Marty’s still Wilde about rock ’n’ roll

Despite being dismissed by many back in the 1950s as a flash-in-the-pan, Marty went on to score 13 consecutive hits between 1958 and 1962.

And even when it looked as though it was all over as the 60s beat boom led by The Beatles swept a generation of 50s rock n rollers into the dustbin of history, Marty was able to reinvent himself.

As he celebrates his 51st year on the road with a string of gigs that includes a welcome return to Bournemouth for a show at the Pier Theatre tonight, he is able to reflect with some satisfaction that he always knew rock n' roll was here to stay.

His set tonight will include the classics that once had teenagers jiving in the aisles. Hits like Endless Sleep, Donna, Teenager in Love, Sea of Love, Bad Boy, Rubber Ball, Little Girl, Jezebel and Tomorrow's Clown, that will forever be the soundtrack of a generation who grew up in immediate post-war Britain.

Wilde was a teenager called Reg Smith and living in South East London when he first heard American band Bill Haley and The Comets playing Rock Around The Clock. He says the effect was instant.

"I thought Yeah that's for me,' I had a group at the time and we were playing skiffle. I thought Right, we can change now!' I didn't realise it at the time but it was what I'd been waiting for.

"Skiffle wasn't talking about love or sex, skiffle was talking about working in a coal mine or sitting down to no food on your plate. Rock n' Roll was something else and somehow I just knew it would last forever and in a way I was right because it's such an important part of popular music. Those records will always be played somewhere."

Marty tells me that his act with long-time backing band The Wildcats will always be based on music from the '50s and early '60s because he feels nothing has ever been able to replace the excitement of the era.

"I don't think there's that kind of buzz these days. People forget that every week there would be two or three songs that would last for 50 or 60 years."

Perhaps because of his brimming confidence in the longevity of rock n' roll, Marty says he was never fazed by his sudden ascent to teen idol nor indeed his equally sudden departure from the charts. He had also been a regular on TV shows like Six Five Special and the legendary Oh Boy. That work dried up too.

"I never worried too much about fan worship, it never got through to me."

He was far more concerned about the kind of gigs he was playing and describes his sudden relegation to has-been and a grinding schedule on the club circuit as "the hardest time of my life in many ways."

" From being in a very comfortable position working on television and being in the charts I had my back against the wall. It really wasn't very nice. Suddenly I found myself going down to the bank and having to check to see that the manager wasn't around before I went in. Actually I think it did me a lot of good. It made me strong and it taught me a huge amount. It's made me realise that in many ways I think adversity is as important as success."

Marty says the past 10 or 12 years have been the happiest of his life.

"I love working theatres instead of nightclubs and pubs, venues where people have actually come to see you rather than to go out for a drink. The whole experience is better."

Still playing up to 100 gigs a year, Marty says only negative part of touring in the early twenty first century is the traffic.

"Whatever time I reckon it will take to get to a theatre I find I have to allow an extra hour these days and sometimes that's not even really enough.

"We have to leave very early to make sure we get to places on time.

"But there's no choice. There's nothing worse than letting people down."

Mind you traffic has always been an issue. Marty says he once wanted to live in Bournemouth but decided against it because of the distance he would have to drive to get to shows.

"I love Bournemouth but I was working a lot in the north in those days and the travelling would have been intolerable."