When Dean posted his kind comment on my previous blog – thanks for that, Dean - I was reminded once again of how lucky I was to have taught Creative Writing at the MMU.
At my graduation in 1997, John Singleton (RIP), then head of Writing, asked me to come back in the new academic year and take some classes for him. I remained a part-time member of the MMU Writing team for the following dozen years.
I was happily employed by Keele university too, on and off, but my heart is in the Manchester based institution where I spent my own student days.
The money the two unis paid me was well enough to pay the bills and the hours were such as to give me time for my own writing. Sorted.
As a student, my eyes had been opened to a million new ideas as well as confirming, to my great relief and vindication (and with all the necessary back up data), conclusions I had already drawn that were out of step with the people I had been surrounded by up until I took my place at that hallowed seat of learning.
‘My’ students were a constant, life-affirming inspiration to me. You simply cannot be around such bright, gifted, funny, profound, kindly, enthused younger people for any length of time without being immensely rewarded.
In all those years I can count on the fingers of two fingers, the students I’d rather not have met – that precise number of fingers being appropriate, you will agree.
The two exceptions were both equally talented and equally obnoxious people. I haven’t troubled to follow their subsequent careers, but no doubt, in the way things often are, they have done well for themselves.
Apart from those two fading shadows, I am immensely grateful to each one of the thousands of students I have had the good fortune to work with in all those years. Thank you each, severally and all.
***
On the music front: StringFing is playing the Etruria Canals Festival on Saturday 4th June between 12 noon and 5pm.
We are delighted to be sharing the gig with multi-instrumentalist and top performer Andy Casserley. Andy specialises in music hall songs. Right up my street, doods.
My old grandfather, William Theodore Palin, could knock out a music hall song or ten on the old Joanna.
He never had a music lesson in his entire life, my old Bampa. For him, rules were for fools in schools. He demonstrated that there are other kinds of music from the music schools of hard knocks whose pupils obey no clocks and follow the sounds of their own worlds and the rhythms of their own hearts.
Picture me old granddad in our best room, sat at my mum’s creaking Broadwood upright with the bad yellow grin, jacket off, waistcoat buttoned all the way; watch chain hung with rugby medals glinting in the light from the candles in the brass sconces on the mother-of pearl inlaid front board of the piano; silver armbands holding his shirt sleeves away from his pounding fingers: bass and chord/bass and chord/bass and chord/twiddly bit . . .
‘I’m going to sing a song for you this evening
I’ve been a lovely singer since me berf
And when you hear my lov-e-ly notes aringing
You’ll say I got the finest voice on erf
Before the king I once appeared and when I sang, he loudly cheered
He said to me, ‘You really are a marvel, of singing you have really got the knack’
And from his scarf he took a diamond tie pin
Smiled at me . . . and then he put it back.’
That’s a fragment of the first song I recall hearing him singing at the ol’ ivories. I don’t even know what the proper title of the song is, and what’s written above is all I can remember of the lyric. Maybe some of it’s misremembered. I can’t say for sure.
What I can say for sure is something that I will never ever misremember, and that is the sheer human joy of his performances; their cavalier rawness and audacity; his indomitable don’tletthebastardsgrindyoudown sense of humour. His whisky and tea breath. How I loved that man.
Hey if anyone does happen to know that song, please let me know.
***
StringFing is starting a new regular monthly gig at the Holy Inadequate, Etruria – 1st Sunday of each month – on 5th June.
StringFing will be playing its existing regular gig at The New Inn, Derby Street, Hanley, on the 16th of June
The Woodlanders are down in Chebsey on 25th June and the main band at Congleton’s Food and Drink Festival on the 26th June.
Alf-Alfa is out on 3rd June.
I have the pleasure of helping to judge the SG World Schools National Poetry Competition Finals later on in June, on a date to be arranged. I am preparing my short list from hundreds of entries – more than ever this year. A hard slog, but hugely interesting and entertaining.
Lynda and I have been invited to a couple of parties as well.
Festivals, pub gigs, barn dances, poetry competitions and parties, June is, as they say, busting out all over.
Have a good one.
Terry
Friday, 27 May 2011
Sunday, 1 May 2011
TALKING OF RELIGION
What a beautiful month April has been! Spring has fulfilled its promise. May is usually my most favourite month of the year, but it really will have to go some this time round to beat April.
Lynda, Phil Johnson and I are going along to play a few tunes at the annual Seed Swap at Astbury Mere on the afternoon of the 8th of May. I love this event. The planting of seeds is such an optimistic life-affirming gesture. It’s comforting to think that there are some people left who believe in respecting and nurturing the earth instead of putting it under concrete and tarmac and paving blocks and hideous housing.
Talking of the earth and growing things, The Woodlanders played a great Young Farmers gig last night. It just don’t get much better than a farm barn dance with great people, a great repertoire of traditional English tunes, an ace caller (Steve Share is among the best in the business), and a band of mates – me, Lynda, Phil Johnson and Neil Hulse.
And talking of religion which we weren’t, but we are now: me and Lynda went to Barthomley to have a look at the church there and have a jar in the White Lion. The church is dedicated to an 8th century saint, Saint Bertoline. History has it that during the civil war, 17 local people took refuge in the bell tower, but were smoked out by the Kings Men and slaughtered on the spot. They cut the throat of a minor (under 21), John Fowler, inside the church on the bell tower floor. Also in the church are brass plaques commemorating the local dead of the 1st and 2nd world wars. This collection of facts and artefacts begged an obvious question, and a walk around the graveyard prompted the following song:
WHERE WERE YOU, ST. BERTOLINE?
Where were you, St. Bertoline
In their needful hour -
The seventeen, St. Bertoline
Driven from the tower?
Where was: the bolt of thunder
To bring the King’s Men to their knees
When John Fowler bled under
The bells of Barthomley?
And where were you, St. Bertoline
At Ypres and the Somme
For Joe and George, St. Bertoline
For Harry Jenkinson?
Where was: the angels gathered round
Singing ‘Peace be unto thee’
When the rattling guns were mowing down
The boys from Barthomley?
And where were you, St. Bertoline
For Edwin Farrington
For Reg Holland, St. Bertoline -
Plunged into death so young?
Where was: the hand born of your will
To pluck them mercif’ly
From Hitler’s rage, to this green hill
To age in Barthomley?
Where are you now St. Bertoline
At this thoughtful hour -
By the stream, St. Bertoline?
In the breeze that blows the flower?
Do you nightly stalk the nave
Your head hung ashamedly
For all you never did to save
The boys of Barthomley?
Where will you be, St. Bertoline
When the new war comes -
When buckles gleam, St. Bertoline
At the thumping of the drums?
Ah, let me guess! – same as before:
With this useless company
When the next cruel war comes begging for
The blood of Barthomley.
***
Adam Fenn says I only write miserable songs. He’s quite wrong, of course. It’s only just that they mainly are.
Happy May days,
Terry
Lynda, Phil Johnson and I are going along to play a few tunes at the annual Seed Swap at Astbury Mere on the afternoon of the 8th of May. I love this event. The planting of seeds is such an optimistic life-affirming gesture. It’s comforting to think that there are some people left who believe in respecting and nurturing the earth instead of putting it under concrete and tarmac and paving blocks and hideous housing.
Talking of the earth and growing things, The Woodlanders played a great Young Farmers gig last night. It just don’t get much better than a farm barn dance with great people, a great repertoire of traditional English tunes, an ace caller (Steve Share is among the best in the business), and a band of mates – me, Lynda, Phil Johnson and Neil Hulse.
And talking of religion which we weren’t, but we are now: me and Lynda went to Barthomley to have a look at the church there and have a jar in the White Lion. The church is dedicated to an 8th century saint, Saint Bertoline. History has it that during the civil war, 17 local people took refuge in the bell tower, but were smoked out by the Kings Men and slaughtered on the spot. They cut the throat of a minor (under 21), John Fowler, inside the church on the bell tower floor. Also in the church are brass plaques commemorating the local dead of the 1st and 2nd world wars. This collection of facts and artefacts begged an obvious question, and a walk around the graveyard prompted the following song:
WHERE WERE YOU, ST. BERTOLINE?
