I hail from Nottingham, though have lived for some years near Aberystwyth and now live near Canterbury. My early musical influences include the usual range of American folk singers popular in my formative late 1960s and early 1970s, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Alongside these, came singers brought into prominence with the revival of interest in the folk music of the British Isles, spearheaded by Ewan MacColl, Pentangle and Martin Carthy. Closer to home, the Nottingham Traditional Music Club provided a wonderful first exposure to ‘real’ folk music, performed by local singers and guests who provided an inspiring introduction to English traditional music.

My time at Keele University, in the mid 1970s, was a fertile period in the development of my interest in various kinds of traditional music. Greatly impressed by Alistair Anderson, and prompted by the urgent need for a musician for a rapper sword dance side, I took up the English Concertina. The concertina also proved useful for playing music for the University folk dance club and for local barn dances. I had been playing the five string banjo for some years before and found this more suitable for accompanying my singing at local folk clubs. The active folk club scene in the Potteries over this period provided opportunities to see many of the leading performers of the folk world in action.

At Aberystwyth I found myself immersed in an active, but rather different kind of folk music, primarily playing Welsh and Irish instrumental music. I was also regularly performing at the local folk club and playing in various bands playing different kinds of traditional dance music. In one line up or other, I reckon that I must have played for barn dances in most of the village halls in West Wales.

Since moving to Canterbury, my interests have shifted from instrumental music to folk songs, though I still play or call at barn dances occasionaly. I have tended to make more frequent visits to folk clubs, particularly those at Deal, Stanford North and Faversham. Musically, I have focused upon the kinds of songs that are most appreciated by folk club audiences. As much as anywhere, people in East Kent disagree about the meaning of ‘folk music’, but for me it means a song with a cutting edge, a message that persists over time or a tune that stands apart from the popular mainstream. Most important of all is that folk club audiences respond warmly to the individuality of a performer. There never seems to be any pressure to attempt to reproduce a ‘cover version’ of a folk or popular hit. It is good to report that home-made music making of this kind is alive and well in my area and I have always felt privileged to be a part of its earthy creativity.

Performing for folk club audiences has caused me to think hard about both the presentation and content of the material that I play. The songs that I feel most musically comfortable with are drawn from American and English traditional material, along with some self penned pieces that are written in a folk style. In presenting these songs, I have made a conscious effort to avoid sounding like an American hillbilly or an octogenarian English rural singer, though recognising that these characters have inspired me greatly. As well as trying to sing naturally, I have progressively changed the way that I accompanied my singing. The banjo accompaniments have developed from American frailing styles into a peculiarly English kind of knock-down playing, which retains the drumming on the vellum but allows a slower tempo that seems to fit better with many of the ballads that I like to play. The concertina accompaniments have also changed into a more chordal style than I had previously used in the single-note playing of instrumental music. Hopefully, the end-product is a way of accommodating influences drawn from across the anglo-american folk traditions which draws out the best elements of these. The culmination of all these developments came with the possibility of making a recording combining my playing of banjo and concertina.

The Words that I Forgot is my first CD released on Lopsided Records at the end of 2007. The CD is a product of material regularly performed at the folk clubs of East Kent over recent years. Production of the CD has been supported and guided by many good friends who have given me the benefit of their first-hand experience as to how to undertake the project. Particularly helpful in this respect were Trevor Stephenson and Nina Taylor, Adrian and Sue Sullivan, and Ken Latham who gave useful advice and steered me around the many pitfalls involved. Trevor had an invaluable practical input in sound engineering and sleeve design, and Pete Brown of Annexe studios produced the final mix and recorded additional material. All these people, and particularly my partner Carol Sturgeon, helped shape the final outcome and I am tremendously grateful to them all.

For those that are interested in these things . . . The five string banjo that I play on the CD is a Clifford Essex Paragon banjo made in about 1920. I play this in a ‘knock down’ style (hitting the strings downwards, rather than plucking upwards as in bluegrass playing). For most of the tracks the banjo is tuned to variants of a gCGCE tuning (an ‘open C tuning’) which becomes gDGCE (for songs in the key of G) or aDGCE (for songs in D), but special tunings are used for some pieces such as aCGCC for The Cider Song, fCFCF for the Banks of the Sweet Primroses and gCGCF for Nottamun Town. The concertina used in the recordings is a 56 key metal-ended Aeola English Concertina made by Wheatstone in about 1935. The tenor-treble concertina has a range of notes extending a fifth below the standard 48 key treble instrument and these lower notes are used in a chordal style of accompaniment. The banjo has its own rhythm unit, generated by hitting the vellum or drum head with a brush stroke. On some tracks, this percussion is supplemented by use of a ‘stepping board’. Constructed out of strong marine plywood, this doubles up as a banjo case, mobile stage and amplifier of my ‘footwork’ through the bouncier pieces.

Bill Howarth can be contacted at Bill@whowarth.fsnet.co.uk.