Harvey Goldsmith

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand nine.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the Impresario Harvey Goldsmith.

Presenter0:32

He was the organizational brains behind Live Aid in nineteen eighty five, and Live Eight twenty years later. From Bob Dylan to Led Zeppelin to Pavarotti, with pretty well every other name and music in between, he's been one of our top promoters for more than forty years.

Presenter0:48

His career has given him a unique insight into music history. He was there after all when Keith Moon threw his first T V out of a hotel window.

Presenter0:56

Always passionate about what he's listened to, his own instrument, he says, is the pocket calculator.

Presenter1:02

I just realized I had a talent for understanding music and what the public wanted. I was always determined it wasn't just the artist's side, but I consider the public side when putting on a show. Do tell me, Harvey, about the Keith Moon.

Presenter1:16

At the moment then when he sacrificed his first telly, what actually happened?

Harvey Goldsmith1:21

I think it was the Leicester post house that we were at. There was a swimming pool directly below we were on he was on about the sixth or seventh floor or something like that. A little bit of an argument.

Harvey Goldsmith1:33

started. He obviously was very angry and he literally picked the television up, opened the window and just dumped it and when it landed in the pool he just shouted out bullseye.

Presenter1:43

Uh

Presenter1:43

When you were watching it happen, did you think

Presenter1:46

this is an extension of his sort of creativity? Is it in some way a man expressing himself beyond the bounds of what most of us think is acceptable behaviour? Or did you just think he's self indulgent and he's behaving like an idiot?

Harvey Goldsmith2:00

It was more like panic, to be honest. Like paying the bill. Well, you never knew what was going to happen next.

Harvey Goldsmith2:08

Keith was a very excitable drummer and a wonderful human being, and I think the exuberance of performance carried on often for some time after he'd finished playing. He was a wonderful character.

Presenter2:25

It sounds like it. Tell me a little bit about the riders.

Presenter2:30

the requirements that that bands will send to a promoter to say we need these things to make our life backs usually backstage acceptable, and you do whatever it takes to keep these people sweet in order that the performance is as good as you think it should be.

Harvey Goldsmith2:47

There are two things that I learnt in life very early when I started promoting. One is you have to keep the crew happy, because a happy crew is a happy band.

Harvey Goldsmith2:56

And secondly of all, if the band wants something, there's normally a reason for it. If you can get it, why not? And if you can't get it, own up quickly and find an alternative.

Presenter3:09

Tell me if these two things are true. Um, Queen wanting a mud wrestling ring and two mud wrestlers. Was that true?

Speaker 33:15

Four: Mud Wrestlers.

Presenter3:17

Right.

Speaker 33:17

All right. Yeah.

Presenter3:18

Can't believe I got that wrong. Pavarotti having a ham slicer for his Parma ham, true or false, backstage.

Harvey Goldsmith3:25

Mm, not sure about that one. He certainly, um he would travel with a complete case of food.

Harvey Goldsmith3:35

Krazik

Presenter3:36

Um the eight records you've chosen today then, do they were they chosen by you to reflect the love of the artists you've worked with, or or was it really the music that you've chosen it for?

Harvey Goldsmith3:46

I think both. Um most of the music is just music that I uh I adore from albums that I think uh in my life are pretty important. Starting off with uh Led Zeppelin and um a track that is very emotive and kind of I think says it all about this fantastic rock band.

Presenter3:58

Yeah.

Speaker 14:08

The sun beat down for my face

Speaker 14:12

Stars fill my dream.

Speaker 14:16

I'm a traveller of all kinds.

Speaker 14:21

We're on the bay.

Speaker 14:25

Sing with eldest of the generation

Speaker 14:29

Self-sleep.

Speaker 14:34

Time of days for which they sit in the way.

Presenter4:38

Led Zeppelin and Kashmir. I'm wondering, um, Harvey Goldsmith, if that brings back memories of touring with Led Zeppelin in it, what would it have been the the late seventies?

Harvey Goldsmith4:47

Yes, there was a lot of uh kind of air of um mythology about them that constantly travel with them. Obvious I mean I'm not a saint, but equally I realized right at the beginning that if I'm going to take control of a situation, I had to be slightly aloof from it, so I had to restrict my partying and entertaining. So, unfortunately, I was often at most of the fun and games that would go on in those days, but um couldn't really participate too much.

