Pee Wee Ellis & Van Morrison, Frome 2005.

It is Sunday afternoon and the sun is shining. I am listening to Into The Music by Van Morrison. I'm playing it because I think it was the first Van album that Pee Wee Ellis played on. I was sorry to hear on Friday night that Pee Wee had passed away aged 80. By way of a little tribute to Pee Wee I thought I would dust off a story that I wrote sixteen years ago about the last time I ever saw Pee Wee play with Van. .........

I'd like to pay a little tribute to my favourite musician in all of Van Morrison's various bands and that is Alfred 'Pee Wee' Ellis.The man who co-wrote with James Brown such songs as Cold Sweat and Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud and invented the genre known as Funk.. It's a long way from the famous Apollo Theatre in New York to Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, but While Van Morrison was touring the east coast of the USA in 2005  Pee Wee Ellis a man who had played such a huge part in Van's success was playing the same weekend in the Riverside pub in the picturesque little town of Bradford On Avon. I saw in the Wiltshire Times that Pee Wee was playing and decided we should go and see him. We arrived at 1,00 and paid our £5 admission and sat at a table at the back. Pee Wee was already on the stage playing with a local band The Riverside Jazz Quartet. The people of this little town are privileged, I thought to myself. For only a fiver they get to see one of the legendary figures in music. During a 21 year association with Van Morrison he played and arranged some of the finest music from the 70's to the 90's.

You couldn't smoke in the room where Pee Wee was playing so we nipped outside to sit by the river in the warm Spring sunshine. During the interval Pee Wee came out and I had a little chat with him and he signed my Healing Game booklet. I chose that album for Pee Wee to sign because it demonstrates his range from the funkiness of Burning Ground to the sweetness of Sometimes We Cry. I gave Pee Wee  a photo of himself and Jackson Browne that I had from Glastonbury 82. Pee Wee seemed delighted with it. After the interval Pee Wee wove more magic for the small audience and an Australian girl from the audience got up and sang My Funny Valentine. I sat quietly at the back and let the mellow sounds sweep over me. Listening and watching made me aware of just what a virtuoso on the sax this man is. When the session ended at 4.00 He had played for over three hours with a 30 minute interval. Afterwards, I bought his album Ridin' Mighty High which I am playing now. It is excellent and there is a Morrison link because Van's daughter Shana sings one of the songs. I had another chat with himself and his wife Charlotte. I said that I'd love to see Pee Wee play with Van again. I also met a lady called Nicki  who was Vans PA for many years and amazingly she and her husband remembered me from when I was on a quiz show on the telly called Fifteen To One because on the show I had said that I was a Van Morrison fan and they were supporting me. Pee Wee told me he was playing Marlborough Jazz Festival and Frome Festival if I wanted to come along. That was great, but I wanted to see him back with Van where he belonged, back on the corner again in the Healing Game. 

This came true only three months later when Van played at Marston House near Frome. This was the nearest Van has played to where I live, only seven  miles away. The setting for the concert on a warm summers evening was really picturesque with the beautiful Somerset countryside providing a spectacular backdrop to the stage.It was great to meet up again with quite a few Van fan friends. Most of them had spent the afternoon at the Marlborough Jazz Festival as guests of Pee Wee who was a busy boy that weekend. This evening was his third gig in 24 hours. Pee Wee's band opened the evening with a nice mellow set, just perfect for chilling out on a balmy evening."Hello neighbours",said Pee Wee who lives in Frome. Van also knows the area well with his former studio The Wool Hall just two miles down the road. Pee Wee has a great little band made of the best of local talent with two girls in the brass section who did little dance routines when not playing. 

There was only a rope between the audience and backstage and we could see Van chatting to his band just a few yards from us. Then it was show time,  Van began with two songs from the new album Magic Time, This Love Of Mine and Stranded , Van singing with emotion and playing nice alto sax. Then it was Have I Told You Lately, most Van fans don't like this Las Vegas version but the audience lapped it up as they did with Bright Side Of The Road . The mood mellowed out with Days Like This and then Moondance with all the band doing their now familiar solo's.This was followed by Whining Boy Moan, Jackie Wilson Says and Stop Drinkin' Wine. Then Van invited Pee Wee back on stage to augment the brass section for a great version of Muleskinner Blues.This was followed by a quite stunning version of Georgia On My Mind which displayed all of Pee Wee's brilliance and Van's vocal genius. Then the perennial crowd pleaser Cleaning Windows followed by Precious Time with Van happily scatting away at the end. Then Van said, "Thank you very much,what a night". In all my previous Van shows I don't think I have heard him do Wild Night before, so it was a very pleasant surprise and brilliantly performed. Then it was All Work And No Play which seems to have been played at every Van concert for an eternity, surely even Van must have been getting sick of it by now. 

A great version of Help Me followed. Pee Wee had left the stage after Precious Time which was a shame because the next song was And The Healing Has Begun. Van played acoustic guitar on this and it was a quite brilliant performance.Afterwards a friend Phil said to me that it was worth it just for that one song and I couldn't agree more.The evening ended how we knew it would with Brown Eyed Girl and Gloria which were ecstatically received by the audience. I thought it was a great night.  Kim and I headed home.We were back home 20 minutes after we left the grounds of Marston House and headed for the pub after a most enjoyable evening indeed. My abiding memory will be Van reunited with his old friend Pee Wee Ellis. I said three months earlier that I'd like to see Pee Wee back on the corner again with Van. Little did I realise that it would come true so quickly, even if for only one magical evening.

Pee Wee Ellis at Marston House Frome 2005.