73 f


approach involving sometimes very compli- cated tablature alongside conventional ‘dots’, while the English tutor shows you the scale in each key and then leaves you to sight-read. You can also buy a CD containing the 90-plus tunes, played once through, crisply and precisely. So far, so good: perse- verance and dedication should lead the buyer to a varied repertoire with plenty of appropriate stuff for a music session.


Singing From The Floor


JP Bean Faber & Faber (ISBN 078-0-571- 30545-2)


JP Bean’s eagerly-awaited history of the British folk clubs consists almost entirely of interview quotes gathered first-hand by the author and arranged “as far as possible so that each section flows like a conversation”. He has certainly assembled an impressive cast of folk club performers past and present, including Billy Connolly, Maddy Prior, Ralph McTell, Christy Moore and Tom Paxton.


Being someone who (unknowingly) entered the folk club scene right at the point of its rapid decline in the 1980s when the clubs I frequented were largely run by enthusiastic amateurs like myself, I found it fascinating to read how, 20 or so years previ- ously, many of the folk scene professionals were also active organisers, with The Spin- ners, Ian Campbell, The Watersons and The Incredible String Band among those who ran their own clubs. Others, while not involved in running them were certainly active mem- bers – the club started by Gerry Lockran and Derek Sarjeant at Surbiton Assembly Rooms in 1961, featured Sandy Denny, Eric Clapton and John Renbourn among the names in its membership book.


While we’re aware that instrumental standards have never been higher (at least among young professional performers) it’s salutary to be reminded of the extraordinary impact of musical innovators like Davy Gra- ham and Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, while accounts of performers auditioning for floor-spots and clubs charging admission based on the price of four pints of beer may raise eyebrows and even prompt reappraisals of attitudes towards quality and value among current club-goers.


Steve Hunt


The English Concertina: Absolute Beginners


Alex Wade & Dave Mallinson Mally Music (DMPCD1301 / ISBN: 9781899512805)


The Anglo Concertina: Absolute Beginners


Chris Sherburn & Dave Mallinson Mally Music (DMPCD1302 / ISBN: 9781899512812)


When I picked up my first Anglo concertina decades ago at the Free Reed shop in London and asked how a complete novice should road test it, the reply was simple: “press a few buttons and move the bellows in and out”. That’s how I taught myself: bashing out tunes by trial and error. Some learners, though, prefer a more prescriptive and struc- tured approach, hence the demand for tutor books such as these, co-authored with the indefatigable Mally by Chris Sherburn, whose pyro technics will be familiar to many, and Alex Wade, a fine young player of the English system. Both progress by stages from the simplest song tunes to a range of jigs, reels, hornpipes and waltzes. The Anglo book adopts a painting-by-numbers


My main problem with the Anglo book, though, is the thin introduction, a page of partly generic information sharing several paragraphs with the English tutor. The Anglo’s push-pull action should be Point One, rather than an afterthought, and the various ways of playing it need more than a cursory sentence. The learner is committed to a single- note style, which is fine if your idol’s Noel Hill but is going to cause big problems if you're a John Kirkpatrick wannabe. This is the most basic decision a newcomer to the Anglo has to make, and requires proper explanation. It’s also puzzling that the great tradition of highly- ornamented Anglo playing in Ireland is never mentioned; Chris Sherburn’s name on the cover might suggest at least an introduction to decoration, but a couple of ‘cuts’ in the very last tune is all you get.


Both books pack a lot in, so £9.95 repre- sents good value; the CDs are £11.99. Avail- able from www.mally.com


Brian Peters


The New Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs


Steve Roud and Julia Bishop Penguin (ISBN 978-0-141-19462-2) Paperback £9.99


When AL Lloyd and Ralph Vaughan Williams brought the Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs into the world in 1959, they chose to present the strange and unusual, doubtless unaware how many of their choices would become fixtures in the Revival’s firmament over the ensuing decades. But were these jewels of dazzling strangeness really what people used to sing around a piano or down the pub? Well, not really.


This descendant of the Penguin Book is somewhat stouter – albeit slightly less so than last year’s hardback edition – and helps to straighten a few things out. The song selec- tion from editors Steve Roud (godfather of the eponymous Index) and musicologist Julia Bishop is based upon which songs were col- lected the most times and in the most differ- ent versions, from both printed and recorded sources. Revealingly, while our ancestors cer- tainly sang ‘big’ ballads like Barbara Allen and The Cruel Mother, they clearly enjoyed melodramatic Victoriana like The Mistletoe Bough and rollicking jollies like Faithful Sailor Boy just as much. The 151 choices here cover a sweep of subjects broadly indicative of human experience (“unhappy love” – check; “death and destruction” – check; “lust, infidelity and bad living” – no comment), with the empha- sis on singability. The song texts and musical notation are clearly presented, with around half being directly listenable on recordings such as the Voice Of The People series.


Far more than just a tool for repertoire expansion, the book also holds an entertaining general introduction to folk song collecting and scholarship over the past century, copi- ous notes, a bibliography and (as expected from Mr Roud) indexes, all enclosed within an unabashedly bucolic CF Tunnicliffe woodcut.


True, you may not be easily able to slip this handsome tome into your top pocket on your way to your local folk club, but you will be able to leave it casually lying around and appear devastatingly well-informed.


Clare Button


Steve Ashley


Fire And Wine: An Armchair Guide To Steve Ashley


Dave Thompson Armchair Guides (ISBN: 9781492184959)


Described in the cover blurb as a “quiet sur- vivor”, Steve Ashley is, in truth, anything but. After reading Fire & Wine which, let’s say from the off, is an absorbing read, a tale well told, you’ll be fully aware that he does noth- ing without careful planning and considera- tion. Steve Ashley works on his own terms and if he appears to have gone to ground, it’s of his own choosing. Dave Thompson keeps the pace of the book turning over as the years roll by and nowhere does the story begin to ramble or do we get lost in devotion to the musician and his recordings.


I thoroughly enjoyed weaving in and out


of Ashley’s antics and memories: Tinderbox and their suddenly withdrawn Polydor single; the first Albion Country Band; Ragged Robin and sessions with Anne Briggs. All this before the glories of Stroll On and its superior fol- low-up Speedy Return. As you read you realise he was one of the first to write obvi- ously English-rooted material and therefore had the burgeoning electric folk scene at his fingertips. Particularly fine are the passages detailing his touring of America as the only UK folkstrel ever signed to Motown, his involvement in Austin John Marshall’s long lost Smudge music hall project (there’s a piece of archaeology to go for), adventures with Aussie folk rockers The Bushwackers and the happy-go-lucky sessions which gave rise to The Family Album.


Always a man of fierce conviction, Ash-


ley’s work for CND and involvement in direct action has been reflected in principled writ- ing and an unswerving love of his native land’s ritual and lore delivering a body of work which acts both as social conscience and traditional modernity. His greatest works, Fire & Wine, Feeling Lazy, Old John England, Good Enemies, Well At The World’s End, even Lord Bateman, have contemporary shape but with something touching the old, maybe arcane, at their core. His steadfastness also shows when he picks musical compatriots, chiefly Chris Leslie, Fairport and Decameron members pepper his albums in various combi- nations. Replete with a song and session play- ers roll-call, as well as superb discography, the volume concludes with some sprightly thoughts from yer man in which he hints that a new album might be in the offing and opines that we should all support music that tells the truth and stands proud and individu- al. His closing words “now is the time for fire and wine!” Amen to that.


Steve Ashley, English, musician, gentle- man, activist and all-round good guy, an extraordinary life.


www.steveashley.co.uk Simon Jones


Photo: David Angel


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