Johnie Winch: Retracing his Roots

John Winch has been playing ‘roots’ music – folk, blues, country, bluegrass, Cajun and skiffle - for six decades. For the last two (as throughout the 1980s) he’s lived and performed in Germany as a blues guitarist and singer. A correspondent to this site affirms that John remains an ‘extremely talented guitar and banjo player and has a fabulous blues voice.’ 

Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s John was a major feature on the English south coast’s folk music scene. On occasions he, Kelvin Message and other musicians would perform together at the end of a club evening. Kelvin has commented that John's heavily blues-influenced guitar style was so versatile that he was doing the work of three musicians at once. It was reading this site’s profile of Kelvin that led John to get in touch from Germany. ‘It brought back a lot of memories,’ he said. 

John explained that in the first half of the 1960s he was performing in the UK as a solo guitarist and singer as well as playing in a duo with Rod Machling. During this period Johnie (as he was then known) also founded several ‘roots music’ venues in East Sussex. 

John says that he started the ‘Country & Gospel Club’ at ‘The Heart & Hand’ pub in North Street, Brighton. The club was born out of necessity due to overcrowding as punters were coming in increasing numbers, both to hear the performers and in some cases to play informal guest spots too. Among the growing audience were some famous, or soon to be famous, names. Says John: ‘[O]n a Saturday evening, I and a few others would have a song session in the pub… It was often visited by such well-known names as Wizz Jones, Long John Baldry, and many others including, on the very odd occasion, a certain Rod Stewart and his hangers-on. 

'(It) became so crowded that I managed to persuade the landlord to let us use the empty room upstairs. That was an instant success.’ However, recalls John, this ‘also became so crowded that we had people standing on window sills and down the stairs. Once again, we didn't need to book guests as there were many 'names' just dropping in for a floor spot.’ When there was a spot available that is. Wizz Jones played a guest spot, as did several other major league folk performers such as John Renbourn (subsequently part of The Pentangle; he was ‘a good friend of mine’ commented John), and Nic Jones (‘another very good friend and an excellent guitarist and traditional singer’ who tragically ‘had a bad car accident and had to give up the guitar’). Also taking turns at John’s club were the renowned banjo player Pete Stanley, whose diverse plaudits later included work with Bryan Ferry; and John Pearce, the folk performer who had his own BBC guitar tuition programme in the 1960s. 

Eventually says John, the landlord, surprisingly perhaps, ‘got so fed up with the overcrowding and being overwhelmed with business that he gave us notice to quit.’ John recalls being shocked at the time, but now observes: ‘[I]t … gave me the motivation to move to a bigger place and to start organising as a folk club proper.’ John approached the landlord of ‘The Stanford Arms’ at Preston Circus in Brighton. John knew the place as a ‘stop-off on Saturday mornings for a game of cribbage and couple of pints of Guinness after work. I knew there was a large and empty room upstairs. The landlord agreed to let me start the club up there….and, after a couple of weeks of (distributing) flyers’ and of growing interest due to ‘word of mouth’, on a Sunday night John began hosting what would become another highly successful version of his Country & Gospel Club. 

Modestly, John says that ‘[L]uckily…(it was) an immediate success. We tried to work on the basis that everybody who played there ….could expect the same treatment as anybody else. There were no 'superstars' and everybody had the same chance to perform, should they wish. I also featured some of the Brighton street musicians when and if they were willing and needed a few bob. Very soon though, because of overwhelming attendance, we had a need to book 'names' as special guests in order to take the pressure off our regular (‘resident’) floor singers…. This is where Brian Golbey first came in (see picture below of John, on banjo, performing with Brian (fiddle), circa 1963). John says of Brian, he was ‘[O]ne of the (few) Brits to win a Nashville country award for best singer.’ John remembers that ‘We guested a few times at the Sidley Folk Club and also at the Nelson Folk Club’ (at the eponymous Hastings pub) during this period.

Soon after John had begun running the Country & Gospel Club at ‘The Stanford’, he brought in Rod Machling to help with the organisation of what had also become a much in-demand venue. Together they formed a successful musical partnership too. Rod was ‘an excellent guitarist and singer,’ notes John. ‘We were booked (to play) at many of the folk clubs….from Portsmouth to Crawley to Hastings.’ 

After they’d played such a gig they’d often return to one of Brighton's coffee bars, such as The Lorelei in the Lanes, ‘for another session of music into the early hours.

'We had many fans and a programme that offered everything from Rod's serious protest songs and humorous Music Hall numbers, to my Old Timey American banjo mountain songs and Mississippi guitar blues. Also…we included a certain amount of country and bluegrass too … This gave us a vast and hugely interesting programme to choose from.’ 

From performing his own slots at ‘The Stanford Arms’, John acquired the nickname ‘The Reverend Winch’. He explains this seemingly unlikely moniker: ‘At this time I used to sing a lot of Gospel songs, which were not only very popular but, more importantly, (they were) centred on audience participation. The evening often began and ended with people standing on the chairs and everybody was singing their hearts out as though it was a service in a deep south black Baptist church.’ John stresses that his good-humoured nickname was not indicative of any deep religious motivation on his part. 

John says that after the huge success of the Brighton ‘Country & Gospel Club’, ‘[W]e decided to start a second club in Eastbourne. I already knew of ‘The Dolphin’ pub because one of my relatives used to go there and had told me about the large room at the back…. Again, the landlord agreed to its use, and so began the Eastbourne branch of the ‘Country & Gospel Club’. 

‘I will never forget (our) opening night,’ says John. There were, he recalls, 97 female college students ‘and (just) five men including ourselves.’ Both clubs, he says, were held on a Sunday night and so they had to share out the available guest singer and resident spots accordingly. While running ‘The Dolphin’ and Brighton music clubs, says John, ‘[T]hey both became exceptionally well-known on the scene, from London to the south coast, and we had many a top class guest, with whom we often became really good friends.’ 

Asked to list some of the major names that appeared at ‘The Dolphin’ and ‘The Stanford Arms’ branches of his ‘Country & Gospel Club’, John mentions some of the biggest names in folk and blues. Among them were Bert Jansch; leading UK blues and pop performer Long John Baldry (with whom Elton John first cut his musical teeth); The Levee Breakers (featuring singer Beverley Kutner who famously later teamed up with John Martyn); Tom Paley from The New Lost City Ramblers, Dave Evans (an ‘amazing guitarist, says John), John James, Johnny Duncan (an American bluegrass and country singer who, John notes, had a skiffle hit with 'Last Train to San Fernando'), Johnny Silvo, Caroline Hester, Julie Felix, and (as at ‘The Heart & Hand’) Wizz Jones, John Renbourn, John Pearce, and Pete Stanley. 