Where were you, St. Bertoline
In their needful hour -
The seventeen, St. Bertoline
Driven from the tower?
Where was: the bolt of thunder
To bring the King’s Men to their knees
When John Fowler bled under
The bells of Barthomley?
And where were you, St. Bertoline
At Ypres and the Somme
For Joe and George, St. Bertoline
For Harry Jenkinson?
Where was: the angels gathered round
Singing ‘Peace be unto thee’
When the rattling guns were mowing down
The boys from Barthomley?
And where were you, St. Bertoline
For Edwin Farrington
For Reg Holland, St. Bertoline -
Plunged into death so young?
Where was: the hand born of your will
To pluck them mercif’ly
From Hitler’s rage, to this green hill
To age in Barthomley?
Where are you now St. Bertoline
At this thoughtful hour -
By the stream, St. Bertoline?
In the breeze that blows the flower?
Do you nightly stalk the nave
Your head hung ashamedly
For all you never did to save
The boys of Barthomley?
Where will you be, St. Bertoline
When the new war comes -
When buckles gleam, St. Bertoline
At the thumping of the drums?
Ah, let me guess! – same as before:
With this useless company
When the next cruel war comes begging for
The blood of Barthomley.
***
Adam Fenn says I only write miserable songs. He’s quite wrong, of course. It’s only just that they mainly are.
Happy May days,
Terry
Thursday, 14 April 2011
HEYMAKER AT BINGLEY HALL
Chris Ellis, our old buddy, ex-Radio Stoke DJ and Etruria Garden Festival musicians' manager has requested stories from Stoke bands for a publication he's editing. Lynda asked me to tell him about Magnum's PA at Bingley Hall. I thought I'd post it here too. As I was writing it I thought of a much more interesting thing that happened that day which I will post in a few days or so when I have more time.
By the way, StringFing is on Radio Shropshire (96FM) on Sunday 17th April on Genevieve Tudor's rather excellent 2-hour folk programme.
Here's the Magnum story:
Heymaker (me, Lynda, our Jack, Phil Johnson and Mickey Gibson) was booked to play at Bingley Hall, Stafford as part of a 12-hour rock extravaganza staged by the Motorcycle Riders Association, Top of the bill was Magnum with Wishbone Ash snapping at their heels and a whole host of biker-proven, biker-approved below them. Bingley Hall is a big venue, and by that I mean B-I-I-I-I-I-I-G. Magnum had ordered a 32K PA which was to be used by each band in turn.
Just to give you an idea of the unusual magnitude of that number of Ks: If you were staging a gig on the moon and wanted the people of Mow Cop to be able to dance along with the music, you would probably go for a 31K PA. In other words, the 32K ordered by Magnum was more than slightly overkill even for Bingley Hall.
When we did our sound check in the afternoon, I walked on stage, plugged in, drew the bow across my fiddle and it seemed the whole of the London Philharmonic Orchestra struck up with me. It was awesome, my doods, awesome.
Heymaker went on fairly early in the day by arrangement as we had a gig to play that night as well and had to get on the road in time. We played our half-hour set (hey, went down a storm too), drew our money and went off to our next gig. Job done.
We were, I'm told, one of the few bands to actually get paid out. I forget what the problem with the money was, but I know it was nothing to do with the MRA itself.
I’ll always remember, though, what a massive, massive a sound we got that afternoon of rocking pleasure. However, when Magnum turned up to do their sound check, they said, ‘What the f***’s this? This ain’t no 32K!’ Their people checked the rig and the jolly rockers were right. It was only a mere 30K (!) Magnum refused to play until the 2 missing Ks had been brought in.
I never had a chance to meet the band as we had to leave for our next gig. So, if you ever meet Magnum, ask them for me why they felt the need for such a huge PA. Mind you, you’ll probably have to use sign language.
Gotta rush orf now to a poetry seminar.
Tootle pip.
By the way, StringFing is on Radio Shropshire (96FM) on Sunday 17th April on Genevieve Tudor's rather excellent 2-hour folk programme.
Here's the Magnum story:
Heymaker (me, Lynda, our Jack, Phil Johnson and Mickey Gibson) was booked to play at Bingley Hall, Stafford as part of a 12-hour rock extravaganza staged by the Motorcycle Riders Association, Top of the bill was Magnum with Wishbone Ash snapping at their heels and a whole host of biker-proven, biker-approved below them. Bingley Hall is a big venue, and by that I mean B-I-I-I-I-I-I-G. Magnum had ordered a 32K PA which was to be used by each band in turn.
Just to give you an idea of the unusual magnitude of that number of Ks: If you were staging a gig on the moon and wanted the people of Mow Cop to be able to dance along with the music, you would probably go for a 31K PA. In other words, the 32K ordered by Magnum was more than slightly overkill even for Bingley Hall.
When we did our sound check in the afternoon, I walked on stage, plugged in, drew the bow across my fiddle and it seemed the whole of the London Philharmonic Orchestra struck up with me. It was awesome, my doods, awesome.
Heymaker went on fairly early in the day by arrangement as we had a gig to play that night as well and had to get on the road in time. We played our half-hour set (hey, went down a storm too), drew our money and went off to our next gig. Job done.
We were, I'm told, one of the few bands to actually get paid out. I forget what the problem with the money was, but I know it was nothing to do with the MRA itself.
I’ll always remember, though, what a massive, massive a sound we got that afternoon of rocking pleasure. However, when Magnum turned up to do their sound check, they said, ‘What the f***’s this? This ain’t no 32K!’ Their people checked the rig and the jolly rockers were right. It was only a mere 30K (!) Magnum refused to play until the 2 missing Ks had been brought in.
I never had a chance to meet the band as we had to leave for our next gig. So, if you ever meet Magnum, ask them for me why they felt the need for such a huge PA. Mind you, you’ll probably have to use sign language.
Gotta rush orf now to a poetry seminar.
Tootle pip.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
SAM PLANK: DIAMOND GEEZER
At four minutes past midday on Monday 21st February 2011, there took place, at the Swan Bank Methodist Church in Stoke on Trent’s mother town of Burslem, the farewell to the local radio icon Sam Plank.
Sam, less commonly known by his given name of Terry Hilton, was an old friend of mine – an old friend of so many people, in fact, that the Swan Bank church was cram packed full. You had to be on the family’s guest list to get inside.
Loudspeakers were set up to relay the service to the crowd of people that the church, large as it is, wasn’t big enough to hold. Potteries folk had lined the streets to pay their respects to Sam as the cortege wound its way from Hanley along the streets to Burslem.
One of Sam’s trade marks was that he had worn a red scarf when he was out and about his outside broadcast work and it was one of his requests was that everybody attending the church should wear something red. So, suited in a dark blue double-breasted pinstripe, I booted up in my red doc’ers and stuck a red silk handkerchief in my top pocket for good measure.
Sam’s son wore Sam’s actual red scarf; pastor Ashley Cooper, the minister conducting the service, wore a set of red trainers (I have to say this was a sight reminiscent of Tony Blair wearing those getting-down-with-the-kids jeans); there were women and girls with red roses in their hair; some mourners wore red scarves similar to Sam’s; Joan Walley (MP, Labour, Stoke North) wore a string of red beads.
Joan gave a speech that struck absolutely the right tone being both amusing and very moving.
The one hymn, How Great Thou Art! was chokingly emotional even to this non-believer.
You know, in truth, I didn’t know Sam that well at all. We had bumped into each other professionally several times over the years and he had interviewed me for his Radio Stoke and Signal Radio programmes. But, such was Sam’s sincerity, charm and charisma he immediately made you feel that you were not only a friend of his, but a special one at that.
I was Sam’s last interviewee an Signal Radio. The topic was my book Battling Jack. Sam asked proper good questions and read out parts of the book beautifully. He had incredible empathy.
To me and many others the hugely popular Sam Plank was the voice of Stoke on Trent. But, through his programmes he also gave a voice to many, many other people who otherwise would have remained unheard.
He took up their issues with councils and corporations and more often than not won the day for them. It is well known that having Sam on your side was at least half the battle in resolving a problem. There was love in the room on Monday right enough.
