Strange connections

L-R Keith Moon & Kit Lambert " Arthur Brown * George Lambert* Sir Keith Murdoch

Hollywood heavyweights Cassian & Cary Elwes

 Following the dreadful terrorist attacks in the New Zealand Mosques (the perpetrator's name should never be mentioned) comes an odd and rather upsetting 'scandal'. Videos of the terrible shootings have been removed in their hundreds from social media websites. But an artist from 1968, Arthur Brown who had a hit record 'Fire' with his 'The Crazy World of Arthur Brown' is distressed that his recording has been used in those videos.

The recording Fire is a production by the late rock manager Kit Lambert who died in 1983. A big budget film on the life of Lambert is currently being planned by ace Los Angeles producer Cassian Elwes and his actor brother Cary Elwes.
Lambert was the grandson of Australia's first internationally famous artist George Washington Lambert.

During the first World War George Washington was commissioned by the Australian government to travel to Gallipoli and record scenes from the terrible battles. The journalist who accompanied Lambert was Sir Keith Murdoch, the father of possibly the world's most powerful media baron, Rupert Murdoch. 

# Heir apparent to the world-wide Murdoch media empire, Lachlan Murdoch and his glamorous wife Sarah (pictured right) arrived back in Sydney this week for an extended stay.
## Kit Lambert discovered, among many others like Jimi Hendrix, one of the world's most enduring super bands The Who who are co-operating on the planned Elwes brother's biopic.
### Arthur Brown who now lives in the USA has cancelled a recent tour due to his distress that he & Lambert's music features in the video.
Here is another version of Fire with Arthur Brown recorded in Germany in 2012.

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From the Crypt:

At a Pepsi Cola promotion at the Sydney Intercontinental Hotel: 
 ..actor Leslie Nielsen & Meatloaf. Why were they there? Beats me. I just turn up to these events & hope for the best and was pleasantly surprised to see two well known names who had been flown into Australia for a party.

Rock'N'Roll Row

Famed music entrepreneur Simon Napier-Bell (pictured left) was in Sydney last month and Whispers popped along to the Newtown music club Leadbelly to hear him give a talk on the music industry.  Napier-Bell discovered such legends as Marc Bolan & T-Rex, Dusty Springfield and the late George Michael and Wham. He has managed numerous stars and steered their careers including The Yardbyrds in the 1960s up to Sinead O'Connor last year.

One of Napier-Bell's themes is the influence of gay managers on the emerging music business in Britain that included not just himself but Brian Epstein and The Beatles, Kit Lambert and The Who, Australian Robert Stigwood and The Bee Gees and Larry Parnes. Parnes discovered and launched numerous stars in the 1960s including Billy Fury and Marty Wilde. One tale told by the late Kit Lambert is that Robert Stigwood rang Parnes and said " I've just driven past your office and there is a blond Adonis working on the roadworks, look out your window". Parnes looked, spotted the handsome blond and the career of Tommy Steele was born. Napier-Bell reckons gay managers had a unique feel for what teenage girls wanted and acted upon it.

Top: Epstein & The Beatles* Jann Werner Bottom: Stigwood & the Bee Gees. Kit Lambert & The Who

Parnes & Tommy Steele

The New York Times just last week featured this theme (after speaking to Napier-Bell) in a feature written by journalist Jim Farber on the occasion of the pending launch of a biography of the famous Jann Werner who launched the music bible Rolling Stone magazine. Werner, now 70 only just came out the closet recently. But an almighty row is now brewing between Werner and his biographer which you can read all about. What fun!

The articles:

The Gay Architects of Rock

Who created that gorgeous 20th-century creature, the rock star? Consider

the gay image makers of the day, like Brian Epstein and Jann Wenner.

Rolling Stone founder falls out with biographer over candid life story

Fifteen Minutes...

Have television producers been secretly scouring the pages of Whisper's contact book?. Yet another 'reality" TV show is to be launched that features long time pals of this website.
Following the success of Googlebox comes a new show called Common Sense which features "real life" people as they comment and give opinions on the main talking points of the week.

