* En anglais uniquement
Jerry Shirley was one of a relative handful of musicians lucky enough to achieve actual stardom at Immediate Records, as opposed to having been a star before signing to
Andrew Oldham's label or breaking through to the press and mass public after moving his career elsewhere. Indeed,
Shirley was perhaps the most successful of the informal "farm team" of musicians who coalesced at Immediate between 1966 and 1969. Born in 1952 in Wattenham Cross, London,
Shirley was part of the third wave of English rock & rollers, a decade younger than, say, the members of
the Beatles or
the Rolling Stones. He reached his teens ten years after the skiffle boom, eight years after the start of the first British beat boom (heralded by
Cliff Richard & the Shadows), and two years into the
Beatles' and
Rolling Stones' ascendancies. His own influences came from much further back -- his father was a drummer in a swing band, and
Shirley grew up admiring the playing of such big-band legends as
Buddy Rich,
Gene Krupa, and
Sonny Payne. Not that he was impervious to the appeal of rock & roll; by the time
Shirley was in his teens, he was an admirer of
Keith Moon,
Charlie Watts,
Al Jackson, and, later,
Mitch Mitchell and
Kenney Jones.
He got his start in music early, playing with a band called the Valkyries at the age of 11.
Shirley subsequently joined a group called the Little People, the lineup of which included his brother Angus on guitar. Their sound was inspired by
the Small Faces, who were already an established top-flight soul-based act, with hits such as "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" and "All or Nothing" behind them. They were lucky enough to be seen by
Steve Marriott, who liked what he heard; according to some sources,
Marriott was so impressed with the drummer (then in his mid-teens) that he brought him into
the Small Faces orbit, and even had him substitute for
Kenney Jones a couple of times when
Jones was indisposed. In 1968, when
Shirley was 16, the Little People got what could have been their break when
Marriott was able to convince
Oldham at Immediate Records, where
the Small Faces were the top act on the roster, to record them.
Marriott, who was producing the session, gave the group the latest song he and
Ronnie Lane had written, "Tell Me (Have You Ever Seen Me)," and when the bass player proved unable to contribute out of nervousness,
Marriott stood in on bass; he and
Shirley made a great rhythm section together,
Shirley's drumming being a highlight of the record, a fact of which the singer/guitarist made note.
The single, issued under the new group name that
Oldham had chosen -- the Apostolic Intervention -- was a failure, and the band broke up not too long after.
Shirley moved on to work with
Tim Renwick in a new band called Little Women, but his contact with
Marriott was still to pay dividends. By late 1968 the singer/guitarist had tired of
the Small Faces, and suddenly quit the group in the middle of a gig during the final week of the year. Over the next few days, he put together a new group in partnership with guitarist/singer
Peter Frampton, who had recently quit the pop/rock band
the Herd. When it came picking a drummer,
Marriott naturally approached
Shirley and brought him into the group, alongside bassist
Greg Ridley of
Spooky Tooth. For the next six years as a member of
Humble Pie,
Shirley -- who wasn't yet 17 when invited into the lineup -- enjoyed the fruits of rock stardom of which many musicians only ever get to dream, as the band built up a worldwide following with a huge audience in America, where not even
the Small Faces had ever found more than fleeting success. In addition to drums and percussion, he also contributed to the group's sound on various keyboards and the occasional guitar.
His reputation was formidable from the start, which accounts for
Shirley turning up on recordings not just by fellow Immediate alumnus
Billy Nicholls, but also on the solo recordings of
Syd Barrett and also in the band that
John Entwistle assembled for his debut solo LP, Smash Your Head Against the Wall. Indeed, the latter credit had an inevitable logic to it --
Shirley had used
Kenney Jones as a jumping-off point with his first band, and
Jones was the only serious rival to
the Who's
Keith Moon, and
Shirley essentially replaced
Moon as
Entwistle's drummer when
Entwistle went solo. He also later played with British blues legend
Alexis Korner.
Shirley exited
Humble Pie with the dissolution of the band in 1975, and formed
Natural Gas with
Felix Pappalardi and ex-
Badfinger guitarist
Joey Molland, which later became Magnet. In 1979,
Shirley and
Marriott re-formed
Humble Pie, and the drummer wrote a handful of songs on the resulting On to Victory LP. He also later co-founded
Fastway with
Motörhead guitarist
Eddie Clarke, which lasted through two albums. He teamed with
Marriott again in the mid-'80s as part of Packet of Three, and became a member of one of the latter-day incarnations of
Badfinger at the end of the decade.
Shirley took a job as a disc jockey in Cleveland in the 1990s, and toured with a reactivated
Humble Pie, as the sole original member and owner of the name, following
Marriott's death in 1991. An automobile accident brought him back to England in 2000, and in more recent years he toured and recorded with his old bandmate
Greg Ridley and British blues veteran
Zoot Money, among others. ~ Bruce Eder