Those of you who have been following these blogs on a regular basis will have picked up a common theme over the last two or three postings - carnivals, traveling fairs and end-of-the-pier shows. I couldn't let that thread go without posting a blog on one of my favorite musicians of all time - that traveling gypsy, the late, great, Ronnie Lane. Having achieved prominence with firstly the Small Faces and then the Faces, at the point where Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood were off buying their fast cars and living the fast life, Ronnie Lane bought a land rover and a sheep farm on the Welsh Borders and set off to follow his dream.
Lacking any sort of business acumen (now why does that appeal?) he set off in pure troubadour fashion to realise his vision of an essentially English, pastoral music. Packing everything into a motley collection of old vans and caravans, the ' Passing Show', essentially a large touring circus featuring jugglers, fire eaters, dancing girls and the musicians, set off to tour the countryside, pitching up with little advance publicity on town commons and cricket grounds to bring their particular music to whoever turned up - often no more than a dozen or so. Lack of finance, local bureaucracy and a group of vehicles increasingly impossible to keep on the road soon brought the tour and the idea to a halt, and he was forced to retreat to the college circuit and the occasional television spot. Diagnosed with M.S. in 1977 he still managed to tour, occasionally supported by Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend, but having moved to Austin in the mid-eighties (still losing money from charity gigs held in his support and with no royalties forthcoming from the Small Faces catalogue) he eventually re-located to Arizona and succumbed to pneumonia in 1997.
There is no decent biography of him apart from the occasional article in music magazines, and his 'official web-site' has the slightly forlorn air of a garden that hasn't been tended too well for the last eighteen months or so, but he left an excellent body of work and seems to be remembered with great affection by those in the music business who care.
His time was never long enough.
Ronnie Lane 1946-1997 R.I.P.
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