Freya Miller's first act of managerial muscle-flexing on Shaky's behalf was to get in touch with Adrian Owlett for advice. "( want Shaky to work live again," she told him. "How on earth do I go about finding a real rock and roll gig?" "The same way as you find any gig," came the swift reply. "You go out there and get it!" This wasn't Freya's idea of fun, though, so Adrian agreed to set up a tentative "come-back" gig with a few old friends. Calling Rufus Robey, one of the men who first booked Shaky into the Northcote Arms exactly ten years before, Adrian managed to organize a one-off special at a well-known rock 'n' roll haunt in Southall called the White Hart. Robey was so enthusiastic about promoting his old protege again that he even offered to pay the somewhat generous fee of 900 pounds for the show, banking on the success of Elvis to recoup his outlay. On top of this, he got together with his partners at the White Hart to plan an after-gig party, to which all the old Shakin'Stevens cronies would be invited, along with any new friends from the West End that Shaky might wish to include.

Adrian's only other problem was to find a new band- it was obvious by this time that the old Sunsets wouldn't be too keen on returning to back their old colleague, even if he had wanted them to, which he didn't. So, almost at the last minute, Adrian arranged for his own band, Shades, to step in and make the show. When negotiating with Robey for the gig, 300 pounds was set aside out of the total for the band, so Shades weren't too unhappy- at first. The problem was Shaky. He didn't want to do the gig. After so long in a successful West End theater show, he just couldn't envisage himself back in some sweaty rock 'n' roll club again- it would have been like starting allover again. But Adrian was firm. "Look, mate - you're just not in a position to turn it down - you owe me money, and it's just before Christmas. You need it." So Shaky agreed, reluctantly. Rehearsals went badly form the start. Shades are a pop band - they had done their homework on the songs and learnt the music thoroughly beforehand, so that when they turned up at the Ashley Park Hotel bright and early on a Monday morning, just two days before the gig, they were well prepared for rehearsal. Shaky, however, turned up much later and it was immediately obvious that he hadn't done anything at all in the way of pre-rehearsal preparation.

They tried hard, but by the end of the second day spirits were low and Shaky had had enough. Stomping angrily out of the room after some minor disagreement over lyrics, he cried, 'Who needs this stupid gig anyway, I don't! You can put the money in the blind box for alii care!" Adrian and Shades stood open-mouthed and horrified, as the door slammed petulantly behind him.
The next day Adrian's phone rang. It was Shaky, unaware that his behavior of the previous day had left an unfavorable impression on his former patron. "Are you coming down tonight?" he eagerly inquired of Adrian, who was saddened that he hadn't even bothered to preface the invitation with an apology. "No, Shaky, I'll come and see Shades do their solo set, of course, but then I think I'll go and have a curry somewhere!" Shaky's hurt tone at this suggested to Adrian that the boy's narcissistic behavior was becoming unstoppable and so, with a slightly heavy heart, he attended the new, improved Shaky Show that same night. Rugus Robey and his colleagues at The White Hart, including Harry Holland, had really gone to town for Shaky.. Expecting some fancy theatrical types as well as a selection of affectionate rock 'n roll fans, they had laid out a fine spread of wine and cold food. The gig was fine, Shaky lacked conviction, but the audience were pleased and that was the main thing. Freya was there too, of course, watching her new property in action and experiencing a real fifties-style rock 'n' roll event for the first time. At the end of the night, however, neither Shaky nor Freya could be found, they had simply collected the fee and melted away into the night. Adrian was distraught at the idea of having to face the promoters with the news that yet again Shaky's lack of regard for others had displayed itself in the worst possible manner. Whatever the motives for running out like that, in Adrian's opinion, it was unforgivable. He got his 300 pounds for Shades' through Terry Parsons a few days later, of course, but it took some chasing. After that, Adrian kept away from Shaky as much as possible.

