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A friend had recommended Mike Silver to me and I knew little of the man before this fateful night. It was a truly magical evening and I’m so grateful that I’ve discovered one of the true greats on the UK’s folk and acoustic circuit. The Ram Club itself is in what looks like a village hall at the back of the Foley Arms pub in Claygate. It’s been running for over 20 years and immediately I felt the warmth and generosity of the venue. Many venues are cold smoky rooms above or below pubs rented out by the landlord but this was the antithesis of those types of places. A shrine to folk music – with classic posters of the past two decades adorning the walls and a feeling that it’s been created to celebrate great music. The welcome to the club was also hearty and generous and I had no problem in securing a floor spot. The compere was also friendly and witty – all set for an excellent evening’s entertainment.
Mike started with an old favourite of his, One Too Many Mornings by Bob Dylan and then launched into Deep River Blues. His professionalism was absolute – the PA was warm and perfectly set for his voice and acoustic guitars. The audience were singing along instantly when prompted – it was like a long lost troubadour returning to a gig in his home town.
Next up came some of Mike’s own songs. Elaina is a song about a girl he met and Wrong Side of Midnight a song of a man cheating on his partner. Mike’s guitar playing is nothing sort of sensational. He’s fluid in all manner of tunings and his fingers pick out classic baroque melody runs with effortless grace. It reminds me of Roy Harper in his prime – the best I’ve seen for a long time. His voice is unique and has a great range – reminiscent of James Taylor but still retaining an effortless Englishness. Mike finished the first half with Ewen Carruthers’ Dirty Water, a rocky jaunt showcasing Mike’s instrumental and vocal versatility.
Mike’s second set featured songs predominantly from his recent CD Solid Silver. Mike explained how he came to have a ‘hit album’ thanks to Bob Harris and subsequently how Terry Wogan on Radio 2 picked up a song called Not A Matter Of Pride. He also got to perform on GMTV and he described how they wanted him to mime the whole thing but he managed to persuade them to let him sing live while miming the guitar. What hits me time and time again throughout this second set is just how much this man deserves his breaks. He is a genuine musician and performer – he describes how performing is like ‘having a birthday everyday’ and how the applause at the end of a song is ‘like an earthquake in your heart’. He loves his audience and because of this and his immeasurable talent they love him in return.
Anyway back to the music… first up is Let It Be So, a wonderful song about following your dreams – ‘if dreams are for fools, let it be so’. Mike has also written some songs with Ewen Carruthers and he features one of their songs The Power (where Ewen composed the lyrics and Mike the music). I particularly like Mike’s next song The Main Man’s Ear which is a tribute to the musicians from the folk revival (too many to list here) who are no longer with us: Mike wonders what they’d be like waiting at St. Peter’s Gates.
His songs have wide ranging sources of inspiration and another, The Dove And The Dolphin is inspired by a friend of his who sailed to the Gaza Strip to help Palestinian orphans and sing for their charitable cause. Mike’s last three songs are classics. He sings Not A Matter Of Pride and it is immediately obvious why so many people can empathise with the song. It’s about a couple’s love growing old and worn – ‘when people get close they sometimes collide, oh how the truth gets turned to lies’. It’s a beautiful song and by this stage the whole room is resounding with harmonies to the timeless chorus. Then Mike sings The Midnight Train Blues – the guitar riff is stunning and Mike lets rip at breakneck speed. Finally his encore is Old-Fashioned Saturday Night. I didn’t realise this was one of his songs – it sounds like a folk club classic – surely it’ll be around for as long as folk clubs exist. A great song that he wrote in 10 minutes.
There’s a great atmosphere at the end that you only feel when you’ve witnessed something really special. Mike had the audience in the palm of his hand. You know how he did it? By being a fantastic musician and just as importantly by making every member of the audience feel they were part of the evening. A truly genuine man and a wonderful performer. Go and buy the CD Solid Silver if you haven’t yet!
