Town Musicians of Bremen - They may be town musicians but they're certainly not from Bremen

Two out of three Town Musicians
...but no sign of the nykelharpa yet!

Just before Christmas I had the pleasure of seeing Town Musicians of Bremen perform live in Worcester. This was the third time I'd seen this trio in action (although, on this most recent occasion, they were one man down!)

There are a few things you should know about this highly original band. First, they're not from Bremen at all but from the West Midlands of England (Stourbridge and Evesham) and, of course, take their name from the folktale popularised by the Brothers Grimm. Leon Gormley is the understated front-man, on lead vocals, guitar and cittern, with Andrew Lowings on bouzouki and Lewis Jones on melodeon and nickelharpa (a Swedish bowed-string instrument with keys, that makes my mountain dulcimer - normally a bit of a conversation piece - look like a very commonplace instrument indeed!) All three musicians are relaxed and consummate players who blend perfectly together and seem able to effortlessly produce deeply sympathetic music.

There's no sign yet of an album but the Town Musicians of Bremen debut EP is a tasty little appetiser, featuring two of Leon Gormley's very affecting songs 'Stranger to my Eye' and 'My Friend Remembers' plus one of Andrew Lowings' instrumentals 'Alfrick' and a rendition of 'Magpie' (not the Dave Dodds' song covered by The Unthanks, but a version of the theme to the 1970s children's TV show originally played by the Spencer Davis Group under the alias of The Murgatroyd Band.)  

Perhaps it's my age, but I'm particularly fond of Leon's song 'My Friend Remembers' with its chorus that sounds a bit like 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor?' and its lyric that combines nostalgia with political comment, expressing bafflement at modern life: "It's all in the hands of the new computers, it's no good if you can't use 'em, I'm not able to understand!" A full album of TMB music is eagerly anticipated. 

"I could lose myself in this honesty"

China Crisis

Thursday 3 October

Live at Huntingdon Hall, Worcester

Whereas most people can instantly name at least one Human League or Duran Duran hit, people often struggle to recall any of the five Top 40 hits of China Crisis. Formed in Kirby in 1979 by vocalist/keyboardist Gary Daly and guitarist Eddie Lundon China Crisis were part of a remarkable wave of bands arising from the Liverpool area in Thatcher's Britain, a surge of talent that included Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the synth-pop of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and A Flock of Seagulls and the darker post-punk sounds of Echo and the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes. 

If you mention China Crisis's hits - African and White, Christian, Wishful Thinking, Black Man Ray, King in a Catholic Style - you may still be met by blank faces and slight puzzlement at the oddity of the songs' titles. Finally, you may have to resort to singing the keyboard riff from Black Man Ray; people may half-remember the pizzicato strings motif from Wishful Thinking; there may be something vaguely familiar about the words of the strange, un-pop-song-like chorus of Christian: "I could lose myself in this honesty..." Their sound has been described as "wistful pastoral pop" and is a reminder that the music of the 80s, despite the synths and drum machines, produced haunting and deeply moving records epitomised by the songs of China Crisis along with the The Lotus Eaters' 1983 hit The First Picture of You (that would be The Lotus Eaters from... oh, Liverpool again.)

Gary and Eddie were joined at Worcester's Huntingdon Hall by Jack Hymers on keyboards and Eric Animan on saxophone. With no support act the band played two sets either side of the interval, and Gary proved himself to be as entertaining a comedian and raconteur as he is when singing. Quickly building a warm rapport with the audience, in a style that was somehow a cross between Tommy Cooper and Roger Moore, he told tales about working with the Human League and Midge Ure and regretted the fact that he wouldn't have time to visit the tomb of King John at Worcester Cathedral.  

I wasn't expecting to laugh so much at a concert of "wistful pastoral pop" but somehow it's fitting that China Crisis are able to have a laugh at themselves - and with the audience - while effortlessly performing these delicate, elusive songs. 

