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Owning-Up
This single volume includes three famous memoirs - Scouse Mouse, Rum, Bum & Concertina and Owning Up, with a new introduction by the author. Scouse Mouse is a funny and frequently touching story of the author's 1930s childhood in a middle-class Liverpudlian household. Rum, Bum & Concertina, the naval equivalent of wine, women and song, describes Melly's National Service as one of the most unlikely naval ratings ever. He becomes an anarchist and connoisseur of Surrealist Art while self-educating himself on some of the wilder shores of love. Once demobbed, Melly comes to London to work in an art gallery, and in Owning Up he describes how he slipped into the world of the jazz revival, revelling in an endless round of pubs, clubs, seedy guest-houses and transport caffs while surrounded by a mad array of musicians, tarts, drunks and arch-eccentrics.
251 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1970
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About the author
George Melly
29 booksAlan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer; he also lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 22, 2025
One of the best books ever written about the life of a touring musician. George Melly’s account of his years as a jazz singer with the Mick Mulligan Band in nineteen-fifties Britain is candid and very funny. When the book was published in 1965 the British trad jazz boom had only recently gone bust. It now reads like a depiction of a lost civilisation. Melly evokes a world of seedy clubs populated by Dickensian villains, transport cafes ‘with congealed sauce round the necks of the bottles and pools of tea on the table with crusts of bread floating in them’, dance halls located over branches of Co-op supermarkets, halls in rural Ireland where the chickens had to be chased out with a broom before the gig, all-night raves in smoke-filled sweaty basements, squalid boarding houses, and musicians constantly travelling up and down a Britain without any motorways. He also conveys the disorientating and claustrophobic nature of ceaseless touring in a small van, with cities blurring into each other, and petty differences between band members escalating to almost homicidal proportions. Melly and his friends were on the loose and defying the rigid conformism and austerity of a society where rationing was still in force for part of this story.
He had fallen in love with jazz and blues while still a schoolboy in the early-forties. For his generation it had the same illicit appeal that rock did for my own: it was raucous, rhythmic and, best of all, your parents and teachers couldn’t stand it. To modern ears the British version of trad jazz might sound rather quaint, possessing period charm at best, but the movement was an important stage in the evolution of British pop. The trad jazz revivalists were rejecting the bland stylings of the swing bands of the time, the wearisome crooners, and the hideous novelty pop songs (woof! woof!), in favour of what Melly describes as ‘a vanished music’. Post-war British pop, with its roots in African-American music, starts here. (There was also a concurrent modern jazz scene in Britain, but the two factions didn’t mix much, viewing each other with a mutual incomprehension verging on outright hostility. I think it’s fair to say that trad was far more popular).
Melly’s bandleader, Mick Mulligan, was known as ‘the king of the ravers’, though the title fitted Melly equally well. They lived the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle before rock ‘n’ roll had even been invented: sex, booze, and trad jazz. The book features a riot at Beaulieu jazz festival and a dramatic tour bus crash. And lots of sex: after gigs, before gigs, and in breaks during gigs. Indeed, the jazz sometimes feels like an afterthought to the really important business of getting drunk and getting laid. Gigs were often drunken affairs and rehearsals pretty much unheard of. Ridiculous and undignified behaviour was the order of the day, the day after that, and every other day until the last syllable of recorded time. Anyone still suffering from the delusion that punk was something dreamt up by Malcolm McLaren in a Kings Road boutique in the mid-seventies would do well to read this.
Despite the prevailing chaos, Melly’s passion for jazz and blues was genuine and very deep. Not that he makes any great claims for the historical significance of what he and his contemporaries were doing. Writing the book in the early-sixties, at the fag end of the trad boom and during the very early days of the beat boom, he might not have thought that it had any enduring significance, but all sorts of connections to what was to come leap out at the twenty-first century reader. He writes, for instance, about his joy at seeing blues singer Big Bill Broonzy perform in London in the early-fifties. American jazz and blues musicians began to visit Britain regularly in the fifties and Melly became friends with many of them. He also toured with Broonzy and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Ten years or so later the Rolling Stones were selling the blues back to America.
