tag:lindisfarne.co.uk,2005:/blogs/simon-cowe-2001Simon Cowe, 20012017-03-26T10:41:53+01:00Lindisfarne - the official websitefalsetag:lindisfarne.co.uk,2005:Post/46461162017-03-26T10:41:53+01:002020-09-18T13:06:07+01:00Ray Jackson: March 2004 (pt. II)<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/244471/62e02801f00277ef8ae72032d268b7c701bb125c/medium/in-the-night.jpg?1490521255" class="size_m justify_center border_" />Chris Kelly's second interview with Ray Jackson was completed 18 months after <a data-link-label="A history of Lindisfarne: Part I" data-link-type="page" href="/a-history-of-lindisfarne-part-i" target="_blank">part 1</a>. </p>
<p><strong>The first Lindisfarne Live Album was never a popular album with Alan. I personally thought it had the best live rendition of MMOTC and "No Time to lose" of all the live albums. What were your thoughts.</strong></p>
<p>It wasn't popular with any of the band, although Alan had his own reasons for not wanting it released. It was recorded as part of a soundtrack for a rockumentary and was not intended to be released as a live album. I remember it being only an eight track recording, half of the tracks were used for sound signals to sync with the film. The stereo sound quality was poor but I suppose it was okay for mono television broadcasting at that time.</p>
<p>After we split in 1973 Charisma were desperate to cash in on our popularity as no unreleased studio tracks were available. To satisfy demand, they released the film soundtrack as a live album much to our dismay and particularly to Alan's. Charisma had just released his first solo album <strong><em>Pipedream</em></strong> a few weeks earlier and he was bitterly disappointed to learn of the timing of this rogue release as it split the market for our product and robbed him of potential sales.There is no doubt in my mind that Pipedream would have been more commercially successful had it not been for this move by the record company.I have not played the Lindisfarne Live album since it was released,I do not posses a copy and therefore cannot comment on any of the tracks. </p>
<p><strong>Then the Australia tour, from what I have read it seemed doomed from the beginning and Alan seemed to have made his mind up that the band would split before you all went. Was that apparent at the time ?</strong></p>
<p>Alan was unhappy constantly touring with the band and wanted to concentrate more on writing. He had suggested at a meeting prior to us leaving for<strong><em> Australia</em></strong> and Japan that he wanted to be a part time member. There was not a set plan of how this could be achieved but it would have involved recruiting another member to take over when Alan wanted a sabbatical. The arrangement probably would have worked had it not been for other factions in the band who were pulling away from the mainstream style. I think we were all guilty in being bored with the music we had created.</p>
<p>We started the tour feeling the failure and disappointing performance of the Dingly Dell album. It had not received the critical acclaim that was awarded the first two albums. This was reflected in the sales which were poor in comparison. We were also not happy with the production or the engineering of this album. It lacked bass end on the finished disc but to us it had sounded okay on the studio monitors at mix down. No amount of pleading with the record company to withdraw it was heeded or to remix the sound.</p>
<p>The morale of the band was far from optimistic. We had started to clash about what direction the music should take next and after six weeks spent on tour in close proximity with each other, the damage was done. After a night of pretty heavy drinking in the Tokyo Prince Hotel at the end of the tour we decided for the moment we had had enough and words were not held back.</p>
<p>We were advised by many who were close to us to reconsider our future and take a year out. Genesis had done just that and had become much enriched in songs and performances because of it. Sadly for us the constant touring had eventually got to us all, not just Alan. The things that had been said, could not be easily taken back. What happened next is well documented.</p>
<p><strong>Did you have a family to support at this time?</strong></p>
<p>No not when the split occurred. It was not until Lindisfarne II had formed that my first child was born.</p>
<p><strong>1973 was a big year on the British Music scene. Lots of major albums such as Pink Floyd's 'Dark side of the Moon' and 'Band on the Run' by Paul McCartney's Wings. The birth of 'Glam Rock' towards the end of 1972 etc. How did you feel after the split and did you think it was unfortunately timed?</strong></p>
<p>My thoughts were on recruiting new members to the band with Alan after the original line up had faltered. I was much more interested in the recording of Roll On Ruby to worry about past decisions at that particular moment in time.</p>
<p><strong>How did the members of Mk2 come together? Had they been friends of the band etc?</strong></p>
<p>We had all known each other for many years. A healthy group scene had developed in Newcastle in the mid sixties and all of us had played on the same bill at various venues, allowing us to get first hand experience of bands playing abilities and spotting the talented ones.</p>
<p>The Mk II line up was to be the aftermath of Alan's <strong><em>Pipedream sessions</em></strong>, featuring the late <strong><em>Kenny Craddock </em></strong>(keyboards/guitar) along with <strong><em>Colin Gibson</em></strong> (bass), <strong><em>Johnny Turnbull</em></strong> (guitar) and <strong><em>Ray Laidlaw</em></strong> on drums. The sessions had gone well and we had built a good sound together. We thought Ray was going to stay with the line up, but at the last minute, decided to team up with his old North Shields buddies Rod and Si, to form Jack The Lad. This was a disappointment as Colin and Johnny were not able to form a group with us either due to other commitments.</p>
<p>The transition was not as smooth as we had hoped but undaunted Alan, Kenny and myself eventually got together a suitably talented line up of Newcastle musicians. Charlie Harcourt was plucked from a band in the states called Catmother and The All Night News Boys, based in Texas. He had learnt some great guitar licks over there and complemented the guitar styles of Alan and Kenny.</p>
<p>Bass was filled by Tommy Duffy who had played in Bell and Arc and Newcastle band The Sect. Paul Nichols was recruited on drums, he had played with Kenny and Tom and latterly in the band Sandgate.</p>
<p>During our search for a drummer, we came up with the idea of asking <strong><em>Phil Collins</em></strong> to join when Ray Laidlaw dropped out. We both had known Phil quite well from the <strong><em>Six Bob Tour</em></strong> days and thought we may be able to coax him out of <strong><em>Genesis</em></strong>. Phil was playing in a scratch band at the time, (can't remember the name of it now) but I think Julie Tippet was one of the front line. He did this to keep his hand in when Genesis were not on the road. I'd seen him play with this band at a pub in West Kensington and the music differed a great deal from that of his core group. It was quite jazzy and was of a similar direction to the style Alan and I thought Lindisfarne should go.</p>
<p>A meeting was set up around the corner from the Charisma office in a restaurant off Regent Street behind the Royal Academy. It started early in the evening and finished quite late. I remember the meeting being fueled with some alcohol but by the end of the night we had persuaded Phil that we were the band he should be in. We saw Phil off in a cab and Alan and I were elated as we got in our cab to go home. Alas the following day, we had a call from Phil to say that he had been given a strong lecture by record company boss Tony Stratton Smith when he mentioned his intentions. Strat said he should stay with Genesis. I think Strat was totally against the move, mainly because he did not want two of his most popular bands splitting simultaneously and damaging the record company. His argument must have been pretty persuasive and as a result Phil declined our offer. Our search for a drummer was still on but what a pity for us that he changed his mind.</p>
<p><strong>Did you find that this was a particularly creative time for you personally with the Mk2 line up?</strong></p>
<p>I found it more liberating in musical terms. The band had two new writers in Kenny and Tom and the direction of the band was much more rocky and adventurous.</p>
<p>This was obviously the inspiration I needed as it was at this time that Charlie Harcourt and myself started collaborating on songs and forming our own writing partnership. Sadly the bands line up did not last long enough for them to be performed or recorded. It wasn't until the old Lindifarne line up reformed that they were to be recorded for Back & Fourth, The News etc.</p>
<p><strong>Is it true that members of the band became window cleaners for a while?</strong></p>
<p>I don't know where you got that info from, but yes it was true in my case. After Lindisfarne II broke up I had two young kids and a wife to support. For a short period to make ends meet, I took on a window cleaning round and did some decorating in the wilds of Northumberland.</p>
<p><strong>How long did MK2 last and what happened in the end?</strong></p>
<p>The band did one tour of the USA supporting mainly <strong><em>Traffic</em></strong>, <strong><em>YES</em></strong>, and a few gigs with Joe Cocker, The Kinks and The Beach Boys. We also toured Europe and Scandinavia and did one trip to Australia and New Zealand. The band lasted only two and a half years and in that time recorded two albums, Roll On Ruby on Charisma and Happy Daze on Warners.</p>
<p>We did not have the success that the first band had enjoyed, perhaps it was the fact that the new music was so different from the old style. We were received favourably in America but we didn't sell records in great numbers. Alan had become disenchanted with touring and as a result decided to leave and the band had to fold in the end.</p>
<p>Alan and I did not part on very good terms as he seized all of the equipment with the exception of my Mandolin and Harmonicas. Debts had built up and I was served a writ for unpaid VAT, which I naively thought was being taken care of by our then management company.</p>
<p>Our very last gig was performed at Leicester University in early 1975. I was unable to play again until I met Barry McKay in 1976 who funded me some new back line gear and a PA and I then signed to him for management. Barry was eventually to bring the original line up back to the stage at the Newcastle City Hall in late 1976.</p>
<p>[Derek Walmsley asked about your collaboration with Charlie Harcourt]<br><strong>Im interested in hearing how the duo composed such gems as Warm Feeling, Winning The Game and When It Gets The Hardest, all very effective both live and in the studio.</strong></p>
<ul> <li><strong>What was their approach- who wrote the lyrics/music ?</strong></li> <li><strong>When did they start/stop their songwriting collaboration and how many songs resulted?</strong></li> <li><strong>Were any songs being written at the time of the Lindisfarne Mk.II band ?</strong></li> <li><strong>Was there a stockpile of compositions not used by Lindisfarne or for Jackas solo work?</strong></li> <li><strong>Were any offered for the later Lindisfarne albums Dance Your Life Away and Amigos?</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>With regard to mine and Charlie Harcourt's approach to song writing, it developed naturally during our time with the Lindi II's. We were always playing about musically during rehearsals trying out chord sequences and melodies. This happened usually when Hully and Kenny Craddock etc. went off to the pub for an hour or so. Some of the ideas would stick in our heads and we would come back to them later. I bought around that time, a portable stereo cassette player and started recording the music to listen to later in the car or at home.</p>
<p>Sometimes words would come from these musical jottings and be added to and tried out between us on a 2 track Revox reel to reel. We carefully added track on track until a band sound was acheived, all be it in what now would be deemed, a very primitive form of recording. Sometimes I would get words and a tune together in my head at the most inconvenient of times but had to drop everything and get the words jotted down before they were forgotten. Many a good idea got lost if I didn't.</p>
<p>Charlie and I would meet up a few times a week mostly in his flat and we would work on some of these ideas. Warm feeling started as a guitar piece and I came up with the words to add to it. The chorus was the sticking point as it originally didn't have one in the traditional sense. It wasn't until around a year or so later that it suddenly came to me in the middle of the night and I had to get out of bed to write it down. Some songs would take an age to complete but others would just come right out of the blue and present themselves without much work. Charlie and me had started recording these together in a demo studio when we thought they were ready.</p>
<p>The musicians who we brought in for the sessions eventually formed the nucleus of a band and we were able to fine tune the songs even more. I mostly wrote the words and came up with the tune and Charlie would arrange and suggest interesting arrangements, middle eights and riffs etc. Most of the instrumentation on the demo's would be done by him and I would record the vocals and mouth parts.</p>
<p>After Lindisfarne got back together in 1977-78 to record <strong><em>Back & Fourth</em></strong> Charlie and I found it increasingly hard to find time to write as we had done in the past. The last song we recorded as a demo was Winning the Game which found it's way on to Sleepless Nights around the early eighties.</p>
<p>I did however record a solo album "In The Night" for Mercury with Charlie playing on most of the tracks that we had written together. Sadly it wasn't a hit but it did crystalise our work to its best advantage..</p>
<p>I did come up with various songs for Lindisfarne but they were mostly not considered after Sleepless Nights. Alan was a prolific writer and as a result held sway over much of the choice of songs after that. Hope this answers Derek's questions.</p>
