I remember the day so well, how could you forget? It started with a beautiful September sunny morning and I had been looking forward to spending the day in the studio with one of my oldest friends. The album was a departure for me as it was the first time I had recorded the whole thing in my own little studio. I say studio, it was actually just a small room in a ‘project’ called ‘The Red Café’ just opposite Southend Gardens in Mumbles.
This was right at the start of the days where home recording equipment reached the point you could get professional quality results at reasonable prices. The studio had already proved its worth. One of the first jobs I got was recording some tracks for Aled Jones to perform on Songs of Praise.
At the time Aled was a little out in the wilderness, struggling to find his place in a world as an adult. The first song I was asked to produce was a version of Stevie Wonders’ ‘For Once In My Life’. The Red Café was home to all sorts of projects including a youth ‘ministry’ team which worked with local schools. That included a band that toured the area. I still remember their bass player’s face as Aled knocked on the door when he arrived for his session.
The recording went well, and we only had to wait a week or so to see it featured on the Sunday Evening Show. The reaction was immense and immediate. That performance led to a torrent of letters for the song to be played again on Terry Wogan’s ‘Points of View’ Show. Within a month Aled had signed a big record deal and was off and running again.
Aled wasn’t the only big star to turn heads at the Red Café. For the album in question I had written a new song called ‘Tables Turn’. I had written it as a duet for me and Bonnie Tyler, but in truth I wrote it more in hope than anticipation. I recorded a basic demo of the song on cassette and sent it to her. The accompanying letter had all of the usual caveats making it easy for her to decline getting involved, without actually having to say no.
A couple of days later she rang and said yes. A few days after that she arrived at the Red Café and nearly broke my microphones, because as always, she had to sing loudly.
Although I had played all the keyboards and guitars on the recording, even programming the drums myself, I knew I would always want my favourite bass player to complete the picture.
Malve and Walve in the Studio
I had first met Wal when we were both teenagers. We had formed a band with drummer Tony Kiley which Wal named ‘Malvin Bishop’s Originals’ and we had rehearsed in my dad’s garage. We had tried to soundproof the garage using old bits of carpet, but we did have the occasional complaint from some of the neighbours.
A real garage band.
Sometime later Wal and Tony went to London and I started working in broadcasting, but as soon as I could I got them both back for an HTV music series. From then on Wal was always there in every band or for every tv and radio show I ever did.
Wal, Tony Kiley and Mal Pope
On that September day back in 2001 there were a lot of songs to go through. Although Wal was quick at getting the hang of the song and terrific as soon as the red recording light went on, the trouble was he couldn’t stop himself from telling really bad jokes. We would record a song, stop for a cup of tea, talk and joke for half an hour before starting again.
Most of all we were looking forward to recording Bonnie’s song. Over the previous few years Wal and I had worked together with Bonnie on a few TV shows and concerts, but I could tell Wal was delighted that we were finally making a record with her.
It was early afternoon when we got a knock on the door. Someone from the café said there had been a plane crash in New York and it was all being shown live on the TV. We arrived just in time to see the second plane hit the Twin Towers.
An old BBC colleague was reporting live from the scene. He had been sitting in the foyer of the South Tower waiting to interview someone when the first plane crashed into the North Tower. He immediately went into reporter mode using a payphone from the newsagents in the building.
As we were watching all of a sudden the phone went dead, and it wasn’t long afterwards the first Tower collapsed. The pictures we were seeing were terrifying but made even more real by knowing someone who was there, and then wondering if they had survived. (Steve did survive and ended up moving to Australia to work at a local newspaper).
Wal and I knew that our session was over, so we decided to go for a coffee at Verdi’s to try to make some sort of sense of what we had seen and heard. It was a beautiful September afternoon. Maybe we, and the world, were all a little more innocent back then. These were days before you got instant news on your mobile phone and most of the people we passed were completely unaware of the carnage taking place in New York and how all of our worlds were about to change forever.
That was 25 years ago. Since then, every year, no matter where we were in the world, on the 11th September Wal and I would always phone each other to chat about that day. As professional musicians we would never know if we would be on tour or in a studio, but we never let the day pass without talking. This was a life moment we had shared, and this was our way of remembering together.
This year there was no phone call. Last October, as we packed down after our Home Coming’ Show at the Swansea Arena I knew Wal wasn’t well, but he was the strongest and most focused man I ever knew. He was unbreakable.
I was shocked to hear he had gone into hospital. If I’m honest I was in 2 minds whether I should visit him on that Saturday afternoon in Morrison hospital. I thought he would be out soon, so I nearly put my visit off thinking I would go to see him at home in a few days. In the end, armed with grapes and chocolates, something made me go.
That afternoon we laughed as always did. We talked about the Swans and watched Wales play rugby on the TV. One nurse walked in and asked if we were twins. She wasn’t the first. Wal’s stock answer to that was, ‘our mothers went to different schools together’. It made no sense, but it always made us laugh. That was my last memory of Wal, sniggering away to one of his terrible jokes.
This coming Friday we will remember Andrew ‘Wal’ Coughlan with a special concert at the Pontardawe Arts Centre. It’s described as,
‘An evening of music to celebrate the life and musical career of ‘Wal’. Friends and colleagues gather to perform music from a variety of genres. All profits from the evening will go to the GoFundMe launched to complete Wal’s 5 year building project’
IF you can’t make it you can always help to make Wal’s final dream come true by visiting https://www.gofundme.com/f/andrew-wal-coughlan