Two of the stars will be (as seen above) man-about-town Frank Elgar and designer Robert Burton (on the right). Frank is a man of many talents although we've never quite pinned down what they are in the decades Whispers has known him- he has so many. But he always seems to be at the centre of the action.
Burton is a talented designer and has boutique in uber smart Queen Street Woollhara selling fashion and luxury goods designed by himself.
Whispers is still reeling from the fact two very long time pals, Mick & Di Kershaw ( left) are part of the crew on the hugely successful show Googlebox which is produced by the same producers as Common Sense.
Just last week we attended a party at the gallery of artist Charles Billich and chatted to his Italian wife Christa, another pal, who features in the controversial Real Housewives of Sydney.
When will be Whispers time to shine?. Perhaps when the feature film being produced in Hollywood on the life of legendary British rock manger of The Who, Kit Lambert - pictured with Keith Moon -based on script authored by Whispers, rock impresario Simon Napier Bell and journalist Pat Gilbert. It's being produced by top film-maker Cassian Elwes.

Michael Buble, Anna Nicole, The Who and Robin Hood

Michael Buble and his favourite actor Cary Elwes

  Crooner Michael Buble has announced via this week's Woman's Day that his favourite all-time movie and actor are The Princess Bride and star of the flick, Cary Elwes who also played Robin Hood in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
By co-incidence Elwes was in Melbourne last week as a guest at the Comic Con convention along with Star Trek's William Shatner and George Takei and actress Shannen Doherty. Around 33,000 fans attended the convention.
The Shuttle's omnipresent spies also report that  Elwes was spotted at Melbourne's magnificent National Gallery of Victoria last Friday where he appeared absorbed in the works by Australia's first acclaimed artist George Washington Lambert.

Kit Lambert with Townshend & Daltrey

George Lambert's self portrait

As reported by the Shuttle last year, Cary Elwes is to direct a bio-pic on the life of the late rock manager Kit Lambert who discovered The Who and Jimi Hendrix amongst other music legends. Lambert led a dissolute but magnificent life before dying tragically in mysterious circumstances at the age of 43 in 1981. At his peak he owned a house in Belgravia and a palace in Venice where he wooed his neighbour, the art collector Peggy Guggenheim.
Kit was the grandson of George Washington Lambert  and the son of noted English classical composer Constant Lambert .

The Who perform at the closing concert for the London Olympics last year

George Lambert was appointed the official war artist for the WW1 Gallipoli campaign that is so etched into the Australian psyche and was accompanied on that venture by a young war correspondent Keith Murdoch, father of media baron Rupert Murdoch. Both were disturbed by the upper class British generals at Gallipoli who they considered dangerous and incompetent.

Agnes Bruckner stars as Anna Nicole

Kit Lambert was born into privilege and was privately educated and his classical education combined with a rock'n'roll lifestyle influenced The Who's music as exampled by the rock opera Tommy. Remaining Who members Peter Townshend and Roger Daltrey are enthusiastically backing the film about Lambert and it's rumored will be composing music for the film.  The Rolling Stones and The Who are the remaining 60's Supergroup and are still huge throughout the world. In 2010 The Who performed at the most watched event in TV history, the Superbowl and at the closing ceremony for the London Olympics last year in front of an estimated 750 million viewers worldwide. 
 As for Cary Elwes, he has several films to be released soon including one on the life of Anna Nicole and he has just produced a film about the famous meeting between Elvis Presley and president Richard Nixon in 1970. Nixon made Presley, who was high as a kite on drugs at the meeting, an Honorary Marshall. That movie is to be released by Aussie actor Eric Bana's production company.

Rupert Murdoch, Dame Edna, The Who, Gallipoli & The Anzacs

Today is Anzac Day and numerous TV adverts are exhorting us to raise a glass to the remaining old soldiers. The last Gallipoli Anzac Alec Campbell died in 2002 aged 101 and even WW2 veterans are now in their 80s while Vietnam Vets are in their late 60s.

