Despite the fact that there’s no concertina on the record, John Kirkpatrick’s 1983 album Three in a Row: The English Melodeon is one of my favourites from his solo output. Most of the tunes on the album were written by John, and this one is a particularly fine example of his ability to write an absolutely stonking dance tune (and, of course, to play it in an irresistibly danceable way, on a one- two- or three-row instrument).
Despite having had the tune going round my head for years, it’s only recently that I’ve taken the time to learn it properly. And I’m very glad I did (although I’m also annoyed with myself for forgetting to trot this out in a session at ECMW the other weekend). Someone please remind me next year!
I learned this from the fabulous CD Borrowed Shoes by Polkaworks – one of my absolute favourite records of country dance music.
It was written by Sue Harris, in honour of John Howson’s 60th birthday.
As mentioned in a previous blog post, John sadly passed away recently, and there was a big celebration of his life yesterday in Stowmarket. I wasn’t able to attend, but I did play this tune.
Rest in peace John. You will be missed.
Katie and John Howson receiving their Gold Badge Awards from EFDSS President Shirley Collins. Photo by J Halliday. From the EATMT website.
Howson’s Hoolie
Played on four-stop one-row melodeon in C, C/G anglo-concertina, and triangle.
Another 48 bar tune from Gloucestershire fiddle-player John Mason. I’d played this at various times in the past and the tune hadn’t really made much of an impression. But, revisiting Mason’s tunes recently, I decided to try it on the one-row melodeon and found that it works a treat. The tune has a lot of quite long held notes, but the insistent oom-pah oom-pah of the melodeon left hand helps to sustain the momentum.
Actually, just from instinct rather than consciously thinking about it, I quite often find myself breaking up the minims and semibreves into shorter note values. After all, country dance music isn’t like Bach or Beethoven – the notes written on the page really are just the starting point, not an instruction on how the tune must be played.
Highland Quick Step, collected from John Mason 2nd August 1909, from the VWML Archive
I spent last weekend playing tunes with a whole bunch of other people at the English Country Music Weekend in Croston, Lancashire. I can’t say that the weekend reignited my enthusiasm for English country dance music, since I’d never actually lost it. Perhaps “took it new levels” would be the best way to put it. You get a real buzz playing a tune like ‘The Shropshire Lass’ or ‘Sally Sloane’s Jig’ in a massed session, but I also really enjoyed a very intimate, laid back session right at the start of the weekend, with Paul Burgess, and Tony Weatherill and Simon Woods from the band Shropshire Heroes. Having played a couple of tunes from the Gloucestershire fiddle-player John Mason, Paul and I took it upon ourselves to play through the three “morris dance” tunes that Cecil Sharp collected from him on 18th Aug 1909. These were tunes for which no associated dance was collected, which have not turned up in any other morris tradition and, frankly, don’t sound an awful lot like morris dance tunes. Cracking tunes though.
I copied them out by hand from one of the bound volumes of Sharp’s Folk Tunes in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library back in the 1990s. Of course, now you can find them on the VWML archive catalogue, and via the Glostrad website. But if you’d prefer to have them nicely printed out in a handy A4 music book, you have two choices (actually both pretty much indispensable, I’d say):
Both of these volumes contains all of the tunes collected from Mason – and an awful lot more besides, naturally.
Photograph of John Mason by Cecil Sharp. Image copyright EFDSS.
Of Mason’s three “morris tunes” this is the one which has always been least secure in my memory (apart from the first few bars, which are almost identical to one of Scan Tester’s polkas). But I’ve played it through several times in the last week, and I think it’s definitely part of the repertoire from now on.
Morris Dance, collected from John Mason 18th August 1909, from the VWML Archive
Stephen Baldwin was a Gloucestershire fiddle-player recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1952 and by Russell Wortley in 1954. Wortley’s recordings appeared on the Leader LP English Village Fiddler, a copy of which was in the Ashford public library in the late 1970s. I borrowed that LP – taped it of course – and over the next few years proceeded to learn a good many of the tunes. So I’ve probably been playing this one for about 40 years.
You’ll find all of the Kennedy and Wortley recordings on the Musical Traditions CD Here’s one you’ll like, I think. Essential for anyone interested in English fiddle-playing, but also a treasure trove for anyone who’s just on the look-out for some good tunes. Meanwhile on the wonderful Glostrad website you’ll find recordings and transcriptions of all of Baldwin’s tunes. I struggled to find the record for this one at first – it’s listed there as ‘Polka Mazurka’, with the alternative title ‘Plain Schottische’. Of course, it’s neither a polka nor a mazurka; nor, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is it a Polka Mazurka, as these are in 3 time.
Harry Cox is best known – rightly so – as a singer. But he also played fiddle, whistle and melodeon. You’ll find an appreciation and analysis of Cox’s fiddle-playing by Philip Heath-Coleman in the Musical Traditions article Harry Cox: “Ain’t that beautiful?” and that article also has a link to a sound clip of him playing this schottische on the one-row melodeon. I first learned the tune from one of the English tune books that Dave Townsend published in the early 1980s. Much later I heard the recording of Harry Cox playing the tune on the Topic double CD The Bonny Labouring Boy. He consistently plays an extra beat in the third bar of the tune – and that’s how it’s notated in the East Anglian tune book Before the Night Was Out. Musically interesting but, if you were to play the tune like that for, say, the Nottingham Swing, it would mess the dancers up good and proper.
Stephen Baldwin’s Schottische No 2 / Harry Cox’s Schottische
Played on G/D anglo-concertina
There’s clearly similarities between Stephen Baldwin’s ‘Polka-Mazurka’ and this Scan Tester Schottische. It’s the opening track on the classic Topic double LP I Never Played To Many Posh Dances. It’s given there simply as ‘Schottische 1’, while on the Veteran CD Down in the Fields it’s listed as ‘A Country Schottische’.
Scan Tester’s Country Schottische
Played on C/G anglo-concertina
I’ve been meaning to post these tunes for a while. Putting them online today gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to two people who have been key figures in collecting and promoting and disseminating English traditional music, both of whom sadly have passed away in the last few weeks:
Gwilym Davies who, amongst other things, was one of the driving forces behind the GlosTrad website.
and John Howson, of Veteran Records, the Old Hat Band and Old Hat Concert Party, and much more. I still haven’t got used to the idea that I won’t be seeing John’s friendly face at Bampton, at Sidmouth, the King and Queen, or at any of the other many places that we’d bump into each other.
Squeezed Out 