Reviewed by Louise Guthrie
The Rod and the Rose
by John Richardson
November 2024, Paperback, 429 pages, ISBN-13: 979-8345209851
Jayadev John Richardson rallies the thousands of pop fans gathered before him in the teeming Lotto Arena, Antwerp, Belgium. We are back in 2014 at a multi-artist spectacle featuring the biggest glam rock bands of the Seventies, (remember Sweet, Slade, and Mud?). John’s own band, The Rubettes, have, as expected, gone down a storm.
The veteran rock drummer could just take a bow, lap up the applause, and leave the stage on a well-deserved high. So why is he now hitting the crowd with, of all things, a Sanskrit mantra first popularised in the fifteenth century? The show controllers have expressly forbidden him from doing so—enough incentive for the high-octane Hare Krishna to belt it out good and loud. Jayadev John not only sang this Hare Krishna mantra (and, of course, drummed) on his friend Boy George’s 1992 hit single ‘Bow Down Mister’, but he also brought it live to a 35,000-strong Moscow gathering in celebration of post-Soviet Russia’s newfound religious freedom. Because he does nothing by halves, Jayadev John now facilitates mantra choirs right around the world.
Then why shouldn’t he get away with it this evening? But how?
Sadly, Alvin Stardust died not long before tonight’s Antwerp spectacular. Jayadev John figures that if he slips in these sacred sounds as a prayer for dear departed Alvin, then, surely, no one can object. But should it really take a moody, mysterious, all-in-black rocker—with a distinct 1950s revival look—to shuffle off this mortal coil before management will let our man schmooze a mainstream audience with a smattering of Sanskrit?
What’s more, Jayadev John Richarsdson doesn’t believe in death, but we can park that notion for now…and come on …let’s be hearing it…
“Krisha Krishna Hare Hare”
The crowd responds enthusiastically, fired up not with classic rock and roll, but infused with the message of a real Golden Oldie.
So what if it wasn’t in tonight’s script?
If, as Will Shakespeare once said, all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, then Jayadev John Richardson’s vivid and highly accessible autobiography, The Rod and the Rose lifts the curtain on a personal drama that is operatic in scale. The path of his life has formed an arc so extraordinary that we ideally need to track it from the upper circle. Don’t worry, you won’t need rose-tinted spectacles. This spell-binding saga that depicts an Essex boy of humble origin succeeding against the odds to become a pop star (who turned into a hypnotist, Hare Krishna devotee, healer, and herbalist, the list continues) brings its own broad colour spectrum – and warrants nothing less than an unrestricted view.
Speaking of which, some of us were ardent teens in the mid-1970s and glued to BBC One’s Thursday night Top of the Pops (that ritual and Radio 1’s Sunday chart countdown being the nearest thing we pubescents had to any kind of regular religion). So woe betide anyone who – even inadvertently – stood in front of the TV screen and got between us and our beloved idols.
But we would never have guessed what—besides the era-defining shaggy hair—this undeniably cute drummer had tucked under his famous white Rubettes cap, even as he infused those catchy tunes with the necessary rhythmic vitality to see them safely up the singles charts. For unbeknown to us, the flamboyant rocker was harbouring some pretty serious psychic abilities that would take him far beyond the scope of that all-important commercial top ten.
Riches and fame were fabulously fun for a while, but ultimately like eating a scrumptious-looking meal with no succour. Luxury, adulation and big houses are nice, but the soul-searching Rubette didn’t unearth any enlightenment on his lushly grassed tennis court. Nor was he equipped to dive into life’s deeper questions in his lovely heated swimming pool. Leaving the band in 1980 to tune into the more subtle pulse of spiritual leanings, John Richardson refocussed his musical efforts on devotional music, sound therapy, and the use of mantra as a restorative practice.
