Monday, August 6, 2012
Poems from Folks Magazine - 1978
Poems from Folks Magazine
Coventry folk magazine edited by Pete Willow 78 / 79
Q OF Q'S by Pete Rigg
The Qizzard of Quixel has mislaid his quill
In a delinquent moment of thought!
He suspect that he left it just here on the sill
but he isn't as young as he ought.
Profounding the purpose he ponders his choice:
To confess himself victim of fate?
Or retreat to a corner and practice his voice -
And hope he's not left it too late!
........................
Preparation for Progress - by Pete Willow
See the waterfall give way
hear the sudden cease of sound
feel the humid beast of day
pray upon the crumbling ground.
Smell the roses taste the fungus
don't stop there - there's more to come
use the senses dropped among us
cosmic anatomic bomb
there's more to this than meets the eye
the nose the tongue the nerve the ear
we've many more in store set by
for revelation when it's near
for evolution now its here.
.........................
HYPOTHESIS - by Pete Willow
the telephone voice is in the mind
the speaker is not really there
the misty source you cannot find
between your ears beneath the hair
A personality to sell
without the visual technique
commended by a ringing bell
you sit and listen to him speak
he imitates your every friend
beyond perception of the eye
and also strangers with no end
of proposition's to imply
a telephone is tangible
obtained by those who wish to show
that though life is material
they do believe in GPO
..........................
OFFSEASON by Nick Lawrence
The last crisp packet flutters slowly to the ground,
The streets all lie deserted, devoid of human sounds;
Soon the winter winds come rushing through
all these untidy tired ports we knew;
summer months of wear and tear
Leave paths for only sheep to stand and stare;
Rocks crumbled by the dust of hurried feet
are washed down again by driving sleet
chilled by the icy northern blasts
tearing down man's futile summer tasks;
I see the land that used to be
washed down again by rain and sea.
I breath sharp air with salty tang
as all around me blow lazy summer sands
soon jagged cliffs and sheltered caves
are set free in autumnal green and mauve;
once again the fulmar flies
on stiff-winged swoops and lofty glides;
cliff-tops bare and gullies harsh
sweep rain from moorland into marsh
And suddenly I know I've been shown
all such beauty is not for my eyes alone;
If like me you'd stayed and seen
The winter moon on wet sands gleam
and heard the thundering of the waves
whistling with the wind through Merlin's cave,
You'd see that man is just a passing phase
that time and patience will erase
for the wave that sweeps the human race
out of time and out of place
will leave the rocky cliffs and sandy bays
for only the eyes of sheep to gaze;
Forever with the changing tides.....
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Two Songs by Al Godwin (from Folks Magazine)
TWO SONGS BY AL GOODWIN - ALWAYS YOU AND ONCE IN MY LIFE
The Folk at the Pitts club held a songwriting competition. Al Goodwin's Always You was the winner and the music / tabs were published in Folks Issue 7 May / June 1979. According to Folks - "Al Goodwin - a talented singer and writer of ballads, was a regular visitor to Folk at the Pitts. His most popular songs include Golden Fleece, Mr Watt and Humphrey the Spider - written to prevent children being scared of spiders."
The following are comments transferred from the original Hobo site on Vox.
1. Martin from Al's band Nic Lightnin (early 80's) would love to hear any news about Al.
2. If anybody knows where Al Goodwin is now - Martin who used to be in his Coventry band Nic Lightening would be pleased to hear of / from him. If you have any info - leave comment or message Hobo and we'll pass it on.
Ed - Note the connection with Martin has been lost owing to Vox blogs closing down.
3. Hello again, Martin here - You mentioned that you are able to add more details to my post regarding
information about Al, I was a bit silly not to provide more info at the time. As there is no edit button, I would be grateful if you could do that for me.
Al had wrote a couple of rock operas, I think the first one was a learning process, and I didn't hear too many of the songs from that, but the latter, we gigged a lot of the songs, it was about time travel and featured a "Dr W. Downs" who had a "mirrored sphere" . The band was called Nic Light'nin after another character
from the opera. Al's vocals were amazing.. people would look up and do a double take when he started to sing as his voice was spot on and very powerful. We were very much the backing for Al, and looking back, I think the idea of the band was to take the songs out of the folk arena and into the more contemporary rock audience, which on a very small scale, we did do around the Coventry bars of 1981/2 . I think we made some good music and I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who knows of Al and his music and can enlighten me as to what he got up to later on, as I moved out of Cov and back up to North Wales and lost touch.
