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Hello and welcome!
Photo by Bryan Ledgard and copyright
Maartin Allcock is a multi-instrumentalist born in Manchester in 1957. After an apprenticeship in folkclubs and dancebands, he ran away to join the Bully Wee Band, a Celtic folk group, which led on to an 11-year stint with folk-rock leg ends Fairport Convention, four years with rock band Jethro Tull and a session career which has included over 200 albums and now also lends his experience to record production and tour management. Now read on...
I now have a Flickr site which you can view by clicking above. I'll be adding as I go along.
DESI FRIEL ALBUM OUT NOW
My dear friend and best man Desi Friel finally has released his first solo album. I've only been nagging him for 30 years or so. I played on a couple of tracks. Desi and I played together in the 1970s and early 80s before I headed out from Manchester. I used to read bedtime stories to little Anna and Michael, both doing rather well in their fields nowadays (!). Desi has a new website at www.desifriel.com so go have a look. You can order the album direct from there too.
DAVE SWARBRICK FIDDLE TUNE BOOK
Work has started on a new fiddle tune book featuring the work of Dave Swarbrick from the first solo album Rags, Reels and Airs (1967) through the solo albums of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and I have no idea yet where it will stop. It's yet another mammoth task in the series (three Fairport Convention Songbooks, Sandy Denny Songbook, three Richard Thompson songbooks...). Rags, Reels and Airs is completed now, so it's on now to Swarbrick (1976).
Swarb's
LAZARUS
DAVE SWARBRICK, KEV DEMPSEY & MAART
Swarb's Lazarus are now with a new agent, Adastra, for UK bookings, and we look forward to working with Chris Wade. There will be some UK dates in October and in February next year. Keep an eye on the tour dates page.
My friend Martin Bell has put some live footage from the
Abingdon gig in April 2006 on YouTube. This was our second ever gig and
some pieces from this performance appear on the live album.
Here's the links:
I Know My Love
Jigs
Dean Brig o'Edinburgh/High
Level Bridge
Last Night's Fun
LIVE AND KICKING
This live album marks the legendary fiddler Dave Swarbrick's triumphant
return to the stage after seven years, after a life-threatening illness,
a life-saving operation and a life-affirming recovery, recorded at four
special performances in Spring 2006, together with guitarist Kevin Dempsey
and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock.
You can buy the album directly from us at www.swarbslazarus.com or by cheque to
Squiggle Records, PO Box 31, Harlech, LL46 2WQ, Wales. Price £13.00
plus £1.50 postage and packing.
The album is available in the shops but if you get it from us we get more
of it...
Photo by Keith Curtis and copyright
There was a big tour (4,304 miles) throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland which took up all of November and the first week of December 2007. Mostly sold out,with a seven piece band - BNC guitar, piano, vocal; Me on bass, guitar, bouzar & vocal; Pete Zorn on bass, woodwinds, saxes, mandolin, percussion and vocal; John Ragusa on woodwinds, trumpet, percussion and vocals; Ernest Chapman on keys, guitar and vocal; Jessie Friedman on percussion, bass and vocal; and Tripp Dudley on drums and world percussion. Ace soundman (and one of my oldest chums besides being Cropredy Festival organiser) Gareth Williams did the sound for us, and we borrowed Fairport's stage man John Gale for backline and monitors, and Gareth's Cropredy assistant Kaz Horton to do merch. We had ace Hebridean singer (and BBC Folk Awards 2008 Folksinger of the Year nominee) Julie Fowlis and her fab band as support on the tour. It was a most enjoyable tour.
In September Beth and I recorded a session for BBC Radio 2's Ken Bruce Show. Again we borrowed some Fairport people - Simon Nicol on guitar and vocal, Chris Leslie on mandolin and vocal and Gerry Conway on drums and percussion. We also had a string quartet. You can still listen to it online if you go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/sessions_bethneilsenchapman.shtml
BLUE TAPESTRY
The Joni Mitchell/Carole King tribute band is reforming for a special one-off reunion gig on June 28th at the Party On The Lawn bash in Bishopstone near Swindon. Featuring Chris While (guitar, duclimer, vocal), Julie Matthews (piano, vocal), Maart (guitars, fretless bass, vocal), Pete Zorn (fretted bass, sax, flute, percussion, vocal) and groovemeister Gerry Conway (drums, percussion), this is the first gig for three years and we're all looking forward to what must be one of the best setlists ever. SOLD OUT.
RICHARD THOMPSON SONGBOOK
I've now finished transcribing the third book of the three volume Richard Thompson Songbook, which will be available from Richard's own website and elsewhere. I am awaiting Richard's proofreading and corrections when he gets time in his busy schedule. Each volume contains fifty songs with extensive TAB and guitar tunings.
MAART AR Y TELEDU EFO HEATHER JONES
I was recording for the telly in Cardiff (Caerdydd) recently for a new TV show on S4C, Nodyn (Notes), presented by the fab Elin Fflur. We filmed in a chapel performing with the wonderful Gwyneth Glyn and Heather's daughter Lisa Jarman and Sioned Mair. It's due for transmission in June some time. Soon as I know when, I'll announce it here.
THE
WORKING PARTY
The Working Party audio-visual project is finally ready.
I've seen some of it and it looks fab. In September 2005 Martin "Fiddly"
Bell (The Wonder Stuff, Albion Band) brought five top folk musicians together
to record and film some music:
Troy Donockley - pipes and whistles; Chris Leslie - fiddle; Chris Parkinson
- accordion; Simon Mayor - mandolin; Maart - guitar.