When an ever-pulsating backbeat beckoned him back to the Rubettes in 2000, Jayadev John put his whole heart into aligning his chosen transcendental path with material life as we know it—which, yes, meant ad-libbing a public prayer for Alvin Stardust in Antwerp. To ‘cap’ it all—proving that those iconic Rubettes white flat caps and matching suits were now entirely optional—our multitalented mensch would, by 2019, propel his mystical melodies to the very pinnacle of the US Dance Charts. Hindu deity Ganesh was no doubt happy to occupy the No. 1 spot and fill American dance floors.
And 2022 saw Jayadev orchestrate an epic fundraising event featuring his own mantra choir, the Rubettes, and old mate Boy George at Hare Krishna UK HQ Bhaktivedanta Manor—the Hertfordshire estate donated by late Beatle George Harrison, no less.
It doesn’t stop there. In The Rod and the Rose, the Rubettes’ ‘Mr Rhythm’ introduces us, Measure by Measure, to notions such as heavenly planets, parallel universes, the ‘Land of Never-Say-Die’—and let’s not forget interplanetary travel through mind power (we’ve all done it, apparently). Then there is the lady who used to be a black horse. Not to overlook the manic murderer who, for his sins, winds up as a dragonfly. Will this ill-fated insect find redemption—or be cruelly swatted—in a Hindu temple?
As for us, well, Jayadev John spells out quite clearly how we could go as far as to live happily on (not in!) the sun (Sun, sun, here it comes).
However, this punchy page-turner is not some far-out fantasist’s tome, but a true account from the trenches of a well-adjusted working-class lad pulling himself up by his Ockendon, Essex bootstraps purely to get ahead. Jayadev John Richardson’s priority is always to support his family—whilst looking to enhance the lives of many with his musical and paranormal gifts. Admittedly, it was never his—or anyone else’s—dream to stack massive greasy pipes for collection by cranes onto lorries, serve stewed tea in grimy Coronation cups to ungrateful East London dockers, or, having failed spectacularly as a teaboy, scrape stubborn barnacles off boats before tarring them with a tired old mop.
But no lesson is wasted, and every lived experience—good or bad—finds its way onto John Richardson’s drum kit and into his later healing arts. Doubt it if you will, but in the course of his fascinating, real-life fable, Jayadev John makes phenomena that may be a bit tricky to take on board begin to sound believable, including those often-inconvenient alien abductions on the A12 just outside Chelmsford.
While The Rod and the Rose may never have been an opera title—or even the name of a Shakespeare play—it presents a vivid image that serves as a perfect extended metaphor throughout Jayadev John Richardson’s must-read memoirs. As we navigate our way through this fleeting sojourn on planet Earth, don’t we all oscillate between the rod of strict discipline paired with due punishment, and the sweet smell of reward and success?
A rod, after all, is something we often make for our own backs, while roses represent the sweet outcome we would all ideally like to come up smelling of.
This tell-all autobiography deftly anchors the tempo of mortal days lived to the full in crisply metered narrative prose that nails more than a few rhythmic surprises along the way. The irony lands immediately in the opening scene, which reveals internationally chart-topping if dishevelled Rubettes, plus entourage, held at gunpoint beside a French autoroute in an overblown response to a road offence they never committed.
An impromptu, if rain-sogged, rendition of their No. 1 hit ‘Sugar Baby Love‘ only partially softens the gruff gendarmes’ hardened demeanours. Les Rubettes are duly transported off to Le French Nick. That’s La Rod for you—well, it’s hardly La Vie en Rose. Significantly, it was John Richardson who had dreamt about this lamentable incident before it ever happened—a profound sign of things to come.
Jayadev John relays the highs, lows, and near-disasters of his life trajectory with a searing honesty and natural self-effacement, coupled with an infectious ebullience that makes his unfiltered journals a joy to tune into. The slick stickman skillfully brushes his own history with the requisite beats of humour per bar to have us regularly rolling in the aisles.
