Echo of a Song ~ Part 1

Having chosen this title for this post, I decided it sounded familiar and certainly not original.  I was therefore, after a computer search, somewhat surprised to find that the only references to this title were:  a short (10 minute) 1913 black and white silent film from American and a 1932 song by Peter Mendoza, recorded by past luminaries such as The Lew Stone Band and The Roy Fox Band with singer Al Bowlly.  (As an aside, if you don’t know and haven’t heard Al Bowlly sing you’ve missed a real treat, think Dennis Potter teledramas – he had a deep, expressive, resonant voice, and is credited with inventing crooning, that due possibly to the standard of microphones in his day echoes in much the same way as someone singing into an empty glass beer tankard – I know I’ve tried it, which is a clue to what might be to follow!)  More recently, Echo of a Song was the title track (that of Peter Mendoza above) of a jazz album released in 1997 by Ian Shaw, Welsh jazz singer, record producer, actor and stand up comic!!.

Not much really for a short phrase that I find both evocative and suggestive of things past, returning musical memories or seminal musical moments, which was to be original title of this blog post. 

The media is full of articles chronicling the lives of famous people – “A day on my plate!” “My perfect weekend” “My hols” “Fantasy dinner party” and many many more, that I’m busy working through, well to be honest thinking about for my next “epic” with the working title of “Non-celebrity file” with the logic that “Joe and Josie public” may be interested in what I ate today, or where I went on holiday, my best weekend or who would sit around my table for the fantasy dinner party!  (As a sneak preview, invites would go – this week, and liable to change without prior notice!! – to Nelson Mandela, Michael Palin, The Dalai Lama and Keith Floyd and for purposes of equality to the new Tesco’s checkout girl with the lovely smile for a start!, but for those of you who understand the last invitee definitely not Paul McCartney, as I might not be able to trust ‘er indoors!!). But, I digress as for this post it’s a case of “Music that shaped my life” “My life in five (or so!!!) songs” “Desert Island Discs” or “Magical Musical Moments.”

Music can be a powerful experience, it can move you emotionally, spiritually and even physically and can even be a time machine, transporting you back in time.  If I even hear High Adventure by Charles Williams or Sing Something Simple by Cliff Adams, I’m transported back to many a Friday night in the back of my Mum and Dad’s car going away for the weekend, always it seems after all these years, and we’re talking half a century, to be in the middle of the night!  But, also after all these years I still remember the tag lines: "I hope that once again we have proved that Friday Night is Music Night" and "We invite you to Sing Something Simple, a collection of favourite songs, old and new, sung by The Adams Singers, accompanied by Jack Emblow."  And, I bet that haunting melody: “By a Sleepy Lagoon” by Eric Coates (with added seagulls!) and Dvorak’s “New World” transport those of you of a certain age to a desert island somewhere or Gold Hill in Shaftesbury and an old-fashioned bread delivery bike being pushed up the hill by a small boy respectively!

Here then, are my selections for tonight, and there could be very many others, with just a short “soundtrack” or taste of why, for me at least, they are very special: 

Streets of London (Ralph McTell) – Sandwich, Kent:  I hadn’t heard this for ages until one day recently in the car when Ralph McTell was being interviewed and then sung Streets of London, as the hairs rose on the back of my neck and I had to go straight out the next day and track it down and once more those hairs are rising as it’s playing as I write this!  I can’t do this for all my choices and anyway it would take ages to find the relevant CD’s and to keep changing them and selecting the correct track, so will have to do with Hesitation Blues and all the rest of the tracks on this “Best of ......” album.  There are a further 20 McTell songs of the album, but as he pointed out in the interview, not one of them has made the impact of Streets of London on anyone, not just me!  Streets of London and the Yiddish Song, Donna Donna, about a calf being taken to market, take me back to a converted garage at the rectory in Sandwich, Kent in about 1973.  As I said in an earlier post (September 2012) about my first introduction to folk music:  “The Headmaster could barely object if we wanted to go out in the evening to “prayer meetings” at the vicarage, even if we didn’t have any of our 3 late passes left for the term!! These evening meetings took place in the converted garage of the Vicarage, included girls (a rarity as I was at an all boys school!), coffee, discussions on a variety of issues which were certainly not exclusively religious and more importantly introduced me to Folk Song and life on the streets, as in down and outs rather than prostitution!”  All of which had a profound effect on me (although I don’t recall much in the way of prayers!) and for many of the following years – I’ve just copied the words of Donna Donna and will find the lyric to Streets of London to add to my songbook and then can relive the past whenever I wish!!  Who knows perhaps a Christmas Album entitled “Roger’s Musical Snapshots” or “Higgs’ Seminal Harmonies.” ~ I’ll keep you posted!!!!

