Circuit Training 27: John Shuttleworth

The nominations for this year's Brit Awards have just been announced and yet again one of British popular music's most beloved singer-songwriters has been unfathomably overlooked, in every category. Olly Murs? Scouting for Girls? Eminem? They're not fit to wipe John Shuttleworth's bifocals.

The organ-wielding, slipper-wearing songsmith first wandered onto our screens in the mid-1980s, with a fresh new approach to those rock 'n' roll staples, Hoovers, pigeons and death. Only the whims of the pop industry and some woefully misguided management kept the unassuming Yorkshireman from his rightful place battling Let Loose and Haddaway at the top of the charts.

But where are Let Loose and Haddaway now? Exactly. One good thing about an almost ludicrous lack of success is that you never go out of fashion, and for his dedicated legion of followers Shuttleworth remains the UK's finest lyricist. That one about his dead wife, it always brings a tear to the throat and a lump to the eye.

We find John in the midst of his umpteenth national tour, with evocative rock 'n' roll hotspots like Louth and Great Torrington still to come. As for the Brits, well, there's always next year. Lifetime achievement award, anyone?

Could you talk us through the earliest steps of your musical journey?

My first composition was originally a poem published in a local paper. It was inspired by the death of my first wife, Margaret, who was stung by a bee and reacted badly to the experience, as did I. It goes like this:

My wife died in 1970
peacefully in her sleep
Though she's just a distant memory
occasional tears I weep

I wrote it on my electronic organ - style 51, Bossanova 2 - which I bought off a policeman called Barry.

That song is almost unbearably poignant [wipes away tear] but I've heard people laugh when you play it. Is your work too intense for some audiences?

People who laugh at that song, which, as you say is extremely poignant, are Sickoes. Many of my songs are intense and about illness and death. The Burial Song, The Christmas Orphan, God's Waiting Room, Get the Volvo, Val, She Lives In Hope, and Mingling With Mourners, to name but six.

The title of your classic album The Yamaha Years suggests that there were previous Shuttleworth eras. Are there earlier musical experiments you now keep quiet about?

No there aren't, actually. I don't think there are anyway. Hmm, let me think about that for a second or two... no, there were no previous musical eras, or experiments even. Ah, apart from when I used to hum into a comb with greaseproof paper wrapped round it when I was five. It made a horrible buzzing sound. Sorry, I didn't mean to keep quiet about that, I just forgot.

There's a searing honesty to many of your lyrics - have any of your songs offended the people concerned?

A song I wrote about Ken Worthington caused him mild offence, because I likened him to a crust of bread. It goes:

I feel like the crust of bread everyone despises
I'm always being rejected for more tasty looking slices
The only consolation for being so forgotten
Is knowing that I'm going to meet another crust at the bottom

It's a song full of hope, so why was he offended? He should have been flattered!

What particular qualities does Ken bring to the management business, and how successful do you think you might have become had you been managed by somebody else?

Ken has some very particular qualities, but unfortunately they're all bad ones - he came last on New Faces in '73, remember, so has very poor judgement. But for Ken I might be a massive star by now. Then again, I don't want to upset him as he's my next door neighbour as well as my sole agent.

Does it require a particular type of personality to keep banging away on the fringes of this business for so long?

Yes, an extremely resilient personality. I've had to have [that sort of personality], you see, to be able keep going in the face of utter rejection. Although my wife, Mary, doesn't help by insisting that I play my organ in headphone mode. That can make my breathing become raspy, and excessive saliva is sometimes produced. But even though I'm no spring chicken, remember, neither was Clive Dunn.

Television, radio, film: do you feel you've found your perfect vehicle yet? Do those industries really understand the talents of John Shuttleworth?

No I don't think they do, although I have to say, I do think I've already found my perfect vehicle. It's an Austin Ambassador Y-reg. "Y-reg, Y-reg, Don't keep asking me why, Reg, It just happens to be that year..."

This latest tour - is it a high-concept affair?

It was supposed to be called A Man With No Morals, but Ken rang the poster printers with the title and he had his mouth full - he was munching a crusty cob, as it happens - and they thought he said A Man With No More Rolls, which is ironic, and a much better title, as it happens, as I'm able to explore the threats facing the humble roll - threats from the bap, and Peter's bread which can lead to consumption of that dip, humus. Oof. Eating that's dirty, in my view.

What's been the most rock 'n' roll occurrence so far?

No rock 'n' roll occurrences so far, I'm pleased to report, apart from I did play the same venue as Howard Jones. He never sits down at his organ, does he. Racy.

[i]For details of the 'A Man With No More Rolls' tour, and a Werther's Originals-based screensaver, visit www.shuttleworths.co.uk