Many, many journalists and authors have tried to get an interviewwith the legend who is Mickey Jupp.

Most of them have failed, except for this man – fellow Southend musician and writer Mike Wade.

He has written a book about the elusive Southend musician.

Mike describes himself as “an old rock ‘n’ roller”, but that ambiguous description doesn’t do him credit. He played drums in a number of local bands, ending up in Wolfe, who recorded an album and singles for Motown, before spending several years as a session drummer and singer.

He says he appeared on hundreds of tracks, almost all unheard, made many advertising jingles, all long forgotten, and played live at the country’s major venues, right up to several appearances at the Albert Hall – “although nobody noticed, other than my mum”.

He says: “Music and photography are my passions (I took the pictures for the sleeve of Mickey’s Living Legend album), although advertising has been my ‘real job’ since I reluctantly accepted music was not to be what I did for a living.”

His book Hole In My Pocket: the true legend of Mickey Jupp is the first full-length one “he has actually completed”.

He said: “As someone who participated in more or less the same musical era as Mickey, performing in many of the same places around the same time, I have always thought it would be worthwhile for someone to chronicle the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the legend of Mickey Jupp.

“Since first seeing Mickey lead the Orioles at the Cricketers in the Sixties, I have been an avid fan of the great man, owning every record he released and one or two he didn’t, so writing this book has been a labour of love, an opportunity to set down in one place the remarkable story of this important musician’s extraordinary talent.

“Mickey has been the “guvnor” of the Southend music scene for 50 years, but his health isn’t so good now and his income is limited by that, so all the profits from this book go to him. I wrote it as a labour of love, and an interesting challenge, never having written a full-length book before.”

  • The book – Hole In My Pocket: the true legend of Mickey Jupp – has just come out through Amazon. Copies signed by both Mickey Jupp and the author are available from juppbook@gmail.com.

A warts-and-all picture of rock ’n’ roll nearly man

WHO would write a near-400 page biography of a rock ’n’ roll singer who has never had a sniff of a top 40 record? And who would want to read it?

The answer to the first question is musician and writer Mike Wade, a 60-plus superfan of that rock ’n’roll singer Mickey Jupp, who has given success a swerve with the same energry and determination that other lesser talents devote to finding fame.

And as to who would want to read it, then anyone with even a passing interest in pop music, since finding out that talent does not equal success can be a far more interesting tale than the boasts of those who flew in a Lear Jet from the bottom rung of the ladder to worldwide adulation.

Mickey Jupp, dubbed the “Godfather of Southend Rock” has already had a CD box-set career overview in the past 12 months, and this tome, entitled Hole in My Pocket, could have been a career revitaliser if Jupp had  not decided to jack it all in at precisely the same date as the book is published.

The music industry is infested with Jupp aficionados who praise his songwriting, his singing, his piano playing and his guitar playing, in roughly that order. He has been signed to major record labels, including Bell, A&M, Stiff, Chrysalis and Line, Germany, and walked out on potential deals with Decca and publishers Essex Music.

He has been produced by Dave Edmunds, Tony Visconti, Nick Lowe, Mike Vernon, Gary Brooker from Procol Harum, and Francis Rossi from Status Quo, all of whom had hits in their ownright, and in productions they mastered for others.

His songs have been covered by Ricky Nelson, the Judds, Delbert McLinton, Elkie Brooks, Dr Feelgood, Dave Edmunds, the Refreshments, Johnny Powers and many others.

And yet at 71, Jupp has so little to show for a 50-year career that author Mike Wade has foresworn all royalties from the book so Mickey can benefit from 100 per cent of its income.

The author has spent years tracking down almost everyone who played with, knew, saw, or bought anything connected with Jupp down the years from gigs at Westcliff’s Cricketers pub and Southend’s Shades club to major concert halls in Europe.

It’s a warts-and-all picture that emerges, not the hagiography you might expect. The reasons why Mickey bit every hand that tried to feed him are analysed in considerable detail, with psychiatric profiling that would have saved the self-described “old rock ’n’ roller” thousands in analysts’ fees.

And, to be fair to Jupp, he is perfectly aware of his mistrust of golden promises that would take him away from the one part of the music industry that he feels relaxed about, which is writing sometimes amusing, sometimes touching, songs that are always lyrically  inventive. That he found it easy sometimes is evidenced by the fact he has written 370 songs.

As for performing, being interviewed, promoting his product, touring, collaborating with others and recording, he can take it or leave it. And, more often than not, he decides to leave it.

Mike Wade’s writing style makes this a very easy book to read with its insiders’ insights into the music
business, its page-turning style always promising interesting nuggets in the chapter that follows, and his  wry comments as the story unfolds.

The final comment in the book belongs to Jupp, as Wade confronts him with what might have been for this nearly-man of rock ’n’ roll.

Paraphrasing President Harry Truman, Mickey says: “I didn’t care for the heat, so I really never stepped into the kitchen.” 

REVIEW By JOHN HOWARD