THE NIGHT LIFE AIN'T A GOOD LIFE BUT IT'S MY LIFE

When the evening sun goes down
You will find me hanging round
The night life ain't no good life
But it's my life

I'm guessing it's not exactly normal to suddenly find yourself sharing a bedroom with a legendary Rock and Blues guitarist with a serious alcohol problem as he attempts to go on the wagon while you study for your GCSEs, but that's what happened, and I still think back on those days with Uncle Steve (technically my second cousin) with great fondness as we bonded like a pair of army recruits at boot camp reminiscent of scenes from Neil Simon's famous Broadway play "Biloxi Blues".

Before he sought sanctuary in the Shire, away from the night life of London which had become utterly toxic for him, we'd met briefly in the city where he was born and raised. My father Peter had taken me to visit him in his basement flat somewhere in Herne Hill, South London while he was in-between music tours in the Middle East.

Around that same time, I had developed an obsession with the mythic Blues guitarist Robert Johnson and was a huge fan of the Walter Hill 1986 film Crossroads starring Ralph Macchio. Wearing a trilby which rested on top of my curly head and carrying a slide glass in my trench coat jacket pocket, I must have looked a bizarre sight to my Uncle Steve who had performed with numerous Blues legends including Albert King and Dr John.

"Peter tells me you want to be a bluesman."

"Yep"

"You don't get a pension with it, you know?"

Not really sure what he meant, I was just happy to meet a real musician in the family.

Later that same day, my father and I went to watch a concert of my uncle's at the Half Moon pub in Herne Hill; Steve performed an eclectic set list which included songs by Jimi Hendrix, George Formby, Bob Dylan and Ralph McTell.

But most memorably, he delivered an entire section with two replica puppets of Zippy and George from the popular children's television show Rainbow. As a fairly big fan of Rainbow growing up, I found it quite surreal to see this hardcore Blues musician (who did vaguely sort of resemble Bungle the Bear) riffing with these familar characters of my childhood in a packed out boozer.

The overall impression of my uncle Steve at that time was that he was a complete lunatic but clearly adored by the enraptured audiences he played to and the wider  music community at large.

It was only when this mad man came to live with my family and I in Stroud that I truly got to know the real Steve Waller.

What I can remember most vividly from those 'boot camp' days is Steve sneaking in to my room and climbing into his bed, thinking I was fast asleep, a notion which I quickly dispelled for him.

"What time do you call this?" I would ask Steve, with mock solemnity, as if I was the elder in the room, not he.  

"Oh, you're awake," he said peering over me. "I thought you were dead."

Cue a brief snigger from Steve.

Late at night, our beds facing opposite each other, we'd laugh at each other's jokes as we riffed on our mutual love of word play.

Occasionally, we'd hear the banging of a stick through the wall next to mine where my elderly grandmother, Maud, would try and get us to quieten down our excessive mirth.

This would only make Steve ten times more likely to break out into full out hysteria.

"Look what you've done," he'd say to me, accusing me of being the cause of my gran's nocturnal irritation.

Between the banging of the stick and Steve's guffaws, I was unable to resist my own compulsion to laugh also. Now we had a full on riotous trio of opera buffa proportions.

And although I would occasionally hear the clinking of empty bottles under his bed, I always felt Steve did his best impression of being sober as he could for me, out of respect. The only time I can think his alcoholism possibly endangered my life was when he would volunteer to cut my hair (he was a Sassoon qualified hairdresser after all) whilst steaming drunk on vodka. Standing back and squinting to estimate distance and perspective on my curly head with a pair of scissors in his trembling hands, I feared he might become an inadvertent Sweeney Todd.

To be fair to him though, when sober, he did a pretty good job of cutting hair. Ironically he was often happier to cut other people's hair than his own which he grew to biblical lengths, often tieing it up into a ponytail.

Looking like the fourth member of ZZ Top and snoring every bit as loud as their music, sharing my bedroom with Steve was a bit like sharing a room with Beorn (half man/half bear) crossed with Captain Caveman.

When I had friends round from school, they must have found it strange to see this primordial creature, this 'early man" scrabbling around to find some socks to put on before heading out for the night, like my very own Stig of the Dump.

The thing about Steve was he was near unaminously loved by all who knew him. Age, class, race, religion, drunk, sober, Steve would find himself embraced by all people he came into contact with upon his life's path.

His secret? An open heart that found its expression through song. Although he had numerous gold and silver records to his name, he could often be found busking in the sun, rain, sleet or snow. He was a street Orpheus, taming the wild beasts (crackheads and alchies) and all the rest of us with his soulful voice and wacky props. I can well remember his hilarious and dynamic impromptu concerts at local pubs where both he and a musician school friend of mine (Alan Tocknell) would steal into a darkened corner to set up in before launching into a wild set of untamed blues and soul covers, usually ending with Steve standing on the table barefoot, delivering a Hendrix like solo and turning a quiet night in a country pub into a frenzied bacchanalia.

He'd even spent time with Hendrix back in Chelsea decades earlier. Apparently, Jimi told him to practice his scales which he duly did. Now he was hanging out with me, 'The Bluesman" who could just about manage a simple 12 bar blues sequence. Whenever I asked Steve to teach me some of his tricks, I discovered he struggled to impart his knowledge to me, probably because I was all hopped up on Walkers' doughnuts and sugary tea.

Somewhere, lost in the proverbial sock drawer of time, there's a film I made for my Media Studies GCSE final project with Steve in a starring role as Ron, the caretaker of an apartment building who is rapidly losing the plot due to unruly tenants. Coming to his friend's aid was Billy (played by a certain Joel Williams in his first on-screen performance) as they try and get Ron to sort his head out. The whole thing was like a mad outtake from Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I.

To my astonishment, I actually got a good grade for the film, although it was later pointed out to me by my tutor that one of Steve's testicles could be seen swinging loose from the side of his underpants in the central scene of the film which I'd completely failed to notice in the edit suite.

Probably explains why I didn't choose editing as my specialist field at film school.

Steve was unihibited enough not to be bothered by my rookie mistake and said he would probably register both his balls with the Actors' Union from now on so they could claim royalties.

But joking aside, all my time spent with Steve was precious because he was such a loveable character who always made me laugh. As much as I could appreciate his obvious musicality, my memories of him will always be those silly things that seemed inconsequential at the time but became later signifiers of his overall humanity as I now think back on him.

And as much as I felt I had a unique bond with Steve, it was only after his untimely death, that I realised just what a profound impression Steve Waller had made on the wider community of Stroud where he'd only lived for a short time before he sadly passed away from liver failure. Some people could spend an entire lifetime in a place and not incur the love and devotion from friends and neighbours that he did in that brief time he lived here.

It was the pub culture of London that ensured Steve's early demise, it was also where his ethos for life was created, best summarised in the theme song from his favourite sitcom, 'Cheers', which was incidentally one of the last songs he ever sang to me before he died.

Take it away Steve!

1, 2, 3 ...

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name