Carl Wayne: My guest in the studio today, we'll say a quick hello, is Trevor Burton, the main man here in Birmingham, the former guitarist and bass guitarist from The Move. How ya' doin'?
Trevor Burton: I'm alright, thanks Charlie.
Carl: Let's just remind the people of Birmingham what you did for The Move. When The Move lost all the royalties in Flowers In The Rain, as a result of the case brought against them by Harold Wilson, the next single was gonna be "Vote For Me," which is the song I'm about to play, and the reason for that was because it was a dig at the political establishment. You sang this song. As usual, the record company bottled out and didn't play it.
Trevor: I'd forgot all about it (laughs).
Carl: I know, I'll remind you of these things. Vote For Me. I tell you what, let's play it because you've forgotten it, and the listeners probably don't know it. Vote for Me by The Move.
[Vote For Me]
Carl: Trevor Burton, how ya' doin'? You'd forgotten about that, haven't you?
Trevor: Absolutely, I'd forgotten all about it.
Carl: It's 1966 when we formed The Move. Ace Kefford was in yesterday. There's no doubt in my mind, and those people who know the truth, that The Move was all about you and Ace Kefford. You were the 'young turks,' as I've always called you. The energy, the driving force. What's your view on that?
Trevor: That's right, as I remember it, Ace and me actually formed The Move. We approached you and Roy to see how you thought about it. Bev was playing with you at the time, anyway.
Carl: Bev and Ace were with me in The Vikings. You, of course, as Danny (King) still calls you, you and Ace were "Danny's Boys." His lads.
Trevor: I was with Danny at the time. And Roy was with Mike Sheridan.
Carl: Undoubtedly, unfortunately, and it's unfair, when people talk about bands, they forget back to the root of it all, they always talk about The Move as being Woody, mainly, and me, because I was the singer and he was the writer, but the truth is, it WAS down to you and Ace, and I acknowledge here on air that when he went, it was a fairly fatal wound, because of the image and the energy. I've always said that when you went, that was the end of it. I can tell you that face-to-face here on air. Because The Move was two compartments, wasn't it. It wasn't only Roy Wood's songs.
Trevor: It was, and I think as I saw it after I left, it just got silly afterwards. The music became a joke. It was comedy time. Before that, we were serious about it when we started, weren't we?
Carl: In truth, you think we were more serious BEFORE the records though, weren't we?
Trevor: Yeah, definitely. And I think the first... really for me, up to Blackberry Way it was good, I think. And then, Roy's songs, to me, just got sillier. He sort of went into his 'clown mode', didn't he?
Carl: For Wizzard and everything, makeup and all that. I think what he was doing...as I've often explained to the listeners, is that Roy' songs, they certainly weren't drug-driven. They were fairy stories, kids' stories, that he transferred to songs, to music. And I suppose what he ended up doing was going to the bottom of the barrel for things like "Curly" - which was about a pig! Would you agree with me that it was good The Move finished when it did? Because it would have become Wizzard, wouldn't it?
Trevor: Well, yeah. It sort of drifted into ELO first, didn't it? With Jeff Lynne coming into the band as well, which I thought was very strange. Then it sort of went into ELO from there. Then into Wizzard.
Carl: 'Cause as you know, when you left, I begged you to stay. Although I knew that really we were wounded when Ace left, but when you left I knew really it was the end of the road. I tried to get Jeff Lynne in then but he wouldn't come. Go back to those early days, Trev, '66, The Marquee, and what a formidable band it was, and what a major force you and Kefford were.
Trevor: It was fantastic...it was fantastic then. I mean, the power of the harmonies, that was the power of The Move, I thought. You know, the four-piece vocals on the front all the time, sometimes five-piece, when occasionally Bev joined in. That power of the vocals was its force, I think. Moreso than the instrumental side of it which got better later on.
Carl: But we must also pay respect, mustn't we, to somebody who was probably the greatest manager of all time, Tony Secunda.
Trevor: Mr. Secunda, God bless his soul, yeah.