After two years of ‘total success’, John says ‘[T]he whole thing had become a bit too much. Rod, myself and Brian Golbey (who'd also taken on some organisational duties) decided to take on board another couple of friends who were willing to do some of the donkey work, which included bookings from various agencies, standing on the door on club nights, organising residents, singers, posters and flyers, etc, etc. At this point Rod and I decided to quit the clubs and to leave everything to a so-called folk committee to run them. I had also at this time started taking bookings to perform as a duo with Brian Golbey, which included BBC shows and club gigs along the south coast.’ John recalls that he and Brian recorded extensive sessions for two BBC national radio programmes in the early to mid-1960s; one of which was ‘Sounds of the Night’. 

‘After a while, owing to personal reasons, I stopped playing with Brian and I continued as a solo act, working the southern folk clubs (with bookings obtained) through a London agency.’

In 1978 John released his first record, a three track EP on Joe Stead’s ‘Sweet Folk and Country’ label (formerly known as ‘Sweet Folk All’). John’s own song, ‘Little Woman’ was on Side 1, with his arrangement of ‘Come on in My Kitchen’ and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Lady Jane’ on Side 2 (see pic below). (As a singer, guitarist and banjo player, Joe Stead was a major name on the UK folk scene.)

Sometime in the late 1970s, says John, ‘[A] friend offered me two tours in Bavaria, Germany. They (were) very successful and in the early 1980s this gave me the idea to move to Germany on a permanent basis.’ In fact in 1981 John put out an album on the German Brutkasten label entitled ‘I Am A Free and Travelling Man’. It featured ‘Little Woman’ and 10 other self-penned songs. (The artwork is featured below © Brutkasten) The track ‘Free & Travelling Man’ spoke of the freedom of the road, a belief expressed on the LP’s back cover on which John writes simply ‘Keep free and travelling.’ (John’s home-recorded performance of the song, from 2001, can be heard here

After many years of gigging in Germany, John says that the 1990s brought a personal shift. ‘I returned to England with my wife, who had started studying at Greenwich Uni.’ For the next decade, says John, they were based in St. Leonard’s, East Sussex, which was part of a thriving local music scene. ‘I started playing regularly with a new partner there,’ he says, and together they performed under the name of the Yazoo Brothers and as a skiffle band called the Yazoo Skiffle Company. ‘We also had a fun, Cajun-style band, that sometimes performed (in local pubs) as The Tower Road Alligators...’

In September 2020 John wrote on the SMART music site of Hastings music impresario Alan Esdaile, ‘I remember well George Street Hall (in Hastings) and doing gigs (on the same bill as) SoulXpress as if it were yesterday. Also, (I recall) my own very long and mad stint of (playing) Sunday mornings at ‘The Standard’ (or)… at ‘The Nelson Folk Club’, in the days of Wilf the landlord, (with) Jeff Coates and Bruce Astly hammering away in ‘The Nelson’ on a Sunday morning session. I used to play banjo then, which was kindly lent to me for the session by Ron Harrison who sometime during the session, and after a few pints….burst into a great version of ‘Shoals of Herring’. Those were the days when there were still a few herring in Hastings waters. SoulXpress were one of the best of the Hastings groups (along with) Tich Turner, Stallion, Chris Sayer and many more. Hopefully Barry, Lenny, and the others are still alive and kicking. Unfortunately some have left us, but I shall never cease to be amazed that there were so many good musicians and so much live music in such a small town.’ John is very pleased to still be playing live. He told me: ‘I am still playing the odd blues gig with a German guitarist partner, and hope, with luck, to carry on for another few more years.’ Or, as he commented on the SMART website, ‘I’m 78 now, an old geezer, but still as mad and still playing...’ Reflecting on all that had happened over his musical career, he says, ‘Actually, there are so many stories that I could probably go on for hours about those days. Many fun days, many good friends.’ John is pictured below (with Peter Gall (left) and Gerald Stegmiller (right)) performing at a festival in the German village where he now lives.

John says he hopes that this article will add a ‘bit of interest’ to the more musically open and inclusive side of the Sussex folk scene that ‘was often a bit dominated by the traditional side of folk music,’ he says. ‘What a lot of people seem to have forgotten …is that a great many old folk songs from the British Isles went to America in the sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen hundreds and, much later, returned to Britain in a slightly (altered) form. It was often stated, with a slight tinge of standoffishness, that we (me, my partners and friends) were singing ‘American songs’ as opposed to the purists who only sang ‘English’ or … ‘Sussex’ songs. There was sometimes a definite border drawn between the two. However, as I so often stated in the folk club days, I don't think it really matters who sings what, as long as they enjoy it, and, if there is one, the audience enjoys it too.’ 

John is still drawing in audiences and is still a fine musician and singer. As in the sentiment he inscribed on his album, he’s also still ‘keeping free’. The travelling that went with that freedom took John a long way from where his musical journey began, but he remains very connected to his diverse musical roots.

Schitzoid Joe: Lost No More

That journal of 'Swinging London', the International Times, has published my profile of the lost classic album, 'Schitzoid Joe'. Written and performed by Lucy Nabijou and Steve North, and featuring world-renowned sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith, this concept album tackles alienation, abuse, personal freedom and family misery. With its mix of prog, folk, and rock, 'Schitzoid Joe (sic)' should have been perfect for a record company with imagination, even in 1981. However Lucy and Steve were too young and disconnected to get a break. The article also explores the musical contributions of renowned keyboardist and guitarist Nick Bunker and drummer Pascal Consoli, and specifically what happened after they, Lucy, Steve and Dick had completed the sessions at the rehearsal rooms of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. 

You can read the article in International Times, the publication once dubbed 'the underground Daily Mirror' by Alternative London, by clicking on this link. You can listen to the album here.

'The Road Less Travelled' - a new EP by Tom Cole

Tom Cole’s ‘The Road Less Travelled’ is a showcase of some his newest self-penned material plus reworkings of a couple of songs that have been part of his gigs for several years. Tom is increasingly and deservedly well-known on the live acoustic music scene of Hastings and surrounding towns, and this new EP serves as an excellent showcase of what he can do.

I feel conflicted though in my responses on listening to it as I have heard him perform these songs either live (as in a bar) or live virtual (as in Covid-19). In some cases, I think they sound truer in those settings. In others the studio fleshes out the performances, bringing out the musical core of a number that can sometimes be lost when played solo in a pub setting. I had a similar feeling about his last EP, ‘Ramblin’ Man’.

This EP’s flagship song is ‘Sure (The Road Less Travelled)’. It kicks off the disc and provides a kind of mission statement of what Tom’s art is all about. The road that seems ‘sure’, the one it’s supposedly safe to take because it’s straight and true, in life and in music, is for ‘fools’. Tom prefers to plough a range of furrows. In consequence his music is an eclectic celebration of roots music, of Americana; call it what you will. When I first played the disc’s version of this number, I worried that the accomplished violinist that accompanies Tom on most of the EP (Henry Bristow, the EP’s producer) was here maybe sounding just a bit twee. Then I listened again and got a better appreciation of how he rounds off Tom’s understated but effective vocals and his country-style guitar picking.

