Tell Me About Martin Windsor [Winsor]

Subject: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 07:59 AM

Please, that should have said... Where are my manners!

I have a copy of Peter Bellamy's "The Transports" (no home should be without one). I know a bit about most of the people featured on the album, except a man with a most deep, rich, chocolatey voice, one Martin Windsor. From his singing he sounds like a Brummie, but that could be wishful thinking on my part. A search on Google has turned up bugger all except that he was in a duo with someone called Red Sullivan.

So who was/is he? Did he release any albums? What was his place in the UK folk pantheon? I'm sure some of Mudcat's more, erm, senior contributors could fill me in.

Thanking you kindly in advance of the deluge of facts, anecdotes and trivia...

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 08:27 AM

Martin and Redd used to run the Troubador in London in the days when I went along there (early 70s). They were both very involved in the London folk scene from the 50's to the 70s, both powerful singers and (to my mind) Martin in particular had a great voice.

Here are some links on them, with more information:

Martin and Redd's Myspace page

Martin's Obituary from the Independent.

There are some vinyl records of them still to be found s/h. I have one Martin Winsor and Redd Sullivan hosts of the Troubador with friends - Track listing A: Beans, Bacon and Gravy; The Queen of Hearts; The Farming Servant; The Hieland Widow's Lament; I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. B: The Ox-Driver's Song; Jock O'Hazeldean; Firing The Mauritania; Maccaffery; Trying To Make Heaven My Home. According to the sleeve notes of this record Martin was born in Liverpool, "but made his home in London and is acknowledged as an authority on London Folk-lore and dialect". (The record was produced by Jim McLean; I don't know if that's the same person who posts here).


Mick

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Jim McLean
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 09:09 AM

Yes, I produced the album and you can see a picture of Martin and Redd here Martin and Redd taken by my wife Alison Chapman McLean

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 10:30 AM

Thank you for the info and the links (and the remarkably quick response!), Mick and Jim. I guess my googling would have been more successful if I'd spelled his name right! Great photos, and enjoying the songs on Myspace even as I type.

Cheers!

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Fidjit
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 10:39 AM

Thanks for that Mick.

First thing I did was to update my myspace friends.

I went to sing several times in the Trub.
Lots of memories of Redd and Martin.
Was always advised not to eat the food there.

Chas

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,John from Elsie`s Band
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 11:32 AM

Martin Windsor was a regular guest at the clubs we ran at Catford (The Railway Tavern) ,Lee Green (The Old Tigers Head) and others in the Crystal Palace and Sydenham area and possibly Chiselhurst caves. If ever there was a man to command audience attention, it was he and woebetide anyone not having the good manners to be still while he was on. His rendition of the song containing "With a second-hand overcoat under my head ...drunk and assaulting the guard.." was memorable.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 11:34 AM

Redd was also a force of nature. I can still see him singing "I live in Trafalgar Square, four lions to guard me...", with interesting gestures and no top front teeth. Where shall we see their like?

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 12:00 PM

,yes, he also did a rhyming slang song,which involved no hampsteads in his north and south,was it called Tottie.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 12:14 PM

I remember that song as well - but can't recall the title...

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: balladeer
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 12:14 PM

Redd Sullivan was a dear friend and protector to me. When I first arrived in London, a young girl folksinger from Canada in 1964, Redd took me under his wing. He housed me and cooked for me and hired me to play regularly at the Troubadour, and never ever took advantage of my loneliness and vulnerability. He was a mountain of a man, a former sailor, with bright red hair and beard and a seemingly bottomless cache of sea shanties and slightly off-colour stories.

He and Martin were not exactly a duo when I knew them. They toured together (and I with them sometimes) and they loved being on a stage together because it gave them an opportunity to trade quips and tease each other. Martin looked like a pirate, with his flowing hair and flowing moustache - tall, slim, elegant, much given to irony - he and the big fella were the perfect foils for one another.

The last time I was in London, in 1990, I spent an afternoon with Redd in a pub overlooking the Thames. We had a lovely visit. I'm so glad I had that time with him, because he was gone soon after - a great loss for so many - the loss of a very loyal, and very kind, friend.

Joanne Crabtree (nee Hindley-Smith)

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Newport Boy
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 12:31 PM

I also enjoyed both of them in the late 50s/early 60s.

A while back I posted Martin's Nicotine Blues. His voice suited the song superbly.

Phil

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 12:46 PM

Two REAL characters - I have fond mremories of Martin and Redd (Who , incidentally was the Guest at the First Folk Night I attended in Hitchin in 1964) . I was also a regular attendee at the Troubadour in the early / Mid seventies !