From the front row of the Ram Club, the sheer energy of Dick Gaughan in full flow is startling. On stage it’s not like a CD - there are no gaps between the tracks! He just carries on, tuning and talking, retuning and playing, always working, from the moment he steps on stage until he finally rests the guitar back in its case.
At one point a guitar string breaks. It’s remarkable that it doesn’t happen all the time, the way the man thumps and batters and snarls his way through songs like the bitter No Gods and Precious Few Heroes or Pete Seeger’s Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. Unfazed, Dick fits and tunes a new string and continues, with barely a pause for breath.
Gaughan, in Brian McNeill’s observation and by his own admission, has changed from an angry young man into a “bad-tempered old bastard”. There are many vitriolic references, the most acerbic of them reserved for John Prescott, whom he considers “a union-bashing thug”. Well, you didn’t expect mellow during a national firefighters’ strike, did you? What is striking though is the contrast between this rough political comment, and the often gentle, wistful admiration he has for “ordinary people doing extraordinary things”. For John Muir, creator of the Yosemite National Park, revered in America but unknown in Scotland; or for carpenter and clockmaker John Harrison. These are the heroes of Dick Gaughan’s world. Perhaps in deference to a Surrey audience he includes Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, via Leon Rosselson’s World Turned Upside Down.
Highlights of the evening? Perhaps Robert Burns’ haunting Now Westlin Winds, with that intricate guitar-work that seems to run in a different time-frame to the words, or Both Sides the Tweed, his encore. For me it would be the astonishing Why Old Men Cry, a real three-handkerchief song of weary men with sunken hollow eyes down the ages, in war and peace.
It was a pretty good way of spending seven quid. For entertainment and passion, it beats Celebrity Big Brother by a long long way.
No review, I’m afraid – I was working nights that evening so reluctantly had to slip away during the interval. But before I went I took a few pictures, so here is the Godfather of the English tradition in – his words – “a fantastic club”.
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It must be more than five years since I last saw Damien Barber. But for the four years before that I saw him as often as I could. If my memory serves me well (actually I have just checked up in a few old festival programmes) 1992 was a good year. I saw him – for the first time in fact – at Cleethorpes in May, then at Warwick in August and at the Peter Bellamy memorial concert in October. With each gig I became more impressed at the authority with which this young man tackled the increasingly unfashionable world of British traditional music.
But then he went and spoiled it all by moving to Ireland. (So you see it wasn’t my fault I haven’t seen him for the past five years.) And then soon after returning to England at the end of 1998 he famously lost the little finger of his left hand in an argument with his fan belt.
So what did he do? He learned to play guitar.
I was delighted when I heard Damien was going to pay at the Ram and really looking forward to the gig. And I wasn’t disappointed. In many ways he hasn’t changed. Still the beaded hair, black T-shirt, jeans and boots. (There is a picture on his Web site of Damien at the Bellamy memorial which might just as easily have been taken at the Ram gig.) Still he stands with one foot on his concertina case, squeeze-box leaning on his knee and tapping away with his foot. Still the cheery grin and cheeky repartee.
His concertina playing is as clear as ever. His singing even stronger than I remember. The Gin And The Raspberry, with which he started the evening, set the tone. He finished off – apart from the encore – with a rousing version of The Black And Bitter Night from The Transports. In between his repertoire has grown much wider. As well as some traditional standards, such as Down The Moor and The Gypsy Poacher, he chose from a wide selection of songs, but whatever he sang there seemed to be a good reason for picking it. He’d learned Al Stewart’s Nostradamus from Peter Bellamy. From his other Norfolk mentor, Chris Sugden, he’d got Confidence. From a friend in Cordelia’s Dad, who he was organising a band with, he’d learned Katy Cruel.
He has developed a beautifully fluid style on button accordion – which he built himself while in Ireland with the help of a £5000 grant – “It might have been some of your money!” he grins – and his time there was clearly not wasted judging by the reels he picked up from the locals. And that guitar style! He bought the guitar with the whip-rounds collected for him after his accident – “People obviously thought I was dead, so they had collections and sent me money in case I wanted flowers.” So in less than two years he has developed a highly individual style that perfectly complements his material and his voice – he played and sang a particularly spirited version of Van Diemen’s Land.
