Folk Music ~ by Pete Morton

Folk songs came to me from an unexpected route and ended up

Young Pete Morton

colouring the songs I’ve tried to write from the day it happened. Because of them, I’ve aspired to bring something from them into what I’ve been doing ever since. 

I’m happy to be a troubadour passing through an age old minstrelsy, but I wouldn’t have reached that place if it wasn’t for the revved up complaint of Eddie and the Hot Rods driving out ‘Do anything you wanna do’ 40 years ago. 

Yes, very different in obvious ways, but it’s all part of a rich minstrelsy for me and the best way to explain is to remember Leadbelly’s answer when asked "What is folk music?" He replied by saying he’d never heard a horse sing. 

It's funny how things turn out. I never thought further down the line I’d be looking up at a traditional folk song and an Essex pub band song with such equal gratitude. But with regard to folk songs, it's like always wanting to capture something of its indescribable wonder. 

The way I feel now about many traditional songs is that they’re too good to touch by me most of the time - I like to leave them to others. And even though I’m always learning traditional songs, it’s the writing of songs with their influence that has made the creative engine tick for 30 odd years. 

It's the timelessness of recurring human life and love in song. Simple good songs that hold the treasure. This journey to trad began in a very different place with the new wave songwriters of the late 70’s. I loved the clever writing and the energy of Elvis Costello, The Undertones, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, The Boomtown Rats, Squeeze, and through to the wilder stuff -The Sex Pistols, Sham 69, The Ramones, and The Stranglers. That was what I was into up to leaving school at 16. It was perfect for one with a serious lack of concentration and excess of energy. 

Buffy St. Marie

Then, in the summer of 1980, I discovered the songs of Buffy St. Marie. It sort of happened by accident, but I was surely beginning to look for something else to continue my disaffection from a stayed, conservative, sleepy culture while becoming more aware of an unjust world. It wasn’t that conscious, but I was on the hunt for a different kind of social commentary. So, I came to folk songs through the American route. After coming across Buffy St Marie, this led to a wider discovery of the early 60’s protest revival and singers of the civil rights era. I can almost remember the order I got records out of the library . 

‘It’s my way’ , ‘Spin little wheel spin’, ‘Many a mile’ then a Dylan bootleg ‘Little white wonder.’ I was properly hooked.

More Dylan, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and lots of blues greats followed. I learned a lot of the songs from these albums. 

I was desperate to find places to play. Someone told me about Folk Clubs so I got a list from somewhere. Then off I did go. My first floor-spot was two Buffy songs and one Dylan. Not many people at the clubs were singing American songs. They were singing British isles stuff, mainly English, which was quite alien to my ears.

Nic Jones

Growing up, the only folk music I really heard was the Spinners and Jake Thackeray on the telly, but this stuff was different. I made friends and got affected. Does anybody ever forget the first time someone played them ‘Canade-i-o’ by Nic Jones? It was another momentous twist of fate. The intro, the understated delivery and the story blew me away. I began to understand what it was all about. 

I was soon learning songs from earlier Nic Jones’ albums. ‘The Noah’s Ark trap’ and ‘From a devil to a stranger’. My next call of traditional education was ‘Crown of Horn’ by Martin Carthy. Then onto Andy Irvine and Paul Brady. 

I was on a wonderful journey. I began listening to a lot of non-accompanied singers too. Old crackly Topic records of source singers. Murder ballads, love songs, or songs from defiant poachers and weavers. It was border ballads that gripped me next and since then this love of traditional folk songs has never gone away.

It’s important to me for something of the tradition to be in my song. It walks a line between avoiding pastiche, keeping the contemporary edge but never deviating too far from the tradition.

It feels like being part of carrying something on along this merry minstrelsy. But in the end it’s a kaleidoscope - 70's British pub rock owes so much to blues and rock’n’roll, as well as music hall. And music hall owed something to folk. Country and folk owe so much to blues...and I could carry on like this all day. 

Do anything you wanna do, until you hear a horse sing.

Pete Morton is a singer - songwriter in the folk tradition who lives in London.  He has recorded a number of solo albums as well as various collaborations. Besides his life as a singer, he also is a father, a yogi and keen walker. Please visit his  WEBSITE 

All photos used in this article are the property of Pete Morton and may not be reproduced or used without permission of owner.

My Musical Journey ~ by Tobiah Thomas

I was given my first guitar at the age of 14 and it felt like an old

Tobiah Thomas

friend. Songs flowed and I began performing then in local folk clubs in the North of England. University intervened and I began writing in earnest in my late twenties.

.

Love and loss have long been a theme of my music, born out of difficult personal circumstances that saw me grow up not knowing my birth father and losing my first husband, Julian, at the age of 26.  

