Ritchie Barton
Ritchie was born in Liverpool in 1933 and was brought up in Great Newton Street in the heart of the city. He was the third eldest of seven children and recalls, as a fifteen year old, a great fascination with the merchant seamen who called at his house to date his older sisters.
"These fellas were like film stars - beautifully dressed with suntans and gold watches and I thought going to sea must be great!"
Tempted by their lifestyle, with its opportunities to travel, Ritchie soon gave up a steady job at the Liverpool Echo and embarked on a career at sea that took him all around the world, stirring a lifelong passion for America and music.
"When I got to America, boy, it was heaven! The American culture was - it's all here, within your reach."
Like many of the Liverpool seamen of the 1950s who travelled with the Cunard shipping line, he brought back home to Liverpool, music, gifts and goods for family and friends. This aspect of his life, and that of some of his fellow seafarers, has recently been captured in the documentary film 'Cunard Yanks'.
Over the years Ritchie has also developed into a keen writer and he takes up the story of his life at sea and the world that opened up for him.
Ritchie Barton - cabin boy
"I had left school at fourteen. Our education, due to the war, was spasmodic to say the least - we experienced evacuation to a different school and wartime teaching. So my real education came from the people we met and life at sea. On the ocean liners, we met so many from all walks of life. I learnt from all of them. I went away a boy and a few years later, if you were lucky, you returned a man. Believe me, I was very lucky.
I went to sea in late 1949. I was 16 years old and leaving a city still battered and scarred by the aftermath of a war not long over. Then the magic of joining the Merchant Navy; going to sea, anticipating travel, seeing people and places that I had only seen on the screens of my local flea pits . The Hope Hall, Savoy, the Kings, the Hippodrome, the Capital and all the many others were the dream palaces of my childhood.
My first ship was a little coastal freighter, The Hampshire Coast, 1200 tons and running between Preston, Belfast, Bristol and Glasgow. Then, in December 49 I joined the El Gallo, an oil tanker going to South America. Cabin boy at last, foreign ports. This is what I had dreamed of.
The first port we called at was Colon on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal and gave me my first taste of America. It was there that America had her main base for naval personnel in Panama. I was fortunate to be invited onto the base by some of the US seamen. The place was always a wonderland filled with goods you couldn't see at home, never mind buy - you have to remember, in 1949 Britain still had rationing of goods. And the prices! Everything was subsidised, so boy was it cheap! Not that I personally bought much.
As a cabin boy I was earning, I think, between 5 and 6 pounds a month but they had a jukebox in the club and you didn't need to put money in it. The records on that machine included Hank Williams, Nat King Cole, Frankie Laine and Vaughn Monro. There was a song I had never heard before, 'Caravan' sung by Billy Eckstine, which made me a lifelong fan. So much choice of music - that has always been my fondest memory of America.
Sailing through the Canal we reached Santiago, my first real foreign port visit. I didn't see too much of it, as we were only there three days. I can still remember how it reminded me of the old Spanish cities that I had seen in the movies. Again, everything I saw for the next few years was compared to what I had seen on the silver screen, which was my only yardstick.
For the next couple of years I was on cargo boats, sailing around the Mediterranean and as far afield as the west coast of Africa - to Apapa, Accra, Sapele, and Port Harcourt, Then across to the States to Galveston, Philadelphia and many other ports."
Ritchie relaxing abroad whilst on shore leave, early 1950s
America and all that jazz
"After achieving my rating I was a 2nd cook, but got out of the kitchen and into the dining room.
In 52 I joined my first liner, the Oronsay, quickly followed by the Empress of France, the Reina Del Pacifico, the Scythia, Ascania, Franconia, the Georgic, Empress of Scotland, of Britain, of England and one or two others. I never got to sail on the Queens, though I did work by the Mary in 53. I spent ten years sailing to either Montreal or New York with Cunard, Canadian Pacific and Furness Withy, joining the Queen of Bermuda in 58 until 61 sailing out of New York every week.
Well, as you can guess by now, my love affair with America was in full bloom. This was the America of my youth. I loved all things American; the people, their fashions, their style, the culture that told you everything was there for the taking. Most of all, the music of, Sinatra, Eckstine, Ella, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Roy Hamilton, Tony Bennet, June Christy, Mel Torme and the big bands.
Everything was so much bigger, brighter and better than the grey drab streets of Liverpool - a war torn city that even in the early fifties had not started to pick itself up."
You heard it here first
"From 1949 through the fifties until 1961 I and a hell of a lot of other lads, seamen in this city, were bringing to Liverpool what was essentially Black music. Rhythm and blues, doo-wop, gospel all fused into what was later called rock and roll. A lot of people claim rock and roll started in 1953-4 and ignore completely all that went before.
