Some time back, when I wrote about my time playing in the Atlantic Show Band back in Johannesburg in the ’70s and ’80s, I said this:
“For a few years, we had a girl singer: a 5’2″ little blonde thing named Gillian, who wore the shortest miniskirts in the Western World and had a voice that could stop a Sherman tank.”
I didn’t do her justice with that throwaway comment, because Gilly (not Gillian) was a sensational talent, and the fact is that we under-used her shamefully, for reasons I’ll get to in a while*. Here she is (and yes, that’s Yer Humble Narrator on the right with his Rickenbacker and Knob on drums):
Gilly was, at 18 (!!!!!) and still in high school, already a consummate professional. She always knew her lyrics off pat, had perfect pitch, and never came to the practice studio without knowing the songs we were going to get into that day. When I say that she made Loverboy’s vocalist (in Turn Me Loose) and Stevie Nicks (in Stop Dragging My Heart Around) look like absolute beginners, I am not exaggerating. (Juice Newton? Forget about it.)
Seriously: of all the female vocalists I’ve ever heard live, only Ann Wilson of Heart came close to our little girl.
Anyway, I emigrated, the band eventually broke up (the two things are not related) and Gilly went on her way to become something of a star in South Africa, first as part of a duo with her boyfriend/husband/ex-husband:
…and then in her own right as a solo artist, when she really got to show off:
…and ended up hosting the South African TV equivalent of “_____’s Got Talent”:
Gilly got out of South Africa about fifteen years ago, went back to her native Britain, and carried on singing a bit, only this time with… her daughter (!!!!):
Yes, her daughter (who is now 29):
Only Covid put an end to all that, as Britishland of course went crazy and locked everyone up in their homes.
At this point in these stories of my past, I generally write something tragic.
By various lies and subterfuges I managed to get back in touch with Gilly a couple weeks ago, and we spent ages chatting on the phone and on WhatsApp (along with the surviving members of Atlantic, who of course treated her as badly as we had in the old days — but that was because we always treated her as one of the guys, and she responded in kind).
The only Big Fat Bummer is that I learned that Gilly now lives just down the road from The Englishman’s Farm in Wiltshire, and in fact I’d visited her town several times when I was staying there. We could have met up back in 2017 already, FFS. (That sound you hear is me eating my liver with chagrin.)
Anyway, that’s enough from me. Folks, say hello to Gilly and (at age 21) Big Spender. Then a little Marilyn… in her forties.
As you may have gathered by now, I miss those days, a lot — and Gilly’s a big part of that. And the other guys in the band feel the same.
*The main reason we underused Gilly’s voice was that because of her extreme youth, we couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t dump us and follow another path, leaving us in the lurch.
Also, our principal vocalist was jealous, and refused to let her sing more than a few songs.
We were such idiots.