Early in 1980, Ray Cooney called Freya to ask if Shaky could handle the opening date of the touring Elvis show, which was to be launched in Bournemouth. They only needed him for the first date, which was lucky as that was all he was prepared to do. Adrian received a call from Shaky a few days before the show. Again, he appeared to be unaware of Adrian's cool manner or what had caused it. In jubilant mood, he announced that Carole was pregnant for the third time, a son, Dean James, was to be born later that year, and invited Adrian to accompany him down to Boumemouth. Adrian congratulated Shaky warmly about the good news, he knew Shaky always wanted to have a large family, but seized the opportunity to speak firmly to him, hoping that at last he might get through.
"Shaky, there's something else, I know that this is going to sound materialistic, but rather than come with you to Bournemouth and so forth, alii really want from you now is my money back. You're earning enough now in record royalties to pay it, I know you are. Please, if there's a slate to wipe clean, then let's do it now with the outstanding debt that's between us." Adrian was about to get into deep waters with the tax man and with his own accountant over the loan, which had come from company funds. Although he had struggled through one financial year with it on the books, it was now either going to have to be repaid or taxed as wages, a blow he could ill afford, and he knew it. Shaky did pay him back, but not right away.

Disappointed by Adrian's "unfriendly" attitude, he went to Bounemouth alone. It wasn't until March 31 st, the eleventh hour before the new financial year, that he flung a cheque in the pleading Adrian's face with as much bad grace as he could muster. During 1980 CBS released Shaky's first album, "Take One" along with the follow-up single to "Hot Dog", "Hey Mae". Neither sold well. Stu Colman was hard at work producing the next single, "Marie Marie", released in August of that same year which is when pinball buttons finally began to register a score, and the tills began to ring money. Freya put Shaky's live interest in the hands of an agency - NEMS, who had once handled the affairs of Elton John and the Beatles- to try and get a proper tour together. But it was an uphill struggle, even with the minor record success that Shaky had enjoyed. David Betteridge at NEMS, who had once sat alongside Paul Barrett at a small Cardiff Agency called Odeon Associates, recalls the blank disinterest from promoters of all kinds during that year. "Colleges weren't interested in Shaky any more: 1981 was definitely not the year for rock 'n' roll on that circuit, and yet you couldn't book Shaky into the established rock 'n' roll clubs, he wasn't the real thing any more."

David managed to string a few dates together, but the money wasn't up to Freya's exacting standards. She wanted more, and when David told her that he couldn't get it, Shaky was taken abruptly off their books. Terry Parsons re-scheduled the dates, reducing their numbers but getting a little more money, mainly with the venues where he had strong connections. When they ran out, so did the date-sheet. It was all a bit schizophrenic in the end, old Shaky fans turned up to the gigs but were shocked to see the long-haired Albert Lee using a wah-wah pedal on stage, while the Elvis fans or kids culled from the success of the singles couldn't quite get to grips with Shaky's stage act. It was a bemused time.

It was March, 1981, that Shaky finally hit the jackpot of success with "This Ole House". Persistence, luck and a good producer combined with a willing public finally did the trick, only ten years after his career had begun. Experts who continually compare Shaky's career with that of Elvis Presley tend to forget that Elvis made it to superstardom at a speed which would have defied gravity, under a year. Shaky waited a lot longer. The "hick from the sticks" image which can be applied to both Elvis and Shaky holds good, though, with huge sums of money suddenly at their disposal they both rushed out to buy big, shiny cars and big, cavernous houses and they both handed their business interests over to their father/mother-figure managers.
Unlike Elvis, Shaky had a long past, and it was considered to be a problem when presenting him as a clean-cut pin-up to a young audience. Was it a good idea to try and hide Carole and the children from the public gaze? And to deny that the Sunsets ever existed as a working entity? Surely it must have been obvious that some bright journalist was going to discover the truth in the end, Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets may not have been as universal as sliced bread during the seventies, but they were there, and most journalists in the music business knew all about them and had been dragged down to see them by the tirelessly enthusiastic Barrett. To suddenly pretend that Shakin' Stevens, an unusually memorable name, had appeared as if from the mist must have been almost to invite a public expose. Shaky's public life since that first big hit had been a series of national newspaper double-page spread exposure, telling the public that here was a nice, normal man with three children and a loving wife. Perhaps in the end the attempts to rewrite Shaky's history only served to draw more attention to his marriage and background. Either way these revelations do not seem to have damaged his popularity or effected his chart placings. But one can't help but wonder what will happen when the exposes end and the man is left alone with his talent.