Melly discusses the skiffle craze at some length without fully recognising the seismic impact it had. Hardly surprising as when he wrote the book the consequences of the earthquake triggered by skiffle were only just beginning to emerge in the beat boom. Skiffle was just as important a catalyst on the sixties generation as rock ‘n’ roll. It led to the formation of thousands of groups whose members included John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Roger Daltrey, Bill Wyman, Van Morrison, and almost everyone who was anyone in British sixties pop; and it came directly out of the trad jazz revival. Skiffle sessions had been a regular feature of gigs by the Ken Colyer Band and Chris Barber’s band (essentially the same band minus Colyer). Both featured banjo player, guitarist, and singer Lonnie Donegan. ‘Rock Island Line’, the record that sparked the revolution, was actually a track from a Chris Barber Band album, though released as a single under Donegan’s name towards the end of 1955. Melly, by the way, had recorded a version of the song himself four years earlier.
The Mick Mulligan Band played their last gig on Christmas Eve 1961. A member of the band, perhaps rather too full of the Christmas spirit, fell off the stage and brought an enormous Christmas tree down on top of him. It seems a fitting conclusion to a riotous decade. Just over a year later Melly compered a BBC ‘Jazz ‘n’ Pop’ concert. The big hit of the night wasn’t a jazz band at all. It was a new group from Liverpool called the Beatles. The trad jazz revival was over, but it had left its mark.
He had fallen in love with jazz and blues while still a schoolboy in the early-forties. For his generation it had the same illicit appeal that rock did for my own: it was raucous, rhythmic and, best of all, your parents and teachers couldn’t stand it. To modern ears the British version of trad jazz might sound rather quaint, possessing period charm at best, but the movement was an important stage in the evolution of British pop. The trad jazz revivalists were rejecting the bland stylings of the swing bands of the time, the wearisome crooners, and the hideous novelty pop songs (woof! woof!), in favour of what Melly describes as ‘a vanished music’. Post-war British pop, with its roots in African-American music, starts here. (There was also a concurrent modern jazz scene in Britain, but the two factions didn’t mix much, viewing each other with a mutual incomprehension verging on outright hostility. I think it’s fair to say that trad was far more popular).
Melly’s bandleader, Mick Mulligan, was known as ‘the king of the ravers’, though the title fitted Melly equally well. They lived the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle before rock ‘n’ roll had even been invented: sex, booze, and trad jazz. The book features a riot at Beaulieu jazz festival and a dramatic tour bus crash. And lots of sex: after gigs, before gigs, and in breaks during gigs. Indeed, the jazz sometimes feels like an afterthought to the really important business of getting drunk and getting laid. Gigs were often drunken affairs and rehearsals pretty much unheard of. Ridiculous and undignified behaviour was the order of the day, the day after that, and every other day until the last syllable of recorded time. Anyone still suffering from the delusion that punk was something dreamt up by Malcolm McLaren in a Kings Road boutique in the mid-seventies would do well to read this.
Despite the prevailing chaos, Melly’s passion for jazz and blues was genuine and very deep. Not that he makes any great claims for the historical significance of what he and his contemporaries were doing. Writing the book in the early-sixties, at the fag end of the trad boom and during the very early days of the beat boom, he might not have thought that it had any enduring significance, but all sorts of connections to what was to come leap out at the twenty-first century reader. He writes, for instance, about his joy at seeing blues singer Big Bill Broonzy perform in London in the early-fifties. American jazz and blues musicians began to visit Britain regularly in the fifties and Melly became friends with many of them. He also toured with Broonzy and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Ten years or so later the Rolling Stones were selling the blues back to America.
Melly discusses the skiffle craze at some length without fully recognising the seismic impact it had. Hardly surprising as when he wrote the book the consequences of the earthquake triggered by skiffle were only just beginning to emerge in the beat boom. Skiffle was just as important a catalyst on the sixties generation as rock ‘n’ roll. It led to the formation of thousands of groups whose members included John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Roger Daltrey, Bill Wyman, Van Morrison, and almost everyone who was anyone in British sixties pop; and it came directly out of the trad jazz revival. Skiffle sessions had been a regular feature of gigs by the Ken Colyer Band and Chris Barber’s band (essentially the same band minus Colyer). Both featured banjo player, guitarist, and singer Lonnie Donegan. ‘Rock Island Line’, the record that sparked the revolution, was actually a track from a Chris Barber Band album, though released as a single under Donegan’s name towards the end of 1955. Melly, by the way, had recorded a version of the song himself four years earlier.
The Mick Mulligan Band played their last gig on Christmas Eve 1961. A member of the band, perhaps rather too full of the Christmas spirit, fell off the stage and brought an enormous Christmas tree down on top of him. It seems a fitting conclusion to a riotous decade. Just over a year later Melly compered a BBC ‘Jazz ‘n’ Pop’ concert. The big hit of the night wasn’t a jazz band at all. It was a new group from Liverpool called the Beatles. The trad jazz revival was over, but it had left its mark.
