It's Coming Home

 Amidst the mayhem furore and big headlines of this the 44th year and very quietly, on Friday night, history was made. In that I finally got to play the mighty Warwick Folk Festival. And a band I was in finally got mentioned somewhere on the advertising. Although it was a Fringe Event and not the Main Stage anywhere, it meant as much as Glastonbury to me. A bridge crossed. A scar healed. 

Though this may be small cheese to those local acts who have somehow always made the billing there every year since the Boer War, this was a momentous event for me. Warwickshire after all is my home county. It says "Warwickshire" on my birth certificate. Since 1987 I have paid my Council Tax to Warwickshire. Despite the indignity of a Leicestershire Post Code which sends me all over THAT County for NHS treatment and for Jury Service, I live in a village that has been in Warwickshire since the 10th Century. 

And performance-wise I've always done well in Warwick as a town. I've played there many times, in various bands or solo.  Warwick Folk Club: Warwick Beer Festival: Warwick Words Festival and The Lord Leycester Hospital. The Warwick Arms, The Bowling Green and The Wild Boar. Outdoors, indoors and  in pub gardens. The first album Black Parrot Seaside recorded was set down in Pathway Studios in London. But it was remixed in Monty Bird's studios in Warwick.

 And there's more. My dad was billeted in Warwick during World War 2 and he helped keep order there during his role as a Military Policeman.  It was lovely to see, on entering the venue on Friday, that it was the home of The Royal Warwickshire Regiment Association. A unit which both my Dad and Grandad served in during two World Wars. Both of them would undoubtedly have marched in formation through that part of Town. I like the castle, I like the Park and I like the town centre. Me and Warwick have always got along.

So although  overlooked, and despite  WFF regulars who kept assuring me not to worry about it, I did. I took it very personally. In the past I'd played ( in various bands) at Banbury, Bedworth and, Stratford Riverside Festivals. I've played the Godiva Festival, Earlsdon Festival, Folk On The Water and The Ragged Bear. I've played in Folk Festivals or Beer Festivals in Tamworth, Atherstone, Nuneaton, Rugby, Leamington, Astley Castle, Market Bosworth and many more. But never Warwick Folk Festival. 

I'd been close, mind.   In 2021 the band I was in at the time finally got a proper gig there. We had to sign agreements and everything. It was really going to happen. We were even featured on some of the promotional material. But one night shortly after completing the paperwork there was a big bust-up involving creative differences and some things said are still  too personal and too painful to mention. My wife had cancer and was also recovering from Covid so I was very stressed and maybe could have handled things better. But the band imploded and the next morning I had to undergo the humiliation of contacting the Warwick organisers to apologise and to explain we would not now be able to appear.

Which is strange, very very strange, because a month or so later and under a different name but with exactly the same format minus one that same outfit, with the same line up but under a different name miraculously DID appear at Warwick Folk Festival and have done so every year since. They may even have done the same set list we were half-heartedly rehearsing on that fateful night. I wouldn't know. I haven't seen any of them since that day. 

Thereafter until The Hawkesbury Trawlermen hove more visibly into view, there was little chance  that I would ever get even a fringe spot. But we've been making a bit of a name for ourselves locally as the country's most landlocked Shanty Crew. Due to a late cancellation we actually managed to blag a Friday night spot in the centre of Warwick.

Despite having an aggregate age of somewhere near 600 years, we went down really well. Winning over a mixed crowd including a large group of lads and lasses who admitted afterwards that they had "only come in for a pint." They  stayed there throughout however, clapping and cheering. They sang along to the end of our set. They also took the trouble to come up afterwards and tell us how much they had enjoyed it all. There were some regular Folkies in there too but the rest of the clientele seemed to like what we did also. A few extras outside heard all the noise and came in to listen. In fact, shiver me timbers and belay there but we think we might be going back to the same venue, blue striped matelot shirts and all-and this time probably well before the next Warwick Folk Festival. 

So perhaps we need to make a film about it? We always say at the end of our gigs, "If you liked us we are The Hawkesbury Trawlermen. If you didn't, tell your friends you've seen Fishermen's Friends."  Brad Pitt can play me and I see Johnny Depp as Webby. Watch this space. 

Another Man Done Gone

 But this time it is THE man who done gone. John Mayall. He once wrote, in an eponymous title track for one of his many albums "You know I've been born to trouble/and it's a Hard Road 'til I die." Well: he is about to find out if it gets any easier afterwards. I've been to California where he eventually settled. Parts of it are idyllic. I imagine that's how it would look, if he makes it to heaven.