The Papermakers of Tuckenhay

The old papermill at Tuckenhay

The gravel track that wound uphill by the side of Tuckenhay Mill was marked as an 'Unmetalled Road'. I wasn't sure what was meant by unmetalled, but I've since learnt that an unmetalled road is a bare earth or grass track that has no surface covering, (whereas a metalled road has a concrete or asphalt surface.) My car's exhaust may not have appreciated the narrow country lanes and unmetalled roads of the South Hams district of Devon - and ultimately it showed its displeasure by working loose from its corroded bracket - but we humans had a perfect week this summer tucked away in Tuckenhay, the tiny hamlet on the south bank of Bow Creek, just a few miles from Totnes, on the estuary of the Harbourne River which flows into the River Dart.

There are a few theories about how Tuckenhay got its name. The most prosaic is that it's named after Joshia Tucker who built the quays here in 1806. A more poetic version is that it comes from the process of 'tucking hay', or tucking textiles. Little over a century ago, this tranquil place was a bustling centre of industrial activity where lime, corn, malt, rope, cider and road-building materials (no doubt for metalling roads) would be loaded on to merchant ships. Among the cargo would be paper made by Millbourn's paper mill, whose imposing and rather beautiful building still dominates the village, though nowadays it provides holiday accommodation rather than paper.  

At the mill, high quality paper and parchment was produced, much of it by hand, from rag pulp. This superior quality paper was used for legal deeds, cheques and banknotes for Jamaica and Cyprus. At one time the mill employed a hundred people, including the skilled papermakers for whom our holiday cottage (and the rest of the little terrace of houses) was originally built in 1900; (a further two houses were added to the terrace after the First World War.) Papermaking was a highly skilled certified craft and papermakers from North Wales and from Kent moved to take up residence and employment in Tuckenhay.

It's claimed that the proclamation for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was read from paper produced at Tuckenhay. Yet, despite its proud heritage of quality production and skilled craftsmanship, the mill eventually closed in 1970.  The elderly lady who was our neighbour for a week told me she grew up in Tuckenhay and her family had worked at the paper mill. She had moved away when she married, and then moved back here again to care for her parents as they grew older. Now she and her husband remain in the shade of the mill, "rooted" (in the words of WB Yeats) "in one dear, perpetual place", while transient holidaymakers like us come and go.

The Maltsters Arms

Apart from being, officially, an Area of Outstanding Beauty in its own right Tuckenhay - with its proximity to the lovely towns of Totnes and Dartmouth and to Agatha Christie's former home of Greenway (now a National Trust property) - is a perfect centre for a peaceful holiday. And if you want to go easy on your exhaust pipe, and enjoy some real ale, there are not one but two excellent riverside pubs within easy walking distance. Our favourite was The Maltsters Arms, an 18th century inn that is as popular now with holidaymakers as it must have been with all those 19th century paper mill workers.

Most evenings we would walk to The Maltsters and enjoy being in the riverside beer garden drinking local Otter Ale. But other people would arrive in canoes or sailing boats and, one evening, we watched as a little boy came alongside the pub in a kayak and joined a school-friend at the table next to us.

"Where's your mum?" asked the mother of the boy's friend.

"Oh, she's following along in a bit," he explained.

And sure enough, his mum turned up a few minutes later on a paddle-board. Just imagine having a mum who follows you to the pub on her paddle-board. It left me pondering how different life might have been if we had brought up our family in an area like this: our children would probably have grown up to be confident in the outdoors and on the water, my wife could have been an enthusiastic paddle-boarder instead of an irrepressible cyclist and I ...well, I would be a happy pub-goer, impoverished by constantly having to replace my car's exhaust pipe.   

A game, a problem and an homage – three acoustic albums that you might have missed

The Janus Game by Steve Tilston & Jez Lowe – A Problem of Our Kind by Gilmore & Roberts – Hommage à Marcel Dadi by Various Artists

Before the recent release of his solo acoustic retrospective Distant Days Steve Tilston collaborated with fellow stalwart of the English folk scene Jez Lowe to produce The Janus Game. The rousing title track sets the scene with alternating vocals, a memorable hook and a mellifluous blending of Tilston's guitar and Lowe's bouzouki and harmonica.

