Monday 26 September 2011

Don Partridge and Company - the book - on sale now!
















Finally we have arrived!  'Don Partridge and Company' is now on sale from my online store.
'Three young men hit the road with their guitars and music and became buskers.  One of them became famous...'

Go here to BUY...
 
The book is available in either paperback hard copy or pdf digital download.


 The photo above is one I found a few days ago and the last one I took of Don before his tragic death just over a year ago.  This was on my last visit - we'd broken from recording his interviews to go to Brighton for a few hours.  It was a glorious day and we drank too much.  But great fun... as time spent with Don always was...

Thursday 22 September 2011

The music we played...


It was always a mélange... Pat says that he started out playing under the influence of Rambling Jack Elliot but also had a lucky encounter in Paris with Ian Bennetts:

'… Ian Bennetts... was a shithot flatpicker... very good at playing American folk and who occasionally did some busking although it wasn't his main livelihood. He was one of three brother - the Bennetts – who were all guitar players. I knew Ian and John. (Les Bennetts, of course, was the guitar player in Lonnie Donegan's band1). My hero Jack Elliott had been in and out of Paris quite a bit in the previous two or three years and Ian had watched and learned from him. To the extent that he became every bit as good, which was saying something – Jack was a master. I was transfixed watching Ian playing all these flatpicking riffs and tantalised because I couldn't work out how he did it. I practised and practised and kept watching, trying to unlock the mechanics of his right hand technique – which was probably one of the complications I found because I'm left handed. .. Finally I asked him if he would consider giving me a lesson, which he did. I was surprised but grateful and he charged me a thousand old francs, which in today's money is about twenty quid. He showed me the right hand positions for regular guitar players, the essence of what flatpicking was all about.'

Don Partridge's father had been a jazz guitarist in a dance band, Django style, but like Pat, Don looked more to the folk world initially for guidance:

'I had asked my dad if he would show my the rudiments on guitar but he said that he would only do it if I studied properly and learned music. Which was no interest to me – I just wanted to learn enough to start me off and figure the rest out for myself. So I went elsewhere. Bought myself a guitar and had a few folk guitar lessons from a teacher called Peter Grauner who showed me some basic finger style playing.'

Me? Started out trying to play jazz piano then got a guitar for its portability – and also because I was also becoming interested in folk music:

'A folk club had started up in Loughborough, run by three art students. One of whom was the mighty Dave Evans,1 a few years older than most because he had been a merchant seaman before he came to do an art degree. Dave was a phenomenal guitarist already and he kindly showed me some fingerpicking techniques and tunings which helped me to make a quantum leap in my guitar playing... a mighty stroke of luck. The piano was cumbersome, the guitar the ideal portable instrument for a naïve, would-be troubadour who had suddenly experienced wider freedoms through his hitch-hiking adventures. So: time to be a traveller and a busker... '

Despite mastering finger-picking, for busking you needed a strong, rhythmic plectrum style in the days before portable amps became prevalent. I learned a lot watching at Keene and Don when they played together and Alan Young, another gifted player and busker, Don's best friend and frequent sidekick. Despite our common origins in folk music, this wasn't the only source of the street repertoire. Skiffle was one, the others blues, American bluegrass, various pop songs of the day, old jazz standards like 'Bill Bailey,' and by 1966 – Beatles/Rolling Stones/Animals. Whatever worked. Everything got blended into your style...



1 Lonnie Donegan 1921-2002. 'The King of Skiffle,' Donegan left his gig as banjoist/guitarist in Chris Barber's Jazz Band to go on his own and sell a lot of records during the 'Skiffle' craze and onwards. Les Bennetts played lead guitar in his band for a time.
1 Dave Evans - one of the true greats of acoustic guitar, Dave never quite got the recognition accorded to his contemporaries: Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Davy Graham etc. Dave has lived in Belgium for many years, where he makes pots and ceramics, living in a converted brewery.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Backstage Norman... in drag...

This image is Norman Norris AKA as Jumping Jack/Earl of Mustard, taken backstage at the Albert Hall Busker's Concert.  Bizarrely - but there again, Norman was never remotely normal in his interactions with life in general - he decided that he would go on in drag.  The old school busker who was supposed to accompany him flatly refused when Norman got into his women's clothes.  He asked Don and Alan for help but it it was obvious they could not do it, Don headlining and Alan with his specially prepared act.  So that's how I ended up playing twice on the bill - once with Aidan Agnew (as 'African Jack and the Matabele Uprising' - well, we were young!) and once with Norman.  Not so much of a chore as I had by that time worked extensively with the old rogue - but he came slightly unstuck as he hadn't figured out that a long dress might inhibit his tap dancing.  It didn't really matter - the overall image of this gnarled loon in a dress, dancing with golden boots that had cut-down skis on the bottom was always going to impress!

Proof OK!

I've had the proof back and it seems ok. It seems that the changes I made to the images worked. Ordered another as a last check - if that comes back without any problems - we shall roll on 27th September!

Monday 12 September 2011

Good News - and some more old video...

Looks like the master document has printed ok and I should receive the final proof copy in a couple of days. If it's ok, I'll put another through to do a last check - then hopefully we will go on 27th September...

In the meantime - here's a couple of film extracts from 1969. No sound, unfortunately. The first is from the Albert Hall Buskers' Concert rehearsal at Max Rivers rehearsal rooms off Charing Cross Road, here...
I think this was taken from the documentary that was filmed about the event and subsequently disappeared down the years.  You can see me on the beginning, on the right, playing with my compadre Aidan Agnew (he's on banjo).
The second clip, here, is from the British Pathe News archive, shot at the concert and on the street.  The tall guy standing on the neck of the escapologist Johnny Eagles is Pat Keene - co-author of the book.  He was there as a photographer rather than a musician that night - and his photos are the only record of this unique event apart from these scraps of footage and the lost movie.  It then cuts, rather oddly, to footage shot in Leicester Square - the first busker is the American, Dave Parker, also known as Dyon Parker and Dave Helling.  Then me, resplendent in side burns...  Playing to the queues on the Warner cinema, synchonistically - my surname, but no relation...
Finding these two clips when I was researching the book and looking at my younger self, over forty years ago, was a strange experience...



Friday 9 September 2011

New Publication Date...

There has been a small glitch in the publishing - some corruption in the photo image files embedded in the master document has led to problems printing. This should be sorted fairly quickly but I have put back publication date for a couple of weeks so that I can run some test copies through the publishing web site to make sure that there are no problems. Belt and braces - new publication date hopefully Tuesday 27th September...

Friday 2 September 2011

Publication looms...

Pat Keene sent me the final corrections to the proof copy so we are almost ready to roll. Publication day is set for Wednesday 14th September, if all goes well. The link to the internet store is already on the side panel of this blog but I will flag it up prominently as and when...

Some clips... tap dancers and geniuses...

Norman Norris, AKA 'Jumping Jack' and 'The Earl of Mustard,' was one of the old school buskers who performed round Leicester Square and beyond.  Yet, after initial confrontations with the new breed of guitar toting street musicians, he was quick to join them.  There is a special section in the book dedicated to him.  All three of us worked with him at various times: for me especially, as the youngest, he showed me much and I had a great affection for him, despite his craziness and relentless need for attention.  Here are two clips from the film 'The London Nobody Knows,' with Norman and Alan Young playing and talking.