Presenter5:19

I wonder how a nice Jewish boy born in nineteen forty six in North London ended up there. I mean, what sort of little boy were you? Were you very adventurous?

Harvey Goldsmith5:28

Yeah, reasonably so. Um I think I was always

Presenter5:31

Naughty boy

Harvey Goldsmith5:32

Naughty, yes. Oh yeah. Quite naughty, yes. Our house was always full of people and

Presenter5:33

What do you

Harvey Goldsmith5:38

One of the big events of the week was Sunday afternoons where it was like games afternoon. So those days we'd play Scrabble or Monopoly or Totopoly or whatever. And there was always fifteen, twenty people, kids all round the house all sitting on the floor playing various games and so on. So it was a very sociable atmosphere that we grew up in.

Presenter5:57

Your father was a tailor.

Harvey Goldsmith5:58

My father was a tailor.

Harvey Goldsmith6:00

Uh my mum was a milliner.

Presenter6:01

Right.

Harvey Goldsmith6:01

Right. And um but I had a we had a great circle of friends.

Presenter6:06

What were your parents like? What kind of people were they?

Harvey Goldsmith6:09

They were tough, they didn't take any nonsense, but equally they gave us our own opportunity to develop in our own way. We were brought up in a Jewish household and all of the festivals and the knowledge and so on and had to go to classes two days a week and which I hated.

Presenter6:30

And is that important to you now? I mean, sometimes people find that as life goes on actually they they were glad that they had that grounding in their religion and it and and it does become more significant to them.

Harvey Goldsmith6:40

It yes, it is important to me, and um I I am glad that I had that grounding.

Harvey Goldsmith6:46

And the area that I was brought up in was quite a young growing area. So there were lots of people who had moved out there either just before the war or during the war. But everybody, I think, was trying to create a new start for themselves, and that pervaded through to their families and children.

Presenter7:05

Let's have some music then. Tell me what you've chosen then as the second track.

Harvey Goldsmith7:08

My second track is Benny Goodman, playing a track called Sing, Sing, Sing from a very famous uh series of concerts did at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Presenter7:18

Have you met Benny Goodman?

Harvey Goldsmith7:19

I met Benny Goodman, unfortunately very late in life in his life. We had a very pleasant afternoon having tea at Claridge's, where I was trying to persuade him to come back and perform. And we talked about it, but unfortunately he couldn't do it, and then not long afterwards passed away.

Presenter8:35

Recorded in nineteen thirty eight Benny Goodman and Sing, Sing, Sing So, Harvey Goldsmith, you were going to go into medicine, you were going to be a pharmacist. And you went to Brighton to study, and quickly became social secretary.

Harvey Goldsmith8:46

Yes, after six weeks I said, Where's the social life? And I opened a club called Club Sixty Six in nineteen sixty six, uh just after Christmas term.

Presenter8:57

And who did you get to come and perform?

Harvey Goldsmith8:59

I started off with some local bands and then at that time there were bands like The Move and The Moody Blues and Fleetwood Mac and I very quickly I learnt one that you have to take care of your audience so we created an atmosphere in the club with some we had no budget of course but some lights, we put candles on the tables, bowls of nuts around, so it just felt a little bit better. And at that time the university circuit was quite important.

Presenter9:24

Right, but big bands, you didn't feel intimidated by dealing with m picking up the phone and talking to managers or having to negotiate fees or convincing them that there would be, you know, enough enough tickets sold. That that all

Presenter9:36

It came naturally to you, did it?

Harvey Goldsmith9:36

Came naturally to you, did it?

Harvey Goldsmith9:39

And it was a challenge. By the end of the summer term, I actually was on the finance committee at the university and I had a secretary. It was just going so well. And then it took over my life and I ended up booking, I think it was twelve colleges and a university along the south coast, all of their events. So it happened very quickly.

Presenter10:03

And nineteen sixty seven you ended up in Haight Ashbury in in uh San Francisco. That seems to me impeccably good timing. Why were you there in the first place?

Harvey Goldsmith10:11

I went to America on an exchange course and um.

Harvey Goldsmith10:16

I bought a Greyhound bus ticket, ninety nine dollars for ninety nine days. I went from one side of America to the other by Greyhound bus.

Speaker 110:24

Yeah.

