35 f T
here were also regular research pilgrimages to Cecil Sharp House. “I first heard the record- ings of Willie Taylor in the sound library there. I won’t tell you how I got them out of the sound library into my repertoire. That’s a trade secret only known to me and Rod Stradling and Ashley Hutchings. There were some recordings of Willie Taylor, made by Peter Kennedy from the ’50s released by Topic on the Holy Ha’penny LP and I inferred from the sleevenotes that Willie had passed on. I was doing a work- shop at Whitby in the early ’70s and I said ‘here’s a couple of tunes from the late Willie Taylor’ and a voice came from the back ‘Willie is sometimes late but he was alright when I saw him last week’. To my delight he was still around and playing wonderful tunes better than ever. I met up with him at various festivals. One of the memories I treasure most was at a ceilidh the old Drill Hall in Sidmouth. There was Willie, Billy [Atkinson] and Joe [Hutton] and I think Sue Bainbridge on piano and Ken Lees on banjo and I was the caller and played with them as well. What a privilege! I still play a lot of their tunes.”
There’s no stopping the flow of anec- dotes now as Pete talks of his storytelling classes, Portsmouth, West Bromwich Albion and Preston North End football clubs and drops the startling news that he’ll be playing a rock’n’roll show at Whitby this summer. This inspires a flood of stories about his rock roots…
“I had no music training. I was a
choirboy. Then at 14 I discovered the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly and
fun, I like this.’ It was a great singing club. That’s been a big influence on me all me working life because you weren’t a passive audience, you were there to join in and be a part of it. First guest I saw there was Louis Killen.You didn’t really hear regional accents then and I’d never heard a Northumbrian accent. I said to Dave Stevenson of the Songwain- ers at the end of the night – ‘great singer and fabulous tunes but what language was he singing in?’”
“I’d tried singing American stuff and
some Irish stuff but I was no good at accents, but when I heard people sing in their own accents I thought ‘I can do this…’”
Pete & Chris Coe, 1980
joined a rock band at school. The guy who was lead guitarist would go to Liver- pool and go to the same shop The Beat- les and Gerry & The Pacemakers were going for their repertoire and he’d come back with all these ’50s R&B records by Barrett Strong and Arthur Alexander. So we had this repertoire of things like Money and Some Other Guy. And the drummer was a big Hank Williams fan so we had this weird repertoire of this stuff and Carl Perkins too.”
“At college I started playing guitar,
heard Dylan and Paul Simon and started going to the town folk club where the Songwainers were resident and heard those absurd harmonies. I thought ‘this is
emoting and I ask Pete Coe if he has any unfulfilled ambitions. Without drawing breath, he says “I’m still waiting for the call from Alex Ferguson… no, I’m aware I’ve had a very privileged life with the people I’ve met and worked with…people who were my heroes…Fred Jordan, Stan Hugill, Cyril Tawney, Lizzie Higgins…”
W
And he’s not finished yet, not by a long chalk. He’s not been a prolific song- writer, exactly, but with Red Shift in the late ’80s Thatcher era in particular, he wrote some corking political material, notably The Waves Of Tory and Sold Down The River Again. In a new politically hostile climate those songs may well re-surface… and be joined by others.
“I can feel my pen twitching again…”
www.backshift.demon.co.uk
F
e’ve been talking for well over two hours, finished the second cup of coffee, the drama group rehears- ing next door have stopped
Photo: Dave Peabody
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