<p>[Steve Foster asked]<br><strong>"In the beginning, bands tended to be made up of guitar, bass, drums, and/or keyboards, along with someone who could sing. As a mandolin and harp player, what do you feel most contributed to your being accepted by band mates? Mandy, harp, or vocals? Or?"</strong></p>
<p>My stunning good looks and stage presence, plus I had a PA system.</p>
<p><strong>Why was there a gap of 2 years between the Christmas 76 concert and the Mk 1 reunion?</strong></p>
<p>Quite simple, Alan and Ray were playing in Radiator with Kenny Craddock etc. and I was doing my bit with Harcourts Heroes. Rod was playing with Ralph McTell and none of us were anxious to reform Lindisfarne, that is, until record company interest in a few demo tracks we had recorded in Surrey Sounds studio, was too much to ignore, and an album deal was offered.</p>
<p><strong>'Back and Fourth' , a good title and a good album. What did you think of it?</strong></p>
<p>Great play on words, being our fourth album and getting back together again. It was a nice gap from 73 to 78 for our musicianship and songwriting to mature. We had enjoyed playing with other bands and musicians and brought those experiences to the table to enrich the mixture.</p>
<p>The songs on the whole were pleasant enough and I had for the first time, representation as a songwriter having two songs featured. We had a big single from the album which boosted our confidence and it felt good to be back as a mainstream act appearing on TOTP and other TV shows. The album was at that time the best recorded studio collection we had produced to date and their was some good playing and arrangements on the songs. My only disappointment was that it didn't sell to the americans as much as we would have liked, and we never got to promote it over there.</p>
<p><strong>Was Gus Dudgeon easy to work with?</strong></p>
<p>The late Gus Dudgeon was an old style record producer who had made it from the ranks as a tape op and engineer. He was meticulous in achieving good overall sounds to tape and it was not unheard of for him to take two or three days on getting the right snare sound. It could be quite tedious for the rest of the band while this was going on but it seemed to pay off. However, a lot of his time was spent answering telephone calls during sessions which was frustrating at times, particularly if in the middle of a take. Other than that, Gus was a really nice bloke and mine of stories about other acts and musicians. He was also very funny and had us laughing a lot. He was also good at getting the best performance from you in the studio and would not be afraid to tell you if something wasn't working and suggest another approach.</p>
<p><strong>Was it at this time that Barry McKay became the bands Manager? Did he play a big part in the day to day running of the band?</strong></p>
<p>Barry became manager after promoting both sets of successful concerts at <strong><em>Newcastle City Hall in 76</em></strong> and 77. He was responsible for attracting interest from major record labels and took over day to day running of the band before the deal was signed with Phonogram. He set up our office in Newcastle above a pub called the Tanners Arms on the Shieldfield end of Byker Bridge. It had quite a lot of space and being out of the city centre had a modest rent. All of our affairs were conducted from there during the late seventies and early eighties.</p>
<p><strong>Into the 1980s, and I think it was 3 years between 'The News' and 'Sleepless Nights' . What happened in between and was the band busy throughout?</strong></p>
<p>The band were not happy about being dropped by Phonogram after the News, but just like many other acts around at that period we were all the victims of rationalisation. Our style of music was considered "old hat" as the New Romantics had appeared bearing synths and electronic wizardry. Phonogram and Polydor were about to merge along with Chappel Music and many of their staff were culled as well as a fair proportion of the atistes rosta. There was also a shortage of vinyl and manufacturing costs were rising fast. No record company were interested in signing us so we mainly concentrated on playing live at university and college gigs. We also had the Christmas shows which were going from strength to strength. We did a lot of demo tapes around this period and released a couple of singles on our own label, River Records. Friday Girl was one of them. We played in europe and Scandinavia at various festivals during our albumless period.</p>
<p><strong>'Sleepless Nights' was a very different album. I thought that the single 'Nights' was a very clever retro piece of work and should have recieved much more acclaim than it did. Where you disappointed that it never charted?</strong></p>
<p>You could say that! I had experienced disappointment after the escape of my solo album two years earlier and then the disappointing sales of Sleepless Nights was an equal blow. There's a lot of effort spent in making an album, and you can't help but build up your hopes for it when you hear it all come together as a finished piece of work. I suppose you become proud of it and you want people to listen to it to get their reaction. When it doesn't sell you start questioning your own talents and abilities. Being in a group was helpful as collectively you help to shrug it off more easily.</p>
<p>Sleepless Nights was produced by Steve Lipson who was also engineer on The News and my solo album. I liked Steve a lot, he had a brilliant musical ear and talent as a guitarist and was into every gizmo around at that time. He knew we had to modernise our sound and encouraged us to buy and use a synth to record with. It gave Sleepless Nights a completely new dimension, but without taking away our traditional sound. I thought the songs on the album were well recorded and performed,I felt it was quite strong overall. It even entered the bottom reaches of the charts without the help of a major record label behind it. We released it ourselves, doing all the marketing and promotion but were not equipped to spend the vast amounts needed to keep plugging it for more than a few weeks and consequently it promptly dropped back out of the charts again. </p>
<p><strong>Also, Lindisfarne added a session Sax player Don Weller. Was this a big departure/ new direction for the band?</strong></p>
<p>We had had a few session players before, particularly on Back And Fourth. Steve Gregory played a sax solo on Make Me Want To Stay. We had dabbled with brass on The News on a few songs also, so I wouldn't say it was a new direction, but a style that had developed slowly. I don't think we had recorded anything quite so rocky as Winning The Game with sax on it, but Wellers contribution lifted the record out of the grooves when it came in. It wasn't long after that when Marty Craggs was recruited to help reproduce various sax solo's live on stage.</p>
<p><strong>1984 - St James's Park. Do you remember the atmosphere. Any thoughts?</strong></p>
<p>To play on the hallowed turf at St James's Park was an honour in itself but to support Bob Dylan was even more of an ambition. I remember the day being warm and sunny, which is rare for an open air event in the north east. The crowd were behind us all the way and they were warmed up a treat for the man himself to come on stage. It was one of our highest ever paying gigs, where it worked out we were paid something like a hundred pounds a minute.</p>
<p><strong>In the Night" are you proud of that album and are there any plans to have it released on CD?</strong></p>
<p>A lot of hard work and effort went into the recording of In The Night. It was a very personal statement featuring the style of music I wanted to play and Phonogram records were very kind in supplying me with the resources to do it.</p>
<p>It wasn't my first solo effort of course as EMI had released a single in 1976, Take Some Time, produced then by Muff Winwood at Basing Street Studios. I had a my own band during this period augmented by my song writing partner Charlie Harcourt. We wrote many songs together after Lindisfarne Mk II broke up and with the help of Barry Mckay, were able to form a band and perform them to audiences mainly in the north east. In the process we able to fine tune the songs and eventually go on to secure a publishing deal with Chappel music and then a record release.</p>
<p>After Lindisfarne reformed, the work with my band and Charlie Harcourt was put on hold and it wasn't until after the release of The News that I began to look back at demos that were recorded in 1976-77 and approached Phonogram with the songs. They were keen to put me in the studio and appointed Hugh Murphy to produce an album of the material presented. It turned out to be unfortunate timing though as music trends had moved on and guys like me were deemed old fashioned. The New Romantic period was starting to emerge. Some intervention occurred from recording company execs, during the final stages of the album.</p>
<p>Hugh Murphy and I were asked to compromise and record a number of new songs from other sources to make it sound more commercial to the emerging market, leaving out some of the self penned songs. Regardless of this, I had a great time making the album and some great musicians played on it with me. Today, I feel that some of the performances and the songs are old fashioned sounding. However, there are still a few which stand the test of time quite well. I get the same feeling about The News album both being produced by Hugh Murphy and engineered partially by Steve Lipson.</p>
<p>I would love it to be released on CD but I'm not sure who owns the rights to it now or whether they would deem it worth the cost of re mastering. Needless to say, the album did not recover it's costs, which restricts me from personally purchasing the rights to the original recordings. The costs would have to be paid in full before the tapes were released and that would still probably amount to a substantial sum. So it will languish in the vinyl grooves, probably forever and the tapes left to gather dust in the record company vaults.</p>
<p><strong>How did the decision to have a Sax player brought into the band happen?</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Marty Craggs</em></strong> played sax in Harcourts Heroes and the RJ band. As I mentioned previously, sax featured on a number of songs from Back & Fourth. To reproduce this studio sound on stage more accurately, we called on Marty's wind instrument talents mostly for the Christmas concert tours. He became a permanent member of the band around 1986.</p>
<p><strong>The 1980s saw quite a few Lindisfarne albums: Sleepless Nights, the Lindisfarntastic Albums, Dance Your life away and apparently the most valuable of them, certainly on ebay - C'Mon Everybody. Did you enjoy making that album? Why was the tempo of the re-recorded "Run for Home" not commonly performed and was there any plans to re-release it. DLT used to love playing it on Radio 2?</strong></p>
<p>It was great fun making <strong><em>C'mon Everybody</em></strong>. Most of the songs were favourites from our youth and of course were very influential to us. When the opportunity came to record a bunch of great songs from the fifties and sixties we couldn't resist. We worked the songs as close to the original versions as possible, analysing the arrangements of the instruments to achieve an authentic a sound . The vocals were shared out amongst us to suit the songs. We had a great time singing them and reproducing the backing vocals etc. The re-record restriction had lapsed on Back & Fourth and earlier Charisma recordings and we decided to do new versions of selected songs from our back catalogue, to be included on the album as a double release.</p>
<p>Run For Home was recorded with an electronic snare drum track which ironed out the tempo to give the impression it was faster. I didn't like it much as it lacked the atmosphere of the original. Warm Feeling was given a reggae feel which worked out quite sympathetically and we toured with this arrangement for a year or so.</p>
<p>Clear White Light turned out so much better than the original and benefited greatly from being revisited. The arrangement was cleverly knitted together by Steve Daggett, it is my favourite of all the re-recorded old tracks. The downside of this album however, was the naff cover that was totally inappropriate and which the band had no control over.</p>
<p><strong>I remember being in the Gents at the interval of a Liverpool Empire show when I heard a discussion about the 'Singer' having a day job working for Guinness and I couldn't believe my ears. I'd never heard of a rock star with a day job! What was all that about - why?</strong></p>
<p>Being in a band is great fun particularly when you're playing to packed houses and selling records. Then when record sales dry up and the gigs are less than half full, the economics of everyday life start to confront you. It's not as if you are in a regular job where the money comes in once a month to supplement your bank balance, feed you and pay the mortgage. It's mostly the opposite, there are long periods where nothing comes in at all. I had not written any songs when the band were at their most successful and consequently didn't enjoy the benefits from publishing and performing royalties as an extra source of income. Some bands who have a couple of main writers, insist that all income from publishing and writing be distributed equally amongst its members and share in the success, but this was not the case in our band.</p>
<p>So a disparity of earnings within the group emerged, where one or two were much better off and could survive without performing, or could afford to pursue projects outside of the band. I was not a solo performer as such and needed a band, or at least a couple of backing musicians to perform separately, which was not cost effective. I did not wish to be a slave to the bank manager from one earning period to the next and decided, reluctantly , to take on a job, which would at least cover me financially for part of the year when the band had no touring commitments. I suppose you could liken it to being an actor between parts, the term is resting.</p>