I’ve found the creative process – both writing and performing – to be very healing because it allows me to connect and express my feelings with others who have shared similar experiences. I always knew that I was helped through that difficult time, but it was only recently, when I wrote the title track of my latest album, Are We Angels, that I made sense of it all. 

This song speaks of those small, random acts of kindness, often from complete strangers, which helped me so much through my

bereavement. I had been married to Julian, who was also a musician, at the age of 21, for six years and we moved to London from Plymouth to break into the music business. But an undiscovered congenital heart problem led to his sudden and devastating death. He died in my arms.

Julian always bought me a dress at Christmas. It was our tradition and I wanted to continue it the Christmas following his death. I collected the dress from the shop on Christmas Eve then realised as I walked away that I hadn’t paid. I rushed back but the shop owner ushered me out and wouldn’t take payment. As I walked away it began to snow, big flakes like confetti, just as it had snowed on the day my husband died. It was then that I realised the dress was a gift and I had a smile on my face through the tears.

I wrote a song about this called Golden Christmas Time which I often include in my concerts, and will be releasing this year as a Christmas single on December 4th.  

 Golden Christmas Time

My songs are very visual, about experiences in my life or a story that has caught my imagination. Lyrics are important – I could never write a song that didn’t move me. Quite often, a complete song will just ‘arrive’ in my head, which always amazes me, and I think, ‘Where did that come from?’ Sometimes a song will take time to fully emerge and a good example of this is Apples- the Long Goodbye. Originally about the seasons and cycles of the year, it became about waiting with my beautiful and inspiring Mother who is in the final stages of dementia. She gave me the love of singing and telling stories and Are We Angels is dedicated to her.

Shoulder to Shoulder courtesy of YouTube

During my career I was signed to Chrysalis Music, where one of my songs became the subject of a tussle between Janet Jackson and Will Smith: both wanted to record it. He rang to plead for the track and called me a “happening up babe” – which was ironic as 30 minutes before the call I had been up to my eyes in jelly, helping at the local school’s Christmas party!  

I was signed earlier to a top manager Brian Freshwater (Joss Stone, Foy Vance), and also worked with talented and influential musicians and producers, including Egyptian percussionist Hossam Ramzy, Rod Argent, Derek Bramble( David Bowie/American idol) and Robin Black (Cat Stevens, Paul McCartney, June Tabor)

Are We Angels, mixed by the afore-mentioned Robin Black,

features a group of celebrated musicians including the cellist Caroline Lavelle (Loreena Mckennitt/De Dannan), twice All-Ireland award-winning piano accordionist Colette O’Leary, Rowan Piggott on fiddle and Simon Callow on keyboards who also play with me live.

The opening track Kiss Kiss celebrates those fragile uplifting moments that should be treasured and recounts the legend of Native American mothers forced to march from Georgia to Oklahoma, a poignant and plaintive track that resonates strongly with my audiences. Coldest Night of the Year captures my own sufferings in my 20s. People really connect with my songs. We have all felt like the girl in Coldest, the loneliest person in a crowded room as we struggle with grief or sadness. 

I love all animals especially bears and all profits from the album are being donated to the charity Animals Asia, which is committed to ending cruelty to (Asian) animals, a cause close to my heart.  I never knew my birth father but treasure his one gift to me, a teddy bear. I first heard about the terrible treatment of the moon bears through a Wiltshire artist was holding a charity auction of her pictures for Animals Asia. I was so moved by their plight that I immediately wrote a song called Moon Bear, which I sang at that event.

It is so lovely that every track on Are We Angels has been played across the BBC and FM stations and has been featured in the press and on TV including, The Irish Post and London Live TV. A track is also featured on the prestigious FATEA 2019 Winter Showcase Sessions album:Adventure, which is free to download. CLICK HERE

I love playing in wonderfully diverse venues that include ancient churches, medieval halls and historic houses and was recently invited by the National Trust to the ancient site of Avebury, 500 years older than the neighbouring Stonehenge in Wiltshire, to give the first- ever concert in their restored Chapel. It would be a dream to include some special American dates on our 2020: Secret Places Tour so, if you’d like us to come, please get in contact!

Are We Angels features nine original songs, written and produced by TOBIAH and recorded in her cottage studio overlooking the Sussex downs, with all profits going to charity.

Tobiah would love hearing from you. You may reach her at the links below.

WEBSITE

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

MUSIC

Snowdrops, Chaos, Cake and Emotional Timescales ~ by Minnie Birch

The Prison Book Group is running late. The prison book group

photo courtesy of  91.7 Coast FM

quite often runs late. It is my first day back here after a few days, and chaos has hit minutes after opening the library door. The strangest of things happen here which you take in your stride, but are a stark reminder that you are in a prison, that this is an unusual place to be. Then as the chaos starts to settle, you boil the kettle, gather biscuits and a pile of books, and sit down in the comfy corner of the library, which looks just like any public library, and book group begins.

“How was your week?”

