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An Audience with Tappy Wright

Rock Roadie: Backstage & Confidential

Sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll and packed full of conspiracy theories …….The Animals; Jimi Hendrix; Tina Turner; & Elvis………Super roadie Tappy Wright takes his audience on an exclusive access all areas tour during more than thirty years on the road with the biggest names in rock and roll as tour manager and close confidante. 

After years of press speculation, Tappy finally reveals his "being there" experience of what happened when Jimi Hendrix died. How did it happen.....?

Geordie “Tappy” was there at the beginning when Eric Burdon and the boys formed the Animals and when they recorded their anthem ‘House of the Rising Sun’. He was there at the end when they re-formed for a world tour in the early 80’s.

He was there at the beginning when unknown guitarist Jimi Hendrix played to a handful of punters in a smoky American club and next day recorded one of his biggest hits ‘Hey Joe’. He regularly took Jimi and his band to the VD clinic as groupies gave them more than their bodies.

He looked after superstar Tina Turner and her fiery husband Ike on their first ever tour of the UK.

He told the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley, in no uncertain terms to go away when he took the telephone call from who he thought to be an impostor, before groveling to the great man and finally being given a private audience at Graceland.

Rolling Stone Brian Jones and Beatle John Lennon were guests at his 21st birthday party…Lennon’s legendary sense of humour resulted in a cake fight between the two.

He fended off sexual advances from sex-bomb actress Jayne Mansfield.

He has seen it all. He has done it all. He’s been jailed and he’s been ‘press ganged’ into the US Army as a deserter. He came close to joining the ‘Monkees’. He was witness and victim to early racism in the music business. He has seen drugs kill and destroy.  He’s shed enough tears.

He knows the real reason Hendrix and his manager Chas Chandler parted company at the height of his fame. And he’s telling.

Tappy’s insight into the crazy world of rock is free of PR puff and fluff. He tells it like it is, like it was because he should know. He was there. His own sexual exploits are X-rated.  He even ended up being photographed for a double page spread in girlie magazine Escort!

This is no ordinary program. It is extremely funny and will appeal to rock and roll fans across the globe.

Tappy was born in Whitley Bay, just outside Newcastle, the son of a miner and lucky to have food on the table of the family’s tiny, two up, two down, terraced house. His love of music and canny ability to be in the right place at the right time resulted in Tappy helping form the Animals, even playing second guitar on many of their hits.

He went on to work with Jimi Hendrix, Ike and Tina Turner, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits), Chuck Berry, Liza Minelli, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who, Dusty Springfield…an almost endless who’s who of music and film stars. His dream really came true when he got to meet his boyhood idol, movie star and comedian Jerry Lewis.

Tappy’s fame in his native Geordie- land helped him buy and run the very club where it all started for him and the Animals, the infamous Club-A-Go-Go. Recession and some bad business decisions saw Tappy’s world fall apart when the club and his other business interests went bust and he was left with huge debts totaling £500,000.

But a natural survivor, Tappy has now cleared those debts and spends his time between his home in Whitley Bay and a holiday home in Florida, where he is a regular visitor to the famous Hard Rock Café, as the world’s only living rock and roll memorabilia, regaling diners with his fascinating tales of life on the road with the stars of rock and roll. He even owns one of Jimi’s rare guitars, given to him before Jimi’s death. Tappy’s exploits and sex-ploits offer an affectionate, witty, and sometimes touching, dash through musical history experienced first-hand.

Tappy’s program is based on his book Rock Roadie,  a gripping and hilarious read from the man that famous names were hoping would keep his silence.  But Tappy Wright is finally speaking out and he’s telling it all!

As Eric Burdon wrote in his 1984 autobiography…”A good road manager is as important as a good lead singer. Tappy Wright was the best in the business”.