Broadgate Gnome
4. Ah1 , now a bit of a distant bell rings there. I heard about this and may have even met him. Around that time I was auditioning in Coventry (in an old theatre place, up the road behind the Odeon) One of the people was called I think Mark?, who was a singer but wanted to move into acting. ( he actually got the leading role, and after touring with us( a dubious experience) had his own review slot on a channel 4 music show.) he told me about something very similar and may have been involved in it. More may come to me.
Dave
Posted by: Broadgate Gnome | 04/30/2007 at 07:37 PM
FLOORSINGER'S BLUES - Dave Parker
FLOORSINGER'S BLUES - Dave Parker
Another gem from Coventry's Folks magazine of 1978. The Floorsinger's Blues by Dave Parker. I remember seeing this one performed - I also remember doing a lot of floorspots - you got in free as the song says!!
Come on in My Kitchen - Blues Tablature by Dave Garelick - Robert Johnson classic
Come on in My Kitchen - Blues Tablature
Yet another from Coventry's Folks magazine contributed by Dave Garelick - Robert Johnson classic
From Folks magazine - Coventry folk magazine 1978 - Ed Pete Willow
How to Write A Folk Song - from Folks magazine.
How to Write A Folk Song
Two flow charts from Folks magazine (Coventry Folk magazine 1978) Ed Pete Willow
JACKSON C.FRANK - By Dave Coburn - Folks Magazine
This article was written by Coventry folk singer DAVE COBURN (now living in Suffolk) but who, in the early 70's, co-ran the Rude Bear Folk Club with Rod Felton, for FOLKS magazine issue No 4 Nov / Dec 1978 - the Coventry Folkies Magazine, put together by Pete Willow and Arol and others. I remember Dave Coburn telling me all about Jackson C. Franks when giving me a lift home to Willenhall sometimes after a session at the Rude Bear Folk Club.
JACKSON C. FRANKS - The Spirit of Soho ' 65 - by DAVE COBURN (From FOLKS magazine No 4 Nov / Dec 1978)
Les Cousins in Greek St. is now a disco; Paul Simon is now a millionaire, Al Stewart is far removed from his bedsitter images but Jackson C. Franks (Wiki link) seems to have realised his ultimate wish - he is alone.
For many people it was Paul Simon, the archetypal poet and one man band, for others the eclectic hybrid style of Bert Jansch or Davy Graham and for many more Al Stewart's bedsitters, that epitomise Soho in 1965, but for me Jackson C. Frank IS Soho 1965.
I only have to pick up my guitar and play Frank's Blues Run the Game and I'm back in those back-breaking Cousins' seats, listening to this tortured young man cutting to the quick the neurosis that ran through those Soho nights in 65.
1965 was a big year for Les Cousins; they opened its doors at 7.30pm every night of the week and there were late night sessions every Friday and Saturday until the early hours and sometimes even dawn. I've often stumbled out into the crisp and silent Sunday morning before London awoke, my heart pounding and my head still full of music. It's an experience I've never been able to recapture and that I can't begin to describe here. The residents of the Cousins that year included Gerry Lockran and Noel Murphy and on Thursday evenings Jansch and Renbourn held court. So why was I so impressed with Jackson C Frank?
Jackson was so different from the rest of us. At a time when even the Jansch's and the Stewart's were lucky to have one workable beaten up piece of rubbish to play on, his collection of guitars was legendary. I saw some of them in Twickenham; there were two old Gibson's, a Martin and what seemed like half a dozen more. I remember someone saying something about one of his 'boxes'. Jackson looked more pained than usual and said "Look, your instrument may be a box but these are guitars!".
I still cringe when I hear people describing really good guitars such as the ones Rob Armstrong produces, as 'boxes', and I still think of that Aladdin's Cave of musical instruments down there in Twickenham.
I was never close enough to ask how he got scarred or why he limped. "No bottle of pill, babe, can kill the pain" he wrote in Here Comes the Blues, and looking at him you felt sympathy for a pain threshold long breached and passed, but he did not want sympathy, it was communication that he craved.