The acid test for me though was how a studio reworking of ‘In My Time of Dyin’' would sound. I’ve long believed that Tom should release a live version of his interpretation of this Blues/Gospel standard as, solo and exposed, he’s always conveyed the emotional power at the heart of the song. What’s more, solo voice and acoustic guitar are wholly in this song’s tradition, and it’s precisely how another great interpreter of this African-American classic, Bob Dylan, chose to do it. To be honest, I still think the jury’s out on which method comes out best. However, this studio version preserves the raw power of Tom’s interpretation while adding a darker fiddle sound, a touch of keyboard, background vocals and some subtle vocal effects, to build a soundscape that’s highly atmospheric but without drowning the song’s central message: in the end we are alone, unless we have faith.

‘Push Me Out to Sea’ is a very personal song by Tom, written in tribute to his late father, who had worked as a fisherman off the Hastings coast. It’s simple and effective, with Henry’s fiddle and backing vocal adding an extra layer without obscuring the heartfelt sentiment. I imagine that the two of them doing this live is a crowd-pleaser indeed. 

‘Old True Lover’ already has the air of an old classic, a lament for the bittersweet pain of love, the eternal message of songs the world over. ‘Think On You a While’ takes Tom’s sound back to basics: he accompanies himself, simply, on harmonica on a song that just doesn’t need anything more. ‘Long Way Home’ concludes the set in a rare up-tempo fashion. It’s a reinterpretation of one of his own songs that a few years ago he performed in the studio, with accompaniment, for a Hastings Friendship Group CD, 'The Circle of Trust'. This interpretation, featuring fiddle and keyboards, brings out the song’s undeniable catchiness even more effectively, and gives a sense of what The Tom Cole Band, his occasional musical vehicle, sounds like live.

In keeping with the times we’re living through, ‘The Road Less Travelled’ EP had its showcase live on Facebook just under a week ago. It can be heard in its entirety via Tom Cole’s website and can be purchased here via Bandcamp.

Ian Dobson: a folk voice for half a century

by Neil Partrick

Ian Dobson has been a folk music performer, gig organiser and sound engineer for more than half a century. While for much of his professional career Ian was by day a teacher, by night he was the singer in several notable folk groups. For much of the 1970s and early ‘80s Ian also co-ran a Sussex folk club that hosted both major league and up and coming acts. When he and the late folk musician John Towner took over The Black Horse folk club in Telham near Battle, it became a focal point for both the burgeoning Hastings music scene and a venue for some of the biggest names in British and Irish folk music.

As well as having made his own important musical contribution via The Mariners, The Telham Tinkers and Titus, Ian Dobson takes a scholarly interest in the way that ‘folk’ has been politically and culturally appropriated. As an undergraduate in the mid-1970s Ian wrote a thesis on ‘The Origins and Development of the Folk Clubs in Britain’. Among the carefully constructed interviews with folk club organisers and performers in the files that Ian kindly lent me, I almost expected to find one that the then Manchester Polytechnic student had conducted with himself. He could easily and deservedly have written himself into his own academic script.

Ian Dobson & Karen Towner at The Black Horse in October 2019

Talking to Ian (and Karen Towner, wife of John Towner) in The Black Horse I got a strong sense what it would have been like for John and Ian when the folk club functioned out of a small room that now houses the pub’s dining section. Ian, on vocals and harmonica, John Towner on vocals, autoharp, whistle and guitar, Ted Bishop on vocals, banjo and guitar, Geoff Marchant on guitar and vocals, George Copeland on bass, and, from time to time, Garry Blakeley and John Burgess, both on fiddle, constituted The Mariners: the musical heart of the Black Horse folk club. The Mariners were all accomplished musicians and renowned for their excellent harmonies. Between songs, Ian and John's banter kept the audience entertained.

Ian first got involved in The Black Horse folk club in 1970 when he and John, with the rest of The Mariners, took it over from Mick Marchant and John Goldsmith, a singing duo who, says Ian, played trad material and some Kingston Trio songs. The Mariners often played a Saturday night residence, while Ian Dobson and John Towner also handled the Black Horse folk club’s administration, initially charging a 20p admission fee. John Towner was, in effect, ‘club chairman and I,’ says Ian, was ‘his lieutenant.’ Together they booked various acts to play at the club, including some that went on to acquire legendary status in the folk world and beyond, such as June Tabor, Martin Carthy, The Dransfields, and folk comedian and regular TV performer Jake Thackray. Proximity to Hastings meant that the seaside musical mecca was a supply line for both acts and punters, but the Telham club was by no means restricted to the local metropolis.

Guitarist Davey Graham once played at The Black Horse in Telham, recalls Ian, noting how ‘detached’ the revered musician was. ‘He wasn’t interested in entertaining the audience,’ Ian remembers. It was as if he just wanted to work out his raga-influenced material. Irish music legend Christy Moore played at The Black Horse too. ‘He turned up in a cloud of dust,’ said Ian, describing the renowned singer’s late arrival outside the pub. ‘He was always late….. He (Christy) got out of his car, looking like a navvy. He was quite gutty due to beer drinking,’ Ian remembers. When an audience member heckled ‘that stomach should be on a woman,’ Christy replied, “Well it was on a woman last night. Make something out of that!”’ Ian notes that Christy Moore could be ‘rollicking one minute and then could entirely still the audience the next.’ Audiences could be very noisy at The Black Horse, like other folk venues, Ian remembers. An amiable group of young farmers would for example prop up the bar and shout out requests, but they could politely be asked to keep it down when the mood required it. Ian remembers that certain performers, such as Martin Carthy, would command total attention anyway; others were designed to be more of a good time act.

Ian was no folk novice. Growing up in Scotland, what in England was being referred to as ‘folk music’ was part of the cultural scenery up there, he says. He remembers witnessing his first ‘proper’, paying, folk gig in 1967: Dave and Toni Arthur performing at a youth club in nearby Hollington. That same year Ian joined the armed forces. As luck would have it, the UK Government's decision in 1969 to deploy troops in Northern Ireland in response to Protestant violence against the Catholic community saw a 22-year-old Ian deployed, armed and in uniform, on the streets of Ulster. Although a member of the Royal Green Jackets, the young Ian had not expected to be ‘pulling Irishmen out of their cars.’

Ian was already singing at this point, and found that knowing The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners and other Irish material actually proved popular with his English comrades. He learned some Irish songs in Dungannon from singer Roy Weir. Perhaps it was because there were 12 Protestant Englishmen to a room in a small barracks holding 120 squaddies that Ian and others’ private performances went down so well. Ian notes the additional irony that The Clancys, The Dubliners and Alex Campbell were hugely influential on many budding English folk musicians during this period. He also notes that some of the 'Irish' songs had simply been reimagined as such. Ian’s theory is that ‘The Wild Rover’, for example, which the Dubliners almost made their own, was originally ‘collected’ from East Anglia at a time when there were many, often well-educated, Irishmen working in England as labourers, says Ian. Luke Kelly (the lead signer) probably picked it up over here and taught the song to the rest of The Dubliners, says Ian.

