'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD

Subject: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 11:41 AM

I have unfortunately had to let a few staff go recently, the PR man, the entire marketing department, the agent, my p.a. and the masseuse. So regretfully I have to blow my own trumpet yet again. Harbourtown Records have reissued by old 1978 LP on CD:"The Beggar Boy of the North" Greg Stephens and Crookfinger Jack(Harbourtown HARCD051). For thise interested in the traditional tunes of the north-west of England, I would say this is a must. For those not so inclined, I would say this is probably best given a miss to, as that's all there is on it. Except for asome pretty interesting sleeve notes(or perhaps they are called liner notes now), and there is also a picture of the band in 1978, which is always fairly amusing for haircuts and trousers.
    Now, if I had a computer, I would be abel to ditrect you to reviews in Musical Traditions and the Living Tradition, but I'm afraid I can't.
I have, actually, just been given a computer by a friend(?), so I excitedly rung up ntl(which has confusingly turned into VirginMedia) and a man came round and put in a box and a blue lead and everything for Broadband. He also drilled some holes in pretty stupid place round my house, but that's by the by. So I have just put in the special CD into a little box thing, to connect it all up, and a little message came up on the creen saying "You pathetic twat, this old computer has Windows 98 and any fule knows it should have been thrown on the rubbish tip years ago, whatever led you to suppose you could get interweb broadband thingy on it?".
    So, instead of setting up websites and designing leaflets and illegally downloading music and stuff,which was how I had planned to spend my afternoon, I find myself trying to drum up sales of the very widely acclaimed "Beggar Boy of the North"; in the hope of raising enough money to buy a new(or new-er) computer.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Yours etc
Greg Stephens ("greg stephens" is just my street name)

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 11:55 AM

What they said in 1978:
"verve,skill and style" (Time Out)
"an inspired record"(BBC Radio 2 Folkweave)
"an album of exceptional quality" (NW Folk Guide)
"one of the most enjoyable instrumental albums I have ever had to review"(Fretwire)
"extremely enjoyable and very well researched"(Sandy Bell's Broadsheet)
"displays of solo virtuosity and joyous ensemble bashes"(Folk Roundabout)
"my copy is new but already well-worn"(New Tomorrow)
"one of the best performances and most enjoyable listens I have had recently" (The Grauniad)

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: treewind
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 12:01 PM

It's bloody excellent.
Technically it's got a few rough edges, but the music is wonderful.

We've been inspired to learn "The Northern Lass" on the strength of it.

Anahata

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 12:11 PM

Good choice, anahata. Definitely the best tune on the record. Re your technical rough edges remark. Are you referring to 1978 imperfections(about which I can do nothing!) or some CD mastering stuff?

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 12:54 PM

I can honestly say it's one of the most exciting record that I have never heard.

What is the best way for us to buy this excellent collection so that you and the starving children get the best deal Greg?

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: treewind
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 01:18 PM

Oh, re rough edges, 1978 stuff I think. But then I wouldn't know what mastering has done to the original, though I could guess that it's made the sound rather brighter than it was, because for some reason remastering engineers tend to do that. Maybe that accounts for the rather brittle sound quality.

I was thinking more of the playing, but all recorded folk music was like that then; now we live in an audio world of digital cut'n'paste, pitch correction etc. and are led to expect clinical standard of perfection. I was quite shocked the other day listening to a John Kirkpatrick album of the same era: fluffed notes all over the place!

Never mind, it's the music that counts. The enthusiasm and sense of adventure of the musicians in Crookfinger Jack is palpable. What I hear is you all loved the music to bits and wanted to share that with your audience. Maybe some of the excitement of discovery too.

Les, you should buy direct from Greg, and Greg - you should have posted details of how to do that!

Anahata

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 01:29 PM

Send me a PM, anyone who wants one, that's probably the easiest way to buy one. It's on Proper Distribution, so it might be in the odd HMV, but not many I would guess: English instrumental folk is pretty specialist stuff. I'd do it at £12 (p&p included)....I think that is probably a quid less than any of the shop or internet prices.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: GUEST,Martin Ellison
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:28 PM

Hi Greg
I think I'd like one of those please. I'm not sure how to pm you - I'm not a member of this site, just an infrequent visitor.
I do remember seeing the LP whilst living in a friend's flat for a while and, of course, I played with Pete Mickleborough for a very short time.
Cheers
Martin

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:34 PM

I really quite like the rough edges. This is a terrific record by a hugely enjoyable band. I recommend it to anybody/everybody. Burl.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:39 PM

I always enjoyed this record as well - it's really good fun and full of the kind of spirit I like to hear. I learned "The Northern Lass" from it nearly twenty years ago, and still play it!