Harvey Goldsmith10:24

And I saw this mass of people in the park at Golden Gate Park and I thought this looks interesting. Rushed down there and was listening to this music, which happened to be the Grateful Dead. And as one does, I wormed my way backstage and said I'm a promoter from England and whatever. And the Grateful Dead talked to me and I became very friendly with them, and that lasted all the way through. They then spiked my drink and

Harvey Goldsmith10:51

I d I uh lost about two days of my life because they put acid in the Coca-Cola I was drinking.

Presenter10:57

But you yourself didn't think actually I want to drop out. You were still thinking of where's the angle here? How can we market this? How can we turn a buck on this?

Harvey Goldsmith11:08

I d uh dropping out was the single last thing on my mind. I was so excited about all these experiences that I saw that I wanted to just gobble them up and bring them back to England as fast as possible. Tell me about track number three. Van Morrison, a very uh

Harvey Goldsmith11:25

Incredible live concert at The Rainbow and a track called Domino

Harvey Goldsmith11:29

In nineteen seventy six, I was promoting the Rolling Stones and they were doing this big run of shows at Earl's Court. I got a phone call from Bill Wyman to say that Van Morrison wanted to meet me and

Harvey Goldsmith11:40

I'd always loved Van Morrison music. I'd only ever worked with him once. He wasn't easy.

Harvey Goldsmith11:46

And he was looking for a manager. And I said, no, no, no, I don't do management. And

Harvey Goldsmith11:52

He then persuaded me to take him on and um

Harvey Goldsmith11:55

We had a fascinating time. He wanted to come back and live in England.

Harvey Goldsmith12:00

He described exactly the kind of house he wanted to live in. I found the house, rented it for him, picked him up at the airport. He came.

Harvey Goldsmith12:09

He walked in, took one look and said, No, don't like it. I'm going back home. And that was it. I I ended up

Presenter12:14

What was that about? Was he testing you? Was he w why would he do that?

Harvey Goldsmith12:19

He didn't like the vibe.

Harvey Goldsmith12:21

Right. Can't tell you anything more than that. Never got the explanation.

Speaker 112:29

Think it's time for a change.

Speaker 112:32

Do you make it disgusted?

Speaker 112:36

Don't think I'm that I'm strained

Speaker 112:39

Let kiss all go on the ground.

Speaker 112:42

Just some sound risk

Speaker 112:45

Now we have to worry that

Speaker 112:48

Well, who's got once?

Speaker 112:50

What is best? I said, oh, I'm gonna go.

Presenter12:55

Van Morrison and Domino. You've said of yourself, Harvey Goldsmith, I'm not a chaos merchant, I'm a doyenne of order.

Presenter13:02

Yet you're surrounded by so many unpredictable forces. You've got on the one hand, as we've been just hearing about there, the artists themselves, who can be monumentally unpredictable.

Presenter13:13

And then you've got the fickle public.

Presenter13:15

How do you manage to steer a path of some sort of certainty through that?

Harvey Goldsmith13:22

There are certain people that will solve a problem by creating chaos and then being the heroes at solving the problem. I like to look at it in that if there's an issue to be dealt with, the quicker you nip it in the bud the better. I see there is a line at the end of the stage, which is the dividing line. A performer has to jump over that the edge of that stage and react with an audience and the audience at the same time give it back. That's what makes a great event.

Speaker 113:34

Hmm.

Harvey Goldsmith13:48

But in order to get to that point

Harvey Goldsmith13:51

The artist has to be happy in its mind and all the things that they need backstage. And equally, funnily enough, so do the public, because the experience that the public have of going to an event starts the minute they close the door of their house or apartment or whatever. And if the train's late, they get angry. If they're in a traffic jam, they get angry. If the nanny turns up late, they get angry. And I always.

Presenter14:05

Yeah.

Speaker 114:05

Uh

Speaker 114:12

Yeah.

Harvey Goldsmith14:14

Try very hard to make sure that the environment for.

Harvey Goldsmith14:19

The audience is as good, if not better, than it is for the artist because, to me, that interface is so important.

Presenter14:25

You're very c you you're very calm. I mean, is that deep down inside? Are you calm when all those things are happening around you? Are you one of those people who flourishes?

Harvey Goldsmith14:25

Yeah.

Harvey Goldsmith14:31

One of those people who flourished isn't. I'm actually quite well known for being quite short-tempered and whatever. Yes, I'm going to talk to.

