SONGS FROM THE BLUE HOUSE - PEOPLE 

Updated 22/09/07

Right so, SftBH is three people plus some other people, the number and mix of which varies with each gig/recording/day. So here goes....

THE TRIUMVIRATE 

James Partridge - Singing and Guitar

SK - The first time I saw James he was playing a set of frantic, noisy acid-punk in a black-painted, cider-floored nightclub in Ipswich, pausing during the feedback-drenched maelstrom only to strap on a twelve-string guitar and play "The Bells of Rhymney" mid-set. That struck me as unusual, for a start. Subsequently I’ve become very fond of the old boy, but the abiding keystone of his character remains, for me, the poster he had on the wall next to his studio desk (and virtual second, or at times first, home) showing three square-headed figures obligingly putting their heads through square-shaped holes in the wall. The fourth, round-headed, was portrayed looking at a similar hole, thinking about it, and the slogan was something along the lines of ‘It’s the ones who think differently who make progress possible’, a message he’s taken very much to heart. For a while the word ‘compromise’ wasn’t in James’s dictionary; in fact he’d taken out everything between ‘comfortable’ and ‘curmudgeonly’ on purpose. This happened to work, mind, because on so many occasions he is proved, infuriatingly, right. You’d be a brave man to try and argue that the vocal take he’d just done was ‘the one’ if he felt he had a better one in him. And you’d be wrong.

Addendum (JP) - "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw)  

Shane Kirk - Guitar and Singing, bit of Bouzouki

JP - If I wasn't me, I'd prefer  to be Shane over anyone else I know. We used to get mistaken for brothers a lot, and I think there's something in that. We reckon that we've pretty much had all the fall-outs we're ever going to have, so its best just to get on with it. Shane's dress-sense is almost as bad as mine, but he has kept his waistline in check a bit better than me. His guitar style is precisely the sort of thing I hated when I was a young pup, but now...despite the fact that, like me, he sometimes writes better in his head than his fingers can manage...the feel shines through. If I may paraphrase John Lydon just a smidgen - "he means it, man".

Gibbon - Bass/Singing/Euphonium/Trombone/Keyboards

SK - So many of Gibbon's creations, riffs and "Hold on, I've had an idea" moments keep popping up that frankly, we haven't come up with a credit yet that justifies his contribution. Will 'thanks' do?

JP - Gib has always been something of a mystery to me...he was always Shane's mate and playing partner really. I'm so pleased that he joined up and put the backbone into SFTBH, as well as providing some truly inspired keyboard parts in the early days. Like us two, his timing can be faulty, but the actual notes...wow! My abiding memory of his early playing days is that he never seemed to have anything on his feet when he was on stage. He does now, though.

FULL-TIMERS

Helen Mulley - Flute and Singing, another bit of Bouzouki

Apart from sharing a house with James, Helen's greatest feat is her ability to remember tunes and then play them ten years later without prompting on a flute. Her songwriting and singing for the second album 'Too' provided us with yet another avenue to explore, and re-energised the whole SftBH party.

SK - I don’t like to watch Helen sing, as she wears such a beatific smile when she’s doing it that you just think she’s about to explode with the sheer joy of being able to make these noises with her body. It really is a fabulous sight if you can bear it. Even more fun is actually being onstage with her and playing guitar while she does it or plays that whistle thing, which is a very complicated process and not for the faint-hearted or digitally challenged, involving, as it does, blowing, moving your fingers really quickly and remembering where the notes are all at the same time. It’s difficult enough doing all that without being really good at it too. Oh and she writes songs, plays guitar, can sing ‘Rose of Allendale’ from memory and does a mean fry-up. All round Renaissance woman.

Richard Lockwood - Fiddle

Richard (all the way from Thorndon, which is very nearly in Norfolk) came in very late on the first album sessions and whipped up a storm without even realising he'd done it. Since then he's been pretty much ever-present, and is always the last to moan and the first to offer rehearsal space, tea and biscuits.

Fiddly Richard's greatest strength is his lack of preconceptions, which frees him up to do whatever he thinks works. And unlike a lot of people, if you dismiss one of his ideas, he just gets on with it and does something better. This is, primarily, why we love him.

His contributions to 'Don't Fear The Reaper' (where his response to "Could you sort of transpose the guitar solo to violin and the improvise a bit?" was met with a shrug and a damn good job) and the 'Too' sessions were signs of his growing confidence and highly important input to the SftBH sound. It feels rude not to include him in the the 'triumvirate', but 4 into 3 won't go....

Richard has a full pair of home-made aeroplane wings in his loft that he can't get out, having built the house around them.

Tony Winn - Banjo

Tony was originally 'bought in' to the first CD sessions as a session player, but has subsequently turned up whenever he can and sprinkled his banjo-sparkle all over our stuff. Tony has recently launched himself into a formative acting career, most famously appearing on a park bench, being annoyed by a squirrel in an advert for a magazine called 'The Week'.

