So long Tom and thanks for ...

Subject: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: henryclem
Date: 26 May 09 - 06:06 AM

Last night's closing concert at Chippenham - until then it was as if it hadn't sunk in. It seemed to me that everyone in the hall (including the stage) shared the sudden realisation that this was indeed the end.

Napper and Bliss as a duo, and you, Tom, as performer, creator, tireless and committed standard bearer for the music we all love, have made a huge contribution to the folk movement over the past few years and you will be much missed.

I'm sorry I didn't see you afterwards to express my gratitude for the
encouragement you've given me personally. It was really something that so many of my friends sought me out at the interval and showed how they shared my pride in hearing my own song championed and performed so movingly. That was an expression of the true community we both belong to and which I believe, though you may no longer be performing regularly, will always hold you.

Thanks for everything - every success - and stay friends!

Cheers
Henry

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 May 09 - 06:17 AM

The Toms will be doing Islington end-of-term party on 25 June.

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 26 May 09 - 06:31 AM

I'm sorry you are leaving the folk scene too, Tom. I may have only heard you the once but you struck me as an artist (OK I suppose my own tastes come in to it but...) who could really bridge the "trad/contemporary" divides with your music, who (in this small venue, I gather you did big ones too) could turn a room into people sort of sitting by the fireside listening to stories and above all, a thorough professional.

I'm glad I was able to both listen to and briefly chat to you as a performer (as well as knowing you as someone to "argue with" ;-) on Internet forums).

I wish you all the best for the future.

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: Joe G
Date: 26 May 09 - 08:31 AM

Best wishes Tom - come back soon, your country needs your songs & stories! Hope the new project works out well.

Joe

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:06 AM

For the sake of your Yank cousins who may wonder who Tom is: click here.

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: open mike
Date: 26 May 09 - 10:54 PM

thanks for filling in the blanks, kat, m'dear.
good luck to the Toms...

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 27 May 09 - 03:42 AM

The folk scene is losing one of it's best voices, not just in singing, story-telling and musicianship, but a voice which spoke out about so many things that could change for the better in the folk world. And Tom has a voice that always speaks out in the most intelligent and courteous way.

Good luck, Tom and keep making your beautiful music.

Loads of Tom's videos here to watch:
Tom's Youtube page

PS: Tom, 'Boat to Burhou' doesn't seem to be working on there at present.

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 27 May 09 - 04:44 AM

Seems to be working now, Lizzie.

Thanks all for your kind comments, including those on the Chipfest thread. It was certainly a brilliant weekend for us, and a fitting climax to our careers as a festival duo. We do have a few more club gigs, Beverley, St Neots, Faversham, Islington (thanks Diane) and Kingswinford 22-26 June, and I have solo gigs until Gainsborough on July 17, including Cleckheaton and Spratton Festivals.

It was fortuitous that over the weekend I managed to bump into a huge number of my friends (singers, players, organisers and listeners from every corner of the folk world) who wished me well and said kind things about That Infamous Article - about which I was specially relieved to get support from some Very Senior People).

It's almost easier to count the key people I didn't see! Sorry to have had only the briefest word with Brian Peters (excellent workshop with the utterly wonderful George P, thanks Brian) and to have merely passed Jonny and Vicky on the M6 somewhere, but the number of people who've become important to me who I saw last weekend was almost spoooooky in its approaching-completeness. (Thanks for coming to Chesterfield; Muppitz and Jools xx). Heck, even Perry with whom I worked my passage to New Zealand in 1973 turned up!

And the one person (that I know of :-) who feels, probably correctly, I'm a loose cannon in the folk world, even had the tact to absent himself during our sets! (Thank you, Sir - you know who you are).

My apologies for loosing it at the finish. I always choke up when introducing Turn and Face the Wind (which is why Tom always sings it) but then so would anyone who knows the full story behind Sacha's miraculous escape. Knowing it was the last time we'd sing it together on a big stage was bad enough, but the real killer was that I'd also been about to thank Craig Morgan Robson for singing Crossing the Bar for me.

I feel I should explain why I'd requested it. When, last summer, I was mistakenly but in good faith diagnosed with a terminal illness and given just a few weeks to live, and had that most difficult of conversations about funeral plans with me wife, it was CMR singing Crossing the Bar that I most hoped she might want to have as I slid behind the blue curtains. In those dark days that song was with me most of the time, and I'd thought I'd never hear them sing it again in this life, so sitting cross-legged at the back of the hall, as those sublime harmonies on that magnificent tune, with Tennyson's haunting words so perfectly sung, I had been silently sobbing my little heart out! (To make matters worse, Damo and Mike did The Joy of Living, which was my other choice!)

So I hope you'll forgive me if my voice cracked a little at the moment I least wanted it too.

So many other things happened... Mavis supplying the name of Mary Prout's husband (and yes, he could even have been Rhoda's father!), and such wonderful music from the other guests - golly how good are Flossy and Keith getting?!

