Have you any early memories of being interested in the arts generally or music specifically?
Both music and art were part of daily life during much of my growing up. My mother, Tillie, played piano daily and introduced us to a wide range of music, from the Classics to Blues and from Popular to Traditional. Even within Blues she would play orchestrated pieces from WC Handy, Gershwin’s Jazz orientated music and Boogie Woogie.
Tilly had been classically trained from an early age and she played for the wonderful, Patricia Mulholland Dance School, as well as for local singers, but as was expected, in the 1940s and 1950s, her time was given mainly to raising a family.
My eldest sister, Pat, studied Art at the Belfast College and would go on to lecture in art at Galway. She specialised in textiles just before the era of cheap imports, and as children we would visit stores, such as the Spinning Mill, to view materials which she had designed.
Even before my teens, Pat took me under her guidance and introduced me to music from the Rolling Stones. I owned every one of their early LPs. By the age of fifteen or sixteen (around 1970) I was visiting the record shop owned by Dougie Knight, looking for source material that had informed the early music of the Stones.
I purchased Blind Willie McTell’s 1940 recording that he made for John Lomax and the wonderful compilation “Recording The Blues”, produced by Paul Oliver. Paul was responsible for a number of excellent compilation albums, delving into the history of the Blues. I also bought the collection of Bessie Smith LPs reissued in 1970 by Columbia, and I acquired the wonderful “Screening The Blues” which CBS had issued in 1968.
When did you start playing an instrument?
I had started playing guitar aged twelve and my repertoire was basic folk music. There were two fine local musicians, John and Malcolm Kindness. John, who always had a fascination for Antoni Goudi, created our wonderful blue pollen fish. He was an excellent banjo player and Malcolm was a terrific electric guitarist. While I never took lessons with him, Malcolm was an inspiration. I remember that their father had a selection of great blues and fringe country LPs.
Listening to music was always important although access to real analysis and understanding of the various forms was largely limited to sleeve notes and these were not always accurate. By the mid-70s I picked up a copy of Alan Lomax’s “American Folk Songs” that he first produced for Penguin in 1964.
Helpful and informative as it was I could not relate information on the music categories or on the playing techniques to the music I had come to love. Indeed, while I have devoted much of a lifetime to playing old Blues and Gospel music from the 1920s and 1930s I still cannot reference this representation to the living music. There is perhaps something within folk traditions that requires listening in order to capture the voicing and nuances of the music.
Thankfully today there are wonderful publications and reissues of material from many of the important artists and through a combination of individuals such as James McKune and John Hammond, to the folk revival (dating from the 1940s to the 1960s), to the American Civil Rights Movement; we have access today to wonderful source material on this pre-eminent art form.
Did you get any support at home or at school?
Interest in music was certainly encouraged at home and often both my sister and mother would offer insight into music, even explaining its origin and relevance. I did learn the importance of dedication and practice, but it was many years before I would dare to play for my mother.
