Leyland Accordion Club - 8th September 1999
Our September meeting started off with myself and Dugald McCallum warming the crowd up before bringing our guest artist out. The guest artist this month was Harry Hussey who started his first half by telling us that he did not have a programme and would instead ask for requests. The crowd were a bit quiet at this point, maybe you all thought it a strange concept for a guest artist, but someone did decide to ask for the tune More which Harry proceeded to play. Someone else caught on and asked for Deep Purple which Harry also played without a thought. After the third tune Que Sera Sera had been requested and played brilliantly something clicked and Harry was inundated with requests. He then took these requests three at a time and proceeded to play the tunes as though he had rehearsed them. Harry continued with (all requests) MoonGlow, Georgia, Take The 'A' Train, Blueberry Hill, South Rampart Stree, Perfidia, Poor Butterfly, Tea For Two, Misty, A Fats Waller Medley consisting of Ain't Misbehaving, My Very Good Friend The Milkman and I'm Going To Sit Right Down. Harry continued with String of Pearls, True Love, In The Mood, 12th Street Rag, Big Noise from Winetka, Lover Come Back, Chicago, Skylark, Moulin Rouge, Charmaine, and St Louis Blues.
Harry Hussey
This was the time for the break and a well earned rest for Harry. During the break we had the usual tea, coffee, chat and the new feature of the club where members bring along their second hand accordions and music for sale. If you have any accordion related items for sale then please bring them to the club, members have brought items from music and records to 5 voice accordions for sale, the club does not want anything from the sale of these items we just want you to dig out those unused accordions and music so someone can put them to good use while you sell them to a good home. At the end of the break we had the raffle and then it was time for myself and Dugald to play one tune each before bringing Harry back on for his second half. Harry continued playing requests starting with Mon Homme, Maisy Dotes, April in Portugal, Sleepy Time Gal, What Are You Doing With The Rest Of Your Life, I Will Wait For You, Windmills Of Your Mind, My Way, Jealousy, I Could Have Danced All Night, The Entertainer, Sentimental Journey, Whiter Shade Of Pale, Autumn Leaves, How High The Moon, Memories (from Cats), Sweet Georgia Brown and Honky Tonk Blues. Harry was asked to play Summertime so he said he would play it in a Gershwin Medley including It Ain't Necessarily So, Porgy and Bess and Rhapsody In Blue. The requests continued to flood in from all sides of the room, continuing with Canadian Caper, April In Paris, Bridges Of Paris, L'Hirondelles, Speak Softly Love (from the Godfather), Mack The Knife, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White. It was now 11pm and after seeing a sign from me pointing to my watch Harry finished with Tangerine. I then told Harry that he had been playing requests for others all night and asked him if he would play us a tune picked by himself. He then choose Macushla to finish with, he said he wanted to play this tune because he liked the chord sequences in it. When Harry finished playing Macushla and had received his applause I announced that it was Harry's 70th birthday at the weekend and that we needed an accordionist to play while we sung Happy Birthday to him. Harry then realised why I had told him to keep his accordion on and proceeded to play while we sung. It was a great end to a great night of accordion entertainment. I hope Harry enjoyed it as much as we did. He had a long journey ahead of him because he was going back down south straight after the club, I had offered him accommodation for the night but he wanted to get back because he had an engagement the following day. Harry lives on the south coast during the summer and sensibly moves to France for the winter, so we just caught him before the weather turned cold. I did ask Harry if he would return to the club and he said he would be pleased to play for us again. I hope you are now in the mood for our October concert this Wednesday 13th October when we have our own players and (work permitting) a previous guest artist is bringing his accordion along to give us a tune or two (or three, but don't tell him). See you there. Players don't forget your accordions
David Batty
Our Internet Website
Our Internet website has had 17109 visitors as at 11th October 1999, that's 1067 visitors since last month. The website is currently getting a spring clean and is being improved to entice more visitors. I asked for comments from the accordionists on the Internet as to how I could improve the site and was told that they could not think of any improvements so I have to think of them myself. I learned about writing websites by writing the site itself, looking at other websites for ideas and then teaching myself how to implement them, you might say I was playing it by ear, now I have decided to read the manual and I have started studying the language used to write websites. This has given me scope to include lots of interactive features to attract more visitors. We already have advanced features such as audio concerts and one of our TV appearances playing on the site but I would like to use more of these types of techniques to make the site stand out from the rest. The only suggestion I received for an improvement was more information on our players, the newsletters are all on the site but people want to read more about our individual players. Maybe an online rogues gallery would fill this gap. We have received the usual number of congratulatory emails on the site and Walter Perrie received a phone call from America, this was because a famous mime artist/accordionist in the states emailed me after listening to Walters concert on the site. Walter then sent him the music to the piece he had enquired about and was surprised to receive the phone call thanking him, Walter then received the artists Autobiography in the post and said it is so interesting that he has not been able to put it down since.
