<p>As they occasionally say in Parliament, let me declare an interest or two – my name appears twice in this book and I first met Paul 'Sailor' Vernon close to forty years ago, without either of us ever pretending to be bosom buddies from then until now.</p><p>I've always tolerantly observed his unvarnished lust for life and he has always tolerantly observed my unbridled need for yet more vinyl and shellac. That's probably the essence of a warm and mutually beneficial acquaintanceship. Sailor has had many careers in his close to sixty summers; to name but a few, pub barman, newsagent, rare record dealer, world music researcher, blues and gospel filmographer and – not least – the first editor of 'Blues & Rhythm' magazine.</p><p>So it was with considerable interest that I scanned an email sent on New Year's Day 2008, wherein Sailor informed me that his autobiography was now all present and correct for inspection, and in the past few weeks I've had many hours of harmless (I don't do the other kind any more!) two-handed fun in reading and re-reading most – if not quite all – of his life story thus far.</p><p>The first five chapters of Sailor's book may not be of interest to the purist blues freak reader, but they strike a resonant chord with those of us who grew up in London and its environs in the 1960s and became hooked on the music we still love, in Paul's case largely through listening to the Stones' first few recordings.</p><p>One hilarious firework story aside, the book really takes off when Sailor starts frequenting – as did I about the same time – the famous and sadly long-departed Dobell's Record Shop on London's Charing Cross Road, the folk and blues department of this store being run, in Sailor's words, by its 'truculently affable manager, Ray Bolden'. Ray, a monster drinker, had a imbibing crew of impressive dimensions, including fellow Dobell-ites John Kendall and Trevor 'The Bear' Salter, along with chums such as Indian Arthur, who would invariably greet you with a ringing, "Da, mate!" and whose major party-piece of suddenly collapsing in the pub earned him the soubriquet of 'The Dimmer', although his secondary party-piece led to Ray affectionately referring to Artie as 'The Asian Incontinent'.Sailor also provides a whistle-stop tour of other establishments in and around the Charing Cross Road at that time, such as the oldy-worldy tobacconists (Snuff Smiths, we called it) across the road from Dobell's drinking club around the corner, presided over by a seriously dangerous individual known only as 'Cottage Gerry', an Irish Guardsman who had escaped from a WWII POW camp by strangling two of the guards and who had beaten up two emissaries sent by the Kray Twins to offer protection – Gerry could more than capably manage for himself, ta very much!</p><p>After affectionate memories of the AFBF tours the 1960s and the many and varied blues performers who visited London in the early 1970s, Sailor moves his story along to the latter half of the 1970s when he he first started mining the motherlode of record collections that became available for purchase in the UK and then in the USA. Two of the finest of these were the collections of Bob Hite and Henry Vestine, of Canned Heat, and I still vividly recall those insane Sunday <em>'Sailors Delight' </em>afternoons at Paul's house in Mill Hill<em> </em>after Sailor arrived back from foreign climes, groaning at the weight of so many stupidly rare 78s and 45s that most of us oiks (Mike Rowe and Bruce Bastin being honourable exceptions) either didn't know existed, or which we arrogantly rejected as having horns on board – we were exceptionally dim in those far-flung days!</p><p>Sailor is particularly good at sharp vignettes of the various nutters (I count myself amongst them) that comprised his record-collecting clientele; could anybody please explain why record collecting – indeed, any collecting – is very largely a male preserve? Whatever, I count myself extremely fortunate to have acquired such gems as the Juke Boy Bonner Irma 78 (Paul brought back 12 mint copies that he found in Chris Strachwitz's stock) and the Eddie Riff 45 on Dover, which is a record confined almost exclusively to those UK collectors to whom Sailor sold it.</p><p>Although the front cover of the book proclaims it to be 'the unexpurgated memoirs of...', that is immediately contradicted by the back cover – 'I'm not THAT stupid'! Various stories known to a number of us are omitted; Sailor's first marriage – he admits that he treated his wife much as an absentee landlord cares for his tenants – is given rather short shrift, and his second wife hides, for some reason, under a pseudonym. At least one important relationship at the height of the late 70s to early/mid-'80s insane and (perhaps in part giving rise to) the most ego and substance-fuelled part of Sailor's life is not mentioned at all and a few highly embarrassing episodes are left to moulder (one tiny arcane clue aside) in oblivion, which is where they best belong and I'm not going to resurrect them here or anywhere else.