The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172997   Message #4194947
Posted By: Dave the Gnome
05-Jan-24 - 01:28 PM
Thread Name: 2024 Obit: Michelle Holding (Jan. 4, 2024)
Subject: Obit: Michelle Holding
I feel a but awful for posting 2 consecutive obituaries and I am sure Brian would have posted on here when he felt up to it but, for now, here is a copy of Brian Peters' FB post

"Today arrived the news we knew was coming: Michelle Holding passed away this morning. It’s difficult to know where to begin. Michelle in a relatively short time made an enormous impression on the folk music world, and a huge number of friends within it. She was outstandingly talented as a singer and instrumentalist, and coupled that with highly eclectic tastes that embraced each different style with joy. You only had to witness the quality of the musicians who came from far and wide to celebrate her 41st and last birthday, and who played for hours around her hospice bed during her final days, to know the love and respect in which she was held. Only Michelle would have brought forward her birthday party by a month, on medical advice that she might be too unwell to enjoy it, had a ball at the rearranged party, and then gone ahead anyway with a second party on the original date, determined that she was going to have another ball at that one too – her ‘Festival of Stubborn Gladness’. Only Michelle would have finished her final spot with Bonz Barnes on mainstage at Whitby – one of our most traditional festivals – with ‘Sylvia’s Mother’ - and got the audience singing along. There were many other ‘Only Michelles’. She didn’t so much rage against the dying of the light as thumb her nose at it and announce that she intended to enjoy every goddam minute anyway. Those who knew her will not need me to describe her monumental courage.
I first met Michelle as a young twenty-something, when she turned up at a gig and requested – in her usual ‘no arguments’ way – that I sing one of my most doleful ballads. She was still requesting ‘The Unquiet Grave’ when she knew she had just days of life left ('Only Michelle'). Later she took some concertina lessons, and often startled me by enquiring about some subtle nuance in an accompaniment that would have passed by many a more experienced player. But it was the banjo that came to be perhaps her true forte. Having already mastered clawhammer, she turned her attention to the more obscure, highly demanding ‘classic banjo’ technique, and performed jaw-dropping instrumental feats in that style. She was a bloody good guitar player too, and a very expressive singer, who could perform with aplomb old ballads, gospel, blues and bluegrass, Lancashire dialect songs, and the quirkiest contemporary compositions. In all of this she was supported immensely by my old pal Bonz, the perfect foil for her musical pyrotechnics and waspish humour. He has been a rock over the last few days, weeks and months.
Life just won’t be the same without her. She lived her life to the max, and was a shining example and inspiration to all of us. Goodbye Michelle."

I only saw her a few times. Once with Brian certainly and another one or two at Swinton I think. I cannot add anything more than Brian has already said. Condolonces to all her loved ones.