Back Homepage Site Map Chronicle Front Page Shed Index Interview July 2001 Interview October 2003 david hughes in conversation once more with journalist nick skeens march 2002 _______________________________________________________________________________________________
1. So rumour has it you're doing a Best of David Hughes album. The same rumour says it's called Wasted - 50 Years of David Hughes. Is this true? And what's gonna be on it? Do we get a say? "Wasted - 50 years of David Hughes" was your idea wasn't it? Someone else suggested, "Now That's What I Call David Hughes". The rumour is true. The 'best of' David Hughes is out on June 6, D-Day. It's called Recognised. I thought of 'Addicted To Folk' but you can't use the F word on an album cover so Colin says and he's the executive producer. Colin's now got a secure retail section to the Folkcorp web site (it's called www.folkshop.net) and he wants something new to sell on it. With nothing immediately imminent and a desire to give people the option of a sampler of my last four albums he's decided on the compilation CD. It's an "introduction to…", that's his idea and a jolly good one. 2. Last time we spoke you were beavering away on a brand new album full of brand NEW songs. What happened to that, then? I'd left the autumn free for a concentrated period of song writing, it's the way that I work. Then Karen said she wanted to renovate the whole house before Christmas so the whole thing was out the window. I haven't caught up yet, in fact I'm still decorating. There I was, thinking I'd be writing some great new songs and instead I was stood in a cloud of dust and rubble, knocking down walls, building new door frames and plastering new walls. I need a few weeks concentration and it will be there. When I've got half a dozen under my belt I'll call Tucker. 3. Is it true that it really is So Long, Blue Car? It's history. I don't want to dwell on it. The details are in the "Motoring News" section of my web site. You find it by going to the site map or the "Hughes Chronicle" page. It's the page I save for the more human aspects of being a top acoustic guitarist. It shows my sensitive side, for instance, a picture of me holding the FA Cup. The Austin Metro actually did another twelve months after I wrote "Blue Car". My manager heard the song and promptly arranged for it to be put back on the streets. A year down the road though, the game was up. Could have driven to Rome and back but not according to the MOT. I mean, who really gives a toss about emissions, I don't. Got a little Astra now. It's a funny phrase that, particularly in relation to cars: "I've got a little…" I remember about forty years ago, my father was talking to a smoothy type of chap he knew. Can't remember who he was but he seemed to be a man of the world kind of person. I think he had some exotic job on "the continent" which meant you could wear corduroys and a cravat. In those days working in Europe meant you were very unusual and clever. Anyway, at the end of a long conversation about motoring in Belgium, my father asked him what he was driving and do you know what he said? "I've got a little Alfa." It's strange the things you remember, things that "inform" your writing. You didn't see too many Alfa Romeos at that time they were quite mythical. There you go you see, that immediately makes me think of a close friend of mine, Tony Maude, the poet. Now his father was a Colonel in the army during the 1950's and Tony went with him once to Italy. He tells a lovely story of how his father took him to Monza and how Fangio ruffled his hair. He's bald now, Tony. 4. What's all this about you collaborating with a string quartet this summer for a performance in front of thousands? No, it's all just rumours. I'll be playing solo. It was a good idea in theory but finding the time to rehearse was impossible. Solo's good though. In terms of local gigs Maldon Fantasia is the big one. Thousands of people, the natural amphitheatre around the marine lake, looks great under lights. Although, come to think of it, I'll be playing early evening in the daylight. The Fantasia started in the mid nineties I think. The District Council wanted a big push on the Arts front. So they came up with something like The Three Degrees and Alvin Stardust and bob's your uncle, can't move for coaches. It runs over a weekend. Saturday night is pops night. This year it's the Three Degrees. Sunday night is orchestral, the classical pops. Sunday's a more cultured audience. When you've seen the Hot Chocolate crowd you know what I mean. Anyway, the people who run the quite vibrant Burnham Festival, got together with the District