tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68432449459412070242024-02-07T22:33:17.322-08:00Searching for the Old Folk RebelsProfiles of the unsung heroes of the UK folk scene from the first revival of the late 1950s through to the 1970s.Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-8625682283215406812020-12-05T08:22:00.042-08:002021-09-30T05:18:07.715-07:00Johnie Winch: Retracing his Roots<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEpUoRqGmWuPyU3Qv3_A2iD-2zDhcV2S_zozyE3rFfj1YvWjb1LlyzNgp2X7saPJG8bb7yUVXb1aDmcRTT0fnhoaugHFnV5QnasnorIeGasQo7Ia12gGad7La-j3lNOMQLabTom1xmb4/s534/John+circa+2000s.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEpUoRqGmWuPyU3Qv3_A2iD-2zDhcV2S_zozyE3rFfj1YvWjb1LlyzNgp2X7saPJG8bb7yUVXb1aDmcRTT0fnhoaugHFnV5QnasnorIeGasQo7Ia12gGad7La-j3lNOMQLabTom1xmb4/s320/John+circa+2000s.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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.’ <div><br /></div><div>Throughout the 1960s
and ‘70s John was a major feature on the English south coast’s folk music scene.
On occasions he, <a href="https://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/04/kelvin-message-life-in-music.html">Kelvin Message</a> 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
<a href="https://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/04/kelvin-message-life-in-music.html" target="_blank">this site’s profile of Kelvin</a>
that led John to get in touch from Germany. ‘It brought back a lot of memories,’
he said. </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>'(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
<a href="http://www.johnrenbourn.co.uk/%20" target="_blank">John Renbourn</a>
(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<a href="https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=167103#4026130" target="_blank"> banjo player Pete Stanley</a>, whose diverse plaudits later included work with Bryan Ferry; and
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pearse" target="_blank">John Pearce</a>, the folk performer who had his own BBC guitar tuition programme in the
1960s. </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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.<br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVft4gQWw0_H5A5I8Ox3YguSi2ObOfOLwaJ_f-JL7GMuddcXvQfaN2NfjmlkoJGmjfgMOvp5AdPNQd0JtJu8VYyTvbr-9k5EbL8kZq1fzEwXuvOcrhRy__2AuhGgc0aIjY-tUrZzr6cU0/s513/Johnie+and+brian.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="513" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVft4gQWw0_H5A5I8Ox3YguSi2ObOfOLwaJ_f-JL7GMuddcXvQfaN2NfjmlkoJGmjfgMOvp5AdPNQd0JtJu8VYyTvbr-9k5EbL8kZq1fzEwXuvOcrhRy__2AuhGgc0aIjY-tUrZzr6cU0/s320/Johnie+and+brian.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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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.’ </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>'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.’ </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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’. </div><div><br /></div><div>‘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.’ </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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’. </div><div><br /></div><div>‘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.’<br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXandEVHesBRkyrLGpfnbtipDeBspnVu0lY0lpuCgI9_eoJQIFOiVFW3tbuX7lr3T8BGfqfAeYgT7L3VM6IWAXoXNrU9wdSJJJEKCfiP_o3OaYPu_7KbYkgTgyrJWFV2SorG9R5mC3agA/s466/Johnie+Winch+circa+late+1970s.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="389" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXandEVHesBRkyrLGpfnbtipDeBspnVu0lY0lpuCgI9_eoJQIFOiVFW3tbuX7lr3T8BGfqfAeYgT7L3VM6IWAXoXNrU9wdSJJJEKCfiP_o3OaYPu_7KbYkgTgyrJWFV2SorG9R5mC3agA/s320/Johnie+Winch+circa+late+1970s.jpg" /></a>
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In 1978 John
released his first record, a
<a href="https://www.discogs.com/Johnie-Winch-Little-Woman/release/12490107" target="_blank">three track EP on Joe Stead’s ‘Sweet Folk and Country’ label</a>
(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.)
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</div>
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 <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/964000-John-Winch">‘I Am A Free and
Travelling Man’</a>. 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
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc4eXVl2zWo%20" target="_blank">here</a>
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</div>
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...’
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</div>
In September 2020 John wrote on the
<a href="https://ninebattles.com/author/alan/" target="_blank">SMART music site</a>
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
<a href="https://ninebattles.com/author/alan/" target="_blank">SMART website</a>, ‘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.
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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.’ </div><div><br /></div><div>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.
</div>Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-66444752039181217182020-08-28T09:26:00.000-07:002020-08-28T09:26:03.041-07:00Schitzoid Joe: Lost No More<p>That journal of 'Swinging London', the <i>International Times,</i> has published my profile of the lost classic album, <a href="https://steveandjuice.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">'Schitzoid Joe'</a>. Written and performed by <a href="https://strangestar.bandcamp.com/community" target="_blank">Lucy Nabijou</a> and <a href="https://stevenorth.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR1-RdYyTF68mXzJhQUXOAVzwSLDFSjh-spilxVR6VcFT63JooOWW5P2jsA" target="_blank">Steve North</a>, 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. </p><p>You can read the article in <i>International Times</i>, the publication once dubbed 'the underground Daily Mirror' by <i><a href="https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/from-alternative-london-by-nicholas-saunders-1974/" target="_blank">Alternative London</a></i>, by clicking on <a href="http://internationaltimes.it/schitzoid-joe-lost-no-more/" target="_blank">this link</a>. You can listen to the album <a href="https://steveandjuice.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilgDa_tBAgTLgnORuI8B7vYhTDe-FAZx5iQtfa2ylo6MEepCtwo-JDUzVMUPF0psI6b8k_iMcHzL_WEnAUH5sfzwfFTUdBXCOXxTGuRUPzhZHuibEJ98g9MlfR3W1rPNQQWcAilfJsWbXE/s1200/album+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilgDa_tBAgTLgnORuI8B7vYhTDe-FAZx5iQtfa2ylo6MEepCtwo-JDUzVMUPF0psI6b8k_iMcHzL_WEnAUH5sfzwfFTUdBXCOXxTGuRUPzhZHuibEJ98g9MlfR3W1rPNQQWcAilfJsWbXE/w410-h410/album+cover.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-60524756464763714382020-05-15T03:51:00.000-07:002020-05-15T04:52:13.482-07:00'The Road Less Travelled' - a new EP by Tom Cole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://www.tomcolemusic.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tom Cole</a>’s <a href="https://www.tomcolemusic.co.uk/" target="_blank">‘The Road Less Travelled’</a> 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.<br />
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I feel conflicted though in my responses on listening to it
as <a href="https://deiradiary.blogspot.com/2019/07/tom-cole-live-at-kings-head-in-battle.html" target="_blank">I have heard him perform these songs either live</a> (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 <a href="https://deiradiary.blogspot.com/2019/07/tom-cole-live-at-kings-head-in-battle.html" target="_blank">can sometimes be lost when played solo in a pub setting</a>.
I had a similar feeling about his last EP, ‘Ramblin’ Man’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 (<a href="https://www.starnow.co.uk/henrybristow1" target="_blank">Henry Bristow</a>, 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. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The acid test for me though was how a studio reworking of ‘In
My Time of Dyin’' would sound. I’ve long believed that <a href="https://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2019/07/tom-cole-live-at-kings-head-in-battle.html" target="_blank">Tom should release a live version of his interpretation</a> of this Blues/Gospel standard as, solo and
exposed, <a href="https://deiradiary.blogspot.com/2015/07/gecko-rock-in-st-leonards-hastings.html" target="_blank">he’s always conveyed the emotional power at the heart of the song</a>. 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, <a href="https://www.bobdylan.com/" target="_blank">Bob Dylan</a>, 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.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘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, <a href="https://deiradiary.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-circle-of-trust-hastings-friendship.html" target="_blank">'The Circle of Trust'</a>. 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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In keeping with the times we’re living through, ‘The Road
Less Travelled’ EP had its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/520651721949920/" target="_blank">showcase live on Facebook</a> just under a week ago. It
can be heard in its entirety via <a href="https://www.tomcolemusic.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tom Cole’s website </a>and can be purchased <a href="https://tomcole.bandcamp.com/album/the-road-less-travelled" target="_blank">here</a> via
Bandcamp. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-72748311532657136472019-12-21T07:20:00.003-08:002023-01-29T01:05:36.382-08:00Ian Dobson: a folk voice for half a century<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>by Neil Partrick</i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As well as having made his own important musical
contribution via The Mariners, The Telham Tinkers and <a href="http://www.titusfolk.com/" target="_blank">Titus</a>, 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.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqat-aEslae4Jfni7M_A42qDfUcNNs3m3ytJbpBZVaAFd5NyWx_zAmXQ9XX2lB1bUFONlG9cDuHtTVV1_ahzh8TJXfdpe0kkfZH2Ryh48DOgZ4qE67h5Z3-TAPVsYZVHnLTYMQpuLCtY/s1600/Ian+and+Karen+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqat-aEslae4Jfni7M_A42qDfUcNNs3m3ytJbpBZVaAFd5NyWx_zAmXQ9XX2lB1bUFONlG9cDuHtTVV1_ahzh8TJXfdpe0kkfZH2Ryh48DOgZ4qE67h5Z3-TAPVsYZVHnLTYMQpuLCtY/s320/Ian+and+Karen+2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Ian Dobson & Karen Towner at The Black Horse in October 2019</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Talking to Ian (and Karen Towner, wife of John Towner) in <a href="https://www.blackhorse-telham.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Black Horse</a> 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, <a href="http://garryblakeley.co.uk/" target="_blank">Garry Blakele</a>y 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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="https://www.jakethackray.com/" target="_blank">Jake Thackray</a>.
