IN pursuit of material for a book about The Beatles in Scotland, a sports production editor at the Evening Times newspaper was required to use cloak-and-dagger tactics to secure a much sought-after interview.
Ken McNab has spoken to several famous Scots for his book – including Lulu, Donovan and Sir Jackie Stewart – but none involved quite as long a pursuit as it took to interview Elton John’s regular, Scots-born guitarist, who had played with John Lennon on his last public performance at Madison Square Garden, in New York.
That was in 1974 and Davey Johnstone was the man in McNab’s sights.
And after weeks of negotiations, the instruction eventually came through: phone this hotel and ask for famous former Scottish footballer.
McNab says he sworn to secrecy as to who exactly.
Says Ken: “Davey rarely speaks to the media. Eventually, I was asked to phone a certain hotel on America’s west coast at a certain time and ask to be put through to the famous name.
“Of course, Davey replied: ‘Who? Never heard of you.’”
APOLOGIES: the rest of this entry is unavailable, most likely because of a corrupted database.