Monster Mash – Sandwich, Kent:  Remember Monster Mash, sung by Bobby and the Crypt-Kickers in 1973, well now think Chris and the Falsetto Three, Chris being a good guitar playing school friend and if you’re keeping up you will probably know who was one of the Falsetto Three suitably dressed in black – yes, yours truly making his first appearance at a folk club that led on from the converted garage above!! And the less said about this “debut” probably the better!!  The vicar at the time had come down to sleepy Sandwich from the bright lights and the dingy alleys, indeed Streets of London, where he had set up the famous Crypt Folk Club in the crypt of St Martin’s in the Field on the corner of Trafalgar Square.  So, with a redundant church going spare and using his contacts from “the big smoke” he started Sandwich Folk Club, featuring an amazing first couple of months of artists including the amazing Cheltenham based folk rock group Decameron, whose lead singer was no other that Gloucestershire’s Johnny Coppin (but more of them later), Mike Moran, Keith Pearson, the legendary blues guitarist Davy (later Davey) Graham (he’s playing in my ear as I write!!) and his amazing wife Holly Gwinn-Graham both singing together and booked separately as she is a great performer in her own right.  Indeed, I think I’ll leave the last word, about St Mary’s Church and the Sandwich Folk Club, to her in this section.  But first I must point out a couple of other things, first as the club was in church and run by the local vicar, made it respectable from the point of view of the Headmaster, who incidentally also drunk in the pub next door, which was a bit of a shock one night when I was in for a drink, which we were allowed to take into the club, and came face to face with him across the bar in the other room.  The shock made me feel rather generous and acknowledging him I got the barman to ask if he would like a drink!  He graciously declined, but had the good grace to thank me for the offer next time he saw me in school, and didn’t even mention I was underage and he was also a local JP!!  Also, it was through this club I made good friends with a wonderful couple who I have recently re-contacted after a gap of a lifetime, and you may have read about them in an earlier post – Memories December 2011. Their subsequent friendship also had a profound effect on me, and should they read this I still make the delicious flauties (cheesy potato cakes with added bacon if it could be afforded!) that they served up on numerous occasions!  

But back to Holly, who once invited me and a friend (Chris the guitarist above) into her tiny house, a converted stable suitably called Wee Cottage and served us mint tea sweetened with honey, oh how sophisticated we felt!!  And, like music, taste has time travel properties and I can’t now drink mint tea without being back in Wee Cottage all those years (40ish) ago!!  But of The Sandwich Folk Club, this is what she said on a website I only recently discovered:   “Davey and I moved to Sandwich on New Year's Eve of 1972-73. We had tried to get him a visa to come to the US but couldn't, so I went back to England from the states, and he had found us a home on Bowling Street in Sandwich, a converted stable called "Wee Cottage". Ron commissioned a painting of that little place once, but I don't know who has it. We lived there a year, and it was a pleasant, peaceful time. We had great neighbors and friends, and Davey toured from there while I worked in the community theatre and then helped the local vicar run a folk club in a redundant medieval church called St. Mary's. It had no power, so we lit the place with big vats filled with sand into which we placed many candles. It was always a full house, and very romantic to experience, with the soft lighting and great reverberating sound.” eronrecords.co.uk     