The only disappointing thing about the evening was the size of the audience. It was admittedly very cold, but not inside the Ram. Damien was cooking.
When I reviewed their album Knock John for Living Tradition, I particularly commented on the joy and enthusiasm evident in their playing, and having seen them in the intimate atmosphere of the Ram, I now know it wasn’t a studio trick.
They began with some sets of tunes which appear on the album, such as Bonny Breast Knot and Bonnie Kate, and their love of the tunes was clear both from their introductions and the way they played, Chris describing Mrs Casey for example as “up there along with the Crown Jewels”.
Favouring English social dance tunes – during which there was hardly a still foot in the house – they were equally at home in more reflective mood. They have a clever knack of taking the pace and volume down, giving pause for thought before letting rip again into another dance piece.
The sheer genius of this partnership was demonstrated during the second half. They began with a tune Chris had learned from Nigel Chippendale and passed on to Andy, and which they explained they increasingly thought he had written himself. Towards the end of the tune, Chris put down his bow and picked up a second fiddle. Standing them in his lap like a pair of twins, he proceeded to pluck from them a repeating figure which I suddenly remembered from the album, but which I hadn’t realised was played in this way. He began singing – beautifully – Sweet Jayne, a traditional song, and as it finished, the rhythmic pattern continuing, Andy began playing Chris’s composition The North Downs Way over it. It was sublime.
It was one of those moments we so often encounter in folk clubs, where the technique, as talented as ever, transcends the performance. I’d like to think it’s because the music is produced out of the love of making it rather than the money that can be made from it.
The Ram erupted with applause – and it was richly deserved.
Can there be any more hard-working act on the folk scene than the Old Rope String Band? Not on the evidence of their performance at the Ram.
It’s been a few years since they were last here, and while there were a few old favourites, such as the South African coal-miners’ wellington boot dance(!) there was a vast amount of new material.
Thankfully Blair’s New Labour is just as ripe a target as Margaret Thatcher, so the satire element was as effective as ever. But the aspects of the OSRB that never fail to astonish me in equal measure are their inventiveness and their accuracy.
Take an example: Peter Challoner – handsome, debonair – pulls lovingly from a tattered case a saw. He sits and plays it movingly, so movingly in fact that he bursts into tears. The boys don’t think much of this so move into a higher tempo number, and while Pete – if you can’t beat them, join them – initially begins sawing wood in rhythm, in a flash of inspiration he sits back down and begins to catapult the bits of wood at Joe – not handsome, not at all debonair. And the amazing thing is that it only takes Pete one shot to take his bearings, as the second is a direct hit on the Scurfield mop.
To list the highlights, I would have to give a verbatim account of the whole evening. The fun was relentless. I lost count of the number of times I overheard the comment “I haven’t laughed so much for ages” during the interval.
There was the occasional pause for musical breath, for they are all highly gifted musicians. But it was the comedy which shone through, because even when playing their brand of old-timey world music, they seem incapable of avoiding doing tricks, such as juggling fiddle bows in mid-performance, or finding new (culinary) uses for the CD. Let alone playing the piano accordion under water.
And Tim Dalling – the opposite of handsome, the nadir of debonair – with his virtuoso solo performance of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic has to be seen to be believed. A moment of pure theatre, I kid you not. And an evening of pure entertainment.
If you get the chance, don’t miss them.
I wasn’t able to get to the Ram until half time, but what I saw was such a treat I wish I’d been able to get there earlier.
Among those appearing during the second half floor spots were Martha Tilston and Paul Brennan. Martha is of course Maggie’s former partner Steve Tilston’s daughter, and is clocking up a fine reputation down south as one half of the folk duo Mouse. Paul Brennan has played pipes with Maggie for years. Class acts like this set you up for a great second half!
