Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Frank Lee Date: 07 Aug 11 - 10:11 AM Will Pound once complimented me on this thread, but after attending a Haddo concert at Sidmouth (Will & Nicky Pound), It behoves me to return the compliment. Will must be pretty near the top when it comes to all-round ability with the G/D system. He just appears to think through the instrument! And unlike some - he uses both ends of it! |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser) Date: 26 Apr 11 - 06:07 AM My mate Clive Williams is pretty good. For Irish style C#D playing, Anita Rochford from Liverpool. Donna Harkin from Letterkenny is, for my money, the equal of any player - she was born in England so I'll include her (though I don't know if she'll thank me!). |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: melodeonboy Date: 08 Jan 11 - 02:03 PM Yes, Ed Rennie! A cracking player! I knew someone had been missed out and I couldn't remember who! |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Old Vermin Date: 08 Jan 11 - 01:41 PM Worth mentioning Ed Rennie, I reckon. I was lucky enough to have him playing in may local session way back in the early 90s. The Bismarcks were arguably the best ceilidh band ever. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jan 11 - 01:23 PM http://ie.youtube.com/user/cathycook1 |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Our Jud Date: 08 Jan 11 - 11:03 AM Paul young and john spiers. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,antiziorikzar of bath Date: 01 Oct 10 - 12:29 PM Are we talking sport or music ? Who really gives a f. . . about who's best ? Those who can develop their own style, innovate and compose original music for melodeon that doesn't sound like the usual tedious, cliched E minor stuff you hear on them, is a decent player in my opinion. The majority of players i have heard in this country could do well to learn a single row and play 6 different keys on it and also make a 3 row sound like a piano accordion as well as a melodeon. Try Tim Edey, now we're talking. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,LDT Date: 14 Jun 10 - 07:56 AM Looks at list, then looks at facebook friends list....Okay this could be awkward... Its too hard i'd end up with a very long list. Diplomatic answer anyone who isn't me who's a melodeon player. ;) |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Martin Ellison Date: 14 Jun 10 - 06:18 AM Mr Red: The button accordion JK plays remains a button accordion whatever notes it plays. The melodeons (both one and two rows) that JK plays are melodeons and, for my money, he is one of the very best and an inspiration. Martin |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Mr Red Date: 14 Jun 10 - 06:11 AM JK (a notsominor deity) usually plays a button accordion. But making different notes (on the right hand) in/out does that make it a melodeon? |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Arthur_itus Date: 13 Jun 10 - 01:13 PM Agree with Dunc about Paul Young, but don't forget that he is a seriously good guitar player and his fiddle playing is coming on in leaps and bounds. I don't know if John (Fiddlers Green) Conolly has been mentioned but if not he plays a mean melodeon. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,FloraG Date: 13 Jun 10 - 10:51 AM I was at Whitby a couple of years ago and heard a melodeon player accompany a youth group of morris in the showcase. It was not any of the really well known people mentioned above - I've heard most of them - but it was an ace performance. I'm sorry I don't know his name - someone might - but I have never heard anyone playing a tune that fitted a dance so well. Does anyone know who he might be? Flora ( an average melodeon player ). |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: alex s Date: 13 Jun 10 - 08:06 AM played with Peter Snape last night - he was ACE! |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Green Man Date: 13 Jun 10 - 07:16 AM Pete Grassby, he's the man who knows the instrument inside and out. John K of course and my old mentor John Yair. GM |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Mark Stevens Date: 13 Jun 10 - 07:02 AM it has to be Mark ye Morris. Highly regarded around this locality, nobody comes close to this populist virtue oh-soo .. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,John Date: 13 Jun 10 - 06:42 AM Julian Sutton has to be one of the top melodeon players in the UK |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Alan Day Date: 06 Apr 10 - 05:57 PM I am going to add Mel Stevens to the above names X Rosbif At home with English and French music a brilliant all round musician Al |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,guest just back from the pub Date: 06 Apr 10 - 05:04 PM Dave Jolly. Lovely player. Great musician. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Ebor_fiddler Date: 06 Apr 10 - 04:48 PM Yes, Paul Young (aka "Lost Busker") is a marvellous player now and will certainly get even better. Take notice of Hipflask Andy etc - remember you heard of Paul here first (don't be embarassed if you are reading this Paul - you are that good!) |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Ian Gill Date: 06 Apr 10 - 04:21 PM I've seen most of the players mentioned, listened to nearly all of them and played with a fair few. Here are two more names; Rees Wesson and Paul Havell. For my money, as a mere guitarist, Rees plays like Jimi Hendrix or Paddy Keenan, wild and free, but Paul is the Peter Green, taste, touch and timing. He should be better known. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,HipflaskAndy sans cookie today Date: 06 Apr 10 - 01:54 PM All the usual expected/established fine players mentioned above - damn fine! Kirkpat/Care/Rose/Whitby-Parky(bless!)/Turner/Spiers/Cutting/Van Ey/ Bri Peters....and on.... excellent! But here's one to watch for - came out of Gainsboro, now based in York - one Paul Young. There's a young lad that's sure made me sit up and take note. It aint easy for a young lad like that to get the work - and he's trying to be a pro muso - Hope he blossoms forth, sticks with it - and that you all get to hear him. - Dunc |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Old Roger Date: 06 Apr 10 - 12:59 PM I'd vote for Steve Collins who used to play with the band "Shave The Monkey" but now leads a more academic and cloistered life and plays with the completely unknown band "Too Many Whickers". A few lucky souls get to hear him play around where he lives. Stunningly good player. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: alex s Date: 06 Apr 10 - 11:04 AM Peter Snape (Chorley, UK) is a great accompanist as well as soloist - he's that rare find, a sensitive melodeon player |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: The Sandman Date: 06 Apr 10 - 08:12 AM I like this too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKrulqVhN_M&feature=related |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Herga Kitty Date: 05 Apr 10 - 06:53 PM And Saul Rose, though he was still in his pushchair in 1975... Kitty |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Herga Kitty Date: 05 Apr 10 - 06:51 PM Andy Cutting... whom I've known for at least 35 years. He played a mean triangle too Kitty |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: The Sandman Date: 05 Apr 10 - 05:05 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqYME9cQDsY |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: The Sandman Date: 05 Apr 10 - 05:02 PM and here she is again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBbt1EwsZWc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4-KRQmg6vk |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: The Sandman Date: 05 Apr 10 - 04:53 PM here is one of my favourite melodeon players; cathy cook http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb9QbQODEB8 |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: mattkeen Date: 05 Apr 10 - 04:15 PM andy cutting |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Will Pound Date: 04 Apr 10 - 09:53 PM Id say Frank Lee and Matt Crum were 2 of the best around atm...but so many great's to chose from. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Greg B Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:48 PM All of this reminds me of what I love about the instrument, which has been my personal fascination for quite a long time now. Thing is, with the English box (no disrespect to the B/C, C#/D, and other chromatic players) is that everyone comes at the thing in their own way. My theory is that an extended period of willing or unwilling celibacy and long evenings at home is actually required in order to really get the good out of the box. Oh, those in stable relationships can master basic chordal song accompaniments, but the ones who put the "melody" in "melodeon" probably did so in the company of nothing warmer than a sixer of ale for a period of months or years. You would, for example, never mistake Tony Hall from our Martin Ellison, nor the latter for Rod Stradling or (again) our Brian Peters. And Kirkpatrick's got his own thing going. It's precisely the ambiguity of the instrument which makes it so much more like the guitar than the piano (both of which I also play). I've stolen a couple of tunes from our Martin, but if we sat down across from one another and played them, we'd probably both end up wide-eyed and saying "you finger that passage like THAT?!?" Or "hold on...what did you just do THERE?" The fourths-tuned boxes are nothing if not ambiguous. Watch two good players playing in D on a D/G boxes and you'll likely find that sometimes one is pressing and the other drawing. Not so much in G --- those inner rows are stickier, but the outer row, aye, that's where the magic happens. That's the fun, really. Working it out. Discovering the syncopation of a bellows reversal in the midst of a button change that makes a little 'grace' note when deliberately mis-timed. Three for the price of two, that is. There's no other instrument that I've played, other than perhaps the 5-string banjo, where "practicing" is really such great joy of discovery, as you never know when, in a tune you've played 1000 times, a little quirky cross will accidentally appear and make you say, "where have YOU been all my life?" There is so much of the mental, intellectual in these things, but then an equal measure of 'muscle memory' required to execute it. This is the instrument where 'mistakes' have the potential to become brilliant additions to the capabilities. Mathematically, they're 'shaped' like Western music-- 1-4-5 circle of fifths ascending and descending, the relative minor. Years of music theory and I didn't really "get" it until I played the D/G box. Physically, that translates into magic for the sort of music for which they're meant. Which I guess was the point of the inventors...they wanted something that the 'unwashed masses' would buy and be able to honk out the music that was meant for them. Only along the way, because they designed it to be a natural sound-producer for 1-4-5 music, they got more than they, and we, bargained for. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: irishenglish Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:16 PM Rod Stradling. Also, two older gents whom I believe haven't been mentioned yet-Oscar Woods and Font Whatling |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 08 - 11:13 AM DOXY |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: LesB Date: 11 Jun 08 - 09:09 AM I'll second Frank Lee. Cheers Les |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: banjoman Date: 11 Jun 08 - 06:56 AM "And then there was the late great Rip Ripingale" the only melodeon player who had an "Oh Sh!!t" button fitted. He knew three tunes which all sounded the same.Had a habit of suddenly forgetting the tune and going back to the beginning, which left our local NW team poised precariously with one foot in the air till he got back to the bit he had forgotten. Otherwise a great actor who could convince some people that he really could play. Used to suddenly develop Carpal Tunnel or RSI when any tune he didn't know was asked for. I know because I suffered trying to play alongside him till we finally gave him a snare drum to play - what a great mistake that was - but thats another story. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Sue Allan Date: 05 Jun 08 - 06:27 PM Frank Lee, better known as the rapper and longsword maker of choice is a fantastic melodeon player ... although most people only hear him playing for morris (and sword, appalachian, clog) where his talents don't shine so much. He plays bass butons chord that I'm sure aren't really there ... |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: treewind Date: 05 Jun 08 - 05:54 PM Funnily enough, Roger Watson used to work as a duo with Colin Cater a long time ago. I'm not sure which of them played melodeon then - Colin's got a photo (in his downstairs loo, I've seen it) of him and Roger looking much younger - and Colin is holding... a tin whistle, which is an instrument I've never heard him play. Anahata |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Howard Jones Date: 05 Jun 08 - 05:38 PM "the only melodeon player i've ever seen in a duo context leading the singing"? OK the "I've ever seen" bit is a get-out, but what about: John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris John K and Martin Carthy John K and pretty much anyone Pete and Chris Coe Colin and Karen Cater I'm fairly sure Roger Watson's worked in some duos over the years and that's just for starters Extending it beyond duos, besides the above there's John Jones with the Oysters, Keith Hancock (and me) with the Electropathics... PS this isn't intended to denigrate Hazel Askew, by the way, simply to point out that it's not unusual for a melodeon player to lead the singing. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: treewind Date: 05 Jun 08 - 08:39 AM Hazel's the melodeon player, Emily's the fiddler. But apart from that, fully agreed - great talent there! Marilyn - [excuse my blushes] the cheque's in the post!!! Anahata |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,claire jewell Date: 05 Jun 08 - 08:24 AM I'll place another vote down for young Nick Cooke too. His new "proper" job has meant that he has had to leave the Jim Moray Trio for a bit, but I think he will still be appearing with him at sidmouth and shrewsbury. And with his ceilidh bands trinculo and glorystrokes (the latter are at warwick, towersey and shrewsbury - if you ever want to see two amazing melodeon players (Nick and Richard Arrowsmith) encompased in a heavy metal / glam rock band these gigs shouldn't be missed!) I'd also like to put in a vote for young emily askew - she's the only melodeon player i've ever seen in a duo context leading the singing whilst accompianing with melodeon, she does it in quite a unique way - and she's got a gorgeous voice too. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Black Diamond Date: 05 Jun 08 - 07:40 AM what about Paul Scourfield, who also does a mean workshop |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: The Sandman Date: 05 Jun 08 - 04:15 AM http://ie.youtube.com/user/cathycook1 heres a good player |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Marilyn Date: 05 Jun 08 - 03:41 AM I am 'owned' by a couple of melodeons that I am learning to play so this thread interested me even though I don't like the term 'best' this or that. My own favourites are (in no particular order) John Spiers John Kirkpatrick Anahata Tony Weatherall I haven't heard some of the others mentioned above so couldn't comment. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,Guest Date: 04 Jun 08 - 05:57 PM It was a typing error right at the beginning. It should have said Chris Cole, although he is possibly marginally better at melodeon throwing! |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Fidjit Date: 04 Jun 08 - 04:03 PM Well from '03 to '08 And I don't see Issy Emney here. Until now of course. Simon Care and Saul Rose. John K too. All good. Nick Barber too. Good man. Now Anahata, among other things, plays a mean box. What about Derek Tarrant of Tarrantella now theres one. Bill Mckinnon too, can give it six. Chas |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Acorn4 Date: 04 Jun 08 - 03:51 PM The Melodeons Are Coming Strange portents are seen in the skies Ill omens they are borne And naked Morris Dancers make crop circles in the corn A comet races through the sky, foreboding on the wind Strange conjunctions of the planets, these are bad times my friend There's chaos on the stock exchange, panic at the ports The mormons are on their mobile phones, forces on red alert Supermarket shelves are empty but the churches have full pews TV schedules rearranged to get the latest news I do not speaqk of nuclear war or asteroid attack Ofsted inspectors, bubonic plague, no it's far far worse than that Not the Martians, not the Daleks, Anne Widdecombe or mad cow And even Nostradamus did not foresee what's happening now Oh, they came down in their spacecraft, one hot summer's night Hideous leering aliens with a green unearthly light Some had one row of knobs on, and some had two or three But all were justv as deadly to the likes of you and me Oh, they breathed through dreadful bellows, through which the air was blown Destroying all things in their path with a hideous piercing moan With that dreadful mission statement from the planet of their birth Saying "death to all things musical that are upon the earth " The melodeons are coming, cover up your ears my friends When you hear their ghastly wailing carried on the wind The melodeons have landed and its very plain to see That this is the way the world will end.... All in the key of D ! Although they have no life themselves they exist as parasites Arttach themselves to a human host for all his natural life They look so harmless in their cases lying over there But pick one up and gorgon like it will fix you with a stare "Oh, pick me up and play me," and no man can resist As they weld themselves forever between the victim's fists His muscles go into spasm, his eyes go all aglazed Condemned to play endless tunes for the rest of his days Those tunes go round in circles, everybody plays the same No one can step out of line in this deathly game It's no good trying to put one down, you will find you can't Stuck for eternity playing tunes that all sound like Nellie the Elephant. It starts off with just one in the corner, with himself he will play But like a cuckoo in the nest drives all other instruments away And like a siren lures other poor mortals to their doom And soon you'll have 150 of the buggers all playing in one room They mutate like a virus spreding at the speed of light Drag in more hapless victims to feed teir appetite Stike fear into the bravest hearts, put a chill into the soul Ithink I just saw one swallow a concertina whole The melodeons are coming, cover up your ears my friends When you hear their ghastly wailing carried on the wind The melodeons have landed and its very plain to see That this is the way the world will end.... All in the key of D ! ( or G .. apparently ??) They gather round in workshops, world dominance to plan Not content till they possess control of every man A farewell to all intercourse, conversation is all done Communicate by nods and grunts in between the tunes You can't fight them on the beaches or flee to the mountains high Only to put off the day when the spider gets the fly They can penetrate solid concrete, ferret in the deepest holes Till in the end we're caught in a trap like rabbits, rats or moles For the victims there is no way back there can be no release Not even a stake driven through the heart can bring them inner peace Till death comes as a welcome friend to take away their pain As they all meet their final end from repetitive strain The melodeons are coming, cover up your ears my friends When you hear their ghastly wailing carried on the wind The melodeons have landed and its very plain to see That this is the way the world will end.... All in the key of D ! (repeat chorus) |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: irishenglish Date: 04 Jun 08 - 03:25 PM Can't argue with any listed here, but I'll add one no one has mentioned. Might be lost amongst the volume, but John Jones of the Oysterband isn't too shabby. I will say when I think of this first name, hands down is John Kirkpatrick. |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: Valmai Goodyear Date: 04 Jun 08 - 03:11 PM Perhaps this is too far ahead for your current diaries, but Brian Peters is doing an all-day melodeon workshop at the Lewes Arms folk club on Saturday 28th. February 2009 and Tim Edey is doing one on Saturday 10th. October 2009. As always, the tutor performs at the Lewes Arms in the evening. Valmai (Lewes) |
Subject: RE: UK's best Melodeon players From: GUEST,JohnB Date: 03 Jun 08 - 08:57 PM Being in the Colonies, the best I have personally seen/heard live. In no particular order. Well Known Andy Cutting Saul Rose Richard Arrowsmith Brian Peters John Spiers Pete Coe Not so well known Paul Morris Doug Eunson JohnB |
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