Presenter14:36

Yes, I'm going to talk to you about that.

Presenter14:39

I had heard.

Harvey Goldsmith14:42

I'm prepared to take responsibility, so therefore I have to be in control to be able to take responsibility. If I'm in control and I have the responsibility, I have to deliver, and that's what keeps me going.

Presenter14:54

Okay.

Harvey Goldsmith14:55

So that's

Presenter14:56

There's always you've always got your your eye on the prize. So whatever um outrageous events ensue on the way there, you are thinking about that moment when they make it on stage in one piece and your audience who've paid the ticket price are satisfied. That's always what you think. That's absolutely right.

Harvey Goldsmith15:10

That's absolutely right. Yeah. To really deliver the end product. Very important.

Presenter15:14

Okay. Talk about the temper in a moment. Tell me about your next piece of music then. What have you chosen?

Harvey Goldsmith15:19

I'm the ho.

Harvey Goldsmith15:20

I suppose my favorite rock band, the most excited rock band of all time, still at the top. I love them to death. If you just never knew what was going on, and that was the the magic and excitement of that band. And um

Harvey Goldsmith15:37

Besides the material and the and the fantastic songs that Pete's written, they still today just turn me on completely and they're just the most exciting band of all, Barbara O'Reilly.

Speaker 116:07

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 116:11

To prove I'm right.

Speaker 116:15

I don't need to be forgiven.

Presenter16:19

La Who and Barbara O'Reilly So let's talk then, Harvey, about this temper of yours. You go off like a rocket.

Harvey Goldsmith16:25

Um, well I I um I can't stand fools and I can't deal with people that aren't prepared to own up when there's an issue.

Harvey Goldsmith16:35

I do blow off steam, but I can blow off steam with somebody and then take em out for dinner.

Presenter16:40

What do you do? You a shouter? You a thrower of objects?

Harvey Goldsmith16:42

Yeah, no, no, I don't throw things very often, but I do yell a bit.

Presenter16:47

Yes, let's just stop there for a minute. Let's pause. What do you mean you don't throw things very often?

Harvey Goldsmith16:51

Um

Presenter16:52

Uh

Presenter16:53

What's the biggest thing you've seen with somebody?

Harvey Goldsmith16:53

The biggest thing I've thrown at somebody was negotiating with the management of Earl's Court.

Speaker 117:00

Pm

Harvey Goldsmith17:00

I can't remember, it was for Bruce Springsteen or something like that. And um.

Harvey Goldsmith17:04

We were going to finalise the agreement. They took us to a lovely restaurant in Elles Court and there were eight of us. We sat down and we were talking away and they suddenly turned the tables on the deal. They just dropped it out somewhere as the main course was being served and I literally picked the whole table up and dumped it in all the food, everything in their lap and walked out. The next day the deal got done.

Harvey Goldsmith17:26

I think that's the biggest thing I've done, yeah.

Presenter17:28

Um what about at home? I mean, have you got a temper when you're away from the professional arena, or are you the the epitome of reason with your wife? I mean, you've been married how long? A good sort of thirty odd years?

Harvey Goldsmith17:39

Uh seventy one we got married, so thirty-eight years.

Presenter17:41

Thirty-eight years.

Harvey Goldsmith17:42

I do lose my temper at home. I'm a bit more easy today than I was.

Presenter17:44

Bombard.

Harvey Goldsmith17:47

With marriage, it takes two to tango, so I used to get back just as much as I threw.

Harvey Goldsmith17:54

It's just what I am. I find that I can get my frustrations out.

Harvey Goldsmith17:58

Very quickly, it's blown over and then I'm back to normal.

Presenter18:02

But then of course it I mean if you have a temper, people remember that, don't don't they? I mean people think, God, I was in the room when Harvey did whatever.

Harvey Goldsmith18:06

Yeah.

Presenter18:09

I don't want to deal with him again. Do you not find that it sort of sours relationships, even though you might be happy to take people out to lunch and you might say water under the bridge for the people who've been on the receding end of that sort of fierceness they might be terrified of dealing with you again?

Harvey Goldsmith18:25

Um I can only tell you that through the various number of assistants who get the brunt of it that I have, most of them I think would happily say they'd come back and work for me tomorrow.

Presenter18:35

I was going to ask you that. Yes, that was.

Harvey Goldsmith18:37

I see a lot of them.

