by chrismanners | 28 Jan 2022 | News
It might be urban myth, or it might be a genuine quote from Paderewski the pianist. He claimed, ‘If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it.’ I’m no Paderewski; I’ll never be a...
by chrismanners | 20 Nov 2021 | News
The very estimable Piers Cawley runs an on-line song swap on Friday evenings. Huge fun, either to watch and listen or as a participant: chat that might amuse, enlighten or just meander, studded with half a dozen songs each. Here are edited highlights of my session...
by chrismanners | 20 Nov 2021 | News
The voice is true enough but not a thing of beauty. Harsh, even. The guitar playing is clumsy, staccato, full of snaps and rattles. The whistle playing, on the other hand, is supple and deft. The material’s a rag-bag: the album opens and closes with contemporary...
by chrismanners | 22 May 2021 | News
An occasional series on buried treasure for the ears The memory haunts me still. 1979, a Friday evening, at The General Elliot in South Hinksey — a folk club that, in the few years I loitered there, foster-parented Jumpleads, Magpie Lane, The Mellstock Band, and...
by chrismanners | 31 Mar 2021 | News
Time, they say, heals all things. The sprained ankle, the broken heart, the ache of loss; they all mend with the passing years. Oh yeah? They’re wrong. One pang strikes as keen today as it ever did: that my ex-wife (who I remember fondly in all other respects) took...
by chrismanners | 29 Nov 2020 | News
I do like a big band. Nothing quite like one for rousing the blood, when the brass section kicks in and the fiddles all march in time. Home Service, Eliza Carthy’s Wayward Band, Salsa Celtica, Bellowhead. And the Irish one, Moving Hearts. The Hearts came together in...