</p><p>The last twenty years plus of Paul's life, including the years spent in San Francisco, Prague (including the incredible John Lee Hooker 1951 private recordings discovery), Toulouse and Madrid, are dealt with in a fairly brief forty-odd pages; perhaps that is in part because he is now a much older and wiser matelot, who has seen the effect on himself that an essentially self-centred existence (as he freely admits) has had on his continued well-being.</p><p>But enough of analysis – this book is not meant as a sociological study of the effect of the blues on a NW London geezer; rather, it is written to make people laugh along with – not at – Paul and it certainly achieves that noble aim. So whether you are one of Paul's many friends, one of his few detractors, or just somebody who really doesn't know the guy at all, but wants to know more and have a good number of laughs along the way, I do recommend that you beg, borrow but preferably not steal a copy of what is, as Sailor describes it, a description of a love affair with music, at which blues/r&b is at the core, over the past 45-odd years – 'the true essence of being alive'. Aye aye, Sailor and thanks.</p><p><strong >Chris Bentley, <em>Blues & Rhythm</em> (April 2008)</strong></p>

<p>As they occasionally say in Parliament, let me declare an interest or two – my name appears twice in this book and I first met Paul 'Sailor' Vernon close to forty years ago, without either of us ever pretending to be bosom buddies from then until now.</p><p>I've always tolerantly observed his unvarnished lust for life and he has always tolerantly observed my unbridled need for yet more vinyl and shellac. That's probably the essence of a warm and mutually beneficial acquaintanceship. Sailor has had many careers in his close to sixty summers; to name but a few, pub barman, newsagent, rare record dealer, world music researcher, blues and gospel filmographer and – not least – the first editor of 'Blues & Rhythm' magazine.</p><p>So it was with considerable interest that I scanned an email sent on New Year's Day 2008, wherein Sailor informed me that his autobiography was now all present and correct for inspection, and in the past few weeks I've had many hours of harmless (I don't do the other kind any more!) two-handed fun in reading and re-reading most – if not quite all – of his life story thus far.</p><p>The first five chapters of Sailor's book may not be of interest to the purist blues freak reader, but they strike a resonant chord with those of us who grew up in London and its environs in the 1960s and became hooked on the music we still love, in Paul's case largely through listening to the Stones' first few recordings.</p><p>One hilarious firework story aside, the book really takes off when Sailor starts frequenting – as did I about the same time – the famous and sadly long-departed Dobell's Record Shop on London's Charing Cross Road, the folk and blues department of this store being run, in Sailor's words, by its 'truculently affable manager, Ray Bolden'. Ray, a monster drinker, had a imbibing crew of impressive dimensions, including fellow Dobell-ites John Kendall and Trevor 'The Bear' Salter, along with chums such as Indian Arthur, who would invariably greet you with a ringing, "Da, mate!" and whose major party-piece of suddenly collapsing in the pub earned him the soubriquet of 'The Dimmer', although his secondary party-piece led to Ray affectionately referring to Artie as 'The Asian Incontinent'.Sailor also provides a whistle-stop tour of other establishments in and around the Charing Cross Road at that time, such as the oldy-worldy tobacconists (Snuff Smiths, we called it) across the road from Dobell's drinking club around the corner, presided over by a seriously dangerous individual known only as 'Cottage Gerry', an Irish Guardsman who had escaped from a WWII POW camp by strangling two of the guards and who had beaten up two emissaries sent by the Kray Twins to offer protection – Gerry could more than capably manage for himself, ta very much!