We have here a genuine spiritual aspirant—who never depicts himself as anything like angelic—generously sharing juicy details of the multiple near run-ins and myriad self-inflicted close shaves that make up his captivatingly off-the-wall odyssey. Take, for instance, the notable occasion when he heavily improvised with an expensive bottle of champagne belonging to a pre-Terminator—but newly appointed Mr Universe—Arnold Schwarzenegger. Neatly packaged John from Essex was only meant to be carefully guarding big, bulky Arnold from Austria’s prized liquid trophy, but he had other ideas. Will this lead to the rod or the rose?
Despite some tragi-comic false starts—including a not entirely unexpected sacking from the East London Docks—Jayadev John develops a tenacity and work ethic so defined that, in between hammering his great big Essex heart out on the skins, he eventually evolves into a virtuoso therapist. Who would have guessed that a washout tea boy would morph into a maestro more-than equipped to cut through the murk of difficult situations like marital problems, bereavement, and demonic possession? Gifted with inherent insight and natural healing abilities, he brings clarity and perspective to deep-seated traumas and chronic illnesses.
Meanwhile, Le Clown des Rubettes—as John Richardson was known in La Belle France—unleashes an inimitable brand of unbridled humour that never fails to bring light to the darkest of hours. Like the notable occasion he nearly drowns with a whole pop group in the filthy, dirty Thames—all in the name of ‘great’ publicity. Never one to be held back for long, John goes on to brave an icy aeroplane sky-plummet over Europe. So what if our intrepid globe-trotter barely survives the major inconvenience of slamming into a virtual brick wall of oxygen (don’t ask) high over Montpellier? Harrowing moments are all miraculously lightened with enough uplifting mirth to keep the reader’s spirits soaring, even as (supposedly) trusty vessels dip precariously towards doom and disaster. (For the record, this man hates flying. When unable to find the Goddess of Sleep, he unashamedly calls upon the Demon of Booze to save him.)
It is Jayadev John’s innate ability to never be typecast in his many roles, and his willingness to create a complete and nuanced self-portrait, that make for a well-rounded read.
Everyone wants their complementary health practitioner to be clean-living, and we can rest assured that John Richardson the pop star burnt all bridges with rock-and-roll excess—preferring instead to administer herbal medicines and Bach flower remedies both stone-cold sober and to proven curative effect.
We have every faith in him, even if his early music career was built not upon solid, but fluid foundations—with lager as his favourite poison for live gigs and an LVT (large vodka and tonic) for sessions. Not every qualified reflexologist and remedial masseur has attempted to showcase a masterful command of dynamics and drumming complexities with half-paralysed limbs. A feat worthy of acclaim, or a sorry state of affairs precipitated by a one-off, ill-judged massive drag of a spliff on top of booze? Whatever the case, all work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy, and John has certainly never been that.
However, Jayadev John can’t ever afford to lose his ability to master the unexpected beat. In freeing a prominent public speaker’s daughter from the demons of heroin addiction, the clown with a clairvoyant bent unwittingly deposits a bunch of vampiric druggie ghosts into his own daughter’s bedroom. Like any good dad, he will not tolerate undesirables loitering in his girl’s sleeping quarters. But some stubborn entities are harder to shift than your average substandard suitors. Does Jayadev John have the stamina to send these satanic slimeballs packing? Regardless of the outcome, they won’t be getting any roses.
Either way, it’s good to know that an Essex native who can effortlessly produce a stream of choice invectives—and, if necessary, handle himself in a pub brawl—was always a sensitive poet at heart. The proof is right there in the writing.
To this day openly tolerant of those of all faiths—and none—John Richardson gravitated far enough towards Eastern mysticism to receive formal initiation into the Hare Krishna creed in 1989, taking on the name Jayadev dasa. If an inaugural trip to India meant succumbing to the waiting razor and relinquishing his crowning glory—along with any last vestiges of vanity and residual ego—then, never mind. No one really minds looking like Jabba the Hutt, do they?