These finely-crafted songs treat their subjects with great affection, whether focusing on child refugees, a young woman heading off to holiday in the sun or a pair of elderly friends. Unexpected lyrical flourishes abound. In 'The Strings That Wizz Once Strummed' Tilston sings: 'electrical bananas may have played their part'. 'Leaving for Spain' has the wonderful couplet: 'Beneath some hot sun she believes she belongs, Factor 50, silk sarong'. There are musical surprises too – the melody to 'Mrs Einstein' is pleasingly reminiscent of Whistling Jack Smith's 'I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman'.

The contrast between Tilston's vocals and Lowe's tender, lulling voice (with its discernible north-eastern accent) is very effective, as is the subtle use of Lowe's mountain dulcimer on 'Tattered and Torn'. The stirring 'On Beacon Hill' could almost be a Gordon Lightfoot song while 'Shiney Row' is wonderfully warm-hearted. The Janus Game shows how contemporary English folk music can embody dignity, strength and compassion. 

Like Tilston and Lowe, three times nominees at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Katriona Gilmore (fiddle, mandolin) and Jamie Roberts (guitar) are an impressive duo. Comparisons with that other folk twosome, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman, are a little inevitable - Jamie is Kathryn's brother (while Sean is, of course, brother of Seth Lakeman.) Katriona demonstrates some of the urgency of Seth's fiddle style on opening track 'Gauntlet' but, on the whole, Gilmore & Roberts' approach is more restrained and gentle.

The cleverly punning 'Just a Piece of Wood' is Katriona's affectionate homage to her instrument. We imagine the narrator talking to a lover ... until the chorus: "I wish you could explain every mark and every grain/Whose hands caressed your neck before I could..."

This, their fifth studio album, alternates Katriona's contrasting compositions with Jamie's. The centrepiece of the collection, 'On the Line', is a reflection on the public's reactions to suicide on railway tracks, and what this tells us about our society. This song's lyric also gives the album its title: "And it goes much further than this station, it's a problem of our kind/But a change must come somewhere down the line..."

  

Tunisian-born French guitarist Marcel Dadi was a master of the finger-picking style associated with Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. A popular performer, composer and interpreter he was also held in affection as a guitar teacher, thanks to his instructional videos and the tablatures that accompanied his albums.

Tragically, in 1996, after being honoured in Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame, Dadi was killed when TWA Flight 800 exploded. Marking the twentieth anniversary of his death, German label Acoustic Music Records decided to assemble a host of outstanding guitarists to pay tribute to Dadi's music with the release of this collection. Care has been taken to vary the tempo between upbeat tracks like Albert Lee's version of 'Swingy Boogie' and more reflective pieces like Martin Taylor's 'En attendant Joachim' and Muriel Anderson's delicate 'Winther's Waltz'. Inevitably, though, a whole album of guitar instrumentals performed by virtuosi players in honour of a celebrated guitarist is likely to appeal more to guitar devotees than to the general listener.

Pierre Bensusan contributes 'Waltz For Paula' while Jacques Stotzem's driving 'L'écho des savanes' and Roland Dyens' haunting 'Nous trois' are both astonishingly beautiful. Fittingly, the collection concludes with Dadi's own version of 'Song for Chet'.

Comfort and miracles - unfashionable books by unfashionable writers

"What is it with writers? What guts, what nerve, what presumption, what folly to imagine the stuff has got to get on paper, has got to get into print, has got to get onto a neatly designed page in a book, and out to the people, standing around in small disgruntled groups, waiting for it..."

These are the words of William Saroyan, from his experimental memoir 'Here Comes There Goes You Know Who'. Saroyan (1908-1981) was an Armenian-American playwright, novelist and short story writer who could fairly be described as a writer whose works are no longer fashionable. 

I'm a great fan of unfashionable books by unfashionable writers. I prefer them. For example, I recently read R C Sherriff's 'The Fortnight in September' (first published in 1931 and now available again, thanks to Persephone Books.) This is a novel about a very ordinary family's annual holiday in Bognor Regis. It doesn't sound like a page-turner but I love Sherriff's gentle prose, his startling use of imagery and his sympathy for his characters.