 George Lambert's self portrait.
note the pre-Dame Edna Gladioli !

A few months ago it was announced that a film was to be made about the life of Kit Lambert, the rock impresario who discovered The Who and Jimi Hendrix amongst others. Lambert fell on hard times and died in 1981 aged only 41 but led a fascinating life while it lasted. His partner in his rock adventures, Chris Stamp, younger brother of actor Terrence Stamp died last year at age 70.

Kit Lambert & The Who

News filters through to the Shuttle that Fox Studios may be involved in the Lambert film which is being directed by actor Cary Elwes of Princess Bride fame and being produced by Orian Williams who also produced the brilliant bio-pic of rock singer Ian Curtis, Control which won numerous BAFTA & Cannes Film awards in 2007.

Rupert  Murdoch                             Cary Elwes                            Orian Williams                                Sir Keith Murdoch

Will the Lambert film also feature his grandfather George Washington Lambert Australia's first famous artist ?.

Lovers : Margot Fonteyn & Constant Lambert

 Kit Lambert's father was the English classical composer Constant Lambert, George's son . In 1918 George Lambert was appointed as the official Gallipoli War Artist and traveled to Palestine with a young budding war correspondent Sir Keith Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch's much loved father and the founder of the News Ltd empire.

George Washington Lambert outraged Australian and British generals when he arrived at the front on a horse in a tailor made uniform and wearing a flamboyant hat be-decked with some towering peacock feathers, looking oddly imperial and outlandish at the same time. He had been urged to shock the assembled generals by Sir Keith who regarded most as incompetent upper class twits who he hated, a trait he passed on to son Rupert.

 As for Kit's father Constant Lambert , he died relatively young like his son, at the age of 46 but not before, as rumors go, he impregnated the famous ballet star, Margot Fonteyn at the age of 17 and she was forced to have an abortion to avoid a scandal.

And today's slebs think they lead outrageous lives !

Here is Joan Baez singing the anti-war song about Gallipoli : "And the band played Walzing Matilda"

The Greens Leader & Jimi Hendrix

Dr Bob Brown (above) the leader who has taken the Australian Greens party to such extraordinary heights with 9 Senators now holding the balance of power in the Upper House for the next six years, resigned today as party leader and as an MP.

The openly gay Brown plans to spend more time at his Tasmanian property with partner Paul Thomas. Needless to say the media, notably News Corp which vowed in an editorial to "destroy The Greens" has already begun to promote conspiracy theories for his resignation, pinning it to the Carbon Price (earth to News Corp-it's a price not a tax) and so on, ignoring the fact that next year Brown would undoubtedly be re-elected and faced serving in the Senate until he was 75.

What is less well known is that Brown in 1970 as a young doctor having graduated from Sydney University was working as a locum at St Mary's Hospital in South Kensington when Jimi Hendrix's body was brought in.

Brown says it was obvious Hendrix had been dead for some hours and the presumption was that he had died from a drug overdose. Despite talk at the time that Hendrix had been murdered, Brown says there was no way of proving as much by an autopsy which he assisted with and he was never spoken to by police over the matter.
And it was Bob Brown who faced the British media that morning to announce that Jimi Hendrix had passed away.
You can hear an interview Brown gave on the subject some years ago to 2GB here on the Greens website.

G.W.Lambert self portrait 1920

Kit Lambert

## Jimi Hendrix who died in at the age of 28 had another Australian connection with some degrees of separation. It was Kit Lambert, the man who discovered The Who who was the first to realise the potential of Hendrix when he saw Jimi performing in a pub in West London. He recalled later :
"He was amazing, not only playing the guitar with first his right hand, then left but eventually with his teeth. I had to have him and in my mind I created an instant record label, Track Records and signed Hendrix before we even knew how a record was produced".

Lambert was the son of the English classical composer Constant Lambert who was the son of one of Australia's first great artists and the Official War Artist at the WW1 Gallipoli campaign, George Washington Lambert.

