It’s three days in to the 2023 High Fives and we thought it was time to let Allan off the leash for his first contribution this year. Here are some of his reminiscences on gigs and artists old and new with a few photos as well. As you can tell from Allan’s introduction, every year has its losses as well as gains.
I’m rapidly approaching my fiftieth anniversary of gig-going and 2023 has been a year where the old and the new have frequently crossed paths as I’ve navigated the London gig scene. Before I get on to the positive stuff, there’s one loss we’ve suffered this year that really hurt. My love of live music kicked off when I was a student in Dundee between 1976 and 1980. One of the bands I saw there was the Scottish soul band Cado Belle. Maggie Reilly was an astonishing singer, but I was blown away by guitar player Alan Darby and his astonishing work on the tone poem ‘September’. The band split after one album and Alan did many things (including working on the door of a Covent Garden club managed by a friend of mine) before finally establishing himself as a guitar player and musical director with Lulu, Van Morrison and Les McKeown before going on to work in The Dominion production of ‘We Will Rock You’. A few years ago, courtesy of the wonderful Artie Zaitz, I wangled an invite for myself and my old mate (and Music Riot contributor) Steve Jenner to meet Alan at Chelsea Arts Club after a Guitars Deluxe performance. He was a lovely guy and he lost his battle with cancer earlier this year. Thankfully, we still have his music. Apologies for starting with a sad story, but those memories are as important as the happy ones, which are coming at you in chronological order.
Pin Drop Sessions @Caddy’s Southend (February 2023)
Have you ever been in Southend on a Friday night in February? It’s cold; it’s bloody cold, but I was going to see the brilliant Phil Burdett for the first time in 2023. It was a chance to see a new venue, have a beer or two with Phil and local bass maestro Martin Cutmore and grab a few pictures. So why is it called ‘Pin Drop Sessions’? It’s back to the old school; a small room, no PA and only acoustic instruments. No soundchecks, turn up and play to an audience that wants to hear music and doesn’t want to talk through the performances. You could literally hear a pin drop.
I’ve seen Phil Burdett performing many times over the last ten years as a singer-songwriter, author and poet and he’s always worth watching, never more so than in this intimate setting. It was perfect for Phil’s tales of Essex.
On this night, the new (for me) was Isabel Inkcap, who was totally engaging as she delivered her folk-inspired songs to a rapt audience. She’s a genuine talent who wins over the audience by sheer presence before she even starts to play either guitar or banjo. She also gifted me a great photo opportunity after a lengthy tuning session when it was obvious she was going to react somehow. I couldn’t have hoped for a better reaction.
Frankie Miller’s Full House @The 100 Club 30th May 2023
In more ways than one, this comes back to Steve Jenner again. The first band that we saw together at Dundee University was Frankie Miller’s Full House. The blend of rock and soul and Frankie’s incredible voice blew us away; live music was never the same after that. Frankie’s band included a guitar player I’d never seen before, who went on to become hugely respected in the music business as a player and a historian; his name’s Ray Minhinnett. Frankie worked with various musicians live and on record before a brain aneurysm in 1994 ended his musical career. He’s doing fairly well now after all the trauma and the beautiful thing is that his legacy is still intact and his fans still want to hear those songs, which is where Steve Jenner comes back into the picture.
Early in 2023, Steve saw a reconstituted Full House (led by Ray Minhinnett and fronted by singer Gregor MacGregor). He pointed me in their direction and in May 2023 I got the chance to shoot Full House at The 100 Club. Frankie Miller was a one-off, but Gregor MacGregor has the Scottish voice to tackle Frankie’s songs with restraint and power in equal measure (and he’s a lovely bloke). A good night was had by everyone and the 1970s worked pretty well in the 2020s.
