Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Life is strange and it’s full of coincidences and connections. This idea influences a lot of my writing. The first celebrity I ever met was a Hare Krishna. It was December 1994 and it was my first time on a plane. I was only four months old. My parents were taking me to my mother’s birth country of Venezuela. Also on the same plane from Miami to Caracas was a Venezuelan pop musician Ilan Chester, who became a Hare Krishna in the early 70s and whose spiritual name is Havi Das. My parents are fans and they recognised him and walked up carrying me in their arms to say hello. He was so nice and we got a picture with him.
Fast forward to my teen years and I decided to become a vegetarian. I had friends who were vegetarians and they won me over. I wanted to lose weight. I like animals. Deciding to become a vegetarian has been so rewarding. I got to try all sorts of foods and it’s the most compassionate choice and a healthy one too. When I was 22 I went vegan because I became lactose intolerant.
Fast forward once again, I’ve been writing The Diversity of Classic Rock for years and I get messages from time to time. There was this one message that really stood out to me and it was from a friend of Jayadev John Richardson, the founder and drummer of The Rubettes. I’d heard of The Rubettes because of the movie Breakfast on Pluto, where Cillian Murphy plays a trans woman named Kitten Braden. The intro of the movie has The Rubettes’ big 1974 hit “Sugar Baby Love” playing. That was the first time I heard that song and I loved it. There’s really something about the 50s revival in the 70s. The big groups from that time were Sha Na Na in the US and Showaddywaddy in the UK. Others associated with that scene include Shakin’ Stevens, Rockpile, Crazy Cavan, Robert Gordon, Stray Cats, Darts, Matchbox, Mud, and of course The Rubettes.
She was telling me all about his autobiography, The Rod and The Rose and she wanted me to spread the word. You can read her review here that sums up the book and all the amazing stories in it. I shared it on my vegetarian and vegan rock musicians page and she said she’d share it with Jayadev. Next thing I know, I see that he’s shared it and he followed my page and he’s saying really nice things about my work. It’s always an honour when a classic rocker says nice things about your work. I don’t think my teenage self envisioned my work getting noticed by rock musicians.
Some months later, I got a review copy of The Rod and The Rose. I love musician autobiographies and I’ve reviewed a bunch of them on this blog. I believe there’s no better way to learn about the classic rock era than from the musicians themselves and I love learning their stories from humble beginnings to the rise to stardom and their legacy. What I really love about each musician autobiography I’ve read is that they tell their stories in a unique way and it’s kind of a way of learning about what goes on inside their mind. I love noticing little quirks about each musician because that’s what makes them special. I don’t do boring or ordinary here. I love weirdness. I love eccentricity. I love what’s different.
It’s a star-studded book with the preface written by Dave Bartram of Showaddywaddy and foreword written by Boy George. Both of them are friends of Jayadev’s and they really have amazing things to say about him. From what I’ve seen following his page, I really do think he’s a ray of sunshine and very positive and we especially need more of that in 2026.
The story of Jayadev John Richardson of The Rubettes
John Richardson was born on 3 May 1947 in South Ockendon, Essex, just outside of London, to parents Charlie and Doreen Richardson. His family were working class and he grew up in a neighbourhood of prefab homes, built quickly to house the displaced people of East London after WWII bombings. He had three brothers: Charlie, Peter, and Ian. He was also close to his cousin Barry, who lived nearby. His beginnings were far from glamorous and fame and fortune was a slow burn and he wouldn’t achieve that until his late 20s, quite late by classic rock standards since a lot of classic rock musicians achieved fame in their early 20s, and some even as teenagers!
To get some pocket money, he started working at 12 years old doing a paper route in the morning before school. Little by little and inspired by his rival Mickey, he saved up money to buy the drum kit of his dreams, a white Olympic drum kit. Besides music, his other hobbies were reading comics, collecting stamps, and playing outside. His early influences were Lonnie Donegan, Neil Sedaka, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, and of course The Beatles. The first record he ever bought was Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line”, a cover of an American folk song from the late 1920s. Later, he’d get into R&B music thanks to a girlfriend who had Little Richard, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Sam Cooke records.
In The Rubettes, John Richardson had the reputation of being the “clown” of the band and in the book we see where this comes from because he was often up to mischief as a kid. He would cleverly find ways to get out of playing football, like hiding in a tree and then putting mud on his knees to pretend like he’d been playing sports when his father saw him, and he and his cousin Barry would sneak into an orchard and steal fruit.