It would take your average Joe—or John—from Essex a lifetime, or more, to read, absorb, and digest India’s ancient and holy Vedic scriptures—a literary endeavour best embarked upon under the guidance of a bona fide guru (and not many of those come knocking on your door in South Ockendon). Undeterred, Jayadev dasa has given talks and classes all over the globe on core concepts contained in his most treasured book, the 5,000-year-old Bhagavad-gita. This is an evergreen classic which he, incidentally, has also proudly presented as a rock opera—just as the gods intended
For twenty years, Jayadev John and his spouse hosted a Sunday Love Feast in their Hornchurch home, offering Krishna food so exquisite that it would take a whole army of exotic and conscientious cooks to replicate a spread so magnificent. We all like a bit of ambrosia. If, in the meantime, you would like some nuggets of timeless wisdom served up in bite-sized, easily digestible chunks, then you need look no further than The Rod and the Rose. It’s all vegetarian, of course—the Richardsons are not about to eat anyone’s four-legged son or daughter—and do feel free to finish with the sweet dessert of poems offered in the book’s epilogue.
Death and reincarnation, Jayadev explains, are just like shedding a worn-out body in exchange for a new one—in much the same way as you would ditch an old overcoat when it finally gives up the ghost. The type of new physique you take on depends on your life’s deeds and your karma. An actual replacement overcoat is optional, but it is best not to pick one like the eye-arresting ground-trailer that John wore on his first date with future wife Cherrille.
Had he not complied with the lady’s request to remove it immediately, the Richardsons might not have entered into a marriage that has lasted through thick and thin from 1968 to this day. Sometimes you have to acquiesce to the rod to win that precious rose.
For what is a god without a goddess? We are told that Krishna, the Supreme Being, is incomplete without his feminine counterpart, Radharani. Cherrille Richardson is no pushover. She keeps her husband grounded, but she always has his back.
Jayadev John’s eagerness to show through first-hand experience rather than preach makes for an authentic reading experience, as he shares many examples of divine intervention manifested in his day-to-day adventures. We learn that a badly punctured beach ball can reinflate itself before your very eyes—a minor miracle to some, maybe, but major in the eyes of the child it belongs to…
So, if you keep the faith and play your karmic cards right, might badly needed funds for worthy causes—like maintaining a much-loved faith school or procuring your son’s first drum kit—turn up from wholly unexpected sources?
We’ll see, but if our impeccable keeper of musical time was never an archangel—in the strictly conventional sense—then he wasn’t always a watertight timekeeper either. Young John Richardson, paperboy extraordinaire, would prioritise reading other people’s comics well above delivering their newspapers in a timely fashion. However, as an ambitious young man doggedly rising through the ranks of his preferred percussive trade, John deservedly secured himself a coveted recording session with a top-notch producer. It was a make-or-break, career-defining moment—and also one for which his clock-in time was excruciatingly delayed (thankfully not because he was still reading The Dandy).
In the dark old days long before we permitted smartphone calendar apps to smoothly spearhead our schedules, even the most proficient of percussionists fell unavoidably out of sync now and again. John Richardson is sufficiently seasoned to be able to reclaim a fractured riff in the short term. In fact, bowling into the studio a mortifying four hours late positively endears him to forty other musicians. Why? They’ve just been promised nice fat cheques for the extra waiting time.
Unfortunately, though, our ‘future-focused’ freelancer has delivered a drum roll intro so dramatically delayed that it heralds both the beginning and end of his own top-flight session career. It feels more like an outro…
One day—believe it or not—an older and wiser John Richardson will incorporate therapeutic “Drumfulness” (mindful drumming) into his recuperative workshops. But in the awkward present, he hasn’t exactly delighted that prominent producer he so needed to impress. So where does he go from here?
Well, it’s Jayadev John’s unerring ability to pick up an apparently lost rhythm—by honing in on the cadence of life itself—that enables his rod and rose recollections to keep their rolling momentum. Or, to put it more simply: his capacity to keep coming up smelling of sweet, sweet roses. Plus, there is no waiting around for success to happen, just work. It certainly helps if you can sing and write songs as well as syncopate, but can our pitch-perfect performer—despite the odd four-hour blip—pick up a tidy recording contract elsewhere?
