I've posted this drawing of Mike Oldfield which appeared in the NME and reflected the wealth he acquired from his huge album Tubular Bells which stayed in the charts for several centuries. He was thought to be a tree hugging hippy but has grown up to own homes scattered around the world and worth zillions. We can only hope the tax man pins him down one day. 

The Greg Lake story that I've never finished was the main reason that Benyon hung up his pen. He had an opportunity to write some Lyrics for Lake's first Solo Album after the break up of ELP which seemed a good idea because he was a fan of Gary Moore's guitar playing. Gary died a few years back but he was a fast, really fast, and Tommy Eyre, now also dead, was on piano. Tommy had started off playing in the Joe Cocker band and he liked a drink but according to Benyon was good guy along with the drummer Ted MacKenna  who had been in the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Of course Alex is also dead and but I hear Ted is hanging on and has a proper job. Anyway, Benyon's idea was to see how a 'Rock Star' like Greg operated at close quarters so he could record it all in a book. But it went horribly wrong because he felt he had been attracted to the darkside of the 'business' and the satirical edge he once had been blunted. It wasn't the reason why he left the NME which had been shrinking in  size and circulation under the guidance inadequate editors although the stories of the NME at its peak selling zillions of copies are greatly exaggerated the average sales were about 148, 000 a week but of course it did have a large readership with single copies being read by several people before being rolled into a giant spliff.

The fact is that when I worked with Benyon on 'Gaspo! How to make it as a Rock Star' it sold 30,000 copies but the spineless suits at IPC were terrified of it and refused to publish any more copies under the guidance of lawyers. Some revolution, eh kids!