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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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: <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/07/dave-arthur-storyteller-tells-his-story.html" target="_blank">Dave and Toni Arthur</a> 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.’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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').</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At The York pub in
Bexhill amongst others, Ian and John booked singer, guitarist and fiddle player <a href="https://www.nicjones.net/home" target="_blank">Nic Jones </a>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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bellamy" target="_blank">Peter Bellamy</a> (the founder of The Young Tradition), Ian saw at Manchester Polytechnic having booked them for the folk club
there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/07/dave-arthur-storyteller-tells-his-story.html" target="_blank">Dave Arthur</a>).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="https://www.johnkirkpatrick.co.uk/" target="_blank">John and Sue Kirkpatrick</a>. (<a href="https://www.johnkirkpatrick.co.uk/" target="_blank">John Kirkpatrick</a> 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 <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/04/kelvin-message-life-in-music.html" target="_blank">Johnnie Winch</a> (the one-time musical sparring partner of <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/04/kelvin-message-life-in-music.html" target="_blank">Kelvin Message</a>). 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.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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, <a href="http://www.thecopperfamily.com/" target="_blank">The Copper Famil</a>y, despite singing much of the same material.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from the mid-‘70s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4E_JSqXZXdvts6zm6AU71r5CE4YC4gascS1UsxTDkyuU0VZI9kMUmeAJ52Z5Dedr8L0HXRyg8z_83t4LRPSQ7ThNzDDtunz8eNNMoYB08BlVy9-RbW3NJ3WJo28e8PDg_p6VFgBZkHHw/s1600/Mariners+LP+front+cover.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4E_JSqXZXdvts6zm6AU71r5CE4YC4gascS1UsxTDkyuU0VZI9kMUmeAJ52Z5Dedr8L0HXRyg8z_83t4LRPSQ7ThNzDDtunz8eNNMoYB08BlVy9-RbW3NJ3WJo28e8PDg_p6VFgBZkHHw/s1600/Mariners+LP+front+cover.jpeg" /></span></a></h3>
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The front cover of The Mariners' EMI-released 'Best of Folk' album (Copyright EMI)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">By the time The Mariners had stopped gigging at the end of
the ‘70s they had spawned three popular spin-offs: The Telham Tinkers, <a href="https://ninebattles.com/tag/plum-duff/" target="_blank">Plum Duff </a>and Brian Boru. Ian Dobson formed The Telham Tinkers with himself on vocals and harmonica, Ted Bishop on banjo and ‘portable organ’, Pete Titchener </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">on guitar, mandolin and double bass, and Geoff Hutchinson on vocals and guitar. A periodic inclusion was the young </span><a href="http://garryblakeley.co.uk/" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Garry Blakeley</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, 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. (</span><a href="https://ninebattles.com/2019/12/17/plum-duff-17th-december-1977/" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Paul Manktalow</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> 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 </span><a href="http://garryblakeley.co.uk/" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Garry Blakeley</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> on fiddle.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQhOD1YocKht5bAyYwgVsW3cDfcTtA8AlYxFrDDyPOC1olQJTxOyEERqWiqoUhs_C_MImF0lyIptBxUmp3XJX-9K68h9CH4-5D2y9G2bBwIjKUvaXOl7Sa_08DYZqaAWUQzro9zTSBic/s1600/Brian+Boru+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1307" data-original-width="1600" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQhOD1YocKht5bAyYwgVsW3cDfcTtA8AlYxFrDDyPOC1olQJTxOyEERqWiqoUhs_C_MImF0lyIptBxUmp3XJX-9K68h9CH4-5D2y9G2bBwIjKUvaXOl7Sa_08DYZqaAWUQzro9zTSBic/s320/Brian+Boru+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="1"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brian Boru: Garry Blakeley, Paul Sedgewick (foreground) & Peter Sedgewick (right). </span><span>(<span style="font-family: inherit;">Picture taken from the back c</span>over </span>of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises)</font></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Our roadie told us that he “knew a kid who plays a bit of
fiddle,”’ remembers Ian. <a href="http://garryblakeley.co.uk/" target="_blank">Garry Blakeley </a>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 href="https://feastoffiddles.co.uk/" target="_blank">‘A Feast of Fiddles</a>’. 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, <a href="https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=pete+tichener+eric+bogle#id=1&vid=3d1b66f51b6751ec4241ce3783bf4a08&action=click" target="_blank">teaming up with Eric Bogle</a> 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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaWE4TtU5Wt_elJVObo0vBL4dzHgv7xyammvC-_zHEl-P0r9GGCfMkZMml7HXh0AD1uPNCb0jCLmSDXFP2brDWZoxdOj1yOFgJUBIGnwcORaOncugQip8kYkuKxZ2QafhT83hFOy39lWQ/s1600/Telham+Tinkers+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaWE4TtU5Wt_elJVObo0vBL4dzHgv7xyammvC-_zHEl-P0r9GGCfMkZMml7HXh0AD1uPNCb0jCLmSDXFP2brDWZoxdOj1yOFgJUBIGnwcORaOncugQip8kYkuKxZ2QafhT83hFOy39lWQ/s320/Telham+Tinkers+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="1"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Telham Tinkers. L-R: Geoff Hutchinson, Ian Dobson, Pete Titchener and Ted Bishop. (</span><span>Picture taken from the back cover</span> of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises)</font></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGTzMELjvRg" target="_blank">Better Days </a>(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. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fhir a Bhata</i> (‘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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9BnNzmb_n8" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6yfDTmKD6H2j4G94btlkloz5SkW0gSF9cbx76LZpabBkBz5R9NzjQNTC9wmQGu3ng75m_20snqOJTqjg0LMxWg5zGZoqZhN5ZZ-Or9G8r7Je0fTXZ8rtRQDAVTlUHXYlq2aW5_NTybI/s1600/The+Mariners+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1295" data-original-width="1600" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6yfDTmKD6H2j4G94btlkloz5SkW0gSF9cbx76LZpabBkBz5R9NzjQNTC9wmQGu3ng75m_20snqOJTqjg0LMxWg5zGZoqZhN5ZZ-Or9G8r7Je0fTXZ8rtRQDAVTlUHXYlq2aW5_NTybI/s320/The+Mariners+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">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.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM4pSNndkvITj5cHpch52WI6h_lYDgKA3FW2w9eQHdO-hsFmzrRqJbqGnR-zHq_xLewckerI4YkoKKJvE2tI2l6nxtM6tTCjdeHtKJxnj5trw-MjWVCQZV24LbqACpmSjBxt8iouJgCs4/s1600/PLum+Duff+better+picture.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="800" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM4pSNndkvITj5cHpch52WI6h_lYDgKA3FW2w9eQHdO-hsFmzrRqJbqGnR-zHq_xLewckerI4YkoKKJvE2tI2l6nxtM6tTCjdeHtKJxnj5trw-MjWVCQZV24LbqACpmSjBxt8iouJgCs4/s320/PLum+Duff+better+picture.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="1"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Plum Duff (outside The Black Horse); L-R Tony Davis, Colin Baldwin, John Towner, Reg Marchant and Phil Ratcliffe. (Picture taken from the back c</span>over of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises)</font></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eQjfykn9cYz-7eRo2fp2M7icbh0-RlLw5NMwbRrfbAiV3nkTFdEMzuB6Rskb1Jk_hBGtYh3Qgnesx7qWjbuga7u5EX4msQ7j1tyi28QsA-F8MWcsbULCqEKd_WRT3StVoEt80eDQI_0/s1600/Black+Horse+LP+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eQjfykn9cYz-7eRo2fp2M7icbh0-RlLw5NMwbRrfbAiV3nkTFdEMzuB6Rskb1Jk_hBGtYh3Qgnesx7qWjbuga7u5EX4msQ7j1tyi28QsA-F8MWcsbULCqEKd_WRT3StVoEt80eDQI_0/s1600/Black+Horse+LP+cover.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Cover of the 'Folk at the Black Horse' LP, circa 1978, Eron Records. Copyright Eron Enterprises </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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<a href="http://www.titusfolk.com/" target="_blank"> ‘Titus’</a>. 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.’ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p>No prisoners of tradition, Titus were as equally adept at covering Bruce Springsteen numbers as they were 16<sup>th</sup> 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.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddtBlncpqnIa0n6M_Rs70sNP_XpPcHQHRDEZoCg_9gvdxgblxFAebiXOAxgXnl1Mni83ACr3tZGYD5bfW7Ne8T0iwmLdqpLfck91g3VbsfrqchTIozQMMq_fG5Bord_0XIjVEEa-LbJo/s1600/Titus+Mark+1+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddtBlncpqnIa0n6M_Rs70sNP_XpPcHQHRDEZoCg_9gvdxgblxFAebiXOAxgXnl1Mni83ACr3tZGYD5bfW7Ne8T0iwmLdqpLfck91g3VbsfrqchTIozQMMq_fG5Bord_0XIjVEEa-LbJo/s320/Titus+Mark+1+%25282%2529+edit.jpg" width="310" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Titus (Mark 2), with John Towner (left), Ron Cleave, Ian Dobson and Clare Dobson</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the early days of <a href="http://www.titusfolk.com/" target="_blank">Titus</a> 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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ian and John had also started up <a href="https://ninebattles.com/tag/black-horse-music-festival/" target="_blank">the Black Horse Music Festival</a> 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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">‘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).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfwy6HTaNKeB20o1Ikjc8qcjmQPDpR2uE4DXuiZH8ZgiRT_Yg_kW7cV-WX0gfEKQlFifF7bfZUmzS6Q7BqMDX-8vkI0GoRsd1DgtAnEA6C9xTf1Dwrnib3G10baI2o3OIkalrBhdZqG5s/s1600/Black+Horse+MF+poster.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="520" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfwy6HTaNKeB20o1Ikjc8qcjmQPDpR2uE4DXuiZH8ZgiRT_Yg_kW7cV-WX0gfEKQlFifF7bfZUmzS6Q7BqMDX-8vkI0GoRsd1DgtAnEA6C9xTf1Dwrnib3G10baI2o3OIkalrBhdZqG5s/s320/Black+Horse+MF+poster.jpg" width="214" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The 1996 line-up</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="https://www.peterknight.net/" target="_blank">Pete Knight</a>, Steeleye Span’s fiddler,
while Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy performed one year. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Rosselson" target="_blank">Leon Rosselson</a>
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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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 <a href="https://www.blackhorse-telham.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Black Horse</a> and other venues a national, even international
platform in the process. Here’s to you Ian.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Ian back at The Black Horse</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>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.</i></span><br />
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Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-9039339623356879352019-07-06T01:17:00.001-07:002019-07-07T23:41:18.215-07:00Tom Cole live at The King's Head in Battle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have raved about this singer-songwriter before and will no doubt do so again. <a href="https://www.tomcolemusic.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tom Cole </a>recently played to a mostly disinterested bunch of revellers and eaters in <a href="https://kingsheadbattle.co.uk/" target="_blank">The King’s Head pub in Battle</a> 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.<br />
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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.<o:p></o:p><br />
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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.<br />
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To cover a song by the tortured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_C._Frank" target="_blank">Jackson C Frank</a> - ‘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 <a href="http://www.tomcolemusic.co.uk/">www.tomcolemusic.co.uk</a>). This was my first hearing and it came across well. However, like all of the EP versions, it benefits from a deft fiddle accompaniment.<br />
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He did a stellar cover of a <a href="https://townesvanzandt.com/" target="_blank">Townes Van Zandt</a> 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.<br />
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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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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‘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). </div>
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Way to go Tom Cole. And hats off to <a href="https://kingsheadbattle.co.uk/" target="_blank">The King’s Head in Battle</a> for hosting this talented performer.</div>
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Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-74243849568277848362018-09-24T02:51:00.000-07:002018-10-29T11:25:37.411-07:00Alan King: Hardship Lane in Hastings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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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 <a href="https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/" target="_blank">Electric Palace Cinema</a> (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 <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-prisonaires-live-at-electric-palace.html" target="_blank">the last time Alan played at the EPC</a> with his band, The
Prisonaires, (as <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-prisonaires-live-at-electric-palace.html" target="_blank">reviewed on this site</a>).<br />
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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.<br />
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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.</div>
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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 <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-prisonaires-live-at-electric-palace.html" target="_blank">The Prisonaires’ EPC gig three months earlier</a> 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.</div>
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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).</div>
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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<sup>th</sup> century tune.</div>
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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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 <i>needed</i>. 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.</div>
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He then started talking about the musicians that <i>really </i>excite him. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6nZdDIINpI" target="_blank">Fred Frith</a>, who he said
