Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (2nd of 3)

By thejohnfleming on August 6, 2024

*Dave Dawson with his latest book* Pop Idle

In yesterday's blog, Dave Dawson talked about how an English National Opera star trained him, he turned down potential TV fame and he sang in pubs, clubs, restaurants etc and had a jam-packed work diary...

JOHN: You worked with strippers...

DAVE: Yes. Male strippers. I was pretty good looking in those days. I was working, doing golf clubs, doing the crooning and somebody said to me: "Can you do cabaret stuff? Can you do like Barry Manilow? Can you do high tempo disco stuff?"

I said: "Yeah, my voice can handle that."

And they said: "Look, if you get onto the hen-nights circuit, it's 20 minutes with the drag. Then you do your 20 minutes to warm the girls up. And then the male stripper comes on…"

So I did that for years. It was all midweek work and the money wasn't fantastic - it was only like £100 or something - but you were only working for 40 minutes.

JOHN: And you had stalkers…

DAVE: Yeah, but I spoke to a lot of people on the circuit and apparently we'd all had them.

When I had my first - the major one - I stopped picking up my phones in the end, because she was phoning at all hours.

Then my agent, Dawn Judd, phoned me: "David, I can never get hold of you. It's extremely unprofessional."

I said: "Dawn, I've got a stalker."

And she said: "Oh, well, you haven't arrived until you've had a stalker!"

Obviously, being on the bottom rung of the showbiz ladder, people know where you are every week. So you can't hide.

She started off really quite nervous and quite friendly and she said: "I've been to see you many times. I love the way you sing Mr Bojangles. She was really quite humble and I was letting my guard down and letting her know personal stuff about me, which she then used against me.

I told her I was a massive Mickey Rourke fan. I love Mickey Rourke. And I love this and I love that.

When she started to get frightening, I started to really draw back away from that.

She phoned up a pub once when I was setting up and she said, "Oh, it's Dave's cousin here. I want to drop a Mickey Rourke DVD back to him. Is he in tomorrow? Can I just have his phone number? I've lost his phone number." And so she was using everything against me.

In the end, it got to the point where it was affecting my work. I thought: I'm going to have to change my name to work in certain venues - which is completely defeating the object of filling a pub because you've got a reputation.

She was turning up at every gig with a different set of friends. I thought: Well, maybe I'm not everybody's cup of tea and she's got a lot of friends.

But what she was doing, she was telling all these girls: "This is my fiancé…"

Then they would twig something was wrong and I'd never see them again and then she'd turn up with different bunch of 'friends'..

I did this gig once and this girl comes up to me and she goes: "Veronica's not very happy because you're not talking to her. If you were my fiancé, I wouldn't handle it…"

I said: "What are you talking about? She's just a fan. She's just… she's wrecking my life. She's ringing me at three in the morning…"

And I thought: I've had enough now!

JOHN: How did you get rid of her?

DAVE: At the end of one gig, she said to me: "I'm sick of not getting you on the phone! I'm sick of the fact you've got a girlfriend! At the end of the gig, we're going to have a serious chat!"

So, at the end of the gig - it was my agent's idea - I'd already taken the gear down and she came charging towards me. And what I did, I set the gear up again and I said: "Ladies and gentlemen, I've got an announcement to make. Behold, in front of you, this is my stalker. This is what she's been doing me for the past six months. This is what she does. And OK, and every time you see it, this is why she's here."

And she ran out and I never saw her again. She's probably still out there somewhere.

JOHN: Have you seen Baby Reindeer?

DAVE: Yeah, of course. Of course. It was a week after my book Pop Idle came out that I saw Baby Reindeer on Netflix and, when I saw the first episode, I said to the missus: "This is so visceral to me I don't think I can finish it."

But then the story veered off into a different direction, so I was safe.

If it had been six episodes on the first episode's theme, I'd have gone: I can't get through this because this is not entertainment to me. This is a showreel. This is going back to what I had.

When I saw Baby Reindeer, I said to the missus: "She looks like... I mean, it's not her but it's the same type.

JOHN: You mentioned you admire Mickey Rourke…

DAVE: Yeah. There's just something within his method. He's like Scott Walker, who's my idol, in that he doesn't have… he's almost got a disdain for the industry that he works within.

JOHN: Alright. Cheap question. Have you got disdain for the industry you work in?

DAVE: Okay, let me put it another way. He doesn't have any commercial sensibility, okay? So very much like Frank Zappa or one of my other heroes, Tim Smith from Cardiacs. He's ploughing his own field, okay?

The industry that I work in now, I couldn't have more love for it. But, when I was working within the pubs and the clubs towards the end - to drunken punters - I did start to get a disdain, not towards the industry, but towards the audience. And that might sound catty or ungrateful but, when I did my first ever gig, I was working with a ventriloquist and he saw me and he said: "Look at me, son…"

And I looked at him and he said: "You keep that glint in your eye as long as you can, because the circuit is going to kick it out of you."

And of course, that is what happened.

JOHN: Despite you new book's title, Pop Idle, you were never idle...Were you married when you were playing the pubs and clubs and all? Because, obviously, if you're married and have children…

DAVE: No, it was impossible. I didn't get married until I started singing in the Care Homes.

JOHN: That was around 2012?

DAVE: Yes. I was so busy, I didn't want to do it. When someone said: "Come and play our Care Home," I felt insulted. I pushed that gig back but then an agent asked me to do one as a favour.

To my shame, I was dreading it but, to my credit, I did research it and figured they were going to be sick of Flanagan and Allen.

I figured: If these people are in their 70s now, why can't I do Buddy Holly and Elvis and Johnny Cash? And, of course, those songs resonated with the residents as much as or more than the Wartime songs.

JOHN: Yes, if someone was a teenager - 17 in 1957, the year Elvis Presley's movie Jailhouse Rock was released - they would be 84 today. Flanagan and Allen and the Wartime songs is not their era. Their era is the Rock 'n' Roll era.

DAVE: Me coming in and singing Elvis and Buddy Holly was like old friends tapping them on the shoulder.

Even if they had dementia, some of them were roused.

I did one fantastic early gig and this lady shook my hand and said: "Dave, I'll never forget what you did today. You've done my favourite songs". I went to the car, came back for my guitar and the same lady said: "Oh! Have we got music today?"

After that, I let the rest of the work trickle out of the diary and just did the Care Homes. It's been that way since about 2014. They're one-a-day, in the daytime and I've got my evenings back.

Ten years ago, I would have thought it surreal if someone asked for T Rex or Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, now it's the norm.

I have to accept the fact that, in another ten years, it will be Human League, ABC, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet. And I've also got to accept the fact that, when I get to a care home - if I make it - the people that will be entertaining me are going to entertain me with Metallica and Oasis. It is incredible.

(... TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW ... when Dave explores new career options ...)