<p>I took a seasonal job with a sports marketing agency as promotional manager, working on sports sponsorships. I was allocated to the Guinness special events team who sponsored two cars in the British Touring Car Championships. The contract was for ten months where I was for the first time receiving regular income and keeping afloat. It fitted in with most of the bands commitments which were few and far between in the summer of 1988.</p>
<p>The bands fortunes did not improve the following year. We released another album which failed to reach the charts and the costs had to be recouped from the proceeds of live performances, further depleting our earnings from music. I was in effect, subsidising the band as an unpaid session player performing other writers songs which failed to generate income. It was a period of disillusionment for me having spent considerable time and effort and long periods away from home for little or no return. In the interim, I was again offered another seasons work with the sports marketing agency. I was left with little choice but to take it due the difficult financial circumstances the band found themselves in.</p>
<p>The pattern was set for the future where I became less involved with the bands day to day decision making. I was slowly being left out and not consulted over future band policy. Living in London did not help matters , as the band were based in Newcastle. A telephone call to brief me occasionally would have been nice. Having already committed myself to a summer schedule in my new role, I was forced to miss the odd gig that came to the band later. Something had to give and I was eventually asked to commit to the band or go. It was a hard decision to make but was made easier by the fact that without my knowledge the band had committed to make a record with Paul Gascoigne, Fog On The Tyne Revisited. I got caught up with it at first, half heartedly going along with the recording stage, but soon realised it was not for me. When asked to perform on the video, I refused. I fully understand why the rest of the band needed this liaison with Gazza from the financial and publicity point of view, but this seemed to colour their vision as far as credibility was concerned.</p>
<p>Alan asked me to leave shortly after this during the press launch for the Theakstons sponsored Christmas tour of 1990, after sampling a lot of the sponsors brew. He retracted his remarks later, but after performing with the band for well over twenty years, I decided to draw a line under it all. I continued to record sessions for various people but I have not performed at any live shows since. I occasionally perform with friends in my local and at parties but all of it is low key and not surrounded by publicity, which is how I like it.</p>Lindisfarne - the official websitetag:lindisfarne.co.uk,2005:Post/46461142017-03-26T10:36:48+01:002024-03-20T07:46:56+00:00Ray Jackson: March 2004 (pt. I)<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/244471/56840182b7064f0556dd6b5c9af3b7a68fc801da/original/jacka.jpg?1490520998" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Thanks to Chris Kelly for this interview with Ray Jackson - at the time, it was around 14 years since we'd heard from him. This is a two-part interview. </p><strong>Thanks for agreeing to the interview Ray. How are you are what are you up to at the moment?</strong>
<p>I am preparing a business plan to present to the local council, in the hope that I may qualify for business start up relief grant. I am in the process of setting up a new venture from premises in the vicinity to where I live. I intend to pursue my original vocation as an artist and run a picture-framing workshop from the studio also. </p>
<p>It's quite an exciting time for me, I've been a consultant working in events and promotion for over fifteen years and this is the first time I've set up on my own, using my creative side for my own ends. I have suppressed this of me for too long and hope I will be successful producing classy pictures and frames.</p>
<p>I have been on the road in one form or another for more than 30 years and it will be a nice change to go home each evening, rather than staying in an hotel on high days and holidays. You miss out on lots of things that others take for granted. It's difficult to arrange your calendar when you have to react to last minute requests from your clients to work. One of the reasons why I haven't kept playing in a band is that I could never commit myself to a regular timetable. Perhaps now I may be able to strike up again with some local musicians, just for the hell of it.</p>
<p><strong>What kind of painting do you specialise in?</strong></p>
<p>I specialise in painting transport related subjects, mainly in pen and ink or watercolour and gouache. I studied graphics at Newcastle Upon Tyne College of Art & Industrial Design in the sixties doing general illustration, design for print and typography. I wasn't brave enough to take on a fine art course, as that involved a long and hard progression of establishing yourself as an artist and in the interim, having to teach to make a living. I thought at the time, being a commercial artist made more sense financially. As it happened, as soon I qualified, I was recruited to sing and play in what was to become Lindisfarne and my graphic arts creative side, was only required to produce the odd album sleeve or band logo.</p>
<p>I have always been interested in vehicles of one sort or another and during the late sixties, there was sea change and progression of design in public transport. It was basic street furniture to most and uninteresting to the majority but I, as a working class lad, whose father did not own a car, relied on the bus and coach for getting around. My uncle was a fitter in the Byker depot of Newcastle Transport and one day invited me over to visit his place of work. </p>
<p>Seeing all of the buses, immaculately presented in their distinctive yellow and cream livery, I became hooked on the various chassis, bodywork and engine manufacturers, enough to inspire me to set about painting them. My eagerness was hastened by the fact that many of these buses were soon to disappear from the streets for good, like trolleybuses and half cabs and I wanted to record them before they were withdrawn from service. I have a comprehensive collection of paintings from that era and recently have taken up where left off. You can see one of my paintings on www.artshole.co.uk, which is an online gallery for aspiring artists.</p>
<p><strong>The Ray Jackson band would be an exciting prospect for many fans and presumably you miss 'treading the boards’? Do you think there is a serious prospect of this happening sometime in the future?</strong></p>
<p>Well, as you can imagine, I left the band at a high point on the live circuit in 1990. We were used to doing forty odd day tours around Christmas and playing to packed out venues. I haven't performed a great deal since and would find it difficult to adjust to small venues. I'm not at all sure that I am up to it these days, as I am not match fit. I still play and sing at impromptu parties etc. but am not expected to entertain as such. I have no plans at present to take up where I left off and even if I did, I would like to take a supporting role, rather than enduring the strain of being a front man again.</p>
<p>Perhaps Charlie Harcourt and me may collaborate at some time in the future but unfortunately we now live in different parts of the country and it could prove difficult to engage ourselves. Some of the best music I have produced, I feel, was with Charlie and I'm positive that we have a few ideas left in us to continue where we left off. As for a touring band, it may be a possibility in the long term.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>So presumably you have retained your instruments and still use them?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, occasionally. I have a Harmony flat back mandolin, acoustic/electric and an Overwater custom solid bodied electric. I still have the original Columbus mandolin, which was the instrument that featured on Rod Stewart's, Every Picture Tells A Story. It is unfortunately in bits, no machine heads or bridge piece but it could, with a small bit of work, be played again. I also have my original valve Fender Vibrasonic amp and a Fender Champ of the same era. I also have some rare Hohner Super Vamper harps, which were the British version of the Marine Band. They were discontinued in favour of the latter.<br><strong>I know that your interest in the harmonica was influenced by your grandfather and a Butlins competition I believe, but where did the mandolin interest begin?</strong></p>
<p>I remember being quite young and listening to my parents mentioning their exploits abroad during the Second World War. They met in Naples, in Italy during the allied occupation on the way through to Berlin and were fond of the music from the Neapolitan area. It was inevitable that they had some records at home with mandolins featured on them and perhaps that started my interest. Then later in my teens, I was watching top of the pops in its early form from Manchester, and Billy J. Cramer and The Dakotas appeared on it, playing Trains and Boats and Planes. The middle section featured a mandolin which made me sit up and take extra notice, as this was the first time I'd seen one being played. As luck would have it, my parents were going on holiday for the first time without me being in tow, and to Italy for the first time since the war. As a peace offering they kindly offered to bring me a present back, so I chose a mandolin. When they returned I was presented with the instrument, which was a Meazzi Jazz bowl back.</p>
<p>I had no idea how to tune or play this instrument but I was in luck, as our Co-operative Society insurance agent who called once a week for his premiums on our endowment policies, was a player. He spent some time each week on teaching me the tuning and basic scales. He also corrected me from playing left handed, as he said I would not be able to learn and progress from other players. I spent another few months in relearning to play right handed but I guess he was right on reflection, (no pun intended). I then set about playing the middle bit of T&B&P until I had it off perfect.</p>
<p>It was then I discovered Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry playing together on a record which not only featured protest songs but Harmonica and Mandolin together. This combination was the sound that influenced me most and I carried that through to my spell with Brethren and Lindisfarne. </p>
<p><strong>At what point did you become aware that you had a talent for singing and who were your influences. My money is on soul music, Motown/Stax etc </strong></p>
<p>I was chosen to sing in the school choir when I was around 14 by our music teacher, who happened to be a super bloke. He was about 10 years older than me and was quite liberal compared to some of the older class masters in the school at that time. I remember him allowing us to bring in some of our own records to play during music lessons and discuss the merits of early Beatles and Rolling Stones compositions. He was one of the instigators of the first music festival ever to be held in our town. His enthusiasm spilled over to almost everyone who was associated with him. It was him above all that recognised my ability to sing I have recently made contact with him again after three decades during a school reunion in the latter part of 2003.</p>
<p>He invited me after I left school to come back and perform at the school dance with my first ever beat group which were called ‘The Zulus’. Our first road manager who was a cockney, gave us the nickname because we played a lot of black influenced music. We hadn't a name when he suggested that but it stuck with us and we eventually decided to call ourselves that. It was most probably because the film Zulu had just been released and it was the in thing at the time.</p>
<p>The music that influenced me greatly was mostly on the Pye R&B label. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Cyril Davies, the latter being a British harmonica player.</p>
<p>I was also very lucky to be around at the time to see Howling Wolf, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker play live in Newcastle in the mid sixties. They all had an influence that filtered down helping me to produce a singing style of my own but I have to confess that Marvin Gay and John Lennon were probably the two voices that were the most inspirational to me. I also cannot leave out Sam Cook, who probably influenced everybody at that time.</p>
<p>I suppose that Tamla Motown and Atlantic/Stax labels were progressive R&B in the early to mid sixties, rounding off the rough edges of the old blues men that had gone before. They both produced material in the blues-gospel idiom, written by Smokey Robinson, Holland Dozier Holland etc. and were performed by great talents such as Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Four Tops, Isley Brothers and of course the girl groups, too numerous to mention. The Beatles did covers of some of this emerging music on their early albums and were instrumental in exposing it to a much wider audience, all be it in a watered down form. Atlantic/Stax had a slightly less polished production sound but the music and the musicians who played on the records were more able to cut through individually, retaining that early rough feel of the blues sound but producing some of the best dance tracks ever recorded. Lee Dorsey, Ben E King, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas, William Bell, Joe Tex and Wilson Picket were all great singers and not forgetting Aretha and Otis etc. Booker T and the MG's were probably the best backing band of the time, it all stands up well in today’s digital age.</p>
<p><strong>Can you remember much about the chance meeting with Ray Laidlaw when you were playing Harmonica in the college classroom accompanied by a guitar player and how that developed into joining Brethren?</strong></p>
<p>I can't recall the meeting that you mention. However, I did play harmonica in the common room from time to time but the staff would have considered it much too disruptive an influence to play in the classroom. Things were still pretty strict in those days and I could have been thrown off the course. </p>
