BRIAN PETERS:
News
What’s Afoot,
Autumn 2008

Mainstage at Augusta Heritage Center, Elkins, West Virginia, August 2008

So what’s been happening since I last updated this page? Hmmm…. The beginning of the year seems so long ago that I can barely remember what I was doing back then - mind you there are times when I can’t remember what I was doing yesterday never mind nine months ago. Ah yes, (he said, leafing through the diary) I did several gigs in January which proved that – despite all the usual reports of their imminent demise – quite a few of the nation’s folk clubs are actually in rude health. Honourable mentions to St. Neots, Faversham and Maidenhead, but the best night was at Ripponden, where several of my early heroes from the English folk scene – Pete Coe, Chris Coe, John Adams amongst them – run the excellent Ryburn Folk Club. Great music and songs from the floor, and an all-round fine night. No piccies, though.
February brought an appearance at the Thaxted Sugarbeet Weekend, a ‘traditional calendar celebration’ no less enjoyable for having been invented by some dancers as a joke, only a few years ago.

As part of the programme of entertainment I got to play on a bill with the talented accordionist and singer Harriet Bartlett, in a barn where unusual and alarmingly alien-looking sugarbeet candle holders gave the atmosphere a pungent scent of caramel. Bizarre, in a good way.

I was also invited back to teach melodeon at the Folkus workshop weekend in Clitheroe, presided over by the avuncular Lancashire folk supremo Alan Bell. As well as the classes and some good jams, I was prevailed upon to play the Saturday night ceilidh dance, fronting a scratch band including Nancy Kerr and James Fagan and my good friend Robin Shepherd, who satisfied overwhelming public demand by performing his amazing solo morris jig during the break.

More seemingly thriving folk clubs followed through the spring, with very enjoyable nights at Llantrisant, Walthamstow (where a dangerous attack of hubris persuaded me to open the second half with a Wombles number), Lowestoft, Bury St. Edmunds and Traditions at the Tiger in Nottingham, to name but a few.

I spent most of the Summer in the USA, with a week on staff at Pinewoods Camp in Massachusetts - my first visit there since a memorable occasion in 2001 – and here’s me in my best shirt outside my quarters for the week, the ancient and tiny cabin called ‘Kitty Alone’, named after the refrain of one version of Froggie Went A’ Courting. Rumour has it that you can lie down on the floor inside and touch all four walls at once; maybe my arms are just shorter than average.

Giving a daily session to a knowledgeable and enthusiastic class on the subject of the Child Ballads was a lot of fun, especially the day Peggy Seeger came along when subject under discussion was ‘Women in the ballads’. Here we are, sitting by Long Pond after the class, sharing a joke - I’ve no idea what it was, but it looks like it must have been a good one
After a pleasant stay with Jeff Davis in Connecticut, I took a train down to Washington DC for a concert arranged by Dennis and Judy Cook, and then got a lift up into the Appalachian Mountains for ‘Vocal Week’ at Augusta Heritage Center, Elkins, West Virginia. This was particularly enjoyable because ‘Old Time Week’ was taking place simultaneously on the college campus, so the place was buzzing with fiddle and banjo jams – you don’t really mind the music outside your window carrying on all night when the session’s being led by Bruce Molsky and the rest of the band are some of the best in the business.

One of the nice things about spending a week at camp is getting to know some great musicians, and Elkins was full of them. Vocal Week staff included Joe Newberry, a terrific banjo player, guitarist and singer currently performing with The Original Red Clay Ramblers, and Rhiannon Giddens, of The Carolina Chocolate Drops.

This year finally saw the release of my Child Ballad CD, which you can find out all about on another page of this site, and the launch of live ballad show, sharing the CD’s title Songs of Trial and Triumph. This attracted full houses at Elkins and at Chippenham Folk Festival earlier in the year, and I’ll be doing it all again at Cecil Sharp House, London, in November, at the Celtic Connections Festival in January next year, and a few other folk festivals in 2009. It’s good entertainment, honest!
Right back at the beginning of the year, several of the regulars from the old Glossop Folk Club, which met at the Crown on Victoria Street twenty-odd years ago, got together to celebrate Ken Whiting’s 80th birthday party. Ken and Mags ran the club with me and my wife Margaret for a good few years, and are still good friends; I played a benefit night in April at Glossop Labour Club for the Chernobyl Children’s Project, with which Ken and Mags are very involved.

During the get-together I was looking through some of their old photos of the folk club days, and found this happy snap of Tom Hirst, one of our regular performers, and his wife Hilda, in the Crown itself. The point of sharing it on this page is that Tom – watchmaker, former variety performer and all-round good guy - was the fellow who sang Chips and Fish, a regular part of my repertoire for two decades or more, and I thought you might like to see what he looked like.

Feel free to get in touch - send a message here

HomeOrder