Rock matriarch writes about life, family & more

And I remember so clearly clinging to the banisters on Angell Road when my dad said we had to go and see her, and me saying, "Please don't make me! Please, please let me stay home!" And then he would whack me over the knuckles so I'd let go of the banister and then he'd drag me into the car.

My father was soon going farther afield with his tours, mostly to American air bases in Germany. There were four in Frankfurt alone, each one of them full of bored GIs waiting to be entertained. We never stayed on the bases themselves, but sometimes we'd be allowed in to watch the show. He could keep the fucking show; what I wanted was the PX, the general store with all the American magazines and comics, Batman and Superman. But the best thing was the food, milk shakes and burgers — there was nothing like that in fifties Brixton. But usually at night they'd leave us back in the boardinghouse or hotel, where my brother and I would run riot, breaking into the kitchens, playing around with the elevators and generally causing havoc.

The other thing I remember about Germany was Christmas. My father had a partner named Gisela Gumpher who had a house in the Black Forest where we spent two Christmases running. In Angell Road we never had what you could call a proper Christmas, and so this was my first experience of what fun and how happy a family-type Christmas could be, and I never forgot it.

Religion was never a big deal in our house. My father used his religion only when it suited him, like speaking Yiddish. As a lot of other people in the business were Jewish, it was a way of keeping some people in and other people out — perhaps even my mother. Though, having been brought up with it, I understood everything.

Being Jewish, he told me, was something to be proud of, and he gave me a pair of Star of David earrings and a little Star of David to put around my neck. I had no idea really what it meant, it was just a necklace as far as I was concerned. But one day when my brother and I were coming home from playing in the park, some kids began to taunt us, calling us dirty Jews. I hurled myself on them, and suddenly David was there too, punching and kicking and scratching, till they were the ones backing off. It didn't affect me. They could just as well have said I was an alien or a robot for all the difference it made. That was just how it was.

As for my mother, she never mentioned religion, never wore a cross, never went near a priest. But Kath McMurray, whom she had known since they worked in the same dance troupe before the war and who was one of her few real friends, was very Catholic. As Teresa, her daughter, was a friend of mine, I'd sometimes go to their church with her and wait while she went into the confessional box, dillydallying around until she came out. My parents' line was that we were "cosmopolitan." And it was "whatever you want to do." It was the same with any other kind of prejudice. Being in the business and living in Brixton made us color-blind.

There were no feelings about being gay, black, nothing. In 1960 my father experienced the nearest thing he would get to a religious conversion. It was called rock and roll. In January he had emceed a tour on which Gene Vincent was topping the bill, and seeing the effect Gene was having on teenagers, he decided that was the way to go, and within a year, promoter Don Arden had succeeded in bringing over Gene Vincent. From then on it was like Angell Road was on speed. Gene was England's first real rock god, wearing black leather instead of a suit, and with sell-out performances and screaming girls he was soon my father's first cash cow. The support bands would change, but Gene would always be the crowd puller and he was part of our lives for nearly five years.

And then it was just a roller coaster: Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis — he arrived just a few days after his three-year-old son had drowned. In Cardiff he caused a riot when he played "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." And then in Mitcham, just down the road from us, he ended up destroying his piano — the first time anybody had done anything like that.

But the one I will never forget is Sam Cooke. I thought he was the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life, and he smelled fantastic and he wore these tight black high-waisted matador trousers onstage, and whenever he'd see me he would kiss me and I knew I would blush every single time, because I was so much in love with him. I was nine, and I would go and sit in the audience when he performed and I never did that with anybody else. But after that tour I never saw him again: he was shot dead in 1964.

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