I first saw and heard John Mayall's Bluesbreakers at The Lanchester Polytechnic in 1967. "The Lanch" (Now Coventry University), was ( thanks to a potent Students Union Entertainments Committee) one of the best rock venues in Coventry at that time. I was still in Sixth Form. I went along with Ron Cook, little knowing that he would later become a world famous actor. Ron and I both attended Caludon Castle Comprehensive School, known to ex pupils as "Cally."  Little did I know either that night, that half a century on, I would still be occasionally fronting  Blues bands and singing songs by Muddy Waters or Howling Wolf. Or that I would meet John Lee Hooker about 18 months after that epic Lanch gig.

Through my love of The Animals and The Stones I was already well aware that night of the fact that white British Blues players were taking the indigenous music of the USA back home and rocking stadiums with it. So The Wolf and Muddy and Sonny Boy Williamson, I was familiar with.  I loved the Pretty Things The Artwoods and The Yardbirds too, so I knew who Jimmy Page Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton were. But I'd never really heard of Peter Green until someone played me the Hard Road album. Wow!  

The line up that night included Peter Green and John McVie too, I seem to recall. Despite getting to The Lanch early, there were queues everywhere. Queues to get in. Queues to get served at the bar. The SU bar at that time was on top of a long multistorey building opposite the new cathedral. As I joined the queue, nodding to all the Cally lads waiting to get served, I began anxiously checking my watch. Suddenly the glasses behind the bar began to shake, as three floors below, the unmistakeably and thunderous opening riff to " Dust My Blues" rattled the building. Many heads in the queue lifted. They had recognised it too. I left the bar and my beer behind and joined by dozens of others, legged it athletically down three flights of stairs to catch that opening number. 

It's basically a play on the original Elmore James song "Dust My Broom." Which in turn, being electric blues is probably a riff copied by James and imitated by someone else. Since that epic night at the Lanch I've collected enough versions to compile an iPod playlist of similar interpretations. That list includes variations on a theme by Gary Moore, The Spencer Davis Group,Rising Sons, Joe Bonamassa,The Allmans Brothers and many more.. Its inclusion in the set list and on the album tells you much about John Mayall's other life as a music researcher. Like Cyril Tawney, A.L. Lloyd or Alan C. Lomax, Mayall had been  travelling documenting and collecting material whilst I was still at Primary School.

So as well as being enjoyable, listening to any album curated by Mayall was both educative and  entertaining. Though he was respectful to the background and legacy of the blues, he was not afraid to experiment and to interpret differently. What struck me that night (and ever since)  was his instrumentation. Though notorious for developing and then losing guitar players like Clapton, Green and Mick Taylor, he could play guitar, decent harmonica and piano himself. That taught me that besides guitar geniuses like Buddy Guy and BB King there were also Bluesmen who specialised in other instruments. Like Otis Spann on piano. Much (much) later I found  that a good harmonica player could really enhance the performance of an ordinary blues song. 

To some extent, the experimentation made his albums infuriating. Each one was very different. The personnel seemed to change regularly. As did the material. I revisited the original Bluesbreakers album (the one with Clapton reading the Beano on the cover) and adored it. I bought  Hard Road and I love it still. Later I really liked Blues from Laurel Canyon recorded after Mayall had fallen in love with and moved to, California. Those three remain my favourites.  I still have them on CD and the original vinyl. One thing I often struggled with was his vocal range. It was remarkable. He could hit high notes with window-shattering ease. But he could also growl or moan the blues. He was not averse to singing Blues unaccompanied. Something I can assure you, is very difficult. 

Mayall was a trailblazer an innovator and an evangelist. He seemed to be always seeking something or someone new. He took a very obscure genre and highlighted its virtues to a wider audience by demonstrating just where the blues could go. And they did not always have to be miserable. "Leaping Christine," for example is a high tempo jolly rompalong song. "Walking on Sunset" is a joyous celebration of the new lifestyle he had adopted in the USA. 

John Mayall took grief and loss very personally. He outlived many Blues legends and had as they say, "a good innings".. One of the most unusual tracks I ever heard him sing was " The Death of J.B. Lenoir." A haunting mournful song about the loss of a friend with a typical almost falsetto vocal, a protesting saxophone solo and unmistakeable sadness in the  phrasing. Now it's time for those who loved his work to write a blues for John Mayall.  "It's Over," he  sang on Hard Road.  Well it is now, 

Happy 21st Birthday to The Tump

 Now based in Coventry, The Tump name is derived from its original setting  at Brinklow. As  it relocated, it retained the name. Brinklow is  the site of a Motte and Bailey castle. The Tump in Brinklow was (and still is) an ancient monument visible for many miles around. It must have been quite a sight  when occupied by defenders, holding out against various invading hordes. 

