Folk Fights Back - Coventry's CVfolk Inaugural Live Event in bid for City of Culture Status.

Folk Fights Back - Coventry's CVfolk Inaugural Live Event in bid for City of Culture Status.

At a time when young Teesside folk acts like Megson, Cattle and Cane, The Younguns are reinventing what folk music can be, filling venues around the country, and getting write ups in the Guardian and Independent, the Coventry folkscene is fighting back and celebrating its own historic and dynamic folk culture that has attracted the likes of Joe O'Donnell, Dave Swarbrick and many others to the City and boasts a range of singer songwriters giggling around the country. With Selecter star Pauline Black as patron, Pete Willow is working hard to put Coventry folk on the map!

Pete Clemons reports from CVfolks inaugural Live event..

Coventry singer Songwriter Kristy Gallacher

Folk music does seem to get a raw deal in the CV area. It has been all but forgotten about by most of the local media outlets. Despite several attempts to get coverage revived, they simply just don’t seem to want to know. It does all smack of being a bit un-cultural like, in my opinion.

So rather than sit around and dwell about it, and in true tradition of the genre, it has taken things into its own hands and began to fight back. A group of big hitters within the scene have set up an organisation called CVFolk with the aim of ‘Promoting Folk Music and Dance in Coventry, the 2021 UK City of Culture’.

Taken from their website ‘CVFolk is a campaign to provide resources and co-ordinated events for folk music and dance in and around the CV postcode area. It encompasses two strands: Legacy and vision’.

And those aims were fully realised at CVFolk’s inaugural live event set in the foyer of the Albany Theatre on Sunday 14th October.

The message I took away from this particular session was that the format will combine the traditional folk scene with the more modern singer songwriters. Enforcing that point, the line-up for the event was The Willow and Tool Band, Poachers Pocket, Kristy Gallacher and Rob Halligan. Shoehorned in between the first and second halves we were even treated to a few minutes of clog dancing.

Rob Halligan and Kristy Gallacher are no strangers. They once recorded a song together for the 2004 Tsunami disaster in Asia that cracked the top 20 indie charts which raised in excess of 13k for the fund. For this evenings session they shared the top billing by alternating with each other. Each tune they played was accompanied by some background information about how the song was arrived at. Kristy’s set included the heartfelt Spinning Plates, Plan B and Fending off the Frost while Rob powerfully performed Hold You Tonight and Wild Horses.

‘Music has the power to tell stories in a way that connects with people’ says Rob on his website. And that is so very true. Rob, for example, mentioned the fact he is originally from Worthing. And a couple of the songs he played were based on his experiences of his time there.

One of those songs was called Dancing with Seagulls. And the lyrics were so vivid. They recalled how, as a youngster, he would visit the beach and terrorise the flocks of snoozing seagulls by running straight through them scattering them into the air. This immediately took me back a few weeks to the balmy summer and when we took our grandson to the seaside. I was like a Cheshire cat as I recalled how he had found it great fun doing the very same thing. Not so sure the seagulls appreciated it though. Similarly, when Kristy sang the incredibly touching and sensitive Beautiful Bouquet, this also found resonance with me. I actually found myself misting up as it transported me back to a whole different time and place. Trust me, not only are these songs so very very good, they are also very powerful.

Despite one or two technical issues with guitar leads, the whole event flowed fairly seamlessly. And given that the event was staged in the in the Albany’s new Studio Theatre, and not the main theatre, the sound inside the venue was surprisingly impressive too. 

In a closing statement, patron of this campaign Pauline Black, summed things up perfectly when she reminded us of her own humble roots as a folk singer at the Dyers Arms, some 100 yards from this venue, and how that played an important and vital role in the development of her craft. 

Click to read about Pauline Black's background with Coventry folk clubs. https://coventryfolkclubs.blogspot.com/2013/04/pauline-black-on-coventry-folk-scene.html

Further installments of this venture will take place once a month, with the next live event scheduled for November 11th when Rosie Hood will headline. More details can be found on the link below……….. 

NB Apologies to Loz of the Albany, Pete originally said the event was in the Foyer but was actually in the Albany’s new Studio Theatre, mistake corrected now in the text. Trev (Admin).

Visit CVfolk's website
http://www.cvfolk.com/

Coventry Singer Songwriter Rob Halligan

CV Folk Patron Pauline Black

Pete Willow and Pete Tool

Joe O'donnell's Shkayla 

Lady Baby Gypsy Queen - Rod Felton from Rod Felton - Singer Songwriter on Vimeo.