Sam fought his illness with great bravery and without self-pity. Huge condolences to Verity and her family. Lynda and I are thinking of you.
What can be said when some one like Sam Plank is lost to us?
Well from me, I reckon the very least Sam deserves is the highest personal accolade I as a southerner can give him:
PLANKY, MATE, YOU WERE ONE DIAMOND GEEZER.
Sam, less commonly known by his given name of Terry Hilton, was an old friend of mine – an old friend of so many people, in fact, that the Swan Bank church was cram packed full. You had to be on the family’s guest list to get inside.
Loudspeakers were set up to relay the service to the crowd of people that the church, large as it is, wasn’t big enough to hold. Potteries folk had lined the streets to pay their respects to Sam as the cortege wound its way from Hanley along the streets to Burslem.
One of Sam’s trade marks was that he had worn a red scarf when he was out and about his outside broadcast work and it was one of his requests was that everybody attending the church should wear something red. So, suited in a dark blue double-breasted pinstripe, I booted up in my red doc’ers and stuck a red silk handkerchief in my top pocket for good measure.
Sam’s son wore Sam’s actual red scarf; pastor Ashley Cooper, the minister conducting the service, wore a set of red trainers (I have to say this was a sight reminiscent of Tony Blair wearing those getting-down-with-the-kids jeans); there were women and girls with red roses in their hair; some mourners wore red scarves similar to Sam’s; Joan Walley (MP, Labour, Stoke North) wore a string of red beads.
Joan gave a speech that struck absolutely the right tone being both amusing and very moving.
The one hymn, How Great Thou Art! was chokingly emotional even to this non-believer.
You know, in truth, I didn’t know Sam that well at all. We had bumped into each other professionally several times over the years and he had interviewed me for his Radio Stoke and Signal Radio programmes. But, such was Sam’s sincerity, charm and charisma he immediately made you feel that you were not only a friend of his, but a special one at that.
I was Sam’s last interviewee an Signal Radio. The topic was my book Battling Jack. Sam asked proper good questions and read out parts of the book beautifully. He had incredible empathy.
To me and many others the hugely popular Sam Plank was the voice of Stoke on Trent. But, through his programmes he also gave a voice to many, many other people who otherwise would have remained unheard.
He took up their issues with councils and corporations and more often than not won the day for them. It is well known that having Sam on your side was at least half the battle in resolving a problem. There was love in the room on Monday right enough.
Sam fought his illness with great bravery and without self-pity. Huge condolences to Verity and her family. Lynda and I are thinking of you.
What can be said when some one like Sam Plank is lost to us?
Well from me, I reckon the very least Sam deserves is the highest personal accolade I as a southerner can give him:
PLANKY, MATE, YOU WERE ONE DIAMOND GEEZER.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
PITY THE POOR POOR PIG!!
Hey, BIG GREETINGS either and several; eachly, both, one and all.
As usual I’ve been up to too much to get a new blog written earlier. I’ll try to catch up a little bit even though life's still hectic. I wanted to post the true history of the The Canalsiders Ceili Band too, but that’ll have to wait till later.
StringFing did an unusual gig, back in early January, at Gorton Monastery for Adoption Matters North West. The event was the grand finals of a poetry competition on the theme of ‘Belonging’. There were a huge number of entries. Some good uns an’ all.
The judges were: Joy Winkler, John Lindley, Jim Bennett, Copland Smith, Gill McEvoy, Carol Fenlon, Elizabeth Burns, Sarah Hymas and yours truly. We had poems from Joy, John, Jim, Copland and Carol. All excellent wordsmiths.
I was the link person for the event – introducing everybody and stuff. StringFing played a few English traditional dance tunes while the folks got seated.
The short-listed poems were read by the guest poets and the winners announced. I presented the top scribblers in each region with their prizes.
I was commissioned to write a song for the event on the theme of ‘Belonging’ Here’s the lyric:
WE BELONG TOGETHER
All across the world
In every land is heard
Voices of dissent and division
Whoever it is you serve
However your heart is stirred
Whatever your race or religion:
You and me, we’re family
We belong together
You and me, let’s all agree
We belong together
You may not be free
They may call you enemy
And use their guns to defeat you
Such bigotry fails to see
We are linked inextricably
From pole to pole, through and through
You and me, we’re family
We belong together
You and me, let’s all agree
We belong together
You’re stumbling along your rugged road
With your pockets full of stones
You’re hitting the wall; you’re ready to fall
You’ve never felt more alone . . .
When you’ve been hurt by love
You may think the worst of love
You may think love pure invention
When we’ve been cursed by love
In our thirst for love
Remember our true connection:
You and me, we’re family
We belong together
You and me, let’s all agree
We belong together.
© W. Terry Fox
If you want to hear the tune I came up with too, there’s a rough version of me playing it on me Jack Jones in our back bedroom via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZG3-KOgaIw
Now you can see why I have Adam and Emily making music with me. On the day, StringFing did the song twice and the whole audience sang along to it. I love it when people join in.
The event was master-minded by deWinter PR and Marketing of Chester. If you ever get a chance to work with them, do so. They are a dream to work with.
I’ve got a photo for you: StringFing playing Pity the Poor Poor Pig at our Xmas do at the New Inn, sent in by our buddy Chris Malkin:
Where’s Emily? you may well ask. Chris couldn’t get her in the shot cuz of the crowd at the front, so here’s Emily playing the tune on a long-previous occasion:
We usually play this instrumental piece after we have handed percussion instruments out to our long-suffering and highly rhythmic audiences. And, of course, as well as putting them to work on tambourines, bells and shakers, we get them yelling out the refrain:
‘PITY THE POOR POOR PIG!!’
‘What is that all about then?’ I’m commonly asked by the uninitiated - that is to say that I am asked often. I’m not inferring that the people who ask me the question come from a inferior class than wot I does for I doubt there is one. If so, it’s probable they have't learnt to walk upright yet.
Which reminds me: The great Charlie Mingus (RIP), jazz bassist and composer extraordinaire wrote an autobiography with a classic, unbeatable, down-trodden class reference in its title: Beneath the Underdog. How about that?! Awesome.
Which Mingus reference reminds me: Hey Anna, thanks for posting your comment and for your good wishes. It goes both ways, mate. I really miss teaching at the MMU.
Which in turn reminds me: I heard Jo Bell’s jacked in my old job already. One term, Jo? What the hell can the students be like this year? They seemed harmless enough when I met the new intake briefly on Mow Day. You never can tell though, with students, eh? Come to think of it, hmmm, there does happen to be a fire extinguisher in every room . . .
Which reminds me – the student ‘riots’ (should it be ‘police or state riots’?) which seem so long ago now thanks to my fecklessness over blog writing: I reckon that young geezer - as senselessly reckless as his fire-extinguisher-over-the-balcony action was - is now paying the price for everybody who dared to dissent.
Be warned, next time, my protesting students and friends of equal opportunity and education for all, behave impeccably, max up your numbers and pile on the political pressure. Governments are like spoilt kids. You’ve got to handle them with care before you can get them under control, otherwise they just kick off in tantrums and manage to sidetrack the masses from the real issue being contested. Hand in hand with their close friends of the print media, of course.
An example of how to do it might be Egypt. We’ll have to see how that turns out.
Back to Pity the Poor Poor Pig: I wrote it when I was idling around on a guitar in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. I got so into the licks I had to reboil the kettle a few times before I’d got the tune nailed and could reward myself with a cup of Rosie Lee.
The resulting tune is a kind of boogie, but then again it has a kind of shuffle beat. It mostly feels like a Cajun groove to me, and when ever I think of Cajun music I think of a woodland glade with a row of musos (the word row has an interesting ambiguity in this context) sitting along the trunk of a felled tree going diddy-diddy-diddy-diddy on squeeze boxes with someone beating out 'dinner’s ready' on a big triangle. In the right hand corner of this mind picture, a sacrificial pig, slaughtered and gutted, shaved and impaled in the prime of its fat pigging life, is slowly rotating on a spit over an open fire.
The hog roast is a cliché of Louisiana swamp music along with dungarees, baseball caps, moody splay-toothed alligators, mango trees, and a kind of French nobody bothers to speak anymore.