played in a “south London Marxist collective experimental jazz band” …. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cow" target="_blank">Henry Cow</a>. What were they like, asked the Bert Weedon fan. F***ing unbelievably
incredible, was Alan’s pithy reply.</div>
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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.<br />
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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’.</div>
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He then talked about songwriters he likes before playing a Carole
King tune. Another favourite of his is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Kimbrough" target="_blank">Junior Kimbrough</a>, 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. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Feathers" target="_blank">Charlie Feathers </a>(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.”</div>
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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.</div>
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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<a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20716-live-at-the-12-bar/" target="_blank"> 'Live at the 12 Bar'</a>). 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.</div>
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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.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">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 </span>the frets.</div>
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Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-71372918882125583742018-07-19T00:13:00.005-07:002018-07-19T06:14:42.685-07:00American music legend plays Whatlington Village Hall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Award-winning American acoustic musician and song-writer <a href="http://www.doug-macleod.com/index.html" target="_blank">Doug MacLeod</a> 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 <a href="https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/woodside-b-amp-b.en-gb.html" target="_blank">“Woodside” B&B</a> in Old Forewood Lane before giving an intimate gig in <a href="http://www.whatlingtonparishcouncil.com/community/the-clerk-whatlington-parish-council-7964/whatlington-village-hall/" target="_blank">Whatlington Village Hall</a>, the new venue for <a href="http://www.mrsy.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mrs Yarrington’s Music Club</a>, the best platform for
acoustic music in the south-east of England. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Doug played at <a href="http://www.mrsy.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mrs Yarrington’s</a> back in 2016 (click <a href="http://deiradiary.blogspot.com/2016/07/buckets-of-love-from-buckets-of-blood_27.html" target="_blank">here </a>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, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/songboxband/posts/" target="_blank">Song Box Band</a>. 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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-66983885376371107932018-07-01T12:07:00.001-07:002018-07-28T01:04:53.636-07:00The Prisonaires Live at the Electric Palace Hastings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Is this a supergroup?” asked a friend of mine as we took our places last night in the third row of this tiny, <a href="https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/our-history" target="_blank">historic</a>, yet barely half-full <a href="https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/" target="_blank">Hastings cinema</a>. If about 250 years of combined experience playing with some of the most important western musicians of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century fits the bill, then The Prisonaires are definitely a supergroup. While not household names, any blues, jazz-rock, folk, or rock enthusiast will understand that these gentlemen were pivotal to some of the most ground-breaking music of the 1960s and '70s. Yet there were plenty of empty seats in a venue that only has 48 of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Acoustic guitarist and leader of the band, <a href="https://ninebattles.com/2015/02/06/roger-hubbard-to-record-a-live-album-at-the-royal-standard-feb-2015/" target="_blank">Alan King </a>commented wryly that scheduling a gig during an international football tournament is always a disaster. But can it be that south-coast music buffs preferred staying at home to watch telly in the hope that Argentina would defeat the French, than attending a gig of this quality? When The Prisonaires finished their set a member of the audience stood up and shouted that it was the finest gig he’d seen in Hastings in years. It was one of the finest gigs I’ve seen anywhere in years.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcYw4gK5F2_YWIzNkgaSGHdNq4urkBtAhml7N_eGAo5n0r2KUfX02rp7phxxJLYSivXyxeBa3F8tLPFtfESk4Y1Pv_2ABSZFMpnl4WO6r3ExaHleMHyClD78TqOEcnYl9OQWjz8ZmIlIom/s1600/20180630_203330.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcYw4gK5F2_YWIzNkgaSGHdNq4urkBtAhml7N_eGAo5n0r2KUfX02rp7phxxJLYSivXyxeBa3F8tLPFtfESk4Y1Pv_2ABSZFMpnl4WO6r3ExaHleMHyClD78TqOEcnYl9OQWjz8ZmIlIom/s320/20180630_203330.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Alan (left) with Bobby Valentino (fiddle), Les Morgan (drums) and Tony Reeves (right,bass)</td></tr>
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Musical impresario, Alan King was a doyen of the famed 12 Bar Club, the ‘60s Soho music venue that gives the name to Dr King’s ‘12 Bar Music’, the platform for this and for some forthcoming <a href="https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/" target="_blank">Electric Palace</a> gigs. King told me outside the Gents – the Electric Palace is so small that the toilets are never far away – that he is lucky enough to have played with his favourite guitarists, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/dec/17/folk-blues-music" target="_blank">Davy Graham</a> and Bert Jansch, and his favourite singer, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Anderson_(musician)" target="_blank">Miller Anderson</a>. For many years King also played with his favourite songwriter, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-alan-hull-1582853.html)." target="_blank">Alan Hull</a> (of Lindisfarne).</div>
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The aura of Graham and Jansch hung over proceedings as King opened the set riffing on the rite of passage folk guitar tune, ‘Anji’. What the advance publicity promised would be a hybrid of The Pentangle and Can, “with a touch of Miles Davis’” jazz-rock-funk fusion, was underway. ‘Anji’ went from sounding like The Pentangle were performing it, to something with a lot more attitude. Almost like Fairport Convention’s ‘A Sailor’s Life’, but lifted beyond even that wonderfully free-flowing, folk-jazz hybrid<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However I couldn’t detect the influence of Can on this or on any of the other tunes The Prisonaires performed last night. It was undoubtedly an eclectic set though, and The Prisonaires have certainly embraced Can’s determination to kick against the musical pricks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What happened on ‘Anji’, and throughout the gig, was a superannuated jam session without the tedium that that would normally imply. Each number, often only loosely based on professed connections to an original tune, has a distinct concept behind it that’s usually conceived of and initially worked up by Alan King. It might be a radical reworking of a known tune or the fusing of diverse tunes and elements together – the second number was inspired by ‘Sketches of Spain’ era Miles but went all over the place. King communicates with some band members via <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SoundCloud</i> (“or just by text”, grinned guitarist Paul Baverstock). Rehearsals are live. Some band members, like the audience, may be hearing a number for the first time. To carry this off you need musicians of a very high calibre and, as importantly, imagination.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Alongside King in this endeavour last night were virtuoso fiddle player <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Valentino_(British_musician)" target="_blank">Bobby Valentino</a>, who at 64 is one of the youngest in the band. Valentino was in The Fabulous Poodles, worked extensively with The Men They Couldn’t Hang, and has played with Dylan, Knopfler and Petty. He is part Stephane Grappelli, part Jean-Luc Ponty, but is mostly just himself. </div>
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On electric lead guitar was Paul Baverstock. Paul, who also spoke to me outside the Gents, said that he was in the celebrated London band that nearly made it big in the early ‘80s, A Bigger Splash. Their first single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI0zfz4xUFQ" target="_blank">‘I Don’t Believe A Word’</a>, was produced by Sting who also, with Eddie Reader, sung harmonies on it. It made it to the influential BBC Radio 1 review programme, ‘Roundtable’, but had the misfortune of being followed by Prince’s ‘Kiss’ which, Alan said, blew everything else out of the water that week (or pretty much that decade). Last night Paul’s impressive pedal effects assisted him in alternating between a blues-inflected rock guitar sound that often echoed Dave Gilmour, and being a Hammond organ virtuoso. Paul was loud for a small venue but was darned good. </div>
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To his right in the all-star line-up was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Reeves" target="_blank">Tony Reeves</a>. Tony has a strong jazz feel to his impressive electric bass playing; hardly surprising given that he was founder member of fusion band Colosseum and later joined Curved Air. Like Alan, Tony started out on the folk circuit. He’s on Davy Graham’s first two albums. A few years later he joined John Mayall’s celebrated Bluesbreakers, along with Mick Taylor who a few months later replaced Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones. Reeves has also played with, and produced, John Martyn and is the bassist on a Sandy Denny LP. By contrast, as a Pye Records’ plugger in the mid-60s, Tony promoted, and then played on, Tony Hatch’s ‘Sounds Orchestral’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the centre of the stage, and often, my friend observed, making sure that the whole thing held together, was drummer <a href="http://www.chrismayfield.eu/les-morgan/4550544720" target="_blank">Les Morgan</a> (who’s performed with leading UK blues artists Alexis Korner and Jo-Anne Kelly, and with singer Chris Farlow). Les isn’t musically ostentatious like Paul, but, as good drummers often do, provides backbone (and flair) when some of the showmen occasionally threatened to take proceedings off on too conflicting a set of tangents. Alan King told me that the band also normally features Mike Paice (a Jools Holland sparring partner) on sax and harmonica, who, to King’s surprise given the unusual combination of instruments, gels successfully with violinist Valentino.<br />
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Among the most interesting musical adventures of the night was a number influenced by Miles Davis’ darker funk-fusion phase that also informed its title, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/rtash/its-about-that-voodoo-time-by-the-prisonaires" target="_blank">‘It’s About That Voodoo Time’</a>; and a latin jazz excursion based on a number by jazz guitarist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Burrell." target="_blank">Kenny Burrell.</a> In something of a preview of his own forthcoming set at <a href="https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/" target="_blank">The Electric Palace</a> on 21 September, King took the band on a further musical diversion: ragas. He found suitable accompaniment from Valentino, before Reeves and Baverstock somehow worked out their place in the evolving mix. The Prisonaires' ‘raga rock’ is wholly its own thing, and has been a decade-long musical preoccupation for King. No easy nod here to George Harrison, The Byrds or even L. Shankar. The September gig by Dr King, possibly accompanied by some other members of The Prisonaires, will be well worth seeing.<br />
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<i>(Listen to 'It's About That (Voodoo) Time' by clicking on <a href="https://soundcloud.com/rtash/its-about-that-voodoo-time-by-the-prisonaires" target="_blank">this Soundcloud link</a>)</i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Getting in tune? Les, Alan & Paul</td></tr>
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The closing number was introduced by Alan as a fusion of two pivotal Jimmy Webb songs: - “the greatest anti-war song ever written”, ‘Galveston’, and the “greatest love song ever written”, ‘By The Time I Get to Phoenix’ – but without the words! This was an extraordinary musical idea successfully realised: you could hear the trace elements of both Webb classics in the heady mix. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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On a sweaty night out in Hastings some thirty odd people had experienced a real treat, and they rightly gave the band a rapturous response. Cries for an encore were understandably resisted though as the band, tired and thirsty, had done what they set out to do – whether Can were in the house or not. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-82968662463156235062017-11-01T11:00:00.001-07:002024-01-23T23:23:13.450-08:00Regrets, I’ve had a few - The musical life and times of Pete Sadler<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Pete Sadler
was the reason I started the ‘Searching for the Old Folk Rebels’ blog and
research project. On reading <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/09/singing-from-the-floor-jp-bean-review-british-folk" target="_blank">‘Singing from the Floor’</a> by JP Bean, among other
contemporary sources on the folk boom of the 1960s, I was struck by the people
and places who were missing and who were, in less celebrated ways perhaps,
pivotal to the scene. Pete was a folk music impresario, accomplished
guitarist, rock and blues journalist, playwright and horror script writer, nuclear
engineer and Rolls Royce mechanic. Each are rare careers for many, let alone in
combination, but this was all in a life’s work for 73 year old Pete Sadler. Yet
there is sadness and plenty of regrets as he tells his tale, although
thankfully this is leavened with much sweary humour too. Pete feels that he
missed the musical boat on more than one occasion. Yet he was at the heart of
things during two pivotal moments in British musical history.</i></div>
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So where
did it all begin Pete?<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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“My earliest experience with folk music was almost disastrous,” he
says. The music teacher at grammar school made the class listen to ‘Wraggle
Taggle Gypsies’ and ‘Green Grow the Rushes Oh’ sung by Joan Sutherland and
Donald Peers. They were fine singers but they weren’t actually of the people.
