Vintage sounds of rock 'n'roll's heyday

THEY first met on a TV pop show called Boy Meets Girl. "I was the girl, Joe was the boy," jokes Marty Wilde, conjuring up an unlikely image of the two rock 'n' roll veterans, before declaring the name of the show had nothing to do with boys and girls, but rather resulted from, "the innocence of the age."

Joe and Marty's relationship has, however, outlasted many marriages.

Now on their first tour together after 45 years of friendship, Marty, 64, puts their close companionship down to the fact they have so much in common.

"We have similar backgrounds," he says, "and we both married Vernons Girls. And we've both had pop singer daughters (Kim Wilde and Sam Brown). We've also got similar tastes in music.

"The only difference is I prefer listening to classical music while Joe leans more towards country."

Aptly titled Together, Joe and Marty's first joint headline tour will see the friends perform individually and together as well as with each other's bands.

"We do lots of the old hits," explains Marty. "But we also play a huge variety of other songs.

"We do ballads and folk songs. Joe plays the fiddle and the mandolin and we do stuff by Paul Simon and George Harrison. The only thing that isn't there is classical music."

Marty's interest in classical music -- he says his favourites are Rachmaninov, Delius and Vaughan Williams -- stems from his schooldays and his time as a pupil at Charlton Central Secondary Modern.

"We had a music teacher who didn't actually teach us anything, but just used to play classical records all lesson and allow us to discuss them," he recalls. It was also during his schooldays that Marty picked up his first instrument -- a ukulele -- after watching a schoolfriend of his playing one.

"I just copied him," says Marty, "and eventually I became better than he was."

Upon leaving school at the age of 15, though, a rock 'n' roll career still seemed an unlikely possibility for Marty -- then known by the more ordinary monicker of Reginald Smith.

A career as a messenger boy for a firm of London stockbrokers beckoned, but Marty's love of music prevailed and in the evenings he played in a rock 'n' roll band, having by this time made the switch from ukulele to guitar.

"Within two years I was being heard by the right kind of people," he grins.

Those people included Tommy Steele's manager Larry Parnes.

He, however, faced an uphill struggle to sign Marty, since when he went backstage at a concert to speak to the youngster, he found Marty had already left to catch the last bus home to Greenwich.

Once his career had taken off though, Marty had no need to rely on London's bus service thanks to a string of hits that included Teenager In Love, Sea Of Love, Jezebel and Oh Boy! among others.

But he says: "I took success in my stride. I'd always wanted to do rock 'n' roll, so it all seemed very natural.

"The kind of background I was from meant I felt very grounded and I just got on with my job."

Once the glory days of rock 'n' roll had come and gone, however, Marty enjoyed another spell of success in the '80s as songwriter for his daughter Kim.

"There was a stage when I decided I wouldn't go back out on the road for a while," he recalls.

"I just enjoyed writing songs for Kim.

"I guess at the end of the day, a good song is just a good song."

Kim still tours a little, but her life is mainly devoted to her new career -- gardening -- something Marty claims she certainly hasn't inherited from him.

"She gets it from her mother, not me," he laughs.

Meanwhile, it's her father who's back out on the road, playing to fans and enjoying a 64-year-old version of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

But would Marty wish the ''60s back again?

"I'm just glad I was part of them," he says.

"Sometimes it would be nice to have those years back, but the main thing is I just enjoy doing what I do."

Catch Marty Wilde and Joe Brown at Preston Guild Hall on Wednesday, May 5. Call (01772) 258858 for tickets.