The Sorrows 1965

The Sorrows 1965

by Pete Clemons

The recent loss of bass player, and founder member of Coventry band The Sorrows, Phil Packham, has had me delving into the bands fascinating past. Phil himself was incredibly proud of his achievements. And rightly so as The Sorrows hold the distinction of having had the first LP release by a Coventry band. The album, titled ‘Take a Heart’, contained the hit single of the same name along with earlier singles along with other original tunes and was released toward the end of 1965. Make no mistake, this was seen as a big deal at that time.

It had been a complete turnaround in fortunes for The Sorrows. Weeks before the album’s release it looked all over for the band due to legal rifts being dragged out. Their debut 45 ‘I Don’t Wanna be Free’ had been reported as lacking originality. It really was touch and go for the band. ‘We were fed up and began to doubt if we would ever make it’ said the bands lead singer Don Maughn (later Fardon) at the time.

But then, after the low key release of the single ‘Baby’, ‘Take a Heart’ was released. In the UK, advance sales of 15,000 copies made it a chart certainty. And so it happened as the record almost cracked the top 20.

The follow up to the ‘Take a Heart’ 45, ‘You’ve Got What I Want’, totaled 10,000 plus in advanced sales. This was sufficient for it to get a top 50 placing. The Sorrows were convinced that it would be more successful than ‘Take a Heart’ which was, later on in 1965, released in the U.S. and thirteen other countries.

During the week of the L.P. release lead singer, Don Maughan, gave a frank an honest interview about each track on the record, giving some surprising and forthright comments. As a point of interest, that same week the ‘Take a Heart’ LP was released the single of the same name reached number 2 in Japan and number 4 in Poland.

Here are some of the comments from Don’s interview:

Baby: Don said ‘I still like this one a lot. People say to me that Baby is better than Take a Heart. You see what the right plugs can do. Baby was equally ambitious but the plugs weren’t there and it failed to get off the ground’.

No No No No: Don said ‘Pip Whitcher our lead guitarist and I wrote this one. We've now got our own music publishing firm you know. It’s called PipDon’.

Take A Heart: Don groaned ‘Take it off, this bores me now. But don’t get me wrong. This has enabled us to put down the deposits on nice houses of our own. I'm bored of it now, but very grateful’.

She’s Got the Action: Don laughs ‘Miki Dallon, who wrote our hits, penned this one. But it’s known as a filler, just thrown in to fill the L.P. up. Honestly, it is really shocking. Sounds as if we made it up as we went along’.

How Love Used to Be: ‘This is an unusual quieter side to The Sorrows’ says Don. ‘It’s different to our usual belters. Restrained, even gentle. At first I had my doubts but now I feel very pleased with this. That odd guitar sound is Pip and Wes (Price) playing in very close combination. At first I wanted to have strings and things behind us on this but John Schroeder, our recording boss, said no’.

Teenage Letter: Strangely there were no comments against this.

Side two begins with I Don’t Wanna be Free – The Sorrows first disc: ‘This sounds dated now and lacks originality. Too like The Kinks’ says Don. At first I liked it but now I don’t blame people for not buying it’.

Don’t Sing Me No Sad Songs: ‘This is very unusual for The Sorrows, the most surprising track on the album. It is on the controversial Bob Dylan kick with folksy half sung, half spoken vocalising’.

Caralin: ‘This drum dominated track is the cover of an American hit by The Strangeloves. I am pleased with this one too. Nice recording quality on the drums. Without being big headed I think it is as good, if not better, than the American original’.

We Should Get Along Fine: ‘Pip and I wrote this. Okay at first, it drags now’.

Come With Me: ‘Another we wrote ourselves. That imitation of Donald Duck is by bass player Phil Packham. It is the best part of the track. It was the ‘B’ side of our first single and really sounds like a ‘B’ side too’.

Let Me In: ‘There is a row over this one’ says Don. ‘It is the best number on the L.P. but we all reckon John Schroeder has wrecked it by over recording. It sounds like a hundred guitars all playing at once. We were going to make this a single until we heard the recording quality. A great pity because the number itself is very strong’.

Don and Phil both left The Sorrows during 1966 and a whole new chapter began for the band that in itself was fruitful. Thanks for the memories guys.