I have admired Maggie’s singing for ages, so more of her in a moment. Gordon Tyrrall I have heard of many times but had never seen perform before. He was wonderful.
He began the second set with a rousing version of The Santa Fe Trail – popularised on the folk circuit many years ago by their old friend and Yorkshire neighbour the late Peter Bellamy. Gordon went on to play jigs and reels on flute and to sing and play guitar. Crockeryware, a light-hearted piece from Irish singer Maggie Murphy, was particularly amusing.
They took it in turns to take the lead, and when supporting Maggie, he was the perfect accompanist, playing not too much, but just enough. Maggie of course was terrific, her choices including enchanting performances of The Bloody Gardener, Lady Margaret and Bert Jansch’s Birdsong. Her voice has a harder edge to it these days, yet still retains an exquisitely vulnerable quality.
They encored surprisingly with a Beatles medley – a plaintive reading by Maggie of World Without Love launching into a spirited I’ve Just Seen A Face from Gordon. Surprisingly, yet successfully, as the volume of support during the refrains was pretty high. And, as Gordon mentioned, “These are some traditional songs not as old as these.”
Take a boy with a mop of curly black hair, a cheeky grin and a twinkle in his eye – somewhere between Dennis the Menace at his cutest and David Essex back when he was heart-stop handsome.
Sprinkle him with too much talent for one person to bear but the ability to cope with it and the need not to show it off but to share it.
Give him muscles and a pair of tap shoes and send him off round the world to have adventures – joining the circus in Mexico, trying to find work on the Continent or staying with new friends in Wales.
Put him on a small stage in an intimate club with a pair of spoons, a guitar and a harmonica – and those tap shoes – and what have you got?
Probably the entire Ram Club drooling over Rory McLeod.
Rory has that effect on people.
He ambles up the centre aisle towards the stage, already playing his harmonica, building up into a tour de force of harp-playing that takes in genres from the blues through vaudeville to the polka.
Then he launches into an evening of songs which encompass topics as diverse as the killing of Cherry Groce, the Falklands war and the decline of the NHS, yet which curiously are catchy, foot-tappingly infectious and thoroughly entertaining.
As he introduces nearly every song he points out that it is a love song – and you can dance to it.
And the twinkle in the eye sparkles each time he says it.
Rory has been Edinburgh Festival Busker of the Year, and he’s performed at old people’s day centres, so he knows how to capture an audience and keep it with him.
He sang songs like London Kisses and the Ballad Of Spitalfields Market – an unreheared request – which are real showstoppers, rich with language and imagery that both exemplify and display his love of the streets, the market places, the common man. At the other end of the spectrum was a touching performance of Ewan McColl’s Joy Of Living, sung in memory of Don Osbourne, a travelling friend of Rory who had died unexpectedly.
Nowadays he often plays as a duo with partner Aimée Leonard, who last played at the club as part of Anam, but this night she was too busy looking after their 15-week-old baby son Solly, who came along to hear the last couple of numbers and who is clearly the reason why Rory has started singing his song about conception, When My Mum And Daddy Made Me, again.
He ended with the stunning Farewell Welfare, a tightrope walk for voice, harmonica and spoons, which shouldn’t actually be possible, so left us calling for more, which of course he gave us.
His lust for life, people and entertaining is heart-warming.
If he comes to a club or festival near you – roll up.
Boo Hewerdine’s CD A Live One was recorded live at the Ram Club in September 2001. This is what he has to say about the club on the CD sleeve.
“On September 21st 2001 I arrived at the Ram folk club Claygate. I was early and found myself alone in what appeared to be a scout hut. This was my first solo gig in years and my heart sank. Here came one of those ‘what the hell am I doing?’ moments. I had no idea if anyone would come. Or like what I did. By the end of the evening I was a very happy man. I had played pretty well, the room (hut!) was full, the bookers couldn’t have been kinder and the punters seemed to get it. This was a turning point for me. Re-energised, I have since written and made a new album (Anon) and can’t wait to tour again. Recorded straight from the desk there are warts and all here. Still, I hope a bit of what made that night so important to me is somewhere on this CD. BH.”
