Leyland Accordion Club - 8th July 1998
Our July meeting started with an equipment fault - or so I thought when I heard Johnny Coleclough fire his Midi up to test it, to my amazement he then said "That's working fine"! The reason I thought there was a fault was because Johnny had set the tempo to 190 beats per minute but, once he started playing, it soon became apparent that he could keep up with this pace very well throughout a football medley he had put together with one tune for each country in the cup. This consisted of Scotland the Brave, Can-Can, William Tell Overture, Zena-Zena, Hava Nagila, Carnival of Venice, Tulips from Amsterdam, Caravan, Sabre Dance, Here We Go and, finally, Dambusters. Before Johnny played we heard George Hicks. George has recently been playing in France in front of a crowd of thousands, he came back with an accordion watch, a miniature accordion and music encapsulated in a paperweight, a 3D accordion picture made specially for him by one of his friends, he also had an accordion badge and a new hat. Make sure you ask George the time when you see him at the club, it is a nice watch. When it was my turn I demonstrated how to hide my list of tunes I am going to play on yellow post-it notes stuck in the folds of my bellows. I can see them while I play but nobody else can, the only trouble is that you cannot read the first tune until you open the bellows. The first tune was Oslo Waltz followed by Highland Cathedral. I first heard Highland Cathedral when Deirdre Adamson played it but the CD I bought from Deirdre did not have it on, a quick look on the Internet and I found the Gary Blair has released his version of it on there. After listening to these two playing I was pleased to have managed to play it from memory.
Johnny Coleclough
Next up was Frank Scholes who demonstrated a few of the tunes he plays for the Amounderness Ladies Morris Dancing Team. Then it was Johnny Coleclough's turn. After the football tunes I mentioned earlier, he continued with La Cumpasita, Amapola, Uncle Joe's Mint Balls, Granada, Lady be Good, The Sound of Music, Carousel Waltz, Paradise, There is Nothing Like a Dame, My Florence, Autumn Leaves, No Regrets, La Vie En Rose, If I was Rich, Blaze Away, Dark Island, Peg O' My Heart, Tico Tico, Madam Paree, Pigalle, Maigret Theme, I love Paris, Out of Nowhere, I'm confessing, Tea for Two, How High and Lover Come Home. After the break Tom Bennett played Granny's Highland Home, Flower of Scotland and Mull of Kintyre. This led up to Johnny Coleclough's second spot. Johnny, who is currently President of Stockport Accordion Club, began his career in 1954 in Orlando's Orchestra at the Midland Hotel, Manchester. He later worked at Gleneagles, Turnbury, The Adelphi and with his own Trio at The Queens, Leeds. He also worked at Granada TV and with the Mantovani Orchestra at Belle Vue, Manchester. Johnny once jammed with Jimmy Rushing and other members of the Count Basie Band. His other working hangouts have been the Bier Kellar at Manchester and seven summer seasons at Blackpool Tower. Johnny can still be found working in the Bier Kellar at Manchester and has also performed at Caister, Morecambe and Blackpool Festivals. After telling us some of his anecdotes, he continued his second spot by playing Georgia Brown, Orange Blossom Special, Irish Washer Woman, Cock O' The North, Arrividerci, Amore, Return to Sorrento, Funiculi-Funicula. I enjoyed the evening very much and I have heard many good comments about Johnny and his playing from club members who have spoken to me this month, I feel we may have to try and get him back at Leyland again next year. He has just retired from his day job and he told me he is getting back to playing the accordion more, who knows what he will be able to play for us then. At our next meeting on 12th August we will be visited by some members of Chester Accordion Club who have arranged a trip up to Leyland and have put together a few pieces to play together as a group for us. I know they will be made most welcome. I am looking forward to the club and I will see you on Wednesday, don't forget your accordion.
New Festival planned for 2000
I am currently looking at the possibility of arranging an accordion festival in the year 2000, this may or may not happen it is too early to say. One of the reasons is that I may have found some funding for such a project from an arts grant. It would have been a sin to let this money go towards an iron winged statue on a hill or for someone to weld tins of rice pudding to a cat in the name of art when the money could be spent on an accordion festival instead. A lot depends on this funding and also on finding the right venue, if I can sort both of these out then a festival will take place. I have a lot of ideas which I would like to put into practice to create the ideal accordion festival, for example day passes for locals are a priority, these ensure that everyone gets a chance to visit even if it is only for a day. I have a lot of other ideas which I am working on at the moment, such as guest artists, workshops, trade stalls - typical festival items but arranged my way, I have asked on the internet for accordionists to give me their ideas of how a festival should be run and I am getting a lot of advice/do's and don'ts /wish lists etc. I have until September to get my bid in for this money and I will keep you informed of any progress. Any comments or ideas you may have on this will be most welcome.
Our Internet Website
Our Internet Website had 4190 visitors as at 10th August 1998, 585 visitors since last month a 18% increase. Every hour of every day of the month there are people looking round the site, reading our newsletters, listening to our players or writing to us. On Friday Walter Perrie came to my house and recorded six tunes for the website, the first one 'Figaros Aria' went on the Internet on Friday night joining Rebecca Postlewhite playing 12th Street Rag. One new tune per week will be added to the site after I have converted them to play over the Internet.