<p>Ray and I had met previously on several occasions before I started college, as both of our bands had been on the same bill at various gigs. I did not know Ray was at art school until I transferred from a foundation course to specialise in graphics at an annexe in Chillingham Road School, Heaton, a suburb of Newcastle. Ray was taking a course in shop window display but was there only briefly. He left for a job within months of me starting. We obviously kept in touch after he departed and eventually I was recruited to join the Downtown faction sometime in late summer of 68.</p>
<p><strong>The Rex Hotel, The Humblebums, Uncle Ralph etc, do you have any stories or memories?</strong></p>
<p>In the sixties The Rex Hotel, Whitley Bay, was where most of the local groups cut their teeth in the "Snake Pit" which was the nickname for the subterranean dance floor situated within it. I had watched Downtown Faction playing there and had performed there myself from time to time. There were also many folk clubs on Tyneside at the time where I sometimes got up and played harmonica. The Bay Hotel, Cullercoates was where I met a guitarist called Tony Gillman who played blues and we occasionally performed together. I also played with him at The Blyth & Tyne public house in New Bridge Street, Newcastle. Although most of these venues hosted folk clubs they were eventually hi-jacked by the likes of Alan Hull and myself who were unable to find other suitable places to play acoustically. </p>
<p>Alan and his manager, had the idea to utilise a slack midweek evening at the Rex. It had an ideal unused room on the ground floor called The Cafe Room where they started off their own club. It became a great vehicle for singer songwriters and progressive folk music. It was there that Brethren debued as an acoustic act after the departure of the lead guitarist, Jeff Sadler. Alan was looking for a band to back him on some of his songs and approached us to play with him. The story is well documented as to what happened next but we played as a resident combo for almost a year at the club, supporting many up and coming acts on the circuit at that time. Among them were the Humblebums, a strange mixture of the serious and the comical, consisting of Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly. Gerry was the thoughtful song smith with an incredible voice and was enhanced by the peppering of funny stories and Glasgow humour from Billy. Billy was playing up to the audience that night, as the front row was filled with fellow Scots, the Fisher family who laughed so much that at one stage I thought they would have to carry out Ma Fisher on a stretcher. It was one of the most memorable performances I have experienced and it was obvious that both of these men were destined to be high achievers.</p>
<p>Uncle Ralph McTell also played the club and became a fountain of wisdom to the band at one stage. We were on the verge of calling it a day as our attempts at securing a recording deal had come to nought. It was after his performance that we asked his advice on whether we should continue and thanks to him, he encouraged us to stay with it. The Rex folk club continued on for a few years after we achieved success but it had served its purpose as far as Alan was concerned and was allowed to fade away, along with most of the other clubs which had started out around that time.</p>
<p><strong>Fascinating stuff. And do you remember your first impressions of Alan Hull. Was it apparent that he was destined for higher things too?</strong></p>
<p>I vividly remember the impression Alan made on me and most of my contempories especially the time he was in the band Chosen Few. He was undoubtedly an emerging talented writer and poet but didn't he let you know it. He was arrogant, belligerent and insolent to everyone who came within his circle of influence. A defence mechanism perhaps but he could be a very unpleasant character until he got to know you. He was sponsored by two men in separate businesses at the time, one was a Bill Keith who owned an influential beat club on the Quayside of Newcastle and the other was Dave Wood who had the only serious recording studio on Tyneside in the sixties. They both helped him, offering rehearsal facilities, gigs and free recording time. They obviously both believed in his talent to offer these perks but it only added to his inflated ego and as a result would piss off the rest of the struggling musicians around at the time.</p>
<p>However once you got to know Alan and realised he would never buy you a pint he was not all bad. When it was suggested he should join forces with us (Brethren) I was apprehensive to say the least, to have this uncompromising character in the fold. It wasn't to be a complete merger however, as he insisted that we were to be promoted as Alan Hull and Brethren wherever we played, primarily because Alan had already released solo recordings on the Transatlantic label. It also had to share the front man job with him, the idea didn't thrill me at first but as we worked together we were to learn to complement each other and soon would begin to enjoy the collaboration. We eventually dropped the Alan Hull bit from the name and went on to be just Brethren until we were signed by Tony Stratton Smith's, Charisma Label.</p>
<p><strong>What was it in your opinion that kick started Lindisfarne and brought about the first album 'Nicely out of tune’?</strong></p>
<p> Quite simply, we were asked to do a gig at The Marquee Club in Wardour Street at the request of Tony Stratton Smith who was interested in a demo tape sent to him. He wasn't convinced enough to sign us on the strength of it but wanted to see what we were like live before deciding. I remember we drove down the A1 in the van from Newcastle early one Sunday morning and arrived in Soho around late afternoon before playing. Coincidently, we were supporting a band from the USA called Raven who had a deal with CBS over there. They were fantastic musicians, much more accomplished than us at the time but didn't achieve much success in Britain. However, Stratt was still not 100% convinced of our potential after seeing us play live and had to have his arm twisted by our joint manager then Joe Robertson, who managed another Newcastle band, called Junco Partners. Playing in the Junco's was non other than guitarist Charlie Harcourt, who was desperately sought after by Nice bassist, Lee Jackson to play in his new band, Jackson Heights. Lee was with the Charisma Label but Joe Robertson would not release Charlie from his managerial contract to join Jackson Heights unless he signed Brethren into the bargain. To keep Lee Jackson happy Stratton Smith agreed to Joe's demands. So, there you have it on the record, we owe our kick start in the business to my one time writing partner, Charlie and the subsequent release of NOOT.</p>
<p><strong>The originality of NOOT stayed with the band through the 70s. The sound of Lindisfarne was quite unique as were the 'sour cream ' harmonies as Alan described them. How did those harmonies come about and were you conscious of them or did it just evolve?</strong></p>
<p>The 'sour cream' harmonies were a happy accident, developed when Alan joined forces with Brethren. I remember the first song we ever recorded together which was a Si composition entitled Positive Earth. It appeared on a compilation album called Take Off Your Head & Listen. The track never made it to the NOOT LP but the die was cast as far as the combination of voices and harmonies was concerned. They sounded almost medieval and had a madrigal structure to them. Si took it on himself to work out the singing parts on the piano and we would copy the notes he had chosen for each of us to sing. Alan usually took the high range notes, Si the middle and myself the lower range.</p>
<p>Later, after signing with Charisma Records, we set about previewing songs and rehearsing for NOOT with producer John Anthony. John came up from London to Tynemouth to see how we were shaping up and as it happened we were soon out on the town visiting the local hostelries. On the way back from one of the bars we had to cross the bridge over the railway track at Tynemouth station. Much of the station was unused at that time but the huge structure still remained forming a cavernous echoing sound when you walked through it. We couldn't resist the temptation to try out the harmonies of one of the songs we had been working on that day for John's appraisal. The introduction to Clear White Light was performed sitting halfway up the stairs of the bridge, in public, for the very first time and anyone waiting for the train on the platform were treated to one of the best renditions, ever. It sounded mega in there as the acoustics suited the singing perfectly.</p>
<p>John's reaction to it was one of incredulity and his first utterances were, "last track on the album lads, what a finish that will make". I can still hear that moment in my head to this day, I knew then, that we were destined to perform the song for years to come and to much larger audiences, as it was so different to anything else around at the time. </p>
<p>Not everyone however, liked the combination of voices. During the recording of FOTT, Dylan's producer Bob Johnson banned Si from singing any of the harmonies and stripped away a lot of backing vocals, which had previously been recorded at the final mix. I think Si was pretty cool about it at the time but I'm sure he must have been hurt by the rejection and as a result I think, it probably affected his commitment to the album as a whole.</p>
<p><strong>The die was certainly cast. It was Lindisfarne at their finest and such a classic album that sometimes seems to get forgotten in favour of FOTT. The press loved the album, the queues at gigs became lengthy and the BBC were queuing too. Was it instant fame (and fortune) and what was the reaction of people in Newcastle upon Tyne?</strong></p>
<p>Between the recording of NOOT and its eventual release, we were constantly booked for work up and down the country. By this time we had signed with the Terry King artist agency who had working for them a fledgling booking agent by the name of Paul Conroy. Paul was very keen to have us play on the university and college circuit as support to the more established acts touring at that time. It was hard slog but it was a great learning curve and we met many contempories in other bands like Fairport, Steeleye, Yes, Genesis, Van Der Graaf etc. who became friends along the way. Paul of course went on to be a record company executive and eventually became president of EMI records.</p>
<p>Our first single Clear White Light from the album was not a hit, nor indeed were any of the subsequent releases from it until after FOTT came out. We had toured for well over a year gradually building up our reputation after NOOT was released and picking up moderate sales as we went. We had by then recorded a few live BBC sessions on Bob Harris SOTS, Peel's Top Gear and also Folk On 2. We appeared on a few regional television programmes, but did not achieve mainstream recognition. We didn't really start to take off properly until we played at two major festivals in the summer of 1971, one at at Weeley in Essex and the other at Plumpton on the Sussex downs. The latter incidentally, switched its location to Reading the following year. These two festivals enabled us to reach a far bigger audience than we could have hoped for playing clubs and colleges over least a couple of years. As a result our sales started to take off and FOTT was released shortly afterwards in the autumn. It immediately charted and the single Meet was released early the following year, as fate would have it, just before we embarked on a tour of the States as a support act. </p>
<p>When we arrived back in Britain after being away for six weeks, we were oblivious to our UK progress and had no idea what was in store. During the period the single was out in the British charts the FOTT album had reached No.1 and the single was I think, at No.7 in some charts. We were shocked at the change in attitude towards us, which bordered on the sycophantic. We had become famous in that short space of time and the effect was unnerving and hard to take in at first. When we arrived back in Newcastle a few days later, we were mobbed at the station and everyone recognised us wherever we went. We were asked to open all sorts of events and from then our lives were public property for many years to come.</p>
<p>Because of the success of FOTT the record buying public were keen to discover other released albums on offer. Lady Eleanor was dusted down and re-released and this time was also a hit, reaching No.3 and helping NOOT to reach the top ten album charts.</p>
<p><strong>So then there was the 'Six Bob tour' in I think early 71. Do you remember it well? Apparently Alan Hull loved it and Genesis were 'different'.</strong></p>
<p>It was a brilliant time from start to finish. Both Van Der Graaf, Genesis and ourselves all had our first albums released around the same period and Charisma came up with the idea of having the six bob tour to promote us, Simultaneously. We shared a tour bus that I think was hired from Timpsons of Catford. The coach also served as Millwall F.C's. team transport and had tables and rear facing seats. This was long before the days of Len Wright or Berryhurst who later designed coaches specifically for rock groups. We were usually picked up from London starting at Charing Cross Road outside St. Martins Art College, this happened to be the nearest to Charisma's offices at the time, and if travelling north would traverse the A41 to Hendon to pick up the rest. The tour was slow to draw in audiences at first, but as it progressed we seemed to pick up favourable reviews, and gradually we started filling the halls and picking up more air play on the radio. It was on reflection, a big gamble by the record company to put three relatively unknown acts on together without a headliner, but the atmosphere created by the wildly different styles in presentation and music, seemed to work. It was cheap enough for most punters to take a chance on buying a ticket and this gave us the initial audience following and the record sales to pay for the tour. It was a great adventure at the time and an invaluable learning curve. </p>
<p>Being in such close proximity with the other two bands, we soon were to make friends and these friendships have stood the test of time. We were from wildly differing social and economic backgrounds but the mix seemed to work. </p>