Southside Johnny @Shepherd’s Bush Empire 7th July 2023
It was a “Will he, won’t he” gig. The talk in the pubs around Shepherd’s Bush Green on the day was about whether Bruce Springsteen might make a guest appearance between his two Hyde Park gigs on the 6th and the 8th. He didn’t, but my mate and guitar player extraordinaire, Jim Maving did bump into the E Street Band bass player Garry Tallent at the gig. Bruce or no Bruce, I never miss a Southside show because you never know when the next one will be. I’ve been a Southside fan for nearly fifty years and I’ve been lucky enough to meet and interview him a few times and photograph him loads of times. I got really lucky this time. In the past, I’ve missed a few great photo opportunities because of the house policy of checking in all pro gear backstage after the first three songs – that didn’t apply this time and I got to shoot from the auditorium for the rest of the set and caught some cracking shots.
I’ve written about Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes before and I’m fairly certain I’ll write about them again. There’s a magic that happens when you take eight world-class musicians and give them the opportunity to express themselves within the framework of four-minute songs; you should all take the opportunity experience it.
Folk in the Park Sutton 19th August 2023
If you haven’t met Hannah White and Keiron Marshall, you really should. They’re both incredibly talented but they’re the nicest people you could ever wish to meet and they care passionately about music, about the environment and people in general. Hannah’s songwriting is always powerful and sometimes visceral (‘Car Crash’ is a great example) and Keiron shapes the arrangements and production for her songs bringing in all sorts of musicians, including Michelle Stodart to back Hannah live and in the studio.
In 2022, they put together a festival in Manor Park, Sutton which was reasonably successful and decided to expand it in 2023 with more well-known and acclaimed and artists. I would have supported the event whoever was on the bill, but Hannah and Keiron excelled themselves, pulling in appearances from the legendary Nick Lowe (who I saw at my first gig when he played with Brinsley Schwarz) and Iain Matthews (whose album, ‘Stealing Home’, I bought in 1980 on blue vinyl and I’ve loved ever since). And they had Del Amitri topping the bill. Oh, and Hannah made an appearance with her band as well.
I’ve followed Hannah’s career for a few years now and it’s been a revelation to see genuine talent being recognised critically and commercially. Bring on 2024.
Stone Foundation 25th Anniversary tour
You’ve already read me rattling on about working with one of my teenage musical heroes; I think Neil Sheasby of Stone Foundation trumps me on this one. Neil was a fan of The Jam from their earliest days and, as Stone Foundation gathered momentum through the 21st century, they picked up a celebrity fan, Paul Weller, who went on to collaborate with them, produce their albums at Black Barn Studios and guest on a few of their gigs.
Forgive me for listing the band members, but Stone Foundation is a team effort and the core of the band has been together now for twenty-five years. Here we go: Neil Jones (vocals/guitar), Neil Sheasby (bass), Phil Ford (drums), Ian Arnold (keys), Rob Newton (percussion), Steve Trigg (trumpet and fluegelhorn), Dave Boraston (trumpet and fluegelhorn) and Anthony Gaylard (saxophone). They’re an incredibly tight soul unit and Neil Jones once told me that having the horn section on stage was like wearing a suit of armour.
I’ve been a fan for over ten years and this year they celebrated their 25th anniversary with a UK tour that wound up with two nights at Islington Assembly Hall. They were supported by the wonderful Emily Capell (check out her album ‘Combat Frock’), DJ Robert Elms and had guest appearances from Mick Talbot, Graham Parker, Laville and Paul Weller over the two nights. If you want a validation of their work, I think that does it.
After almost fifty years of watching live music, it’s fabulous to pick out five gigs that really got the juices flowing. Just keep it coming, everyone.
Some of my Closet Classics are there mainly on musical merit, some mainly on the strength of memories they evoke, but this earns its place on both counts. I first heard the songs on this EP during my Freshers’ Week at the University of Dundee and I still say that “September”, featured on this EP, is one of the finest pieces of guitar-playing I’ve ever heard live.