NAO Accordion Championships
The North West Area NAO Accordion Championships on Sunday 18th October at Tameside Manchester, further details are on our club noticeboard or ring 0161 336 2326. Closing date for entries is on 18th September.
Preston EuroJam
The Preston Eurojam has restarted at the Moor Park Pub on the A6 at Garstang Road on the first Sunday of every month at 1pm to 4.30. All musicians are welcome as long as their instrument is acoustic and they are playing music from outside the UK. The organisers like English and Irish music but there are many places catering for it in the town, this monthly event specialises in music from the continent. If you want to go along and listen or you want to turn up with your accordion you can either just call in or ring Stephanie on 01772 461010 for further details.
Flying to Accordion Lessons
As some of you know I work in a flying school at weekends and I have managed to get a job one-day per month as co-pilot on a regular charter flight to Jersey. This will allow me to get a monthly accordion lesson from Steve Roxton who lives in Jersey. I arrive in Jersey at 10am, drop the passengers off and I am not needed until 4pm when they need flying back. This gives me 6 hours each month in Jersey. I get an accordion lesson and he gets a computer lesson in return, watch these fingers at the club to see if it pays off.
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The Accordion featured on Television
I received a phone call from a television company interested in producing a television program about the accordion. They had used the Internet to locate accordion activity in the UK and they told me that the Leyland Website was the first one the Internet recommended when they typed in 'accordion', we are top of the list on the main search engine 'Yahoo' which is not a bad thing when there are hundreds if not thousands of accordion sites on the internet. They were interested in finding someone with a good accordion collection - Ken Hopkins sprang to mind because he has over 100 accordions. They also wanted to film at an accordion festival sometime later in the year, and they wanted some information on the instrument for their research. I rang Loretta Rolston who took over the Caister Festival but she told me that she does not have a contact phone number for Ken Hopkins (even though he is a guest artist at her festival every year) and she did not want them filming at Caister - she has other things organised. So five minutes later, after one other phone call I obtained Ken's number and passed this on to the TV producer together with a list of other forthcoming festivals and organisers for accordion contacts. Lets hope that Ken gets the work and we have our instrument featured on TV.
I may have had an idea!
I have just noticed that we are not in the Guinness Book of Records for anything! another area requiring investigation I think!
New Accordion Club opens in Perth W. Australia.
Following our earlier correspondence with John Dickson in Australia who was inspired by our club success to start one in Australia I was very pleased to receive the following message. I received it at 1pm on Monday 10th August 1998, it was sent on Tuesday 11th !
Hi David, Just thought I would drop you a quick note and bring you up to date on what is happening. Our first club function will be next Sunday afternoon and we are all looking forward to it. The local paper wrote an article regarding the club and our plans for the future and makes mention of our contact with the Leyland Accordion club. I have put a copy of the article in an envelope and will be posting it to you tomorrow morning. It should reach you next week. My phone has been running hot for the last week with people seeking information on the club and our first meeting. I am astounded at the interest that is being shown. It would appear at this stage that we could have upwards of 100 people attending first up. We have about 6 people lined up to play and several others are bringing their accordions. We thought we would have about an hour of music and then break for tea and coffee. Being the first meeting we feel it is important that people have the opportunity to chat to each other and make new friends with other people in the accordion world. After the break we will probably have about another hour of music. We would like to conclude with a short meeting(mainly for accordion players) to discuss what they would like to see take place within the club in the future. Many people have already expressed their interest in playing in an accordion orchestra. Anyway this time next week we should have a much better idea of what the future will hold. I will let you know how it all goes. Congratulations on your web site, it is really something. The sound clips are great. I think it is the best accordion site on the net. Thanks again for all your help. Best wishes to yourself and all at the Leyland Accordion Club. (John Dickson and the Perth Accordion Club.)
I don't know about you but it makes me feel good that this was inspired by us and our Internet presence. I think it would be nice to record a "well-done" message at the club on Wednesday, I can send this over the Internet so that it arrives in Australia before their first meeting.
Accordion Cards for Sale
Jay and Jeff Ward attended an accordion festival this month at St Audries Bay where a friend of theirs was selling cards with accordion designs on the front which the woman had drawn herself, they brought some accordion cards back in case anyone at Leyland Accordion Club is interested. The cards are hand drawn designs and cost £1 each. See Jay or Jeff at the club on Wednesday night.
Midi Accordion uses.
I like the accordion as an acoustic instrument but I think I have to agree with Johnny Coleclough when he said to us that adding Midi to an accordion is the future of the instrument, you can still play acoustic accordion but Midi allows access to many marvelous sounds and gives you the ability to link to a computer, allowing a player to play a tune on their accordion at normal speed and obtain the music printed out from the computer afterwards. Once I have Midi fitted on my accordion I will be able to play a tune - mistakes and all, print the music out, hand it to an adjudicator and then play it again complete with all the same mistakes and I will get a perfect mark for following the music correctly! - Brilliant.