They were the BBC Third Programme - posh. If you can imagine Pavarotti singing ‘Jumpin’
Jack Flash’ you get an idea of what it was like.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This was the 1950s. Pete was converted to rock n’ roll in 1955 when,
barely 11 years of age, he first heard Bill Haley’s ‘Rock around the Clock’. He
was hooked but a little young to be a Ted. His Mum had to take him to see the
film ‘Blackboard Jungle’ (which featured 'Rock Around the Clock'). “Even though I
was quite tall, they wouldn’t let me in. I don’t think my mother was impressed
with the film.” This was the time of slashed cinema seats. “There was trouble
everywhere it played,” Pete says. “And all this for one song played three
times. I watched it again a few years ago and it was terrible, but at the time
it was a musical revolution.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete discovered some other pivotal songs thanks to his Dad, who
was shipping master at Tilbury. “He would bring home American LPs from sailors
- Indians, Pakistanis, Lascars - who would be signed off to go on land for
lodgings but were always in debt and had to sell what they had to pay
their board." Or they died and their effects were sold on, Pete notes ruefully. Pete Sadler got his first
guitar this way. This 'cello guitar', three quarter size, cost his Dad 7/6. It
was, he says, “a terrible thing to learn on; very hard action, very high up,
but you learnt the basics. I wasn’t a five minute wonder. I was really into the
guitar (though)…”<o:p></o:p></div>
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At Gravesend Grammar School, which Pete attended from 1955, he met
a couple of lads, Mick Turner and Norman King who, like him, were trying to
learn guitar. “The first tune I learnt was Bert Weedon's version of Arthur Smith’s
‘Guitar Boogie Shuffle’ and then Bill Justis’ ‘Raunchy’. We were all using the
Bert Weedon book, ‘Play in a Day’. I got quite captivated by him. People said ‘Bert
Weedon’s no good,’ but he was still playing concerts in his late 70s! I also
loved Duane Eddy’s guitar sound. He was (and is) an accomplished player, though
not outstanding. Eddy, Les Paul and Hank Marvin, they all had one thing in
common - their sound. It’s like a fingerprint…you’d know them anywhere. I was
always interested in how Duane he got that sound, and once he admitted some
clever techy had modified it – just like someone did for Hendrix years later.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete and his schoolmates later tried out the skiffle craze,
mucking around with a tea chest and a washboard. Skiffle was alright, says Pete,
but soon got stupid. ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour Overnight’ didn’t
impress a young man fired up by rock n’ roll. They moved to on to doing Shadows
(neé The Drifters) and Duane Eddy instrumentals, and US rock n’ roll covers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was hard to find any access to popular music in the media in
those days, says Pete. “There wasn’t much music on the telly until ‘65
Special’, and then Jack Goode did ‘Oh Boy’. This, he says, was a revelation
because it was live bands one after the other in different parts of the studio.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many schoolboys in the day had a paper round. Pete had two, and a
grocery round to boot. His paper round gave him early morning access to the weekly
music papers, hot off the press. <i>Disc</i>,
<i>Melody Maker</i> and <i>The New Musical Express</i>; he’d read them all from cover to cover and
then, eventually, put them through somebody’s door. “This was the only
information we had about bands,” he says. “Even if some of it was inaccurate,
it’s all there was.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This was the days before Radio Luxembourg. “The American Forces
Network Radio could be picked up on the crystal set,” says Pete, and on the BBC
Light Programme (the Radio 2 precursor) on Sunday mornings there was ‘Easy Beat’
with Brian Matthew. “People were doing cover versions of stuff you knew from the
<i>Melody Maker</i> Hit Parade. Then you
could hear the original on the headphones (in the record shops). We used to
spend all f*****g day …listening to these songs. In fact they used to get
pissed off with us because we’d never buy anything.”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I asked if Pete was trying to pick up rock n’ roll riffs. “I was
trying to play guitar,” he says emphatically, “and was copying what they were
doing, I didn’t have a very good for ear for music, so I was miles out at
times. I was only about 11 or 12.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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In an account reminiscent of what some renowned lads in Liverpool
and down the road in Dartford were doing a little later, Pete recalls that the
local docks were how he and other boys got access to black American music.
Blues LPs would enter the house, played on their tiny record player, he
remembers. I heard acoustic players like Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt, the
Reverend Gary Davies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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These players, and later on other blues performers like John Lee Hooker and
Big Bill Broonzy, as well as Weedon, Eddy, and Chet Atkins, were to prove very
influential on Pete. “I didn’t know what
to make of Leadbelly at first,” he admits. “His was the first folk record I
ever heard.” This was ‘In the Pines’, the B side of ‘Goodnight Irene’. In 1958,
at the age of 14, Pete had saved enough from his newspaper and grocery round
earnings to buy his first LP, for 38/6, ‘The “Chirping” Crickets’ (Buddy
Holly). Before that he had been buying ‘78s by Little Richard, Buddy Holly and
Carl Perkins. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete and his school pals would take a mile and a half detour from
school down Harmer Street, Gravesend to the music shop, which, as was typical
in those days, Pete says, was mostly selling sheet music but sold a few guitars
as well. “We would eye up a white Hofner Club 40 in the window, just like the
guys in ‘Wayne’s World’ drooling over the Fender. I carried on with my guitar
and saved and saved, and eventually, in about 1959, I got a Hofner Committee
from Selmer’s in Charing Cross Road. I played it non-stop. It was an electric
acoustic arch-top. It was beautiful, ingrained with mother of pearl. Dreadful
sound.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_2LyIZLMg37RcS1cKRWszG134o9DgAfafCY_9hOm6Lgf0f1B37370f-oI6O80QUxF9VUgQkOp0UHs5zK8mw89Pu72lEFKCBQqBeeKAE7pfUJuJOVvFJKSHnjbGA6LFg9yHXIcVjKB-d0/s1600/Pete+at+15+enlarged.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="293" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_2LyIZLMg37RcS1cKRWszG134o9DgAfafCY_9hOm6Lgf0f1B37370f-oI6O80QUxF9VUgQkOp0UHs5zK8mw89Pu72lEFKCBQqBeeKAE7pfUJuJOVvFJKSHnjbGA6LFg9yHXIcVjKB-d0/s320/Pete+at+15+enlarged.jpg" width="203" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pete at 15</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Funnily enough, says Pete, “My school friend Willy had a sister
who was going out with a singer, some posh kid from Dartford called Jagger. He
had a band and they were totally sh**. They were playing US Rn'B, Muddy
Waters covers and the like, and we were playing Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochrane,
and other <i>real</i> rock n’ roll. Having
never heard of Muddy Waters, I was interested in what they were doing, so I
suggested we meet them. My friend said no - he couldn’t stand Jagger, and said
they aren’t going to do much anyway. I often wonder if we had (met them) we
might have hung on to their coat tails ….and life might have been very
different.”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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“By 1960 I thought the music had died,” says Pete in a nod to Don
Mclean. Elvis had joined the army; many of the greats had died in the air or on
the road: Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Gene Vincent. Little Richard had re-joined
the Church. “Aside from Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, the freshness of rock n’
roll gave way to pop mediocrity,” he says. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In fact 1960 definitely was the year the music died for Pete
because at 16 he and his mates had to leave school. “We all worked in different
factories, having been farmed out … on different apprenticeships. I met a guy,
Tony, whose friend played sax part time for Joe Loss who was performing at
Hammersmith Palais. I went along. I didn’t really like the music but I thought
the band were incredible; the noise, a live brass band.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete’s friend Tony knew a couple of lads from a council estate in
Dartford who also had guitars, and who were looking for a rhythm guitarist,
which Pete was playing then. ‘The Boys’ were formed. “We did very well,” says
Pete, playing evenings and weekend gigs at youth clubs and parties. In early January
1963 they had done well enough to get an audition with Pye Records. The record
company’s A&R man asked if they were from Liverpool. No, they said. He
stuck on the song ‘Please Please Me’. Can you do this, he asked. “What is it?”
they asked. “That was it, dismissed,” says Pete. <o:p></o:p></div>
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‘The Boys’ had gone through many different incarnations as a rock
n’ roll act, but had worked really hard at being a success. “We really thought we
were going to make it big and be able to chuck in the factory apprenticeship,
but it wasn’t to be” says Pete. “Rock n’ roll had hit the buffers, but then the
Beatles dropped like a bomb on us, he said. “ ‘If you’re not from Liverpool, we
can’t use you’ was the stock response from record deals and gigs everywhere.”
After that body blow the band folded.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete began discovering different music after ‘The Boys’ went their
separate ways. One of his mates had been saving up and had bought himself a Mini
with a radio. Listening to Radio Luxembourg on the car radio, Pete was
transformed. He hadn’t really noticed Dylan before, but somehow ‘She Belongs to
Me’ made a big impact. Nasal-voiced, but he had something, says Pete. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Folk-inflected pop was beginning to take off. The Byrds’
interpretation of Pete Seeger’s ‘Turn Turn Turn’ made a similar impact on Pete.
It was through so-called folk rock that he became more susceptible to contemporary
folk music too. Paul Simon was looked down on a bit, Pete remembers, as he had
by then fully embraced pop. Pete remembers going to venues like Les Cousins in
Greek Street in London when a then unknown Paul Simon was playing the London
clubs. Simon would sing and play from the back in order to upstage the
performers, Pete recalls. “ ‘Get up on stage yourself or f**k off’ is what we
should have said to him,” says Pete.<o:p></o:p></div>
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1965 was a watershed at work too. Pete and the other band members
had continued their respective apprenticeships until the companies they worked
for made them redundant. It was cheaper for them to get rid of us and to take
on new apprentices rather than pay us a proper wage, Pete observes. He wanted
to continue his engineering studies, having had a motorbike accident in 1965,
and, not having sat his exams, was obliged to re-sit the whole year. Needing
another apprenticeship with paid day-release college options, the Atomic Energy
Research facility in Harwell, Oxfordshire beckoned. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He stayed in a government hostel, Rush Common House, in Abingdon where
Harwell workers were housed. One day Pete was playing his Hofner in his tiny
room when a guy called Alan Smith overheard. Alan wanted to introduce him to a
guitarist friend of his, Dusty Jeans, who played at the local folk club. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCFBR71ufw9Jp0H_KYa1aIKfqPM9Wp9MBVnXqZFh4LR89G8YCVMSsXzxYuU2QeMmePRYtRpvJz40-zDGMMU2V0SPZQrvOSzCdhwCg3hCI-bOEXA7hm8WdgWPL1vnK_rL5bdiLTZ4yLg_0/s1600/pete+4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="919" data-original-width="1398" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCFBR71ufw9Jp0H_KYa1aIKfqPM9Wp9MBVnXqZFh4LR89G8YCVMSsXzxYuU2QeMmePRYtRpvJz40-zDGMMU2V0SPZQrvOSzCdhwCg3hCI-bOEXA7hm8WdgWPL1vnK_rL5bdiLTZ4yLg_0/s320/pete+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
“I never knew much about him (Dusty), even though I played with
him for two and a half years, but he was a good straight, steady guitarist, with
good backing chords, a ….strong singer (who) could do it without
instrumentation… acapella. I was impressed with that. I said well I’ve only got
this guitar and I played along, followed the chords at the top end, and we
played ‘Whisky in The Jar’. Smithy said, ‘Well, that sounds good.’ We did a bit
of blues; Chuck Berry; Carl Perkins’ country stuff, (however) I didn’t like
Hank Williams, (it was) droning and morbid.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jean Iliffe the receptionist at the hostel, and her partner John,
a technician at one of the nuclear facilities, also ran the Rusty Rails folk
club. After Beeching’s axe had swung through a large swathe of the country’s
rail infrastructure, Abingdon’s railway station was closed. The Rusty Rails,
which was held in the back room of the Railway pub located on one of the railway
platforms, took its name from the tracks' faded glory.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pete plays mandolin</td></tr>