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Lanfranc
Date: 10 Apr 09 - 05:08 PM

Geez - what memories the photos linked on that MySpace page brought back! Not to mention the tracks from the album (even though I still have it on vinyl, I haven't played it in years).

As a (fairly humble) denizen of the Troubadour from 1966 to 1972, I got to know Redd and Martin well. Redd let me roadie for him from time to time and I even got to act as his accompanist occasionally when Martin was otherwise engaged.

Both Redd and Martin are irreplaceable - and I can't think of anyone equivalent on today's scene.

Alan

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 07:22 AM

before he went to the troperdore martin managed a left wing cafe in carlisle st soho one of its reguler customers was the late Crispin CRISP who was in his blue perod THe partisan ran a folk club in the basement and also encoraged chess playing. Hope this of use

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 09:54 AM

I used to hear Martin and Redd at the Partisan, them and the boy - Long John Baldry. I even sang there one time, courtesy of Alex Campbell who I'd met earlier at another club the same night. I sang Jim MacLean's Maggy's Waddin, and Alex dragged me along to sing it at the Partisan, while Alex laughed like a drain and the audience mostly either didn't get it or did not approve. Martin and Redd featured in a BBC Four Folk Britannia that was rerun on TV a week ago.
My favourite song of Redd's and Matrin's was Sarie, with the immortal verse

Peeping through the knothole in grandma's wooden leg
Who will put the cat out when I'm gone?
You can ride a knitted bicycle down the High Street
Oh, a boy's best friend is his mother

Ewan

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 10:26 AM

The second hand overcoat song, is a setting of Rudyard Kipling's poem

'Cells'

I've a head like a concertina: I've a tongue like a button-stick:
I've a mouth like an old potato, and I'm more than a little sick,
But I've had my fun o' the Corp'ral's Guard:
I've made the cinders fly,
And I'm here in the Clink for a thundering drink
and blacking the Corporal's eye.
With a second-hand overcoat under my head,
And a beautiful view of the yard,
O it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B.
For "drunk and resisting the Guard!"
Mad drunk and resisting the Guard --
'Strewth, but I socked it them hard!
So it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B.
For "drunk and resisting the Guard."

I started o' canteen porter, I finished o' canteen beer,
But a dose o' gin that a mate slipped in, it was that that brought me here.
'Twas that and an extry double Guard that rubbed my nose in the dirt;
But I fell away with the Corp'ral's stock
and the best of the Corp'ral's shirt.

I left my cap in a public-house, my boots in the public road,
And Lord knows where, and I don't care, my belt and my tunic goed;
They'll stop my pay, they'll cut away the stripes I used to wear,
But I left my mark on the Corp'ral's face, and I think he'll keep it there!

My wife she cries on the barrack-gate, my kid in the barrack-yard,
It ain't that I mind the Ord'ly room -- it's ~that~ that cuts so hard.
I'll take my oath before them both that I will sure abstain,
But as soon as I'm in with a mate and gin, I know I'll do it again!
With a second-hand overcoat under my head,
And a beautiful view of the yard,
Yes, it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B.
For "drunk and resisting the Guard!"
Mad drunk and resisting the Guard --
'Strewth, but I socked it them hard!
So it's pack-drill for me and a fortnight's C.B.
For "drunk and resisting the Guard."

I agree that his rendition of it was moving and powrful.

I remember the sweaty little ex coal cellar behind the stage in the Troubador, with the glass 'cobbles in the roof, letting light in from the pavement above.
That's where I first met the Watersons, they had a nice big bottle of wine too ☺
Yup Redd and Martin were a fixture when I first started going to the London Clubs.
Martin's wife Jeannie, used to guard the door and take the money. A lovely Scots lass.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: alanabit
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 10:43 AM

Jeannie has a nice site up at MySpace. She can sing a bit too!

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 11:06 AM

Link please

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 01:18 PM

Martin Windsor was a first rate performer, he was very humourous, and was a first rate entertainer as well as a good singer.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 03:04 PM

The memories imprinted on me when I heard them as a teenager are of Redd Sullivan singing "I live in Trafalgar Square", and Martin Winsor singing "Are you sleeping Maggie?".

Kitty

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Betsy
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 07:33 PM

Lovely thread , Martin and Redd seemed to be inextricably linked , and just to continue Will Fly's note regarding "I live in Trafalgar Square four lions to guard me", and John from Elsie's band , regarding audience "control"
They certainly knew how to put a chorus across………
I remember this from many moons ago at Stockton (North East England) Folk Club …..