Council to create an opportunity for local artists to perform in front of these thousands of people. The Council want it to happen, the Burnham Festival committee can provide ergo: the top local rhythm 'n' bluesists and whatever young "Smiths" are about open the pop night and the local folk singer does the classical crowd. Tim Aves and everyone at the Burnham Festival have their finger well and truly on the pulse of the local arts scene you see. They've got the email addresses of some top people, like me. Tim emailed me. He said do you want to do the Sunday Fantasia and I said alright. It's going to be quite something. Looking forward to it. It'll all end in fireworks, of course, after 'Land Of Hope and Glory". Do you know, they should have started the Fantasia years ago. I'd have loved to have seen Russ Conway doing Sunday night. "Plinky donk, plinky plink, plinky donky plinky plink….." (Side Saddle). Anyway, June 2, five o'clock. It's the cultural highlight of the Essex calendar. 5. And someone said (I think it was you) that you are producing other musicians. Like, who, and when? Yes, I was asked by some old friends of mine, John Shirbon and Mick Linnard to produce their next self-penned album. It's two guitars and vocals at heart with the old Tucker-Hughes magic on top. John Shirbon showed me a few chords when I was working at the canning factory during the summer of 1970. Mick, of course, I met when I first went to London. We recorded a vinyl album for Transatlantic in 1978 - "Russell Square". 6. So how did the St Agnes Fountain tour go last Christmas, and are you going to do it all again this Christmas. And why didn't the tour come to your home county of Essex, you bastard? The tour was sensational. The atmosphere was electric as David Coleman might say. A total sell-out of the 300 seater kind, it really caught the imagination and it was great to play with Chris Leslie, Chris While and Julie Matthews for a whole tour (18 dates). I think it's become something of an institution, St Agnes Fountain. Certainly we'll be doing the Christmas tour in December. I think we've already got twenty dates booked solid finishing at the Lowry Centre, Manchester on December 20th 2002. People loved the album, including the reviewers. BACK TO TOP		You'll be glad to know that we are doing a local gig this time. Let's face it, Essex is not a hotbed of acoustic guitar. Nobody would book us last year (not with a suitable venue). So we hired the Cramphorn Theatre in Chelmsford, the only self-promoted gig on the tour, but it never got going in terms of sales (I was up a ladder ripping down architraves when I should have been pushing it). I know we'd have filled it by the time the night came round but the others were a little nervous that it might cost us money so, with only a few tickets sold before the tour started I couldn't argue when they said they wanted to pull it. However, this Christmas we intend to make amends. We're playing Maldon Town Hall on December 9th. 7. You did an album for the tour, which sounds extravagant. Who was on it, and where did you record it? St Agnes Fountain, the album, is available still on www.folkshop.net. It was an incredible reaction to what people saw as a completely fresh approach to such seasonal fare. There's me wiggling my thumb on acoustic, Chris Leslie from Fairport Convention playing fiddle and mandolin, and Chris While and Julie Matthews. Keyboards, bodhran and vocals to die for. Chris and Julie were on Woman's Hour last week. Extravagant? Well, if you record an album and you want people to buy it what do you do? The main difference between the live concerts and the album is that the CD has Gerry Conway's drums and percussion all over it. Fantastic. Dave Pegg guests on one track and I think that's it apart from a blistering ballad from Kellie While (E2K) duetting with her mother on "In The Bleak Midwinter". Oh, and Mark Tucker put some keyboards on one track. Tucker makes Prokofiev sound like Enya meets The Verve. We recorded it at Woodworm Studio in Oxfordshire and at "Ibiza", that's Mark Tucker's shed. 8. Go on, tell us a bit about your guitars and the weird tunings you use. Why don't you play a straight EADGBE like any normal soul? The question. Well, straight off, I've got two guitars, a Martin and a John Weir Custom. I've been playing my Martin D-18 since I bought it brand new in 1973 for 180 pounds at Ivor Mairant's in Rathbone Place, W1. I was twenty two years old. Actually, my father bought it for some reason. It's difficult to remember why he bought it but I think it was something to do with him having more money in his account than I had in mine. Anyway, I