Presenter18:38

So

Presenter18:40

What's what's the average time that your PA works for you?

Harvey Goldsmith18:44

It varies. A couple of years, three years. Some were much longer.

Presenter18:46

Mm, five.

Presenter18:50

Right. Some more music then. What have we got next?

Harvey Goldsmith18:53

Um I suppose the only real music hero I've ever had, and that was Miles Davis.

Harvey Goldsmith19:01

Probably one of the single most difficult artists I'd ever worked with in my life, who actually threatened to kill me the first time I met him. And then we became great friends. And what did you?

Presenter19:11

Did what do you mean he properly threatened to kill you? I mean, did you believe he might actually try and do it?

Harvey Goldsmith19:15

I was bringing Miles Davis over to Europe. It was very hot, it was July, and I thought this is nice, I'll lay on a kind of buffet. I had his huge tray of watermelon, which I thought would be fantastic, because you didn't see watermelon much nearly because I had it all laid out on a bed of ice laid out. He walked into the room, and I could see there was like fire coming out of his eyes, and I thought he was going to actually knock me flying.

Harvey Goldsmith19:44

And I had no idea what the issue was, and of course, watermelon

Harvey Goldsmith19:49

For a black American was like literally as about as bad as you could possibly get.

Harvey Goldsmith19:55

Watermelon's a statement of slavery and uh

Harvey Goldsmith19:59

I didn't know this at all, by the way, and it was something that that black Americans just looked at as a kind of probably the worst insult you could possibly do to somebody. He had his huge row, he went on stage and played a brilliant show, which is always a good sign. And a most extraordinary musician again changed the face of music, could create emotions inside you that nobody else can, as far as I'm concerned.

Presenter21:25

Miles Davis and All Blues. Let's talk about Live Aid then, Harvey. By 1985, I mean, it's clear from all of the names that you've mentioned, you know, you'd work with some extraordinarily big figures, you said, The Who, there was Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elton John. But Live Aid, when it happened, was unlike anything else in terms of the roster of artists and the scale of the concert. How was it originally conceived?

Harvey Goldsmith21:50

I was in the middle of a really busy period. I was taking wham to China, which was the first time of a Western pop band.

Harvey Goldsmith21:59

Had gone to China and here was Bob banging on my door saying, We're going to do this concert and I want you to do it. And I said, I just cannot deal with it. Call me when I get back. And then I had Bruce Springsteen coming over and playing Wembley Stadium. So I was just up to my neck in it. I got back from China and literally walked in the office the next day and Bob was standing outside and he said to me, You've got to do these concerts. And we talked about it.

Harvey Goldsmith22:23

And

Harvey Goldsmith22:24

You know, obviously I got the message very quickly. I wasn't really sure what was doable and what wasn't. We went down to the BBC and we discussed with them the notion of literally doing all day of music. It'd never been done before. And then from then it started to grow.

Presenter22:41

And when it was Status Quero, wasn't it, who opened the the concert? Where were you when Status Quro went onstage?

Harvey Goldsmith22:44

Okay.

Harvey Goldsmith22:47

I was backstage. When Bob dropped the bombshell at um that he wanted two concerts, one in America and one in London, at the same time. Just remember, no mobile phones, no computers, no faxes, there were telexes. And I remember sitting up in one of the production offices at the BBC with a big satellite map and a pair of calipers trying to figure out where the satellite would be. So just get that into context. My day at Wembley was simply clocks. I bought 40 clocks. I even hung one round my neck. And I sent a message round to everybody. I said, I don't care what time you go on, I only care what time you come off. It was critical that nobody overran and everybody pretty much played the game. So my day was about clocks and getting people off. Everybody else's was about having a great day and getting people on.

Presenter23:42

It's it's a very uh different thing, is it? Do doing those big stadium rock events to doing um stadium opera. Tell me about that and tell me about uh working with Pavarotti.

Harvey Goldsmith23:54

We just became instant friends and remained so until his uh unfortunate demise. And um

Harvey Goldsmith24:01

It was Pavarotti's thirtieth anniversary of performing. He wanted to do something special. It was just after the dreadful hurricanes and the all the trees had blown down in the park.

Harvey Goldsmith24:12

And I said, why don't we do something in Hyde Park?