Plusly, Cajun music has an infectious, hypnotic beat. Great to dance to, but, hey, what a shame a piggywig has to die every time the two-steppers put on their tartan shirts for a shindig.
My Lynda is a vegetarian. I am as well, a bit. Hey, I wonder if they have swine bars down there in Cajun country for the upwardly mobile?
StringFing has done its first New Inn gig of the year. Lots of our lovely StringFing mates were there so it was a good audience in spite of a number of people kept away by the freezing fog. We were fortunate to have as a guest muso the one-and-only Chris Bingham on mouth harp. Most people know Chris as an outstanding jazz funk bass player he is. Not so many know that he is a fine blues harp player too.
Sharing a couple of numbers with us also was our inimitable blues bro Pete Latham. If there’s anyone who spends more time thinking about music than Pete, it’s someone who never goes to sleep. Pete is a wonderful musician. He has eclectic tastes and a vast knowledge of blues and folk history.
Me and Pete go back a long way, but we lost contact for a few years (I think of this period of time as Pete’s wilderness years lol). We’ve been sessioning a few Alf-Alfa tunes together recently – him on mandolin, me scraping the fiddle.
Check out Pete via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_nHYoFIdiE
Good ain’t he?
Right, I’ve got other stuff to get up to now.
Ta-ra.
As usual I’ve been up to too much to get a new blog written earlier. I’ll try to catch up a little bit even though life's still hectic. I wanted to post the true history of the The Canalsiders Ceili Band too, but that’ll have to wait till later.
StringFing did an unusual gig, back in early January, at Gorton Monastery for Adoption Matters North West. The event was the grand finals of a poetry competition on the theme of ‘Belonging’. There were a huge number of entries. Some good uns an’ all.
The judges were: Joy Winkler, John Lindley, Jim Bennett, Copland Smith, Gill McEvoy, Carol Fenlon, Elizabeth Burns, Sarah Hymas and yours truly. We had poems from Joy, John, Jim, Copland and Carol. All excellent wordsmiths.
I was the link person for the event – introducing everybody and stuff. StringFing played a few English traditional dance tunes while the folks got seated.
The short-listed poems were read by the guest poets and the winners announced. I presented the top scribblers in each region with their prizes.
I was commissioned to write a song for the event on the theme of ‘Belonging’ Here’s the lyric:
WE BELONG TOGETHER
All across the world
In every land is heard
Voices of dissent and division
Whoever it is you serve
However your heart is stirred
Whatever your race or religion:
You and me, we’re family
We belong together
You and me, let’s all agree
We belong together
You may not be free
They may call you enemy
And use their guns to defeat you
Such bigotry fails to see
We are linked inextricably
From pole to pole, through and through
You and me, we’re family
We belong together
You and me, let’s all agree
We belong together
You’re stumbling along your rugged road
With your pockets full of stones
You’re hitting the wall; you’re ready to fall
You’ve never felt more alone . . .
When you’ve been hurt by love
You may think the worst of love
You may think love pure invention
When we’ve been cursed by love
In our thirst for love
Remember our true connection:
You and me, we’re family
We belong together
You and me, let’s all agree
We belong together.
© W. Terry Fox
If you want to hear the tune I came up with too, there’s a rough version of me playing it on me Jack Jones in our back bedroom via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZG3-KOgaIw
Now you can see why I have Adam and Emily making music with me. On the day, StringFing did the song twice and the whole audience sang along to it. I love it when people join in.
The event was master-minded by deWinter PR and Marketing of Chester. If you ever get a chance to work with them, do so. They are a dream to work with.
I’ve got a photo for you: StringFing playing Pity the Poor Poor Pig at our Xmas do at the New Inn, sent in by our buddy Chris Malkin:
Where’s Emily? you may well ask. Chris couldn’t get her in the shot cuz of the crowd at the front, so here’s Emily playing the tune on a long-previous occasion:
We usually play this instrumental piece after we have handed percussion instruments out to our long-suffering and highly rhythmic audiences. And, of course, as well as putting them to work on tambourines, bells and shakers, we get them yelling out the refrain:
‘PITY THE POOR POOR PIG!!’
‘What is that all about then?’ I’m commonly asked by the uninitiated - that is to say that I am asked often. I’m not inferring that the people who ask me the question come from a inferior class than wot I does for I doubt there is one. If so, it’s probable they have't learnt to walk upright yet.
Which reminds me: The great Charlie Mingus (RIP), jazz bassist and composer extraordinaire wrote an autobiography with a classic, unbeatable, down-trodden class reference in its title: Beneath the Underdog. How about that?! Awesome.
Which Mingus reference reminds me: Hey Anna, thanks for posting your comment and for your good wishes. It goes both ways, mate. I really miss teaching at the MMU.
Which in turn reminds me: I heard Jo Bell’s jacked in my old job already. One term, Jo? What the hell can the students be like this year? They seemed harmless enough when I met the new intake briefly on Mow Day. You never can tell though, with students, eh? Come to think of it, hmmm, there does happen to be a fire extinguisher in every room . . .
Which reminds me – the student ‘riots’ (should it be ‘police or state riots’?) which seem so long ago now thanks to my fecklessness over blog writing: I reckon that young geezer - as senselessly reckless as his fire-extinguisher-over-the-balcony action was - is now paying the price for everybody who dared to dissent.
Be warned, next time, my protesting students and friends of equal opportunity and education for all, behave impeccably, max up your numbers and pile on the political pressure. Governments are like spoilt kids. You’ve got to handle them with care before you can get them under control, otherwise they just kick off in tantrums and manage to sidetrack the masses from the real issue being contested. Hand in hand with their close friends of the print media, of course.
An example of how to do it might be Egypt. We’ll have to see how that turns out.
Back to Pity the Poor Poor Pig: I wrote it when I was idling around on a guitar in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. I got so into the licks I had to reboil the kettle a few times before I’d got the tune nailed and could reward myself with a cup of Rosie Lee.
The resulting tune is a kind of boogie, but then again it has a kind of shuffle beat. It mostly feels like a Cajun groove to me, and when ever I think of Cajun music I think of a woodland glade with a row of musos (the word row has an interesting ambiguity in this context) sitting along the trunk of a felled tree going diddy-diddy-diddy-diddy on squeeze boxes with someone beating out 'dinner’s ready' on a big triangle. In the right hand corner of this mind picture, a sacrificial pig, slaughtered and gutted, shaved and impaled in the prime of its fat pigging life, is slowly rotating on a spit over an open fire.
The hog roast is a cliché of Louisiana swamp music along with dungarees, baseball caps, moody splay-toothed alligators, mango trees, and a kind of French nobody bothers to speak anymore.
Plusly, Cajun music has an infectious, hypnotic beat. Great to dance to, but, hey, what a shame a piggywig has to die every time the two-steppers put on their tartan shirts for a shindig.
My Lynda is a vegetarian. I am as well, a bit. Hey, I wonder if they have swine bars down there in Cajun country for the upwardly mobile?
StringFing has done its first New Inn gig of the year. Lots of our lovely StringFing mates were there so it was a good audience in spite of a number of people kept away by the freezing fog. We were fortunate to have as a guest muso the one-and-only Chris Bingham on mouth harp. Most people know Chris as an outstanding jazz funk bass player he is. Not so many know that he is a fine blues harp player too.
Sharing a couple of numbers with us also was our inimitable blues bro Pete Latham. If there’s anyone who spends more time thinking about music than Pete, it’s someone who never goes to sleep. Pete is a wonderful musician. He has eclectic tastes and a vast knowledge of blues and folk history.
Me and Pete go back a long way, but we lost contact for a few years (I think of this period of time as Pete’s wilderness years lol). We’ve been sessioning a few Alf-Alfa tunes together recently – him on mandolin, me scraping the fiddle.
Check out Pete via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_nHYoFIdiE
Good ain’t he?
Right, I’ve got other stuff to get up to now.
Ta-ra.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
ROBBIE WILLIAMS
Hey, Xmas have been an gorn. Hope yours was a happy one, and while we are about it, a very happy and peaceful 2011 to you an yours, my ducks.