School was not the place for young John Richardson, so he focused on music, joining bands in the 60s and making his way to London, where all the opportunities were, a big move even though if you look at the map, he wasn’t so far away, but trains are expensive and they don’t run at all hours, so it can be hard to go to gigs late at night without a car. He was in a series of bands before working as a session musician and then finally from that, forming The Rubettes.
He met his future Rubettes bandmates in the late 60s. He and Alan Williams were both in a group called The Medium. He and Tony Thorpe were both briefly members of The Cromwellian’s house band. The Cromwellian was a nightclub where anybody who was anybody in rock and roll frequented, so it’s no surprise that a bunch of big names show up in the book from those days. He found the rest of the band members through working as a session musician and networking. Music scenes are often really tight knit and you’re never too many degrees of separation from someone else.
In 1970, John Richardson made his first Top of the Pops appearance with his singing duo with Alan Williams, Baskin & Copperfield. It’s a trip to watch the video and see the two looking like hippies, quite different from their look in the Rubettes. They released a few singles, but didn’t have very much success. At one point, the two went to a fortune teller who predicted they would be famous and travel the world. They laughed at the prediction, but hoped for it to come true nevertheless.
Spirituality and the paranormal are big themes in this book, so be prepared for a lot of stories with that sort of theme. Such as the time John and his wife Cherrille (she’s also known as Sachi and they’re still married almost 60 years later) went to a friend’s house in 1969 and the three sat around a ouija board and did a seance, communicating with the spirits. The cup moved around wildly and they wrote down all the letters. After a bunch of gibberish came “Rocco Marchegiano”, Rocky Marciano’s name. The following day, Rocky Marciano died in a plane crash. This story reminds me a lot of the Joe Meek and Buddy Holly story in Crime of the Century (I tell everyone this story whenever I talk about my book and it always blows people’s minds). There are many other psychic stories where John Richardson’s predictions are accurate and he passed on those abilities to his daughter, Pia (also known as Gaurangi).
Before The Rubettes, John Richardson worked as a session drummer and got opportunities to do that because he could read sheet music, an important skill to have if you’re working sessions, and he’s a versatile drummer who can do multiple styles. There were some bumps in the road, like the time that he overslept at the worst possible opportunity and burned a bridge with David Katz, an important connection to have if you’re a session musician. Unfortunately as a session musician you’re treated as a hired hand. Even if you don’t know John Richardson or The Rubettes, you’ll certainly know this one-hit wonder and that’s “Kung Fu Fighting”. So listen closely to the drumming next time because that’s John Richardson!
Remember I mentioned Showaddywaddy earlier in this blog post? Well, a decision the group made in 1974 is the reason why we have The Rubettes. A little backstory, there are professional songwriters who write in teams. Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington were two Liverpool songwriters who had previously been in a band with Pete Best, who was notoriously fired from The Beatles and later released an album called Best of The Beatles (very cheeky). Waddington and Bickerton famously wrote “Nothing But A Heartache” for South Carolina girl group The Flirtations. This went on to be a Top 40 hit in the US and a favourite in the Northern Soul scene. It sounds just like Motown, but it’s not Motown!
That was 1968. The music scene had changed a lot going from blues rock and psychedelic rock to glam and proto-punk. Six years later they wrote “Sugar Baby Love”, a pastiche of 1950s doo-wop, inspired by The Diamonds’ “Little Darlin’”, written by Maurice Williams, best known for the song “Stay”. You can really hear this in the intro and the spoken word bit. The 1950s had a lot of those nonsense syllables and spoken word bits. Buddy Holly had a spoken word bit in “Listen To Me”. Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange” had that too. Barry Mann would make fun of these tropes in “Who Put The Bomp”. Enough time had passed that 1950s music was seen as kind of cool again, that nostalgia factor for those who had grown up on it, and distance making the heart grow fonder, I suppose.
Anyway, Showaddywaddy were offered “Sugar Baby Love”, but they rejected it. Bickerton and Waddington saw some hit potential in it and had some session musicians record it and Polydor released it as a single, hoping it’d get some popularity. On lead vocals was Paul Da Vinci. John Richardson played drums and did the spoken word bit. Pete Arnesen played keyboard. Alan Williams did backing vocals. Which is why you’ll notice there’s a difference between the studio version and a live version since Paul Da Vinci did not join The Rubettes because he had signed a solo record contract. That’s where it has something in common with “Incense and Peppermints” (vocalist was a teenager named Greg Munford, read my interview with The Strawberry Alarm Clock) and “Louie, Louie” (Jack Ely was kicked out of the group and not let back in when “Louie, Louie” became a hit), the lead singer wasn’t in the band.