Ian has little time for the folk world’s obsession with what’s ‘traditional’, and expresses exasperation with ‘all this nonsense’; this imagined ‘traditional’ purity about songs that, as he puts it, somebody at some point wrote! They didn’t come out of nowhere, he asserts, so what does it mean to be labelled ‘traditional’ he asks rhetorically. Often the songs that were ‘collected’ (or expropriated) were the cleaned-up, polite versions of what had been already been constantly reworked rural songs. Renowned English folk anthologist Cecil Sharpe, Ian points out, collected what in the end were ‘respectable songs’ sung by performers that the local vicar had probably had nicely presented to him. This was the ‘folk process’, he says with some irony. The aural tradition, highly subjective in itself, then became fairly meaningless in an age of records and then cassettes; audio recording became the chief way of passing on the so-called tradition, Ian argues. 'Many folk songs are also real poetry,' Ian asserts. ‘ “The last that I heard he was in Montreal, where he died of a broken heart…” That to me is beautiful,’ Ian says (quoting the song 'Willie Moore').

Returning to England after having unexpectedly honing his singing voice in Northern Ireland, Ian connected with John Towner and, having taken over the folk club in Telham, they performed as The Mariners throughout the south. In 1973 The Mariners (including Ian and John) decamped to the Bexhill pub, The York, after disagreeing with The Black Horse landlady’s plans for an all-weekend venue that relegated the folk spots to a Sunday night. Confining the folk club to the night before Monday morning was never going to fly.

At The York pub in Bexhill amongst others, Ian and John booked singer, guitarist and fiddle player Nic Jones to perform. Since those days Jones has acquired something of a cult status, and is held in an almost tragic light because of being seriously injured in a car crash in the early 1980s. At the time Ian and John hadn’t been able to raise enough from the gig at The York to pay Nic the agreed fee. Jones, kindly and principled, refused to take more than £5, even though he had come all the way from Yorkshire for the performance and had to drive back that night. Ian can’t remember if they ever resolved that issue to everyone’s satisfaction.

While Nic Jones was obviously prepared to travel, Ian notes that there were many established northern acts who didn’t need to come south. People like The Watersons didn’t come south, aside from Norma, says Ian. Many of the ‘northern’ folk comedians such as Mike Harding, Paul Brady and Peter Bellamy (the founder of The Young Tradition), Ian saw at Manchester Polytechnic having booked them for the folk club there.

Folk gigs were only staged at The York pub in Bexhill for a few months. Emblematic of the difference in outlook was the fact that one day the landlord covered the entire pub in tin foil. ‘For acoustic effect?’ I wondered. No, a corny attempt at creating a disco look, clarified Ian.

Ian and John then got involved in running The Hayloft folk club at Fairlight Cove Hotel (near Hastings). ‘We had Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger perform in 1974,’ Ian recalls. ‘They were terribly serious,’ he says disparagingly. In keeping with MacColl’s politics, they were ‘very prescriptive.’ They laid down conditions about their exact requirements in terms of their set, its precise length etc.

Remembering this led Ian to reflect on the politics of folk. There was, it seems, an unspoken English nationalism behind the desire for something that was, somehow, ‘purely’ English. Ian noted that, in parallel with the Irish nationalism of many Irish folk artists with whom budding English folk musicians like Ian were enamoured, there was the desire for something ‘authentic’, as opposed to what he calls the imported ‘shoo wop baby’ of American pop. Ian also notes though that the overtly political message of the kind that MacColl promoted never took off in Hastings and the surrounding area. In fact Ian wasn't keen on just how prescriptive the whole ethos of Ewan MacColl and his ‘Singers Club’ was. You were barred from singing songs perceived as not belonging to your native culture, he remembers. (MacColl’s musical national exclusivism is also discussed in my profile of Dave Arthur).

MacColl himself was an invention though, asserts Ian, noting that his real name was Jimmy Miller and that he was very much a man of his native Salford and not of the Scotland of his parents that MacColl later adopted as his own. In addition to being a renowned songwriter, MacColl was a playwright and an intellect. ‘He was a bright guy, but a liar,’ says Ian. Ian pointedly noted that MacColl deserted from the army in the war. ‘This somehow, irrationally, annoyed me,’ says Ian. ‘My father had fought throughout the war; he (MacColl) had deserted after a few months.’ Ian had of course served in the army himself and was literally (albeit for just three months) born into army life in Germany.

In a different, and from Ian’s perspective more enjoyable, vein, The Mariners opened for the Orange Blossom Special at The Hayloft in December 1973. The Hayloft's impressive roster during this period also included Julie Felix and John and Sue Kirkpatrick. (John Kirkpatrick was later a member of Steeleye Span and was good friends with founder member Martin Carthy). Ian and John were running The Hayloft in tandem with The Black Horse, each venue drawing good crowds. Eventually John Towner returned to performing at The Black Horse in Telham. Among other performers resident at The Black Horse at the time was the guitarist and mandolin player Johnnie Winch (the one-time musical sparring partner of Kelvin Message). Ian told me that Johnnie was, last he’d heard, living in Germany. (I’ve since been told anonymously that Johnnie’s doing blues shows in Germany and is in fine voice.)

From 1975-77 Ian had been a student at Manchester Polytechnic and had run the folk club there, in addition to performing in Sussex at weekends and in the holidays. Ian went back to singing at The Black Horse when The Hayloft folded in 1976. Ian enjoyed the contrasting folk styles of the performers they put on at both The Hayloft and The Black Horse. The Young Tradition, whose more modern approach to performing folk, says Ian, provided a striking contrast with Rottingdean celebrities, The Copper Family, despite singing much of the same material.

It might be wondered why musicians like Ian and John were putting so much into running, and performing at, local folk venues. It was a question that, as a Manchester Poly undergraduate in the mid-1970s, Ian put to others doing precisely that at venues up and down the country. One respondent said they ran a folk club ‘for the money’, which was presumably not meant seriously. Many, perhaps unsurprisingly, emphasised their love and commitment to the music. In a folk club you could see big names ‘up close and personal,’ said Ian. ‘You could buy them a drink. Maybe they’d even buy you a drink!’ All the respondents to Ian’s questionnaires noted the same trends that dominated the folk clubs with which they were familiar: from an early 1960s revival popularised by American protest singers like Dylan and British ‘politicals’ like MacColl, to the late 1960s/early 70s all-pervasive trend of singer-songwriters, to folk comics from the mid-‘70s.

In 1975 EMI released a Mariners’ album to cash in on the folk boom. It was not immodestly titled, ‘The Best of Folk’ and had ‘Streets of London’ and ‘Dirty Ol’ Town’ (pre The Pogues’ cover) emblazoned across the sleeve. EMI initially released the record it via Fanfare Records, and then on the ubiquitous EMI budget imprint ‘MFP’. Some may sneer at the latter, but this helped to ensure that around 50,000 copies of the album got sold.