Carl: I mean, his inventiveness, his creativity, was just extraordinary, wasn't it?
Trevor: You didn't know what he was going to do next, did you? I mean, you were always on edge when you were around him.
Carl: Take me back to the stunts. Remember the first one we did... was it the H-bomb carrying it through...
Trevor: (laughing) ...Piccadilly in Manchester, standing in the middle of a road with an H-bomb (both laughing)...
Carl: And Secunda the manager, I mean, there we were all in the gangster suits, carrying these twelve-foot long pieces of aluminum... it was supposed to be a nuclear bomb, wasn't it? And Secunda was standing, I seem to remember, in the crowd shouting, "It's disgraceful! They should be arrested!" (both laughing)
Trevor: I remember him saying, "Go on, Charlie get arrested!" (laughing) "Go and kick that copper. Get arrested." (both laughing)
Carl: 'Cause that's it, isn't it, 'cause we would do his bidding. Anything to get in the papers, really. But you, me and Ace were up for it. And especially you and Ace. Because if a fight was on the agenda, I always remember, you weren't slow in coming forward.
Trevor: No, that's right. I'll never forget, there was one night we played in, what was it called, the Ritz Ballroom, in King's Heath. We'd played there two nights, I think it was a Wednesday and a Friday. The Wednesday night, all these mods came in and started eye-balling us...we gave 'em a mouthful over the mic, I remember. And they all came back Friday with their mateys (laughing), 50 of 'em, waiting for us outside. Do you remember?
Carl: (both laughing) They did, yeah.
Trevor: We came out, I remember we got bits of mic stands stuck down our trousers...
Carl: (laughs) This is a non-violent programme.
Trevor: Then all these coppers appeared, it was like the Keystone Cops. We came out, they attacked us. All these coppers appeared out of the entry next door, they grabbed 'em all and threw 'em in the Black Maria.
Carl: 'Cause we phoned the place, didn't we, we said "You better come, there's gonna be some trouble, we're gonna get beaten up." They said, "You can't do anything until it starts." (both laughing)
Carl: Take me back... let's go back to when you left The Move. It was, I recall the time, we'd recorded back then. Well, you'd had enough, hadn't you?
Trevor: Blackberry Way was actually number one, I think, when I left.
Carl: It's a good song though, isn't it?
Trevor: It was a great song.
Carl: But you'd had enough.
Trevor: I'd had enough of the pop world, really. That falseness of being told who to be, what to be, where to be. I wanted my own life. Also, I wanted to play different music, I wanted to go more down the bluesy road, play...I don't know what to call it...real music, as opposed to pop music. I had to do it.
Carl: Like Ace. Both of you went through a very, very difficult times, didn't you? Drugs, was it?
Trevor: Yeah, I had a terrible time. Sort of early '70s for me, I went through the lot.
Carl: Heroin...
Trevor: Yeah, finished up on heroin. That's when I came back to Birmingham, to get off it, really. Secunda came 'round and saw me one night. He said, "here's 50 quid, go home, or else you're going to die."
Carl: I remember you telling me that Secunda saved your life. 50 quid to save your life.
Trevor: Yeah, I came back to Birmingham to my mom's, and cleaned myself up, and started again, really. I went with Raymond Froggatt for a while.
Carl: Did you go with Froggy?
Trevor: Yeah, I was with Froggy for about 18 months, and then the Steve Gibbons Band for about eight years.
Carl: Where did Balls come in?
Trevor: Balls was after The Move, which started out being the Uglies, really, with Steve Gibbons. And I took that band and they became Balls, really. And one by one they left, and Denny Laine came in, and Alan White came in. In the end we finished up with just me, Alan White and Denny Laine. It was farsical, really.
Carl: Rob Caiger and I talk on this programme throughout this week about the extraordinary amount of talent that's come out of Birmingham. It is extraordinary, isn't it? The West Midlands in general. Rob and I were talking yesterday about how really it never was exposed, it never was as big as it should have been.