Five o’clock on a Sunday Nite – Redcar, Cleveland:  With many a magical night at The Sandwich Folk Club the seed was sown and I became an avid home listener to folk music, at this time on vinyl on a rather primitive turntable, with integral mono speaker housed in a not too well made wooden box, painted pale blue and I think a “hand me down” from my brother as he progressed in his quest for the ultimate hi-fi system!  Then, later on cassette tapes, how quickly technology moves on!  I also made a point of finding where the nearest folk clubs were to wherever I happened to be.  Having left school by now, in the summer of 1974, I was looking forward to a leisurely time whilst spending little time thinking about what I would seriously do in the future, now that I’d dismissed architecture, veterinary science or ringing the bell on the fire engine as my brother drove, when my father came home one day and said “What are you going to do for the rest of your working life?” to which I casually replied, “I think I might like to be a teacher!”, but remained quite happy to put off the evil moment for the foreseeable future!  He, however, had other ideas and the very next day came back with a large pile of positions, courtesy of an agent with the wonderful name of Gabbitas Thring, working as a supernumerary (which translates as surplus to requirements!) in prep schools the length and breadth of the country, as a great opportunity to try it first and see if indeed that was what I wanted to do!  Before I knew it the summer was over and I had a position in a small prep school in the then somewhat decaying Victorian resort of Saltburn on the north eastern coast of England, and having put my motorbike on the train to York, was flying across the top of the world, well the North York Moors to my new life and the start of the next 35 years as a teacher, with a brief sojourn at University in Leeds and College in York learning how to be a proper teacher, part of the requirement!

Here,  being anything but surplus to requirements and being left not only to teach classes both on my own and also to plan the work, whilst being a live-in junior house master!, my radio proved a godsend, the local stations not only providing a number of folk programmes, but also giving diary dates for the local clubs.  So, it was that I set out one Tuesday, if my memory serves me right, to the local club in Marske-by –the-Sea, held upstairs in The Top House pub, so the radio reliably informed me.  I rode my motorbike the short distance to Marske and down the relatively short high street, passing The Zetland Hotel and the next two pubs, whose names have disappeared in the mists of time, but neither of which were called The Top House and whose names didn’t change despite driving up and down the road a few times and venturing unsuccessfully of the main drag.  Disappointingly, not only was The Top House nowhere to be seen, the place also appeared to be totally deserted, not a sole to enquire about said folk club.  Eventually, I spied a figure in black skulking alone the road, well wrapped up against the cold and now rather drizzly dark night, hurrying home with what appeared to be his fish and chip supper, which he had mysterious purchased for somewhere, no glowing emporium of fine British cuisine either in sight or within olfactory recognition distance (smell!).  I pulled over and in those days it wasn’t necessary to remove your helmet before talking to someone and although at first he might of thought he was about to be mugged for his supper, he quickly warmed to my predicament and pointed to the first pub at the bottom of the street, and with a chuckle said The Bottom House, then The Middle House and finally The Zetland Hotel, known to all locally as The Top House!!

In need by now of a drink, I made my way into the bar of the rather grandly named hotel, purchased a pint and enquired about the folk club and was shown the door, no not thrown out, but pointed in the direction of a plain smoke stained door, which I discovered led up a narrow staircase to a small landing on which two doors were situated one clearly marked PRIVATE, the other not marked at all, but from behind which came the welcome sound of folk singing.  Tentatively opening the door, I was confronted with what I later came to know as a traditional sing-a-round, a large room in the middle of which was a large circle of chair, if they hadn’t been facing inwards they would have looked like a giant game of musical chairs.  Then, as the singing finished I was publicly welcomed by Dave the organiser and invited to join the circle, on one of the few empty chairs, as it was now a little late having had difficulties finding the place.

But the singing, largely unaccompanied with only a few instruments apparent, was great and I felt comfortable and in the company of new friends all with a vested interest, until rather uncomfortably I realised that the songs were coming around the circle, and as one person’s applause died down, it was the turn of the next person along to sing, and everyone seemed to be taking their turn!!  As the “baton” got closer and closer, I wondered about a hasty exit saying sorry I’ve made a big mistake or could I muster more than just the Falsetto Three chorus of the Monster Mash, although quickly dismissing this as perhaps being a little modern in such a traditional setting!  Fortunately, I was saved in the nick of time by a person a couple of chairs from me who politely, when it was their turn, said “Not tonight thanks” and passed the baton on to the next performer!  Phew, barely before the applause had died for the person next to me I blurted out the saviour phrase “Not tonight thanks” breathing a sigh of relief and able once more to enjoy myself, secure in the knowledge even if the “baton” came around again I had excused myself for the evening.