More articles on The Sorrows by Pete Clemons on this blog - 

The Sorrows Reform (including a history of the band)

Don Fardon - From the Sorrows to Indian Reservation

The story of Coventry's only Grammy winning musician and record producer - Roger Lomas. 

Dissolution - The Pineapple Thief

Dissolution - The Pineapple Thief 

by Pete Clemons

‘Writing is in full swing for the new The Pineapple Thief record here at Soord Studios. Today I’m using this lovely (and pretty rare!) baritone Telecaster. And no I didn’t buy it. Thank you Godsticks for letting me steal it.’

‘I'm back from my 6 months of self-imposed exile while writing and recording the new The Pineapple Thief album. It's been an absolute mammoth undertaking for all of us and I for one can't wait for you all to hear it. In the meantime, I've just a few teeny tiny tweaks to make before handing over the concoction to Steve (Kitch) for mastering.’

These were just some of the messages that were appearing on social media, earlier this year, from the writing and recording process for what became The Pineapple Thief’s latest album ‘Dissolution’.

When he began to surface I took the opportunity of asking Bruce how recording was going and if there had been any major changes in approach from the last album. He replied: ‘no nothing different to ‘Your Wilderness’. Although this time we were sharing ideas and developing songs. So Gavin would try things on drums, then I would take what he did and try things in my studio. And we'd all keep sharing ideas and chatting online as the album progressed. It got quite intense at times, but in a good way!’

‘The band recorded Dissolution across the UK, sharing ideas via instant messaging’ was another message I picked up on via the web site belonging to The Pineapple Thief’s record label ‘K.Scope’.

And here is where the irony begins as guitarist and primary songwriter, Bruce Soord, freely admits. The album was created with modern technology and the heavy use of social media yet the overriding theme of ‘Dissolution’ stands as a warning as to how we use it.

On early listens ‘Dissolution’, I think, comes across as not as ‘edgy’ an album than more recent releases by The Pineapple Thief have been. However after multiple plays of it you discover that the beauty and the edginess is in its detail. ‘Dissolution’ is very subtle and far more dynamic than anything I have heard from The Pineapple Thief before. The music may not be as incisive but the messages contained within it are, for me, incredibly powerful and thought provoking. Gavin Harrison is very evident on the record. He is credited as having contributed on almost every song. One of the rare times when, I think I am correct in saying, where Bruce Soord has not been referenced as the sole writer.

The Pineapple Thief’s music is a journey of evolution as they continue to explore new territory. And they have certainly traveled some distance from their early records. As mentioned, the subject matter this time around is the internet, social media and our use of it. I have shamelessly cut and pasted the following paragraph from an interview Bruce Soord gave recently. It gives great insight as to what motivated him to write the album and where the ideas came from……….

Thematically, Pineapple Thief albums have been quite similar in that I’m always writing about the human psyche in the context of this society that I’ve grown up in, and in the changing society that I’m growing up in. And it’s really, really changed so much over the last five years, maybe even the last two years, the sort of technological revolution that we’ve lived through. And I think that when history looks back on this time and reassesses what we were doing, what we’re doing right and what we were doing wrong, I think that they will admit that a lot has gone wrong. It’s a bit like an addiction, you know, it’s a bit like a drug, like alcohol, or heroin or cocaine. Nobody really knows when it’s a problem because it’s so new. And it’s only now that big tech companies are talking about addiction, smartphone addictions and the mental health problems that children are growing up with. I mean, it certainly affected my mental health…I’m not saying that I’ve gone crazy or anything, but being connected to so many people, to so many things, to having access to so much information, so many opinions is just unnatural and exhausting. And as a musician, it goes one step further, because you are connected to all of your listeners. You get an insight into what they think about you, and some of these things are just horrible as well. Some of the lyrics on the record, the very first track, ‘Not Naming any Names’ is specifically about those people, the people that just want to weaponise social media and these connections and cause people harm. So as a musician growing up in these times, you’ve got to have a thick skin and if people want to do what we do and get your music out there, you’ve got to be prepared to take it. To understand that it’s a battleground out there in many ways. But yes, that’s what it is, that’s the theme that connects the entire record.

The band has just returned home after a successful tour of Europe. A few UK dates are to follow along with a return to Europe in 2019. I have also read America as being a possible destination. It has taken 20 years to get to this point, and, right now, and in among them all a little man is standing so very very tall.