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Dusty and Pete would play as a duo, Pete was still playing his Hofner,
“very unsuitable for folk,” he says. So Pete eventually went up to London and
got a 12-string and began working up what, for younger fans of this burgeoning
genre, were the trendy folk tunes of the era. Pete, like many other
budding folk guitarists, schooled himself in the finger-picking technique
that both folk and blues players had for years been using, albeit differently until the jumbo acoustic guitar with steel
strings was introduced to the folk scene. A work colleague played Pete a record of blues legend Big Bill
Broonzy. “It was eye opening. I went to town, learning everything I could, finger-style, to the extent that I found it difficult to revert to the
plectrum.”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Pete learnt the method in about three months, which is going some,
ensuring among other things that he could played Davy Graham’s ‘Anji’. “It was
a standard,” he says, although he wasn’t sure it was folk, noting Graham’s jazz
and blues stylings. Pete would also play Bert Jansch’s ‘Needle of Death’, which
would prove popular among younger people, alongside more traditional material. Pete
admired John Renbourne, Davy Graham and ….. Jimi Hendrix.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But there was no rock n’ roll in Abingdon, he notes. “We did look
for it! It was Dylan, Phil Ochs, Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, and even some poppish
stuff like Ralph McTell that was wanted,” he recalls. “The students liked Dylan,
John Renbourne and The Byrds (if they played Dylan), whereas the traditionalists
would appreciate Dave and Toni Arthur, the Dubliners and Alex Campbell, for
example.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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For some students the imagined purity of folk was an attractive
counterpart to their developing anti-war politics, just as many of the students
who marched to Aldermaston in the late 1950s believed British jazz was a purer
form of music than commercial American rock n’ roll. Aside from the students,
Pete believes that many of the folk fans and musicians who frequented the Rusty
Rails either worked at Harwell or at one of the other nuclear establishments,
or were trainee teachers. He doesn’t recall a demonstration at any of the local
atomic facilities, or even in the student redoubt of Oxford.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1966 John and Jean split up and went their separate ways: she
to a hotel chain in Yorkshire, he to Barrow in Furness. So Pete and Dusty took the
club over. “Alan said we can do it, I thought f**k, but we did it. It wasn’t
much, you just took money on the door, hired singers; and if you’re stuck for a
guest then you just invite anybody who was there to come up and sing for free. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“When we took over the reins, it was very traditional, with little
time for guitars. It was finger-in-your-ear music with maybe a squeeze box or
two, but the rise of contemporary folk and the departure of some of the older
generation…broadened the range of folk styles that were played,” says Pete.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(L-R) Pete, Dusty and Alan </td></tr>
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The Rusty Rails had been a reasonably popular venue presenting
guest musicians every two months. Initially there was drop-off in attendance
because under Pete and Dusty the venue was considered less pure in folk terms
by the purists. However, with the expansion of the area, they were being
inundated with people who were, says Pete, literally queuing up to play. “At
the same time we raised enough money to out on name acts every two weeks
instead. We would play as a duo, and I provided a ‘backing track’ to Dusty or
to those who got up and sung from the floor, whether on guitar, banjo or
dulcimer.” The performers were paid a percentage of the door or via the
traditional bucket.<br />
<br />
(<i>Hear a recording of Pete from this period by clicking on <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-367438711/castile-played-by-pete-sadler" target="_blank">this link </a> </i>)</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Les Parker, who worked at one of the nuclear sites, used to come to the club, Pete recalls, and sing songs
like ‘The Leaving of Liverpool’ and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/Ewan-maccoll-best-songs-folk-music/" target="_blank">Ewan MacColl</a>’s ‘The Shoals of Herring’. “We
also put on Davy Graham, and Toni and <a href="http://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/" target="_blank">Dave Arthur</a> (see this blog's <a href="https://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/07/dave-arthur-storyteller-tells-his-story.html" target="_blank">July 2017 entry</a>) among other big name folk
acts.” According to Pete, “Davy Graham was fresh out of rehab and wasn’t very
good. Toni had a wonderful voice, while Dave Arthur too had a good, clear voice
and was an accomplished guitarist.”<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete says that the finest guitar player he ever saw was <a href="http://www.docsguitar.com/" target="_blank">Doc Watson</a>,
the celebrated flat-picking and finger-picking bluegrass player who in the
1960s was beloved of folk fans too. “Brian Jones,” he notes, “made the
observation that when Hendrix came to London, he had never seen so many
guitarists crying. Well it was like that for me when I saw Doc Watson.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete notes that there was one other folk venue in Abingdon, the
Mousehole in Market Street, but it wasn’t anything like as popular as his
venue. He and Dusty had a virtual monopoly on the local scene. When Dave and
Toni performed at the Rails they invited Pete and Dusty to stay at their house
in Lewisham, as many folk musicians of the day did, and together they performed
at venues in south London. At Dave and Toni’s place in London Pete recalls
hearing and playing with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Black" target="_blank">Bill Boazman</a>, who had just released an EP. “I copied
Bill,” Pete cheerfully admits. “He also did ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ by George
Shearing; now that’s not folk!” Pete notes that there was quite a lot of imaginative
interpretation and reinterpretation during this period of tunes that didn’t
originate in the folk world, which for him made a nonsense of those who tried
to enforce a rigid orthodoxy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNTk9D30SCcB1Aj2XIIudIqDAyXe9hUY7YYFBAmeln000flUQ7NN2tsksuvrB24XQqXfKjVyAScXboP_DPzAUFJNnu0MA5_bHZy8M2A0FyewqB9rTW4i9c7ILqwBRO2Eni-khqVbPm4E/s1600/pete+5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="1381" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNTk9D30SCcB1Aj2XIIudIqDAyXe9hUY7YYFBAmeln000flUQ7NN2tsksuvrB24XQqXfKjVyAScXboP_DPzAUFJNnu0MA5_bHZy8M2A0FyewqB9rTW4i9c7ILqwBRO2Eni-khqVbPm4E/s320/pete+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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“On one occasion,” recalls Pete, “we went down to Shepton Mallet
in Somerset, drove for two and a half hours to get down there, got home at 2am
after a load of booze, and then got up for work at 7am. It was an experience…it
was nice to get paid but we would do these gigs because we enjoyed it.” Or
rather, they usually enjoyed it. On one occasion he and Dusty played on a house
boat for an Oxford University student party. A very rich and very young aristocrat
was hosting it. “They were as high as kites. Weed, drinking.” I said to Dusty,
‘Would they notice if we f****d off?’ When Pete went to the bathroom he found
one of the undergraduates having intercourse with a young woman who was
vomiting into the toilet. He and Dusty were just about to get off the boat when
a load of plain clothes and uniformed police turned up. His lordship was
alerted with the shout, ‘Charles, coppers!’ Pete recalls that the young
aristocrat then swiftly intercepted the police on the gangplank, saying, ‘Do
you know who I am?’ Just like that, the police were gone, said Pete.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete and Dusty played in folk venues in Didcot, Wantage, Newbury
and throughout Oxfordshire and Berkshire, partly to check out what other clubs
were up to. One of the greatest gigs he ever saw was Martin Carthy and Dave
Swarbrick at a folk club in Wantage in 1967. Swarb was already coming to
prominence playing with the Ian Campbell Group, and before long would playing a
leading role in Fairport Convention’s innovative melding of folk and rock,
spawning prog-folk, along with The Pentangle and the Incredible String Band. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Oxfordshire and Berkshire area was alive with folk music and with
those who brought more contemporary elements to the mix. “This seemed to
be a big area for traditional music,” Pete remembers. “If you had an acoustic guitar
you were labelled folk. I think (the definition) depends on what you sing
about.” But using an electric guitar somehow wasn’t folk, he says. “They would
say that isn’t pure, but what’s pure, an acoustic guitar isn’t pure. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“F*****g hell, Blondel used to walk around in Sherwood
Forest playing a lute. Or is folk sea shanties? But black slaves sung acapella;
the call and response, the real roots of the blues.” In later years Pete would
write a degree thesis on the roots of the blues. “People weren’t just singing
‘I woke up this morning’ straight off the boat! Some slaves were sent to Latin
American and their blues became Latin music.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The weirdest gig Pete ever did was at The White Hart pub in Reading,
in a folk club run, he says, by a bloke called Sid. “Before we went on, a
fireman called Mark did instrumental Renbourne material like ‘Judy’ and was very
popular, they loved him. We played a number and there was total silence. It was
dead. It was the same after the next one. In the end I said to Dusty just keep
going, segue way, don’t explain anything about the songs, just keep going. We
had to do that because of the stony silence. You know what folk clubs are
normally like, you get somebody telling you all about the song. It takes 10 minutes
to tell you about it and two minutes to sing it. I never liked that, but I used
to say ‘This is so and so; it’s about a bloke who died.’ At this gig Dusty was
ready to quit halfway through a song, he was really getting angry. As we
finished I said to Dusty ‘I think we are in the s**t here. Let’s just grab our
guitars and go.’ And then the audience got to their feet and applauded like
mad. I thought this is the weirdest thing I have ever, ever experienced. For
the encore we did ‘Whisky in the Jar’, a traditional number, later popularised by Thin Lizzy, that every folkie knew
at that time, and an acoustic cover of The Animals’ take on ‘House of the
Rising Sun’.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was Sid who in 1967 suggested to Pete and Dusty that they do a
tour of Israeli kibbutzim. “He said this means you’ll both be turning
professional.” Still in their early ‘20s, they were obviously highly excited. “The
Six Day War broke out just after we’d handed in our notices at Harwell, and so
we had to ask for our jobs back! I thought f**k that, there is no way I’m going
out there with that going on, no way.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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This knocked Pete for six. “It was a setback. I’d bitten the
bullet. It was a big thing to do to pack your job in, even though there was
quite a lot of work in the factories and elsewhere. I thought, it had gone, the
moment had gone. I lost interest in all music after that….I didn’t realise how
much I’d enjoyed it until it was over.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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He and Dusty did start playing again after that, but somehow, once
again, the music had died. By the end of 1967 Dusty announced he was leaving
the job at Harwell, and by March 1968 Pete had departed the area too.The duo’s swansong had been a folk concert at Oxford Town Hall in
early 1968, headlined by Alex Campbell and <a href="http://www.theballadeers.com/eng/silvo_01.htm." target="_blank">Johnny Silvo</a>. “Alex Campbell was a funny bloke. We saw him backstage.
Totally drunk. We were the<b> </b>first on.
We did two songs and we were off. People were still taking their seats when we
finished.” Looking back Pete agrees though that this gig was “a big affair.” Folk
was coming out of the clubs and on to, literally, a bigger stage. The Oxford
Town Hall was packed for a gig that, while featuring relatively traditional
performers like Campbell, also had Silvo whose contemporaries, including Pete,
crossed genres.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Folk at this time was entering the rock mainstream. “We just got
on with it. I should have been looking at the bigger picture, I suppose, but we
played what we played. You liked what you did and then it fizzled out.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s hard to appreciate 50 years on, but groups like The
Pentangle, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention were incredibly
hip at the time. Their impact had been felt in some of the acoustic material
played at the Rusty Rails, but, looking back, Pete thinks he had been quite
isolated from some of the wider musical trends. That said, within a couple of
years of Pete and Dusty quitting the Rusty Rails, the folk explosion was dead.
