Being the youngest was cool, to be quite honest. By the time Mum and Dad got to me in terms of discipline and stuff, they couldn’t be bothered. They allowed me to continue to be me. I got my City & Guilds in Computer Programming, and then at the age of 17, I decided to throw myself into music.
What does ‘Mama Used To Say’ mean to you? Personally, it’s one of my favourite 80’s songs, and it’s aged remarkably well.
Junior: That song was basically my Mum, she told me the lyrics to that song. She’d always be telling me that I’m rushing to get old. When I got to 22, I was working in a shop doing handmade shoes. This girl walked in, and I turned and asked what age she was, and she said she was 18. So I thought if I tell her I’m 22, it might sound like I’m too old. So I dropped my age to 20! When I got home, I told my Mum, and she started laughing and saying, “I told you not to rush to get old!” The song means a hell of a lot because it’s my mother’s song. She basically wrote that song. It’s absolutely amazing that after all this time, it still gets played. I’m incredibly grateful to those that played it initially and for it to seep in and become a classic to people. It’s monstrous, man. About 10 years back, on American radio, it was still the most played track on Mother’s Day.
There was an explosion of British black R&B artists in the UK in the early 80’s, such as Imagination, Linx & Beggar & Co. What was that scene like to be a part of?
Junior: That really was a revolution. Everybody got to know everybody. I’m South London, and some of those guys are East and North London. But we all heard of one another, and we checked each other out. I was in a band called Atlantis, and members of that went on to Shakatak and Modern Romance. All the time, all this jazz-funk was killing it. And people here at the time wanted to make it. But they couldn’t make it sound the same as the Americans. But that whole period of time was exciting. There was this whole reggae and soul scene exploding, especially in London.
The lyrics to ‘Too Late’ are about drunken violence brought on by alcohol. Was the song’s subject matter personal to you?
Junior: I went to Edinburgh, where I was opening for Michael McDonald on his tour. I had gone out walking and met this girl who was a punk, and we got talking. She started showing me around Edinburgh. This song is her story, she opened up and told me that her and her siblings would watch their Mum being abused by their father. And their Mum wanted to run away and did so, but the father found them and brought them back. This continued until one day the mother decided I’m not taking this anymore and one night when he was out, she ran and took the kids. With ‘Too Late’, I don’t know how I came up with the lyric, but it was one of the fastest songs I’d ever written. It must’ve been within five or ten minutes that song was done and dusted. Me and the record company fought for months to release it as a single. The song was the one that solidified me and made me Junior. People really liked ‘Too Late’ because of what the lyrics were saying.
You had some success in the States with being voted Best Newcomer by Billboard. You were presented with your award by James Brown. I’d imagine this is a career highlight?
Junior: What can you say! That was an incredible thing to happen. My second-oldest sister used to live in Mississippi, and she would send over records. I would’ve been 8 or 9, and she sent over a track called ‘Money Won’t Change You’ by this guy called James Brown. I heard that, and I just flipped. It was just so urgent the way the guy was singing. Him and Jackie Wilson were amazing. Jackie Wilson could dance; he was as good as or even better than James Brown. When I went to America and got the award, I was over the moon. I was being presented to royalty AS royalty. I thought this was mad. The whole of that time from ‘Mama Used To Say’ and those first 10 years were just amazing, the people I met and the things I did.
You were signed to Mercury Records, who were home to big names such as Tears For Fears, Van Morrison and Donna Summer. What kind of support did the label give you?
Junior: In the beginning, they supported me. Junior was a conception of both myself and Roger Ames, who was the A&R at Mercury. He pushed me to go and get management, and when I did him and management were falling out all the time. So I’m now in the middle, trying to make the thing work. Roger felt we could still have the same kind of relationship we started out with, even with the management. But they didn’t want that; they wanted their own relationships. It got tricky and messy by the time we got to the second album. Roger decided to move himself further up so he went off and tried to get a young kid called Pete Tong to be my A&R man. But I wasn’t having it! Tears For Fears and I were around at the same time, so were Big Country and Kid Creole and the Coconuts. That Polygram label was the hottest label in the country at the time because everyone on it was having top-five hits.
By the time you got to your third album, Acquired Taste, in 1985, you were trying to move away from club and dance music. Did you find this difficult?
Junior: Well, you’ve been placed in a particular area of music, and I was never one to be I just do this. I love music, so I’ve always looked to do all kinds of different things within music. So it was a struggle trying to get the record company to fully grasp at that time where I was coming from. Around that time, I got together with Phil Lynott, and we started writing songs and putting a project together. We were going to do a duet album. Management took one of the tracks in (‘Lady Loves To Dance’) and they just couldn’t hear it. They made a clumsy comment like “two black guys, Phil’s rock and Junior’s soul. That’s not gonna work”.
You had a big hit with the Kim Wilde duet ‘Another Step (Closer To You)’. What was that process like?
Junior: We did everything in black and white, the video and the pictures. Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle came out with ‘On My Own’, which was huge. But we did the reverse. Instead of a white guy/black girl, it was a black guy/white girl. We wanted to put a look across which was very much English. This wasn’t a soul track; it was a pop/electro track. So again, people in the industry were like what’s he doing now? Why won’t he stay in his lane? I thought the hell with that, I want to do different kinds of music with different kinds of people. And that’s what I did.
Can you tell me about your current music projects?
Junior: I’m currently with The British Collective (Omar & Don-E), starting some new projects, so that’s great. Also working with David Grant and Errol Kennedy (Funk Soul Brothers), and that’s been going well. We’re putting an E.P. out in April. The two bands run pretty much parallel. They’re both completely different in style, and I enjoy the fact that I can jump from one to another. Me and The British Collective have been saying we need to make a new album for years, but one of us always seems to be off somewhere. But this year, we made a concerted effort and started two weeks ago. We’ll have something out in the summer and an album out by the end of the year.
How would you sum up your musical legacy?
Junior: If you had said to me 40 years ago that I’d still be doing this 40 years on, having things like interviews and playing live, I’d say you were fucking mad! I’m amazed by the fact that we can still do this and to have people come out and want to see you. I really find that amazing and so pleasing and gratifying; it’s fantastic. Music is timeless. I love old music like 60’s and 70’s, that kind of vibe. But most of the music these kids are playing are tracks from the 80’s that they’ve sampled, taken a piece of or chopped it up a bit. So you know that the era you’ve come from was incredibly influential; that’s why people still come out.
Find out more about Junior on the Funk Soul Brothers and The British Collective Instagram.
