Blog by Chris Reid

PAT CLARKE – THE MAN WITH THE HARMONICA

There are many artists out there who are good at playing an instrument or using the one they were born with (their voice). What makes some of these ‘needles in a haystack’ stand out? Is it their talent? Possibly, but there is only so far you can hone a talent. Then what? What makes people want to see you or hear you over and over again? I believe it’s a combination of characteristics that this man, Pat Clarke, possesses. Talent (no doubt). He plays a wicked harp, sings well and writes intelligently. But he also has wit, personality and instant likability. All of that comes through in his music. Here he tells his story.
As usual, see examples of his music below the story.

Pat Clarke

“My tastes in music are fairly eclectic, having been brought up listening to my Dads music – classical, traditional jazz, Lonnie Donegan, Burl Ives and Harry Belafonte’s calypso material. Living in British North Borneo up to the age of 8, I didn’t get to listen to radio or watch television until the family returned to England in 1963, just in time to catch the start of the pop scene. Ready Steady Go, then Top Of The Pops were the highlights of my week – Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Spencer Davis, Animals, Troggs, Who, Hollies …marvliss!

Pat Clarke

The first harmonica playing I really noticed was by Manfred Mann’s Paul Jones on their single 5-4-3-2-1 and, following in my big brother’s footsteps, I bought my first ‘Echo Super Vamper’. Although it was a while before I could really play, I was soon jumping up to play with any band in Rugby that would have me – notably Greasy Kid Stuff who actually got paid for one or two gigs! In those days I was trying to sound like Keith Relf or Captain Beefheart.

At officers training school for the merchant navy I fronted a band for the first time and started writing my first songs. The earliest (now lost) recordings were made at sea, in 1975, on a borrowed reel to reel tape recorder, but it wasn’t until I went to art school in Manchester (1977) that I really started performing.

Playing in various duos (notably ‘The Rotating Kneecaps’ and ‘Hardluck & Whisperin’) on the thriving folk club scene I began exploring blues and folk music, discovering a few old blues-harpmen for the first time. Sonny Terry, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Moses Smith, Little Walter and Snooky Prior are still my favourites.

In my final year at art school, Victor Brox (ex front man with Aynsley Dunbar’s Retaliation) gave me my first break in a working band when college-mate Nick Clarke (a sparky guitarist protege of Victor’s) persuaded him to let me blow iron with his Blues Train. This was valuable experience, playing pubs and clubs all over the north of England, and a gig at Manchester’s Band On The Wall club gave me the buzz of seeing my name in the paper for the first time – Chris Lee wrote in the Evening News that I had “livened up Kansas City with some fairly ripe playing”. A couple of years later Nick decided to leave The Blues Train and we formed our own swinging R&B band, Yes Sir, named after an Elvin Bishop song we covered.

Yes Sir toured for 4 years, ranging from Carlisle’s Twisted Wheel to London’s Rock Garden and many pub & college venues in between, also enjoying some TV appearances and a successful residency at the Atlantis bar in Basel, Switzerland. We released an eponymous single in 1984, with Tom Waits’ Heart Attack and Vine as a double A-side. It was great buzz to see it in the window display of HMV, next to David Bowie’s Let’s Dance and, when Alexis Korner kicked off his Sunday Radio1 show with it, 2 weeks running, we thought we were headed for bigger things. When the band’s attempt for real commercial success with original material petered out in 1985, we called it a day. I began earning a crust with illustration, teaching and driving jobs, writing and recording my own songs on a 4-track cassette.

Wherever I lived and worked, from Manchester to Rugby and London, I found somewhere to do gigs with various duos, trios and bands – blues, pub-rock and heavy rock – until, in 2011, a chance meeting with one of the old band spurred the reformation of Yes Sir, with the intention of sticking to the original good-time ‘ridim & blooz’ music. We are still shaking our pants around the Northwest and hope to release a live album soon.

Now I have a home studio running Cubase, with Sony Vegas for video production. I’m just waiting for a working brain, so I can start using it to produce new music and videos.”

You can find Pat here and here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuw2dDgPOPE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYUdrYxUW0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FeTdoSdl1k

MUSIC IS THE NEW PLAGUE …and I’m loving it

This is a fantastically fascinating time for music. I can’t think of another time in recent (modern) history when music was so everywhere. I’m not talking about things like the big obtrusive boom boxes of the eighties. Nor does the rise of jazz in the 30s, and 50s or the explosion of rock in the 60s compare to what’s happening now. No, think more on a global scale. Was there ever a time when music played such an intriguing and meaningful part of the lives of so many people?

If you are out and about while reading this stop for a moment and take a look around you. How many people do you see with headphones and earphones? It’s mind boggling when you really stop to see it. It’s as if there is some conspiracy or secret mind altering thing going on. Like a silent plague that’s not so silent and plague being a good thing.

Music is enjoying an emergence on a hugely world wide magnitude. This of course spurred on by the innovation and popularity of the iPod and now iPhone and it’s competitors. Made more global by the adoption of internet radio, iTunes and music streaming. (The RIAA reported huge increases in music shipment and revenue in 2016 Read about It Here)

The world On Music

There is so much music now available and so many ways to access it. But that’s just part of the story. Take a look at where much of the music is coming from. No longer is the music industry moguls the only rightful distributor of music. No longer is the recording studio the only place to record music. No longer does the artist have to be under contract and a part of someone else’s vision.

Anyone (and I mean anyone) can now create, perform, record, distribute, promote, sell and even make money from their music. Ok, the make money part may be a little (a lot) exaggerated given the current saturation of ‘artists’ and their ‘music’ that is out there now. The fact is that it’s becoming more and more evident that the portion of royalties you get from today’s revenue streams are minuscule to previous generations of artists.

