So the talent, the negotiating, the writing, the practicing, and the school workshops all seem to be paying off. From humble beginnings at the Helsby folk session, to deadlines, distribution deals, and crowds of dancing folkies, their career is going from strength to strength. Not that a career is uppermost in Mike’s mind.
All he wants is for Jay to be
able to quit work and to add a few more festivals to the 21 they are already playing. Knowing that Jay is a nurse I want to ask if they have had that discussion. Would she be able to give up a career one must assume she loves to traipse around the country, possibly even the world, playing the music she loves?
However, I can’t help but notice Mike’s eyes darting furtively at the clock on the wall behind me. Perhaps he has a reading session planned or, like Coleridge, is anxious that a song in the making doesn’t escape; maybe even his mum is due home at any moment with six bags of shopping. Who can tell, but it is time shut off my recorder, put away my note book, and leave.
Outside, in the slanted rain and whistling wind of East Lancashire, I turn for one more question as he stands at the door of his childhood home, a place of stability and sanity, a bubble of normalcy he may soon be forced to trade for something altogether different.
I want to ask what he would like, more than anything else in the world.
But it’s pissing down, I’ve stayed long enough and I think I already know the answer. He doesn’t want to be the ‘toppermost of the poppermost’. He just wants to play. And what a pleasure it is to hear!
Thanks Mike. w ww.j a y w a lk e rs . co . u k
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