paid him back but then I needed to borrow some more money that, I believe, I still owed him at his death. I like to think of that money as the original debt, for the guitar. "Don't worry," he said. "Save that and use this." I remember the day very well, it was the beginning of the week. I was busking at Marble Arch and I went down to Ivor Mairant's after my pitch. Ivor was London's jazz guitarist at one time, sold millions of song sheets. In 1973 he was still running the shop. He took me down to the cellar of the shop where all the acoustic guitars hung from the walls and sat there on a stool while I wandered about. And then he got me to play three or four different D-18s. He sat there patiently chatting to me for about an hour. He told me to choose the one I felt best about. And, do you know, apart from that I can't remember a bloody word he said to me. But he was a sympathetic man. You could see the question in his eyes as I was going through my best party pieces that all began in G: "What is this kid getting into?" Well might you have asked, Ivor. God rest your soul. Then, in 1980, at the Star & Garter in Putney, Martin Simpson introduced me to his luthier, John Weir. He had a workshop in Welwyn Garden City or was it the other Garden City place? Hertfordshire anyway. John Weir showed me this guitar, a light touch, maple, cutaway he was building for someone big in Switzerland. A thing of beauty it was. And, even though I had no money and no work, it was worth finding 600 pounds for. Ordered it pretty much on the spot with a few alterations. We went for the bird's-eye maple head and the abalone. I fell in love with it and more or less didn't pick up the Martin for several years until I did a tour with Bert Jansch. I started off, as usual, with the Weir and was going to use the Martin for a song in a different tuning. But as I played the Martin, I felt this tone vibrating my spine. I'd forgotten what a sound it made. I've pretty much played the Martin since then, from Active In The Parish onwards. I use the Weir for different tunings. As for those tunings, well, you'll see if you visit the "Guitar tunings" page on my web site, that about a third of my repertoire is in normal tuning. You will find the "Guitar tunings" link on the "Albums" front page. For instance, This Other Eden, Hold Your Horses Woman, Active In The Parish are all normal tuning. The other half of my songs are written in the modal tuning, DADGAD and a variation on it, CGDGAD. DADGAD I use because it fits my kind of stuff. It's a tuning you can hear as a Celtic drone, something Latin or African, anything. You can do ballads or things that swing like a bitch. As far as I know there's two main sources for this tuning, the Irish and Davey Graham. Once Jansch and Renbourn got hold of it that was that. Everyone played DADGAD who was playing acoustic guitar. Duck Baker used it a lot when he was playing O'Carolan harp tunes and though I don't know personally, I'm told Martin Carthy built his career on it. I learnt it to play songs by Roy Harper and Bert Jansch. My songs in DADGAD include the tribute to Bert, Cool BJ, David Hughes' 116th Dream, Being A Poet, Jelly Babe…….. CGDGAD , the variation, was shown me by Dave Evans in the early eighties. I think a few guitarists had picked it up around then, most of them through having come into contact with Pierre Bensusan. I used this tuning on Heart Of Stone, The Human Heart, Dinner Dance, Who's That? - The Summer Of Love. However, that was till now. A friend of mine has just given me a huge list of new tunings. They're all from the Joni Mitchell songbook. 9. Is your thumb really made of rubber? Where DO you get those rhythms from? My entire life is based on the fact that my thumb can go upwards as well as downwards. "Instand groove" Dave Pegg calls it. Genetically, my fingers work best syncopating to it. I've also got a neurosis about playing on the beat. After that it's down to everything in this world that I've ever listened to and that's another story. And playing for a million hours in my bedroom when I was younger helped. Mark Tucker says I should write down my guitar parts because no one else does it like that, it would be interesting to see what it looks like on paper. Lots of dots I expect. 10. How's the giving up smoking campaign going? (The rizlas are over there, under the coffee mat.) Can't believe how good I've been. I realised I was going to kill myself if I didn't stop. These days, walking further than the tobacconist hurts © Nick Skeens and David Hughes. Please email the Folk Corporation for permission to reproduce this article. Back Homepage Site Map Chronicle Front Page.