Gordon Heath & Lee Payant

Subject: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: Stefan Wirz
Date: 29 May 02 - 03:06 PM

Since in the 50s they obviously started my father (after a trip to Paris and hearing them at l'Abbaye) to collect folk and blues records (a habit he then passed on to his son ;-) it's only fair that I've built a little Heath & Payant discography out of the few facts that I know about them.
Any additions from the ones that knew(/know?) them personally ?
(Already read the story about finger snapping instead of clapping in another thread)

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: Deckman
Date: 29 May 02 - 04:02 PM

WOW! What a mind trip ... to see those pictures again. I never met them, but the late Walt Robertson told me many stories of meeting them in Paris, and singing with them. Thank you for all your work on this. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 02 - 04:27 PM

I've always wondered whatever became of these two guys. I have their two 10" Elektra LPs issued in 1954, Songs of the Abbaye and Encores from the Abbaye. Good stuff.

Walt Robertson told me about the finger snapping. It was a few years after that when I was first started singing in coffeehouses that every now and then I'd notice a few people snapping their fingers. I questioned some of them, but they'd never heard of the Abbaye. They said things like, "Well, I saw somebody doing it, and I thought it was--well, you know--cool." Just a few years ago at a poetry reading I saw a couple snapping their fingers while everybody else was applauding. They didn't have a clue.

It sure got around.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: Stefan Wirz
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 06:44 AM

Nearly completed (?) the discography - also some additional pictures and quotations !
Corrections/additions still appreciated !!!!!

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: GUEST,Alyssa Heath
Date: 21 Jun 11 - 11:41 PM

My name Alyssa, and Gordon is my 3rd cousin. My father, Stanley Gordon Heath, was named after Gordon. My uncle, Mark Cyril Heath was named after Gordons father. I just recently began research on my cousin Gordon and the origination of the snapping in poetry clubs. I found that the snapping was mostly for blacks. In the mid 1900's when the world was still very bias, whites did not want to hear a bunch of clapping and "ra-ra" from the blacks in their poetry clubs. So then, blacks began snapping because it was much quieter and it also allowed them to still respectably applaud the performer. I hope this helps !!

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Jun 11 - 12:42 PM

Hello Alyssa ... WOW ... what goes around comes around! bob nelson, in the Seattle area.

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: GUEST,Tom Hawley
Date: 07 Jul 11 - 09:33 PM

I went into l'Abbaye a few times in 1960,61 maybe. I recall once one of them was said to be off somewhere making a movie, a female singer filled in for him.

I brought back two records, one looks like pictures Google has turned up for me, except the colour is sort of yellow-brown rather than blue. The other I lost, wish I could replace.

Tom Hawley -- Lansing Mich

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 11:52 AM

Knew them and snapped for them in 1953 while working in Paris; great performers. Anyone have a source of their recordings in digital form?? I've digitized a few but transcriptions only fair.

Subject: RE: Gordon Heath & Lee Payant
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 02:10 PM

On the finger-snapping in lieu of applause, it may have started elsewhere, but Walt Robertson, who had sung at the Abbaye and knew the guys, told me that Gordon and Lee started it in the Abbaye because there were apartments upstairs. Shortly after the place first opened, they got a lot of complaints because the folks living upstairs were being blasted out of bed every few minutes by applause. So they asked the audience to snap their fingers instead of clapping. It worked, and everybody was happy.

Don Firth