The serious music papers interest in Shaky, created by his success, waned once they fully realized the extent of Freya's control. When they discovered that Freya was going to be actually sitting in on their interviews, interjecting the words "no comment" whenever they asked some bland question about his former life, they soon gave up in disgust. A journalist from 1V Times ( circulation 6 million) was brusquely told "Shaky never answers personal questions, O.K.? ~emember you are talking to a star whose disc has been number one in Australia, Belgium, Israel and South Africa and who is the first ever CBS artist with three singles concurrently in the German Top Thirty, so stick to questions concerning his meteoric (!) rise to fame."
A journalist from the Melody Maker apparently went so far as to mention Shaky's stage role in Elvis, to be told firmly, "It would be pleasant if we could not write about the Elvis show." A well-respected journalist whose words can be studied in the columns of the "top people's paper" was greeted at his first interview with the words, "All journalists are idiots, anyway," from Shaky himself, who may have been mindful that this is the same journalist who rejected his band a few years earlier, when their supplicatory positions were reversed. As if this weren't enough a lady journalist who may be ranked among the top three national pop writers found Shaky's fingers stuffed meaningfully up her nostrils during her only encounter with the petulant star.

Two theories have been postulated as to why Shaky now speaks to so few journalists. The main one is that Freya knows she can create an instant demand for her artist if she shuts him away from the public gaze, being careful to vet all output to make sure that his "clean" image is maintained, and that all pictures study the right profile, Shaky now has just one official photographer, from whom all exclusive yet expensive pictures emanate. The other reason could be that if Shaky was allowed in too close proximity with journalists, whose inability to "discover" him for ten years makes them an object of considerable dislike on his part, he would generate such bad press for himself that his career would die quickly.
His basic inarticulacy would also be fairly swiftly spotted, his careful answers in the few controlled interviews he conducts these days have been well-rehearsed beforehand, which is another reason why Freya gets alarmed when journalists stray from the subject she has chosen. A favorite story which has been related many times in the Sunsets' circle concerns a radio interview Shaky gave during the mid seventies.
The intelligent, friendly interviewer said beforehand "Right, Shaky, I'm just going to ask you a few simple questions, like what's your real name, how old you are, how long have you been in the business and who are your favorite songsters. OK?" Shaky considered carefully, and then nodded. The tape was switched on. And a cheery introduction to the interview effected. The questioning began. "How old are you Shaky?" " Michael Barratt" came the answer "...er, what's your real name?" "twenty-nine years", and so on. The interviewer had changed the order of the questions, and Shaky was completely confused! Eventually, admist howls of mirth from the band (fortunately this was a pre- recorded interview) the interviewer wrote the answers down on a piece of paper for Shaky to hold, and carefully asking the questions in the right order this time, finished the interview. Shaky was just so concerned with how he was going to come over and what he was going to say, that he'd stopped actually listening to what the interviewer was saying.
He is much more confident these days, and presumably will continue to improve as success and the continual round of promotional visits which success brings with it increase in number. The ready smile and comment "I just love kids" is already rolling off his tongue with the ease of a practiced politician. There may even come a time when Freya can send him off to do interviews on his own.
The most interesting thing about Freya Miller is that where her protege styles his image on King Elvis, consciously or otherwise, Freya has publicly decided to style herself on Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis's multi-millionaire manager. Why on earth would Freya want to associate herself with this image? Not only that, but she has titled herself "The Major", which is two whole ranks below a Colonel! By this comparison Freya may mean to suggest that she dominates Shaky's life and controls the way he is packaged and presented to the public, as Parker did with Elvis. If this is true, is it really a good thing, either for Shaky or his audience?
She's good at Taking Care of Business, however. Freya approaches her managerial role rather like a tough headmistress, the only difference between herself and a headmistress being Freya's use of the profane. She's not terribly bothered about who she uses it on, either, from the President of CBS Records in New York to one of her top session musicians, all have felt the sting of her needle-sharp tongue. The last world-wide Shaky tour was a mammoth operation involving top lighting, sound, rigging and trucking crews with an almost star-studded array of musicians in the entourage, all jumping to attention when she spoke and doing previously unheard of things like cutting their hair or going on diets at her command.
She pays good wages, but in return demands total loyalty and submission from her staff. One night in Germany, a few members of the entourage behaved stupidly, getting drunk and letting off a foam fire extinguisher in one of the hotel rooms. When the hysterical hotel manager brought in the tough German police, complete with their alsation dogs to clear the rooms of everyone connected with the tour, the crew were not simply chastened, as you might expect, but plain terrified of how Freya would react when she found out. The entire crew, complete with musicians, waited in nervous anticipation the following evening at the venue, for Freya's mighty axe to fall. When the young valet from Shaky's dressing room sent out a call around the theater, "Freya wants to see everybody right now in her room!" they crept down the corridors with quaking hearts and all stood together before her, like naughty schoolboys. Rather than giving them a collective dressing down, she took each man individually and tore him to pieces in front of the rest, dismissing him abruptly from the room when she had finished with him, until finally she was left with just the culprits, she had known who they were all along, of course, having used that mythical "eye" at the back of her head some hours before. Needless to say, everyone lied, to a man.