<p>Genesis were mostly Charterhouse public school chaps with cultured accents and impeccable manners, and were partial to the odd sherry. Van Der Graaf Generator on the other hand, were into smoking dope and being cool. We were of course quite the opposite, being of regional stock from an industrial background in the main. However, not to denigrate Rod and Si's credentials, they both attended public schools. We may have experimented with the odd joint but beer was our main vice. We soon had formed our little cliques up and down the bus, the dope heads, the card players, the readers, and the drinkers, all cross group relationships. We were very supportive of one another’s music and would watch each other at sound checks and during the gigs. I suppose it was the nearest we got to the atmosphere experienced by the old touring bands of the sixties, where there would be several acts on the bill together, sometimes appearing twice nightly at each venue. One instance I recall when travelling, was when the coach broke down on the way to Bristol down the M5. While we waited for a replacement coach to get us to the Colston Hall, Phil Collins suggested that we use a farmer’s field next to the motorway to play inter group football. Out of sheer boredom we agreed and the three bands set about a five a side knockout competition. I can't remember who were the champions however, perhaps the replacement bus arrived before reaching the end of the competition. </p>
<p><strong>Weeley - you trudged in the mud with a quarter of a million fans and the Hells Angels took a beating. You held the audience in the palm of your hand over 2 nights and stole the show along with 'The Faces' and their lead singer whose name escapes me at the moment. Take us back. </strong></p>
<p>I don't remember much about this festival, except that it had rained constantly for much of the weekend. We arrived to a mud caked field and very damp people under plastic bags who seemed cold and in low spirits. I remember it was a Saturday afternoon when we waited to go on stage, I think Caravan were on before us. John Peel came out to introduce us to the audience, but there wasn't a lot of reaction when we walked on stage. Our immediate reaction was one of awe, in front of us was a field full of bodies stretching as far as the eye could see. There was reported to be around 80,000 in the audience all waiting to be entertained, it was by far the biggest challenge we had ever faced together. We started with Road to Kingdom Come which went down well and half way through the set, the sun came out which lifted everyone's spirits. By the end of our gig all who weren't asleep were up on their feet and cheering us on to do more. Sheer determination got us through this one and having good luck with the weather. It could just as easily have gone the other way and our careers could have taken a dip. The gods were most certainly on our side that day and the reviews were there to prove it.</p>
<p><strong>It occurs to me that vocally you were always on the go throughout a show. If you were not singing the lead then you were harmonising and/or playing harmonica. The strain on your pipes must have been enormous. Were you prone to throat problems and did you train or do exercises to sing?</strong></p>
<p>Too right it was a strain! All of the tours we embarked on were concentrated into four to six weeks usually without any days off. Days off cost us money, as all the equipment was on hire, including sound and lights, and the trucks to ferry it around. Touring is an expensive business and unless you have the record sales to complement it, you could easily end up losing money. We filled every date we could, sometimes just to break even. My voice was being used constantly, during the day for instance, doing radio interviews, speaking to journalists and in the evening performing, not just singing but shouting to the audience to encourage them to participate in various activities. We would sometimes be invited to go on to a late night drinking shed after the concert, where loud music would be playing and you would have to shout above the noise to make conversation. The result would be that after five or six nights I would have an inflamed sore throat, my vocal cords would be in shreds, resulting in poor vocal performances. High notes were best avoided and along with Alan, we both had to drop some of the more demanding numbers from the set.</p>
<p>I tried many different remedies to help with the problem, throat sprays, antibiotics, herbal drinks and alcohol. Most were ineffective and prescription drugs were no help either. My last hope was to turn to homeopathy, which I did in the mid eighties and this was the only form of medication that worked. It cured me of sore throats for good.</p>
<p>In my late teens, pre Lindisfarne, when in The Autumn States, my G.P. Dr. Thompson (Paul Thompson's late father), had me painting my throat to act as a cure. Everything else he had prescribed failed. In the end he recommended that I should give up singing altogether. Don't think he liked our music much.</p>
<p>I never had any formal training regarding singing. I used to sing in the school choir, I suppose that gave me the idea that I could sing. I learned mike technique quite early on in my career before stage sound monitors arrived. Back then, you were forced to listen to your own vocals coming back at you after bouncing off the rear of the hall. Sometimes it was an acceptable delay, almost like an echo chamber but other times the length of the hall was too long and the delay so far out of time that it all became just a din.</p>
<p><strong>It was about this time that you met the Texan Bob Johnson and the album 'Fog on the Tyne' was started. Do you remember it well and what happened thereafter?</strong></p>
<p>We met Bob in London through a New York lawyer named Marty Machatte (I think that's how you spell his surname). He had handled Bob's affairs in the states and was also instrumental in negotiating distribution deals for Charisma on American soil. The offices had moved to Old Compton Street by this time and I believe this where we were introduced. We seemed to hit it off with him, although a Texan and a band of Geordies was not an ideal mix of backgrounds, and some interpreting had to be done. One thing in common was that he could drink, which broke down the barriers somewhat.</p>
<p>We recorded most of FOTT at Trident studio in St. Anns Court just off Wardour Street in the heart of Soho. We were familiar with it as NOOT had been recorded there previously. The engineer was Ken Scott this time, who had just finished recording Bowies, Hunky Dory album.</p>
<p>We were very trusting of him and you could rely on the sound being well recorded. We didn't spend a great deal of time in the studio recording the album as Bob was a no frills producer, and guy for recording tracks as live, and representational of the band as possible. I think it took just over three weeks to lay all of the tracks down and a week to mix.</p>
<p>In my opinion FOTT was not as strong song writing wise as NOOT for two reasons. NOOT was a compilation of songs and ideas worked on and perfected over a long period. FOTT was recorded during the middle of an extensive promotional and live concert period. The main writers in the band had not been able to spend as much time on creating new songs and consequently some older material which was not chosen for NOOT, was given another airing. However, FOTT was much better recorded as 16 tracks were used, opposed to NOOT, which was mostly 8 track. Meet Me On The Corner was released as the first single from the album and after it's success we were able to re release Lady Eleanor and remix most of it again using 16 tracks. Two big hits under our belt and an album in the charts for fifty-five weeks or more should have financially secured us for decades. It wasn't to be, because of a series of early contractual mistakes and a spate of unfortunate timings, here in Britain and in the States. We were famous but without the fortune. We started to lose our way after FOTT and constant touring and being together started the usual strains and personality differences that all bands seem to experience.</p>
<p><strong>'Meet me on the Corner' was a huge single for you all and the only Lindisfarne song to receive the Ivor Novello award I believe. I suspect you are hugely proud of that song. Am I right?</strong></p>
<p>You could say that! It was our first hit single and summed up our style of music to the masses. The original version of the song was much different to what appeared on FOTT. It was over arranged and disjointed until Rod and I worked on the song while the others disappeared to the pub during a demo session in Covent Garden. We decided to go back to the way Rod had originally recorded it on his Revox demo, as the feel of the song had been lost in the translation of being arranged by the band.</p>
<p>The only addition to that simple original version were harmonica, the harmonies, the bass drum beat and a little piano on the chorus, which was added when the rest of the lads returned from the pub. The Covent Garden session demo version of Meet was accidentally released on a greatest hits album and single re release a few years after the band had split. The subtle differences between the FOTT album version and the demo were not spotted by the record company when they decided to exploit our back catalogue.</p>Lindisfarne - the official websitetag:lindisfarne.co.uk,2005:Post/46461082017-03-26T10:29:55+01:002020-09-09T06:12:03+01:00Alan Hull: Sounds, May 1972<p><strong><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/244471/af2271f427087334a80111b71544ff36ed2f5141/original/hull72-2.jpg?1490520537" class="size_orig justify_center border_" />Alan Hull</strong> - interviewed by <strong>Jerry Gilbert</strong></p>
<p>Copied from <strong>Sounds</strong> 27.5.1972 (provided by Derek Walmsley)</p>
<p><strong>LINDISFARNE'S MERCURIAL rise to fame in the past year has done little to alter the outlook of their chief songwriter, James Alan Hull, Hully remains forever the man of conflicting personalities - the deep philosopher acutely aware of other people's reactions and the motives behind those reactions, but also a round the clock looner who revels in his own madness.</strong></p>
<p><strong>It's the latter mood that generally prevails over the former when Alan is in the public eye, but during an interview in which he talked of his early days as a nurse in a mental hospital, Alan provided moments of hilarity and moments of serious self-appraisal, offering brief glimpses of the mystical ways in which he turns amorphous, fragmented impressions into tightly structured songs.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Alan Hull's story is indeed an interesting one.</strong></p>
<p><em>Had you been in any bands prior to joining Brethren or had you always worked in folk clubs ?</em></p>
<p>I'd been in about six rock bands and the biggest one was a Newcastle band called The Chosen Few because we made a couple of records. After that I got really pissed off with the whole business because I was young, so I just disappeared and went to work in a mental hospital and got married.</p>
<p><em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/244471/e18206d4e7e2d96d4fca20ca65d1e4096e63e223/original/hull72-1.jpg?1490520537" class="size_orig justify_right border_" />A mental hospital ?</em></p>
<p>Yeah a mental hospital in Newcastle - I worked there for three years and in that period of working I met a guy in Newcastle who run a studio and made demos, and we got on well and he let me do as many demos as I wanted for nothing; that was a really nice period and I was writing a lot.</p>
<p><em>So you never really gave up music ?</em></p>
<p>No never. I tried a lot of musicians in that period and I decided to forget about bands and I went on the road as a folk musician I can't really say I went <em>'on the road</em>' as a folk musician, I played in a few folk clubs singing my own songs.</p>
<p><em>Was there any reason for you making the change to folk clubs other than to avoid the hassles of a band ?</em></p>
<p>I think it was purely by accident, I just couldn't work it out. You know at that time '67-'68 it was the Cream and things which I couldn't possibly relate to, and then later Led Zeppelin. But I just couldn't work out that thing, and most of the bands in Newcastle were playing heavy rock which I didn't understand so the only possible thing to do was get into folk clubs - and so I did with a little bit of success so that I got my own folk club, and that's how I met Brethren. They came along and said 'Can we play at your folk club ?' and I said 'Yeah, as long as you buy me a pint'. And so they played and they were great.</p>
<p><em>I assume that the earlier rock bands you'd been with hadn't offered much scope for your own songs ?</em></p>
<p>We were doing about sixty per cent of my songs, about twenty per cent weird Tamla Motown things and about twenty per cent Lovin' Spoonful things. We were an enigma at that time because we were playing music and songs rather than freaky guitar solos and that was in 1965.</p>
<p><strong>Hospital</strong></p>
<p><em>Let me ask you about your work in the mental hospital. You can't make a statement like 'I worked in a mental hospital for three years' ' without some qualification.</em></p>
<p>It was after the Chosen Few broke up; and the off-shoot of the Chosen Few was a group called Skip Bifferty with Micky Gallagher, John Turnbull and Graham Bell. Micky was ex-Chosen Few, and Graham Bell and John Turnbull made it Skip Bifferty, and at that time I was knackered, I felt I was finished at about 20 and I thought that I'd done everything I wanted to do, and nothing had really worked. So I met this woman and got married her and fell in love with her and asked what I should do and she said 'Why don't you go and work in a mental hospital ?' So I said 'Right' and went and worked there for three years and it was beautiful. It was hard to do</p>
<p><em>Yeah but what was the motive behind this strange diversion ?</em></p>
<p>I've always thought about madness and the end product of human possibility; but madness had been a theme for me all the time because I probably am mad, and everybody else is, but they handle it very well. I think we're all in the same crowd.</p>
<p><em>Well how would you define madness then ?</em></p>