Prior to coming to London, he had been a journalist in the States and was obsessed with words. He said of one song 'Don't tell me whether you like the song, just tell me as one writer to another, does the imagery work?' Actually he was probably at his best taking old clichés of the blues and splitting and twisting them into something new and exciting rather than spinning poetic images Paul Simon style.
His songs spoke for the whole crowd of already weary-eyed innocents. Most of us much younger than him, who gathered on those smoky nights at Cousins nd the Wednesday night sessions at the Marquee in Wardour St. His lifestyle of taking boats here and there and renting hotel rooms to drink away the blues was far in the future for us, but we understood the anguish and in Soho we had a common backdrop. Jackson's songs were non political and it was this aspect that I had taken to heart. We expected Americans to be East Coast lefties or alternatively to write without bitterness (like Simon).
Jackson's songs were bitter sweet and I found myself latering my own writing to eliminate the political elements, but to follow his pattern of cynicism rather than the purity of Paul Simon.
I had one of my songs accepted by "Folk Scene" magazine and was waiting for its publication when Blues Run the Game was published by the magazine in late 1965. My song Smoke in the Wind (which thankfully I have never performed since) was my last political effort and although it had strong lyrics they paled to insignificance besides Jackson's song. I was changed forever and have never recovered, thank Christ!
I believe that Jackson had discovered the inner world has its conflicts every bit as shattering s the political imbalance of the real world, but whereas this was no new discovery, he was able to convey this lyrically in a way that his contempories could not. He sang for that whole generation of kids who crowded into Soho clubs and coffee cellars in 65, 66 and abandoned all hope before the flame was ever kindled. We were later to look on in amused cynicism at the naïve aspirations of the flower generation of the late 60's who aped our life style but never came within miles of our state of mind.
Jackson once said "I want to share with you some of the incredible blinds I have seen myself walk into and crawl away from, more from knowing instinctively that each of us does the same thing than for any particular pride in the manner I personally have or have not survived.
"To sing is a state of mind that can include all ' frames of mind' and there lies the danger in communicating through song alone. I cannot defend and will not, your or my judgement of them, for they are only a passing opinion, statements given in absence."
"To this end I write songs, to this end only they can stand. If my songs communicate to yu any measure of something valued, remembered or recognised in the streets that you have walked, then they are success within very limited qualifications. That is, you and I have met once more."
The quotations above encapsulates my own feelings and my own motivations as a songwriter. The words belong to Jackson C. Frank but the spirit is also mine though I freely admit that it is easy to dismiss this type of commentary as pretentious hogwash, derivative of all the self-analysis stemming from the Beatnik fifties thorugh the intellectual atmosphere of Soho 65, because that is exactly what it is! But doesn't the fact that the statement is true state a case for the pretensions to be excused or forgiven?
Many of us tried to become notable songwriters or poets but it was not our lot to become Ginsberg or Kerouac, for times had already changed and we had become labeled and bagged. Many self tortured souls were to arise and claim the position of singer-songwriter but the position as an outsider, dissecting his own psyche was already obsolescent and the inner working of the head was of interest only when the state of mind of the performer and the audience coincided. This is perhaps why the recorded work of singer songwriters has continued to sell whilst their live presence is treated now more often with politeness than enthusiasm.
Lacking media approval which would allow a Bob Dylan or Paul Simon to continue to sing without becoming the pet creature of his audience, Jackson C Frank took a more honest way out than the rest of us. Many struggled on with a sort of 'cult' status which allowed us to continue playing our own material, others moved into Rock, but Jackson cashed in all his chips and quit the game.
Jackson C Frank has stopped singing and has reportedly retreated into himself. There have been many attempts to get him to make a comeback over the years but so far he has refused. I hope that he is wise enough to stay in retirement. I loved what he did and am thankful for his influence, but the world has changed and it seems sometimes that the lyrics just don't matter anymore. The re release of Jackson C Franks (first on Columbia 335X 1788 in November 1965) must be regarded with suspicion. What are the motives behind it? Jackson contributed more and deserves more than to be treated as an antique, a curiosity who represented that generation of children of Sigmund Freud. I hope that the re release does more good than ill. I hope that people listen to the songs and don't try to enter some sort of time warp. The songs are good enough to stand on their own.
I leave you with the song Blues Run the Game itself, one of the great songs of Soho 65, if not the great song. Many people do fine versions of this, but this is the transcription of the original..(lyrics added later!)
