reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???

Subject: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: rich-joy
Date: 13 May 03 - 02:24 AM

Hi. Does any 'catter have any info on this songwriting duo???

Reina Sutcliffe is credited with writing the Mary Hopkin "hit" : "Water, Paper and Clay" - sometimes Mike Sutcliffe is also credited; plus, any info on the song???

NB : lyrics are on The 'Cat under "Water, Fire and Clay" thread title.

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 May 03 - 10:10 PM

G'day rich-joy,

What period ... indeed, what country? (Merely asking because there was a Mike Sutcliffe about in Sydney 'folkie' circles some decades back.)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 May 03 - 10:25 PM

G'day again rich'joy,

Hmmm ... probably not the Mike Sutcliffe you seek. I now recall that this one's speciality is history of recorded music. I do see he copped a gong from the Australian Sound Recordists Association in 2001 for his histories and discographies (but not for song-writing!).

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: rich-joy
Date: 15 May 03 - 02:56 AM

Thanks Bob!
I presume that the Mike and Reina Sutcliffe I need info on, are English - but I have NO evidence to support that!!

Mary Hopkin chose to record the song "Water, Paper and Clay" (copywrite with Essex) on her 1971 Apple album "Earth Song, Ocean Song", simply because she "liked it very much", but I don't know from where she obtained it.

Curiously, the only other reference I can find to it, is on a South Australian recording by Judith Crossley (apparently available via Folktrax) - she of the "Coonawarra Has 3 Shadows" fame!!

So, you never know ...

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 May 03 - 04:31 AM

G'day R-J,

I'll see if I can dig up a contact for this Mike Sutcliffe. I actually have snail mail to and from him ... from a decade or two back about Wattle Recordings, the seminal Australian 'Folk Revival' label ... and I have a few new questions, so I should renew my acquaintance.

If I do contact him ... I guess that a meticulous historian and discographer of the Jazz and Folk scenes ... might just know about a songwriter of the same name (if not himself!). Unfortunately, my search did not indicate any web site - or even email.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: rich-joy
Date: 16 May 03 - 06:21 AM

Cheers Bob!
R-J

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: GUEST,Stephen_C
Date: 06 Oct 15 - 05:01 PM

Eleven years later and a response with firm information.

Reina Sutcliffe was born Reina James (the name she has reverted to). She is now known as a novelist.

She talks about her marriage to Mike Sutcliffe here: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/11/reina-james-author-family

By 1970 she was living in Cornwall and knew Clive Palmer. She contributed backing vocals for Clive's Original Band album 'Spirit of Love' which is probably how she met Ralph McTell (who was the producer). I believe that it was Ralph who passed 'Water, Paper & Clay' on to Mary Hopkin. It's the only composition of hers that has been professionally recorded. I'd guess she originally offered it to Clive.

She subsequently married Ginger Marks from the Dirty Pants Band and for the past 24 years has been married to Mike Reinstein, with whom she occasionally performs in a band called Out of the Hat in the Brighton area.

She talks about her childhood here: https://vimeo.com/5095134

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 06 Oct 15 - 10:46 PM

GUEST, Stephen C. - thanks so much for the info!

I, for one, had wondered who they were ever since I bought Mary Hopkin's album (Earth Song/Ocean Song), God-knows-how-many years ago. I could only find one reference online in a book somewhere that she hung out with Jimi Hendrix at some point. Nothing else.

So, Reina is the daughter of actor Sidney James, who I remember from all those Carry On films back in the 1960's. Interesting.

Interesting also, that in The Guardian article, she never once mentioned Mike Sutcliffe by name.


Jay

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 07:26 AM

I used to know them back in the late sixties, early seventies, back at the time when she didn't "own up" to who her father was. They both worked in my local HMV record shop in Putney, and had a house in nearby Wandsworth which was a bit of a hub for local musicians. They seemed very “grown up” to me at the time although they were only a few years older. At that point they had a band, very influenced by The Band, called Down In Flood, though they didn't do many gigs. I met them through the record shop and used to go for jam sessions at their house. Reina mainly played piano and sang, and Mike (Sutcliffe aka "Suts") mostly played banjo, their guitarist was a friend of members of Soft Machine and King Crimson, and I later played in a band with him briefly, playing prog rock! As soon as I met her I recognised Reina from the cover of Electric Ladyland, she's at the back of the front cover behind the black girl. She was always a bit embarrassed about this at the time. I don't think she ever lived in Cornwall, she did move to Thames Ditton on the outskirts of London in the early seventies, I think with a guy in the year below me at school. I’ve no idea how they met, but this was a story I heard. I was Ralph McTell's bass player in 1970, for gigs and couple of albums and a friend of John Bidwell of COB, who I think I met through Reina, but from when he lived in London. At that time there were a lot of links between the South West London folk scene and Cornwall kicked off by Wizz Jones. I played bass (and piano) on the Spirit Of Love album and thought this was where Reina met Clive. I think it’s correct that this is where the Mary Hopkin's connection was, possibly via Tony Visconti who produced Ralph's album Easy around this time. We last crossed paths in the nineties when she had become an author and I was a graphic designer on BBC2 arts program The Late Show.

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: rich-joy
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 06:43 PM

WoW! Love Mudcat! Thank you so much to the two 2015 posters and now 2021's.

Back in 2003, I was interested bcoz I was involved in a project that wanted to use the song, amongst many others, in an outdoor theatre fire show (during the Kidz Lantern Parade, if I remember correctly!), and the singer we chose ended up keeping the song in her rep for a while.
It really was "another lifetime", LoL!!

Good to hear Reina is still writing. Thanks again for the background.

Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 08 Jan 21 - 10:59 AM

Talking Pictures (Freeview 081 here in the UK) featured Reina James talking about her father, Sid, this morning @ 7.40am.

She also talks about her own life.

a little late but hopefully it'll be repeated.

Subject: RE: reina sutcliffe (and mike) - any info???
From: GUEST,Martin Dibley
Date: 26 May 21 - 05:12 PM

About seventy years ago I had guitar lessons from Mike Sutcliffe in Putney, south London. During one lesson he played me a track from Mary Hopkins latest LP which he played on. He did not say whether they wrote it.