The front cover of The Mariners' EMI-released 'Best of Folk' album (Copyright EMI)

By the time The Mariners had stopped gigging at the end of the ‘70s they had spawned three popular spin-offs: The Telham Tinkers, Plum Duff and Brian Boru. Ian Dobson formed The Telham Tinkers with himself on vocals and harmonica, Ted Bishop on banjo and ‘portable organ’, Pete Titchener on guitar, mandolin and double bass, and Geoff Hutchinson on vocals and guitar. A periodic inclusion was the young Garry Blakeley, who subsequently became a renowned fiddler, including with Steeleye Span. Plum Duff featured John Towner together with Reg Marchant on guitar and mandolin, Tony Davis on guitar and banjo, Colin Baldwin on bass guitar, and Phil Ratcliffe on guitar. (Paul Manktalow was a member for a while too). Brian Boru consisted of the Sedgewick brothers: Peter on guitar and vocals and Paul on uilleann pipes and whistle, and the redoubtable Garry Blakeley on fiddle.

Brian Boru: Garry Blakeley, Paul Sedgewick (foreground) & Peter Sedgewick (right). (Picture taken from the back cover of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises)

‘Our roadie told us that he “knew a kid who plays a bit of fiddle,”’ remembers Ian. Garry Blakeley was 15 at the time. They asked him to play along to a tune. By the third verse he was musically ‘decorating it,’ says Ian. An uncle from Ireland had taught him mandolin. Gary has for many years featured in ‘A Feast of Fiddles’. He’s chosen to remain round here, says Ian, although he’s had his share of playing in the big league too, having toured with Christy Moore among others. Pete Titchener eventually left for Australia, teaming up with Eric Bogle and also, says Ian, successfully performing as a solo act. Pete was replaced in The Telham Tinkers by Russ Haywood on guitar and Ron Cleave on bass. Ian adds that around this time he was also running a series of gigs and providing PA at Mr Cherry's, a large bar on Hastings seafront.

Some of the musicians who performed in the bands spawned by The Mariners would later embrace a folk-rock orientated sound of the kind that Fairport Convention had pioneered from the late '60s and of which Steeleye Span became one of the biggest exemplars. To Ian’s mind ‘folk-rock’ of this kind was serious. It was utilised by musical scholars of the folk tradition like Martin Carthy who at the same time weren’t afraid of using electric amplification to literally and metaphorically reach a larger audience, often with well-established English folk material. American folk-rock, as pioneered in the mid-‘60s by The Byrds is for Ian an inferior breed, largely encompassing ‘folkish’ styles in an essentially rock format.

The Black Horse in Telham had provided Ian and John with a base for playing residencies whilst they could also bring in other acts to perform such a role, enabling them to gig elsewhere in England and, sometimes, abroad. By the late ‘70s the three Mariners’ spin-offs were playing at different venues every week. Ian calculates that the Telham Tinkers played approximately 250 gigs from 1978 to 1984, many of them on the London and Chichester circuit as well as a short English tour.

The Telham Tinkers. L-R: Geoff Hutchinson, Ian Dobson, Pete Titchener and Ted Bishop. (Picture taken from the back cover of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises)

The Telham Tinkers, Plum Duff and Brian Boru were all managed by Ron Milner. A Kent tax inspector by day, Ron was a folk impresario who not only helped organise gigs but put money and effort into the release of at least a couple of dozen different albums by English folk acts. These included LPs featuring the three bands, whether as a compilation of all of them (‘Folk at The Black Horse’, Eron) or in their own right e.g. The Telham Tinkers’ ‘Marrowbones’ (Eron 1980) and 'Hot in Alice Springs' (Eron 031, 1981). Both of these Telham Tinkers' albums were produced by Paul Dengate who later formed the local folk-rock band Better Days (who also included some members of Mariners' spin-offs). Limited pressings - Ian estimates that a few thousand each were produced - these LPs could (like the home-produced CDs that accompany almost every pub gig today) be sold at a live spot or used to promote the act. Fhir a Bhata (‘The Boatman’), from The Telham Tinkers' 'Marrowbones', is a fine example of the beautiful harmonies and exquisite musical accompaniment that had also characterised The Mariners. It can be heard here.

The Telham Tinkers (from the back cover shot of their LP 'Marrowbones', released on Eron records 1980. Copyright Eron Enterprises). From L-R, Geoff Hutchinson, Ted Bishop, Ian Dobson and Pete Titchener.

Plum Duff (outside The Black Horse); L-R Tony Davis, Colin Baldwin, John Towner, Reg Marchant and Phil Ratcliffe. (Picture taken from the back cover of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises)

Although Ron Milner never gave up his day job, he took the promotion of the Telham Tinkers, Plum Duff and Brian Boru very seriously, says Ian. Ron also ran a folk club in a candle-lit deconsecrated church in Sandwich in Kent. This led to the tongue-twisting ‘Folk In Sandwich’ LP, Ian wryly recalls. The wife of Davey Graham, Holly Gwynne Graham, was managed by Ron and she ended up featuring on the Sandwich club LP too.

Cover of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, circa 1978, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises 

Ian remembers The Telham Tinkers depping for Brian Boru (named after the former High King of Ireland after all) at a major Irish music venue in London. Ambrose Donahue was the renowned folk agent who organised it. Ian describes it as one of the worst musical experiences of his life. Large, burly Irishmen understandably didn’t take too kindly to a bunch of Englishmen singing them a mix of Irish and American songs. A strange epilogue to his army duties in Northern Ireland perhaps. He remembers the vibe being one of ‘take your money and go’ and that they all felt lucky to have got out in one piece. Although he ruefully recalls that perhaps his attempts at humour may not have helped the situation: ‘Here’s a song by Bob Dylan when he was a young Irishman,’ was apparently one of Ian’s attempts at lightening the mood.

By the turn of the 1980s, the interest in the folk music scene had definitely begun to wane. Ian and Karen put it down to the changes that were already being wrought in the latter ‘70s. Whether it was because of the toughening up of controls on drink driving, the birth of punk that made folk clubs decidedly out of fashion, or the inevitable ageing of those who had become family-orientated folk musicians, there were less punters coming through the doors at The Black Horse and other folk venues. The Telham club continued as weekly event until 1983, Ian and Karen note, while the re-opened Hayloft was to close a year later. In a tragic aside emphasising the fickle nature of ‘popular’ music, Ian notes that Peter Bellamy committed suicide in 1991 because he couldn’t get enough work.

Despite the demise of a number of local folk clubs, Ian and John were as active as ever. In 1980 Ian, Ian’s wife Clare and John formed ‘Titus’. They took their name from a local miscreant Titus Oates. Titus started out performing largely as an acapella trio, Ian says, until Ron Cleave, the guitar and accordion player, joined in 1981, adding instrumental and harmonising depth. Ian notes: 'We were (always) hot on harmonies.’ 

