Back catalogue
* Hooperman In The Can was released in 2002. My first solo CD, it was recorded in a single day, with the help of recording engineer Martin Johnson. It includes some of my favourite traditional songs, and the pick of my own compositions at that time.
Hooperman In The Can
Hooperman In The Can was released in 2002. My first solo CD, it was recorded in a single day, with the help of recording engineer Martin Johnson. It includes some of my favourite traditional songs, and the pick of my own compositions at that time. People had been asking me for years about putting some of my songs on a CD, and after retiring from full-time work (very early, I must add) towards the end of 2001 I finally got round to it. There’s a mixture of material, some folk, some “protest” (notably my song about those left behind when the men go to war, Waiting To Hear) and some explicitly Christian songs. All done with no overdubs, just my voice and my old Hokada guitar, as you’d hear me sing them live if I ever sang anything the same twice.
Southampton In Song
Southampton In Song was inspired by a trip to California, where you always seem to be somewhere that’s in a song or a film. I found myself singing The Channels to the backing of a jazz pianist in a bar on the dock of the bay in San Francisco, and formed the idea of putting together a set of songs about Southampton. It was nudged along towards reality by Jeff Henry, and together we made the album. It’s been popular among community groups, local history organisations and so on as a live show, and was Forest Tracks’ fastest-selling recording ever in the months following its release in October 2005.
The Flour of the Forest
Sometime in the late 1970s I said to Gavin Bowie, of Hampshire Museum Service, that I’d write a song about Eling Tide Mill, which he was in the process of having restored to working order. The idea turned into something more, an EP featuring three songs specially written for it (one being mine), a poem written for the purpose, and one traditional folk song. The other songwriters were Ken Stephens and Roy Harrison, the poem was by Dave Williams, and Geoff Jerram sang the traditional Just As The Tide Was Flowing. The record was sold to help raise money for the restoration, and my song was used as the soundtrack to a video about the project.
So You Want To Be A Folk Club MC?
Invited to do a workshop on MCing, at a festival I can’t remember, I decided to write a book instead - it would reach more people and its effect would last longer. So I did. It’s probably the best-selling book on the subject in the world, certainly in the UK, as I’m only aware of one other and that was published in the USA, where folk clubs operate somewhat differently, I’m told.
I still have some copies, so send me £4 and you can have one! Same price, including p&p, as when published in 1986, but it seems less now.........