Tony continues to make his own music in many and various forms. See his website at www.tony.winn.btinternet.co.uk. 

NEARLY FULL-TIMERS

Tony Turrell - Piano

Tony constantly has various other projects on the go (click on his name to see more). 

The sessions for 'Tree' were the point at which he really arrived on the SftBH scene, adding everything from unadorned piano to 70s retro keyboard sounds. Somehow everything he does has authenticity as well as bags of originality, and there is no question whatever that 'Tree' would not be the album it is without him. We're just delighted that he seems to enjoy playing with us so much, and he has become a regular in the live line-up recently, which introduces all sorts of new dynamics in the live sound.

Tony's work (with Richard Lockwood) on the middle bit of 'Don't Fear The Reaper' made sense of the whole thing when the rest of us were just plain lost.

Above all he's a lovely man and a very talented musician and we hope he sits in with us as often as possible.

PART-TIMERS

Paul Read - Drums/Percussion

Having been more involved than perhaps anyone in both James and Shane's musical lexicon since the 80s, 'Reado' first came along and provided the drive behind 'Don't Fear The Reaper' despite having vowed he would never play that 'old folky-country s**t' with us.

'Tree' provided a platform for him to send us off in other directions, which he duly did with aplomb. A sincere regret at Blue House HQ is that you will never hear Paul's double-tracked knives and forks percussion work on 'Incredible', which was all eventually replaced with a triangle.

You may occasionally see him play live with us, but his life is full of other stuff, so he can't always come along to keep us all in check. However, we adore the man and consider him the very best drummer we've ever had the pleasure of being deafened by.

Russ Barnes - Dobro, Banjo, Guitars, Mandolin

Russell is another one of those people that has been around almost permanently since pretty much the beginning; his "folk-ninja" technique has been honing as time passes, and subtlety has become his watchword. 

His recorded work on 'Too' brightened, informed and enlivened the album in a way that simply wouldn't have happened had he not been there. Other commitments have kept him away from most of the work on 'Tree' (although he is on there) and recent live gigs. We expect he'll pop up again one day.

WELCOME GUESTS

Nick Zala - Pedal Steel

Shane and James were looking for a pedal steel player for the 'Tree' sessions, basically just because it seemed like a good idea. They watched BJ Cole at a gig in Ipswich and also Nick Zala a couple of times, playing with The Deadstring Brothers in Chelmsford. Although they never got to chat with BJ, it was clear after watching Nick play, and more importantly after having a few beers and a couple of chinwags with him post-show, that he was their man. The dry sense of humour, the manic grin, the rollies, the approach to music...perfect! 

Nick was an absolute star at the 'Tree' recordings, he has a very natural feel for our music (and all other music for all we know), and we didn't have to give many instructions as he'd already worked it all out in his head. Where he hadn't (Katy Did), he just busked along and in the end, we kept all of it!

He has played live with us a couple of times so far, once for the 'Tree' launch warm-up and of course at the actual launch gig. Maybe we'll get him to come along again...Click his name to go to his website.

Liz Townsend - Cello

Liz contributed some absolutely wonderful moments to the recordings of 'Tree', from dark aggression on 'Incredible' to mellow, interlaced swooping on 'Kings & Gods'. The cello is a wonderful instrument in the right hands, and those hands are Liz's, as far as we're concerned.

She's another of those easy-going, instinctive musicians that we are sometimes lucky enough to come across and then cajole into playing with us. She has a very calming presence as well as a smile that can light up a room, which makes her tremendously easy to be around!

Judy Dyble - Vocals

You never know who you'll meet on the internet, and Judy is someone that we came across in just that fashion. It's a bit of a long story as to how we got talking to her, so we'll pass on that for now...

As the first singer of 'Fairport Convention', member of 'Trader Horne', 'Giles, Giles and Fripp' and various other musical collaborations, Judy is known well in folk-rock circles (whatever that means!). She has recently burst back onto the scene with some very interesting collaborations, see judydyble.com for details.

Jude sang a lead part for a song of Helen's called "Little No-one", which ended up not fitting in to the final track listing for 'Tree'. Potentially this meant that the recording would vanish forever... 

However, it appears that Sanctuary Records are lining up a double album of Judy's work over the last 40 years and are keen to include 'Little No-one', so we're delighted that it won't be going to waste!

Ms. Dyble also provided a very haunting vocal riff at the very end of 'Risk', which has been known to induce severe spine-tingling.

James Munson - Drums/Percussion

James is one of the happy multi-tasking High Barn workforce, and as well as engineering a few of the recording sessions for 'Tree' and being involved with the live sound and lights at the venue, he can also spank tubs and rattle things very well. Highlights of Mr Munson's work on 'Tree' can be found on 'Song V' (booming bongos), 'Her' (shaking two plastic Pingu toys) and 'Little Lies' (sparse, meaty drumming). 