JACKSON C. FRANKS - The Spirit of Soho ' 65 - by DAVE COBURN (From FOLKS magazine No 4 Nov / Dec 1978)
For many people it was Paul Simon, the archetypal poet and one man band, for others the eclectic hybrid style of Bert Jansch or Davy Graham and for many more Al Stewart's bedsitters, that epitomise Soho in 1965, but for me Jackson C. Frank IS Soho 1965.
I only have to pick up my guitar and play Frank's Blues Run the Game and I'm back in those back-breaking Cousins' seats, listening to this tortured young man cutting to the quick the neurosis that ran through those Soho nights in 65.
 |
| Les Cousins Folk Club, Greek Street, |
Jackson was so different from the rest of us. At a time when even the Jansch's and the Stewart's were lucky to have one workable beaten up piece of rubbish to play on, his collection of guitars was legendary. I saw some of them in Twickenham; there were two old Gibson's, a Martin and what seemed like half a dozen more. I remember someone saying something about one of his 'boxes'. Jackson looked more pained than usual and said "Look, your instrument may be a box but these are guitars!".
I still cringe when I hear people describing really good guitars such as the ones Rob Armstrong produces, as 'boxes', and I still think of that Aladdin's Cave of musical instruments down there in Twickenham.
Prior to coming to London, he had been a journalist in the States and was obsessed with words. He said of one song 'Don't tell me whether you like the song, just tell me as one writer to another, does the imagery work?' Actually he was probably at his best taking old clichés of the blues and splitting and twisting them into something new and exciting rather than spinning poetic images Paul Simon style.
His songs spoke for the whole crowd of already weary-eyed innocents. Most of us much younger than him, who gathered on those smoky nights at Cousins nd the Wednesday night sessions at the Marquee in Wardour St. His lifestyle of taking boats here and there and renting hotel rooms to drink away the blues was far in the future for us, but we understood the anguish and in Soho we had a common backdrop. Jackson's songs were non political and it was this aspect that I had taken to heart. We expected Americans to be East Coast lefties or alternatively to write without bitterness (like Simon).
Jackson's songs were bitter sweet and I found myself latering my own writing to eliminate the political elements, but to follow his pattern of cynicism rather than the purity of Paul Simon.
 |
| Jackson C Franks at Les Cousins 1965 |
I believe that Jackson had discovered the inner world has its conflicts every bit as shattering s the political imbalance of the real world, but whereas this was no new discovery, he was able to convey this lyrically in a way that his contempories could not. He sang for that whole generation of kids who crowded into Soho clubs and coffee cellars in 65, 66 and abandoned all hope before the flame was ever kindled. We were later to look on in amused cynicism at the naïve aspirations of the flower generation of the late 60's who aped our life style but never came within miles of our state of mind.
"To sing is a state of mind that can include all ' frames of mind' and there lies the danger in communicating through song alone. I cannot defend and will not, your or my judgement of them, for they are only a passing opinion, statements given in absence."
"To this end I write songs, to this end only they can stand. If my songs communicate to yu any measure of something valued, remembered or recognised in the streets that you have walked, then they are success within very limited qualifications. That is, you and I have met once more."
The quotations above encapsulates my own feelings and my own motivations as a songwriter. The words belong to Jackson C. Frank but the spirit is also mine though I freely admit that it is easy to dismiss this type of commentary as pretentious hogwash, derivative of all the self-analysis stemming from the Beatnik fifties thorugh the intellectual atmosphere of Soho 65, because that is exactly what it is! But doesn't the fact that the statement is true state a case for the pretensions to be excused or forgiven?
Many of us tried to become notable songwriters or poets but it was not our lot to become Ginsberg or Kerouac, for times had already changed and we had become labeled and bagged. Many self tortured souls were to arise and claim the position of singer-songwriter but the position as an outsider, dissecting his own psyche was already obsolescent and the inner working of the head was of interest only when the state of mind of the performer and the audience coincided. This is perhaps why the recorded work of singer songwriters has continued to sell whilst their live presence is treated now more often with politeness than enthusiasm.
Lacking media approval which would allow a Bob Dylan or Paul Simon to continue to sing without becoming the pet creature of his audience, Jackson C Frank took a more honest way out than the rest of us. Many struggled on with a sort of 'cult' status which allowed us to continue playing our own material, others moved into Rock, but Jackson cashed in all his chips and quit the game.
