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2020 finds me happily ensconced in Cornwall, living in a coastal village with beautiful sea views from our house. I have a bright and more roomy home recording studio, in a setting that promises to be conducive to getting the creative juices flowing. I sorely miss the company of Laurie, Jim and Richard; not only because of the musical moments we enjoyed over the years, but also because of the childish knockabout laughs we had together.
The urge to play to live audiences doesn’t fade with advancing years, however, and I join a band of 'old hands' who are reforming and looking for a lead guitarist. It seems promising: drums, bass and sax player, and I go along with the material they seem to be familiar with. But after a few untidy rehearsals many issues emerge. The level of musicianship is below what I'm used to, no one is in charge, so no one distributes copied lead sheets - they all literally playing from different hymn sheets, the drummer doesn't have his own kit and has had 'over-imbiding' issues in the past, the bass player has no drive and so on. I attempt to bring order and direction, but the 'three pals' seem happy to trundle along as they are so I leave them to it.
To keep my hand in, I team up with Paul Donaghy (pictured right, and yes, he's left-handed), an excellent singer and acoustic guitarist, and we build a set for performing in local pubs as a duo. The music lives on! Or does it....
Covid strikes. Getting together with any musicians in a rehearsal situation is a no-no for a long while. Unfortunately, Paul's business is badly impacted - an ex-Royal Navy man, he's part of a small business that designs and fits helicopter pads on luxury yachts, mostly for international cients, and sadly things unravel for him. We lose touch as he attends to more crucial challenges.
The live music scene here in Cornwall is extremely vibrant, compared to Warwickshire, where I moved from. Cornwall is the ninth largest of forty-eight counties, but fortieth by population, with just 572,000. And yet there is a huge love of live music here. There is a very strong sense of community amongst the villages and hamlets, and people use their local pubs, unlike in other parts of the country where many pubs have closed over recent years. I also notice that village halls down here are avidly used by locals, with most booked solid with dance and exercise classes, garden club meetings, amdram, and so on. Amateur choirs abound, with one in almost every town and village. Most pubs feature live music of various kinds and there is a plethora of bands, duos and solo singers, offering a wide variety of music, from the popular sea shanty variety, Celtic genres, punk, through to the usual pop cover and originals bands. DJ's are a rare breed here - audiences like it live! The holiday season provides a further boost, with lots of well-run camping sites running regular live music nights. Summer also sees a large number of music festivals happening across the county. But all this activity also means there are a lot music acts chasing gigs, so it's also a very competitive scene and fees are modest. And because of the size of the county, it's usual to drive an hour or so to bookings.
Blue River is Born In mid-2022 I advertise for musicians in order to start a brand new band. Chris Stevenson responds. He's a good guitarist, with experience and we get along well. (It's a small world dept: we both had spells in the parcels and distribution industry in our pre-retirement lives - I was with Federal Express UK for some years - and we found that we knew a lot of the same people from those days.) Chris is Cornish born and bred, and has played guitar in various bands for almost as many years as I have. He's affable, a calm presence, non-moody (a big plus from my experience!) and works at his song parts. An ideal partner.
We set out on the hunt for a top-flight female lead singer. We try out a few, but whilst some meet some of the criteria, such as being able to sing in tune, we can't find one that ticks all of the boxes. And I wasn't about to repeat mistakes of the past, accepting someone who almost fits the bill, but not quite. Eventually we try out a young Polish lady called Kasha, (full name Katarzyna Iwanowicz), and she's a revelation. She not only sings beautifully, but also plays excellent guitar with a lot of jazz and blues influences. She has confidence too, and well used to performing. Soon, we're getting a great trio together under the name of 'Blue River'. Kasha's singing and playing experience both here and previously in Poland, was usually in a duo performing in small lounge or bar settings, and not in a 'full' band. But rehearsals go very well, and we also find that Kasha has lots of contacts for music venues, and is good at 'beating the bushes' to obtain gigs. So within a short time we start clocking up the live appearances.
