A life full of Madness
3:24pm Thursday 26th January 2012 in Music
A life full of Madness
Suggs – still best known as the legendary frontman of feelgood band Madness – was 50 last year. He was lying in the bath on his birthday, nursing an epic hangover from the celebrations the night before when there was the most almighty crash.
“I jumped out of the water, and there, lying amid shards of broken glass, was our four-year-old cat, a British blue called Mamba,” he said.
“I’d put up the glass shelf myself and it must have given way. I knew he was dead from the strange angle of his body. I couldn’t believe it. I loved that cat.
“I was 50. My kids had recently left home and now the cat was dead. I was really upset. It triggered a deluge of emotion, an event that somehow tipped me over the edge. I began to consider my own mortality and, out of that, the idea for exploring my own past somehow crystallised.”
The result, to be seen at the Wyvern next week, is a new stage show. “It’s a memoir, not stand-up,” said Suggs.“It’s not An Evening With… I toyed with calling it Mad-Life Crisis. In the end, though, having gone all round the houses, I’ve called it My Life Story, which won’t win any prizes for originality but does at least tell you what you can expect – the good bits and the darker moments.”
It turns out there have been plenty of both. Born Graham McPherson in Hastings, he’s the only child of a jazz singer called Edith and a father, William – but everyone called him Mac – who worked for a photographic developers but whose life was increasingly overtaken by drugs.
I toyed with calling it Mad-Life Crisis. In the end, though, having gone all round the houses, I’ve called it My Life Story, ''
- Suggs
“Dad left home when I was about three. I have no recollection of him and he never featured in my life. My mum later told me she’d come home and found him with needles sticking out of his hands. Heroin was his drug of choice and it’s a one-way street that takes you further and further away from real life. In the end, it did for the marriage.”
Mother and son then moved to Liverpool where Edith sang in the clubs, winning the accolade of Melody Maker’s Jazz Newcomer of the Year in the mid-60s.
Moving south to London, Suggs’ life was unstructured, to say the least. Soho was his mother’s stomping ground and the young lad trailed after her when she went drinking in famous watering holes like the Colony.
“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “You’d walk up this rickety green staircase and enter a room full of artists and actors and various hangers-on, all drinking and smoking. But, amid all the booze, it was a creative hotbed. Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, George Melly, Jeffrey Bernard – they were all regulars.
“Was it an unsuitable place for a young child? Absolutely. But there was a feeling of community and I was never in any danger.”
Even so,Edith decided that her son would do better living out of London in Pembrokeshire with her sister, Diana, and her three children. “It was nice to have other kids around but I missed Mum. She was doing what she thought was the right thing. She was finding it difficult to find the two of us somewhere stable to live so she thought I’d be better off in Haverfordwest.”
Three years later, Suggs was back in London, living with Edith, and about to go to secondary school. It’s where he acquired his nickname. “The other kids used to call me Mac and I wanted something a bit more distinctive. I was looking through a book of my mum’s about jazz musicians.
“I took a pin and stuck it into the middle of a page. It went through the name Peter, which didn’t seem especially memorable, and then I noticed his second name was Suggs which somehow resonated with me. He was the drummer in an obscure jazz band in Kentucky.”
Given his colourful upbringing, it is not too surprising that Suggs married young. By 21, he had a wife, a baby daughter and a house in Camden bought with the money he made from Madness’s Top 10 hits.
A professional singer who works under the name Bette Bright, the two are still together three decades later. They have two daughters – Scarlett, 29, and Viva, 25 – who now sing as a duo. “My mother, my wife, my daughters – I’m surrounded by women who sing,” said Suggs.
He will be appearing at the Wyvern Theatre next Thursday (February 2), capturing the same humour, spirit and madness that makes him and his band so enticing.
Tickets are £20.50 from www.wyverntheatre.
org.uk or 01793 524481.