Jackson C Frank has stopped singing and has reportedly retreated into himself. There have been many attempts to get him to make a comeback over the years but so far he has refused. I hope that he is wise enough to stay in retirement. I loved what he did and am thankful for his influence, but the world has changed and it seems sometimes that the lyrics just don't matter anymore. The re release of Jackson C Franks (first on Columbia 335X 1788 in November 1965) must be regarded with suspicion. What are the motives behind it? Jackson contributed more and deserves more than to be treated as an antique, a curiosity who represented that generation of children of Sigmund Freud. I hope that the re release does more good than ill. I hope that people listen to the songs and don't try to enter some sort of time warp. The songs are good enough to stand on their own.
I leave you with the song Blues Run the Game itself, one of the great songs of Soho 65, if not the great song. Many people do fine versions of this, but this is the transcription of the original..(lyrics added later!)
Monday, July 30, 2012
Spotlight Pete and Sheila Rigg - by Pete Willow
SPOTLIGHT ON PETE AND SHEILA RIGG
by PETE WILLOW - From FOLKS (Coventry Folk Magazine) No 8 Jul-Aug 1979
(I have no photos or audio of Pete and Sheila Rigg)
Sheila Rigg's dark secret is that she has been playing guitar for longer than Pete. Having always been interested in singing, she borrowed a guitar about fifteen years ago, withdrew into her room for a month or so, and emerged with sore fingers and an ability to play the instrument. Pete is also self-taught and feels that as performing folk music is mainly a matter of your own style, this is the best way to learn, even though he was influenced by the many fine musicians around him at the time, including Mark Newman (Chris Newman's brother) and, a little later Steve Tilston.
When Pete lived in Leicester, before going to University, he first performed music with Bob Calver. Their original aim was to form a rock band, which is why Pete's earliest musical influences were Bob Dylan and the Who. They even attempted to build their own guitars and succeeded in producing a workable electric bass. Eventually they decided to play acoustic music and to learn a few folk songs. Throughout the summer holiday they sat down and learned about twenty standard folk songs from books and soon had a workable range of material to draw from, with such numbers as Wild Rover, Kilgary Mountain, mixed with early Dylan and Beatles songs.
One of Sheila's earliest influences at the time was Joan Baez, and when she was roped into join Pete and Bob and form a trio, they found a great wealth of material between them. They were encouraged as a trio by a friend who organised a youth club and happened to be a great folk music fanatic. He organised regular folk concerts at the club and asked them to appear as residents. With so many songs under their belt, they found that they didn't have the usual problems that this entails, having quickly to learn new numbers every week to keep the act varied.
They worked under the interesting name of CAERLIER, the Celtic name for Leicester, meaning literally the City of King Lear. For a year the trio worked hard and derived much enjoyment from their music finding that Sheila's voice blended well with the guitar accompaniment that Pete and Bob had learned together. The moment of great decisions finally arrived when they had to decide whether to go to University or to continue with their music. They decided on University.
Bob eventually followed a career in advertising and after much travelling around, Pete and Sheila settled in Coventry, working musically as a duo as well as making the occasional solo appearances at a folk club. A couple of years ago, they worked briefly with Dave Herbert (of Incredibly Average fame and composer of Pogle's Wood) and appeared under the name of Paracelsus. For these few weeks, Pete and Sheila feel they learned much from Dave about how to present their material to a club audience, but sadly the venture was short lived as Dave lived 25 miles away and had many other commitments on his plate.
These days, you are most likely to see Pete and Sheila performing guest spots at the Three Crowns in Barwell, the Bulls Head in Brinklow and the Pitts Head. They do not go out looking for work and make on average half a dozen guest appearances a year. It's possible that had Caerlier stayed together, they could have been fully professional folk musicians by now, but neither Pete or Sheila feel that this is what they wanted out of life. As Sheila explains "The thing about looking for work, we found that neither of us are too good at hustling. Secondly it is difficult to bring down into a very short space of time what we do. One of the things we do is variety - all sorts of things with different types of instruments, different types of music. You can't do that in three songs. We seem to work better where people know us and that's a long process."
The variety of music that they play in considerable, and although there are always classic Pete and Sheila numbers that will always get requested when they appear, such as Sheila's beautiful rendition of Joni Mitchell's For Free, or Pete's skilful handling of Steve Tilston's Normandy Days, each guest spot that they give has its own uniqueness, with the choice of material depending much on how they feel at the time.
