John Tams' Radio Ballads blog - Part 1
My guest blogger this week is John Tams. As well as being a brilliant musician, songwriter, singer and actor, John has been involved as musical director with some of the finest theatre productions this island has seen, from his work with The Mysteries to the more recent production at the National Theatre of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse.
He was also, of course, one of the driving forces behind the recent ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 2 Radio Ballads. In fact there isn't much the chap hasn't done. I admire and respect him greatly. And he owes me a pint...
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John Tams writes:
There is one thing for sure - when you surround yourself with talent much bigger than your own, the chances are your talent will exponentially improve or at least give that impression.
And so it has been and so it was with the 2006 Radio Ballads.
If we are lucky and have taken the step into the void to become a made-up person, a professional musician, there are perhaps four or five turning points that attest to choices well made.Ìý Spending the better part of a year on the 2006 Radio Ballads was the best of a well made choice.
The offer, when it came after many years of asking, made sense of forty years of tangled strands - folk clubs, theatre, radio, television, film.Ìý I had presented a folk music programme on Radio Nottingham in the late sixties and became hooked on the whole ethos of the wireless but remained blissfully unaware as a callow precocious youth of the magnitude of the work that Charles Parker, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger had made on the medium.Ìý Their relevance came in MacColl's songs that had entered the folk scene by the one sure journey of any good song - the oral tradition - exhibited by visiting singers to the folk club I was part of, most notably via Tony Capstick who had a way with a MacColl song that remains for me unsurpassed.
It took a while for me to catch up with why and how Shoals of Herrin', Thirty-Foot Trailer, Champion At Keeping Them Rolling got made.Ìý I was nine when the Ballad of John Axon was broadcast and it took me a while to catch up.Ìý But, when I did I knew a little about tape, Chinagraph pencils, lengths of tape hung about the neck, the splicing block and how easy it was get it wrong and how hard it was to get it right.
Make no mistake the original Radio Ballads were pieces of performance art - multiple Studer tape machines spinning - musicians lead by Peggy playing in - Ewan singing - Charles directing.Ìý It was high risk, momentary and for those reasons 'live'.Ìý That energy preserved itself on tape in broadcast and eventually on vinyl.
John Leonard and I arrived in Glasgow in late 2006 to meet the new director of Celtic Connections, the redoubtable Donald Shaw to convince him we could pull off a live version of the 2006 Radio Ballads.Ìý Donald, ever forthright, ever generous, gave us his blessing.
John Tams
To be continued on Friday...
Comment number 1.
At 3rd Jul 2008, CaliforniaPeterS wrote:I attended the Radio Ballads performance at Celtic Connections in January 2007. Although it was wonderful to hear some of the highlights of the live concert on Mike's show this past week, the actual event was a truly multi-media affair, with voice and song complemented by the projection of well chosen photographic images on a large screen above the stage. I hope there are plans to issue a DVD of the "concert" so that those who couldn't attend might get a better feel for what transpired. And kudos to you (and your cast) John Tams, for pulling off a very special event!
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