I live in Trafalgar Square four lions to guard me,
Fountains and statues all over the place – the Metropole staring me right in the face,
Well I know it's a trifle draughty, but I looks at this way you see,
If it's good enough for Nelson - it's quirt good enough for me

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Jack& Margaret King
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 09:00 AM

Having only recently joined the ranks of the silver surfers may we belatedly add our tribute to messrs Sullivan & Windsor. When we ran the Cellar in the 60s they appeared on many occasions always enter taining and often available to jump into the breach when the booked artist let us down.The combination of Martin's terrific voice and fund of songs from all over plus Redd's irrepressible humour and approach to a song be it blues or music hall always went well with our audience We were honoured to call them friends.Upon their passing Colin Wilkie another good mate wrote songs in tribute to both of them "The captain of the O&O line in which you can hear Redd in every line and "Even oak trees fall" an elegaic tribute to the quieter side of Martin which many people never saw. The folk world is duller for the passing of these two

               Jack & Margaret King

PS> we remember you too Joanne I think you did the Cellar and also the club at Boreham Wood where we were also residents ,didn't you used to sing a song about Blue Nose a schooner ?
    Very kind regards J&M

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Leadfingers
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 01:43 PM

The Cockney Rhyming Slang song 'Tottie' was mentioned earler - it in the DT (of Course) at - http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=6556#2186373

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 02:46 PM

I think that Joanne was the person I may have first heard singing Bluenose, the one written by Dave Martin.
I still sing it occasionally.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Bonnie Haywood
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 12:12 PM

I got to know Martin at the Ilfracombe and Barnstable folk clubs. He was a great singer. My favourite song was The Alamo from Kiplings poem. I have a real to real tape of his songs that he did for me back in the 60's.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: doc.tom
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 05:39 AM

Martin had strong links with the Ilfracombe & Barnstaple clubs. He used to stay with Mollie and Mike Hilson. Both he and Redd were regular guests. He even ran the bar at the Ring O Bells in St. Issey over one Mayday - only time I've seem Mervyn completely stumped! (Not quite true - I've seen Les Barker do it as well).

Martyn set several of Kipling's poems to music, but he had great trouble with the Kipling Society and was unable to record them. It wasn't till years later that Peter Bellamy got them on-side and was able to record his own settings.

First time I met Martin & Redd was at the National Festival when two very young and green country boys - me and John Barnett - went up there 'cause Mervyn Vincent was booked as a guest. Martin & Redd invited us down to the Troub after the weekend, and that was the first time I heard Doc Watson. Barny & I were invited to perform and I remember Martin saying there was a man in the fromt row with a tape recorded - "If there's anything you don't want recorded, I'll make sure he turns it off" (!) This was the man who taught his wife - Jeannie - how to tear telephone directories in half. You didn't argue with Martin.

I once asked Martin why he didn't drive - he avoided details, but somewhere along the line the incident in question resulted in two police cars lodged in shop windows.

I still sing a couple of Redd's songs, including his auto-bigraphical Firing the Mauritania.

Great characters. Happy days.

Tom Brown

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 09:05 AM

The rhyming song Tottie has appeared on a previous thread http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=6556
It was sung by terry yarnell on Argo best of folk 1, still to be had for a song on ebay if you have something to play it on. Interesting time working out the rhyming slang which we are less familiar with these days.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: r.padgett
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 03:50 AM

Heard some interesting stories about Martin who it was said was a sort of "concierge" for rented poperty with some links to certain infamous London characters of the time, maybe!

Martin and Redd were invited to Whitby ff many years ago and were certainly larger than life characters

The stories no doubt abound!

Ray

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Eldergirl
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 06:10 AM

Now was it Martin and Redd who played the Mumford Folk Club at Lufbra Uni in '70/71, where I first heard 'I live in Trafalgar square', or was it matt mcginn and Hamish imlach? Memory playing tricks..

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 06:17 AM

sounds like martin and redd

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: breezy
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 07:10 AM

Chris Flegg has recordings of Redd Martin , And Chris with his Shirley performing to a captive prison audience, i know , i've heard it, the recording of course. They worked a s a group Chris being the musician for em

Fleggy's got lots web pages

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: doc.tom
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 07:12 AM

I Live in Trafalgar Square was certainly a Redd trademark - rather like We Don't Know No-one Wot Don't Want No Nine-inch Nails!

