BRIAN
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Cheers! And good health to
one and all. This was taken at a recent gig in Connecticut, part of
a Spring tour somewhat buggered up by the dastardly Icelanders and their
SMERSH-like plot to bring the world to a standstill with their tame
volcano. I’ve never trusted them since the Cod War. Anyway, my
outward flight was scheduled for the same day that the Civil Aviation
Authority decided that one grain of volcanic dust per cubic mile of
atmosphere would be enough to send planes plummeting to the ground all
over Europe (well, to honest, I’d probably have erred on the side
of safety in their position). So eight gigs went down the tubes, and
apologies to anyone reading this who had planned to be at any of them.
Apologies as well to my bank manager, who would have enjoyed a healthier
balance on my current account had all those greenbacks not stayed in
North American wallets. Without detracting anything from pleasant concerts in
North Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and Cape Cod, the highlight of
the tour has to be that I can now claim to have Sold Out on Broadway.
Yes, the concert for the Folk Music Society of New York was indeed on
Broadway, and, yes, it was sold out. The fact that the venue was the
Community Arts Centre located in a former public toilet bang in the
middle of Broadway’s central reservation, with a capacity somewhat
less than the George Gershwin Theater, isn’t going to stop me
boasting about it. And here’s the venue… |
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Speaking of Jeff Davis, fans of his music will know and love his version of the song ‘The Bold Privateer’ that Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles collected in the colourfully-named Peaks of Otter, Virginia, in 1918, and which Jeff accompanies with some nifty frailed banjo. Lyrically the song looks like a migrant from England, so for a while I’ve had it in mind to dig out an English version to sing for comparison with Jeff’s. Where to look? Where else but the wonderful ‘Take Six’ archive that the EFDSS put online a year ago. On this site you can see the original manuscripts of important song collectors from the early 20th century, like George Gardiner and the Hammond brothers. Just to give you the idea, here are words and music of a version of ‘The Bold Privateer’ that I’m working on right now, collected by H. E. D. Hammond from a Mrs. Gulliver in 1905. ‘Take Six’ really is a great resource, so I thought it deserved a plug. |
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| When I’ve finished knocking it about a bit, ‘The Bold Privateer’ will be ready for inclusion in a CD that I’m planning to record in early summer. After a ‘Concept Album’ of Child Ballads, following on from an album of nothing but concertina music, I reckon it’s time for a CD featuring the time-honoured concept: “a bit of this, and a bit of that”, with perhaps a bit more of the melodeon than I’ve featured on the last two. So far the tracks look like including traditional songs such as ‘Turpin Hero’, ‘The Bramble Briar’ and ‘Ten Thousand Miles’, the brilliant Keith Marsden song ‘Prospect, Providence’ (which tells a tale of textile wage-slavery set in my wife Margaret’s home town of Morley, West Yorkshire), instrumentals from the Thomas Watts and Joshua Jackson manuscripts, plus a few of my own new ones, and a ballad or two. One ballad that I’m working on just now is ‘The Devil’s Courtship’, which F. J. Child in his infinite wisdom chose to leave out of his collection. It’s a song with an interesting history, starting as a dark tale of a mortal woman losing her soul to His Satanic Majesty, and giving rise over the centuries to such varied offspring as a very rude street ditty, a song recorded by Merle Travis for a Marilyn Monroe film, and a Cajun number. I just love all that roots-and-branches stuff. |
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Back in February this year, the indefatigable cameraman Pete Simmonds came along to the Kirkby Fleetham Folk Club ‘Winter Warmer’ weekend (a ‘Warmer’ being something all too necessary in the Winter we’ve just experienced) and filmed my performance on the Friday night. I was playing acoustically and the sound is a fair bit better than some of my previous Youtubes. Thirteen songs (pretty much the entire show) are linked by title from the Youtube links page, but here’s one to be going with. |
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Coming up later this year, I’ve a number of gigs in North America including a return to Old Songs Festival in upstate New York – one of my favourites – where I’ll be giving a performance of ‘Songs of Trial and Triumph’, amongst other things. Then South to North Carolina for the Swannannoa Gathering Traditional Song Week, where I’ll be taking classes in Child Ballads and English trad songs. September sees a visit to Fox Valley Festival near Chicago – my first time there – after which I’ll hop across the border into Ontario to give a concert organized by the Orange Peel morris dancers, north of Toronto. I’m always amazed by the number, enthusiasm and good technique of the morris dancers on the other side of the Atlantic, a fair few of whom tend to turn up to my concerts. At one show in California, the local side put on an impromptu display on the porch at half time! |
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For
the New York gig, and a couple of the others, I was joined by my old
pal Jeff Davis – here we are playing (or possibly posing) together.
I
don’t play my fiddle much in public outside of the occasional
old-timey session, so just for variety here’s a rare photo from
a performance of ‘The Road to Mandalay’, the Kipling / Bellamy
show with Dave Webber and Anni Fentiman, at the grand Union Folk Club
near Leicester, earlier this year. We’re performing the show again
at Chippenham Folk Festival, where I’ll once again be co-ordinating
the ‘Songshops’ series of themed song workshops. We have
some really interesting things coming up this time around, including
a workshop on singing and dancing with Janet Russell’s new venture
I
don’t do that many gigs in my home town – Glossop in Derbyshire
– but I did play here in the depths of January’s snows at
a pub called the Oakwood in the middle of town. It was a good night,
more people than I expected having battled their way through the drifts,
but particularly notable for the coverage in the local rag, The Advertiser.
Here’s the way they flagged an article about Glossop’s own
travelling folk musician. I have to say I was quite honoured to be billed
only just below Noddy. That’s all for now – see you around.