As with their songs, the number of musical instruments that they have collected is vast; some are totlaly unique and were built by Rob Armstrong. Apart from their six string acoustic guitars (Pete's Armstrong and Sheila's Yamaha I80) they have an armstrong seven string, ten string (Quindola) and Mandolin, a double bass, Appalachian Dulicmer, bowed Psaltery, assorted recorders, tablas, zither, harmonium and piano. (The latter, understandably is not taken to gigs). The keyboards are played by Sheila and the seven-string guitar is exclusively Pete's.
Sheil's interest in musical instrument other than guitar goes back to the days of Caerlier. She explains; "I found that what I was playing did not necessarily match with what Pete and Bob were doing on guitar. Because there were two of them (and they were bigger than me!) there was the implication that what I was doing was wrong, so I stopped playing guitar for quite a while. Then after a time I started playing again, not drastically successfully, and then got to the stage of saying, "Ok I shall never be a guitarist. Blow it, I shall be a multi-instrumentalist" and started playing around with other instruments."
Her first departure from guitar was learning to paly double bass. At the time, there were two female bass players working in Leicester and Sheila decided there was no reason why she shouldn't be the third. She managed to borrow a double bass shortly before the trio wer booked to appear at a club organised by Toni Savage in Leicester. After what could have only been five hours practice, they thought it would be nice for Sheila to play bass at this booking. So she did. As she recalls, the evening was fun and the only adverse comment was "You can't really hear bum notes on a bass, anyway" That came from the person who lent her the bass in the first place.
The Quindola is also played mainly by Sheila and the creation of that was almost by accident. Pete and Sheila had considered using a mandolin and exploring possibilities with four string tunings. Pete had shown interest in an old Harmony four string that was for sale at the time but decided, having seen a small guitar body that Rob Armstrong had built, that it would be worthwhile asking him to create something along the line and lo and behold! Rob had produced a Quindola.
The history of Pete's seven string guitar is a little more complex. Pete had developed his guitar playing through studying various styles. He had missed out on the Blues Revival, although he had learned a few numbers note for note from Paul Oliver recordings, and by the time he's started studying at Warwick University, Ragtime was becoming popular, with the arrival of Stefan Grossman tablature books and records. During this time, Pete lived with Dave Bennett who contributed much to Pete's interest in Ragtime playing. It got to the stage when people were asking Pete for guitar lessons and so he started to give them. Pete recalls one pupil who had been to the other teachers and yet, despite his desire to learn guitar, had for some reason been totally unable to do so. Pete taught him note for note pieces he played he played himself, with some degree of success, but realised that after nine months the pupil was still unable to play the music that he wanted to learn. For Pete it was a little unnerving to watch somebody play exclusively what he played himself, as well as Pete could play it, and through his pupil he saw himself playing guitar from the outside. Pete became critical of his own guitar playing and wanted to learn something different. It was about this time that he started to think about multiple guitar strings.
Originally he asked Rob Armstrong for an eight string guitar, which is what Rob built. Pete used the instrument to try out new ideas with lute music and spent about a year developing this new style. But, as with most prototypes, the guitar had one or two design faults. Rob had used a 12 string guitar neck which proved to be too narrow for eight equally spaced strings. Also the length of the neck caused problems with the high tuning of the top strings. So Rob converted the guitar to a seven string which Pete uses more now to work with open tunings. For Pete, the instrument has yet to reach its full potential; "I haven't learnt what the instrument's about yet. I will do, but it's a long term project. It will be years before I've fully figured out what can be done on it.
As far as performing music in public is concerned, Pete and Sheila Rigg have perhaps already achieved most of what they set out to do; playing a small and select number of gigs in front of audiences with whom they can readily communicate. Their aim to learn more of different individual musical styles with overall effect of becoming more free and spontaneous in the presentation of their music, which explains a little of their interest in instruments other than six string guitar and in musical theory generally.