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Ginni Little
Date: 17 Mar 15 - 07:49 AM

One day in the spring of 1963 I was struggling up the Eiger step escalator at Tottenham Court Road tube with Lola, my labrador whippet cross in my arms. Lola was not a small dog so this was not a hands free situation, handbag gripped beneath chin, tube ticket between clenched teeth and bent backwards to balance her weight, I looked like a human Z!
At this point a familliar voice behind me called, "Let me carry something for you," I turned to see Martin Windsor striding up the escalator, an expression of chivalrous concern on his face. On reaching me he beamed, leaned over, and carefully took the ticket from my mouth. Then holding it delicately between forefinger and thumb, moist side outermost, with his hand at eye level (his eye level, not mine, I was bent so far back I could barely see his elbow) we travelled side by side to the escalators top. There he replaced the ticket between my teeth, moist side innermost, gave a gallant little bow and vanished into the crowd.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Mar 15 - 11:00 AM

Barry Skinner used to sing Tottie.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 14 Jul 16 - 09:45 PM

Martin Windsor was born Martin Page, the son of an Irish man named Fred Page. I know little about him, except that he married my mother in the 1950s at Colchester cathedral - he was a guardsman in the Coldstream Guards at the time. She left him in 1959 because he used to drink a lot and beat her. They had 2 children, Martyn (born 1956), and Lee (female, born 1958, although she died as a baby). My half-brother Martyn looks very much like his father, although he doesn't sport a beard!

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 15 Jul 16 - 04:55 AM

My wife and I used to go regularly to Gloucester Folk Club at the Quay Inn (both long gone!) One week, which as usual started with chorus songs, there was this great deep voice joining in from the back - Martin Windsor, who was the guest, and sang as I recall a great selection of funny and tuneful songs. A great night!

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Dave Arthur
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 11:13 AM

I am working on a history of Soho, London, in the 1950s and early 60s and would welcome any more information on Martin Winsor and Redd Sullivan. I knew them and worked with them but there are so many more stories and anecdotes concerning the pair of them that I would love to hear. Funny stories, personal memories of things said or done. Impressions of either of them -physically, temperamentally, as performers? Anecdotes of Soho in general at the time - the pubs cafes, clubs, characters, bookshops, etc. Any memories and impressions that will help bring the place alive and why it was such an interesting and important place in the 50s and 60s.
Your first visit? Your residency there?
Names of people who were around in Soho at the time -not just the singers but local colourful characters such as Iron-foot Jack, Quentin Crisp, King David etc.
The Star Restaurant? The Nucleus? The Partisan? The SkiffleCellar? Jimmie's Cafe? The A&A? The Gs,
Get your thinking caps on, and trawl your memories. In a few years many of these memories will be lost forever! You can email me at [[e-mail]]. as well as here on Mudcat.
This won't take as long as the Bert Lloyd biog - I haven't got that many years to spare!
Wishing you all that's best -Dave

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 11:21 AM

Sorry - the email adress didn't print! This won't take as long as the Bert Lloyd biog, was a comment not my email address! But track me down at 'storyart' at America On Line dot com.

Whether this is acceptable, I don't know?

Best - Dave

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 11:41 AM

try contacting martin carthy he lives in robin hoods bay.
lead fingers terry silver might have info too

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 12:06 PM

I seem to remember Terry telling me that due to being in the services, he missed a lot of that London scene, although I could be wrong.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 12:48 PM

Martin and Redd were regular guests at the Songsmiths Folk Club back in the day. We managed to get them both together for the club's tenth anniversary, and Martin came out with this great piece of audience participation .

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Dave Arthur
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 02:05 PM

Thanks Steve, That's wonderful.

Best, Dave

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: vectis
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 05:42 PM

Ah yes. Nights at the Troubadour followed by a pint at Covent Garden and then a lunchtime session at St Martin in the Fields crypt. Them were the days.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: vectis
Date: 07 Jul 18 - 04:50 AM

I have a copy of Redd, Martin and others from The Troubadour somewhere (probably a pirate copy as I was an impoverished student in those days. I met Brixton Bert there and re-met him 30+years later when we became friends.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,Len Kennington
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 05:31 AM

There is film footage of Sullivan & Windsor in concert around 1970.They are performing "O Mary don't you Weep" and "Sloop John B"
this may be from a TV documentary, but I can't figure out what the TV show or film might be - anyone know it (Isla Cameron & Pete Seeger also do some numbers) ?

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 09:07 AM

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 09:08 AM

Sorry, clicked the wrong thing again. Some nice elf please delete me.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: GUEST,CJB666
Date: 31 Aug 20 - 05:29 PM

'Les Cousins' was famous in Soho...

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/3rr5ksgmhe7jc/Les+Cousins+-+Soho

====

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 02:38 AM

Yes, I spent my teenage years there Derek Brimstone played boogie piano.

Subject: RE: Tell Me About Martin Windsor
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 05:03 AM

Used to go to the Friday night all-nighters.