Another unlikely recent reading choice of mine was 'Sombrero Fallout', a 1975 novel by Richard Brautigan. Brautigan grew up in poverty in 1930s Washington but went on to become part of the San Francisco sixties counterculture. 'Sombrero Fallout' is a novel made up of very short chapters which almost read like a succession of prose poems. It's about a humourist dealing with the break-up of his relationship with a Japanese girlfriend. It's also about a story the humourist is working on involving a sombrero that's fallen from the sky. I found the book compelling, highly poetic and unexpectedly hilarious.

And then there's William Saroyan. I've been a fan of Saroyan's short stories for years, so I was delighted when, a few years ago, I found a first edition of 'Here Comes There Goes You Know Who'. (I came across the book at Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland - the amazing second-hand bookshop that occupies a beautiful 1887 railway station building.)  

Saroyan's life was perhaps too painful to describe in a linear, direct way. Born into a poor immigrant family, he spent part of his childhood in an orphanage because his widowed mother couldn't afford to support him. He went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940 and, in 1943, an Academy Award for an adaptation of his novel 'The Human Comedy'. Despite gaining fame and fortune as a writer Saroyan struggled with compulsive gambling. His isn't a life story to be told in a straightforward way, hence his tendency towards impressionism in his autobiographical writing and an irrepressible all-pervading sense of humour.  

Saroyan had begun writing 'Here Comes There Goes You Know Who' in 1960. As someone who was born in 1961, I was fascinated to read his thoughts on the opening years of the 1960s: 

"The year 1960 has a silly unreal look to it. The line-up of the numbers seems unfortunate ...and one must be sympathetic to anyone born in such a year. Next year will be different, though: the numbers will have a proper look to them: 1961, the two ones at each end making it something from which to derive comfort and to expect miracles. The interior nine and six are virtually flawless. How I envy the man born in 1961. He should have a good life..."

The Unique Sound of PerKelt

PerKelt

Wagon and Horses, Digbeth, Birmingham

Tuesday 12 March

A friendly Victorian pub in Birmingham seemed a slightly incongruous setting for PerKelt, who are more often to be found at medieval festivals and midwinter fairs. The band has been peddling its unique brand of pagan speed folk since 2008 (and they've featured twice before on this blog.) Founder members Stepan Honc  (guitar, vocals) and Paya Lehane  (vocals, recorders, harp) - both from the Czech Republic - with their French drummer David Maurette have recently become a quartet thanks to the addition of Scottish fiddler Duncan Menzies. The latter's contribution underlines the joyful Celtic aspects of their music but there is still plenty of dark medievalism in PerKelt's sound. 

Supported by singer-guitarist Jay Fraser and bluegrass-inflected duo Copper Viper, this was the first date in a short tour by PerKelt prior to the release of a forthcoming album. We were treated to some intriguing new songs alongside more familiar PerKelt material: their distinctive take on songs from Shakespeare, their outstanding arrangement of the early-Renaissance 'Tourdion' and their stirring versions of Swedish folk ballad 'Herr Mannelig' and 13th century Occitan bourrée  'Ai Vist Lo Lop'.

Paya's voice and recorder-playing were as powerful and eerie as ever, but strangely there was no sign of her harp. Perhaps the band felt that this was superfluous given the combined strings of Stepan's guitar and Duncan's fiddle.

I suspect the good people of Birmingham were not quite sure what to make of PerKelt's unlikely tales of Swedish trolls, but how could anyone resist the sincerity, good humour, virtuosity and exuberance of these four extraordinary musicians?   

Matisse, guitars, marionettes and Robinson Crusoe ... and how not to be ashamed of returning

HMS Victory (c) Tony Gillam 2019

When I was about ten years old I realised I would never be any good at football. Instead, I switched my attention to two new interests: guitar-playing and puppetry. I suppose growing up with Thunderbirds and Stingray on TV, in a 1960s childhood where there was a constant soundtrack of pop music, this is all very understandable.  I wanted to learn to play guitar and write pop songs of my own. Meanwhile, my modest, prized collection of marionettes produced by Pelham Puppets provided a small taste of theatre on a scale perfectly suited to the introverted. I should also mention that The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with its stirring theme music, did give me a fleeting desire to sail the seven seas …but an inability to swim would have made this simply foolish.