We had our Jack to dinner on Christmas Eve, went over to Amy and Dave’s for dinner on Christmas day, and had Marion, Jane, Graham and Katy over for drinks an stuff on Boxing Day. Oh the lovely yuletide mulled wine warmth of it all.
My Christmas poetry gig with the Congleton Choral Society was cancelled ‘due to bad weather’. Ironically, they forgot to let me know and I found out when I arrived smoothly and on time at the venue for the afternoon rehearsal. Wha? Bad weather? But, I’ve got here all right. How do you explain that then? They graciously gave me my fee, but missing the gig gave me a, ‘Now where have I put that drink I was half-way through?’ feeling that I couldn’t shake off for days.
On Christmas Day we had our jolly seasonal telephone call from Cyril Lawton, The mighty bearded one of the golden days of the Bridge Street Arts Centre.
Cyril and I have a chequered history – we had a fight soon after we first met. My fault really. Cyril is a sly mover and after a sophisticated ‘play dead’ ploy by him, I came a rapid second best (I’m crap at the noble art anyway) and had to have a gash over my left eye stitched up at Hartshill A&E.
That Friday night at the A&E unit was a vision of hell: lads by the score with broken limbs, slashed faces, some with axes and bottles sticking out of their heads, and all with Madam Alcohol to thank for it. My newly-humbled self included. Ah, the sad sad wreckage of that woman's followers.
The nurse reckoned I was at least the 500th person that night to have sustained their injuries ‘falling down the stairs’.
As I say, I’m useless at fighting, to which my blacked eyes, split lips and six stitches clearly bore testimony. But, strangely, those injuries gained me something of a reputation for being a hard nut. Huh? Thankfully this reputation was short-lived for I’d be completely unable to live up to it.
Since those misguided drunken fisticuffs, and in the course of hundreds of gigs, Cyril and my family became firm friends. It was great to hear from him on Christmas Day. Cyril asked me if I had seen Robbie Williams on TV recently when the ol’ Stokie songbird mentioned Bridge Street?
Robbie reckoned, in his teens, Bridge Street was a source of top and inspirational music for him. This cleared up a small mystery for me: Lynda was chatting to Robbie in the Mill Hill Tavern one night and Heymaker came up in the conversation. ‘I used to go and see you at Bridge Street,‘ Robbie told her.
‘Gerroff,’ Lynda said. ‘You’d have only been about 14!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Robert cheerfully.
There seemed to be a ring of truth about it: he knew exactly what the Heymaker line-up was and the sort of stuff we played then, but it was hard to credit that he was down Bridge Street at such a young age. I suspected a wind-up. In Robbie's parlance: you're joking me.
‘He was a good kid,’ Cyril told me. ‘I used to let him sit in a corner and watch the bands. Heymaker was number one band there and he saw you a lot.’
We didn’t become mates with Robbie until the early days of Take That. Our Amy was in their target age group and was totally captivated by them as were her mates.
In the dim and smoky past, I had worked in bands on the same bill as Robbie’s comedian dad, Pete (aka Pete Conway), in various working mens clubs and later had been hired by him to play gigs for his staff when he was at the Valiant’s Social Club.
Lynda’s memories of Pete are of when he was in the same short-hand and typing class as her, both studying for their future careers – Lynda’s as a secretary and Pete’s as a policeman. Yes, a policeman. Lynda said Pete cracked jokes the whole time and had them all falling about laughing. He never did wear the blue helmet. That is to say, he never became a policeman.
We did the pub quiz at the Tavern with Robbie one night. There were a dozen or so teams and we came second – second from last, that is. Rob knew more about 60s music than I did and I was there at the time. Then, again, that’s what they say about the 60s, ain’t it?
You have to give your quiz team a name. Robbie chose ‘The Nomads’. He’d just come back from a social trip to Glastonbury with M People and was full of inspiration for the gypsy life. He was to storm Glastonbury with his own gig not long after. And then he stormed in the wilderness for a bit, and now he’s gone full circle, singing with Take That again. Amy’s over you now Robbie. Sorry dood.
We’re off to play the Stoke Hornpipe with Greg and Kate’s team at the Glebe tonight.
Be of good cheer,
Terry
We had our Jack to dinner on Christmas Eve, went over to Amy and Dave’s for dinner on Christmas day, and had Marion, Jane, Graham and Katy over for drinks an stuff on Boxing Day. Oh the lovely yuletide mulled wine warmth of it all.
My Christmas poetry gig with the Congleton Choral Society was cancelled ‘due to bad weather’. Ironically, they forgot to let me know and I found out when I arrived smoothly and on time at the venue for the afternoon rehearsal. Wha? Bad weather? But, I’ve got here all right. How do you explain that then? They graciously gave me my fee, but missing the gig gave me a, ‘Now where have I put that drink I was half-way through?’ feeling that I couldn’t shake off for days.
On Christmas Day we had our jolly seasonal telephone call from Cyril Lawton, The mighty bearded one of the golden days of the Bridge Street Arts Centre.
Cyril and I have a chequered history – we had a fight soon after we first met. My fault really. Cyril is a sly mover and after a sophisticated ‘play dead’ ploy by him, I came a rapid second best (I’m crap at the noble art anyway) and had to have a gash over my left eye stitched up at Hartshill A&E.
That Friday night at the A&E unit was a vision of hell: lads by the score with broken limbs, slashed faces, some with axes and bottles sticking out of their heads, and all with Madam Alcohol to thank for it. My newly-humbled self included. Ah, the sad sad wreckage of that woman's followers.
The nurse reckoned I was at least the 500th person that night to have sustained their injuries ‘falling down the stairs’.
As I say, I’m useless at fighting, to which my blacked eyes, split lips and six stitches clearly bore testimony. But, strangely, those injuries gained me something of a reputation for being a hard nut. Huh? Thankfully this reputation was short-lived for I’d be completely unable to live up to it.
Since those misguided drunken fisticuffs, and in the course of hundreds of gigs, Cyril and my family became firm friends. It was great to hear from him on Christmas Day. Cyril asked me if I had seen Robbie Williams on TV recently when the ol’ Stokie songbird mentioned Bridge Street?
Robbie reckoned, in his teens, Bridge Street was a source of top and inspirational music for him. This cleared up a small mystery for me: Lynda was chatting to Robbie in the Mill Hill Tavern one night and Heymaker came up in the conversation. ‘I used to go and see you at Bridge Street,‘ Robbie told her.
‘Gerroff,’ Lynda said. ‘You’d have only been about 14!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Robert cheerfully.
There seemed to be a ring of truth about it: he knew exactly what the Heymaker line-up was and the sort of stuff we played then, but it was hard to credit that he was down Bridge Street at such a young age. I suspected a wind-up. In Robbie's parlance: you're joking me.
‘He was a good kid,’ Cyril told me. ‘I used to let him sit in a corner and watch the bands. Heymaker was number one band there and he saw you a lot.’
We didn’t become mates with Robbie until the early days of Take That. Our Amy was in their target age group and was totally captivated by them as were her mates.
In the dim and smoky past, I had worked in bands on the same bill as Robbie’s comedian dad, Pete (aka Pete Conway), in various working mens clubs and later had been hired by him to play gigs for his staff when he was at the Valiant’s Social Club.
Lynda’s memories of Pete are of when he was in the same short-hand and typing class as her, both studying for their future careers – Lynda’s as a secretary and Pete’s as a policeman. Yes, a policeman. Lynda said Pete cracked jokes the whole time and had them all falling about laughing. He never did wear the blue helmet. That is to say, he never became a policeman.
We did the pub quiz at the Tavern with Robbie one night. There were a dozen or so teams and we came second – second from last, that is. Rob knew more about 60s music than I did and I was there at the time. Then, again, that’s what they say about the 60s, ain’t it?
You have to give your quiz team a name. Robbie chose ‘The Nomads’. He’d just come back from a social trip to Glastonbury with M People and was full of inspiration for the gypsy life. He was to storm Glastonbury with his own gig not long after. And then he stormed in the wilderness for a bit, and now he’s gone full circle, singing with Take That again. Amy’s over you now Robbie. Sorry dood.
We’re off to play the Stoke Hornpipe with Greg and Kate’s team at the Glebe tonight.