Sorry - enough. I'll put the rest in my next blog!

Tom

PS On a lighter note: THE PIE POEM IS FINALLY ON YOUTUBE (with captions) - follow Lizzie's link.

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:22 PM

Tom, I am *so* glad the diagnosis was wrong. That must have been such an emotional time for you, and yet, it brings with it a richness, because life is never quite the same again, even though you're well, because everything becomes even more precious. Well done you for getting through it all. x

Oh...just...BRILLIANT, Tom!! Absolutely Brilliant! LOL
Tom's 'PIE'


That must have taken you AGES!

'Beer, Beer, Maida Vale'..I love it! :0)

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:52 PM

and yet, it brings with it a richness, because life is never quite the same again,

Sorry for the non music interlude but, Have you been there in any way, Lizzie? I think we all react differently to these things, although I do belive life is never quite the same again.

Mine was not the first drink episode where I fitted and was rushed into hospital but the second episode where I'd given up on everything including life itself.

It's quite weird looking around a room, seeing all your possessions, eg. mandolin and not being able (though at one time I could on a litre of spirit!) to play it, to look around it all and ponder its worthlessness to me.

I didn't come out of that one with a richness but it was my second (the first was putting my faith in music and finding that wash away when I fell in lust with another musician... music and my dedication to some extent left me [genuinely, once I think I could have become "good" instead of a "get by" session hacker], it was never the same after a breakdown and a trip to a mental hospital) sort of major brush with (OK, my beliefs) building a house on the sand.

I feel poorer for it but maybe one day it will all make sense. Maybe not...

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 27 May 09 - 07:55 PM

Yes, of course I've been there, and it's one of the reasons why life, and music, give me so much joy.

I have always enjoyed Tom's music. He has an absolute gift for storytelling and for songwriting. I also have a great deal of respect for his outlook about life and about the folk world.

He was in Sidmouth recently, for a house concert, but I only found out about it the day before he was due to play, and sadly, already had other arrangements which I was unable to change, but I got to see him play at Sidmouth Folk Week some time back and heard him tell the story of, and sing, 'Turn and Face The Wind'...I ended up sending that story out to a myspace friend in China, who, with his wife, was in the process of trying to adopt a little Chinese baby girl over there, after she'd been found in a box at the end of their street.

Lyrics to 'Turn and Face The Wind'

Tom worked damn hard in the folk world. He wrote some of the most interesting and intelligent pieces about this world, both on here and on the BBC board. He sees very clearly how it needs to change, and what it needs to survive, and he's always been so positive in his outlook about it.

As I said, I have a great deal of respect for Tom Bliss.

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 08:57 PM

I also had one bad spell in the middle Lizzie. Was broken at the time but at least that did prompt me to write some tunes. This was the one for her (which I may have given before, so sorry if that's the case). Jayne's Jig

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 28 May 09 - 04:02 AM

Wow - a four-parter! I kept waiting for the mandolin to come in! Nice tune, and I like the way you've built it up. Even better on real instruments with that jig-lurch that TN does so well - wonder if I could persuade him to learn it? Do you have the dots Jon?

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 28 May 09 - 05:50 AM

Thanks Tom. Here's an abc for the main part. You could use our abc converter to get that to dots. I agree re real instruments. Some (not me) can make a midi sound human (midi does allow for fine timing adjustments, different strengths of hitting notes, etc.) but even then, it's nice to hear someones real interpretation and feeling.

X: 1
T:Jayne's Jig
C:Jon Freeman
O:England
O:Wales
R:Jig
Z:Jon Freeman
M:6/8
L:1/8
Q:1/4=190
K:D
dAF FGA|BdB AFD|BGB AFA|EFG ABc|
dAF DEF|GAB AFD|GAB AFD|1 GEC D2c :|2 GEC DAc |:
dAf ece|dcB AFD|GAB AFD|GFE EFA|
dAf ece|dcB AFD|GAB AFD|1 GEC DFA :|2 GEC DEF |:
GFE EFG|AGF FGA|BGB AFA|GFE EFG|
GFE EFG|AGF FGA|BdB AFA|1 GEC DEF :|2 GEC DFA|:
dfd cec|BdB Adf|bag fed|efe ecA|
dfd cec|BdB Adf|bag fed|1 eBc dBc :|2 eBc d2A|]

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 28 May 09 - 07:03 AM

Sorry I seem to have taken over your thread, Tom/Lizzie but I just got thinking about the Mudcat midis

here is a good jig by Jeri, "Frosty's Denial".

I did try to arrange another of Jeri's (Farewell To Reason) together with this one but sort of got stuck/run out of ideas. I see the resualt is still there though. here

Subject: RE: So long Tom and thanks for ...
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 28 May 09 - 07:41 AM

Oh and just rediscovered (I had them all on a floppy I lost/wrecked. Only survivors existed elsewhere) by Pip in an email archive. Might prove my head is not always folk influenced. Listening to it now, it sounds more computer games influenced than anything else.

Karen/mid