Trevor: Well, it's never had the exposure like Manchester...Liverpool before that. Birmingham's never been acknowledged for what it should
Carl: It never has, has it?
Trevor: No, I don't know why. I don't think people like us very much (laughs).
Carl: Do you think it's maybe because people don't actually blow their own trumpet enough in Brum?
Trevor: I think that has something to do with it, yeah.
Carl: There seems to be, if I may say this, listeners, with great respect, there's always an air of apology. Even I'm guilty of doing it. Some bloke phoned me up yesterday and said, "Oh, you know, you're sayin' how good everybody else is..." But I'M guilty of it, and maybe we SHOULD get out there in the street and say, "We're from the West Midlands, and hey, look at us, we are really good." You ARE really good. Let's just expand on that... your friendship with Noel Redding...they were great days, weren't they, Jimi Hendrix...
Trevor: Fabulous. Occasionally I see Noel still now, he lives in Ireland.
Carl: He was in Folkstone, wasn't he?
Trevor: Originally, that's where he come from.
Carl: What about Mitch?
Trevor: He's disappeared. I don't know what's happened to Mitch. He's in Europe somewhere. On the run, I think (laughs).
Carl: So you came back from London... How long did it take you to get off heroin, and the rest of the stuff you were on?
Trevor: Not long, really. To get off it, really, two months, to clean myself up.
Carl: Because now you're a very clean man. I mean, I should tell everybody that he's sitting in here in his cycling shorts, gloves, the whole lot. You gave up smoking cigarettes, which is good, and you used to smoke a few of those, didn't you?
Trevor: Oh yeah, and the other stuff.
Carl: Yeah, I know. And now, you look great. And the important thing is that you're a great player. I've been to see you. Not as much as I'd like to. But as you know, I live down in London, and you're up here, and you are a truly brilliant guitarist. If people want to come find you, they can. There were some people over here from Japan, they wanted to see you, they wanted to find all the members of The Move. All you gotta do is buy the Birmingham Mail, he'll be in there somewhere. So they can come and see you. What are your regular haunts? Where do you play?
Trevor: Well these days, I tend to be out of town more, which just started happening in the last year, really. Monday nights I'm still at the Old Railway on, and Friday nights, most weeks I'm at the Old Mill in North I'm up there tonight, actually. That's more on and off, now really...most Fridays.
Carl: And you're playing lead guitar these days, of course. You were a tremendous bass player. When you took over for Ace, 'cause Ace was the bass player, you were rhythm guitarist, which is kind of a most dysfunctional thing now, you were just a brilliant, brilliant bass guitarist.
Trevor: Thank you.
Carl: You could have been... you were one of the best, as far as I'm concerned. No thoughts on that?
Trevor: Well, no, it was by default, really. I went on to bass, and that cut in on to the Steve Gibbons Band. I played bass with Steve for I think about 6 years
Carl: What did you play with Dexy's?
Trevor: Bass guitar, but that was more as a session man.
Carl: You didn't record with them, did you?
Trevor: Yeah, that was the whole thing. I did an album. We spent three months in Montreaux, at Queen's studio, the drummer's studio, from Queen, Roger Taylor. We re-did the album twice, it was a big 13-piece band, he reformed the whole band twice while I was with him. Then he came back to England and recorded the whole album again with another line-up, and everybody got the sack one-by one, and I was like the last in line (laughs). When I got the sack, I was glad to get out of it. The album, he did it all again after I left. He did it four times I think, this album. It bombed, it did nothing at all. It was a horrible album.
Carl: Well, you're an extraordinary talent. I think it's important to really demonstrate the talent of this man, Trevor Burton. If ever you want to see Trevor, he's easily, easily located in and around the West Midlands, and you really should see him. He's one of the great, great musicians in world music. Trevor with his band, The Trevor Burton Band. This is a track from an album which you recorded here at Pebble Mill. It's a great song that you wrote. A brilliant track called "Mississippi Nights." Thanks a million for comin' in, mate.
Trevor: Thank you, Charlie.