Folk-rock had already morphed into prog-folk, but by the turn of the decade the
mainstream fascination with folk had more or less passed, and rock had become decidedly
heavier. In retrospect Pete and Dusty were ahead of the game by quitting folk as
early as 1968. <o:p></o:p></div>
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They had run the Rusty Rails for less than three years, but, says
Pete, “it was probably the best period of my life. I enjoyed doing something I
was proficient at, and being with like-minded people, good crowds. Life in
general was less stressful than it is now. I enjoyed this part of my life, more
than the rock n’ roll years.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Dusty would eventually go back to playing in Abingdon, and (once
again) got his old job back. “I got a job up in Derby as an engineer at the
Rolls Royce plant. I took my guitar with me, but I just didn’t seem to have any
motivation.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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He hadn’t completely cut the connection though, and remembers
checking out a folk club called Peasemouldia, which was held at
The Grandstand Hotel in Derby. “I went
down; they were playing some of the same stuff, but it was different. It was a
big, big hall, and very brightly lit. There was a three piece playing there
called the<a href="https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/records/thelonesometravellers.html" target="_blank"> Lonesome Travellers</a>: Doug Porter, Graham Cooper and Steve
Rostron. They were good, doing stuff that Dusty and I did. There was also a country &
western, Jim Reeves-type, singer, Jack Hudson, who I think is still performing. This
(c&w) stuff didn’t inspire me. In this club there were lots of people, lots
of noise; nobody was actually listening to any of it. It was a bit weird.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete was told of another folk club in Nottingham, held in a pub
with an apocryphal name, ‘The Trip to Jerusalem’. He checked out folk clubs in Derby and Nottinghamshire, he says, but “I thought that’s not me
anymore.” He remembers seeing some “finger in the ear” singers at one
particular folk club and thinking<b> </b>“It
doesn’t change…it just doesn’t change.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Pete had an epiphany when he went to see the up and coming band, Status Quo. He remembers feeling freed by the power and simplicity of their sound. “I was sick of all this folk crap,” he says.</div>
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Pete stresses that he’s always been into all kinds of music, and wanted
a change of musical direction. He didn’t want to get stuck in a folk rut. “Having said that, in 1968 and 1969 I didn’t do
anything.” Around 1970 Pete and a mate started searching for music around the
pubs in Derby and further afield. They soon discovered plenty of it. Prog-rock was
starting up, recalls Pete, and so was heavy metal. Given the heavy industry of
the Midlands, this wasn’t surprising. “When I worked at Rolls Royce there was a
guy, an electrician called Mark, who was a part time roadie for Girls School, a
heavy metal girls band…he knew everybody. I got into it and we went to see
Minas Tirith, who took their name from Lord of the Rings; very heavy
progressive rock; they used to do 15 minute songs, influenced by The Enid, who
came up to one of the local clubs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I decided to start sending reviews to the local paper the <i>Derby Evening Telegraph</i> because it was
(up to that point) all about a (single) jazz band ('Tony’s Cronies') who had a
whole page of reviews every week. Then I found out that the music editor of the
paper was the drummer in that jazz band!<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I would say (to the newspaper), ‘I’m going to a big festival, do you
want me to review it?’ I reviewed Dylan at the Birmingham NEC. Pete got
interested in punk too. “I thought in 1976 and 1977 that it was a breath of
fresh air. I liked Supertramp and Pink Floyd, but then you come back to the
basics. I thought the Pistols were a great band. I didn’t go in for all the
gobbing though. I went to see the bands that played in Derby and would write
about them for the <i>Derby Evening
Telegraph</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“BBC Radio Derby under Terry Christian<b><i> </i></b>had a youth programme, ‘Barbed
Wireless’, a mix of speech and music. I said to Terry ‘I do this stuff for the <i>Derby Evening Telegraph</i>,<b> </b>why can’t I do something on the radio
for the local bands, they’re trying hard. They’re not going to be the Eagles,’
I said, ‘but (give them a chance).’ Christian, and the programme’s presenters
were OK with it, and so for few years from 1981 Pete did a weekly broadcast
about a local or visiting band. He hadn’t given up the day job at Rolls Royce
though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I did the same thing (as on the newspaper), reviewing every week
the performances I’d seen over the past seven days, including major bands at
the Assembly Rooms and at the annual Monsters of Rock festival at Castle
Donnington. This progressed to another two slots on which I played and discussed
‘The Blues Through History’ and another playing and reviewing the latest heavy
metal records that had been sent to the radio station.”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete often went backstage at the Assembly Rooms or Donnington to interview
people like Ritchie Blackmore, Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy, Ronnie James Dio (singing
with a revamped Black Sabbath), and blues guitarist <a href="http://www.thebluesband.net/page3/page3.html" target="_blank">Dave Kelly.</a>
At Donnington he interviewed a member of Twisted Sister who was so completely
out of his head that their manager had to keep intervening to fill in the
blanks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I’m a great fan of heavy metal being loud, theatrical and raw,
just as punk had been in the ‘70s. It was the most popular genre in the
Midlands, with more venues than any other type of music.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pete didn’t abandon playing guitar completely, however, nor the
ambition to make it big. He says that in 1979 he “got so totally fed up with
everything” that he went to the Wigmore Hall in London to audition for the hard
rock band, UFO. They were looking for a replacement for guitarist Michael Schenker!
What was I thinking? I go in there and there are a load of 16, 17, 18 year
olds. And so I go up to the desk to sign in, and they said, ‘”So who have you
brought?’ I replied, ‘Myself!…..Forget it,’ I said. It opened my eyes a bit
that all these kids had already been in so many bands. While I’d been doing all
this stuff down the (narrow) tunnel of folk music and journalism, a whole music
industry had blossomed into hundreds of branches. I thought (Pete) you’ve
really dipped out.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, says Pete, he still used to teach a few people a few
tricks informally, and have a bit of a jam from time to time. In the early ‘80s
a budding recording engineer, Martin Fisher, was trying to record stuff, Pete
recalls. “He had watched (how it was done at) live gigs …and worked it out. He
said ‘I’ve got a friend, Karen Smith, who can sing.’” Pete remembers that she sang
his song ‘Martha’s Vineyard’ right off the bat. “I played some of the backing
and hummed it a bit for her. I laid down the rhythm track and she sang it. I put
down the bass and the lead guitar on top of all of that. It wasn’t going to go
anywhere but (we enjoyed it). She did it in one take.” Pete explains that the
song’s title “was about Teddy Kennedy driving off the bridge in Chappaquiddick
and leaving that girl to die. F*****g coward.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1986, at the age of 42, Pete took the risky decision to quit
Rolls Royce and attend Trent Polytechnic to do an Arts & Drama degree. Then
two years later BBC Radio Derby cancelled the ‘Barbed Wireless’ show. It had
won two Sony awards.” Pete enjoyed being a broadcast music journalist, but
sadly didn’t have the newspaper to fall back on either as that reverted back to
doing just jazz reviews.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The BBC did invite me to do something for Radio 1,” recalls Pete.
“It was when Tommy Vance was going on holiday. They said, ‘Would you come and
do the ‘Friday Night Rock Show’ for two weeks, but they took Ian Gillan
instead; went for a celebrity. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“It was,” observes Pete ruefully, “another could have been moment!
There have been more ‘could have been moments’ than moments,” he jests.<o:p></o:p></div>
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During his studies Pete wrote a “comedic drama” based on life on
the shop floor in one of the factories in which he had previously worked. It
was called ‘At the End of the Day’ and was broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s
‘Afternoon Theatre’ slot in February 1989. Pete and a relatively long term
collaborator, Andy, entered a short film, ‘Out of the Blue’, to a Channel 4
competition ‘Showreel 88’. It reached the final. Pete and Andy also collaborated
on writing sketches for Radio 4’s ‘Week Ending’ and Channel 4’s ‘Spitting Image’,
but, sadly, without success. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1990, after Pete had moved to London, they wrote a full length
screenplay called ‘Mirror, Mirror’, which was about Islamist terrorists
attacking the London Marathon after bombing the World Trade Centre. Given that
the World Trade Centre had first had an attack on it in 1993, long before Al-Qaida
was heard of, this was far-sighted indeed. It was, says Pete, centred on a
doppelganger hero and villain. “Julian Krainin, a co-producer of the movie ‘Quiz
Show’, read it and was impressed but didn’t take us up on it,” he says.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete and Andy lost touch until about 2012 when they decided to
write horror screenplays. “But, again, no success at even
getting stuff read, let alone bought. I have to admit I have almost given up
with it,” says Pete sadly.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUgLMHUg39hL_VILkHjmJE4xIwVI8AldApuj23WfRQT-caaDnwDMwHiGCXqIAxPEocmZJzHhCGKhVLU1fog6trHEozUBoMyBtSXrJqsusaMYVP0maCC-n_jEEjGT0wtVqYRimVoWBtQRc/s1600/Pete+playing+guitar+edit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="416" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUgLMHUg39hL_VILkHjmJE4xIwVI8AldApuj23WfRQT-caaDnwDMwHiGCXqIAxPEocmZJzHhCGKhVLU1fog6trHEozUBoMyBtSXrJqsusaMYVP0maCC-n_jEEjGT0wtVqYRimVoWBtQRc/s320/Pete+playing+guitar+edit.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pete playing in 2018</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i>Pete Sadler has now retired from the music profession, although he still dispenses advice and insights to
budding musicians and would-be music historians. He plays guitar more sporadically these days but keeps an impressive collection and remains very much a music enthusiast. Pete sounds sad at times about the “might have beens”, of which
there have been several in his career. However Pete’s biggest regret is not
having kept a diary to enable a clearer recall of exactly what happened, when, and
by whom. He hopes that readers of this interview can fill in some of the inevitable blanks in
this retelling. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Pete Sadler played with some of the great names in the British folk
scene, and, more importantly, gave a platform to the established and not so
established in the worlds of folk and of heavy rock. We thank you Pete.</i></div>
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</div>
Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-50877459334224342752017-07-10T09:18:00.000-07:002019-02-28T08:32:45.055-08:00Dave Arthur: The storyteller tells his story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Together with his then wife <a href="http://toniarthur-hay.com/home.html" target="_blank">Toni</a>, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1468009413"></span>Dave Arthur <span id="goog_1468009414"></span></a>was a pivotal
figure in the UK folk scene in the 1960s and 70s. As a duo they broke down the
barriers that compartmentalised traditional music, and in the process they helped
made “folk” a more understandable part of British culture. In the latter 1960s and early 1970s they were unique in combining song, music, dance, story-telling, even
magyk, in a single gig.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dave argues that these days folk is more open to its
constituent parts and to other traditions, but when they started out this was
unusual. Just as there were folk clubs, blues clubs and jazz clubs, so within
the folk scene there were the folk singers, the dancers (whether Morris or ‘social
dancing’), and, occasionally, the story tellers. Rarely did the twain meet. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The standard image of a folk musician from this era is that of a young man playing an acoustic guitar in a London
coffee shop. In fact the names who predominated were disproportionately
Scottish in origin and often not especially folk in musical orientation. Leading "folk" guitarists <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/oct/06/bert-jansch-tribute" target="_blank">Bert Jansch</a>, <a href="http://www.johnrenbourn.co.uk/" target="_blank">John Renbourne</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/dec/17/folk-blues-music" target="_blank">Davey Graham</a> were more rooted in the blues, and
brought a strong “jazzy blues” feel to their so-called folk playing, argues
Dave Arthur. They didn’t popularise the use of the guitar on the folk scene
either. In fact when a whole host of “folk” guitarists were arriving in London
in the mid-60s, folk fashion had already dictated the ditching of guitars for
the imagined folk purity of acapella performances. Dave had stopped playing
guitar as this point, and he and Toni would often perform traditional songs
unaccompanied, and use their instruments to perform a reel or a jig. Toni was
clog dancing at some of their earliest gigs; it was some years later before others,
such as Maddy Pryor, took it up, he notes. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Dave’s hero, <a href="https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/a-l-lloyd-and-folk-song-in-england/" target="_blank">AL ('Bert') Lloyd</a>, about whom Dave has written an
excellent <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bert-the-life-and-times-of-al-lloyd-by-dave-arthur-3bq9kwd85s6" target="_blank">biography</a>, was central to the 1950s UK folk revival. Dave, like Bert,
is open, embracing, and inclusive. In 1950s and early '60s England however, the man who ultimately
determined what passed for folk correctness was singer <a href="http://www.ewanmaccoll.co.uk/ewan-maccoll-biography/" target="_blank">Ewan MacColl</a>, the man
who’d been decisive in pushing the acapella trend. A communist paradox, MacColl
insisted that his version of English folk be the template that the whole scene
should follow. Folk for MacColl was also a political manifesto based on the
imagined realities of English rural and industrial life. “MacColl thought the
sky would fall down if someone played a Stratocaster at a folk gig,” says Dave,
noting the parallel with those who were so outraged at Dylan’s electric