<p>I wouldn't - I think we're all mad, I think everybody that's born has got trouble to easy their minds. So at that time which was about 1966, it was before everything - before I'd taken anything apart from a bit of dope - but when I went to St. Nick's it's ironic that St. Nicholas was the name of the mental hospital when St. Nicholas is St. Claus I was just thinking about religion and madness and 'who am I ?' and 'what am I ?' and crises of identity and it comes out in the songs - like 'January Song' is about that all. And at the same time I was reading two things, one was Buddhism and the other was Edgar Allan Poe's 'Mystery And Imagination' because they seemed to be related to one another. So in that three-year period from '66 to '69 I was working in a mental hospital where I had the complete scope of human behaviour displayed by the patients without any inhibition. And at that time I was doing physically, and mentally I was reading Buddhism - Buddhism proper, nothing flash like Zen - and also Edgar Allan Poe. So I was able to work out three things 'Mystery And Imagination', religion and what was going on in front of my eyes in a mental hospital, and I wanted to find out <em>my</em> place within that. And at the same time I was newly married and trying to form my own carry-on.</p>
<p><em>Do you think that period in your life will have a lasting effect on your own mental stability ?</em></p>
<p>I think it has got a lasting effect and I think it'll have an effect until I die and I'm glad of it.</p>
<p><em>Would you go back and work in a mental hospital again or do you see it as a period in your life which it was necessary to pass through ?</em></p>
<p>No I would go back gladly. In fact if I can get it together to make more bread than I need I would like to look at the possibilities of starting a clinic of my own with some good psychiatrists.</p>
<p><em>What was your job ?</em></p>
<p>I was a nurse - a student psyciatric nurse but I left just before I finished the final exams because the thing I was doing with music was getting too heavy and I was taking far too much time off; it wasn't fair to the hospital and it wasn't fair to me because there was a conflict between my music and my job. Also because it was a hospital run by the national health and I had my own ideas through reading Buddhism and things I was trying to introduce dídeas like that, and being a terribly minor student nurse. I wasn't liked by the staff and I wasn't really tolerated by the patients because they thought like they have have a career of being a mental patient and the staff of having a career of being a mental looker after and the staff couldn't accept this for obvious reasons and the patients found it difficult - they thought I was more of a patient thatn I was a nurse and so it came to the crunch I wasn't actually sacked, I was asked to leave.</p>
<p><em>It must have been a difficult choice if you regard both music and working in a mental hospital as somehow vocational.</em></p>
<p>Yeah in that mental hospital I met about three extraordinary poets and they were locked up in that place just because they saw too much and it scared me a little bit.</p>
<p><em>Yeah there's that song of Ralph McTell's</em></p>
<p>"Michael In The Garden", yeah I like "Michael In The Garden".</p>
<p><em>So did this period in your life have a strong influence on your writing, either at the time or retrospectively ?</em></p>
<p>Oh, very definitely. I wrote about twenty songs to do specifically with "Michael In The Garden", it's just that I had a different way of saying it. There was one called "I Kill You Spider Man" which I didn't dare to play anywhere, and there was another called "Schiziod Revolution"; but they were too freaky, too personally really.</p>
<p><strong>Madness</strong><img src="http://www.lindisfarne.co.uk/archives/interviews/hull72_2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_right border_" height="376" width="240" /></p>
<p><em>You didn't get into the madness of the music to illustrate your themes ?</em></p>
<p>Well actually I tried to do that but I found that I was limited in my knowledge of music - I couldn't really be a valid muscial freak because I'm not a valid musician; I'd rather think of myself as a poet than a muscian. I got into poetry and wrote a lot of really strange poems and that's all. That period ended when I left St. Nick's and started to bring my music to people. The songs changed, actually, because I started writing songs like "We Can Swing Together" for a folk club atmosphere; I started to write about real things rather than madness which that's real enough but people don't want to know. So when I started going into folk clubs I started writing more on an audience basis and things like "Fog On The Tyne" and "We Can Swing Together" came out - but they still had that overhang of song like "Lady Eleanor" which is "Mystery And Imagination" again.</p>
<p><em>You don't think that the good-time feel that your songs have always had in any way conflicts with some of the harsher themes ?</em></p>
<p>I think rather than conflict it enhances the feel of Lindisfarne because we can do songs like "Lady Eleanor" and then the next song we can do "Fog On The Tyne" and people listen to "Lady Eleanor" which is wonderful.</p>
<p><em>Looking at the songs you were writing, your first meeting with Brethren must have been a strange one in view of the fact that they were more or less a straight blues band.</em></p>
<p>Well they'd just passed out of the blues phase and they were coming into the folk clubs and concentrating more on songs and they were writing songs - Rod was writing and Si was writing - and when they played their first song in my club at the time I thought nobody writes songs in the north-east like I do, and then I saw these dirty freaks and thought 'wow' they can write songs not just as good but better than me'. They were doing exactly the same things as I was and so we had to get together.</p>
<p><em>And you asked to join them ?</em></p>
<p>Well it was just like a natural thing and has been ever since . They came along and did some demos with me on my songs, and then I did a couple of gigs with them as their guest artist although they weren't big at all and there was nothing important in it. And so it went on and eventually they turned round and said 'it's about time you came into Brethren now'. And I said 'Yeah it is, I'm sick of singing on my own, it's dead lonely'. And we did a few gigs as Brethren, got signed up Charisma and decided we'd better change our name as there was an American group called Brethren, and we talked about a few names and somebody said Lindisfarne and John Anthony who was our producer said 'That's lovely, they'll love it down in London'; but it didn't mean much to us, you know it was just a nice place where we've always gone. So we said 'Will they really ?' and it's been like that ever since.</p>
<p><em>But prior to that you'd recorded alone for Transatlantic.</em></p>
<p>Ah, that was just before I met Brethren actually. I'd just come down to London to try my songs and Nat Joseph at Transatlantic liked "We Can Swing Together" and we recorded it though it was a pretty bad recording because it was done with session men and wasn't very inspired. So it came out and didn't do much, but now "We Can Swing Together" is one of the biggest things Lindisfarne do.</p>
<p><em>Which other songs got carried over from the folky period into Lindisfarne ?</em></p>
<p>"Winter Song" - I used to do that on my own and it was one of the best things I'd done; I did it with Lindisfarne with just Rod playing bass and Si playing twelve string - just a tiny little bit of instrumentation.</p>
<p><strong>Success</strong></p>
<p><em>After you got together with Brethren was there ever a point where you could see the band in terms of success potential rather than they were just a band you got a lot of satisfaction working with ? </em></p>
<p>Personally I didn't at all - I've never thought in terms of success. It never really entered my head until now when it's been forced on us with people saying 'You must do this, you must do that'. But at that time I just thought of it as being a complete and obvious outlet to my daft songs. It was a band that could make my songs more streamlined, and the first time it really happened we played at my club the Rex and we did "Layd Eleanor" - we'd just arranged it and had a rehearsal a couple of days before and I've never had such a tremendous feeling. There were only about a hundred people there but they were friends and it <em>really</em> happened. And afterwards I came off feeling great and Ray Laidlaw came up and said "Heeeey, Alan" with a big smile on his face, and big glass of whatever it was, and he said "I think we've got it". And I knew what he meant. That was two and a half years ago and "Lady Eleanor" has just got into the charts now. I always think of "Lady Eleanor" as Lindisfarne and sometimes I say "Where's Lady Eleanor playing tonight ?" and "What number's Lindisfarne in the charts ?".</p>
<p><em>It's ironical that it's only recently made it.</em></p>
<p>I don't really understand it. I only understand what happened that night but I don't understand what's happened subsequently.</p>
<p><em>Was the decision to leave Newcastle for London a difficult one to make in view of domestic commitments and the fact that you didn't have much going for you ?</em></p>
<p>The whole band wanted to move to London and at that time is was very frustrating in Newcastle for them because they were so talented and they got an awful recording deal, and they used to come to Dave's studio and I used to be there making frustrated little demos and not really bothering and they used to come in and phone London and ask when their album was coming out, and they always got bullshit replies. So we came together through frustration and through love, and after we came together it was obvious we'd better get down to London. But they'd always thought that, so eventually we arrived in London though it was hard at first being separated from our families.</p>
<p><strong>London</strong></p>
<p><em>How did you see yourself fitting into London ? By this time could you see that the band was one that was different and could find a lot of success ?</em></p>
<p>I think everybody in Lindisfarne at that time had an inner feeling, avery quiet confidence that it would be all right one day, sooner or later. And the hassles didn't bother us, we used to go and sleep on friends' floors and lots of good people used to put us up, and we just kept on doing it with this same quit confidence; I can't really express the feeling, but we just <em>knew</em> it and the money then didn't matter much and it doesn't matter much now. You know Rod had a wife and two kids to support and I had a wife and three kids to support and we used to send them fivers, but somehow managed. There's always hard times in any case, and I don't believe that things got easier with money, it's not true - things don't get easier until they get easier in your head, it's a spiritual thing.</p>
<p><em>In that case was it difficult to cope with the change of life-style brought about by your recent success - the fact that you're working perpetually now ?</em></p>
<p>No, well we've ignored it. The only thing that's troubling me now is the songs, you know the material that's coming out now because it's only reflecting something that isn't really real. But the thing is, Rod's just written a song and I think it's one of the best songs I've ever heard - it's the song I've been trying to write for the past two years since the whole thing with Lindisfarne happened. It just gives the low-down on what it's like to go through all that, but it's not down or up, he just says it, like "Don't ask me 'cos I don't know, still come up to my house and we'll have a blow". But it's much more intricate than that and simply put and I think we're all really looking forward to doing that because it's the one song. I've heard that I <em>really</em> want to do apart from my own songs. I think it's going to be the best sing that we'll ever do - the Lindisfarne song.</p>
<p><em>You say you're worried about some of the other material that's coming out</em></p>
<p>Mine really, I'm still getting the tunes together and the chord changes, but the only things I want to say are what Rod's just said, the swine, and the inly thing apart from that is very religious and I don't think people wanna hear that - they find their own religion down their throats. And the only other thing I wanna write about is getting drunk.</p>
<p><em>Do you think your present worries about material is related directly to your complete change of existence ?</em></p>
<p>I think it's partly that. I was talking to Rab Noakes the other night and he said that certain houses you live in have an atmosphere to work in - like you can be in a house and not feel like picking a guitar up and writing, and I think that's true. My main worry is that I've changed so much physically qnd environmentally in the past two years that I haven't had a settled place to sit down and write, but when I lived in Gateshead I was on the dole for a year and I wrote fifty songs, including "Lady Eleanor" and "Winter Song" and "Fog On The Tyne": they were all written during that period and it seemed to be a very atmospheric house, but when I do, I hope to recapture that thing where I can sit down and relax and write.</p>
<p><em>Looking at the band's two albums, the first one was left fairly rough and represented the raw, live qualities of Lindisfarne, whereas the second was more a production job with adornment. How do you see the next one from th point of view of production ?</em></p>I think it'll be neither of those things. The first album was an attempt to be more dressed up than the second one, the second one was much clearer and direct but my personal favourite is "Nicely Out Of Tune" and John Anthony did a very honest job. It was weird that "Fog On The Tyne" got top and "Nicely Out Of Tune" is just starting now. But I think that's a fine album, I'm more oriented towards songs and just doing them well rather than a production thing, and I just think that the poetry on "Nicely" is stronger than the poetry on "Fog". But both the albums have been a good exercise for us and we want to make the third Lindisfarne album a combination of the two, directness, engineering, quality and the poetry of the first album.
