I WROTE ON social media in recent weeks that I felt as if I had entered a generational time zone in which people I know – friends and relatives, quite a number of them writers, artists and musicians – had begun to fall off the very edge of existence as death left its bitter calling card.
But I did not expect – you never do, do you? – that one particular individual I had known for some 40 years and worked closely with on numerous Beat-fuelled ventures since the millennium would also, so soon, join that club of fallen mortals.
Guitarist and songwriter, bandleader and journalist, poet and spoken word performer, Heath Common was a remarkably versatile talent and a definite one-off. A Yorkshireman who attached himself to his county, to the city of Leeds and the North of England more generally, he lived several lives in the near 70 years he wandered this earthly realm.
Our paths first crossed in the mid-1980s when I was the arts editor of the evening newspaper which served the town of Halifax and I interviewed him about a new record he was releasing. Although he was a teacher at the time, he was leading an experimental new wave duo called ik who would make a few minor ripples of their own.
Pictured above: Heath Common
On one occasion, in the Netherlands, ik supported William S. Burroughs at a gig in Amsterdam and a disagreement with the veteran novelist later ensued, just one of many adventures Common and his various accomplices would enjoy in a series of livewire campaigns in the studio and on the road.
By the later years of that decade, he had become the songwriter and musical mentor to a duo called the Rhythm Sisters, who, for a time, enjoyed a successful recording career and established a touring and festival reputation. At a similar time, Common was also writing about the booming Madchester scene for Melody Maker, becoming, along the way, a friend and confidant of Mark E. Smith of the Fall.
His double – or was it triple? – identity would also involve the headship of a tough Manchester secondary school in the city suburb of Moss Side. He established a professional reputation as a strong and encouraging leader in an institution that was located in one of the nation’s most socially deprived districts.
Pictured above: Common’s The Dream of Miss Dee (2014)
But his creative instincts were always drawn to making music and particularly that intelligent brand of rock where the excitements of the sound could achieve common ground with lyrics shaped from literate ideas.
He found the radical voices of the Beat Generation – Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and their wider crew – most inspiring to this process and this combination rekindled our connection around the time my book Text and Drugs and Rock‘n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture was published in 2013.
His recording pathway was now focused on spoken word records in which his poetry, with strong musical accompaniment, became the heart of the act. The Dream of Miss Dee, Tales of a Young Life in Halifax & Notting Hill Gate and BeatsBox were among a sequence of albums released though Hi4Head Records during the 2010s. His verse records attracted positive attention and led to suggestions that he was that rare British wordsmith carrying the Beat torch into the new century.
Pictured above: Spoken word record Encounters with Light (2016)
After our re-connection, we worked together in various ways: at literary festivals in Yorkshire and Manchester, in discussion at pub events and larger scale productions like 2015’s Still Howling, a 60th anniversary celebration of Ginsberg’s great poem ‘Howl’, in which Common, with his band the Lincoln 72s, was a key musical ingredient.
In 2019, we cooperated on Kerouac on Screen, a 50th anniversary commemoration of the death of the On the Road author framed in film. Then, in 2022, we devised, in league with composer John Hardie, a further stage show entitled Kerouac Lives!, a multi-media piece developed in response to the Centenary of Kerouac’s birth. Both live show and album, it incorporated new songs, dramatised readings and conversation.
Pictured above: Heath Common, John Hardie and Simon Warner collaborated on the centenary show Kerouac Lives! Patrick Wise and Jessika Mae performed the original songs on CD
It would be our last project in tandem. Heath Common, or Bill Byford as he was also widely known, would endure a series of health setbacks not long after that Kerouac centennial presentation and the sad news came of his passing on September 6th, 2024, aged 69.
A devout Roman Catholic, like Kerouac, a huge sports fan, like Kerouac, and a lifelong follower of Leeds United and Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Common was at his most committed and excited when music and words, poetry and fiction, Beat writing specifically, could be integrated into an artistic whole.
As he told Rock and the Beat Generation back in 2022: ‘As a person I’ve definitely been massively influenced by Beat culture – not least by the philosophy of trying never to stand still and forever pursuing new directions.
‘During my working life I’ve been variously employed – amongst other things – as a journalist for national newspapers and publications, a songwriter, a recording artist, a secondary school headteacher, a broadcaster and a scaffolder. I’m sure that without the influence of Beat culture I would not have tried to keep moving forward and moving on so obsessively.’
Editor’s note: A link Heath Common’s recordings can be found here. Details of his label Hi4Head Records are here.
See also: ‘Beat Meetings #6: Heath Common & William S. Burroughs’, May 15th, 2023; ‘Beat Soundtrack #9: Heath Common’, January 4th, 2022
I’m a psychedelic Catholic. My sister Ana is a Roman Catholic nun & vice president of the Sisters of Mercy. It’s wonderful to reflect upon the memory of Heath & I’m interested in Leeds United returning to EPL AS MY HOMETOWN TEAM THE SAN FRANCISCO 49ers own a fair piece of Leeds. Simon is a shining light in the stratosphere and Rock & the Beat Generation archive amazing
So sorry to hear that he has passed. What a fine and fitting tribute to his exceptional life, career, and contributions.