Be of good cheer,
Terry
Monday, 29 November 2010
HEYMAKER
The voluminous misinformation floating in the ether about various bands I have been in or have co-founded over the years never ceases to amuse me. I often prefer the mythological accounts to the actual happenings. However, I thought I would do a few brief real histories just for the record, starting with the above named and moving on to Cops n Robbers, Oatcake Billy’s Ideal Band, Boneshaker, et al in later postings.
Here we go then: Once upon a time me, Lynda and Jack moved into an old cottage by the Trent and Mersey canal at Church Lawton. Lynda and I had bought the place from Paul Atterbury – he of the Antiques Roadshow.
Up the dirt track from that little house and across the main road stands Red Bull, or ‘Bottom Bull’ as it was then known locally, there being another Red Bull higher up the same road. The Bottom Bull being the closest boozer to us became my local and I went across for a swift pint of Robinson’s most nights of the week.
In those days the Bull was run by an Irish guy called Colin Meany who provided it with a great juke box which was particularly well-fed on Friday nights by the perfumed and sharply-dressed hoards who were downing a few cheap uns priming themselves for their forays into the night clubs of Hanley and Sandbach. I first heard ‘Sultans of Swing’ on Colin’s juke box so I reckon that’d place these events circa 1979.
Soon after we arrived, The Bull was taken over by an ex-policeman from Manchester, John Higham. A right character and no mistake, enraged or chummy by turns of an inner switch that few understood the workings of. John, in a friendly mood, put a jazz band on in the upstairs function room on Friday nights and switched off the juke box.
Around this time, Lynda bought half a pony. No, no, no, she’s vegetarian. The pony was very alive and, unfortunately, very kicking. Its other half (which I preferred to think of as the back half) was owned for by our sister-in-law Marion.
No sooner had this palomino yearling with the golden body and white flashing mane been installed in the field we rented that ran alongside our garden, than Lynda discovered, to our great delight, that she was pregnant. But, this meant that I was now in charge of her half of the pony. Ooops.
You see, I have a cattle phobia. No really. This is to say that in snnnn pite of my first two jobs being labouring on farms, one of which was a dairy farm on which I helped with the daily milking, I have a cattle phobia.
Yeah, OK, I know horses aren’t much like cows in many ways, but sadly my cattle phobia was generous enough to embrace the family of the noble steed too. Needless to say embracing a horse was absolutely the last thing wanted to do however pretty our prancing little ‘Sunny’ might have happened to be. And deceptively cute he was too.
Oddly enough, me and Sunny got along all right. I learnt as much as I could about horses from books and from horse people and, of course, from Sunny. I broke him to the bit, lunged him, drove him in long reins around the field and along the road. We had a great time, man and horse. I could back him up for as long as I wished just by putting one finger on his nose and gently telling him, ‘Back up. Back up.’ I was no longer afraid of horses.
Then the cute little prancing b*****d broke my shoulder blade. But that’s another story.
In the evenings after tea, the extended family would share in the training and grooming of the pony. Finally, I’d put a hay net up in his stable for him and swan over to the Red Bull for my customary jar. I had my own pot behind the bar which the bar man would pull a pint into as soon as he saw me crossing the road.
Landlord John Higham was suspicious of me at first. Well, I did go over there very obviously having had recent dealings with a horse. I was told later that he asked Ken, one of his regulars, about me. Ken said, ‘Terry? He’s a bit of a gypo, but he’s all right.’ which is one of the best reviews I’ve ever had.
Not only did John allow me to carry on drinking in his pub, but he also picked me up most days from Kidsgrove station in his beautiful, royal blue, old-style Rolls Royce. OK, more accurately, he picked his daughter up at the end of her school day from Kidsgrove station and if I happened to be on the same train as her he’d give me a lift too.
On one such occasion we were purring along the Congleton Road when John asked me, ‘Know of any good folk bands?’
‘Why? What have you got in mind?’
‘That jazz band I’ve got is taking the piss, he said. ‘They’re turning up later and later and they keep asking for more money.’
‘What, exactly you looking for with a folk band then?’
‘I dunno, something like a four or five-piece group to knock out a few tunes and a few songs. I’ll give ‘em a fiver each and free beer.’
I told Lynda about John’s enquiry as soon as I got in. Should we put something together for him? Lynda was well up it and suggested we brought in Adrian and Sheila Crosbie, our mates from Oatcake Billy’s Ideal Band. A perfect choice. I’d been playing the fiddle for a few months and Adrian had been showing me how to go on with it.
The plan became this: Croz and me on fiddles – master and apprentice - Lynda doing her magic tambourine and percussion, Sheila playing sparkling hammered dulcimer. We would play tunes from the English fiddling tradition interspersed with traditional English folk songs for 3 x 30 min sets every Friday night upstairs at the Bull. Sorted.
We asked our Jack if was interested, but he was playing lead guitar in a punk band at the time and said, ‘Nah. Sorry.’ He did agree, though, to play with us until we could get a replacement rhythm player.
Having a juggling with countryside names and morris dancing terms, I came up with the name ‘Heymaker’. I went over the Bull and told John I’d found him just the right band for his job. We started there on the following Friday.
We had Jack turn the treble right up on his guitar to get it to sound more like an acoustic banjo and away we went. Lynda did most of the singing. I did a couple of songs and so did Sheila.
Talk about an instant success! Blimey, we ended up pulling such crowds that John thought he might have overdone it. We loved it. A hassle-free gig in our own locale. I have to say it’s the only gig I have ever had where I transported the gear to it and from it by wheelbarrow. Happy days, doods.
Things never stand still do they? In time we added a bass player and a drummer and got a bit louder and more electric. A predominance of bikers began showing up in our audiences – something about our particular take on music had caught their imagination. John Higham, however, wasn’t happy with this new clientele and would insist they took off their leather jackets if they wanted to come in to see us. Neither they nor we were happy with that.
One New Years Eve at the Red Bull, John hired Heymaker to play for their annual ticket-only Fancy Dress Party. The turn out was a-mazing. Everybody took the fancy dress theme seriously, including grumpy Old Harry next door who decided to come dressed as an angel complete with large wire-and-net-curtain wings. 1981 it was.
Our Amy had been born early on in the year before. I’m her dad and I’m bound to think this, I suppose, but she was the most wonderful little person ever to grace our planet and still is. She was barely two years old and sat there with her eyes wide open with wonder and a great big smile lighting up her face watching Micky Mouse dance with Lady Godiva; a cavemen dancing with a fairy princesses and Old Harry the angel lurching around with a pint in his hand and his halo slipping of his head.
Lynda was doing fewer vocals now as her time was monopolised by looking after our Amy who, for the first year of her life wanted only her mother and nothing but her mother. Lynda was terrific with her too. But it meant that the majority of the vocals were being done by me. Not my original intention. I’m no singer so I thought I’d better write a few songs that I could handle reasonably well: If Yer Working Class, Nellie, Justice For the Lads – that kind of thing.
Heymaker rapidly went all-electric. Our previous New Orleans-style and superb drummer, Cyrano Slater, left because he didn’t want the burden of having to remember the arrangements we were now dreaming up and we replaced him at Jack’s suggestion with the equally wonderful rock drummer Kevin Thompkinson. We brought in Tufty, one of my workmates at Simon-Hartley’s on bass guitar.
Croz and Sheila had bowed out during these changes preferring to continue along their acoustic path. Our Jack had opted to stay with us now that Kev was on the drummer’s stool and we were playing rockier material.
Jack and I set about writing some new material together. Our first writing collaboration was Sunshade Smiling Friday. I wrote the lyric and Jack come up with an appropriate chord sequence and Heymaker collectively hammered out an arrangement.
I hate doing recordings. I’m too erratic to be able to play though a whole piece without one error or another, but I do have an old tape recording of an early version of this song and Jack’s lead playing on it is awesome.
Anyway, back to the New Years Eve gig: I joined in with the fancy dress taking the easiest way out by going as tramp (being half way there already in those days). I stuck an old top hat on my head to complete my ‘Gentleman of the Road’ image and went across the Bull to front the band. When our mate Pete Carter saw me, he gave me some instant advice, ‘You should wear that top hat all the time, Terry. People’ll know not to take you seriously when you're wearing that.’ (!) I took his advice and my top hat became a Heymaker trademark.