</p><p>After affectionate memories of the AFBF tours the 1960s and the many and varied blues performers who visited London in the early 1970s, Sailor moves his story along to the latter half of the 1970s when he he first started mining the motherlode of record collections that became available for purchase in the UK and then in the USA. Two of the finest of these were the collections of Bob Hite and Henry Vestine, of Canned Heat, and I still vividly recall those insane Sunday <em>'Sailors Delight' </em>afternoons at Paul's house in Mill Hill<em> </em>after Sailor arrived back from foreign climes, groaning at the weight of so many stupidly rare 78s and 45s that most of us oiks (Mike Rowe and Bruce Bastin being honourable exceptions) either didn't know existed, or which we arrogantly rejected as having horns on board – we were exceptionally dim in those far-flung days!</p><p>Sailor is particularly good at sharp vignettes of the various nutters (I count myself amongst them) that comprised his record-collecting clientele; could anybody please explain why record collecting – indeed, any collecting – is very largely a male preserve? Whatever, I count myself extremely fortunate to have acquired such gems as the Juke Boy Bonner Irma 78 (Paul brought back 12 mint copies that he found in Chris Strachwitz's stock) and the Eddie Riff 45 on Dover, which is a record confined almost exclusively to those UK collectors to whom Sailor sold it.</p><p>Although the front cover of the book proclaims it to be 'the unexpurgated memoirs of...', that is immediately contradicted by the back cover – 'I'm not THAT stupid'! Various stories known to a number of us are omitted; Sailor's first marriage – he admits that he treated his wife much as an absentee landlord cares for his tenants – is given rather short shrift, and his second wife hides, for some reason, under a pseudonym. At least one important relationship at the height of the late 70s to early/mid-'80s insane and (perhaps in part giving rise to) the most ego and substance-fuelled part of Sailor's life is not mentioned at all and a few highly embarrassing episodes are left to moulder (one tiny arcane clue aside) in oblivion, which is where they best belong and I'm not going to resurrect them here or anywhere else.</p><p>The last twenty years plus of Paul's life, including the years spent in San Francisco, Prague (including the incredible John Lee Hooker 1951 private recordings discovery), Toulouse and Madrid, are dealt with in a fairly brief forty-odd pages; perhaps that is in part because he is now a much older and wiser matelot, who has seen the effect on himself that an essentially self-centred existence (as he freely admits) has had on his continued well-being.</p><p>But enough of analysis – this book is not meant as a sociological study of the effect of the blues on a NW London geezer; rather, it is written to make people laugh along with – not at – Paul and it certainly achieves that noble aim. So whether you are one of Paul's many friends, one of his few detractors, or just somebody who really doesn't know the guy at all, but wants to know more and have a good number of laughs along the way, I do recommend that you beg, borrow but preferably not steal a copy of what is, as Sailor describes it, a description of a love affair with music, at which blues/r&b is at the core, over the past 45-odd years – 'the true essence of being alive'. Aye aye, Sailor and thanks.</p><p><strong >Chris Bentley, <em>Blues & Rhythm</em> (April 2008)</strong></p>

<p>As they occasionally say in Parliament, let me declare an interest or two – my name appears twice in this book and I first met Paul 'Sailor' Vernon close to forty years ago, without either of us ever pretending to be bosom buddies from then until now.</p><p>I've always tolerantly observed his unvarnished lust for life and he has always tolerantly observed my unbridled need for yet more vinyl and shellac. That's probably the essence of a warm and mutually beneficial acquaintanceship. Sailor has had many careers in his close to sixty summers; to name but a few, pub barman, newsagent, rare record dealer, world music researcher, blues and gospel filmographer and – not least – the first editor of 'Blues & Rhythm' magazine.</p><p>So it was with considerable interest that I scanned an email sent on New Year's Day 2008, wherein Sailor informed me that his autobiography was now all present and correct for inspection, and in the past few weeks I've had many hours of harmless (I don't do the other kind any more!) two-handed fun in reading and re-reading most – if not quite all – of his life story thus far.</p><p>The first five chapters of Sailor's book may not be of interest to the purist blues freak reader, but they strike a resonant chord with those of us who grew up in London and its environs in the 1960s and became hooked on the music we still love, in Paul's case largely through listening to the Stones' first few recordings.