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Lastest
Once again apologies to readers who have checked this page out before today and found little in the way of an update in a couple of years! Well now we are back in business and all will be sorted and revealed.
Let me just update the www.summerschools@glaisnock.org situation. I’m involved now with tutor administration as well as the Guitar Week, Common Ground in Scotland and the last week starting August 5th on Performance and Technology. So anyone wanting information about any of it can call or email me. I was there to see the premises last weekend (as I write) and the actual house and facilities are wonderful. We had a cracking chef to cook for us and there was music and bon hommie morning noon and night. I can’t enthuse more about the possibilities here with this the first year and what it might become. Really exciting stuff in the way of development for all ages in the folk arts. Great to catch up with Kirti Mandir, a talented sculptor and great tabla (Indian drums) player. Mississippi John Hurt’s Candyman never sounded better with Kirti providing such sensitive rhythm.
Big news this month is the publication of a book by Seattle-based journalist Clay Eals, that is the definitive biography of the great Chicago born guitarist, songwriter, singer and entertainer extraordinaire, Steve Goodman. It was at the 1972 Cambridge Folk Festival that I first encountered this amazingly talented performer and he became an increasing influence on my musical taste. His untimely death in 1984 left a hole in many people’s lives and yet his influence holds sway with so many players not least of all me. But if I ever thought my tribute song to him was in any way unique then it’s think again time! Not only does the 800-page biography include everything you’d ever want to know about Goodman told to Clay by a list of folk and entertainment luminaries, it also has a CD of a pile of other tribute songs too, mine included. How wonderful is that? So many other performers needed to get something off their chests after Steve left us. Mine was written only 5 short weeks after he died while I was living on the coastal marshlands of West Flanders near Ostende, in Belgium, while I did some touring there. These are the words I wrote……
Words and music by Eddie Walker
YOU WROTE THE BEST DAMN RAILROAD SONG THAT I HAD EVER HEARD
WHEN I SAW YOU ON THE TV SCREEN I HUNG ON EVERY WORD
ID BIN GOING THRO A BAD PATCH HADNT PLAYED TOO MUCH THAT YEAR
IF I WAS LOOKING FOR A HERO WELL I GUESS THAT I FOUND YOU
IN THE PARK THEYRE PLAYING MUSIC WE WERE LAZIN ALL AROUND
THE SUMMER SUN SURROUNDED US WARM BODIES ON THE GROUND
YOU SHAMBLED ON SAT DOWN AND PICKED YOUR MARTIN FOR THE CROWD
IF WE WERE LOOKIN FOR A HERO WELL MY FRIENDS AND I FOUND YOU
CHORUS
HERE COMES THAT TRAIN SONG AGAIN
SO DAMN GOOD I WISH THAT IT WOULD NEVER END
BUT LIKE THAT RAILROAD ERA YOURE LOST AND GONE MY FRIEND
ALONG WITH ALL THOSE RAILROAD MEN WHO WERE HEROES JUST LIKE YOU
SO MY FRIENDS AND I WE SOUGHT YOU OUT AND WE SHARED OUR CAN OF (TARTAN) BEER
WE WERE MADE-UP WITH THE MUSIC AND I GUESS WE MADE THAT CLEAR
AND I BOUGHT OF ALL OF YOUR RECORDS AND I SANG AGAIN THAT YEAR
THAT SUMMER THERE WAS MUSIC AND THE MUSIC IT WAS YOU
THE NEXT TIME YOU BROUGHT JOHN PRINE YOUR FRIEND AND HE BLEW ALL OUR MINDS
IF WE WERE LOST THEN WE WERE FOUND AGAIN GOOD LUCK WAS ON OUR SIDE
I SPOKE TO YOU BUT BRIEFLY YOU ASKED ME IF I LIKED JOHN’S STYLE
I GUESSED HE WAS A HERO, AH YOU HAD YOUR HEROES TOO!