It's now available as downloadable videos, "virtual" folk music sessions consisting of well known traditional Irish, Scottish, English and North American tunes. They will help you to learn an instrument more easily by allowing you to see and hear other musicians playing along with you. You start by playing along with slow motion versions of the tunes. They have an 'animated music lead sheet', which turns the page every four bars or so. Then you can remove the player of your instrument from the mix and become that band member, then take it on up to concert speed.
There are some demos up on YouTube:
An
Introduction To The Working Party
Jigs (slow version)
Jigs (up to speed)
Jigs (with drop outs)
The
Girl From The County Clare set
There's also a CD available of the gig the band played at Banbury Mill Arts
Centre at the end of filming. Get yourself along to www.theworkingparty.co.uk
DAFYDD IWAN ALBUM
Just before the tour with Beth began, I was asked to produce an album for the President of Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Iwan. Dafydd has released about 20 albums in his career, some with Welsh folk-rock masters Ar Log. This is his first album of new songs for about 5 years, and it explores "the phenomenon which led so many Welsh people over the ages to seek a new life overseas, especially in the Welsh "colony" of Patagonia in Argentina. The title comes from the Welsh proverb "Man gwyn man draw" ("a perfect place over yonder"). The songs also explore various aspects of nationalism, and the dreams which have inspired Welsh people over the ages, and the necessity to create a new Wales here on our own soil, and not in some far distant land."
The job was done in just four days (!) and necessitated me having a bed installed in Studio 3 at Sain. Fair play to engineer Siôn Jones for having the stamina to keep up with me, and well done Dafydd for first takes nearly all the time, without which this feat would not have been possible in the time available. I feel very honoured as an Englishman that I should even be considered for this job, my sixth album for Sain Records. I knew it was a good idea learning Welsh!
IONA AC ANDY
The new album Y Ffordd (The Road) from Iona ac Andy is now out on Sain Records. Andy & Iona have been touring on the country scene for years, and I was very pleased to be asked to produce this album for them, my fifth for Sain. It's mostly in Welsh, with English versions of two of the songs. Guests include ex-Albion Band drummer Neil Marshall, ace pedal steel player Dave Rowland and fiddler Eimear Bradley.
ROBIN HUW BOWEN
Y Ffordd i Aberystwyth, the new solo album from the leading exponent of the Welsh national instrument, the triple harp, is now available. This is my fourth production for Sain Recordiau. Robin is also the harpist with Crasdant, whose most recent album I also produced.
HEATHER JONES
I produced an album for Welsh singer Heather Jones
in summer 2006 and it was my third for Sain Records. Heather is well known and well loved on the Welsh music scene.
Born and bred in Cardiff, Heather learnt Welsh as a second language, and
has been at the forefront of Welsh folk singing in both languages since
the 70s. There are co-writes with Gwyneth Glyn, Gwilym Morus, Ynyr Roberts
(Brigyn) and Geraint Jarman, as well as songs translated from other songwriters.
GWENAN GIBBARD
Click on the picture to go to Gwenan's website
I produced the
debut album from Gwenan Gibbard in 2006. Gwenan is a fine young harpist
from Pwllheli, playing mainly traditional Welsh music. She has a lovely
bounce to her playing. She also sings in Welsh. She studied harp at the
Royal Academy of Music in London and was a big hit at the World Harp Congress
in Dublin in 2005. The album was my second for Sain
Recordiau near Caernarfon and features
guest appearances from Dafydd Roberts and Stephen Rees (both ex-Ar Log),
percussionist Deian Elfryn and fiddler Huw Roberts. I also got to play on
the album, playing guitar, bouzar and bass.
I've played live with Gwenan quite a few times now, and we'll be playing together as part of a new quartet, MAP. Gwenan was a hit at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow in January 2007. Sadly I could not be there as I was touring with Beth Nielsen Chapman, on whose new album, Prism, Gwenan played harp and acted as voice coach for Beth with the Welsh lyric. Gwenan played at my wedding to my Jan in 2006 too.
CRASDANT
This was my first album for Sain Recordiau, in 2006. Crasdant are the top traditional Welsh band, and this album also features some video and the first ever surround sound 5.1 mixes of a Welsh band.
MAART & JAN GOT WED!
I got married on April 12th 2006 to my lovely Jan, at Maes Y Neuadd Country House Hotel, near where we live here in Snowdonia. We had a great couple of days with friends and family and lots of music. Peter and Lynn Jackson and their team were wonderful, and everyone had a great time. Harpist Gwenan Gibbard played during the ceremony and my old chum Des Friel was the best best man a man could ever hope for.
MADELEINE ALLCOCK
My daughter Madeleine has her own website. She's an illustrator and designer
and has created her own creatures, the Mewberries. She's done a couple of
CDs covers already. Go and have a look.
MAART SOLO ALBUM
You can order Maart's most recent (2004)
album, "Serving Suggestion". Just click on the picture above.
THE COMPLETE SANDY DENNY SONGBOOK
Click on the picture to see a complete songlist and a free sample...
This 112 page book is available here. It features all 52
of Sandy's self-penned or co-written songs that she recorded, with notes
on guitar tunings and some TAB and is in the same format as the Fairport
Convention Songbook One v2.0. The fabulous Bryan Ledgard did the artwork.
This is a limited edition of 1000 copies only. Click on the picture above
for details. The first copies ordered went to Mark
Johnson in Berlin and Robert Mulford in London.
NB. It has been pointed out to me that page 64, the second page of No End, has a few bars askew. You can download the corrected version here.
Very nice review from Living Tradition magazine here
I live on the west coast of Wales, near Harlech in Gwynedd,
and it's a very beautiful place.
Have a look here at some pictures.
A couple of my photos are at the BBC North West Wales website here.
Website by Maartin Allcock with thanks to my old friend Des Friel, with Paul and Brian at www.egenica.com