conversion. MacColl was also a classic example of “don’t do as I do, do as I
say,” noted Dave when reminded of a flautist accompanying MacColl on one version
of his classic ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’. <a href="http://www.peggyseeger.com/" target="_blank">Peggy Seeger</a>, MacColl's wife and musical partner, would often play along on an Appalachian guitar, he noted.<br />
<br />
Those less hidebound by musical nationalism would both treasure
lost English folk gems, and take a healthy, internationalist, interest in popular
music from around the world. Dave, like his mentor Bert, wanted to mine lost
songs and traditions as cultural artefacts in their own right, to reify not
deify them. However, as Dave points out, Bert too would discard much 'traditional' English material as not “properly” folk, even though such songs
would be sung, acapella, by poor people in village pubs up and down the land. ‘Come
into the Garden, Maud’ didn’t pass muster for the cultural
high command of the <a href="https://www.efdss.org/" target="_blank">English Folk Dance and Song Society</a> (any more than ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Working Class Hero’, would for folk purists
today).</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9VBxaBgnj_6ZustrS0AMo6ypEfBJEO3E6zhO-ghtXq8m0ALoAOsATzuzCQoZaow3dBFfeLTYadMeSSBLRMbWbBpOlo4QP5zA2MCZ2SpcHxFsvT0Fv0UOMBM02otVf7lVLvJB6Je29qo/s1600/dave+pppRT+70S.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9VBxaBgnj_6ZustrS0AMo6ypEfBJEO3E6zhO-ghtXq8m0ALoAOsATzuzCQoZaow3dBFfeLTYadMeSSBLRMbWbBpOlo4QP5zA2MCZ2SpcHxFsvT0Fv0UOMBM02otVf7lVLvJB6Je29qo/s1600/dave+pppRT+70S.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dave: an early 70s publicity shot</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Since the 1990s Dave has been as likely to be singing
Appalachian songs as English ones. Like his stories, they have evolved as
they’ve been passed down from generation to generation. Likewise, a measure of
Bert’s curiosity and openness was his interest in central and eastern European
music. Says Dave, Bert discovered in the 1950s that folk music in the communist
bloc had often been “modernised” by being played on accordions and clarinets. However
Bert knew that it would have been absurd to have suggested to these musicians
that they weren’t playing their own music properly. Dave argues that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/aug/03/folk" target="_blank">Fairport Convention’s ‘Liege & Leaf’</a> (voted the most influential folk album of all
time in a 2006 BBC Radio 2 poll) was appreciated by Bert for bringing some traditional
material to the attention of modern listeners. Electrification wasn’t Bert’s
thing either, but Fairport Convention’s ability to instrumentalise around a
traditional song impressed him, says Dave. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Dave points out that the Fairports were by no means the
first contemporary musicians to dig out songs like ‘Tam Lin’. Though their lyrical take on it was unoriginal, their "folk-rock" reworking of the tune, and of other songs, was exciting, says Dave. Fiddler
Dave Swarbrick had introduced the traditional numbers to the band, having learnt
them off of Bert, and Sandy Denny wrote good songs of her own, he says. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentangle" target="_blank">Pentangle</a>
- incorporating Jansch, Renbourne, Jacqui McShee and decidedly non-folk
musicians Danny Thompson and Terry Cox - picked up on a few well known folk
tunes too, says Dave. It was the Scottish-Jamaican guitarist Davey Graham
though that everyone really admired, he says. His eclecticism encompassed ragas
more than reels, his tuning method was highly influential, and his ‘Anji’ was
the standard that every budding “folk” guitarist had to play. (Not for nothing perhaps
was his seminal 1965 album called ‘Folk, Blues and Beyond’). The much quoted ‘Folk
Roots New Routes’ album that Davey Graham recorded with <a href="http://www.shirleycollins.co.uk/" target="_blank">Shirley Collins </a>in 1964
was mostly a separate showcase of each of their talents, and, he argues, its
influence can sometimes be overstated.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the time Swarbrick was one of a handful of professional
fiddle players on the UK folk circuit, observes Dave. He had been part of the
Birmingham scene under eponymous group leader <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/nov/28/ian-campbell" target="_blank">Ian Campbell </a>(father of UB40’s Ali and Robin
Campbell). Swindon folk club was run by Ted Poole. Liverpool had Jackie and
Bridie and the Spinners, Dave recalls. Pete and Marion Grey ran a club in
Brockley, south London. Dusty Jeans and <a href="https://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2017/11/regrets-ive-had-few-musical-life-and.html" target="_blank">Pete Sadler</a> ran and performed at the Rusty Rails folk club in Abingdon,
Oxfordshire, he remembers. Didcot in Oxfordshire was the first club gig that Dave and Toni performed at.<br />
<br />
By day Dave was running the literature and records section of the Pergamon
Press bookshop in Oxford, owned by Buckingham MP Robert Maxwell, later the infamous
head of Mirror Group Newspapers. Mindful of the budding university folk scene, Dave
kept his section of the shop well stocked with publications like ‘Sing Out’ and
the influential Folkways records. He and Toni hitched right across the country to
perform at gigs, and would be back in Oxford, sometimes at 5am the next morning,
ready to begin work a few hours later. Dave and Toni later moved to Lewisham,
south London, where they regularly played host to visiting musicians, from the
US as well as from across the UK.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9VP_bMorP7831tnl33x5ZEvtRByRnip5a_y0yr34JKwZbIObYxZ15Hnennt4uKlWL62csJULK3YGXJaMWeWiilPpRgNY_QbVU4u3LEm7ZilUmCVxGeWBU6gaEMBSMGXVuWOFPJ4-88Bg/s1600/toni+and.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="229" data-original-width="340" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9VP_bMorP7831tnl33x5ZEvtRByRnip5a_y0yr34JKwZbIObYxZ15Hnennt4uKlWL62csJULK3YGXJaMWeWiilPpRgNY_QbVU4u3LEm7ZilUmCVxGeWBU6gaEMBSMGXVuWOFPJ4-88Bg/s320/toni+and.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">With Toni</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The tragic performer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/09/jackson-c-frank-tragic-tale-forgotten-60s-legend" target="_blank">Jackson Franke </a>stayed
with them for quite a while. His ‘Blues Runs The Game’ was almost as much a
folk song standard at this time as ‘Anji’ was for would-be folk guitarists,
notes Dave. A great songwriter and
guitarist, Franke influenced many players, says Dave, including Wizz Jones and
Ralph McTell. He arrived in the UK with loads of money because of an insurance
pay-out for injuries he sustained in the States, and promptly bought himself a flash
sports car. Jackson had a dark side to him though, says Dave, because of his
injuries; and was a child-like prankster, letting off a smoke bomb that closed down half of Lewisham High Street. Jackson couldn’t settle in relationships, observed Dave.
He is sadly best known for having died in 1999 whilst living on the streets in
the US.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dave notes that these performers’ supposed authenticity resonated
with the dissenting college kids who often considered rock n’ roll commercially
crass and vulgar. Folk was the soundtrack for the politically conscious youth who
joined the Aldermaston marches in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, he says, just
as it was for the anti-Polaris protests in the second half of the '60s. Folk was
revolutionary, Dave argues, not just in form but in lyrical content. The
overlap with Communism, or at least an acutely class-conscious political
agenda, had been spearheaded by MacColl and party member Lloyd, and was
burnished by American visitors like Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton. Dave sung me a
few lines from Bert’s version of ‘Billy Boy’, which Bert adjusted to address
the Malayan Emergency of the late ‘40s to 1960 (one of Britain’s last colonial military
engagements). Feelings against the UK tyre company Dunlop, deeply immersed in
protecting the source of their cheap rubber, ran high among folk musicians and
followers of the time, he notes. However the younger folk protest generation
embraced a revolutionary romanticism more enamoured of what, in 1968, was going
on in Paris, Prague, Hanoi, and even London and Peking. Of course many of those
who later became music legends, whether accepted as such by the folk cognoscenti
or not, were primarily focused on the music. Dylan and Paul Simon were,
briefly, part of the British folk circuit in the early ‘60s, while 1970s rock stars
<a href="http://www.alstewart.com/" target="_blank">Al Stewart,</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/04/gerry-rafferty-obituary" target="_blank">Gerry Rafferty</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jan/30/john-martyn-obituary" target="_blank">John Martyn </a>had been an established part of the ‘60s
folk scene. (Of the three, only Rafferty remained in Scotland, at least until he
found pop fame in the ‘70s with pop duo Stealers Wheel). Dave remembers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/01/clive-palmer" target="_blank">Clive Palmer</a>,
of the original, Edinburgh-based, Incredible String Band very well, and he still
runs into ISB’s more renowned figures, Mike Heron and Robin Williamson, on a
regular basis.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The “progressive” folk musical journey undertaken by ISB
underlines how much the burgeoning scene of which Dave was a progenitor had outstripped
the confines of “folk”. By the late 60s/early 70s, the UK folk revival “had died a death,” he argues. Yet Dave remained broadly a part of the amorphous
folk movement. He played with the late Barry Murphy in the Anglo-American banjo playing duo, <a href="http://www.folkmusic.net/htmfiles/webrevs/fecd113.htm" target="_blank">The Rufus Crisp Experience</a>, and in addition to still globe-trotting in his storyteller guise,
Dave Arthur is part of the roots musical group, <a href="http://www.davearthur.net/rattle.html" target="_blank">Rattle on the Stovepipe</a>.<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiyWO97H2sTto2LdecsOUHoiG3ZKvcALUwHDf0aUH8ACpYayLZkUYGMjT_typv37yM0E6lTNmgmLE6FnA6BWTK6RBH-ppZb_v2tehdj3gVRBc16xE07mtSAgYIcdhCf7oTeyM1y2eyGzo/s1600/rattle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="630" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiyWO97H2sTto2LdecsOUHoiG3ZKvcALUwHDf0aUH8ACpYayLZkUYGMjT_typv37yM0E6lTNmgmLE6FnA6BWTK6RBH-ppZb_v2tehdj3gVRBc16xE07mtSAgYIcdhCf7oTeyM1y2eyGzo/s320/rattle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rattle on the Stovepipe, with Pete Cooper (left) and Dan Stewart (right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Dave hated the fact that, like pretty much all UK
folk singers in the 1960s, he couldn’t sing in his own voice. Not having a “regional accent,”
he, like many, sang ‘Mummerset’, a nonsense word for a nonsense, fake rural,
accent ironically affected by those seeking acceptance from folk purists. In the UK folk world of the '60s and '70s, sounding like you came from Northumbria rather than the south-east of England was much more acceptable. For many years though Dave has sung in his natural voice, whether singing English folk or Appalachian songs whose musical origin, as Dave points out, often lay with British and Irish immigrants. </div>
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The UK folk scene today, while not as influential as it was for much of the 1960s, is in better health, Dave argues. There may have been five
fiddlers in the 1960s but there are hundreds of them now, he laughs. You can
graduate from Newcastle University with a degree in folk music. From strictly “orbits
floating around each other,” folk’s component parts are today more aware of
each other’s importance, and performers he says are more open to the diffuse elements
of the tradition. There aren’t many who can sing, play, dance, storytell and puppeteer though, as Dave still does. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQA3fxw8L2BvyiabP0FrvKlBwdPliETnNhNigcmnzL8aiMKDKgpVJw8oVk3YSHHTT72uu_evbYXCXRqBTALfv56YnCO7nyU2G6g6hL8Uiq9G315-5cVZuSfW_Gzyf7dWfZIJimGTUoXnA/s1600/Dave+Bton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1332" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQA3fxw8L2BvyiabP0FrvKlBwdPliETnNhNigcmnzL8aiMKDKgpVJw8oVk3YSHHTT72uu_evbYXCXRqBTALfv56YnCO7nyU2G6g6hL8Uiq9G315-5cVZuSfW_Gzyf7dWfZIJimGTUoXnA/s320/Dave+Bton.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Dave played at the Royal Albert Hall with Shirley Collins at
the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in May 2017. Shirley had recently returned to
public performance for the first time in 30 years and had released an acclaimed
new album ‘Lodestar’. On the night, as throughout her recent UK tour, Dave
accompanied her on guitar, as did Pete Cooper of Rattle on the Stovepipe and
the album’s producer Ian Kearey. Perhaps it was fitting though that the
lifetime achievement awards went to arguably the ultimate world musician, Ry Cooder,
and to Al Stewart, confirming that folk is a bit less precious and rather more
inclusive these days. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6843244945941207024.post-65109417691202683452017-04-20T10:21:00.003-07:002020-12-07T04:17:05.290-08:00Kelvin Message: A life in music<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.messagemusic.co.uk/">Kelvin Message</a> is a guitar specialist – a tech guy who played
his first gig at 14 and who’s been professional ever since. Kelvin was also a musical impresario, providing UK musicians with a key south coast
platform in the '70s folk scene. </div>
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Until he was in his mid-20s,
Kelvin kept his engineering day job. In 1976 however he jacked it in and
became a full-time professional musician and guitar tutor. Kelvin still had a
family to support though. Paying the bills came first, but, he ruefully admits,
my family didn’t. “You don’t think about it at the time,” he conceded. The
allure of overseas gigs and organising music events got in the way of a steady family life. The kids have all grown up
and all the wives and partners are dead, or gone, he observes sadly.<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p>Kelvin has had a stab or two at the big time, releasing a single in 1973, and playing on the same bill as many famous musicians. His musical career actually began at a church school where he
sang soprano in the choir until his voice broke and that particular career path ended. His
dad encouraged him to take up an instrument instead. The harmonica proved a disaster,
but he played a toy guitar until he had destroyed it.<br>
<br>
At 14, 'The Vandeanon
Sound' were launched on unsuspecting punters at St Stephen’s Methodist Church
Hall in Hampden Park. Apparently taking their name from a Tolkien character,
the band helped satiate the burgeoning beat boom demand. They were paid 5 shillings for
their trouble. Officially Kelvin couldn’t play in pubs, and obviously he couldn’t
drive. So, still at school, he relied on his parents to get both him and his
gear to gigs. In some pub venues though, wearing "long trousers” might get him
in, he says. These days we are all trying to look younger, he notes ironically.