Cado Belle was one of 3 bands I saw in a hectic week (the other 2 were Frankie Miller’s Full House and Skeets Boliver, if you must know) that set the scene for 4 years of watching great bands, DJing and generally having a good time. I did a bit of studying as well, when I had to. I went along to the gig with my new mate Steve J (still my mate now and a bloody good bloke) in his yellow ex-GPO Morris van, which was great if you were in the passenger seat, but a bit agricultural otherwise. It had the added advantage of being absolutely impossible to lose in a car park.
We knew nothing about the band, but it was Freshers’ Week and we were determined to do everything that was on offer, especially if it also involved having a few beers. We discovered that Cado Belle, fronted by singer Maggie Reilly, was a great Scottish soul band with a line-up of drums, bass, keyboards, guitar and sax. Blue-eyed soul was huge in Scotland in the mid-70s; it was actually a criminal offence to have a band in Scotland without at least 1 sax player at that time.
It’s fair to say that it wasn’t a capacity audience, but we were enthusiastic and the band was exceptional, playing material from their first (and only) album and the eponymous EP. The set was packed with superb playing and singing from a very accomplished band (we all said “tight” in those days) and we were all having a great time. And then the band started to play “September”.
Anyone in the audience who had ever picked up a guitar was absolutely speechless as Alan Darby’s guitar gently wept its way through the beautiful extended intro using perfectly controlled feedback over a wash of electric piano to lead the song into Maggie Reilly’s ethereal vocal. You expected recordings of guitarists to be this good, but it was incredible to see it live. I won’t say that it changed my life, but it was one of the events that made me realise guitar-playing was only ever going to be a hobby. When you analyse it, it’s not really much of song because it’s only really one verse but it’s an incredibly evocative piece of music; if you were pretentious, you might even call it a tone poem.
Obviously, I bought the EP as soon as I could get my hands on it and it’s a perfect little mini album. The other 3 songs are “It’s Over” (a Boz Scaggs classic), “Play it Once for Me” (written by Stuart MacKillop, the band’s keyboard player) and “Gimme Little Sign” (as made famous by Brenton Wood and covered by many others since, including Peter Andre). All 4 tracks on this EP stand up on their own merits and my vinyl 12” copy has been played to death since I bought it. I’ve played it to many people including some very gifted musicians and it always gets the same response; stunned silence followed by queries about the band and then the inevitable “Why haven’t I heard this before?”
The band split up in 1979, but maintained loose ties and worked together occasionally. Colin Tully (saxophone and woodwind) composed the music for the Bill Forsyth film “Gregory’s Girl”, Stuart MacKillop worked with ABBA and continues to work regularly with Maggie Reilly, along with bass player Gavin Hodgson. Maggie Reilly went on to have hits with Mike Oldfield (including “Moonlight Shadow”) and is still recording and performing.
As for Alan Darby, he’s currently working on the Queen musical “We Will Rock You” in London, but if you run a quick search, you’ll be amazed at what he’s done and the artists he’s worked with. Strangely enough, Alan Darby’s name has cropped up in conversations decades apart with various people. In the early 80s, a friend of mine managed a cocktail bar in Covent Garden and told me that Alan worked there as a doorman for a while, which may or may not be true. Twenty years later, in the early Noughties, during one of many late-night chats with the late Allan Mawn, the subject of Cado Belle came up again. Allan (who genuinely seemed to know every musician in Scotland) told me that he’d recently spoken to Alan Darby just after his return from a tour in Japan with the Bay City Rollers and that he was currently working with Lulu’s band. It’s a long way from playing to 150 students at Dundee University Students’ Association and, no doubt, a fascinating journey. Normally, I would fill a piece like this with links to the music but, unfortunately it just isn’t out there. If you want to hear a little more Cado Belle, try their MySpace page.
These 4 tracks, and “September” in particular, have been favourites of mine for over 30 years. They still sound fresh even now and they’ve created a whole set of memories and associations years after they were initially released. Great songs and playing never get old.