 So far so good, but returning week after week, I realised that perhaps my first public utterance should possibly have been “Actually, I don’t sing I’m just here to listen to the wonderful rich talent around me!”  A bit of flannel in those early days wouldn’t have gone amiss, but in hindsight would have meant my singing career would have finished with the dying chords of Monster Mash, way down south the previous year and then maybe none of this would have been written!

So, as the weeks went past I became more and more self conscious that my excuse, presupposed that actually one night I might actually take my turn and increasingly Dave started to say things like “OK maybe next week” or more pointedly “I’m sure it will be worth waiting for!”  I eventually resolved that I would have to at least give it a go and then either come clean that actually I didn’t sing, or it be so apparent that I wasn’t asked again!!  I scoured my meagre collection for something that was neither too long, too wordy or too complicated a melody and hit on a rather sad little song about a watercress seller who would each Sunday night visit a mining community to sell his wares to help feed his family, only for the miners to go out on strike and therefore not have enough money for the watercress, despite him returning hopefully each week.  The night arrived and I had it clear in my head – melody, words and perhaps the Dutch courage that a pint or two brings, despite the courage waning rapidly as the songs crept around the circle nearer and nearer to me.  Perhaps, worried I would bottle out again at the last moment, Dave had collared me at the beginning of the evening and ascertained that indeed tonight was the night.  Well, my time came and went and I certainly didn’t feel I had conquered, despite the rousing applause and Dave’s kind words, largely in both cases being I felt polite as I had finally done it.  Dave also said, I thought at the time as a cunning ploy to get me to sing again, “I’ve not heard that one before; perhaps you’ll do it again next week.”  I haven’t thought it before tonight but maybe Dave was a teacher and well versed in encouraging reluctant and nervous students, but still rather reluctantly I agreed to sing it again the following week, as well as promising to learn it properly, as I was still sure that he had obviously heard it before, but just didn’t recognise my rendition of the song “Five o’clock on a Sunday nite.”

I practised long and hard that week, both determined to “do better next time” but also because I found I was enjoying it!  I arrived at The Top House, good and early now I knew where it was and sat in the circle as confident as I could be that I would make a better job of the song this week.  That was until just before I took a deep breath and was about to strike the first note, somewhat crucial with unaccompanied singing, and I noticed in the gloom of the room and through the smoke, as this was well before any smoking ban, Dave turn to the piano in the corner behind him, press something on a small box and none to successfully try to conceal a microphone sticking out from under his arm.  Thrown, by what I had seen I soldiered on through the song, possibly better that last time, and when later I asked Dave about the illicit recording, he said as it was a song he didn’t know he wanted the words and thought it best not to worry me and put me off!!!  I wonder where that recording is now, maybe if I hit the big time this time around and “This is Your Life” returns to our screens, some diligent researcher just might ....!

I did however, meet Dave several years later, on a return to the folk club in Redcar, just down the road and long after I had left the area for pastures new.  I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Dave before my “floor spot” came up before the main act for the evening, who I have just recalled from some distant memory vault, was no other than the well known singer, banjo player, writer, broadcaster, VW Campervan enthusiast and rambler Mike Harding, before he sung Rochdale Cowboy on Top of the Pops sitting on a small toy horse, which he likened in later acts to a stuffed Alsatian dog!!  I sung “Five o’clock on a Sunday nite”, which I dedicated, without giving the title, to Dave who knew what I was going to sing before the first note.  On the happy reunion afterwards he had to agree I had come on somewhat since those early days, upstairs in The Top House.  Dave, I suppose, has a lot to answer for as it was really him who encouraged me to have a go, and the rest is

To be continued ......!