No prisoners of tradition, Titus were as equally adept at covering Bruce Springsteen numbers as they were 16^th century folk ballads. In the nature of the folk scene things could be quite informal. Ian remembers one gig where Clare had forgotten her recorder. Martin Carthy was there. In the absence of Clare being able to sound a tuning note, Ian turned to Martin. ‘Give us an E,’ Ian remembers saying to him.

Titus (Mark 2), with John Towner (left), Ron Cleave, Ian Dobson and Clare Dobson

Ian expresses sadness but understanding that, after 20 years of loyal service to Titus, in 2002 Ron Cleave retired to the West Country. Mick Mepham, a ‘local rock God’ as Ian cheekily describes him, showed an interest in performing ‘a different kind of music.’ Says Ian, Mick would write songs for the band in a folk style with singable choruses that the audience seemed to appreciate.

Sadly John Towner, Karen’s husband, who had been struggling with ill health for some time, died in 2010. Alan Marshall, whom Ian describes as an excellent guitarist and harmoniser, stepped in almost straight away. Ian’s wife Claire was to die just two years later. Despite suffering from cancer she played a Titus gig only two weeks before she passed away. After Claire died, Titus became a three-piece. In 2014 Steve Cook (a former Better Days member) joined on fiddle, broadening the band's instrumental capability.

In the early days of Titus it had simply been about the enjoyment of playing. ‘There wasn’t the need for the gigs so much at this point,’ said Karen. Titus did though do residencies at The Black Horse in the early days, and at the 1066 Folk Club in Battle. They also performed at social clubs, festivals, political events and PTAs as well as the more regular pub gigs. Ian remembers that Mick Mepham, their main guitarist, moved away to Lincoln but, incredibly, still insisted on carrying on because he was an integral part of the band. This Mick did for two years until he got married and prepared to move to France. However, said Ian, he was still thinking of commuting for gigs! This though marked the end of Titus, and in the spring of 2019, after a career that had spanned nearly 40 years and roughly 500 gigs, they bowed out with a gig at The Jenny Lind pub in Hastings.

Ian and John had also started up the Black Horse Music Festival in 1987, which was held in the pub garden and raised money each year for St Michael’s Hospice. It began when Pete Thomasett, who had been one of the resident musicians at the Black Horse, persuaded the landlord Eddie Dunford to have a reunion gig. Roughly 250 people turned up, including the original founders of The Black Horse folk club, Mick Marchant and John Goldsmith.

‘It was so good that we decided to do it again,’ but we resolved to move it into the pub garden next time, says Ian. ‘Every year it got bigger and bigger; there were bits of Fairport Convention; the Blockheads (minus Ian Dury) played one year.’ It was called ‘The Biggest Little Festival in Britain’, remembers Karen. The musicians performed on the back of trailer, with hay-bails on either side. Friday was blues night; Saturday was the folk night. They had begun purely as a folk festival with Morris dancers, the whole bit. However, remembered Ian, ‘[V]ery soon we realised that we couldn’t sustain this as just a folk festival and got some blues acts.’ There were also some local folk-rock acts such as ‘Better Days’ and ‘The Tabs’ (formerly known as ‘The Tabloid Attitudes’). The Mariners reformed for the festival; Titus were a regular feature. By the 1990s the Black Horse music festival, with a bigger stage and more powerful sound system, had incorporated World Music, although when a Zimbabwean musician’s plane wouldn’t take off from Harare this caused some major panic for Ian, John and the other festival organisers back in Telham. The Black Horse music festival ran for 20 years on the late May bank holiday (at this time Ian would also run the PA for the Jack in the Green Festival in Hastings each May Day weekend).

The 1996 line-up

The folk element of The Black Horse festival did shrink over time, Ian and Karen concede. Of the former Black Horse resident performers, only some had still survived after all. ‘We did book bigger and bigger folk acts though,’ remembers Karen. Among these were Pete Knight, Steeleye Span’s fiddler, while Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy performed one year. Leon Rosselson played a couple of times. A huge name in the ‘60s folk scene, Alex Campbell, performed too. Folk comics were also on the bill, as they had been when the folk club was running regularly. Stan Arnold, who wrote comedy songs, was a ‘beautiful picker’ says Ian, and interspersed his songs with funny chat. ‘Mr Gladstone’s Bag’ (Dave and Allen Seally) did a set; Brighton comedian (and Jasper Carrot chum) Alan White; and Jeremy Taylor, a public schoolboy kicked out of South Africa for political agitation. In one of his songs Taylor invented the term ‘jobsworth’, says Ian.

The last Black Horse music festival was held in 2009 and, in addition to Titus, its set-list included Abdul-Qader Sadoon from Congo, a Midlands-based Bhangra act, and a number of young local folk and rock-orientated acts. Karen stresses that The Black Horse would still hold the occasional folk night in the old folk club room, with Ian and John (until his untimely death) very much involved. The last Black Horse folk gig was a Christmas charity event in 2016 for St Michael's Hospice.

Ian Dobson is rightly pleased to have played a major role in the promotion and performance of folk and other music in the local area, and to have given The Black Horse and other venues a national, even international platform in the process. Here’s to you Ian.

  

Ian back at The Black Horse

  
Please note that, except where comments are clearly attributed to Ian Dobson or Karen Towner, the opinions contained in this article are entirely those of the author.

Tom Cole live at The King's Head in Battle

I have raved about this singer-songwriter before and will no doubt do so again. Tom Cole recently played to a mostly disinterested bunch of revellers and eaters in The King’s Head pub in Battle in East Sussex. You had to strain a bit to hear Tom, who sings confidently but was only accompanied by himself on acoustic guitar. But if you got up close (by propping up the bar nearest to him, as we did), there were thrills aplenty.

The first part of his two-set show had some intended crowd-pleasers: ‘Cecilia’ (Simon and Garfunkel) for example, and more surprisingly, the excellent ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel. Tom’s performance of the Joel song was doubly ironic as it's about the kind of gig that Tom would have been playing if the punters were more interested (or drunk enough), while the song’s knowing take on what it’s like to be the man behind the mic applies whether people are ‘in the mood for a melody’ or not.

Mr Cole is a deft purveyor of Americana but without the preciousness that some performers of the 'genre' give out (especially when they’re from the UK-side of the pond). He includes pre-'Americana' Americana in his repertoire, on this occasion including a nice take on ‘Early Morning Rain’ by the God-like genius that is Gordon Lightfoot (a Canadian). Tom went on to splice a Dylan number with one of his own songs. I cannot read the notes I scrawled the morning after, but I think the Dylan song was ‘Tomorrow is a Long Time’. Regardless, Tom’s part blended well with His Bobness.

