2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk

Subject: Obit: Paddy Butcher
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 13 Feb 24 - 10:30 AM

I'm sorry to report that Paddy Butcher mainstay of the folk scene in Suffolk (England) and beyond has sadly passed away. Paddy was a long time resident in West Suffolk and was involved in folk music for many, many years. He was a skillful guitar player, singer and hurdy gurdy player and sang solo as well as with the folk group BOF. He was patron of the Milkmaid Folk Club in Bury St. Edmunds and used to play in this country as well as France where he was able to share his love of French traditional music. What stands out was his excellent delivery of songs. Examples that stick in my mind are, "Old Brown's Daughter" and "From Galway to Graceland." Anyone else doing these songs never sounded quite the same.

My most enduring memory concerns his hurdy gurdy playing. One night at The Greyhound Public House song circle, when it was his turn to contribute, he started playing the hurdy gurdy. There was a darts match in the other bar and during his piece more and more heads popped around the corner of the door and listened in silence. When he had finished he got a rousing round of applause and the heads all disappeared again!

RIP Paddy. An officer and a gentleman as my old Dad would say.

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: RTim
Date: 13 Feb 24 - 11:10 AM

Sad news ...I met Paddy many years ago now...when doing an Adderbury Morris workshop for his team. It was a great time and Paddy and his wife were great hosts...and I am sure he will be very much missed by all his friends and family...

RIP Paddy..

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Feb 24 - 03:53 AM

Very Sad.
I played with Paddy in a Ceiidh band The Suffolk Bell and Horseshoe Band for years,he was a good friend and he also played Melodeon on my lp" Dunmow Flitch", we played in Belgium and Holland with jez lowe and had lots of fun
He used to run the Bury folk club at the St Edmunds head alternately with Colin Snell, and as i understand it got the nickname Paddy, because in those days[1978] he sang mainly irish material.
I first met him at Bury folk club Playing with Geoff Singleton. I remember him also as musician for Hageneth Morris and i think Bury Fair,
I will miss him,a friendly gentle man and always a pleasure to hear him performing his love of music shone though his singing and playing he latterly brought out a cd which contained some gems such as Robin Hood and the Fifteen Foresters
I can still hear him singing Thirty Foot Trailer Bogies Bonny Belle and Willy of the Winesbury,
Condolences to Jan lindsey Michelle and Lucy.

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Feb 24 - 10:58 AM

Is there a link to an obituary?

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 05:48 PM

There's an obituary in Mardles (a web site that used to be an East Anglian printed folk magazine.)

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 05:56 PM

From that site:

Paddy Butcher - from Skiffle to Bof!

Author - Dave Bartlett

We are sad to announce that Paddy Butcher passed away on 21 January 2024. Many of you will have met Paddy in different musical contexts over the years. He will be sadly missed by his friends and by the many musicians who have played with him.

Paddy Butcher is a familiar face in the world of folk music and is often to be found in the folk clubs of East Anglia and beyond. A loyal supporter of local music sessions, he brings a wealth of good quality songs and tunes and also a folksome gravitas that comes with modesty, humour and good cheer.

Skiffle music was Paddy’s inspiration in his teen years – a fan of Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber - he even made a sawn-off tea chest bass for The Rebels an early skiffle band with friends. Although he started off taking piano lessons, Paddy moved on to the guitar and later joined the newly formed Bury St. Edmunds folk club in 1964 at what was then The Cricketers. The club hosted many top folk performers of the day and he became interested in traditional folk music starting Triad with Brian Francis and Bridget Danby. During his involvement with the club they booked Peter Bellamy and Paddy struck up a long-lasting friendship with the folk singer even once singing on stage with him at Cambridge folk festival. It was while Paddy was performing regularly on guitar doing traditional songs as a resident singer at the Bury club that he bought a melodeon and played with the short-lived St Edmundsbury Morris Men. Around this time he was also playing guitar with Geoff Singleton and Tony Preston in a band called Oakenshield.

Serious interest in the melodeon began during Paddy’s sojourn in London in the early 70s where, for a short while, he was MC and resident performer at the Shakespeare’s Head folk club in Carnaby Street. As well as appearing at other local South London clubs he danced with Blackheath Morris but Suffolk called and in 1973 he returned to help form Hageneth Morris Men and join John Goodluck’s band Trunkles. After this came The Suffolk Bell and Horseshoe Band with John and Katie Howson as well as being involved in the formation of Bury Fair Morris and playing trombone for The Haughley Hoofers.

It was when Bury Fair Morris side got invited to a local school to meet a French Dance group that a dance exchange to Angers was arranged. Paddy then embarked on a new phase in his folk music – he was inspired by a French band called Ellebore to take up the hurdy gurdy and started playing French tunes. After many festivals in France and elsewhere he eventually, in 1984, constructed his own instrument. This awesome building project was completed during a year under the watchful eye of gurdy guru Bill Molen (a player and a fine gurdy-maker). Having passed that one on he is now the proud owner of a second self-made hurdy-gurdy which is still going strong. Shortly after 1984 Paddy formed Champetre playing gurdy, along with Bill and others in that band for many happy years.

(embedded) Video by Bill Johnston

His involvement in a band called RSVP started in the late 80s and continued until recent years. He has also been playing with Bof! since 2000 performing French and Breton dance music at many gigs in the UK and festivals in France. The Bury Folk Collective is proud to have this eminent folk artist and multi-instrumentalist as its patron and is fortunate enough to enjoy his performances at many local club events as well as the annual Bury Folk Festival at Nowton Park – he’s doing a gurdy workshop there this year. Paddy’s musicianship and warm stage presence continues to delight audiences in the region as he sings fine songs and plays guitar, melodeon, hurdy-gurdy, cajon, cas-cas and even occasionally, rumour has it, the trombone.

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: GUEST,Dick Miles away from his Computer
Date: 25 Feb 24 - 02:40 PM

Paddy was very supportive and encouraging to other musicians,I honestly cannot remember him criticising another musician,I remember him as being a positive person
I played with him and his partner Jan, and also Sue Weir and John and Katie in The Suffolk Bell and Horseshoe Band, and knew him well, he was somebody who involved himself in the local Folk community, for many years he could have been described as one of the back bones of the Suffolk Folkscene, he will be missed by many.

Subject: RE: 2024 Obit: Paddy Butcher - Suffolk
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Mar 24 - 06:11 AM

April 20 Elmswell Suffolk, memnorial day
        
Music at the village hall