Pete uses an analogy to explain how he sees different musical styles and how different musicians approach them, in terms of four alleyways that converge at a central point. One is the simple 'folk approach', where the music provides a basis for the telling of a story and can be adapted and developed to suit its purpose. One is an 'image' approach where music is presented to the listener as a fully arranged 'Fait accompli', as with pop music, one is the classical approach in which standard musical theory comes to the fore to create a fully arranged piece; and the other is the jazz or improvised approach, in which music is a form of free expression albeit within certain guidelines. A musician may start by travelling up one of these alleyways until he's achieved much of what he wants to at which point he meets up with the other three approaches and may, if he wishes, learn more by travelling down any one of them. For Pete, the initial approach was through folk music and he would like to explore the other three.
With a wide variety of songs, tunes and instruments at their disposal, Pete and Sheila could if they wanted walk on stage and present a total kaleidoscope of musical styles in any one booking. Instead they generally bring about four instruments with them and use them to the full extent, or they may not use any instruments at all and give just as enjoyable a set by singing unaccompanied and using skillful harmonies. In this way, whenever they perform a booking, they are able to present an overall sound that is uniquely theirs as opposed to an uncompromising mixture of different styles that follow no pattern.
........................
ST.JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES - tabs from Pete Rigg
from Coventry's folk magazine - Folks - 1978 / 9.
by PETE WILLOW - From FOLKS (Coventry Folk Magazine) No 8 Jul-Aug 1979
(I have no photos or audio of Pete and Sheila Rigg)
When Pete lived in Leicester, before going to University, he first performed music with Bob Calver. Their original aim was to form a rock band, which is why Pete's earliest musical influences were Bob Dylan and the Who. They even attempted to build their own guitars and succeeded in producing a workable electric bass. Eventually they decided to play acoustic music and to learn a few folk songs. Throughout the summer holiday they sat down and learned about twenty standard folk songs from books and soon had a workable range of material to draw from, with such numbers as Wild Rover, Kilgary Mountain, mixed with early Dylan and Beatles songs.
One of Sheila's earliest influences at the time was Joan Baez, and when she was roped into join Pete and Bob and form a trio, they found a great wealth of material between them. They were encouraged as a trio by a friend who organised a youth club and happened to be a great folk music fanatic. He organised regular folk concerts at the club and asked them to appear as residents. With so many songs under their belt, they found that they didn't have the usual problems that this entails, having quickly to learn new numbers every week to keep the act varied.
They worked under the interesting name of CAERLIER, the Celtic name for Leicester, meaning literally the City of King Lear. For a year the trio worked hard and derived much enjoyment from their music finding that Sheila's voice blended well with the guitar accompaniment that Pete and Bob had learned together. The moment of great decisions finally arrived when they had to decide whether to go to University or to continue with their music. They decided on University.
These days, you are most likely to see Pete and Sheila performing guest spots at the Three Crowns in Barwell, the Bulls Head in Brinklow and the Pitts Head. They do not go out looking for work and make on average half a dozen guest appearances a year. It's possible that had Caerlier stayed together, they could have been fully professional folk musicians by now, but neither Pete or Sheila feel that this is what they wanted out of life. As Sheila explains "The thing about looking for work, we found that neither of us are too good at hustling. Secondly it is difficult to bring down into a very short space of time what we do. One of the things we do is variety - all sorts of things with different types of instruments, different types of music. You can't do that in three songs. We seem to work better where people know us and that's a long process."
The variety of music that they play in considerable, and although there are always classic Pete and Sheila numbers that will always get requested when they appear, such as Sheila's beautiful rendition of Joni Mitchell's For Free, or Pete's skilful handling of Steve Tilston's Normandy Days, each guest spot that they give has its own uniqueness, with the choice of material depending much on how they feel at the time.
As with their songs, the number of musical instruments that they have collected is vast; some are totlaly unique and were built by Rob Armstrong. Apart from their six string acoustic guitars (Pete's Armstrong and Sheila's Yamaha I80) they have an armstrong seven string, ten string (Quindola) and Mandolin, a double bass, Appalachian Dulicmer, bowed Psaltery, assorted recorders, tablas, zither, harmonium and piano. (The latter, understandably is not taken to gigs). The keyboards are played by Sheila and the seven-string guitar is exclusively Pete's.
Sheil's interest in musical instrument other than guitar goes back to the days of Caerlier. She explains; "I found that what I was playing did not necessarily match with what Pete and Bob were doing on guitar. Because there were two of them (and they were bigger than me!) there was the implication that what I was doing was wrong, so I stopped playing guitar for quite a while. Then after a time I started playing again, not drastically successfully, and then got to the stage of saying, "Ok I shall never be a guitarist. Blow it, I shall be a multi-instrumentalist" and started playing around with other instruments."