Come what may, those formative days of dovetailed Dandy reading will definitely pay due dividends. Jayadev John achieves a more subtle mastery of time signature than your average musician (or paperboy). When treating a client suffering badly from MS, the dedicated touch therapist divines that a basic beat of massage and reflexology is never going to cut it. A sweeping run of those nimble drumsticks across Time, the Fourth Dimension, is needed to dislodge distress this deeply entrenched. While woefully underqualified in past-life hypnotherapy (as in never actually tried it), Jayadev John Richardson, somehow, instinctively knows how to work on regression rudiments.
Now, it takes a sophisticated syncopator to percuss a client with precision back to the last agonising moments of her previous life. Timing is everything – and he nails it. In this crucial moment, is John competent enough to execute an intricate fill so flawlessly that the lady can ditch all dilemmas and calmly return to her current existence? Yes, he is! So far, so good. But will the MS now be better or worse? That’s the burning question. We’ll have to wait and hear what the woman’s father has to say about it all when he turns up at John’s practice armed with an ominous-looking envelope—and an expression that gives absolutely nothing away.
Whatever the news today—and we do hope it’s favourable—we will, one way or another, eventually see a proper, pukka past-life regression practitioner born—one who goes on, over a 40-year period to regress thousands of people and mass-hypnotise packed rooms at prestigious seats of learning such as Cambridge University. Here Jayadev John, as ever, produces some serious chops. But is it enough to convince some (very clever) young cynics that a teenage friend of his was none other than Mozart in a previous life? No prizes for guessing who can, quite reasonably, profess to have been Mozart’s close English compatriot, Thomas Linley, back in the good old days. Let’s just say that he is still a man perpetually in the groove of life.
In truth, Jayadev’s maximal memoirs lay down a groove so hypnotic that it could suasively synopsize several life spans, even if The Rod and the Rose is—hard as it may be to believe—confined to chronicling just the current multifaceted incarnation. He’s definitely ‘had a life’.
So, where is he now?
Happily, the time-tested troubadour who, at 23, considered himself way too old to be a teen idol is, at 79, still going strong—but Arnold Schwarzenegger can relax, because Jayadev John no longer has a taste for champagne. The wholesome Hare Krishna rocker keeps his hand in by habitually leading harinam (congregational public chanting). Armed with an accordion, he comfortably straddles the spiritual and secular sides of the street like a perennial Pied Piper, serving up sacred stanzas to London’s busy West End alongside ‘Krishnised’ versions of popular standards such as Ben E. King’s classic ‘Stand by Me‘, the Mexican folk song ‘La Bamba‘, and Manfred Mann’s 1960s hit ‘Pretty Flamingo‘.
To borrow a few words—again—from Shakespeare: age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety.
The Rod and the Rose is a rip-roaring, true-life tale bound to resonate with 20th-century pop culture aficionados and followers of Eastern religion and philosophy alike. While Jayadev John Richardson’s writing style remains as down-to-earth and solidly unpretentious as the man himself, the book’s content is crafted to build a strong rapport with spiritual seekers, connecting meaningfully with New Age types. Yet it is a story that offers enough relatability and emotional connection to draw in non-believers—and even hands those cynics something to chew on.
Meanwhile, the rhythm of Jayadev John’s drums remains his life’s soundtrack in golden years lived out to the full—somewhere between the very real strictures of The Rod and the Rose.
The Rod and the Rose (with a 3-page foreword by Boy George) is available on Amazon.
You can connect with John Richardson’s on his Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/jayadev.richardson
About the reviewer: Louise Guthrie is a freelance writer and blogger whose work has appeared in various UK and German magazines. With a focus on the intersection of music, spirituality (and food!), her work has been championed by figures ranging from The Gentle Author to Russell Brand.
Originally published at https://blackcohoshblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/10/the-rod-and-the-rose/