CHORUS
THEN ITS 10 YEARS ON AND WAY UP NORTH I’D BEEN PLAYING HARD THAT WEEK
CONFRONTED IN A BAR BY JOCK, WHO ASKED IF WE COULD SPEAK
WE HAD A BEER AND THEN SOME MORE SUCH A CHANCE IT WAS TO MEET
JOCK HE HAD A HERO, I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT IT WAS YOU
HE’D LIVED SOME TIME IN BOSTON AND IN PHILADELPHIA, USA
EVEN PLAYED AT SOMEBODY ELSES TROUBLES IN CHICAGO BY THE WAY
AND THE STORIES THAT HE TOLD TO ME CHANGED AND ORDINY DAY
LIKE OLD FRIENDS REUNITED WE SPOKE OF NOTHING ELSE BUT YOU
CHORUS
I WAS WORKING IN A SOUTH COAST TOWN AND CALLED HOME LIKE I DO
A FRIEND WHO KNEW HOW MUCH I CARED HAD PHONED UP WITH THE NEWS
DIDN’T NED TO TRY THAT EVENING WHEN I CAME TO SING THE BLUES
NOTHING ELSE WAS ON MY MIND, NOTHING ELSE BUT YOU
NEVER WASTED NOT ONE MOMENT IT WAS SO MUCH BORROWED TIME
YOU’D LIVED IN HOPE THRO’ ALL THE YEARS STILL TASTING LIFE’S SWEET WINE
BUT THE JOKES YOU MADE THEY MAKE MOST SENSE NOW AT THE LAST POST ON THE LINE
WITH THAT TRAIN AT DESTINATION AND A LAST CALL MADE FOR YOU
CHORUS
CHORUS
More about Steve's album
I make no apologies for any sentimentality that people might identify here, like a particular album reviewer in Folk Roots did when appraising my 1985 recording Picking My Way and speaking as he or she did about Song For Steve Goodman. I say he or she because a nom de plume was used by the reviewer not wanting to be identified. That tells you something eh? Some people don’t handle heartfelt sentiment very well but I have no problem repeatedly letting audiences hear this story song, every word of which is true and takes place over a period of 12 years from that first meeting in ’72 until Steve’s death in autumn ’84. And I must mention here the ‘jock’ in the song who is Johnny Morris, Scottish raconteur and balladeer who hasn’t been well these last couple of years and who I have sadly lost direct contact with, hoping to rectify this as his health hopefully improves.
Anyway, enough of me, I’ll regale you for hours on each line of this song and the accuracy and meaning of all contained therein! Back to the links you need to find out more about Clay Eals and his wonderful book.
http://www.stevegoodmanbiography.com
http://clayeals.com/thecd.asp
http://clayeals.com/schedule.asp
clayeals.com/order.asp
I said a little while ago here that I didn’t get the album done that I wanted too. (I put out the DVD instead and people have enjoyed it they tell me especially the footage of me at Cambridge Folk Festival shot by my son Simon! Nice one son!). The upshot of not doing the CD and therefore not using up the newer material I want to record is that I can do it now with my new playing partner, the accomplished Scottish harmonica king, Fraser Speirs. I still had the notion to call it ‘Picking Boy’ but have changed my mind as recently as this week arising out of the first two band gigs that Fraser and I did together in Stirling and Montrose, only this last week on March.
It’s hard to tell you how pleased I was with it all without it sounding like singing our OWN praises. But the audience numbers were great in anticipation of hearing us together for the first time doing a full club show rather than the brief concert collaborations over the last couple of years of calling Fraser up to play. Now we are duo and have a healthy repertoire of rehearsed material people said we sounded as if we’d played together for years, it was that good! Well I would say that I hear you say. Yeah, but trust me, the competition for gigs is fierce these days and you can’t put out second-rate shows, they go nowhere. I’m so confident about this new little band that I’m throwing a lot of everything behind it, and I know Fraser feels just the same way.
So my head is into around 14 tracks for the new album and a title too!
And as I prepare this news sheet I’m also going up to Glasgow for rehearsals and we both hope, the first of the recoding sessions.
When the album comes it will feature lots of rootsy American material that is guitar orientated, but instead of it being just Brownie McGhee (Blind Boy Fuller #2) you get Sonny Terry as well! The thing about Fraser is, he’s more than blues. He plays on anything. He is the Scottish ‘Larry Adler’ and his touch is a treat. I like the man AND his music and we are gonna have fun together. Here have a click on this micro- link for more info about how the relationship came about and a couple of pics too.
http://www.ckps.org.uk/stirlingfolkclub/pages/microsites/eddie&fraser.htm
It was great news that came thro’ to have a slot at the biggest Folk Festival in Europe over the winter season, at Celtic Connections in Glasgow on Friday February 2nd. Fraser helped to secure that one for me. BTW in Scotland they call his instrument a ‘moothie’ while blues payers refer to it as a ‘mouth harp’. Whatever it’s called Fraser plays with a ‘touch’ that is very special and getting this gig into the calendar was very important for the both of us.
It was the first time on-stage together since Common Ground in Scotland during the summer and the start of a series of gigs together that take in many of the music hot-spots North o’ tha’ Border including Stirling and Montrose that we’ve done now, followed by Kirkaldy next in June and then summer into autumn at Marymass Festival, Irvine, Aberdeen- Lemon Tree, Stonehaven, Glasgow, and then Edinburgh folk club, far-off in early 2008. And lots more dates to be fitted in very shortly. Hopefully he’ll be with me at the Edinburgh Fringe too, maybe at the Royal Oak gig (confirmed in fact by organiser Paddy Bort as I type).