</p><p>One hilarious firework story aside, the book really takes off when Sailor starts frequenting – as did I about the same time – the famous and sadly long-departed Dobell's Record Shop on London's Charing Cross Road, the folk and blues department of this store being run, in Sailor's words, by its 'truculently affable manager, Ray Bolden'. Ray, a monster drinker, had a imbibing crew of impressive dimensions, including fellow Dobell-ites John Kendall and Trevor 'The Bear' Salter, along with chums such as Indian Arthur, who would invariably greet you with a ringing, "Da, mate!" and whose major party-piece of suddenly collapsing in the pub earned him the soubriquet of 'The Dimmer', although his secondary party-piece led to Ray affectionately referring to Artie as 'The Asian Incontinent'.Sailor also provides a whistle-stop tour of other establishments in and around the Charing Cross Road at that time, such as the oldy-worldy tobacconists (Snuff Smiths, we called it) across the road from Dobell's drinking club around the corner, presided over by a seriously dangerous individual known only as 'Cottage Gerry', an Irish Guardsman who had escaped from a WWII POW camp by strangling two of the guards and who had beaten up two emissaries sent by the Kray Twins to offer protection – Gerry could more than capably manage for himself, ta very much!</p><p>After affectionate memories of the AFBF tours the 1960s and the many and varied blues performers who visited London in the early 1970s, Sailor moves his story along to the latter half of the 1970s when he he first started mining the motherlode of record collections that became available for purchase in the UK and then in the USA. Two of the finest of these were the collections of Bob Hite and Henry Vestine, of Canned Heat, and I still vividly recall those insane Sunday <em>'Sailors Delight' </em>afternoons at Paul's house in Mill Hill<em> </em>after Sailor arrived back from foreign climes, groaning at the weight of so many stupidly rare 78s and 45s that most of us oiks (Mike Rowe and Bruce Bastin being honourable exceptions) either didn't know existed, or which we arrogantly rejected as having horns on board – we were exceptionally dim in those far-flung days!</p><p>Sailor is particularly good at sharp vignettes of the various nutters (I count myself amongst them) that comprised his record-collecting clientele; could anybody please explain why record collecting – indeed, any collecting – is very largely a male preserve? Whatever, I count myself extremely fortunate to have acquired such gems as the Juke Boy Bonner Irma 78 (Paul brought back 12 mint copies that he found in Chris Strachwitz's stock) and the Eddie Riff 45 on Dover, which is a record confined almost exclusively to those UK collectors to whom Sailor sold it.</p><p>Although the front cover of the book proclaims it to be 'the unexpurgated memoirs of...', that is immediately contradicted by the back cover – 'I'm not THAT stupid'! Various stories known to a number of us are omitted; Sailor's first marriage – he admits that he treated his wife much as an absentee landlord cares for his tenants – is given rather short shrift, and his second wife hides, for some reason, under a pseudonym. At least one important relationship at the height of the late 70s to early/mid-'80s insane and (perhaps in part giving rise to) the most ego and substance-fuelled part of Sailor's life is not mentioned at all and a few highly embarrassing episodes are left to moulder (one tiny arcane clue aside) in oblivion, which is where they best belong and I'm not going to resurrect them here or anywhere else.</p><p>The last twenty years plus of Paul's life, including the years spent in San Francisco, Prague (including the incredible John Lee Hooker 1951 private recordings discovery), Toulouse and Madrid, are dealt with in a fairly brief forty-odd pages; perhaps that is in part because he is now a much older and wiser matelot, who has seen the effect on himself that an essentially self-centred existence (as he freely admits) has had on his continued well-being.</p><p>But enough of analysis – this book is not meant as a sociological study of the effect of the blues on a NW London geezer; rather, it is written to make people laugh along with – not at – Paul and it certainly achieves that noble aim. So whether you are one of Paul's many friends, one of his few detractors, or just somebody who really doesn't know the guy at all, but wants to know more and have a good number of laughs along the way, I do recommend that you beg, borrow but preferably not steal a copy of what is, as Sailor describes it, a description of a love affair with music, at which blues/r&b is at the core, over the past 45-odd years – 'the true essence of being alive'. Aye aye, Sailor and thanks.</p><p><strong >Chris Bentley, <em>Blues & Rhythm</em> (April 2008)</strong></p>