Heymaker and John Higham had a amicable parting of the ways. Me and Lynda continued to do a bit of acoustic stuff for him and we brought in Eoghan O’Riley to play melodeon and tin whistle with us, but Heymaker was now homeless.
I called in to the Bridge Arts Centre in Newcastle under Lyme one evening - then run by a big friend of the local folk scene: Cyril Lawton. I asked Cytil, ‘Got any spare nights?’
‘You can have Mondays,’ he said. Simple as that, doods. And thus Heymaker found a new home at the Bridge Street Arts Centre. Monday nights, Heymaker nights, became Bridge Street’s biggest night of the week. More happy days.
Soon after moving to Bridge Street we had that little bit of luck that all bands need: Two biker friends from the Red Bull, Jackie and Bill, were getting married and called round to our cottage to ask if Heymaker would play for their nuptial celebs.
On their wedding day it turned out that the girlfriend of Bill’s best man was a journalist for the biker mag Back Street Heroes. She raved about Heymaker and wrote a short review bigging us along with a photo and published it in the mag.
Before you could say, 'flog my hard-tailed hog', Bridge Street was awash with bikers and Heymaker became bike rally favourites along with Chrome Molly, Engine, Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts and other such distinguished biker bands. Happy happy days.
In honour of our new friends I wrote the song Back Street Heroes:
Knights of the MyWay code,
Famous in the back rows
Back Street Heroes
Lords of the high roads
Kings of the gypoes
Back Street Heroes
Doctors of Philosophy
Wizards of metallurgy
Back Street Heroes
Defy the law of gravity
Ride the wheels of destiny
Back Street Heroes
Back street hero and heroine
May your wheels forever spin
May you ride ever free
May you live this life righteously
Who is there who would not be
Among such nobility?
Do you know, apart from the DangerMouse RC John Clucas Memorial Gig we played in 2007 after a long period of inactivity, I can’t remember how Heymaker ended?
Heymaker just slowly disintegrated, I suppose, having served its time. That happens with bands sometimes. Everybody gradually drifts off into other things.
Heymaker’s line-up for the John Clucas gig was:
Me, vocals, electric fiddle
Neil Hulse, telecaster
Phil Johnson, bass guitar, backing vocals
Mickey Gibson, drums, backing vocals
Heymaker’s most-gigging and most-enduring line-up was:
Me – vocals, electric fiddle, tin whistle
Lynda Fox – vocals, keyboards, tambourine, bodhran
Jack Fox – rhythm/lead guitar, backing vocals
Phil Johnson – bass guitar, backing vocals
Micky Gibson – drums, backing vocals
We were best when aided and abetted by Winky who provided us with great off-stage sound mixing and awesome lighting.
Heymaker’s drummers have been:
Cyrano Slater
Reg Banks
Avron White
Kevin Thompkinson
Pete Coppard
John Carol
Micky Gibson
Our bass guitarists have been:
Tufty from Simon-Hartley
Trevor Pinson
Phil Johnson
Steve West
Steve from Stone
Jack Fox
Sam Mawby
Other regulars have been:
Eoghan O’Riley – melodeon, tin whistle
Adam Fenn - electric mandolin, tin whistle
Geoff Walton - electric bouzouki, electric guitar
Backing vocalists (dubbed "the Heyettes" by fans) have been:
Jane Woolley
Eve Woolley
Lisa Nicklass
Sue Shepherd
Biker Simon Billings (R.I.P) joined us on keyboards for a series of gigs when Lynda was not able to be with us.
***
So that’s how it was folks: Heymaker was co-founded by Lynda and me way back in 1979 and lasted – with short and long gaps – until 2007.
Our most requested and best-remembered songs have proved to be Jack’s and my collaborations: Rhythmic Habits, and Sunshade Smiling Friday and my songs You’ve Got It All, Be My Violin and Back Street Heroes.
The story is told, o readers, the story is told.
We got the sad news today of the passing away of our one-time bass player and backing vocalist Steve West. Steve went on to find success as solo singer/comedian Steve Chicane. Rest in peace, mate.
Here's thanks to all Heymaker friends and fans throughout its history. It was righteous, wasn't it? The band is gone, but the songs live on in StringFing.
Travel safe,
Terry
Here we go then: Once upon a time me, Lynda and Jack moved into an old cottage by the Trent and Mersey canal at Church Lawton. Lynda and I had bought the place from Paul Atterbury – he of the Antiques Roadshow.
Up the dirt track from that little house and across the main road stands Red Bull, or ‘Bottom Bull’ as it was then known locally, there being another Red Bull higher up the same road. The Bottom Bull being the closest boozer to us became my local and I went across for a swift pint of Robinson’s most nights of the week.
In those days the Bull was run by an Irish guy called Colin Meany who provided it with a great juke box which was particularly well-fed on Friday nights by the perfumed and sharply-dressed hoards who were downing a few cheap uns priming themselves for their forays into the night clubs of Hanley and Sandbach. I first heard ‘Sultans of Swing’ on Colin’s juke box so I reckon that’d place these events circa 1979.
Soon after we arrived, The Bull was taken over by an ex-policeman from Manchester, John Higham. A right character and no mistake, enraged or chummy by turns of an inner switch that few understood the workings of. John, in a friendly mood, put a jazz band on in the upstairs function room on Friday nights and switched off the juke box.
Around this time, Lynda bought half a pony. No, no, no, she’s vegetarian. The pony was very alive and, unfortunately, very kicking. Its other half (which I preferred to think of as the back half) was owned for by our sister-in-law Marion.
No sooner had this palomino yearling with the golden body and white flashing mane been installed in the field we rented that ran alongside our garden, than Lynda discovered, to our great delight, that she was pregnant. But, this meant that I was now in charge of her half of the pony. Ooops.
You see, I have a cattle phobia. No really. This is to say that in snnnn pite of my first two jobs being labouring on farms, one of which was a dairy farm on which I helped with the daily milking, I have a cattle phobia.
Yeah, OK, I know horses aren’t much like cows in many ways, but sadly my cattle phobia was generous enough to embrace the family of the noble steed too. Needless to say embracing a horse was absolutely the last thing wanted to do however pretty our prancing little ‘Sunny’ might have happened to be. And deceptively cute he was too.
Oddly enough, me and Sunny got along all right. I learnt as much as I could about horses from books and from horse people and, of course, from Sunny. I broke him to the bit, lunged him, drove him in long reins around the field and along the road. We had a great time, man and horse. I could back him up for as long as I wished just by putting one finger on his nose and gently telling him, ‘Back up. Back up.’ I was no longer afraid of horses.
Then the cute little prancing b*****d broke my shoulder blade. But that’s another story.
In the evenings after tea, the extended family would share in the training and grooming of the pony. Finally, I’d put a hay net up in his stable for him and swan over to the Red Bull for my customary jar. I had my own pot behind the bar which the bar man would pull a pint into as soon as he saw me crossing the road.
Landlord John Higham was suspicious of me at first. Well, I did go over there very obviously having had recent dealings with a horse. I was told later that he asked Ken, one of his regulars, about me. Ken said, ‘Terry? He’s a bit of a gypo, but he’s all right.’ which is one of the best reviews I’ve ever had.
Not only did John allow me to carry on drinking in his pub, but he also picked me up most days from Kidsgrove station in his beautiful, royal blue, old-style Rolls Royce. OK, more accurately, he picked his daughter up at the end of her school day from Kidsgrove station and if I happened to be on the same train as her he’d give me a lift too.
On one such occasion we were purring along the Congleton Road when John asked me, ‘Know of any good folk bands?’
‘Why? What have you got in mind?’
‘That jazz band I’ve got is taking the piss, he said. ‘They’re turning up later and later and they keep asking for more money.’
‘What, exactly you looking for with a folk band then?’
‘I dunno, something like a four or five-piece group to knock out a few tunes and a few songs. I’ll give ‘em a fiver each and free beer.’
I told Lynda about John’s enquiry as soon as I got in. Should we put something together for him? Lynda was well up it and suggested we brought in Adrian and Sheila Crosbie, our mates from Oatcake Billy’s Ideal Band. A perfect choice. I’d been playing the fiddle for a few months and Adrian had been showing me how to go on with it.