And last evening I was at The Candlelight Music Club in Newton Aycliffe (where part of my DVD Live album was filmed),(It was on May 8th and a fine night of music it was too!), organiser Neil Mason said he’d like to have me do my next show there with Fraser, so that is our first English club date in the diary for early next year. Any more takers for a date in Feb./March?
For an insight into who this man is and what he’s done with a long and successful musical career have a look at Fraser’s own website on www.fraserspeirs.co.uk.
Yes, I’m really pleased to have been invited back so soon, to the 40th Marymass Folk Festival in Irvine in August, even tho’ I was only there this summer gone, along with veteran folk circuit performer Johnny Silvo, who is also rebooked next year. They must REALLY like the two of us!
DOWNLOAD NEWS FOLKS!
My three CDs in current production can also be got as downloads. www.wovenwheatwhispers.co.uk are now offering the music over the ‘net. That won’t stop people who want the ‘real’ thing from getting it via mail order from me or as I pass on most of my recordings, at live gigs. But this is a new service for those people wanting to pay by credit card (a service that Ragged Records does not offer, sorry, we can only process cash and cheques just now), who can’t get out the house or maybe I never visit their area to play (shame!). And of course from every location around this global village of ours. And more than that the site will serve as a showcase featuring several tracks for you to have a listen to, plus photos and biog/CD information. So go and hit Woven Wheat now and get downloading!
The DVD is still only available from me direct by mail order or at gigs and features both Song For Steve Goodman and Steve’s classic City Of New Orleans.
Now for some cracking good news. A few years ago I got involved with The Redcar and Cleveland Schools Folk Festival and Workshop Week. And I’m back there this summer again! Primarily this is for years 5 and 6 and includes a presentation on guitar playing, folk and roots music, joining in with singing and going to a ceilidh with 200 other children and dancing to a 20 piece country dance orchestra with again mainly youngsters playing. Confidence building here, year on year, if I can keep a class of 10 year olds interested for an hour then it may be possible to go to the moon in a ‘W’ reg. C Class Mercedes after all. For sure tuition classes to mainly grown-ups for a morning at a time at Common Ground Scotland can be done in ones sleep, and frequently are!!!
But this year the actual Common Ground Scotland event comes nearly at the end of Summer School@Glaisnock …….read on my friends and visit www.glaisnock.org
And shortly there should be a posting there of the principles applying to the guitar classes I’ll be running. Go to the bottom of this newsletter for some more information just now.
OTHER WORKING OPPORTUNITIES
Things are going great at the present time. Enough performing work to keep me at it and match-fit! Not over-stretching myself at my age mates! But I’m working regularly on the New Deal For Musicians, helping tutor and encourage young unemployed people in the ways of the music business in the hope of getting them started on a career of their own. For an insight into what that is all about go to www.ndfmlearning.com. And I’ve been elected again for the committee of the Folk, Roots and Traditional Music Section of the Musicians Union with special responsibility for Performing Rights matters. I attend meetings at both the MU and at the Specialist Music Group at PRS on a regular basis and helped establish the new Small Clubs and Gigs scheme with PRS so performers could access more royalties for their writing and arranging. It a big extra financial help to me and many others when it didn’t exist for us on the same scale before.
GUITARS GUITARS GUITARS
My faithful old Ralph Bown 00028 (1984) in Brazilian rosewood has gone to a pal of mine. My problems with arthritis in my hands gets no better and I found the neck more and more demanding. The newer Ralph Bown ‘Prairie State’ (that’s the sunburst one you see in all the more recent pictures), is a much more comfortable neck for me to handle. I also located locally a couple of CF Martin guitars I’m happy to own inc. a D18 and a cracking OM-28V. I first owned a Martin D28 in 1972 and then I imported almost the first M38 into this country in ’78, direct from Mandolin Bros. on Staten Island, NYC. That guitar always disappointed and I traded that against a D41 that I sold for cash to buy a D28S and I sold that to be able to finance the first Bown. I have never taken the steel resonator guitar that I got in 2001 out with me on gigs tho’ I do use it for the schools workshops.