Although the antics weren't exactly world-shattering- especially for a rock 'n' roll band, no one wanted to admit their involvement for fear of the consequences. Shaky is the only naughty schoolboy whose antics Freya will tolerate during the lengthy tours of Europe, Australia and New Zealand where he has been packing in the audiences like wild sardines, as long as they don't affect his clean cut image. Stories of his drinking and over-the-top behavior still circulate, but strictly off the record, as Freya, with her reputation as a Martinet ensures that they do not reach the press. But although Shaky may still be drinking, the last tour was dubbed the "Moet" tour from the publicity- attracting clause in the contract stipulating that a bottle of vintage champagne be available in every dressing room, he is definitely bored, everyone has noticed that. Standing on the stage doesn't offer Shaky the same excitement that it once did. Sometimes, when the audience goes really crazy, he, too, picks up a burst of energy from them, but it's becoming increasingly rare. His live performance lacks enthusiasm, despite the fact that behind him on stage have stood some of Europe's most respected musicians, like Micky Gee, Geraint Watkins (both now back with Dave Edmunds), and Billy Bremner (another musician borrowed from the Edmunds camp). Micky Gee doesn't go out on the road with Shaky any more, but still contributes much to the making of the hit records, he worked closely on the hit "Oh Julie" which he allegedly turned from a concept in Shaky's mind into a song, with the help of Stu Colman and the other musicians.
The studio situation with Shaky is easy, he is eager to help and to please and is ready to try anything new, a necessary asset which pleased even Charlie Gillet when he tried Shaky out for a few sessions with Track, back in the long-distant past. It's harder to stand behind him for a live show, however. Throughout his years on the road with a band, Shaky never really learned to playa musical instrument, unless you can count those three chords he learned on the guitar during his teens, which served his purpose fine, then.