Kasha performs now and again with other musicians she knows on the local scene, which doesn't present any problems for us ... for now. Kasha is also a talented grapic designer and makes a living designing web sites. We soon have an eye-catching Blue River logo, as well as a basic web site and Facebook page.
Not used to playing in a band setting, Kasha obtains the odd gig which isn't feasible in terms of band equipment logistics; it takes a minimum of fifty minutes for us to load into a venue and get everything setup, including PA, lighting, etc. We play a couple of festivals where the organisers (bless 'em...) expect successive bands to dismantle and remove their gear from a stage whilst the next act tries to load in and assemble their equipment in the same space, all in fifteen minutes or so. Impossible. We vow not to accept any similar bookings in future.
Kasha is with us for just over a year, leaving in September 2023. She never explained why she became disenchanted with Blue River, having contributed so much. I guess it was a combination of (i) having kept her hand in with the 'duo/solo scene' she preferred that more easy-going format instead of our more amplified, and rigid, setup using backing tracks for bass and drums, and from what little explanation she gave, I think she wanted Chris and I to consider ditching Blue River as a project and instead join that loose bunch of accompanists, (ii) having trouble hearing her own singing in our band, even though she used her own PA and foldback amp to good effect, I thought, and (iii) wanting to play material where she always used her guitar skills (even though we tried to encourage her to do so in our lineup). These partings are rarely fully open and honest, and are often like those "It's not you, it's me" breakups, where the reverse of that phrase is often the case! Still, we enjoyed Kasha's time in the band and we all have to find the music-making setting that best suits each of us.
Photos - Top: Kasha at rehearsals, with her beautiful Gibson ES 175 guitar. Bottom left: Crafty Festival, Kynance, 16th July 2023
Middle right: Charles III Coronation community party 7th May 2023
YouTube link bottom - Our version of the Isley Brothers' 'Harvest for the World' with Kasha on lead vocal and guitar
Better Than Ever! We immediately cast around for another lead singer and a young lady called Sam Canalog replies to our local ad. I audition her in our practice room, a sail loft at my home, and am bowled over by her voice and presence. Out of all the good singers we've had in the past, Sam is by far and away the best. I immediately give Chris the great news and we set up a full rehearsal. Things gel wonderfully. Sam joins us and away we go again, this time with the best lineup I've ever managed to assemble. When we're playing, it's a thrill to listen to Sam's voice and to sing backing harmonies with her.
Sam, full name Samantha Dela Cuesta Calanog, is Filipino, and came to the UK to work as a Theatre Nurse in the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. Earnings for fully qualified nurses in the Philipines are lower than equivalent jobs here, and there is a recruitment crisis in the NHS, hence a large number overseas qualified staff are attracted here. After British and Indian staff, Filipino staff make up the third largest contingent working in the NHS, at about 35,000 or 3%.
Sam is a very personable young lady and Blue River is a happy (and hopefully stable for a while!) band. We work hard at crafting a strong set, with many standard covers re-arranged into something more interesting, such as Wham's "Careless Whisper" with a reggae arrangement, and REM's "Losing My Religion" in a bossa nova style. Along with a selection of the usual danceable covers, we can flex our performances to match different venues and audiences.
It's satisfying to be part of a really competent band, after a lifetime's struggle to bring it about. I'll enjoy it while I can. All things must pass (thanks, George), so Blue River might well be my swan song as far as live performance is concerned. My long trek, if nothing else, has been a massive learning experience, and you can't have the highs without the lows. At the time of writing, I've been around the sun almost seventy-six times, and the physical side of playing in a band, whilst helping me keep fit, is more of a strain than it used to be, even with the help of improved technology in amplification equipment, making it very much lighter to haul around than back in the early days. Necessity is the mother of invention, and there's no doubt that this improved technology was driven by the fact there are many 'weekend warriors' like me, declining in the vale of years, but still addicted to playing with others in a band, all because of those fires that were lit under our generation in the 60s, which refuse to go out.
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