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Peace
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:39 PM

"Greg Stephens & Crookfinger Jack
The beggar boy of the north
traditional northern tunes

Harbourtown HARCD 051

Canny Cumberland/Yorkshire Lasses/The One Horned Sheep; Never Love Thee More/Cumberland Nelly/John Peel; Lonsdale Hornpipe; The Northern Lass; Liverpool Hornpipe/Keswick Bonny Lasses; The Willow Tree/Corn Rigs/Nanny O; Old Lancaster Hornpipe; Chester Waits/Farewell Manchester; The Beggar Boy of the North; The Bishop of Chester's Jig/Andrew Carey/Drops of Brandy/Mad Molly; ; The Cantsfield Polka.
'I'm not sure about reissuing old material - it's certainly not how I choose to play nowadays. But it has a certain quirky, nostalgic interest, I hope.' So wrote Greg Stephens in the note accompanying this CD. And he's quite right about how interesting this music is - and a part of that interest lies in the similarities and differences between this record and the splendid Trip to the Lakes (see review) of some 23 years later.
The twenty-four tunes included on the present CD represent a cross section of the music played by traditional musicians in the northwest of England over the last four hundred years or so; some were, and are, widely known and played throughout the British Isles, while others only seem to have enjoyed local currency. This is the music of the area from Chester to Carlisle, bounded by the Irish Sea to the west and the Pennines to the east. I would suggest that many of my readers will not have heard many of them before. I've played in sessions all over the country for longer than I care to remember - but I only recognise about ten of them.

The band, Crookfinger Jack, is also likely to be new to most of you. According to the liner notes, their LP on Fellside 'sunk without a trace' in 1978. But they also seem to have done a fair amount of BBC broadcasting work in the mid- to late-'70s, so you may have heard them in that medium. What does seem extraordinary is that - if I'm reading the liner notes correctly - Crookfinger Jack only ever played one live gig!

This may account for the LP's poor sales, and for the rather sad section of the liner notes where Greg seems to blame me for the way southern English country music became popular in the '70s and '80s, whist the northwestern music didn't (in his opinion). This seems a rather silly position to take, if one remembers the enormous popularity of the New Victory Band, for example. Apparently it was because we called our music 'English country music', when we should (according to Greg), have called it 'southern English country music'. Given that a substantial proportion of what we played didn't actually come from southern England, I think this would have been a rather dishonest genre for us to have claimed. It all sounds a bit Big-End v Little-End to me. If there is any truth in Greg's claim of southern music pushing northern into the shade, it may be more as a result of Oak and the Old Swan Band having made records several years earlier (1971 and '76) than Crookfinger Jack did. And having played rather more than one live gig!

Anyway - the music on this CD is great, and if it wasn't recognised as such in the late-'70s, it certainly should be now! The band was: Dave Lyth and Chris Ashley - fiddles; Peadar Long - whistle, flute, clarinet, tenor sax; Chris Hill - cello; Greg Stephens - tenor banjo, mandolin; Gordon Johnston - guitar, bodhrán; Pete Mickelborough - double bass. They can make a very big noise when they all play together but, it sounds to me, they rarely do. It's difficult to record seven musicians at the same time and be able to hear the contribution of each with any clarity. Here, it's the fiddles and the banjo which are usually to the fore, with the double bass in the background - other instruments rise to the top periodically. A good example of the ensemble sound is track 1 - Canny Cumberland/Yorkshire Lasses/The One Horned Sheep (sound clip - Yorkshire Lasses)

Other tracks I really like are track 11 - Jenny My Blithest Maid/The Glory of the North/Northern Nanny (sound clip, right - The Glory of the North) and the wonderful 3/2 hornpipe, the Lonsdale Hornpipe, on track3. (sound clip, left)

Quite a number of the other tracks have a slightly 'arty' or 'early music' feel to them - appropriate enough, since many of them are, indeed, old - but these don't for the most part appeal to me as much as the simple dance tunes ... which certainly do!

Rod Stradling - 13.10.06"

from

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/beggar.htm

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Peace
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:59 PM

One of the things I enjoy about older records is the fact that not everything is 'perfect'. I've seldom heard (or done) a set that was without mistake all the way through. (Maybe once or twice, but that makes it 1/10th of 1/10th of 1/10th of a percent.)

I suppose perfection is available to us in the world of music. We could get machines to do it all for us and just input the parameters instead of the feeling and emotion. Don't know, however, that I'd listen to too much of that.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Peace
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 04:18 PM

Site here on which it can be ordered. Also has 'review' of the CD.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Peace
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 04:27 PM

By the accounts I've read on the www, this is a really good record. I wisdh you great success with it, Greg. Also, it is a help to singers if you go to your local CD store and request that they get it for you. Costs a few bucks more, but it lets the distributor know that the sales aren't just local. I hope that the support for an English musician is better than it has seemed to be in the past on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 04:35 PM

Thanks for giving that link Peace.
Anybody wants a CD, PM me, or track my email down, quick google will get you straight to me.
There are many other places to buy it, but if you get it from me you get a personal letter, and also make a donation simultaneously to the Distressed Folkies Benevolent Fund (I am the social secretary and treasurer).

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Effsee
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 09:18 PM

And sole beneficiary?

