Wild men reunited
John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett at Arlington this weekend
John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett celebrate 40 Odd Years at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore, on Saturday.
John and Willy's partnership was never going to be smooth. Willy was a musical prodigy having learned to play at the age of four and mastering the guitar, piano, banjo and fiddle by the time Otway gave his first performance - drinking a bottle of ink in-one in the school playground, to an audience of 100 fellow school-children who did not believe anyone would go to such ridiculous extremes just to get attention.
It was only because they lived a hundred yards apart and that a fortune-teller (at the local Red Cross bazaar in Aylesbury ) had told Otway that he would achieve fame and success with a blonde haired musician, that they ever worked together in the first place.
The first place Otway and Barrett did not work together was their first gig - John was heckled off stage during his solo number and both Willy and the audience decided that it would be better if they did not do the rest of the show as a duo.
They did however do some recording together, but after falling out John put out the single himself leaving Willy's name off the label. That should have been the end of the duo, but Pete Townshend heard the record and offered to produce the act - an offer neither party felt they could refuse.
With the hatchet temporarily buried John and Willy produced their first album. After appearance on the TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test - during which John landed on his testicles whilst leaping astride Willy's amplifier - an amused punk audience bought enough copies of the single Really Free to give them their first Hit.
Things did not go smoothly following this success. Otway unwisely chose to follow up the Otway/Barrett punk hit with a solo Otway orchestral ballad he had written for a girl he fancied - it was a flop so, the annoyance of their record company (who had paid them a massive advance) John and Willy split up again, the day their second album Deep and Meaningless was released.
When times got tough they did re-unite for short periods of time, but any sustained partnership was usually curtailed by unreasonable behaviour by one of the parties. Barrett writing a song called Give It Headbutts which required him to bang John's head against the microphone in time to the music and Otway recording a soilo album called All Balls and no Willy are typical examples of this.
However, last year the pair managed to both complete and enjoy the Incompatible Otway and Barrett Tour and decided that this year they should do another trip around the country and celebrate the 40 odd years since that first Otway/Barrett show that they did not do together.
Tickets, priced £12 advance (£14 door) are available from the Box Office on 01635 244246, online via www.arlingtonarts.co.uk and from Mary Hare Hearing Centre, Weaver's Walk, Newbury.
