Go, boys, go

[venta]

Quite often, when I phone my parents, there's some sort of breathless scramble at their end as they turn off whatever music they're listening to. I nearly always have music on when I'm at home, and my parents do too... I always assumed that was just what people did, but apparently not.

When I was little, there was always music on in our house. One corner of my parents' dining room was given over to the record cupboard (an MFI job when I was little, now a far superior dark wood cabinet) and it was full... classical concerti, and the occasional Buddy Holly disc, but mostly folk music. Lots of it was bought direct from the artist in folk clubs up and down the north-east - my Dad tells me that when I was little I thought that was the only way you could buy records. He may be winding me up. He does that.

One of the records that reminds me strongly of my childhood is an album called Ring of Iron, recorded by a local group called the Teesside Fettlers. They were one of those rolling concerns that kept going through multiple line-up changes (oh, and still are, apparently). One of the stalwart (and, I think, founder) members was a guy called Ron Angel. On lots of the tracks you can hear him playing the whistle or the fife, the counterpoint dancing happily over the melody.

When I was a little older, I was in a clog-dance display team. Ron played our music for a while, at least partly because his then-ladyfriend was also dancing with us. He often wore a leather cap and a fisherman's smock top; with a bushy grey beard, he looked the part for the sea-shanties that he sang. The clog team slowly petered our, Ron and Jenny split up, and I rarely saw him.

As well as playing and singing, he wrote songs. Some friends of my parents had framed, illustrated prints of some of his songs on their bathroom wall; when I was first learning to read music, I remember trying to puzzle out the tune to The Iron Horse of Stockton there. Years later, hanging out with a bunch of oxfordgirl's friends, I was amazed to hear them singing The Chemical Worker's Song which Ron wrote. Sure, I knew it, but I'd been dragged up on the north-east folk scene. What were a bunch of LARPers in the south-east doing singing it? They knew it by a title deduced from its first line (A Process Man), and had never heard of Ron.

A few years ago, I realised I hadn't seen Ron in years. Was he still around, I asked? Everyone shrugged. He'd become a complete recluse. No one saw him, and he wouldn't talk to anyone. Even people from Stockton Folk Club, the club he ran for years, didn't hear from him. When I spoke to my parents last weekend, they told me that Ron had died at 84. I haven't seen him in twenty years, but he was such a big figure in the folk scene of my childhood I was sorry to hear it.

It prompted me to look online: had Ring of Iron been re-released on CD, like so many of the folk albums of my childhood? It had not. But someone on eBay was flogging a record in excellent condition... click, click. It arrived yesterday, but due to the batteries in the pre-amp having rather unsportingly gone flat since last week, I'm only listening to it today[*]. I probably haven't heard it in twenty years, either, but I can sing along to every word. And I've got a glass of wine. Cheers, Ron.

[*] Our internet is broken, and has been for a fortnight, so no idea when I will post this. For reference, "today" is Thursday 25th.

Comments

[susandennis]

Interesting about music playing. Growing up, if we had music on, we were sitting down listening to it. It was never background music. I always try and rarely remember to turn it on in the background in my house. I'm better about remembering to turn it on in the car. On the way home from the pool this morning, Google Music tossed up a Judy Collins tune I hadn't heard in years and I actually had the thought that I need to remember to turn this on in the house more often!

[venta.livejournal.com]

There's something strangely lovely about having the radio, out modern day equivalents) suddenly playing you a song you've not heard in ages.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I know that song as well - heard it as a kid, I think - but you identified it so I'm denied a kudo.

[(Anonymous)]

You seem like an honest sort, you may have a kudo anyway.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Bloomin' LJ login handling.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I like playing music but my hearing issues mean I can't have it on in the background to conversations. This is because my ears don't filter it out properly (and therefore is like several people trying to talk to you at once). So I'm less inclined to play it in the house unless I'm not expecting company.

[venta.livejournal.com]

They seem very sound reasons for not having music on! It's not that I think people should, just that I regard it as very much the norm - and actually, it isn't.

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

The Dad was not winding you up about buying records and the first time you were aware of Muzak (or similar) in a shop you went to look for the musicians because music in a public place, in your experience, was live. If the BBC even needs a recording of The Boars Head Carol, it's Ron that they play.