Two recent visits to art galleries connected me with these early passions of guitars and puppetry. In February, we visited The Ashmolean (the University of Oxford's museum of art and archaeology.) The Egyptian mummies were impressive enough, and I was surprised how many famous paintings were on display by pre-Raphaelites and Impressionists, but what really caught my eye and my imagination was a collection of early Italian, French and English citterns and guitars. I was mesmerised by the evolving design of the instruments and the apparently trial-and-error approach to the number of strings and frets. It was like seeing the modern instrument take shape before my eyes.

Then, a few days later, we were in Worcester City Art Gallery after hearing about two concurrent exhibitions there. One display told the story of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes alongside a second touring exhibition, Matisse: Drawing with Scissors. The Ballets Russes was a famously spectacular and, indeed, rather scandalous ballet company of the early 1900s. Matisse was one of many artists who created costumes and scenery for them. Again, seeing these artefacts, including the dazzlingly bright cutouts Matisse made in his final years, was remarkable but what really captivated me was a pair of carved wooden marionettes made in 2018 by Stephen Foster, depicting dancers in the ballet costumes of the Firebird and Kashei.

HMS Warrior (c) Tony Gillam 2019

And, if these visual and historical feasts were not enough, we found ourselves, a few days later, in the historic dockyard of Portsmouth, to see the amazing recovered 16th century ship the Mary Rose, along with the 18th and 19th century HMS Victory and HMS Warrior ...which brings us back to sea-faring. But, after all of this travel and sight-seeing, we landlubbers were happy to return home for, as Robinson Crusoe himself reflected: “I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth ... that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.” 

Bangor University, Botticelli and The Beatles

This year, it will 40 years since I left home to head off to Bangor University. Fittingly, I've just finished reading Bangor University 1884-2009 by David Roberts - a historian and former registrar of this great North Wales institution. It's a handsomely produced, concise and highly readable account of the first 125 years of this grand old place. I like the fact the 'college on the hill'  began its life with just 58 students in a pub - The Penrhyn Arms - and was generously funded, in part, out of the meagre wages of slate miners, many of whom contributed a fixed sum out of their earnings.

I arrived at what was then called the University College of North Wales in 1979, to begin a four year degree in English and French. I hadn't fully appreciated, until reading David Roberts' book, just how tumultuous a time the late 70s and early 80s were for the university, with angry clashes between the management, students and academics, often to do with the status of the Welsh language and culture.

There are some fascinating stories in the book. For example, it describes how, during the Second World War, art treasures from the National Gallery were dispatched off to Bangor in anticipation of the Blitz. Over 500 paintings - including works by Botticelli, Rubens and Rembrandt - were stored in Prichard-Jones Hall, and later at Manod Quarry in Blaenau Fffestionog.  Twenty years later, in the early 60s, students would attend 'hops' where live performances by the likes of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates would no doubt have them "shaking all over"; all of this in the same Prichard-Jones Hall that had originally housed the nation's artistic treasures and where in the early 1980s, I would sit my exams.

One event that isn't included in David Roberts' book is the visit, 12 years before my own modest arrival in Bangor, of The Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi*. Two months after the release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, John, Paul, George and Ringo, accompanied by Pattie Harrison, Cynthia Lennon and Jane Asher (not to mention Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull,) converged on Bangor University. They stayed in dormitories at the Hugh Owen Building and attended a seminar given by the Maharishi. Their stay in Bangor was cut short by the news of their manager Brian Epstein's death.

After my time as an undergraduate, universities came under increasing financial pressure from government and higher education became more market-driven, pragmatic and vocational. Polytechnics, teacher-training colleges and Schools of Nursing were absorbed into universities, student grants were replaced by student loans and education for its own sake, particularly for students from poorer backgrounds, became an idealistic memory. As David Roberts writes: "The golden age of academic independence and freedom was being displaced by a new uncomfortable culture based on market values. Performance monitoring, productivity, accountability and value for money became the prevailing dictums". How lucky I was, then, to have had a few years to live and learn freely through that golden age at the 'college on the hill'.

*There is BBC Wales archive footage of the Beatles visit to Bangor that can be viewed here.

Bangor University 1884-2009 by David Roberts is published by the University of Wales Press.