Her first departure from guitar was learning to paly double bass. At the time, there were two female bass players working in Leicester and Sheila decided there was no reason why she shouldn't be the third. She managed to borrow a double bass shortly before the trio wer booked to appear at a club organised by Toni Savage in Leicester. After what could have only been five hours practice, they thought it would be nice for Sheila to play bass at this booking. So she did. As she recalls, the evening was fun and the only adverse comment was "You can't really hear bum notes on a bass, anyway" That came from the person who lent her the bass in the first place.
The Quindola is also played mainly by Sheila and the creation of that was almost by accident. Pete and Sheila had considered using a mandolin and exploring possibilities with four string tunings. Pete had shown interest in an old Harmony four string that was for sale at the time but decided, having seen a small guitar body that Rob Armstrong had built, that it would be worthwhile asking him to create something along the line and lo and behold! Rob had produced a Quindola.
The history of Pete's seven string guitar is a little more complex. Pete had developed his guitar playing through studying various styles. He had missed out on the Blues Revival, although he had learned a few numbers note for note from Paul Oliver recordings, and by the time he's started studying at Warwick University, Ragtime was becoming popular, with the arrival of Stefan Grossman tablature books and records. During this time, Pete lived with Dave Bennett who contributed much to Pete's interest in Ragtime playing. It got to the stage when people were asking Pete for guitar lessons and so he started to give them. Pete recalls one pupil who had been to the other teachers and yet, despite his desire to learn guitar, had for some reason been totally unable to do so. Pete taught him note for note pieces he played he played himself, with some degree of success, but realised that after nine months the pupil was still unable to play the music that he wanted to learn. For Pete it was a little unnerving to watch somebody play exclusively what he played himself, as well as Pete could play it, and through his pupil he saw himself playing guitar from the outside. Pete became critical of his own guitar playing and wanted to learn something different. It was about this time that he started to think about multiple guitar strings.
Originally he asked Rob Armstrong for an eight string guitar, which is what Rob built. Pete used the instrument to try out new ideas with lute music and spent about a year developing this new style. But, as with most prototypes, the guitar had one or two design faults. Rob had used a 12 string guitar neck which proved to be too narrow for eight equally spaced strings. Also the length of the neck caused problems with the high tuning of the top strings. So Rob converted the guitar to a seven string which Pete uses more now to work with open tunings. For Pete, the instrument has yet to reach its full potential; "I haven't learnt what the instrument's about yet. I will do, but it's a long term project. It will be years before I've fully figured out what can be done on it.
As far as performing music in public is concerned, Pete and Sheila Rigg have perhaps already achieved most of what they set out to do; playing a small and select number of gigs in front of audiences with whom they can readily communicate. Their aim to learn more of different individual musical styles with overall effect of becoming more free and spontaneous in the presentation of their music, which explains a little of their interest in instruments other than six string guitar and in musical theory generally.
Pete uses an analogy to explain how he sees different musical styles and how different musicians approach them, in terms of four alleyways that converge at a central point. One is the simple 'folk approach', where the music provides a basis for the telling of a story and can be adapted and developed to suit its purpose. One is an 'image' approach where music is presented to the listener as a fully arranged 'Fait accompli', as with pop music, one is the classical approach in which standard musical theory comes to the fore to create a fully arranged piece; and the other is the jazz or improvised approach, in which music is a form of free expression albeit within certain guidelines. A musician may start by travelling up one of these alleyways until he's achieved much of what he wants to at which point he meets up with the other three approaches and may, if he wishes, learn more by travelling down any one of them. For Pete, the initial approach was through folk music and he would like to explore the other three.
With a wide variety of songs, tunes and instruments at their disposal, Pete and Sheila could if they wanted walk on stage and present a total kaleidoscope of musical styles in any one booking. Instead they generally bring about four instruments with them and use them to the full extent, or they may not use any instruments at all and give just as enjoyable a set by singing unaccompanied and using skillful harmonies. In this way, whenever they perform a booking, they are able to present an overall sound that is uniquely theirs as opposed to an uncompromising mixture of different styles that follow no pattern.
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ST.JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES - tabs from Pete Rigg
from Coventry's folk magazine - Folks - 1978 / 9.
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