The plan became this: Croz and me on fiddles – master and apprentice - Lynda doing her magic tambourine and percussion, Sheila playing sparkling hammered dulcimer. We would play tunes from the English fiddling tradition interspersed with traditional English folk songs for 3 x 30 min sets every Friday night upstairs at the Bull. Sorted.
We asked our Jack if was interested, but he was playing lead guitar in a punk band at the time and said, ‘Nah. Sorry.’ He did agree, though, to play with us until we could get a replacement rhythm player.
Having a juggling with countryside names and morris dancing terms, I came up with the name ‘Heymaker’. I went over the Bull and told John I’d found him just the right band for his job. We started there on the following Friday.
We had Jack turn the treble right up on his guitar to get it to sound more like an acoustic banjo and away we went. Lynda did most of the singing. I did a couple of songs and so did Sheila.
Talk about an instant success! Blimey, we ended up pulling such crowds that John thought he might have overdone it. We loved it. A hassle-free gig in our own locale. I have to say it’s the only gig I have ever had where I transported the gear to it and from it by wheelbarrow. Happy days, doods.
Things never stand still do they? In time we added a bass player and a drummer and got a bit louder and more electric. A predominance of bikers began showing up in our audiences – something about our particular take on music had caught their imagination. John Higham, however, wasn’t happy with this new clientele and would insist they took off their leather jackets if they wanted to come in to see us. Neither they nor we were happy with that.
One New Years Eve at the Red Bull, John hired Heymaker to play for their annual ticket-only Fancy Dress Party. The turn out was a-mazing. Everybody took the fancy dress theme seriously, including grumpy Old Harry next door who decided to come dressed as an angel complete with large wire-and-net-curtain wings. 1981 it was.
Our Amy had been born early on in the year before. I’m her dad and I’m bound to think this, I suppose, but she was the most wonderful little person ever to grace our planet and still is. She was barely two years old and sat there with her eyes wide open with wonder and a great big smile lighting up her face watching Micky Mouse dance with Lady Godiva; a cavemen dancing with a fairy princesses and Old Harry the angel lurching around with a pint in his hand and his halo slipping of his head.
Lynda was doing fewer vocals now as her time was monopolised by looking after our Amy who, for the first year of her life wanted only her mother and nothing but her mother. Lynda was terrific with her too. But it meant that the majority of the vocals were being done by me. Not my original intention. I’m no singer so I thought I’d better write a few songs that I could handle reasonably well: If Yer Working Class, Nellie, Justice For the Lads – that kind of thing.
Heymaker rapidly went all-electric. Our previous New Orleans-style and superb drummer, Cyrano Slater, left because he didn’t want the burden of having to remember the arrangements we were now dreaming up and we replaced him at Jack’s suggestion with the equally wonderful rock drummer Kevin Thompkinson. We brought in Tufty, one of my workmates at Simon-Hartley’s on bass guitar.
Croz and Sheila had bowed out during these changes preferring to continue along their acoustic path. Our Jack had opted to stay with us now that Kev was on the drummer’s stool and we were playing rockier material.
Jack and I set about writing some new material together. Our first writing collaboration was Sunshade Smiling Friday. I wrote the lyric and Jack come up with an appropriate chord sequence and Heymaker collectively hammered out an arrangement.
I hate doing recordings. I’m too erratic to be able to play though a whole piece without one error or another, but I do have an old tape recording of an early version of this song and Jack’s lead playing on it is awesome.
Anyway, back to the New Years Eve gig: I joined in with the fancy dress taking the easiest way out by going as tramp (being half way there already in those days). I stuck an old top hat on my head to complete my ‘Gentleman of the Road’ image and went across the Bull to front the band. When our mate Pete Carter saw me, he gave me some instant advice, ‘You should wear that top hat all the time, Terry. People’ll know not to take you seriously when you're wearing that.’ (!) I took his advice and my top hat became a Heymaker trademark.
Heymaker and John Higham had a amicable parting of the ways. Me and Lynda continued to do a bit of acoustic stuff for him and we brought in Eoghan O’Riley to play melodeon and tin whistle with us, but Heymaker was now homeless.
I called in to the Bridge Arts Centre in Newcastle under Lyme one evening - then run by a big friend of the local folk scene: Cyril Lawton. I asked Cytil, ‘Got any spare nights?’
‘You can have Mondays,’ he said. Simple as that, doods. And thus Heymaker found a new home at the Bridge Street Arts Centre. Monday nights, Heymaker nights, became Bridge Street’s biggest night of the week. More happy days.
Soon after moving to Bridge Street we had that little bit of luck that all bands need: Two biker friends from the Red Bull, Jackie and Bill, were getting married and called round to our cottage to ask if Heymaker would play for their nuptial celebs.
On their wedding day it turned out that the girlfriend of Bill’s best man was a journalist for the biker mag Back Street Heroes. She raved about Heymaker and wrote a short review bigging us along with a photo and published it in the mag.
Before you could say, 'flog my hard-tailed hog', Bridge Street was awash with bikers and Heymaker became bike rally favourites along with Chrome Molly, Engine, Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts and other such distinguished biker bands. Happy happy days.
In honour of our new friends I wrote the song Back Street Heroes:
Knights of the MyWay code,
Famous in the back rows
Back Street Heroes
Lords of the high roads
Kings of the gypoes
Back Street Heroes
Doctors of Philosophy
Wizards of metallurgy
Back Street Heroes
Defy the law of gravity
Ride the wheels of destiny
Back Street Heroes
Back street hero and heroine
May your wheels forever spin
May you ride ever free
May you live this life righteously
Who is there who would not be
Among such nobility?
Do you know, apart from the DangerMouse RC John Clucas Memorial Gig we played in 2007 after a long period of inactivity, I can’t remember how Heymaker ended?
Heymaker just slowly disintegrated, I suppose, having served its time. That happens with bands sometimes. Everybody gradually drifts off into other things.
Heymaker’s line-up for the John Clucas gig was:
Me, vocals, electric fiddle
Neil Hulse, telecaster
Phil Johnson, bass guitar, backing vocals
Mickey Gibson, drums, backing vocals
Heymaker’s most-gigging and most-enduring line-up was:
Me – vocals, electric fiddle, tin whistle
Lynda Fox – vocals, keyboards, tambourine, bodhran
Jack Fox – rhythm/lead guitar, backing vocals
Phil Johnson – bass guitar, backing vocals
Micky Gibson – drums, backing vocals
We were best when aided and abetted by Winky who provided us with great off-stage sound mixing and awesome lighting.
Heymaker’s drummers have been:
Cyrano Slater
Reg Banks
Avron White
Kevin Thompkinson
Pete Coppard
John Carol
Micky Gibson
Our bass guitarists have been:
Tufty from Simon-Hartley
Trevor Pinson
Phil Johnson
Steve West
Steve from Stone
Jack Fox
Sam Mawby
Other regulars have been:
Eoghan O’Riley – melodeon, tin whistle
Adam Fenn - electric mandolin, tin whistle
Geoff Walton - electric bouzouki, electric guitar
Backing vocalists (dubbed "the Heyettes" by fans) have been:
Jane Woolley
Eve Woolley
Lisa Nicklass
Sue Shepherd
Biker Simon Billings (R.I.P) joined us on keyboards for a series of gigs when Lynda was not able to be with us.
***
So that’s how it was folks: Heymaker was co-founded by Lynda and me way back in 1979 and lasted – with short and long gaps – until 2007.
Our most requested and best-remembered songs have proved to be Jack’s and my collaborations: Rhythmic Habits, and Sunshade Smiling Friday and my songs You’ve Got It All, Be My Violin and Back Street Heroes.
The story is told, o readers, the story is told.
We got the sad news today of the passing away of our one-time bass player and backing vocalist Steve West. Steve went on to find success as solo singer/comedian Steve Chicane. Rest in peace, mate.
Here's thanks to all Heymaker friends and fans throughout its history. It was righteous, wasn't it? The band is gone, but the songs live on in StringFing.
Travel safe,
Terry
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