September 19, 2025
The last, chronologically, though the first published, of Melly's trio of memoirs, this recounts his life from leaving the navy in 1946 through the 1950s as he struggles to establish himself as a jazz singer, mainly with the Mick Mulligan band. It's a very funny account of the life of the touring musician as George and a variety of fellow musicians rumble up and down the roads of pre-motorway Britain in a succession of vans and coaches.
A typical passage:
"His mates were a varied lot. One was an attractive young man with a cast in one eye whose ambition was to achieve at least three knee-trembles during the course of an evening at the Palais. He usually managed at least two. I once asked him, not how he made the first girl – there is a strong tradition of promiscuity in Yorkshire – but how he got rid of her prior to chatting up the next one. He looked at me incredulously, and then told me, his voice full of ‘ask a silly question’ implications: ‘Aye tells ’er to fook off.’"
On Alan Lomax and Big Bill Broonzy:
"For me the idea of hearing an American Negro singing the blues was almost unbearably exciting. I went along to his first concert at the Conway Hall in a state of tense anticipation. Alan Lomax introduced him at great length while Bill stood patiently at his side. I found Lomax extremely paternalistic. I knew he’d done a great deal for the blues, got Leadbelly out of prison, recorded work songs in prison camps, and rediscovered many forgotten and obscure artists – for all this we owe him a great deal – but I got the impression that he felt he owned them. The southern voice droned on and on. Finally it got too much even for Bill, an extremely well-mannered and equable man. ‘… and ah am sho,’ said Lomax, ‘that when yo’ heah Big Bill.…’ ‘If they ever gets the chance,’ said Broonzy resignedly and the round of applause had the effect of hurrying up the introduction."
Full to the brim of good stories.
A typical passage:
"His mates were a varied lot. One was an attractive young man with a cast in one eye whose ambition was to achieve at least three knee-trembles during the course of an evening at the Palais. He usually managed at least two. I once asked him, not how he made the first girl – there is a strong tradition of promiscuity in Yorkshire – but how he got rid of her prior to chatting up the next one. He looked at me incredulously, and then told me, his voice full of ‘ask a silly question’ implications: ‘Aye tells ’er to fook off.’"
On Alan Lomax and Big Bill Broonzy:
"For me the idea of hearing an American Negro singing the blues was almost unbearably exciting. I went along to his first concert at the Conway Hall in a state of tense anticipation. Alan Lomax introduced him at great length while Bill stood patiently at his side. I found Lomax extremely paternalistic. I knew he’d done a great deal for the blues, got Leadbelly out of prison, recorded work songs in prison camps, and rediscovered many forgotten and obscure artists – for all this we owe him a great deal – but I got the impression that he felt he owned them. The southern voice droned on and on. Finally it got too much even for Bill, an extremely well-mannered and equable man. ‘… and ah am sho,’ said Lomax, ‘that when yo’ heah Big Bill.…’ ‘If they ever gets the chance,’ said Broonzy resignedly and the round of applause had the effect of hurrying up the introduction."
Full to the brim of good stories.
July 20, 2013
a very funny autobiography of George's life on the road in fifties Britain. George and his gang are a bunch of freewheeling jazzers, careering through a bleak post war Britain, all the time paving the way for the next generation of free lovers.
A laugh out loud read.
A laugh out loud read.
July 4, 2017
A joyful, cheeky, uncensored view into a world long gone collated by a incredibly entertaining man who clearly had a huge amount of fun throughout.
October 8, 2024
A fairly interesting snapshot of place and time, and he unquestionably knows his stuff, but the endless anecdotes are only mildly amusing at best - he's not as funny as he seems to think he is - and this massively outstays its welcome.
October 24, 2020
My generation believed that booze & sex & drugs were tied to rock'n'roll; that rock bands invented the chaotic debauched life on the road that has become a modern trope - not so! George Melly wrote this, his 1st of 3 autobiographies, in 1965: he was the popular singer in a trad jazz band, touring the British Isles constantly in a dizzying round of dances and concerts, all-night boozeups, foul-smelling bandmates, and the gallows humor shared by all. The vernacular is much different - scrubbers and knee-tremblers abound - but the stories resonate like those of Motley Crue or Led Zep. Melly played much of the time with Mick Mulligan, a trad jazz band; the reader learns many curiousities - the rivalry between trad and revivalist jazz, the bowler-hatted uniforms of the Acker Bilk mob, and so on. For a music aficionado this is a great read, and worth tracking down.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews