True Stories of Folk

Subject: True Stories of Folk
From: Y_Not
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 12:44 PM

Many years ago I was standing in a queue outside Poynton Folk Club on a wet and windy Sunday night, to see The McCallmans, when I realised that stood behind me in the line was Tom Yates with his guitar in hand, I knew Tom and we chatted as we slowly moved towards the door.
At last I was at the entrance and I could hear that the night had started with sound of the resident singer filtering through from the main hall.
I paid my money and waited for Tom, He showed his guitar and said "I'd like to do a floor spot", the policy was in them days that if you did a spot you got in for free, "Not tonight" came the reply "You have to pay" Tom started to reminded them of all the floor spots that he had done over the years, but it fell on deaf ears, Tom saw that I was laughing and said to me something like "What's so funny", I said "Have you heard what the resident is singing".
It was Tom's song "Bide Awhile".

A good lad and a great talent was Tom, sadly missed.

I thought maybe there might be a few good stories of Folk out there?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 03:31 PM

That's a wonderful sotry. I can't think of any of my own but I'll tell you that last night my husband made me stop playing Paul Carrick's verison of "Into the Mystic" (which I had bought on iTunes) because he felt that it was an "offense against nature". That will teach me to buy songs based on a 30 second sample, eh?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Sugwash
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 04:46 PM

Cyril Tawney was the guest at my local club, Folk on the Moor, Wotter. Someone had pointed me out to him as a fellow ex-submariner and he'd come across for a chat. We talked submarines for a while, lovely man as I'm sure you all know. He made a point of singing Diesel and Shale (which was something of an anthem to submariners in diesel boats). Then, during the interval, he came up to me and asked "'ere Andy, what exactly was shale?"

I'll never know if he was testing me, had forgotten or genuinely never knew. We were both in the electrical branch (two or three decades apart, I hasten to add), so were above such mundane things as oil.

(For those who must know these things: shale oil was,apparently a light lubricant and preservative by oil used in subamrines. It was replaced by an oil with a NATO designation letter and number...much harder to fit in a song I should think.)

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Y_Not
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:35 AM

I had the good fortune to be booked for the ex-submarimer's reunion weekend at HMS Dolphin in Gosport many years ago.
Shep Woolley, Bernard Wrigley and myself, but the highlight of the weekend was the Sunday afternoon with Cyril Tawnwy and although they were not your usual Folk club audience, they knew his songs and joined in with them.
Cyril Tawney and Pusser's Rum a combination I'll never forget.

Thanks for the info about shale, I thought it was something to do with coal.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Bee
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 10:16 AM

I was lucky enough to be at a small house party many years ago, in Halifax. The band Red Island, from Newfoundland, were spending the night there, and their fiddler (Jamie Snider, I think?) wandered around the flat most of the evening playing random tunes. It was magic.

At another musicians' house party (Kevin Roach, Rob Gordon, among others) late one night, there was a lot of after-gig jamming going on. The door was open for fresh air, and a knock was heard. It was a policeman at the door, come to investigate a noise complaint, but his very first words were: "Gee, I don't know why anyone would complain about this great music!"

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 11:04 AM

Jamie Snider was indeed the fiddler with Red Island. He seems to have been on the Mudcat list at some point; don't know if he still checks in. He has a post or two on the "When I First Came to Caledoia" thread.

Don't get me started on stories about late-night house-parties in Halifax or we'll be here all night ...

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Bee
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:21 PM

meself, we might have met, what with Halifax being small and the parties numerous, large, and late. ;-)

I'd seen Jamie's name on a few older threads and wondered if it was the same fiddler. Thanks for the confirmation.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:30 PM

"we might have met, what with Halifax being small and the parties numerous, large, and late"

No doubt - but you surprise me: usually at this stage in my life, if I say something like that to a woman, she suddenly looks nervous, and changes the subject ...

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Bee
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:46 PM

Hee! They just lack the courage to admit their own youthful extravagances of behaviour - I'm right proud of mine, it was all fun, and no Maritime folkie-man is likely scary enough to make me nervous. ;-D

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 10:13 PM

Actually, I DO have a true story of folk. In 1994, I moved into the cottage I now live in with my husband. An elderly woman who lived behind me had a beau by the name of Danny Gordon. She told me (and I didn't believe her because she was loose with the truth) that Danny had once been married to Odetta. I got to know him over the years until her death from breast cancer. My husband helped him pack up her things and close her apartment. i was just too griefstricken to take part until after he left. She and I had our ups and downs as neighbors but I loved her even though she was quite the grifter and con woman.

Since she was such an accomplished grifter (albeit a likable one), I assumed she was making up the thing about Danny's marriage to Odetta. I never asked him about it because she told me it was a sore subject and I assumed it was just an untruth. Danny was a nice fellow but lived very far away and came into town for a few weeks at a time every now and then. His health wasn't good but when he was here, I enjoyed talking with him. The death of this owman, who he loved deeply, was a terrible blow. I never saw him again after that.

So, one day I'm working on the Odetta article for Wikipedia, and I came across four or five original references to her marriage to a "Dan Gordon" or "Don Gordon" in the late fifties. Damn if he wasn't really once her husband!! Oh the missed opportunity, eh?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 12:30 AM

Interesting ... but, um ... opportunity for what?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 12:46 AM

Well, from what I have read on the Net, Danny wasn't just Odetta's husband but her manager as well. It appears he managed a number of folk acts in the 50s. That is what I'd want to talk to him about, not really about Odetta. more how did he come to be invoilved in the folk scene. The woman who he was involved with when I knew him was the widow of a well known Cuban Jazz musician, Ismael Ugarte. I now assume that he met Mrs Ugarte via that connection.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 12:56 AM

I'm sorry, I should have added that Ismael Ugarte frequently recorded with one of my all-time favorite singers, Bobby Short. Mrs Ugarte, my late neighbor, went by another name and I didn't realize her late husband was Ismael Ugarte until a year or so before her death. She and he had separated after a few years of marriage never bothering to divorce. Upon her death, I learned much more about all of this from their adult son who probably wouldn't want me to name him. His relationship with his mother was troubled due to her above described nature.

So, behind me all those years was a gal married to a Jazz musician who had played with Bobby Short forever and ever and was around for the founding of Atlantic records. And, she was having a 20 year romance with a guy who had been married to odetta and who had managed a number of folk acts in the mid to late 50s. All that is what I would have liked to discuss with them both.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: eddie1
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 01:23 AM

You know, I think it would be possible to run a thread featuring only Cyril Tawney stories. There are enough of them! I used to live in Cumbernauld, pretty well in the middle of Central Scotland and from when I got to know Cyril in the late 60s, whenever he did a Scottish tour he stayed with me. I was lucky to count him and Rosemary as friends.
One of his stories was that in his larger days, he was doing a folk club (not too far from Cumbernauld) and while singing one of his funnier songs, he had to stop in the middle. He apologised to the audience and said, "Sorry but there's a girl in the front row and every time she laughs, her tits bounce up and down!"
She looked him straight in the eye and said, "So do yours!"

Eddie

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 01:27 AM

Dave's wife: Okay, gotcha now!

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 01:57 AM

Not a story about folk music but I found it interesting- I knew a woman who had a child by the musician Cal Jackson.

She went on to have two more children, although not by him. As it happens, she named each of her children 'John': Sean, Ian and Evan.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 08:52 AM

...So where were these parties in Halifax then? I went to a few at Michael Woods house and others, who are you referring to? do I know you?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,Northerner
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 09:58 AM

I was queuing up for an evening at my university folk club (Bradford). Nic Jones had been booked and I was really looking forward to it. I had heard a great deal about how good he was. I had brought my tape recorder with me to record the occasion. However, I was slightly nervous in case he would object. I said to my friend Tom, standing next to me, "Will Nic Jones mind?" "Why don't you ask him?" said Tom and pointed to the man standing in front of us in the queue. Yes, it was Nic, and he was very amused. And yes, he agreed.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,edthefolkie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 10:42 AM

Around 1974 I had a bit of a crush on this good Catholic girl who lived in our flat. At my urging, a bunch of us went to see The Three Desperate Mortgages (Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol) at some venue near High Wycombe. All I can remember about the venue was that we were standing at the back, and the temperature and humidity resembled that of the planet Venus.

All at first went well, and the lady was most impressed by the band's musical abilities and witticisms. Then, Mr. Swarbrick announced that they would perform "The Sailor's Alphabet". They did the filthy version. For those who have never heard this, "filthy" does not begin to describe its enormity. I shot a birdlike glance at the object of my desire, and a frozen smile was spreading across her face. The atmosphere in the car on the way back approached absolute zero.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,edthefolkie
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 10:49 AM

On reflection, I think Trevor Lucas may have been involved as well.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 02:35 PM

Bruce B.: Don't know if you're addressing me or Bee or both of us ... but:

"So where were these parties in Halifax then?"

All over the peninsula; mainly within walking/staggering distance of downtown & Dal.

"I went to a few at Michael Woods house and others, who are you referring to?"

Don't know Michael Woods, I don't think. I don't even know whose places most of those parties were at; they were just places you'd end up at; a friend of a friend; you didn't know how you got there and didn't know how you got home, unless by foot the next morning; you just remembered tunes and girls and laughter and hot tempers and more laughter and more music and deep discussion and a kiss and an insult and a fiddle and people you'd never seen before and people you'd never see again and something spooky like footsteps down an empty hallway or a figure in the doorway when you awoke on a couch in the dark and empties and half-empties all over the place and cigarette smoke and ashtrays bluegrass and pot smoke and guitars and dancing and arguing and blues and laughing and cursing and a mandolin and a story and a joke and a song a thousand songs and a thousand stories and a poster of the Bluenose and Irish jigs and Scottish reels then there's a bouzouki and someone thought bazooka and laughed her head off and sea shanteys and there's a French sailor dancing all by himself in the corner with a little red pom-pom bouncing on the top of his French sailor's cap and a woman rubbing up against you and an Irish rebel song and a famous musician supposed to show up but didn't and whoever left an hour ago on a beer-run never came back and they're ransacking the cupboards then someone remembers home-made beer in the basement maybe ready by now and a long sad ballad about a ship at sea and a long slow kiss and lightning fast fingers across strings and a guitar-case snapped shut in anger and a harmonica wailing with joy and Cuban cigars and St. Pierre liquor and a French-Canadian girl singing Au Chant de l'Alouette and shelves full of books and records and some guy who won't stop arguing under the kitchen table arguing with the feet and a Stan Rogers song and politics and an old man almost gone home with his fiddle turns in the doorway and comes back ...

Bee knows; she was there. Do I got it about right? Can't remember who lived there.

"do I know you?"

If you spent much time in the old days with those dubious characters Bee mentioned you probably do ...

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Amos
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 02:47 PM

Ach...meself, beautifully remembered, and what you lost in precision you made up in quantitity and beauty. :D


A

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 06:06 AM

Meself, your description reminded me of a New year's eve party I went to at a real hollywood dive bar called Boardners. I believe it was 1995. Boardners attracted hard drinkers, film buff, and film inductry pros who don't make enough money to afford a house in Los Angeles abnd therefore live in apartments or rental homes near Hollwyood Blvd.

I was in a terribly cynical mood that night for some reason and was getting myself all huffed up to be annoyed by the repetative playing on the jukebox of Abba's Dancing queen until I looked around the room and saw people I knew dancing, laughing, having a wonderful time and one lone beautiful asian girl dancing gracefully by herself in the middle of the room, as if in a blissful trance. Some folks were sniggering at her at first by the third play of the song, damn if we didn't think the song was written just for her, for that night. Thankfully, whomever was controlling the jukebox allowed others to select other songs and I recall the next one was 'More than this' by Roxy music and the gal started dancing again. She was just so happy and completely at home there. It was like she cast a spell of trnaquility over what was a very rough crowd. I never found out who she was, but I've seen her again a few times over the years at carious film related gatherings. Boardners was is a hangout for down and out actors, writers, and the hollywood working class. I wish I knew who she was. Maybe she was a magical being.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Bee
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:12 AM

You got 'er, meself, and well said. I'll add stepdancing until your feet hurt, an affectionate clutch at your ankle by the happy drunk on the floor in the hallway, doors wide open in the dead of winter for the air, lost (or found) Russian sailors, floors sticky with spilt drinks, an Acadian fiddler still playing in the wee hours, though on his knees since he can't stand up any longer, that guy who only knows two John Prine songs and House of the Rising Sun getting his licks in after all the other musicians pass out, and at last walking home at three or four in the morning in a white Halifax fog, traffic lights blinking at empty wet pavement, the only sound the electric hum of a sleeping city.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:30 AM

Guest Meself, ...Blimey you certainly tell a descriptive tale! very well put and stuff in there I recognise, (not to mention stuff like wakening up at 2.30am with someone vomiting in the chair next to you!)I'm still no wiser though! did you ever go to the Anchor Folk Club in Brighouse in the early - mid seventies? or the Bradshaw tavern?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Y_Not
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 08:06 AM

Guest Meself & Bee, I could imagine Tom Waites singing your stories and that's a compliment

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 08:10 AM

Wait a minute now, Bruce - I think I see the problem ... I'm talking about the REAL Halifax - i.e., the one in Nova Scotia - are you by any chance talking about the secondary, junior, wannabe, poser Halifax - the one in England?

Oh, I'm sure it's a fine place and everything ... Actually, from what you say, it sounds like a very similar sort of place!

Amos: Thanks. You should've been there!

DW: There IS something magical about that kind of person/moment/memory ...

Bee: Yes, you WERE there all right! And many's the late-night/early-morning walk home like that ... A fitting, evocative conclusion to our overlapping, jumbled memories of those overlapping, jumbled days ... and nights ...

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 08:38 AM

Y Not: I guess we cross-posted - thanks - I took that as a compliment!

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 09:53 AM

...I see, you mean the 'broken man on a Halifax shore' Halifax, as opposed to the 'Websters Beer' Halifax that I'm on about! ...the parties sound very similar though!

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Bee
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 09:56 AM

Me also, though meself is a poet, for sure (smooth-tongued New Brunswick boy, arn'tcha, I've known a few a' yez). ;-)

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 11:38 PM

You're too kind, Bee, just like you were in the old days, no doubt ... (a rough-tongued Nova Scotia boy, actually, me meself - ran with New Brunswick boys for awhile though, still raise a glass with a couple of them now and then) ...

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Sugwash
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 07:06 AM

Now, I've been to both Halifaxes (what is the plural of Halifax?)and had a good time both side of the pond. I suppose the major difference is the palatability of the beer in Halifax, West Yorkshire as opposed to Halifax, Nova Scotia (Moosehead, what's that all about?) In fact, an with no intentional irony, I sang Webster's Beer stood on a table in the Split Crow, Halifax Nova Scotia, whilst all around an epic bar brawl took place...not the audience participation I was looking for.

I much admired the Medieval architecture of the Canadian Halifax, by the way.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 10:14 AM

Ah, the Split Crow ... My band was the first musical act they had - they didn't even have a stage then. In those days, I had the get-up-and-go to walk into a pub and tell them that they needed live music; it was funny how receptive they usually were. It was something they just hadn't thought of.

But my history there doesn't even get me a free pint in the Split Crow now. "Sure, old man", they say. "Why don't you tell us again about the time you took on the whole crew of a Cuban freighter down at the Lighthouse? Oh - and that'll be six dollars ... "


"I much admired the Medieval architecture of the Canadian Halifax, by the way."

There is a desperate, never-ending battle between the "developers" and those who want to preserve something of the character of the city. The determination of the developers to destroy everything that makes Halifax appealing is truly admirable. It almost broke my heart two years ago when I spent a couple of days in Charleston, South Carolina, and saw what can be accomplished when the local patricians decide to protect and preserve the beauty of a beautiful old city, and then compared that with the situation in Halifax ...

In the late 'sixties, there was a project that would have wiped out the entire waterfront and replaced it with a big multi-lane highway, if the faculty and students of the Art College had not rallied enough public support to halt the project at the Cogswell overpass. Now, finally, some enlightened souls in the municipal offices are talking about tearing down that bit of urban wasteland and replacing it with the sort of ordinary streets that were there in the first place ...

"you mean the 'broken man on a Halifax shore' Halifax"

He just didn't know how to have a good time.

