NEWS

April 2010

Lastest

I haven’t updated this page for so long......I just clean forgot about it.....but when I read what was here I had to laugh. You can make plans......get ideas....but then you get overtaken by other things that come along....and it all changes.....so.....

1 Recordings and Beyond The Blues with Fraser Speirs

2 Solo dates

3 New Deal for Musicians

4 Cleveland Schools Folk Festival and workshops

5 Private Guitar Tuition

6 Common Ground Scotland and Living Tradition Summer Schools

  1. None moreso than with live performances and making recordings........I just never got around to making a new album.....it takes time money and application and you have to know that developing one project with commercial considerations is going to work better than another. In truth the making of another solo album was best left on the drawing board for the very good reason that I found a regular playing partner in the shape of Glasgow based harmonica virtuoso Fraser Speirs.

      We started tentatively with Fraser playing on some of my solo gigs but realised very quickly that we gelled so well together......Fraser is a very experienced musician who has worked with lots of famous and creative musicians over his 40 year career....and so we devised our     Beyond The Blues show...a natural extension to what I’d been doing with my Red Shoes On My Feet concert show.

      But in 2008 Fraser was handed a great opportunity to record some tracks with one of the biggest developing names on the British Music Scene...Paolo Nutini....for his second album release on Atlantic. Of course this meant that he’d not only be away doing extended studio work but he would be joining the band on tour to promote the new album...that in the summer of 2009 went platinum....and top of the charts along with singles from the CD!

      Such a success and Fraser took every opportunity to be part of it. So while Fraser was in Beijing ...Tokyo ....Los Angeles ...... New Orleans and a lot of other exotic locations we could neither gig together nor plan for the future with certainty of availability at any one time.

Apart from the dates we did manage together in 2008 and the 15 date tour at the beginning of 2009 it wasn’t possible to book anything more until Fraser’s time with Paolo’s band had run its course and he could commit to our show once again. And that is now....dates are going in right now for later in 2010.....and lots more for 2011! So the next album has got to be a joint effort from myself and Fraser.....watch this space folks.......

  1. My solo dates are still there but they are less than ever before. Readers here might be interested to know that times and fashions change...the mature solo male singer guitarist is an endangered species it seems...unless of course you are incredibly famous or a usual suspect.

     I don’t think this is the audience’s choice...I think this is organisers’ having a preference for a different kind of performer or band and the slots for the likes of me have become less.....especially at festivals......not disappeared completely of course. Lots of folk clubs don’t have a guest more than once a month any more so that limits your access to dates that were far more readily available. Some clubs have stopped booking guest artistes completely and very few new clubs are opening.

      So all in all the majority of old blokes are not performing as often and certainly remain unseen by a younger audience...that is a real pity because I learned my craft happy listening to the likes of Rev Gary Davis...who I saw at Cambridge Folk Festival in 1971.....and Mississippi John Hurt and Big Bill Broonzy who I never did get to see live.....and I count myself lucky to have been able to hear Doc Watson and Ry Cooder over 30 years ago and used them as role models as I turned to full time music-making myself in my early 30s.

Tell you what though there are a few good young guitarists around...but they don’t sing......and there are some very good singers around....females especially.....but they don’t play guitar very well.........

  1. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years working for Armstrong Learning based in Manchester. They are a major player in delivering the New Deal for Musicians ...a scheme to help people on Job Seekers Allowance learn more about the MusicBizness in its broadest sense so they can progress their own careers in music and hopefully help them find employment in this industry.

And so I went back to college too.....to get a basic teaching qualification to help me better understand formal principles in education as well as using my life skills and hands-on experience when I’m mentoring and coaching these aspiring musicians. And now we are moving on to the Flexible New Deal to look after the potentially self employed in both the music business as well as other areas of arts development.

  1. This new qualification in education hasn’t come at a bad time as the Redcar and Cleveland Schools Folk Festival Week is now extended to 2 full weeks and takes in schools throughout the whole of Cleveland. I’m providing an hour-long workshop to 8 to 11 year olds demonstrating the guitar playing and different styles of guitar and singing songs with the children that they likely haven’t come across before.....by Woody Guthrie and Mississippi John Hurt amongst others...that have always featured in what I do.

      It’s a wonderful event and opportunity to take my kind of folk music into local schools along with the traditional song and dance provided by other tutors......and I sit-in with the tutors’ band when we provide ceilidh dancing for 400 youngsters at the end of each week.

  1. And then there is more teaching for me at home as I’ve put together schemes of work for individual guitar students. I hadn’t been able to do this before......over the last 30 years I’ve been coming-and-going so often there never was any period of time I could provide an uninterrupted programme of teaching. But now I do have extended time at home and have the availability. Anyone local to Teesside who wants guitar tuition in the acoustic folk blues and ragtime style....from beginners to advanced....please get in touch.... eddie.walker13@ntlworld.com ... 01642 593780 ... or mobile ... 0790 563 8788

  1. For the last 5 years I’ve been involved with an event called Common Ground Scotland and Summer Schools organised by Pete Heywood who edits and publishes The Living Tradition magazine. The event has moved around quite a bit in its time. In 2009 we were at West Park campus in Dundee....very good accommodation and teaching facilities and I believe the events to be very worthwhile to the students who come to be tutored in all kinds of musical and arts disciplines. The event continues in 2010 but I’m not involved this time around. More information for those who want to be at this year’s event can be found at www.livingtradition.co.uk and follow the links......