To cover a song by the tortured Jackson C Frank - ‘Blues Runs The Game’ - emphasises Tom’s confidence and musical maturity. ‘Ramblin’ Man’ is the title track of Tom's EP of self-penned songs (on sale via his website www.tomcolemusic.co.uk). This was my first hearing and it came across well. However, like all of the EP versions, it benefits from a deft fiddle accompaniment.

He did a stellar cover of a Townes Van Zandt song whose title I cannot remember either. (Suggestions on a postcard please). My friend and me were impressed enough that Tom would cover an artist whose songs deal in pain without having to shout about his suffering. The fact that Tom did one so well was a wonderful bonus.

One of the best things I have ever heard Tom do is ‘In My Time of Dyin’’, which he performs closer to its original Gospel-style than Led Zeppelin shooting their bolt all over it. This was the undoubted highlight of the night (as it was the first time I saw him play). I don’t know if he’s considered getting the tapes rolling for a live release of this and other numbers, but he certainly should.

‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’ isn’t perhaps an obvious choice for the beery boys of Battle, but its time-honoured folk protest verities have their place. By this point the ale was kicking in with me too and we (I think) danced a bit to something Tom played before his finale: ‘Oh Lord Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz’ (co-written, and made famous, by Janis Joplin). This did engage the revellers from the other side of the bar. Or at least one of them. A lady stepped up, grabbed the mic and performed a more than passable interpretation. (I hope she doesn't mind me including this shot (below) of her enjoying the applause). 

Way to go Tom Cole. And hats off to The King’s Head in Battle for hosting this talented performer.

Alan King: Hardship Lane in Hastings

I’ve never had a guitar lesson in my life, said Alan King, as he spent two hours musically extrapolating on western and Indian music and the links between them. Friday night’s gig at the Electric Palace Cinema (EPC) in Hastings was supposed to be by ‘Hardship Lane’, a raga exploration by Alan and other musicians schooled, like him, in folk, blues, jazz and rock (In fact quite a lot like the last time Alan played at the EPC with his band, The Prisonaires, (as reviewed on this site).

Having felt ill, demotivated and, he confessed, wanting to pass the gig on to another act, on the night Alan pulled it together. That said, the evening didn’t go as it would had Alan had the preferred anonymity of being one of several musicians on stage. It looked like he was winging it when he began by digressing into talking about such early guitar influences as Roy Buchanan. Less predictably perhaps he also talked about Nils Lofgren, Neil Young’s drunken sparring partner on the infamous ‘Tonite’s The Night’ tour: a major influence on an impressionable young Alan.

His point was to not only emphasise guitarists who can perform under the influence, but those whose playing is raga-like. Another muse, Davy Graham, who Alan played with in the 1990s, was recalled for his technique and for a recklessness than both inspired and destroyed his musical career. One story, part-apocryphal maybe, was of Davy taking £20 in advance for a guitar lesson, then sticking on an Indian classical record and handing the student a guitar before exiting quickly to score some smack.

Before Alan got much further in telling a personal guitar history that spans some 50 years of western music, a member of the audience piped up and asked Alan if he knew Bert Weedon. Not satisfied by Alan’s response, the man, who’d plainly been enjoying some pre-gig refreshment, asked if Alan actually knew his stuff. Wilfully absurd, this provocative question produced a first rate version of ‘Guitar Boogie Shuffle’, making me wonder if this semi-heckler was hired in. (The man later declared that he’d been at The Prisonaires’ EPC gig three months earlier and, as a guitarist himself, had been seriously inspired by it). The number of people attending this gig was no more than at the last EPC Prisonaires one; in fact less if you count all those who were on the stage last time. However there were more middle-aged, bevied up, males this time around. This could be fun; the Bert Weedon enthusiast had a drole humour that usually made his interjections entertaining.

Alan observed that import restrictions amidst an economic crisis in Britain had made it impossible to get hold of American rock n’ roll records like those of Bert Weedon, so the Americans got around the problem by launching London Records to sell their product into the British market via a company that was also registered in the UK (In the ‘60s this same American label sold records by UK bands like the Rolling Stones into the US market).

Davy never liked Bert Jansch’s version of ‘Anji’, Alan said; it was too fast. Alan proceeded to play a version that was somewhere between the two but a copy of neither. He later wondered if he’d missed something musically by not being close to the dark side as substance users like Davy Graham. Bert Jansch was scary, said Alan; he could be off his head but then play some totally obscure 15^th century tune.

Alan is an intuitive player; you cannot teach guitar, he says. When I went to the local grammar school, he said, there were maybe two guitarists (including himself) out of 2,000 kids. Now there’ll be a thousand and they’re all having lessons. Alan said he started out playing a plastic four-string ‘Beatles guitar’ his dad had bought him, but at around 10 years of age his father gave him the same acoustic guitar he was using at this gig.

Alan goes to open mic nights in Hastings. Young guys get up and there's a wonderful tension and atmosphere about those first early appearances. One year later it's over, they've been schooled in a certain way and all the emotion has gone out of it, he says. 

Alan started to get more impatient voices from the back but he carried on in his studiedly relaxed but didactic mode. For my part I enjoyed listening to Dr King both talk and play, either way he's a piece of living musical history (a description he'll probably hate). He even dismissively commented on digital guitar tuners. You don’t always want to be in tune, all ending up sounding the same, he says. “It's got to be wrong to be right.” Goebbels would have said that the A string has to be tuned to 440 Hz, Alan observed.

So who's your favourite guitarist, shouted the Bert Weedon fan. Paco de Lucia …maybe, said Alan. Talking about guitar maestros encouraged Alan to go to the inevitable subject of Jimi Hendrix. He spoke of his particular affection for the album ‘Electric Ladyland’. If Hendrix had had the equipment we have..., Alan started to say. The point though, Alan corrected himself, was that Hendrix had all the equipment he needed. Hendrix was a blues man and always played in the five note Pentatonic Scale; the black notes on a keyboard as Alan put it, dismissing the importance of even this knowledge. Alan proceeded to play a version of Hendrix’ ‘Little Wing’ that was tasteful, mannered, and beautiful.

He then started talking about the musicians that really excite him. Fred Frith, who he said played in a “south London Marxist collective experimental jazz band” …. Henry Cow. What were they like, asked the Bert Weedon fan. F***ing unbelievably incredible, was Alan’s pithy reply.

Neil Young has this thing where he is not quite in tune, Alan said, and that way you can bend it in tune. You should show some imagination in your playing, Alan said.

He noted however that Neil Young admitted that ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ was a rip-off of Bert Jansch’s idea on ‘Needle of Death’, while on ‘Ambulance Blues’ Neil Young appropriated Jansch’s tune too. This can cut both ways though, as Alan revealed by demonstrating how Pink Floyd’s ‘Breathe’ is a close copy of Neil Young’s ‘Down by the River’.