Harvey Goldsmith24:15

whatever money we raise, let's give it to redo the trees. And the night before it was so hot we were actually concerned we added lots more standpipes for water people in case they were going to pass out. Woke up the next day, it was raining.

Harvey Goldsmith24:31

Anyway, concert started and um

Harvey Goldsmith24:35

Pavarotti went on stage, and you know, we had the Prince and Princess of Wales there, most of the cabinet were there, half of the rest of the royal family, and 125,000 fans to boot. And after the second or third number, I could see jostling going on with people having umbrellas up, and other people couldn't see. And I rushed on stage, grabbed a mic, and I said, Could you please put your umbrellas down? And the very first person to do it was the Princess of Wales. She did it. Pavarotti just he was agog.

Harvey Goldsmith25:07

and made it into a great kind of famous concept. So the track I've I've chosen is For Man Onesco, and it was the the song that he dedicated to Princess Dinah.

Speaker 125:25

Uh

Speaker 125:39

Oh Maria, Colal Maria Cidraswar.

Speaker 125:47

But all this glory.

Presenter26:20

Luciano Pavarotti singing Dona non vide mai simile acuesta. I never before beheld such a lady from Puccini's Manonlesco. Um Harvey Goldsmith, you've enjoyed tremendous success, that's clear, but ten years ago the plane sailing stopped, you you hit a rock and your company got into financial difficulty, you went bust. I mean it must have been a devastating time for you.

Harvey Goldsmith26:42

Well, thank goodness I didn't go bust. The company did get into financial difficulties.

Harvey Goldsmith26:49

We just couldn't keep it together anymore and the company went into liquidation.

Presenter26:53

Do you think you were you over ambitious, do you think?

Harvey Goldsmith26:57

I suppose in hindsight what I and my ex partner were trying to do was to build up a definitive entertainment company. But I think what happened was we expanded too quickly. We had a very, very successful movie. And then we were in production of two more movies. I think we started to believe in our own publicity a little bit. And I think we probably expanded too quickly.

Presenter27:18

How did it affect you personally in terms of I mean, you you you clearly have to be a very robust character, you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself down from all sorts of things that that are fired at you all the time, all of these very difficult situations, keeping all the balls in the air. But but at the time that that happened, did it have a a personal effect on you?

Harvey Goldsmith27:34

Um

Harvey Goldsmith27:36

I was devastated. I'd actually spent most of the year on the road. My promoting site was still doing I was literally propping up the whole company. I was working twenty four hours a day, literally, and this was in the back of my mind, and these reports are coming, and the accounts are telling me. And I I was absolutely devastated.

Harvey Goldsmith27:56

I wanted to take some time off, but then a group of people got together.

Harvey Goldsmith28:01

When they read about it and said, You can't stop, and um we're going to put some money out and we'll restart.

Harvey Goldsmith28:07

It took me about three or four years to really build back up again, and I was quite determined to do so.

Presenter28:13

I mean, has it knocked your confidence to a degree do you find yourself behaving in a in a slightly more careful way? Maybe n maybe m more risk averse?

Harvey Goldsmith28:21

Definitely more risk averse.

Harvey Goldsmith28:24

So I just learned that you literally have to take complete responsibility for all of your actions.

Presenter28:30

Tell me about your seventh track. What have we got?

Harvey Goldsmith28:33

Jeff Beck, a wonderful human being, probably the best guitarist in the world. I'd known and worked with him for thirty odd years sporadically. And then I suddenly got a phone call and he said that he was feeling very frustrated, that his life wasn't going anywhere he wanted to change and would I

Harvey Goldsmith28:52

Help him. I said, Yeah, I'd love to help him and he said, No, no, I want you to manage me So we teamed up just before Christmas and um we've had a ball ever since and he is a beautiful guy, he's a genius at playing and um I'm really enjoying working with him.

Presenter29:40

Jeff Beck and Nadia. Uh Harvey Goldsmith, how many do you have just one BlackBerry or iPhone or how many

Harvey Goldsmith29:47

One phone. I have loads of phones at home, but I only use one.

Presenter29:50

And when does it get turned off at the end of the day?

Harvey Goldsmith29:53

When the battery runs out That's it it's never off

Presenter29:58

Yeah.

Harvey Goldsmith29:59

I'm afraid I live a life, whether I like it or not. My wife absolutely hates it that I have to be in touch with people. I'm in a service business and you have to provide a service to other people.