In 1949 Winonie Harris was singing 'All she wants to do is rock'. In 1950 Fats Domino had his first million seller, 'The Fat Man'. The following year Jackie Brenston had a hit with 'Rocket 88' with Ike Turner's band and Billy Ward and his Dominoes with 'The Sixty Minute Man'. These and so many other records were a direct follow on from Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. Chuck Berry's guitar style is very similar to Jordan's shuffling rhythmic beat.
In many Liverpool homes could be heard The Ravens, with Jimmy Ricks magnificent on bass; The Crows, The Cadillacs, The Penguins and The Flamingoes, long before they were popular with the general public. Also heard were great solo singers - Roy Hamilton, Al Hibbler, Dinah Washington. As early as 1952-3 Dinah was called The Queen of Soul, so what's new?
I am sure a great number of guys heard these sounds in the early fifties and remember that at this time, the Black guys from Burtonwood Air Base were bringing in V discs and American records that were not on sale in the UK. I think local Black musicians, Derry Wilkie, Steve Aldo and Georgie Phillips will have also heard these records. I think you will find that there was a lot of music around throughout the late forties and into the fifties, helping to shape the sounds of the future."
American music - pure bliss
"It was the music and singers that I heard that were the sounds of my youth. Then there were the guys whose style I most admired and tried to emulate - Sinatra, Brando, Curtis, Jerry Lewis - who in the fifties was a style icon considered by many to be the smartest dressed man in Hollywood. I wanted to look like Tony Curtis, sing like Sinatra, dress like Jerry Lewis and have Brando's brooding sex appeal. Ambitious huh? Boy, I tried hard, definitely didn’t make it - but it was fun trying.
I have always loved music, almost any type - classical, country and western, rhythm and blues, pop, gospel, doo-wop. My greatest love is jazz - everything from the big swinging bands of Kenton, Basie, Goodman, Ellington - and other smaller groups, the West Coast sounds of Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers, Miles Davis, Coltrane - every kind of music under the sun. You would hear a tune or a song; think to yourself "Hey! That's a great sound, never heard that before, will look for it when I go ashore."
People talk about influences when you are young. You seldom realise who or what has influenced you. When I was a kid, the movies, more than anything else formed my ideas of other lands and other people. I fantasised how it would be, what I would like to do. When I got to New York - dreamsville, because it was what I was looking for. It was all there, in reach of my dreams and most importantly, my pocket. I was in heaven.
The fashions, the music and the culture were all part of the melting pot. There were the jazz clubs, Birdland, the Five Spot, the Metropole, the Hickory House, Condons, the Village Vanguard and many more. Throughout the years, from the mid 50s until 61, I saw and heard the greatest names in jazz. I was very fortunate to meet many of these guys socially, talk with them and, for a couple of years, write about them. For a lad from Liverpool, doing all this was bliss, pure bliss."
Philadelphia story
"Back in '52, when I was in Philadelphia, I heard the sounds of doo-wop for the very first time. The Ravens with Jimmy Ricks - a terrific bass voice. the Orioles, the Penguins, Billy Ward and the Dominoes - this was the group that had Clyde McPhatter and later Jackie Wilson as lead singers.
Hearing these guys for the first time was something else, so you went looking for them. In the early fifties the big national record stores, like Sam Goodys, didn’t stock these records - doo-wop or rhythm and blues, so you had to go looking for them. Searching the smaller stores, I found out very early on that you could get Jukebox returns. These were records that had been on the jukeboxes three or four weeks before and were the most popular songs of the day, costing five or ten cents each.
It was here that I got my first Joe Turner records, the Five Satins, the Cadillacs, the Crows, the Impalas, and the Oriole. 'Crying in the Chapel' was one of the first doo-wop records I bought, Earl Bostic's 'Flamingo', Dinah Washington's 'Wheel of Fortune'. I heard her record before Kay Starr's. These were songs on the rhythm and blues hit parade in 1952. I just wish I had held on to all those old 45s I had bought. Oh, and guess what made number 2 on the rhythm and blues hit parade that year - Johnnie Ray's 'Cry'. Ray was the only white singer to get into their top ten. As he had learnt his trade at the Flame Club on Detroit, one of the country's top venues for rhythm and blues artists, you could see where he was coming from.
'Cry' was released on Columbia's Okeh label which was mainly for Black artists. I don’t think the people at Columbia knew he was white, even though it had been a number 1 hit in late 51 on the national hit parade. I laugh nowadays when people refer to James Brown as the Godfather of soul, crying, falling down, lying on the floor. Johnnie Ray was doing all this five or six years before Brown, but then he learnt his craft in the Flame Club in Detroit. This was a popular venue for a great number of rhythm and blues singers. He sang there for some time and was a great favourite of all the Black stars that played there, particularly La Vern Baker, who was a good friend. He felt very close to the rhythm and blues culture and often said he felt more at home with their music than any other.