“What’s new?”

“Are you watching the football?”

“Who has read the book?”

And there, all of a sudden, in the most unusual of places you are with a group of like-minded people about to discuss a book.

This month’s book was Snowdrops by A.D Miller. We have been

Cover photo courtesy of Amazon

sent copies of this book from the National Literacy Trust, who run a scheme called Books Unlocked, which is about getting high quality books into prison book groups – they send us shortlisted Booker Prize novels to discuss. 

There are a lot of fantastic organisations that are all too aware that low literacy levels are rife in prison, that many people do not read or struggle with reading, that many never have read for pleasure at all. Encouraging people to develop their literacy skills is a key part of what the library service does, but this scheme is not about that.

This scheme plugs another gap, this scheme is for the readers, people who have spent their lives immersed in a good book, for whom reading has always been an escape, for those who can be “snobby” readers, want to dissect their books apart and have a shared reading experience. That’s who these books are for. 

As a bit of a slow reader myself, I can admit to struggling sometimes to get on-board with the narratives of this sort of fiction. Snowdrops, however, is a quick and easy read. I galloped through it and enjoyed the language and the story line. 

The overall feeling from the group is that it isn’t developed enough, we are left wanting to know a bit more about the place in which the book is set and the characters we are meeting.There’s a feeling the book is autobiographical and we have a lot of discussion around this. 

Then, as is inevitable (and important I feel) in any book group, we digress and we talk about other things. I find there is always something that makes me stop and think. This month my “stop and think” came from someone who was talking about how time has different faces. 

photo courtesy of Pexels.com/John Tong

He says he has been in prison 21 months and it has actually gone quite fast, it doesn’t feel that long, it all feels quite new still and the time is, thankfully for him at this point in his life, passing quickly. But he also mentioned how emotional time is different. He has been in prison 21 months and that has passed quickly, but due to his sentence, he's been away from his wife for 21 months and he says it feels like an eternity. You can see why I need to stop and think on this.

Cover photo courtesy of Amazon

Next month, we will be reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga--feel free to read along with us and send us any thoughts I can bring to our discussion. 

Disgrace, War, and Biscuits, Part 2 of Prison Book Group ~ by Minnie Birch

This month we had chosen to read two books, this is never a good idea because it usually means half of us only get around to reading one of the books, then we haven’t all read the same book and it all goes out the window. But that is okay. Book group is mostly about getting together, drinking tea, eating biscuits and putting the world to rights.

Well, I say drinking tea, but we actually have really fancy coffee from a fancy coffee machine! I do not know how a fancy coffee percolator ended up in a prison library and I do not ask, but extremely fancy coffee is the order of the day. I myself just have boring tea, I once had the library coffee and didn’t sleep for a week! So, I only have that on rare occasions where I really don’t see myself staying awake through the session.

The two books we read this month were:

War of the Worlds by H.G Wells and Disgrace by J.M Coetzee.

I was pleased War of the Worlds was on the list. I have never read

it, and it is one of those books that people give you the and-you-call- yourself-a-librarian look if you admit to having not read it.

It is of its time (published back in 1898) and the language is hard to navigate (for me anyway.) I found myself rereading sections, losing the plot line, getting itchy for descriptions to end, and action to begin. In the end, with the book group looming, I chose to listen to the remainder of the book in audio format. This is something I rarely do but something I really enjoyed it. 

The “official report” style of War of the Worlds lent itself well to being read aloud and I found I was able to indulge in the descriptive passages rather than be frustrated by them. The only other book group member who read the book has English as his second language so he, too, found it hard to navigate (although he has a much better excuse than myself, as English is my first – and only – language!) In summary we both felt the same: worth the read, interesting look at humanity, mostly glad we read it, so now we can say we have. 

Disgrace is a Booker prize winning novel and it isn’t hard to see why. It is a short book that packs in a lifetime of stories. It manages to hold up a mirror to you, make you ask questions of yourself, mess with your preconceived notions of right and wrong, and leave you not too sure exactly what might become of characters you’ve gotten to know along the way. 

It was very popular with the group. We are a diverse group both in age, background, and ethnicity; and so far whatever we have read, someone always seems to be able to say “Well this is/isn’t a fair representation – I would know, I lived it in my twenties” or some similar thing. 

We then stopped taking about the book and started talking about each other – which is exactly what a good book group should do, I think. Disgrace allowed me to delve further in to the worlds of some of these people and maybe shed a bit of light on the mystery of how anyone finds themselves facing a prison sentence.

If anybody would like to read along with us, maybe send me some of your thoughts to share with the group before our next meeting-- then we are reading Sinner Man by Lawrence Block and our next meeting is on Monday 20th May.

Minnie Birch is a singer/songwriter from the UK and a regular monthly contributor to Originality by Design. You can reach Minnie by email at minniebirch@hotmail.co.uk