Harvey Goldsmith30:11

That's what it is.

Presenter30:11

But what about your wife? I mean, if you've been travelling for a few weeks, say, you come home, sit down to dinner with her for the first time in three weeks, is the phone still on?

Harvey Goldsmith30:21

She has tried to throw it out the window a number of times.

Presenter30:24

So yes, then. What about finding space for family life in all of this? Because you've been married for thirty odd years, thirty eight years, and you've got one son, Jonathan. Do you have you managed to devote as much time to that as you think you should have?

Harvey Goldsmith30:39

There's no doubt that I didn't really devote enough time to our son when he was growing up, and it was just the way it was. I regret that a lot. But we now

Harvey Goldsmith30:49

We have a pretty good relationship and um

Presenter30:51

And he's not gone into the business though, isn't he? He's not

Harvey Goldsmith30:53

No, he's actually in the restaurant business. And um

Presenter30:56

Business.

Harvey Goldsmith30:58

Hey

Harvey Goldsmith30:59

I found it quite difficult being in my shadow. Wherever he went it was always assumed that it was because of me. And he wants to find a life where he's in control, he's in charge, and it's because of him, not because of me. I respect that. It's quite difficult. Quite difficult.

Presenter31:13

Hmm.

Presenter31:15

On the island not only no family and no Blackberry, no audience, no huge egos to deal with, no tour buses or planes, or it'll drive you crackers.

Harvey Goldsmith31:27

No, I'd love it. Would you? Yeah. I'm quite straight. I mean, I do actually turn off. We have a family home abroad. I try and spend

Harvey Goldsmith31:36

a month in the summer. Even though there's always work going on, I do relax and I do have a balance and I'm very fortunate in having a an understanding wife.

Harvey Goldsmith31:49

who can help me with that because you do need a balance. But I I quite looking forward to this because it's such a shift change for me. And if it ever happened, I'm I'm thinking of all the things that I would like to do.

Harvey Goldsmith32:02

And um having Boy Scout training is going to help me a lot in surviving, I think.

Presenter32:07

You were a very good scout, were you not? You were a Queen's Scout.

Harvey Goldsmith32:10

I was, yes.

Presenter32:10

Yeah, which is the top drawer, Scout.

Presenter32:13

Oh yeah.

Harvey Goldsmith32:14

Oh yeah, I'm I'm good at that.

Presenter32:16

Okay. Tell me about your final piece then.

Harvey Goldsmith32:19

I've always had a balance of comedy in my life, and one of the most exciting times I had was working with Monty Python. I loved them all dearly, and

Harvey Goldsmith32:30

We toured them not enough, unfortunately, but all over the world, and the last sketch was always the parrot sketch.

Harvey Goldsmith32:38

And every time I hear it I just fall about laughing.

Speaker 132:41

Beautiful plumage is paining, you know. It's not paining, it's passed on.

Speaker 132:47

This parrot is no more. It's ceased to be. It has expired. The parrot has gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff, bereft of life. It rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisy.

Presenter33:09

Still laughing. Monty Python's Flying Circus and the Dead Parrot Sketch. So I'm uh going to give you, Harvey, the complete works of Shakespeare and the Torah, and you can choose one other book. What book would you like to take with you?

Harvey Goldsmith33:22

I am the world's most useless do-it-yourself person.

Presenter33:25

Okay.

Harvey Goldsmith33:26

So I think to while my time away the Reader's Digest complete do-it-yourself manual.

Harvey Goldsmith33:32

It is the definitive guide on do-it-yourself, and I think out of it I ought to be able to learn to do something.

Presenter33:35

And I think

Presenter33:37

All right, you can have that. And a luxury, too, for this island. What will your luxury be?

Harvey Goldsmith33:42

I've always wanted to play piano.

Harvey Goldsmith33:44

And never had the time or the room or some reason or other, I'd love a piano.

Presenter33:50

Nice.

Harvey Goldsmith33:50

Right. And I think I could while away my time learning to play.

Presenter33:54

Okay, it's yours. And if you had to choose just one of the eight discs that we've got here today, which one disc would it be?

Harvey Goldsmith34:02

That's very difficult, I guess the uh Benny Goodman sing, sing, sing.

Presenter34:09

Okay, it's yours. Harvey Goldsmith, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Harvey Goldsmith34:13

Thank you.

Presenter34:20

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.