He then talked about songwriters he likes before playing a Carole King tune. Another favourite of his is Junior Kimbrough, a name lost on almost everybody in the room – and this was a fairly informed audience. Kimbrough was a one chord ‘country’ performer, said Alan, emphasising that it isn’t all about being a (taught) virtuoso. Charlie Feathers (a friend of Junior’s) was the rockabilly “real deal”, never mind Elvis, who screwed him over, said Alan. Feathers lived and worked right next door to Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio in Memphis, he said, but didn’t get a break there. Feathers was threatening; “he was evil.”

Alan also mentioned how much he admired the songwriter Alan Hull. “Who?” asked the guy at the back. He was in Lindisfarne, Alan explained, who later became a “cabaret band”. He talked about the beauty of a folk tune Alan Hull did when they played together, ‘She Moves Through the Fair’. Are you going to play it then, asked the bloke. Alan declined, to some sweary but good humoured frustration. Before taking a comfort break, Alan commented that when he was touring in Ireland a few years ago, he walked into a bar and was told that because it was ‘Holy Hour’ they couldn't serve him. However he was offered a drink while he waited.

It's well known that Alan helped Bert Jansch to resume his career when he had more or less abandoned performing altogether. In the Gents we talked about Alan and Bert’s musical collaboration (which included Alan producing and recording Bert's celebrated 'Live at the 12 Bar'). I asked whether they worked up ragas together, and, not immodestly, Alan said that he had got Bert into playing them in the first place. This was the early 1990s after a long and mostly fallow period in Bert’s career. Bert had had a drinking problem and a big cocaine addiction, said Alan. There were times in the ‘80s when Bert Jansch was not together enough to be in The Pentangle line-ups even if he’d wanted to. Without Bert, John Renbourne and Jacqui McShee, Pentangle didn’t make any sense, said Alan. Gerry Conlon (ex-Fotheringay), who Alan calls a 'click drummer', someone who just plays in time, was going out with Jacqui; so he got the drummer’s gig. How can you hope to replace a jazzer like Terry Cox with a click drummer, he asked. Back on stage Alan said that John Lennon said that Ringo wasn't a very good drummer, but all the great drummers Alan has met, including Billy Cobham, said that Ringo was the best. He played in a few big bands, noted the guy at the back.

Alan’s raga infatuation started when he went to collect an Indian takeaway and heard this incredible music playing in the background. He’s been obsessed with playing ragas for more than ten years. Alan normally likes to play ragas for three hours, but reassured this EPC audience that he wouldn’t being doing that tonight. The great thing about ragas, he said, is that if you come at them from a blues, jazz or flamenco tradition you can understand them; likewise raga can inform these western musical traditions.

In the ‘80s Alan said he practically lived at The Marquee Club. He also had a photography business and used to shoot artists for their album covers, including on one occasion Bruce Springsteen. Alan was living in Hackney at the time, which back then was like 1950s Warsaw, he observed.

Alan mentioned that he worked with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, later of ‘Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out’ fame. Mortimer, an old school friend of Alan's, was practising as a lawyer; “at which he was sh*t,” said Alan. However Mortimer was also into comedy. For a year Alan pestered him to come and perform at an open mic night in Deptford, which eventually Mortimer did. Alan then wrote material for Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer when they were into what he describes as Dadaist, situationist, humour. I liked Vic because, like me, he had a northern accent, recalls Alan. I set up a gig for them with BBC bigwigs who just wanted formulaic stuff. The rest is history, he says. Vic used to eschew the celebrity circuit but he soon embraced it; he became insufferable, said Alan.

Partly out of frustration with the organisational and financial side of band gigs, Alan said off stage that tonight was going to be his last. What about more solo spots, I asked. I don't want to be up in lights on my own, he said, I have never enjoyed that. A highly accomplished guitarist with so much to teach players and fans alike about the evolution of western music, but who eschews personal attention. Alan says though that he’ll probably still attend a few gigs in Hastings pubs, and maybe he’ll join in occasionally at some open mic nights.

Before playing us out, Alan digressed about going into a bar in Sweden one night, desperate for a drink after having just finished playing a gig. Suddenly somebody rushed in urging him to come around the corner because “someone just like Stevie Ray Vaughan was playing; he's even got the hat.” “He’s even got the hat,” Alan repeated to emphasise his contempt for the superficial side of the business. He never liked Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “boogie-woogie stuff,” he said, but his subtler, jazz, playing was sublime. Two of these tunes, ‘Riviera Paradise’ and ‘Lenny’, were fused together by Alan in a wonderful, virtuoso performance; the effort and concentration etched across his face. He was working very hard; fingers flying across the frets.

Let’s hope we can catch him around Hastings in a pub somewhere if he ever feels like showing some other musicians a few tricks. 

American music legend plays Whatlington Village Hall

Award-winning American acoustic musician and song-writer Doug MacLeod stayed in the tiny East Sussex village of Crowhurst on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. This 70-something survivor of child sexual abuse discovered as a young man that music could save his mortal soul and went on to found a one-man musical ministry to heal us all. Doug was staying at Nina’s “Woodside” B&B in Old Forewood Lane before giving an intimate gig in Whatlington Village Hall, the new venue for Mrs Yarrington’s Music Club, the best platform for acoustic music in the south-east of England.

Doug played at Mrs Yarrington’s back in 2016 (click here for my review of that gig). In fact it made such an impression on him that on Tuesday night he went straight back to the same venue (at The Senlac Inn in Battle), sat in the bar, and wondered where his punters might be. He made it to the new venue in time however, bringing much needed relief after the opening act, Song Box Band. While this Brighton pop-folk duo impressed with their in-sync guitar playing, the singer's musings on Mediterranean holidays and other anodyne middle-class preoccupations grated.

When Doug began his song sermons, there was an almost palpable sense of excitement as an audience that was mostly familiar with the man readied themselves to get healed. He did not disappoint. Having heard some of his blues-based gospel before, I had an idea of what to expect, but songs familiar, and ones I had not had the privilege of hearing him sing live before, were equally compelling.

Among the stand-out songs were ‘Who’s Driving This Bus?’, a musical musing on the interests that may lay behind our elected leaders, with a nod to John Lee Hooker in Doug’s phenomenal guitar playing done in his professed “gumbo” style. Another musical acknowledgment was made by Doug when introducing a song that almost stole the show, and whose title went something like “(I Believe That) The Sun is Gonna’ Shine”. It was, said Doug, a song influenced by the celebrated black bluesman (and long-time muse), Tampa Red. You had to fight back the tears when hearing a tale of hoped for redemption that came straight out of Doug’s backstory. It was truly one of the most extraordinary vocal performances I’ve heard in nearly 40 years of attending gigs.

This man is an acknowledged master of his particular art; he just played in a village hall up the road from where I live. His landlady came to the gig and joked that she’ll be putting his sheets on e bay. She hadn’t heard of him before Tuesday but knew that, somehow, she had a star staying in her guest house. If you want to be similarly blessed, make sure you check him out the next time Mrs Yarrington’s puts this huge performer on a tiny stage.