As regular readers know, I’m a sucker for funny stories about entertainers, comedians and musicians.
One of my favourites sounds like it was made up, but I’m assured it’s absolutely 100% true and that it’s been handed down by musicians since it happened in the mid 1960s.
It involves a jazz pianist, composer and arranger named Don Innes (1928-2015) who, in 1966, despite his talents, hadn’t worked much for a while and was at the time, in showbusiness parlance “Heavily available”.
Then one day, a film producer ‘phoned him out of the blue.
He was making a big-budget thriller based around the 1963 Great Train Robbery, and although they’d hired composer Johnny Keating to write the movie’s main score, they wanted Don to write short pieces of ‘incidental jazz music’ for scenes set in a night club or jazz club, to add to the authentic ‘cool’ atmosphere.
Don set about composing and the producers were so pleased with the quality of his work, they asked him to write more mood music for other scenes.
Around a year later the film, starring Stanley Bakcr and directed by Peter Yates (whose next film was Bullitt!) was released under the title “Robbery”, although Don and his wife still referred to it as “The Great Train Robbery”.
The film was a worldwide success, and it wasn’t long before royalty cheques started arriving at Don’s house.
One day when they were wandering around the West End, Don and his wife went into a very expensive piano shop where a grand piano took his eye. He sat down on the stool, tinkled the ivories and immediately fell in love with it.
When the salesman mentioned the piano cost £9,500, Don nodded, put down the lid and was about to walk out when his wife, quite innocently, said “But Don. We can afford it. We’ve got the money from ‘The Great Train Robbery’!”
The salesman disappeared into his office, dialled 999 and a minute later two police cars, sirens blaring, screeched to a halt outside!
It took Mr and Mrs Innes quite some time to explain themselves!