But this stops no one. The music still comes and we are all sucking it in like the air we breathe. I’m good with that. Because I love music. It’s entwined in everything I do in my life.

So what do you say we add some more music to the mix. There is a little site called Fandalism that I frequently upload music to and there are some truly amazing artists there. Many are musicians I’ve worked with on tracks and some I’d like to work with in the future. I’d like to feature a few of them here and in future posts. Let’s get to it.

Danny Roffe

HG Schmitz

Kjell Johansson

Hiro Ogawa

SaGoBa

Nobby Conrad

Michael Stark

Clifford Lisette

Robi Botos – From Hungary to Oscar Peterson to Self Made Role Model

On February 26th I went to a “Business Chops For Musicians” seminar held at Jazz FM radio station. The seminar was fantastic. The information came directly from industry professionals like Jae Gold, Rock and Roll accountant and finance wiz, Ken Druker, General Manager at Motéma Music and Erin Kinghorn, director, Eek Productions. Though the info was invaluable, the highlight for me was a Robi Botos interview done by JAZZ.FM91’s Garvia Bailey.

Robi Boto and Garvia Bailey

The interview was focused on discussing Robi’s incredible career and how he was able to survive coming to Canada as an immigrant with a family and nothing else, hone his playing, make contacts and navigate the industry to become one of the most sought after pianists in jazz today.
It was one of the most refreshing, down to earth and hilarious interviews I’ve witnessed. Dude is funny. His experiences musically and outside the music is vast and colorful. I find him to be very real and very honest. The stuff that role models are made of.

Botos, was born in Hungary. He started playing drums but switched to piano at an early age. He immigrated to Canada in ’98 with his family and started playing where ever and when ever he had the chance. Before long he was playing with Toronto’s who’s who of jazz. He even met and was mentored by his childhood idol, Oscar Peterson. You can still hear traces of Oscar in Robi’s music and you probably will always hear it. He’s played with artists like Dave Young, Michael Brecker, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Robert Hurst, Pat Labarbera, Molly Johnson, Al Jarreau and many more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7urBrJUXwU

As time went by Robi’s own musical voice began to show. His music is entrenched in jazz but infused with his own cultural background and that of other world music influences. Winner of a Canadian Juno award (Canada’s version of the Grammy) for best jazz album for his 2016 album Moving Forward, there is no limit to where this very talented artists will take his music or where it will take him.

SO WHAT ARE THE MOST POPULAR MUSICAL EARWORMS?

In my last article I mentioned I would followup with the results of the study by Kelly Jakubowski for the American Psychological Association on what the most popular musical earworms were. but before I do here are Jakubowski’s tips on how to get rid of an earworm:

Lady Gaga

• Engage with the song. Many people report that actually listening to the earworm song all the way through can help to eliminate having it stuck on a loop.

• Distract yourself by thinking of or listening to a different song.

• Try not to think about it and let it fade away naturally on its own.

Queen

Here, without further ado, were the most frequently named earworms in study:

1. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga

2. “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue

3. “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey

4. “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye

5. “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5

6. “California Gurls” by Katy Perry

7. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen

8. “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga

9. “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga

What are your most hated or loved musical earworms? List them in the comment section below.

WARREN GREIG QUARTET LIVE AT RELISH BAR AND GRILL

It was a Sunday morning at 11am. Not quite the time you would expect to see a jazz quartet in a bar. Be that as it may, in anticipating this event I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

I had never been to this bar before. It’s way out in the east end where I don’t usually frequent, being a west end and now downtown guy. But It’s not a bad spot. Small but quaint and comfortable. The stage is situated at the front of the bar, right at the entrance (literally at the entrance). When you walk in the door if you take three steps instead of two you become part of the entertainment.

Nuff said about the bar, lets get to the reason for my visit. I met Warren through a site called Fandalism. It’s a site for musicians of all genres from all over the world who’s skill levels can range from aspiring to astonishing. Through that site Warren and I collaborated on a song I wrote and produced called ‘Song for Warren’ (Ya I know, not too original but I was in awe of this man’s playing). The song is below. It was done a while back when our recording equipment wasn’t the best and it shows but you still get the feel of the track.

It was then that I realized we lived in the same country and the same city. So when I found out he was performing live there was no way I was going to miss that.

Originally the gig was to include just Warren, another guitarist and bass player but I was pleasantly surprised to find a quartet including a drummer (bonus). The group consisted of Warren, Steve Sherman (guitar), Harvey Pipher (drums) and Mauro Bellotto (electric bass). This was a group of players Warren had played with separately over the years but brought together for this gig.

So let me start off by saying this warren dude really shouldn’t be playing the guitar. He broke his left wrist and now has a implant replacement. He crushed his right elbow socket and had that reconstructed. And years ago he had an accident where he lost the tip of one of his fingers on the right hand and now has a special attachment to simulate the finger tip and nail for finger picking. That being said, the way Warren plays, its as if none of that ever happened. He is truly a wonderfully gifted guitar player. He’s a very smooth, very thoughtful and intuitive player.

The music consisted of jazz standards, bossas and a few jazzy blues tunes thrown in. I must say that Steve is quite a good player in his own right. His comping behind Warren was creative and thoughtful and his solos brought a well received bluesy feel. The rhythm section of Harvey and Mauro was very cohesive with some interesting touches from Harvey and inspired solos from Mauro. It’s as if these guys had been playing together for some time.

The two sets I saw were engaging and entertaining. These are well seasoned players who’s musical skill, creativity and soul were on full display. Glad I was there.

Find out more about Warren Greig below:
Youtube
Biography
Fandalism

Here are a couple clips from the performance on Sunday December 18, 2016 and a few others