Paul Mosley - Vocals

As part of one of our favourite bands 'Moses', Paul has long been someone we thought we'd like to get involved. Shane thought that his song 'Come On #2' needed a new vocal approach, so a tentative "Please?" email made its way to Paul. Like a flash he agreed and then proceeded to climb into the most expensive taxi in the world ever for the trip from Bishop's Stortford railway station to the High Barn studio.

He later ripped up the place at the 'Tree' album launch when he performed the song live, to very big grins all round.

Paul has a number of musical projects to investigate, and we suggest you have a look. - paulmosley.com.

Jo Mulley - Vocals

Jo Mulley (or 'Moj') is quite blatantly Helen's sister, to the point where during Helen's pregnancy and early motherhood we drafted Moj in as a stopgap and some people didn't even notice. 

Alie Byrne - Vocals

Alie sang magnificent duet parts with Helen on 'Too', her English Rose tones blending nicely with Helen's mid-Atlantic (well, more sort of about 100 miles west of Ireland) stylings.

She also sang  with us at the 'Too' launch, duetting with Helen as per the CD and more besides.

Chris Jarvis - Piano Accordion

An old mucker of Helen's dad, Chris answered our call for his squeezebox talents on three tracks on 'Too', displaying a fantastic understanding of what we were trying to do with the barest of information and no rehearsal whatsoever. 

Matt White - Percussion/Vocals

US-born Matt came and helped out on 'Too' with some rocking percussion stuff here and there and a stunning vocal scat/rap piece at the end of 'Another Happy Day', which he subsequently turned into a whole new song with his own band 'Whiteout'.

Matt's extraordinarily powerful voice and sharp, laconic wit can often be heard around pubs and bars in his adopted hometown of Ipswich, and not necessarily just when he's actually doing a gig. 

Pete Pawsey - Mandolin, Harmonica, Dobro

Pete turned up for the first time for a gig at The Milestone, Ipswich. He was drafted in by Gibbon, who assured us he'd be fine without rehearsal...and he was! He's one of those very useful bods who can probably play just about anything with strings and was therefore rather handy for us. 

His imprint is all over 'Too' and it is much the better for it. Pete has now emigrated to the US, and we have sadly lost his services and his twinkling eyes. 

Stephen Constable (L) & Steve (Kilbey) Mears (R) - Guitars

Part of the massive guitar orchestra on "Then There Was Sunshine" on 'Too', the two Steves are friends of ours from many musical ventures of the past.

They both contributed to 'Tree' with guitar and/or vocals, and in Kilbey's case with writing contributions as well.

Phoebe Partridge - Vocals, just the once

James' lovely niece Phoebe sang 'Let's Do It Country' with him, just the once, at the 'Too' launch gig, and threw some pretty good shapes while she was doing it.

Her stunning solo CD is available via  www.pindropmusic.co.uk.

Roanna - Vocals, just the once

We get quite a few  nieces singing 'Let's Do It Country', but this time it was Shane's niece Roanna in the garden at The Swan, Little Totham, bathed in the glorious sunshine of June 2006.

If anyone else has a niece that they would like to see singing with SftBH, just ask!

David Booth - Percussion/Cornet/Guitar

That Nice David Booth has a band called 'Aloneme' (that also includes Liz Townsend) which these days takes up most his time, but once upon a time he could sometimes be found with us doing some extra-curricular stuff. Please do go and see Aloneme or visit them at www.aloneme.com.

He did pop in to sing at the end of 'Risk' with his partner-in-music Sarah Springett. It was very nice to get his name on the album sleeve as we miss him terribly.

The Arran 'Pick-up' band - Donal, John & Steve

Helen Mulley and James Partridge found themselves on the Isle Of Arran in August 2007 for Jo Mulley's wedding. So she's now Jo Sturgess. Anyhow, the sisters' proud dad Terry runs a very funky ceilidh outfit called The Boguillie Band, and is involved in the efforts to get the Arran Folk Festival up and running again for June 2009. As part of the build-up there are a number of gigs to raise awareness and get even more musicians over to the island. As they were there anyway, he put James and Helen on at a concert/ceilidh at Brodick Hall with three of the Boguillie Band backing them, for a seven-song SftBH set including a wonderful 'Kings & Gods' and a storming encore of 'Breaking These Rocks'. The lads played wonderfully with little or no rehearsal, and we just wanted to honour them here for that.

Donal - Fiddle; John - Bass; Steve - Drums.

Olly Graham - Spoons

Olly is a work colleague of James' who has always been quite adept at spoons, which he played on 'Bless My Broken Heart' on the first CD and then wandered off looking for more beer.