Leyland Festival and the town centre redevelopment
I received a letter from the organisers of Leyland Festival confirming the contents of their phone call to me last month, in it they ask me to contact them by phone to discuss Leyland Accordion Club playing at the festival next year but they have not put their phone number on the letter! I will call at their registered office when I am passing and let you know the details when I have them. Some of you may know that Leyland town centre is to undergo a redevelopment. At a recent meeting I attended for the business community the officer in charge of the project asked for suggestions for the new development, I hope that they accept my proposal for a pavement café area in an area protected by the wind and acting as a suntrap, this could then be used by buskers to provide a nice atmosphere for those drinking their coffee in the sun. This would work well if there was a rota of authorised buskers who would play at predefined times as per a published list. I am sure I could find a few members of the club interested in taking part in such a venture.
Preston Maritime Festival
The day after our last concert night we had to get up early to sail from Tarleton to the Marina in Preston Docks. Harry and Audrey who many of you know from the club were our hosts for this trip which took three hours from Tarleton along the canal, down the river Douglas and then up the Ribble Estuary and in to the Docks. As we approached the docks I gave the tiller back to Harry while I went inside to warm my hands up to play us in. It was Preston Maritime Festival weekend and there were assembled crowds with cameras and video recorders filming us arriving. Having an accordionist sat on top of the boat made sure we had our fair share of cameras on us.
On the way home from Preston Docks
On the Saturday we went for a sail around the docks for about an hour, crowds along the dock side (many with children) were waving at the boats as about twenty boats sailed round decorated with flags and other colourful trimmings. As we approached many people they were dancing to the music I was playing while Harry was holding out his hat for donations! One woman with two children started dancing and waving like mad as we passed them so Harry turned the boat around and we gave them a second performance nearer to the side. Later on when we parked up at the Marina there were many people walking past looking at the boats but not stopping. Out came the accordion and we instantly gained an audience of around 30 people applauding the performance. Then the rain came and despite an umbrella appearing I had to give up before my accordion got wet. We were joined by Harold Bleasdale on the boat as well as Phil and Margaret Sanderson. On Sunday we were also joined by Tom Bennett and his wife, Tom was recovering from his recent heart attack, he had to sit down and not get excited. Keeping him off the accordion was proving difficult but his heart had to come first. When we were parked in the Marina we had crowds along the dockside looking down on us, as I sat there playing on the boat we gained a good audience on the Quayside applauding and shouting 'more', the other boat people were pleased with the playing and on the Sunday night as I stood up to stop playing because it was 11pm and I needed a rest I suddenly saw a group of people stood behind me with drinks in one hand and a chair in the other, they had been listening to the music from their boats and had all come down after their supper to sit and listen, so I sat back down and continued to play. On Monday we sailed out of the docks and took the boat back along the River Ribble, up the Douglas and in to the canal leading to Tarleton. It had been a great weekend of busking and one I look forward to next year. On the Monday I found out that all the boat people had a meeting on the last day as a Maritime Festival debriefing with the organisers, when asked about the loud guitar players that had been booked to play in the tent the people from the boats said that they did not like that kind of music blaring out of very loud sound systems and the organisers should see Harry and his mate about entertainment for next year! This may not happen but it's possible openings like this that make all the practise worthwhile for me and hopefully gives our players incentive to practise as well.
Perth Accordion Club 1 year old.
Perth Accordion Club in Australia emailed us to tell us they have had their first birthday, I sent our congratulations to John and to Perth Club. That reminded me, our club is two years old in November.
Stockport Accordion Club Guest Artist - David Lukins
Stockport Accordion Club send me their newsletter each month, the latest one has news of a forthcoming concert with guest artist David Lukins. This is held on Tuesday November 30th at Cheadle Heath Junior School, Admission is £3. Telephone Rob on 0161 480 8858 Also in their newsletter is mention of the Tameside Accordion Festival aka. The NAO North West Championships. This is being held on Sunday November 7th. at Duckinfield Town Hall, King Street, Duckinfield. Contact Betty Pollard on 0161 339 9250. This will feature Competitions throughout the day, Trade Show, and Refreshments.
Wyre Accordion Club's new venue
Wyre Accordion Club's new venue is the RAF Club at Cleveleys. This month they are meeting on Thursday 21st October then meetings will be back to the usual 3rd Wednesday in the month, except the venue for the December meeting will change to the River Wyre Hotel. Then it's back to the RAF Club in January. or was it..
New folk club starting in Preston
The first meeting of The Brematannacvm Folk Club (It's Roman for Ribchester) took place this Sunday 10th October. The club meets upstairs at The Black Bull in Ribchester. The club will meet on the 2nd & 4th Sundays of each month at 8pm. Singers Musicians & Listeners are all welcome Further details can be obtained from Graham Dixon on 01254 853929. He looks forward to any accordionists wishing to play at this or his other folk club in Houghton which meets on Thursday nights.
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