“Keep taking the pills and wear a hat,” he strongly advises.</div>
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Kelvin had been playing rock covers in what, initially, were non-amplified
bands until one day in 1970 he had an epiphany outside The Dolphin pub in South Street,
Eastbourne. On his way to a regular afternoon gig at the Habib Restaurant directly
opposite, an old guy spotted the guitar case and, somewhat absurdly, asked Kelvin
whether he could play. “I like to think so,” was his faux modest response. That
night, peering through a hole in the wall in a back room of the pub, he spied
proceedings at what would later be referred to as a “folk club”. Kelvin was mesmerised
by the playing of acoustic guitarist, <a href="https://oldfolkrebels.blogspot.com/2020/12/johnie-winch-retracing-his-roots.html">Johnie Winch</a>. Johnie, from Hastings,
would become renowned on the UK folk circuit in the 1970s. He
and Kelvin often played together and remained friends. Like many so-called 'folk'
guitarists, <a href="http://www.johnrenbourn.co.uk/">John Renbourn </a>and Bert Jansch included, Winch’s style was heavily blues-influenced,
and, like them, his fluidly combined melody, rhythm and bass. Johnie was doing
the work of three guitarists, Kelvin says. <o:p></o:p><br>
<br>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kelvin with Johnnie Winch (right) in a pic from the 1970s</td></tr>
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Kelvin would do his own turns at The Dolphin, and at The
Crown as well. After a few years he decided to branch out and form his own folk
club at The Lamb. I had noticed that at a certain point in proceedings at the
Dolphin, everybody would up-sticks for another venue, he says. This mobile crew
were as much performers as fans, so we needed a following like this to run our
own club, he says.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://lambfolkclub.co.uk/">The Lamb pub</a> in Eastbourne still has a <a href="http://lambfolkclub.co.uk/">folk club</a> thanks in part to Kelvin for founding it in 1976 and running it until 1993. In the
late 1970s and ‘80s he put on folk line-ups in various Eastbourne theatres,
including <a href="http://royalhippodrome.com/">The Hippodrome</a> and The Tivoli, and played electric guitar in rock
acts, acoustic in folk combos, and ran music nights throughout the town. Kelvin
helped found the Eastbourne Folk Club at the Terminus pub too. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We would have ‘club swops’ where singers and musicians from
folk clubs throughout Sussex would perform at each other’s venues, he says. Hastings
was a major folk venue in those days, and Kelvin worked closely with Keith
Leech, who runs <a href="https://thecompanyofthegreenman.wordpress.com/">The Jack in the Green Festival,</a> and who he describes as having been given an MBE “for
services to folk music.” “Where’s my bleedin’ gong then,” he asks rhetorically.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.daveygraham.moonfruit.com/">Davey Graham</a> played in Eastbourne, he noted. The celebrated Anglo-Caribbean
guitarist helped launch the second British folk boom in the mid-60s. He was,
Kelvin says, basically playing piano music on an acoustic guitar. The same is
true, he says, of his personal folk guitar hero, Ralph McTell. To make his
point, Kelvin promptly picked up an acoustic and deftly played with ragtime
syncopation. Kelvin agrees that his old guitar sparring partner, <a href="http://www.terrylees.com/">Terry Lees</a>, has
a flamenco inflection to his playing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1971 Terry came down from Leicester and helped put
Eastbourne on the folk map by coming runner-up in a national finger-picking competition in the mid-'70s. Kelvin
and Terry gigged together in Holland. Kelvin would pack up work at
5 o’clock on a Friday and high tail it down to Harwich with Terry for the ferry
crossing for a weekend of gigs and be back at the factory at 8am on a Monday morning. Picking
up on the flamenco theme, Kelvin launches into a virtuoso display of how a
music not normally associated with UK folk was, like ragtime, like jazz,
essentially a dance music. Spanish players, noted Kelvin, would keep their
heads down. Not because they were being modest, but because they were watching
the dancers’ feet and would improvise accordingly in order to drive the dancing
on.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kelvin (right) in a promo photo with Terry Lees back in the day</td></tr>
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Listening to Kelvin, I was reminded of what Gil Scott-Heron
says on his final album, that what would later get called jazz music was simply
dance music, and the best players were those who could keep people dancing the
longest. Kelvin understands that labels like ‘folk’ are sterile and often
obscure the eclecticism upon which supposedly pure musical forms are based. “It
was no good me sticking my nose up,” he says, and judging one kind of music as ‘good’
and another as ‘bad’. I needed to earn a bloody living! I was though a total purist
in terms of just playing…yes. My business card still says: ‘No backing tracks,
no effects, no vocals; just guitar.’ I wasn’t anti this or anti that though; I
was just against anything that distracted from me playing. I still am.”</div>
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Don’t forget, he said, what were later called ‘folk clubs’
were places for entertainment, for blokes to try to pick up girls…for drinking
and for smoking. Kelvin paints a picture of Eastbourne folk clubs in the 1960s
and early 1970s that’s a long way from the preciousness of those who often ran folk
venues. Other big names would come down, he says, recalling that he put <a href="http://www.johnrenbourn.co.uk/">John Renbourne</a>
on at The Lamb, and that Martin Carthy played at the Terminus in the 1980s. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For Kelvin it was, and is, all about the music, any music. “If
you wanted country I could do that; classical, no problem.” He and Andrew
Walker, a guitarist and composer, formed ‘Third Half’ in the 1980s as a
self-consciously ‘contemporary’ folk outfit, playing their own material rather
than so-called standards. Another Kelvin vehicle, <a href="http://undergroundtheatre.co.uk/just-guitars-web/">‘Just Guitars’</a> did what it
said on the tin. The ‘Old Town Band’ featured Kelvin on banjo and guitar, along
with Paul Rawlinson, in folk-based sets that would sometimes stray into rock or
classical styles. Kelvin also helped to organise folk and other music events,
including the Eastbourne Folk Festival, which took place over several days throughout
the 1970s and '80s, including at the <a href="http://www.eastbournebandstand.co.uk/" target="_blank">Bandstand</a> - “a nightmare for lugging gear to,
unless you had a boat,” he says. “It’s since been replaced by f*****g Airborne,”
he notes. One renowned performer he remembers putting on at The Tivoli in the
1980s was American folk singer <a href="http://www.juliefelix.co.uk/">Julie Felix</a>. Asked to recall what it was like to
have worked with this international star, Kelvin soon found an appropriate
Anglo-Saxon phrase.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Through all these years Kelvin has remained a guitar teacher
and technician. In the 1990s a <a href="http://www.thefureys.com/">Fureys and Davey Arthur </a>gig at the Congress Theatre
in Eastbourne was rescued by Kelvin sorting out Davey’s guitar and delivering it
right to the stage door. In the 1980s Kelvin performed a similar feat at a
Birmingham NEC gig organised by Jeff Lynne and featuring a former member of the
Fab Four who was about to play live for the first time in a decade. As George Harrison
nervously prepared to hit the stage, his allotted guitar started playing up. Kelvin
was on hand to sort it out. As a guitar tech, Kelvin could have become a
semi-permanent feature with ELO, but says phlegmatically, “If I’d been offered
a job on, say, bass, that would have been different. I didn’t want to end up as
a bleedin’ roadie.” Steady, predictable, income was key. Kelvin has many album credits
though, usually, he says, as guitar tech. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_7kZ2eWieJMP1oEodwWITIJLBy7oWuaPZQtxm1786jizzjqvYE3pz2NhIpTuXSSAkSyikTimllaG14TxxhBUox3Jq0ptZ8200ElDa3X3xJZZsr5AQeQov8db5O_j9SumIf-xfwUy1MQ/s1600/Kelvin+panoramic+workshop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_7kZ2eWieJMP1oEodwWITIJLBy7oWuaPZQtxm1786jizzjqvYE3pz2NhIpTuXSSAkSyikTimllaG14TxxhBUox3Jq0ptZ8200ElDa3X3xJZZsr5AQeQov8db5O_j9SumIf-xfwUy1MQ/s320/Kelvin+panoramic+workshop.jpg" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kelvin at home in his workshop, Nov 2016</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For several decades Kelvin has been a guitar player,
<a href="http://www.messagemusic.co.uk/">engineer and tutor</a>, for much of that time he had wives and kids to support. He
still <a href="http://www.messagemusic.co.uk/">teaches and repairs guitars</a> in a front room workshop at his long-time home
in Eastbourne. Kelvin still plays regularly too, including at a seafront <a href="http://www.shadowmusic.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=79&sid=86e3eb371deef315c3c1f123f38b5b9a">‘Shadows Club’</a>, in homage to the seminal guitar band. Interesting studio work continues
to come his way as well. He plays guitar on <a href="http://rubenvine.com/">Ruben Vine</a>'s sci-fi comic/punk concept album, <a href="http://rubenvine.com/">"The Life and Times of an Imaginary Rock Star"</a>, which has just been released on vinyl, CD and as a download. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Kelvin is still keeping on keeping on. He betrays no hint of
resentment for what might have been, other, perhaps, than some sadness for what
the music business can do to family life.<o:p></o:p><br>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRm-VJMkc4rlO_ePJqGAQi861UOnMpHAm5KyfLcompVMon9flynqVBfjkoeCrytUmhkMrpFzRe9DZ5Gbjg92NFMhIzgS8UFOFj8V7l731n6A03qoMXTPpSEUcTMWPg6ZEJaU15PFp4zZE/s1600/20161119_152255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRm-VJMkc4rlO_ePJqGAQi861UOnMpHAm5KyfLcompVMon9flynqVBfjkoeCrytUmhkMrpFzRe9DZ5Gbjg92NFMhIzgS8UFOFj8V7l731n6A03qoMXTPpSEUcTMWPg6ZEJaU15PFp4zZE/s320/20161119_152255.jpg" width="180"></a></div>
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Neil Partrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04986347512527541166noreply@blogger.com3