Elton John Goes Potty

The Hope Estate in the beautiful Hunter Valley produces not only excellent wines but has become the venue of choice for visiting performers including Neil Diamond, The Who, Whitney Huston, James Taylor and Carole King. Last week Dolly Parton sang there and this weekend Elton John gives two concerts.

Any excuse to visit the Hunter should be grabbed and vintner Michael Hope by combining with promoters like Michael Chugg has won big time with this concept and is cleaning up. Over the past year he has built a brand new amphitheatre and early next year has George Michael and Rod Stewart in his line-up of star acts.

Hope Estate

Now the local Cessnock Council wants in on the action. Visitors to the Hunter always marvel at the glorious landscape but the roads are a real shocker and full of potholes. Over the past month the council has taken heed of local’s complaints and has been discussing a $50,000 levy to be charged to the concert promoters which would add an extra $3 to ticket prices.

The powerful Tourism Transport Forum says it’s an “absolutely appalling” idea : “you have a council that’s reaped a benefit from having a vineyard on its doorstep for decades and now it wants to tax people for having fun”, seemingly ignoring the notion that Hope has now over taken the Sydney Entertainment Centre for staging large concerts.

Small local business owners are backing the council and one who wished to remain anonymous and who says he represents 30 others told the Shuttle today:

“We have no problem with the Hope Estate concerts but they bring an extra 35,000 people to the Hunter on concert days and few other businesses see a benefit from that. The visitors spend all day at the Hope Estate which controls all their spending. Food and drinks must be purchased at Hope. Hampers cost about $100 and some tickets cost up to $699. The thousands of extra buses and cars are causing havoc on the already creaking roads and we are expected to subsidize the roads for Hope”

Looks like this one may be destined for the courts.

more tabloid tosh

       Georgina Robinson writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that "Veteran rockers the Who's performance at the most coveted televised gig in the world was panned by some viewers but praised by music critics." under the headline: Rock of ages ... the Who get mixed rap for Super Bowl.

     The fragrant Georgina goes on to quote 5 "at home viewers" who all knock The Who's peformance.  That's 5 out of a US TV audience estimated at 40 million, plus countless tens of millions of worldwide viewers-and the roughly 100,000 stadium audience who gave The Who a standing ovation. Nice one.

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

An exhibition opens at Canberra's National War Museum today titled "of Love and War" which "looks at the impact of war on relationships and the ways in which Australians incorporated affairs of the heart into their wartime lives."

Featured in the exhibition will be works by the great Australian WW1 war artist George Washington Lambert. Lambert, one of the first of the colonies great artists has an extraordinary link with one of the world's most enduring and possibly greatest rock'n'roll bands, The Who.       
                                                                                  self-portrait :G.W.Lambert

Born in St Petersburg, Russia to an American father and English mother, Lambert's family emigrated to Australia via Germany in 1887 when Lambert was 13 years old. Winning a variety of art prizes and a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy in London, Lambert was hailed as fine portraitist and won numerous awards in the UK before returning home. In 1917 he became the official Gallipoli artist for the Australian government.

left : Pete Townshend & Kit Lambert

Fast forward to 1966 and a young ex-British army officer and budding film director sets out in London with partner Chris Stamp to find the ultimate rock band after watching the success of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

George Washington's grandson Kit Lambert was successful in his bid and launched the re-badged High Numbers onto the world as The Who. The Who's success has never waned and the band's music is still being used in current US TV shows. It was Lambert who patiently tutored Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey into seeing music in a new way. And thus a new genre-the rock opera Tommy was born.

The influences for Tommy came from George Washington's son, and Kit's father, Constant Lambert, the English classical composer and conductor who swept a young rising ballet star of her feet. A scandal swept London society when it was revealed that a 16 year old Margot Fonteyn had become pregnant to Constant. An abortion followed.

There was a running theme through the male Lambert's psyche-all were convinced they would die young. And so they did. George at 57, Constant and Kit, both at 46.

# of Love and War runs to 5th May 2010                                                           
                                                      
                                                           Christopher Wood's portrait of Constant Lambert