<p><em>In view of what you said, what can Bob Johnson offer the group as a producer in the studios ?</em></p>
<p>A great atmosphere to work in, intelligence on the control and selection of the material.</p>
<p><em>Is he doing the next album, and have you given the next album much thought yet ?</em></p>
<p>Of course he is. We've been pressurised with gigs up to now but we've now eased off the gigs and at this very time we're at the end of a rest period and a thinking period. So from my point of view it's been good because I've got about six new songs, and Si wants to do another one called "Go Back" that he did a long time ago. And we're now coming into a rehearsal period which for us is like a luxury - and then after the rehearsal period we'll be able to see much better how things are gonna go.</p>
<p><em>What are your musical priorities when you're playing live ? For instance does the attempt to communicate with an audience take priority over just laying back and having a good time, objectively rather than subjectively ?</em></p>
<p>On stage it's the best feeling in the world to know you're communicating with the majority of the audience and it's the biggest motive for being in a band - it's the biggest thing to do to go on stage and <em>be</em> the audience, where there's no them and us, it's just one thing, a happening.</p>
<p><em>Do you find that the lyrics of your songs do provoke a reaction ? For example with the less self-explanatory songs like "Lady Eleanor" do people tend to ask you about the songs and therefore get off on the band at that level ?</em></p>
<p>Well "Lady Eleanor" I don't really understand. I wrote it almost in a trance and I know it means something, personal to me, and it would take a long time to explain - I know it's about death anyway, and I'm very worried about it being a so-called hit because I'm worried about the 17 and 16-year-old girls and boys who buy it I mean it's not a pop song and I don't understand what they think about it. But other things like "Meet Me On The Corner" which is an obvious lovely message in it would be alright - I can understand that. But I think the kids just take the songs as they find them, maybe it's just the sound that they like.</p>
<p>With "Lady Eleanor" I'm worried in the sense that I don't understand, and I'm always worried about things that I don't understand - I just wanna know what they get out of it. I mean I can understand what they get out of T. Rex, because it's sex, and that's fine, and I can understand what they get out of a good pop song; but I put "Lady Eleanor" in the same category as "Whiter Shade Of Pale" [Procol Harum] - I don't know why people bought that in their thousands because it's a very mystical song the same as "Lady Eleanor".</p>
<p><strong>Growth</strong></p>
<p><em>How did you find the States ?</em></p>
<p>Turn left at Greenland. No, seriously though when we got to the States it was like starting again but it was happy for us because we were with the Kinks and Fairport Convention and so we had no worries. But the same thing happened in America as it had in London - an unknown band getting encores and making a lot of friends and people in the business talking about us. It was a heavy experience altogether but we came together as people and we learned a lot. The tour was well organised and it was plain sailing; even the Troubadour was fun and it was the best gig musically, because we had an intelligent audience, good drinkers and nice people, and Don McLean who we played with is one of the best people ever.</p>
<p><em>America obviously brought the group closer together, but looking into the future is it conceivable to you at the moment that Lindisfarne will outgrow its purpose or that you'll individually grow out of the relationship ?</em></p>
<p>I think Lindisfarne's relationship will grow - never out, it'll just sprout.</p>
<p>[It was only about ten months later that Lindisfarne split. (R.Groll)]</p>Lindisfarne - the official websitetag:lindisfarne.co.uk,2005:Post/46454302017-03-25T12:40:17+00:002021-06-05T20:37:22+01:00Simon Cowe, 2001<p><span class="font_large"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/244471/3acced45ae82f3ed38f384450b378741cb9f854c/original/ivsc0106p1.jpg?1490442548" class="size_orig justify_center border_" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">Si pictured at Van Dyke Club, Exmouth Road, Plymouth, early 1970`s (source: internet) </span></span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Simon Cowe interviewed by Reinhard Groll in 2001</span></p>
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<p><span class="font_large">Guitars </span></p>
<p><em>RG: After researching through old tour programmes, photos, albums etc. I compiled the following list of guitars you used with Lindisfarne. May I ask you to enhance/correct the list: </em></p>
<ul>
<li><em>Gibson ES 345</em></li>
<li><em>Gibson Barney Kessel</em></li>
<li><em>Gibson SG (50's Les Paul)</em></li>
<li><em>Ovation, Stratocaster (non Pre-CBS)</em></li>
<li><em>Mosrite</em></li>
<li><em>Yamaha FG 3000 Jumbo acoustic</em></li>
<li><em>Bozo</em></li>
<li><em>Harmony Mandolin</em></li>
<li><em>Gibson J55 Jumbo acoustic</em></li>
</ul>
Si: That was no Barney Kessel! That was my old (something like) E120 cello style Gibson with piano wires for strings. It had a horrendously stiff action and was difficult to get, never mind keep, in tune. I swapped it along with £100, for an open back "The Windsor" 5 string banjo (which I still have) in Camden Market, London, in 1972. For a while I played a Gibson 332½ - a hybrid between a 330 and a 335 - wired like a stereo but with a solid block of wood up the centre of the body, which helped reduce feedback.
<p>I just sold the SG last year. It had been refinished some time before I bought it (reducing its value by 50%) and I had put Grover machine heads on to replace the stiff, clunky, ineffective original ones. Before I sold it, I managed to find and refit the original Gibson tremolo and Tunomatic bridge, but it was pretty beaten up, including a snapped and repaired neck, courtesy of lan "Walter" Fairbairn during my JTL days. We were coming onstage one night and Walter, in an unusually exuberant mood, managed to wrap a foot around my guitar lead, sending it into what, for me, became a slow motion cartwheel ("no-o-o-o-ooo") ending in a mess of chunks, splinters and metal spaghetti on the floor. Nice original case, though. In spite of its multiple injuries, after repairs, Mark Knopfler called it "the nicest Gibson neck I've ever played." </p>
<p>Ovation - no, never. The rounded plastic back means they keep slipping out of your grip when you try and play them. Alan was the Ovation man. </p>
<p> I got the Strat after becoming frustrated with trying to get more variety into my Gibson guitar sounds in order to fit in with the ever increasing range of genres (including a few songs which nodded in the direction of jazz) into which the Lindisfarne repertoire was moving. All I knew, on the day I went guitar shopping, was that I wanted an electric guitar with a nice action, that you just plugged in anywhere and with minimum of twiddling, would sound good in a variety of styles. That really only left one choice, and it didn't matter to me about the year, colour or country of manufacture. I spent the whole day in London's West-End music shops playing every Strat I could until I found the one that "felt" the best. </p>
<p>I just sold the Mosrite, too - to a guy in Japan who paid full price even though he only really wanted it for the tremolo & pick ups - less than 24 hrs after it went on sale on the web. I bought it in NY circa 1972. I was wandering around a music shop and noticed this weird guitar leaning against a wall. "Oh, that's not for sale - it's in for repairs", says the shop owner. Can't remember how, but I walked out with it half an hour later, $100 lighter. </p>
<p>The Yamaha wasn't mine, either. Alan again. The model number FG 3000 that you refer to may have been the instrument presented to Alan in Tokyo (1973) by "Mr.Yamaha" - one of the big bosses of the company. It was a hand made pre-production prototype and I remember "Mr. Yamaha" explaining why the company was about to dominate the world acoustic guitar market. "Yamaha have bought all the seasoned timber used in guitar making, so for the foreseeable future, we will make the best guitars". What can you say? The Harmony mandolin was a good workhorse, and recorded well acoustically in the studio as well as having a bright, clean electric stage sound. Jacka and I had a matching pair at one point. </p>
<p>The Gibson J55 is a beauty and I miss it. It's the acoustic on the track "Woman", amongst others. I recently bought a Yamaha FG331 to tinker about on at home. Its OK but doesn't come near the robust roundness of the Gibson when it comes to character and oomph. </p>
<p><em>RG: What about any effect boxes used? Electric Harmonix Echo Flanger, Chorus?</em></p>
<p>Si: EHEF - yes and a Boss compressor in earlier days. Over the years, as technology advanced. I graduated to a Yamaha FX500 effects box. Every conceivable effect could be mixed into one patch and the machine could be programmed so that a different sound for each song in a set could be sequenced into it and controlled by a footswitch. </p>
<p><em>RG: String size ? </em></p>
<p>Si: Different strings for different tunings. My standard electric gauges were 11, 12, 18(p), 28, 44, 56 if I remember correctly (thousandths of an inch). </p>
<p><em>RG: How were the acoustic instruments picked up for amplification ? Did you often have problems with feedback ? </em></p>
<p>Si: At first, we used to play acoustically into mikes on stage, but the feedback problems soon put paid to that. I found the "Lawrence Silencer" a good, rugged, easy to fit pickup (it just clips into the sound hole) giving a fair bit of acoustic character to the amplified sound. Feedback was almost eliminated. </p>
<p><em>RG: When you moved to Canada, what happened to your guitars and equipment? </em></p>
<p>Si: I continued gigging with Lindisfarne for some months after emigrating to Canada in 1993. So I kept all my equipment based in the UK. When I finally said goodbye to the band in the summer of that year, I left behind my gigging equipment, in case of possible future sorties. I did manage to bring one interesting instrument to Canada with me. After my brother Marcus died, I inherited his Hamer electric. Marcus was guitar roadie for one of Iron Maiden's guitarists. I think his name was Glen. (Marcus once said "I call them Ron Maiden, but don't ever tell them that!"). Glen had designed a custom configuration instrument and asked Marcus to pick it up from the factory - "Oh, and while you're there, get yourself a nice custom-made one, too." It's all right for some, eh? Marcus asked Hamer to make him a cross between a Gibson and a Fender. Something with a switch that transforms it from an SG to a Strat. The guitar I now have is a fine attempt at that marriage. Fender style fret wire but with a flatter, wider, thinner neck than a Fender with 2 Strat type and 1 humbucker type p/us. It'll never sound exactly like a Fender or a Gibson but it's a good effort. </p>
<p><em>RG: Alan Hull has been pictured a few times with a cheap Yamaha acoustic. Was there a special reason to rely on it or why didn't he move to a 'better' one? Was it for B&F when he moved to an Ovation? </em></p>
<p>Si: My guess is that those pictures were of his "Clear White Light dedicated" guitar. Don't recall when he got the Ovation. </p>
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<p><span class="font_large">SONGS </span></p>
<p>RG: Way Behind You (BT1), Go Back (DD), Plankton's Lament (DD), Uncle Sam (FOTT), Dedicated Hound (The News), Positive Earth (BT3), Reunion (although credited to the whole band). <br>
You must admit, these aren't too many songs to be written by the main guitarist of the band over a 20 year period. How come? I imagine there must be many more songs written but that remain unrecorded. How many of your compositions still exist in some form ? </p>
<p><em>Si: Those were the tracks that got finished. Yes, there are many odds and sods of half finished songs lying around on tape somewhere. One day maybe.</em></p>
<p><em>RG: Recently I received various copies of articles from the early 70's (e.g. Sounds in 73) where Alan told Jerry Gilbert " it was down to Si who used to take a long time to tune up, as a result me and Jacka had to talk" or this one from Rod " we had so many different guitars in different tunings that we lost a lot of pace on gigs" </em></p>
<p>Si: There were lots of tuning breaks in the early days. Different tunings all had to be done by ear, and "on the fly". Very frustrating. </p>
<p><em>RG: "Uncle Sam" was re-born during the "Untapped & Acoustic phase" of the band and became part of the setlist for several years. The main guitar lines were played by Rod on his Dobro using an open tuning. But when that song was performed by you in the early days, was it played as open tuning too? </em></p>
<p>Si: Yes. D A D F# A D - capo on 3rd fret. </p>
<p><em>RG: Were there other songs with a non-standard tuning? I remember that you told me that CWL is dropped D ( = both E's are tuned down to D ), although today the band play it in standard tuning. (Apart from Rod, of course, who seems to have forgotten that there is an EADGBE tuning at all!). </em></p>
<p>Si: We sometimes used "Rab Noakes tuning" - Normal tuning, but drop the 2 'E's down to 'D's, as you mention re CWL. "On my own", "Turn a Deaf Ear". </p>
<p><em>RG: The mystery of the long version of "January Song". Only a few weeks ago, a friend of mine Michael Clayton discovered a Norwegian album containing an almost 6 minute long version of JS that contains a wonderful middle part with a great electric guitar solo. Do you remember this one? </em></p>
<p>Si: No, but I'd love to hear it, please. [will send Si a copy. RG] </p>
<p><em>RG: Ok, it's 30 years ago, but why didn't it make the final/official album and - even more strange - how come that out-take found its way to Norway? </em></p>
<p>Si: I don't know, but it might just have something to do with Paul Karlsson (sp?), an Oslwegian entrepreneur responsible for booking Lindisfarne several times in Scandinavia and propagating Smurfs. </p>
<p><em>RG: You contributed far more to the songwriting in Jack the Lad - 10 tracks across the first three albums. Was this band more suited to your style of writing? "The Old Straight Track" in particular is a great album. </em></p>
<p>Si: We were still searching for a direction in the early JTL days. "Old Straight Track" certainly went in a strange direction but I think that album was the "funnest" (to use a local expression) time of my musical life. We were pushing the boundaries of our progressive-folk roots and taking Fairport/Steeleye type liberties with the arrangements. </p>
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<p><span class="font_large">Past Times </span></p>
<p><em>RG: "Downtown with Brethren". That was the title of yet another interview Jerry Gilbert (Sounds) did with Rod in 1973. At the time Rod told him that the new band has already booked some gigs but does not yet have a name. It turned out to be "Jack The Lad", but what other names did the band consider? </em><br>
<br>
Si: That particular name searching session (they can drag on for weeks!) was over pretty quickly. The phrase was on our minds at that time as we had just returned from an Australian tour with Status Quo, who would regularly take the piss out of us hick-geordies-with-new-found-worldliness and bait us by singing "In-ter-na-tional Jack the Lad - CLICK CLICK" to the theme from "77 Sunset Strip" - a '60s TV series. <em> [Readers - if you are too young to remember how the tune goes, ask your parents. Or your grandparents. (Ed.)] </em></p>
<p><em>RG: How different was it playing in Jack the Lad ? Did you feel you had a different role in the band ? </em></p>
<p>Si: Since Rod & Ray & I had been so closely associated, and Mitch was one of the lads anyway, the transition for me & I think all of us was hardly noticeable. We were off in a new musical direction. But off together. I think we all more or less assumed the same roles as in Lindisfarne. </p>
<p><em>RG: What do you recall of the appearances by Jack the Lad on The Old Grey Whistle Test ? Do you know if the Beeb still have them or were they wiped along with so much other classic music TV ? </em></p>
<p>Si: Just that there was a PAYOLA scandal with that programme at that time. We learned years later that it may even have been that one or more members of our "office" may have offered by way of an inducement a pint of beer or otherwise and notwithstanding the foregoing perhaps a lunch at the Bombay Indian restaurant to certain BBC executives for the purposes of a securing a blah blah.
