Pat Smith's concertina

Subject: Pat Smith's concertina
From: GUEST,John Jones
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:41 PM

What make is Pat Smith's red concertina? It has a lovely sweetness of tone and I really like it. Is it a Welsh concertina?

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:55 PM

Pattie is a member ask her when she is back online.


Scooby.

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:00 PM

It's an anglo and is quite big.
Don't know if it helps those who know about diatonic thingies to identify it.
Just looked on a Calennig CD but it doesn't say.

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:05 PM

I just phoned Pattie and she is coming online shortly.
Diane it isnt that big,its a normal size i believe.


Scooby.

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: Dame Pattie Smith EPNS
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:11 PM

My concertina isn`t a Welsh one, I`m not really sure where it came from except it was in a shop in Whitley Bay Northumberland. Dr. Price seems to think it might have belonged to Silly Wizard at one time. If anyone can let me know if this is true or otherwise I would like to know. It is a Lachenal Anglo and was renovated by John and Sue Holman 30 years ago. This is why it has red bellows - my personal choice. Although Lachenals were 10 a penny in their day, it does have a particularly sweet tone to it. You can either play it in a percussive way, which is particularly good for Morris dancing for instance, or it can play very sweetly using bellow control. I love it and it's my baby!

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:22 PM

MudCat strikes again ! The answer straight from the horses mouth in half an hour !

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:26 PM

Or should that be the Mari's mouth?

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: GUEST,John Jones
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 04:33 PM

Thanks. I had no idea it was a Lachenal.

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: GUEST,Dr Price
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 08:23 AM

I brought Pat's red concertina from a junk shop in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, about 30 years ago. I paid £35 for it. At the time it wasn't red; it was wooden, with green bellows, and someone had written "Silly Wizard" on it. It was a C-G Lachenal anglo-concertina, with a low-number identifying mark. The Lachenal company produced over 400,000 concertinas before they folded in 1936. They were the workhorses of their times, the Morris-Minor among concertinas. I can't remember what the five-figure number was, but I guessed that this particular concertina had been around since the 1870s.

I was a concertina player and founder member with the three-piece group Swansea Jack (with Mike James and Peter Davies) in those days. I had just met Pat, and Swansea Jack became a five-piece before Pat and I left the group to gig on our own – and that was how Calennig was formed.

I was still touring solo, and embarked on a tour of Scotland. The late Johnny Cunningham, of Silly Wizard, came along in my van to play fiddle at Glenfarg Folk Club, and his eyes widened as they locked on my instrument: "That is OUR f—kin' concertina!" Apparently Silly Wizard had sold the concertina in Edinburgh, and it had ended up in Whitley Bay – where I brought it!

Then Pat got really ill and ended up in hospital. I had just bought a Wheatstone metal-ended concertina, and so for a present I donated my Lachenal concertina to her. She had no idea, but she learned to play quickly. The old dears in the hospital asked: "Can you play Danny Boy?", and so Danny Boy it was!

The concertina was getting a bit scruffy by this time, so I drove it to Devon for renovation at John and Sue Holman, concertina restorers. Sue did the bellows – she showed me this lovely red leather, I rang Pat and Pat readily agreed!

In fact, Sue restored Pat's red concertina as good as new. I wonder what it's worth now?

Mick Tems

Subject: RE: Pat Smith's concertina
From: Dame Pattie Smith EPNS
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:20 AM

So there you are then.......ta Mick. I knew he`d be in on this with all the info! I would just like to add that before his stroke Mick was a brilliant concertina player himself although in Calennig no-one saw him play as he concentrated on melodeon and I played the concertina. Also when I was seriously ill and wasn`t allowed to do anything at all except stagnate in hospital, the concertina was my lifeline which is one of the reasons why it is so special.