I have always had an affection for this club. Its attendances vary wildly but it has always carried the Folk Club banner aloft. In various guises I think I have performed at each one of the venues. It moved from   Brinklow into Coventry, and settled at Coombe Social Club. I knew this venue well as I used to work nearby and lived in Coombe Park Road for 16 years when first married. I even had my retirement party there!  Finally settling at its current base at The Humber, it has soldiered on there since through the rough and the smooth supported by a committed bar staff, willing supporters, some loyal regulars and led by the iconic Karen Orgill. Karen is quietly efficient, a thoroughly likeable and decent person and notably one of the few long-serving female Folk Club  organisers in the Midlands. Cheerful, smiley, very astute and utterly committed to sustaining good live music, Karen's stoical support for all things Folk is universally admired and respected.

Nigel Ward and Pete Willow

I have always  loved playing The Tump at this particular site, however. This is because it holds many happy memories for me. In 1971 I was working as a Gardener for Coventry City Council Parks Department. Our bothy was sited just up the road in Gosford Green. Two days before my wedding, we all knocked off at lunchtime (with the blessing of The Gaffer) and had a bit of a session in The Humber. The pub looked very much as it does now although at that time it had a Bowling green with shelters out the back. I was ceremonially driven home afterwards in a three wheel Lister Truck with a 56lb of grass seed provided as a wedding present.

Also, I grew up in this part of Lower Stoke. As a kid I lived in nearby Northfield Road. At that time the Coventry-Nuneaton "relief line" bisected the area.  I fell asleep at nights to the lullaby of locos shunting the yards up at Gosford Green depot,  with the clanging of wagons and the whistles of engines warning  To access Humber Road from our street was an exciting trip across a huge and very long metal footbridge which vibrated as you crossed it. There is no archaeological evidence of this line having ever existed anywhere now except for an overbridge in Terry Road and an embankment near Gosford Park School. Here's a photo of it taken on a foggy day in the 1950's

I always though that The Tump would flourish in this area, being so close to the city centre and situated now in the heart of what has become  Student Land. But Folk and acoustic venues in my home town do not seem to thrive as much as in nearby Warwickshire Towns such as Rugby, Leamington ,Nuneaton, Bedworth and Atherstone. Nonetheless, it has kept going, has always attracted a fine selection of guests and maintained a healthy reputation for providing songwriters, local talent and newbies with a place to experiment and develop their skills. Here's Max Wright [below] holding forth at The Humber before an assortment of celebrities!

I have many happy memories of The Tump at The Humber. Probably the best of which is the Rod Felton Tribute night when I got to sing Roddie's wonderful "Curly song, accompanied by  musicians no longer with us such as Dave Parr and Arnie Chave. [ See picture below]. I also got to meet "Curly" herself later that evening. The Concert room was packed. The audience spilled out into the garden and the surrounding streets were full of parked cars. 

Arnie, Dave and Geoff sing "Curly" 

Karen was kind enough to offer bookings to all the bands I have been in. We were always well received at The Tump and the chorus singing was always energetic and lively. I cannot list all the artistes I saw there for the first time. Many of whom I would later invite out to Nuneaton Folk Club, or spin their songs on "Anker Folk." But of particular note, Cliff Hands, Wes Finch, Ian Bland, Adam Wilson and Urban Fox stick in the mind. It has always been a good place to network and to link up with like minded people. Whether in the Concert Room or in the cosier Snug at the front of the building, it is always friendly: always hospitable. Can you spot Ian and Cliff below?

It has also regularly been a calling place for legends. Kevin Dempsey. Rob Armstrong. Jan and Terry Wisdom, Sean Cannon, Keith Donnelly, Terry St Clair and John Richards for example. 

John Richards shining on at The Tump

Terry St Clair

Terry and Jan

But it has also been an oasis for the eccentric and the left field. People like me, or my good friend Aral Hancox. The ubiquitous and seemingly eternal Rob Oakey. Poets, singers, raconteurs, comedians and entertainers. They all find a welcome at The Tump where Karen will happily give them time and space to exercise their talents and perhaps to exorcise a few demons. 

John B. Smith with a "recitation"

Sir Robert Oakey

As I said, even though I have long been an Out of Towner now, I am still amazed that it hasn't been supported more. I recommended to The City of Culture Bods that they should make The Tump and CV Folk the centerpiece of Folk culture, representing all that was good and organic about Folk and acoustic music. Like pretty well all suggestions made to the C.o.C. mandarins, it was ignored however. Any music of that nature provided during the event  ( and God knows there wasn't much) was simply  imported. Probably at great cost when many of us locals would have performed for free. 

So Happy Birthday, Tumpers. Apologies if I haven't mentioned all of you by name-but you know I love you all. The photographs btw are a mixture of mine, some by JBS and a few others. I can't be there for personal reasons I have already shared with Jane and Kazz. But I thank you for all the fun and the memories you have provided, and I wish you all the best as I  raise my glass to another 21 years of Tumping. (My, but that sounds slightly rude, doesn't it? And why not?)