Don't know re: tapes. </p>
<p><em>RG: 7:84, the 'theatre group' released only one single / EP. What kind of music was it ? </em></p>
<p>Si: This is from a UK government figure: '7% of the population of the UK owns 84% of the wealth'. 7:84 was a touring socialist theatre company. The most important thing about the music in these productions is that it needs to tell the story. It makes for more "show" type music than pop/rock. The music was written by anybody in the company who could contribute something positive, on a collective basis, overseen by Musical Director Mark Brown - (also the M.D. from Monty Python) - from whom I learned a lot. </p>
<p><em>RG: Some time ago I received a video containing a copy of "Run for Home" on "TOTP" where one Si Cowe was wearing a very colourful, remarkable pullover - probably common in the late 70's. What happened to it? </em></p>
<p>Si: There was a girl in one of the London markets making these great jumpers using her imagination and a knitting machine. It must have been one of those. (It fell apart). </p>
<p><em>RG: For B&F it took a full day to find the right sound for Ray's snare drum. Did it take as long to find the right guitar sound? </em></p>
<p>Si: Guitar? 5 minutes. Snare drum? Always takes a day. The recording engineer has a deal with the pub down the road. (The musicians are going to end up down there on the first day anyway). </p>
<p><em>RG: In the later years you moved more and more from guitar to keyboard. Was it only on stage or did you play some parts in the studio too? </em></p>
<p>Si: Studio, too. Most enjoyable was that daft C'mon Everybody album. Recreating the old cheesy organs and violin triddles. Great fun. </p>
<p><em>RG: Who finally decided what keyboard part (on stage) was played, and by whom? </em></p>
<p>Si: As ever, a decision like that would be made by the band, but, usually, who-played-what was more down to logistics. </p>
<p><em>RG: Is there one gig that you could choose as the best ever ? Or the worst, where everything went wrong ? Or the strangest? </em></p>
<p>Si: Fortunately for me there were lots of best-evers (for different reasons) and I think that even the worst-evers get better over time! The strangest, funnily enough, was probably the most recent (see last Q. in this section). </p>
<p><em>RG: A highlight of the "C'mon Everybody" live shows was your version of "Mr Bassman". Was this your choice of rock'n'roll song when the album tracklist was put together and were any others recorded but not used? </em></p>
<p>Si: I can't remember who came up with Mr. Bassman - we all chucked in with suggestions at the time. I really fancied doing "the Auctioneer" but I can't do the "widdle you giddle me five fifferty five giddle me" bit. As far as I know, everything we recorded got used. I thought the album should have been called "Teddy Boy's Picnic" but the record company didn't like it. </p>
<p><em>RG: It has been noticed that you rarely seemed to sign an autograph using your own name. Is it fair to say that you were just not interested in the whole 'celebrity/fame' aspect of being part of a successful band? Just in it for the music? </em></p>
<p>Si: I cheated once and signed "Isaac Hite" all night when someone suggested it (I thought it was such a good one) but otherwise all different. The celeb/fame thing was useful for opening certain (often brewery) doors, but what I enjoyed most by far, and still miss, was the travelling. I must have already visited a hundred times more places than the average person does in a lifetime. </p>
<p><em>RG: According to Dave Hill's biography of the band, you started living in Canada while still being a member of the band, often flying across the Atlantic for a single show. Did this cause any serious jetlag problems? And was it financially viable? </em></p>
<p>Si: It's amazing what a couple of matchsticks propping up the eyelids will do when you're trying to convince the audience at the Glasgow Fleadh that you haven't really missed 2 nights' sleep and are doing your 2nd (unexpected) gig of the day 6 hours after the first. Yes, it got confusing living in 2 time zones for a while. I called Ray Laidlaw once (from Canada) and he was extremely polite - thanks, Ray - given that it was 5 o'clock in the morning for him - "Oh, silly me - you're 5 hours ahead, not behind, says I." </p>
<p>As I was funding the trips myself, I ensured that, even if it meant flying cattle class (and it sometimes did), it was cheap. I was booking at the last minute and taking which ever seat was on offer. Sometimes, though, I was getting Toronto-Heathrow-Newcastle (return) on, say, British Airways for $CDN400. Not bad. </p>
<p><em>RG: During Lindisfarne's first US tour in 27 years, in Summer 1999, you flew to the States to meet up with the lads and even joined them on stage during "Fog" and "Uncle Sam". How did it feel to be back in the band? Maybe a little bit like 'the old days'? </em></p>
<p>Si: Oh, yes. That was a smart couple of days. A pal of mine, Graham Freed, a pilot who is another expat from my local pub in Toronto - the Feathers - flew me and a couple of mates to see the band in Cincinnati. We took off on a Saturday morning, the day of the gig, in Graham's 4 seater 1973 Aerostar midwing twin engine aircraft. The Ohio customs guys were putting in overtime at the weekend to meet us and gave one of our crew, Brian, a hard time determining whether or not the cigar he had brought from Canada was of Cuban origin (Nobody could work it out so they let us in). Graham parked the plane and we got a cab downtown and visited a couple of fantastic brewpubs before meeting the lads at the private garden party - which was the gig. Had a complete blast of a night and got up at the end for a couple of tunes.</p>
<p> Enjoyed myself so much that as I was strumming along I hardly noticed Mitch mouthing at me during Fog on the Tyne": "Si. Hello. Earth to Si. It's your verse now. Remember?". We ran out of beer near the end of the evening (Americans unprepared for Geordies) so we had a whip round and I was directed to a gem of a local off licence and came back with some of the best beers in the US, which in this day and age of brewing, means the world. It seems I'm still the band's part time beer monitor, too, in my spare time. </p>
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<p><span class="font_large">Present Day </span></p>
<p><em>RG: Do you still follow what the band is doing since you moved to Toronto? Is the website useful to you? </em></p>
<p>Si: The website's fab and I'll often have a quick peep just before I jump in the car to work in the morning. Keep up the good work, Reinhard. </p>
<p><em>RG: What is your opinion of "Here Comes the Neighbourhood"? </em></p>
<p>Si: As a title, it confused me a few times, until I got it. As an album - don't know, haven't heard it yet. </p>
<p><em>RG: You are now known and 'famous' for running your own brewery. But what about music? Are you still playing? Still writing songs? </em></p>
<p>Si: I still strum and tickle the ivories a bit. My kids all play so we jam and teach each other things. I'm trying to put together a fundamental recording device on my computer so we can lay some stuff down. </p>
<p><em>RG: If the band held another 'anniversary' gig at the City Hall, would you consider coming over to appear? </em></p>
<p>Si: Yes. But it would take a deal with a large corporation to fund it (Lear jet, limo, suite at Claridges, Flying Scotsman then rickshaw to the hotel which would have to have a real ale plungebath, etc.). </p>
<p><em>RG: Can you tell us more about your role at the brewery ? Each year, more American beers are previewed at festivals in the UK. Have you thought of bringing some over to the Great British Beer Festival? </em></p>
<p>Si: American?! (I live in Canada). I'd love to come over for the GBBF and promote our beer. If only </p>
<p>For 7 years I operated a "brew on premises" in Toronto. At a brew on premises, customers can come into your shop and make their own beer or wine using your ingredients, equipment and advice. I learned the ropes of the brewing industry by research, experimentation, joining the Canadian Amateur Brewers' Association and pursuing many other beer related activities (festivals, conferences, clubs, brewery tours etc.). I also passed a Beer Judge Certification Programme exam. I am currently a "recognised" judge, but soon hope to become "certified". Hmmm. Now I have moved up to the world of commercial microbrewing. The brewery I work at, Magnotta, is a state-of-the-art 20 hectolitre operation. The brewhouse, tanks, transfer and packaging equipment, sanitation procedures and brewing practices are all of the highest imaginable quality. We have been called "the benchmark brewery". I'm enjoying it immensely. </p>
<p><span class="font_large">Godisgoode,<br>
Si </span></p>
<p><em>P.S. "Godisgoode" is the word brewers used for yeast before it was identified. They knew that if they prepared a concoction of sugars from barley malt and let it sit (ferment) for a while, there must have been some agency creating an intoxicating product. Having no idea of its mechanism, they shrugged their shoulders and said "God is good". </em></p>
<p><em>P.P.S. Usage of the Magnotta Brewery Logo by kindly permission of Michael Ligas (Operations Manager). Copying, reproducing prohibited without permission.</em></p>
Lindisfarne - the official website