What a nice man! And a fine performer. Click on the pics to go to Boo’s site, where you can buy the CD. Better still, get along to one of his gigs.
…so was the firmly-established Scottish Whisky bard looking forward to performing in Esher? Laing said: "I played at the Ram two years ago, and really enjoyed it."
"It is an excellent venue, an example to other folk clubs. At the moment folk clubs are struggling to attract people. They seem to have acquired the label of being dark and dingy, but the Ram is vibrant." Laing believes the demise is purely a generational thing, with most folk music itself cyclically coming back into fashion.
He said: "Young people are watching folk music at festivals, but have so far remained away from the clubs, so hopefully places like the Ram can help solve that."
"When you go in there you realise that there is a buzz about the place, the people really like being there and the organisers make you very welcome. If other clubs could achieve that, then people would return, again and again."
I am a disabled person in a wheelchair. I love folk music. Most people on the folk scene know me. However, the reason they do not see me very often at present is that all folk clubs are upstairs and I cannot get access. I used to get people to carry me upstairs but what with new European regulations affecting my personal assistants (and rightly so) and I am growing up and realising my responsibility, it is just not possible for me to get upstairs.
I live in London where not one folk club is accessible to me. Occasionally, there is a good gig at the Hammersmith Irish Centre, or the Great Hall in Blackheath Concert HaIls. Otherwise, to see live folk I have resorted to going all the way to the Ram, Claygate, or the Electric Theatre, Guildford, both are reasonably accessible.
I do appreciate folk music and beer go together and this determines the venues. However, I do feel the circuit is very old fashioned regarding taking on this issue. When the folk revival began in the Sixties disabled people had very limited mobility. Most were either in institutions or stuck at home. Today, we have far more mobility, independence etc, and the folk clubs, who sing about liberty and freedom, have been slow to take this issue on board. Incidentally, I went to a storytelling night last week at Jackson’s Lane which is accessible and there were three wheelchair users there.
I wish to invite all folk artists to put access symbols on their gig list. Join my campaign. Over the next few months I hope to be working out some simple codes. Artists will be able to contact me for advice.
Please don’t forget access for disabled people. The next time I write for fRoots dare I suggest I will be writing a review and not complaining about access.
From NKarney22@aol.com
Sun Apr 08 11:11:17 2001
Graham I just wanted to say thank you for responding to my email this week. It
was great to see Allan Taylor perform again. The Ram Folk club has a very
friendly atmosphere. I used to go along to the Dorking club until a friend of
mine moved away. I have been meaning to seek out somewhere else and will come
again to the Ram soon. I didn't bring along my son this time, but will do so in
future. (Great website by the way)
Best wishes Nigel
From david.searle@libertysurf.co.uk
Mon Apr 16 23:55:06 2001
Just a note to say how much we enjoyed visiting the club last Friday to see
Chris Newman and Maire (can't do the rest of her name). Haven't been to a folk
club for over 20 years (I think that was to see Chris Newman) and really
enjoyed the cosy venue and friendly atmosphere plus, of course, the brilliant
music.
Thanks very much David and Kathy Searle
From james.mclean@blueyonder.co.uk
Mon, 30 Sep 2002 00:43:09 +0100
Please say a HUGE thank you to everyone at the RAM for a great evening on
Friday 27th. I was made so welcome on my return to this club, and everyone was
so helpful. The sound man was great... he says he'll send me a tape of the
gig... the organisation was superb, the floorspots were quality, the timing
perfect, the atmosphere friendly and enthusiastic, and it was an altogether
absolutely completely a FUN gig to do. Sherryl, Gary and Len, who backed me
that night would also like to pass on their thanks and compliments. As you can
probably tell, I enjoyed myself!! Thanks again...keep up the excellent work.
With very best wishes Jim McLean