Okay, enough out of me. Wait - did I ever tell you about the time I took on the Cuban sailors down at the Lighthouse?

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Bee
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:09 AM

At one point in 1972, I lived about half a block from the infamous Lighthouse. There was a knock on the door one day, and when I opened it, there stood a short broad man in a very imposing uniform, in front of about twenty other uniformed fellows. It was the captain of the Russian science vessel and a bunch of his crew, asking where they could go to watch that soon to be famous Russia-Canada hockey game. I sent them to the Lighthouse. Hope it worked out all right for them.

Never spent much time at the Crow, preferred the Seahorse - no music, but the crowd was older and I knew more of 'em.

Sugwash, Moosehead beer (if you can call it that) is drunk more by non-Nova Scotians. We prefer Keith's or even Labatt's Blue.

Don't know why I thought you were from NB, meself, but cheers, and I'll warn any Cubans I meet about you!

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:18 PM

The crew of a Russian ship watching a game of the 1974 Canada-Russia series in the Lighthouse Tavern?! Now there was a set-up for an old-fashioned all-hands-in, t'read-me-coat, boot-in-the-arse, knock'm-down-drag'm-out barroom brawl if I ever heard one! Even I, with my legendary pugilistic prowess (you all heard about it in my previous post), would want to be far away from that one ...

By the way, did you often get the crews of ships knocking on your door? I'm just wondering if you're the one they wrote the song about ...

Those sorts of stories are great, and everyone who was around there has one, but they're all different ...

Speaking of Keith's - do you remember that they used to have the family slogan in Latin on the label? I mark the decline of Western civilization from the time they updated the label and removed the Latin ...

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:20 PM

(I mean 1972!).

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: scouse
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:39 PM

One of the best Cyril Tawney stories I've ever heard was the time he was with Brenda Wooten and she comment on Cyril rather large girth with the words and pointing to his mid-drift "Cyril, if that was on a woman I'd know what it was!!." in the flash of an eye Cyril retorted.."It was on a woman last night! What is it!!!"
As Aye,
Phil

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 12:35 AM

Good one!

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Y_Not
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:45 AM

A story once told to me by the late Tony Capstick.
Tony many years ago met the singer Noel Murphy and they agreed that if Tony was ever down in London he should contact Noel and they would have a pint or two.
Some time after, Tony was working for a few days in London, but he had lost the number and decided to look him up in the phone directory and sure enough there was a Noel Murphy listed.
Noel    "Hello"
Tony   "Hi Noel, its Tony Capstick. How are you"?
Noel    "Tony, well I'm fine. How's yourself"?
Tony    "I'm in London and I thought you might fancy a pint tonight".
It was arranged the two would meet at 7pm in Noel's local pub.
At 7pm Tony is stood at the bar in an empty pub, when a bloke he had never seen before walked in and made his way over to him, and asked if he was Tony Capstick, Tony a little confused said yes.
Noel    "Nice to meet you. Noel Murphy".
Tony    "Likewise, but there's some mistake, I thought you were Noel Murphy the folk singer".
Noel    "No I'm Noel Murphy the plasterer, but we're here now so we may as well have a pint".
After a few pints Tony asked him, why he had arranged to meet somebody he didn't know, and Noel said "I said to me wife he seems a nice enough bloke, so I thought why not".
They kept in touch and remained friends for many years

Tony told me this story in hotel room at about 3am in the morning after we had seen off a bottle of scotch, I think I get right.

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:59 AM

I like a bloke who's willing to try an adventure like that!! :D

A

Subject: RE: True Stories of Folk
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 04:31 PM

I had some fella show up on my doorstep in los Angeles who I had never met but who had heard stories about me from a good friend of mine. he was in town and figured I would be a good person to hang around with. he called mt friend, got my address, came on over and kocked on the door. He sked if I felt like driving to Mexico with him. Oddly enough, I did. We had a wonderful time - 3 days on Rosarita beach! (I checked him out first, he came with good references and I was assured he wasn't an axe murderer or pervert). We even shared rooms on the way down and there. Wait, you know what, I seem to recall i might have met him once before that but for maybe five minutes. Anyway, it's not like I knew him. He was at the door and off we went.