The kids have never seen anything like it of course all engraved silver and gold! I really must get a pick-up sorted for it and start playing some bottleneck blues that no-one has ever heard me do before. And I have the Aria Johnny Joyce 12-string back in my possession now, after languishing for some 10 years in the spare bedroom of a pal in Scotland. And at last I’ve found a wonderful guitar banjo that is on order right now. (should say back-order cos I can’t lay my hands on the one I want for a couple of months, damn!). Shades of Rev. Gary Davis on that 70s Transatlantic Ragtime Guitar album where he plays Blind Arthur Blake’s West Coast Blues. A text came thro’ this morning to say the guitar banjo has now been despatched from Germany and I should therefore have it out with me at the next gig in Whitby on the 18th! Exciting times with some lovely instruments.
And while I think on, I was recently in Coimbra the spiritual home of Portuguese Fado and their unique guittare. Saw some lovely instruments in a music shop and almost bought one but in the end settled for a CD I’ve been chasing now for 12 months that was on the shelf in a local shop. Bril’! Antonio Chainho e Marta Dias, ao vivo no CCB! If you have an open musical mind go seek it out and trust me you won’t be disappointed with such joyous performances.
GERMANY HERE I COME
And an announcement with plenty of time for anyone in Germany wanting to take advantage of a show by yours-truly, I will be touring there again early in November 2007! Contact my German agent Ewald Schmitt, a fine man indeed, for details. His email address is ewald.schmitt@t-online.de
So I’ll sign-off just now and you keep your fingers crossed I remember to update in future then you’re bored to distraction reading the same old stuff! Ha!
Kindest for now.
Eddie Walker.
(8th May. 2007)
Now for that summer schools thing in more detail.
Summer Schools @ Glaisnock
From 1st July - 10th August, 2007
Glaisnock House, near Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland
Right folks, let’s start with a very important new project that’s happening this summer that I’m personally involved in. For the last 2 years I’ve been a tutor at the week-long Common Ground Scotland, based in Ayr in early August. One of the principals involved is Pete Heywood who is editor of The Living Tradition magazine and he is director now of a series of summer school weeks to be held at Glaisnock House, near Cumnock in Ayrshire. Here is the website…..
<http://www.glaisnock.org>
please go and have a look at what is on offer not just from me but from the vast array of talented people there who can provide tuition in their chosen musical and performance skills. There are 6 whole weeks to choose from including the Common Ground Scotland week.
These are early days but people reading this can’t wait to know how it will happen if they are to choose to attend, especially the guitar week. Many of you know that I play a certain kind of American Roots based acoustic guitar music that encompasses old time country blues, ragtime, hillbilly, swing and folk. I’m a finger-picker and not a flat-picker or strummer with a plectrum. I mean I can, but usually I don’t! Hopefully there will be other guitar tutors there that cover this kind of playing and many other folk styles besides.
Not to be negative but I can’t in a such a short time teach you exactly how to play the guitar if you can’t already. This is a group class usually and not one-on-one teaching. Then again at Common Ground I have been able to give some one-on-one sessions during free time to help players to push forward a little quicker!
All that said, I would not want to put-off any real novices or beginners. We’ve all gotta start somewhere! The only thing is, this won’t generally be a beginners class in the content of it, therefore and it’s up to students to assess whether or not they will get what they want from the tuition if it turns out to be a bit advanced for them. Mind you, what I’ve found in respect of those students at Common Ground who are just starting out, they can often learn an awful lot from players attending who are just a bit ahead of them. It doesn’t have to be me teaching when we can become one big help-each-other group. Now I think that is a very important feature of how we can work.
But if you’ve ever aspired to pick a little better, learn some of the tricks and get to grips with the music I love and have played for my living these last 30 years, then joining me for at least 5 days might be just up your street. And if in that time all you do is get a greater enthusiasm for the music then I still believe I will have succeeded. If you find out better where to go to, to listen to the real thing if you don’t already know where it is then I’ll have done my job too.
I’ll bring a few really nice guitars with me so you can have a play on them too. I’ll introduce you to the folk and blues finger-picking greats, both alive and passed-on, with their recordings, photographs and books that have been written about them, and you’ll discover a rich tradition of acoustic guitar playing just like I did when I first got interested as a teenager back in the 1960s when this Folk thing in Britain was in its flourishing youth! So come along and we can all flourish again together!!!
My heroes are Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Arthur Blake, Rev. Gary Davis, Big Bill Broonzy, Doc Watson, Jimmie Rodgers, Jelly Roll Morton and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. They are not all guitar players but their music can be played on the guitar. I love the songs of John Prine, Steve Goodman, Buddy Holly, Hank Williams and Ry Cooder and have them all in my repertoire. And I can show most all of it to you even first thing in the morning, at the crack of dawn!
So go look at that website and consider coming up to Scotland to be with me and all those other students having a great time there in July and August!
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