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Peace
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 09:20 PM

Here's a sole beneficiary.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 06:10 AM

Effsee: certainly sole beneficiary. Charitable giving is generally best focussed on one small spot where it can make a great local effect, and the benefits can then spread outwards. Like military action: nearly always best to concentrate your forces on a short front and make a breakthrough, rather than trying to advance on a broad front spread so thin you never get anywhere. Yes, I keep a pretty tight grasp on the purse-strings, I can tell you.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:04 AM

Living Tradition Magazine
Reviews

The Beggar Boy of the North

   What a delight this is! What a corker! The opening set Canny Cumberland/Yorkshire Lasses/One-Horned Sheep is so infectious and atmospheric that with eyes closed I could imagine myself treading a measure or two at Mr Fezziwig's party. Taking a breather froom that I could relax with the next item, the gorgeously languid Never Love Thee More, with a segue into Cumberland Nelly and what may well be the original tune to John Peel. And so it goes on, Lonsdale Hornpipe, the Northern Lass, the title track Beggar Boy of the North, all the way through to the closer,The Cantsfield Polka. 12 tracks full of goodness, completely satisfying.
   If music had calories I'd be gaining weight as I listen. Crookfinger Jack were a band formed and led by Greg Stephens (tenor banjo, mandolin) in the 1970's with Dave Lyth, fiddle, Chris Ashley, fiddle, Peadar Long, whistle, flute, clarinet, tenor sax, Gordon Johnston, guitar, bodhran, Chris Hill, cello and Pete Mickleborough, double bass. Their brief was to play music from North West England, defined as "Chester to Carlisle, bounded by the Irish Sea and the Pennines". It must have taken a lot of research to find the music played here but I can tell you it was worth it.
    By all accounts this didn't do too well when recorded as an LP in 1978. I can't think why because it sounds fresh as a daisy right now, and the fact that I, a dedicated non-dancer who always listens for vocals on a record, have enjoyed it so much tells its own tale. It's a very welcome re-issue indeed.
    I've never heard Greg Stephens' current group the Boat Band, but if they sound anything like this, with a few songs maybe, and I were running a club or festival they'd be on my wish list right away.

Roy Harris

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: GUEST,guest baz parkes
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:12 AM

And if you like this, check out Greg's work with THe Boat Band on Harbourtown's Trip to the Lakes.

Probably the best recording of dance tunes I've heard in a very long time

(Thread creep....even if it does have three melodeons on it!!:-))

baz

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:21 AM

Hi Baz...has the Shreds and Patches review copy of Beggar Boy got to you yet? I was kind of hoping it would float your way.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: GUEST,bazparkes
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 07:57 AM

not yet...I'll put in a request!!

Cheers

Baz

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Fidjit
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 02:13 PM

Your not alone out there Greg.

Came across several others with the same name.

One had this byline

Greg has never done anything of note, and doesn't intend to start now

But then he was a, Stevens.


The Trip To The Lakes was/is good.

Any chance of a list of what's on this one?
Chas

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 02:20 PM

Fidjit/Chas: if you backtrack in this thread to Feb 25 3.39PM. Peace posted the Musical Traditions magazine review of Beggar Boy, which has a track listing and other information.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: Fidjit
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 03:02 PM

I see. Peace is Rod. Ah well.

Instrumental. Nice clips on the review page.

Chas.

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 12:20 PM

Rock'n'Reel Magazine
March 07

Beggar Boy of the North
Greg Stephens and Crookfinger Jack


Crookfinger Jack were a sextet put together by Greg Stephens to bring to wider attention the traditional music of the north west England. The Baeggar Boy... was recorded, quite basically by today's standards, back in 1978. The six-piece Crookfinger Jack who recorded the 12 tracks were a group of musicians from rock, jazz and classical as well as folk backgrounds who mainly played for ceilidhs in the North. What they produced, though, is an idiosyncratic collection with their quirky choice of instrumentation (double bass, twin fiddles, cello and occasionally clarinet and tenor sax rubbing shoulders with guitar, banjo, mandoline, whistle and bodhran) making for an invigorating, refreshing and uplifting listening.
    There's an air of excitement and discovery clearly evident in the performances, which range from the sublime "Northern Lass" though the all-out charge of "Old Lancaster Hornpipe" through to the inventive clarinet and sax work on "The Cantsfield Polka". A delightful re-issue.
Steve Caseman

Subject: RE: 'Beggar Boy' new Greg Stephens CD
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 02:55 PM

fRoots magazine May 07
Review by Brian Peters


"Beggar Boy of the North"
Greg Stephens and Crookfinger Jack

Here's a welcome reissue for a near 30 - year old recording of
North-Western English dance music that proved a seminal influence on
the (admittedly few) people that heard it first time around. Led by
twin fiddles and rejecting the late 70's fashion for melodeons,
Crookfinger Jack included both cello and double bass, producing a
village band sound that sacrificed sophistication in favour of
wildness, drive and bollocks by the bucketful.

To hear tunes like Cumberland Nelly and Northern Nanny propelled along
by a harrumphing cello is truly heartwarming, while The One-Horned
Sheep and Cantsfield Polka - complete with outrageous key changes -
are
bursting with life and fun. You also get some of the earliest and
best
attempts by contemporary musicians to tackle the now-fashionable 3:2
hornpipes, and a spectacularly beautiful slow air in The Northern
Lass.
The baroque-sounding arrangements of Chester Waits and Farewell
Manchester are less successful, but generally this stands up extremely
well in 2007.