When Shaky finds himself sharing a stage with a bunch of professional side- men, all of whom can sight-read music to the highest standards, he becomes unsure of himself. Not mixing with them off-stage doesn't help, he stays with Freya in different hotels and keeps himself locked away from them backstage, preferring to stay with Freya and discuss his career endlessly. When he arrives on-stage for the pre-show sound check, it's a long time after the musicians, who have been tuning up and getting their balance "just right" with the sound crew. His first objection is usually to the volume of the monitors, which are speakers positioned on the stage so that the band can hear what they're playing. Much larger speakers point towards the audience, but if a band had to rely on them for their sound balance, things would go wrong quickly as they inevitably stand behind these. Hence a monitor system, is standard for all bands these days. Shaky's monitors, however, are larger and can go louder than most bands need to fill an entire auditorium. That sound up on stage can go loud. But never loud enough for Shaky's taste, so his first move is to ask the sound man to crank them up with the emphasis on his vocals, so that he can hear himself. Then he begins a lengthy process of pulling guitars up, drums down, bass up and then down again, perhaps because of his nervousness in front of these slightly awe-inspiring musicians or perhaps because with so many hit singles behind him, he feels the need to strive for ever better perfection in his sound. Finally, with the sound at a level which is beyond the pain barrier of most normal musicians, he turns to the band as a formality and says, "Is that all right for you?". with one eye on the ever-present Freya who is usually watching them from the floor, they grin and nod: "Sure, Shaky, that's just fine," before dashing off stage.
Shaky's successful career has survived throughout 1982, complete with block-busting tour and a Christmas single which almost looked set to make the last Number One of the year, although it was pipped to the post by a completely unknown act, Rene and Renato. Another rival for the No.1 sport was someone with the experience, talent and wiliness to survive over twenty years as both rock 'n' roll star and pop singer, Cliff Richard, who readily adapted himself to the changing times and the fickleness of public taste, riding the low times with dignity and a charm which endeared him to even his strongest critics. He unashamedly takes material which is not his own and put his own Cliff-style stamp on it, usually improving it beyond the point where the original can even be remembered, as did Elvis in his early days. Shaky is more stubborn, however. While insisting that everything he does is original (not counting the singles, like "Green Door", which was actually lined up by Charlie Gillett for the un-released Track Recordings, but never used), he nevertheless looks and moves like a pale copy of Elvis, opens and closes his live shows with Elvis numbers and relies for his recording success on close musical copies of Johnny Burnette arrangements, albeit excellently produced.
Will he ever "crack" the States? Informed opinion over there thinks it highly unlikely. Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand were starved of Elvis in person throughout his lengthy career, so this new, rather likable though pale copy can get away with success, however brief, in these countries. But America? The home of the King? It's likely that they will be more discerning. Think how the British public would react if four American boys came over the Atlantic sporting Beatie hair-cuts and false Liverpudlian accents, singing Beatie songs in thin, immature voices. They wouldn't last long, although the British public will tolerate (just!) young mod bands who style themselves on the Beatles and base themselves on these shores. In America there is a whole industry of Elvis clones, talented and otherwise, who go to extraordinary lengths to make a living out of the Elvis shadow. But they are tolerated by their own countrymen. A young English singer who just happens to move like Elvis while he sings a medley of Elvis songs, would for all his protestations to the contrary, be taken for an Elvis clone and sent rapidly back home. Although the American record-buying public just like the English one, cannot be accurately measured for its taste at anyone time, it is an acceptably tough breed. Shaky will have to make many concessions in his act and his approach before he can persuade them of his undoubted talent.

Freya's undoubted talent as a manager has given him greater commercial success than he could have dreamt of . But now he must surely be wondering where his career can go from here. Rather like a Eurovision Song Contest winner, he must be realizing that although success sometimes arrives on a plate, it's a lot of hard work and struggle to keep hold of it. The very young children who, of the most part, make up his fans, will grow up and forget him all too quickly, as acts like the bay City Rollers have discovered before him. He describes himself as "family" entertainment, the cross-over from rock 'n' roll (which the dads recall vaguely) into pop has caught him a double-generation audience, but that's not to say they won't be as fickle as the rest. Eventually, either a change of style (something those who have been close to him in the past doubt he will be prepared to make) or a move onto the cabaret circuit will have to be faced. Like Adam Ant, he must realize that he can't go on turning out singles in the same mould as the one before. At certain times of the year this may work, but at other times they will be easily overtaken by the wealth of new talent which is constantly battling for chart placings.

A career in Europe, where he will always have a strong following, is not something which would appeal to the man who spent so long trying to "make it" in Holland. To him, it will feel like the replay of an old, worn-out record. Shaky is constantly being quoted as having had a "hard time of it" on the way up the ladder to success. It wasn't all that hard, actually, any sleeping in the van was done either on the way home or if it broke down, although Paul Barrett was affiliated to the efficient RAG for many years. Hotel rooms in Europe were of excellent standard, Paul insisted on it as part of any European deal. For a young boy who had left school at fifteen semi-literate and without formal qualifications of any kind, life as the lead singer in a rock 'n' roll band offered far more glamour and interest, and wages, than working as an upholsterer ever could. And yet now that he's got his mansion in the country and his big cars, he feels angry at the world for making him wait so long for something he feels he deserved a long time ago. Hence the aggressive attitude to journalists. But there's a well know saying in the entertainment business, which goes something like, "You should be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you're sure going to need them on the way down." If Shaky doesn't continue to defy gravity in his career and one day falls from popularity, he'll find it so much harder than most. To quote Paul Barrett, who has been watching Shaky's career with the caring, concerned interest of a colleague who has been a friend, "he's got what he always wanted, but he's almost certainly lost what he had..."
For now, but he will be back...!                                                       Back to the MainPage