In Liverpool many seamen were bringing in records by these guys as early as 1950-51."
Rick Barton - New York Jazz correspondent
"I started writing for a magazine called the Jazz News in 1960. I had sent them a few articles and some information on the American jazz scene. After a couple of months, when I had remembered to put a return address on my letters, they asked me to be their American correspondent. I don't think they realized I was a waiter on a liner sailing into New York each week. So every Friday night, I would do what I always did, go up to Broadway to 52nd Street, to visit clubs, see the shows and chat to the musicians, something I had been doing for several years. Then Saturday night, back on the ship. After I had finished working, waiting on tables for my passengers, at about 11.30 I would go into the mess room. On a borrowed typewriter and using two fingers I would tap out the news of the music scene for that week - who was in town, which clubs they were playing at, general gossip about the music and the musicians.
I would also write about the different bands and singers I had seen and talked with on the Friday night. In an average evening I could visit say, the Hickory House - a great piano bar, George Shearing, Teddy Wilson, Don Shirley and all the top pianists played there. Around the corner, less than half a block away, was Birdland, the jazz corner of the world, where every jazz musician of note played at one time or another.
Come out of there, stroll a few blocks down on Broadway and you find the Metropole. Again, on any given evening, on an eighty foot stage behind the bar, two or three small jazz groups would play including Gene Krupa's Quartet, Cosy Cole's, Red Allen's All Stars. I would also write about these guys. I wrote articles on Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Lockjaw Davis, Stan Getz, Count Basie, Quincy Jones and many, many more. It was great seeing my name on the front of the magazine next to people like Steve Race, Stanley Dance, Daniel Halperin. It was fun."
Bringing it all back home
"The biggest thrill of all, at least to me, was bringing it all back home. I was different, this kid with his American suits, shirts, ties and cufflinks.
I went to a local dance looking like a young American - that was the idea anyway. I had learnt about aftershave – no working class lads wore aftershave, not in the early and mid fifties, we were working class lads. I smelled nice when I was sixteen, five years before I started to shave. The older guys in the cabin would be putting it on before they went ashore, so I would borrow some. It felt good, and boy, I smelt nice. You have to remember, most of us going to go to sea at this time were fifteen and sixteen year old boys.
I didn't party much, this boy went to the dances - the Grafton, the Locarno, Reece's, the Rialto, the Tower Ballroom, all filled with the best looking girls in the world, believe me they were. Looking great, feeling even better. I had a confidence about me, a swagger in my walk. A lot of people would say I was conceited, but I wasn't, just very self assured. As I said before, the girls, impressing the girls, that's what it was all about - it was to this young man.
The funny thing was, you took it so much for granted. Someone said to me "did you influence anybody?" I said "I don't know". We didn't want to influence anybody, you just saw stuff that you liked and you brought it home with you."
Johnnie Ray 78rpm record from 1955, one of the many records Ritchie brought back to Liverpool from America.
Read a transcript of the sleeve text here, listing the artists avaialble on Philips records at the time
Lucky me
"Life's been good to me. I know that I have been very lucky, born and bred in a great city when it was one of the greatest seaports in the world. Reared on the transatlantic liner, the best of Liverpool and New York gave me good friends. Fifty eight years on, I still have them. It taught me that most people are nice the world over, if you treat them as you would wish to be treated. I met so many musicians I admired, who gave me the music that has filled my life with pleasure. If that wasn't enough, I met my wife, now that's when I knew how lucky I was...and still am."
Liverpool - this city of the sea
To while away the hours at sea Ritchie also used to write poetry and verse. This poem, 'Liverpool - this city of the sea', was written in the 1950s and encapsulates his deep affection for his hometown with its indelible links to the sea.
This city of the sea, of tides and wind and stars
Grimy salt caked funnels, ragged sails and spars
This city of tall ships, beautiful in their splendour
Tired old freighters, tiny coal filled tenders
This city on the edge of the ocean
Ships swept out on the tide
Bringing to her the worlds bounty
With only the stars as the guide
The city of docks and warehouses
Of brick, of iron and steel
In her harbour, halls of granite and marble
A people who never learnt to kneel
A city of passion and pride
With wit few men may own
But standing together, the fool and the wise man
Know they are not alone
The city of the world
With people of every nation, every colour race and creed
Never did she turn away
Those she found in need
This is my city, right or wrong
A city of love, laughter and song
So here stands a boy, so grateful to be
A son of this city, this city of the sea
R Barton, circa 1950s