One day John Richardson got a call saying they’ve been offered a slot on Top of the Pops after Americans Russell and Ron Mael of Sparks couldn’t get work permits, but they still needed a band to perform in their place. He needed to hurry and put together a band: Alan Williams, Pete Arnesen, Mick Clarke, Tony Thorpe, and Bill Hurd made up the rest of the band. They got some outfits last minute at Take Six. For the performance, they sold that 1950s retro fantasy by imitating some of the Shadows’ mannerisms like the walk and the poses with the guitars.
The song went on to top the charts in the UK, replacing ABBA’s “Waterloo” in the top spot. Eight million copies of the single were sold worldwide. It was huge in Europe and even in Japan people listened to it because in 1988 J-pop duo Wink covered it. Really shows the power of music and how it unites people across cultures!
With a big hit comes the need to record follow up singles to cash in and capitalise on the success. The Rubettes were not one-hit wonders and went on to have two more top 10 singles “Jukebox Jive” (also very 50s themed) and “I Can Do It” and a top 20 hit with “Tonight”. They were very much loved in Mainland Europe.
The band made a lot of money off of these hit singles and they lived the high life: flying first class, dining in fancy restaurants, and a luxurious lifestyle. You would think that it’s a dream come true for any working class kid, social mobility and peace of mind? Richardson bought a nice house in Gidea Park with a swimming pool, a tennis court, Art Deco furniture, and Art Nouveau paintings. Eventually though, he felt unfulfilled, disillusioned and disenchanted with fame. There’s got to be more to life, right? So he went on a spiritual journey and the story of that spiritual journey makes up the bulk of the book.
While on the road, he started reading the Bible since there’s one in every hotel room thanks to the Gideons. He found some good messages in that, but some things didn’t make sense. There are many religions out there, which one has the answers? He started a health foods shop called Perfect Health with a business partner Helen Perfect. Sadly such a niche business wasn’t a big success. He also studied massage and reflexology and started learning about past life regression, eventually treating people with these complementary and alternative therapies with success, such as a woman with MS named Elaine whose father thanked him for curing her and helping out his dad who had arthritis. He became a vegetarian and gave up drinking alcohol. Scientist Terry Edwards was a big early influence for him.
Sometimes happiness doesn’t come with prosperity and John Richardson prioritised happiness and fulfilment over material goods so he sold his Gidea Park home and moved into a home he and his family could afford to live in free and clear (no mortgage payments to worry about). He became especially fascinated with the Bhagavad Gita and one day a neighbour named Mr Sharma knocked on his door saying “I understand you’re looking for God” and he told him all about Hinduism and mantras. It was the answer to his prayers.
Now his first impressions of the Hare Krishnas were seeing them outside chanting on the streets and he thought they were a bit “nutty”. In the 80s he wrote a Hare Krishna musical and became a Hare Krishna devotee. He would incorporate some Hare Krishna chants in later performances with the Rubettes when he rejoined the band after years away from the drum kit. He, Lora Logic, and Poly Styrene contributed backing vocals on Boy George’s Hare Krishna themed song “Bow Down Mister”. Through a palm reading he accurately predicted that Boy George would have success with this song and it would be the big hit. Influential Indian singer Asha Bhosle sang vocals on this song too. Cornershop’s “Brimful of Asha” is about her!
You can learn a lot about Hare Krishna beliefs as well as stuff on reincarnation and past life regression in this book. I found it very interesting to hear another perspective even though I’m not a religious person or all that spiritual myself, although I have a fascination with the spiritual. There are definitely some standout stories such as the one about a teenage girl named Shelley who knew all these details about Mozart’s life and even replicated his signature and everything, and Richardson believes that she might have been Mozart in her past life. He would talk about these experiences and similar case studies while lecturing at universities like Cambridge and every time there would be some sceptics in the audience, but Richardson approaches the situation with kindness and understanding, saying that in science you go in with an open mind and impartiality.
In more recent years Jayadev John Richardson started the Mantra Choir and makes rock and roll songs into Hare Krishna chants as outreach. Music really is powerful.
It’s a fascinating, but not always linear read full of spirituality. It’s a bit rock musician autobiography, with a lot of “Chicken Soup For The Soul” but make it Hare Krishna (tofu instead of chicken and it’s veggie broth). Both his passion for music and Hare Krishna come through in this book. It’s a great read for Rubettes fans and those fascinated with the Hare Krishnas and spirituality and reincarnation in general. Yes, there are other Hare Krishnas in classic rock besides George Harrison.
You can buy The Rod and the Rose by Jayadev John Richardson on Amazon on paperback, hardcover, or Kindle.
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