I wrote ‘The Nuptial Jig’ in 2004 as a wedding present for Mat and Jackie Green. I gave them a nicely written-out copy of the dots, in a frame and everything, but overlooked the fact that neither of them reads music. I’m not sure I ever did a proper recording of the tune for them, so this is long overdue.
I learned ‘Applecore’ from the LP Shred and Patches – probably my favourite of the albums John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris recorded together back in the 1970s. This is one of many excellent tunes written by Sue Harris, and is an absolute joy to play.
Here’s another recording that’s been hanging around for far too long. The tune itself was written in Newcastle in 1984. For some reason I seem to have written a lot of tunes between 1982 and 1985, including several that, if I say so myself, are not at all bad. And the nine months I spent as a student at Newcastle Poly were particularly productive in that respect. This one was definitely a tune that arose from messing around on the concertina, as I sat in what I think could legitimately be referred to as a lonely garret. Rather than one that emerged in my head as I was walking along (the problem with the latter is that sometimes, when you come to play your composition later, you find that you can’t!).
I can’t remember exactly when the tune was written, but can remember where and when it got its name. It was on an Inter-City train going back to Newcastle from London King’s Cross. That might have been the morning after Chris Wood and I played our first ever support spot at The Chestnuts Folk Club in Walthamstow. But I think it was the evening of the first Monday in May, as I returned North after having spent the weekend dancing with Oyster Morris. That weekend, culminating in the Jack-in-the-Green procession at Whitstable, was always the high point of the Oyster calendar; in 1984, if memory serves, our guests were Rogue Morris – who I may well have suggested – and Gorton, with whom I didn’t feel we struck a particularly strong bond. Anyway, back to the tune…
The title was a nod to the song “When this old hat was new”, while the albatross – and I admit now that this was a ridiculously inflated conceit – was of the kind that besets Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. My albatross, as I perceived it, was a girlfriend who I’d try to break up with in January but who, four months on, still seemed to be very much part of my life. Oh well. In truth it was “a story of my own weakness and folly”.
Still enjoy playing this tune though. It started life very much as a listening tune. But then I found you could inject a pulse into it – turns it into a sort of slow continental schottishe.
Squeezed Out 