Welcome to the Dene

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Willie Taylor Welcome To Dhe Dene

Over the last few years I’ve been dematerialising all of my CDs, tapes & LPs and putting them on to a media server. Aside from being a wonderful way of finding things you’d forgotten about, it also means that I can access a lot of old recordings that have never been made available in digital formats.

One of the tapes I’ve been protecting and hence listened to sparingly over the years was ‘Welcome to the Dene’ – a full length recording of legendary Northumbrian fiddler Willie Taylor that is sadly now completely unavailable. Having added it to my library; the biggest challenge was to get the album cover – I’ve managed to find images for all but a handful of my older recordings online – and I did draw a blank with this one. So here’s a decent scan of the front (squared) and a full scan of the insert for anyone else who is looking for it.

Welcome To The Dene – Tape Insert

And here’s the track list:

  • Kenny Gillies of Portnalong (P MacFarquharson) / Kerry’s Welcome to the Dene (W Taylor)
  • Sherlock’s Hornpipe / The Shining Pool (W Taylor) / The Seven Stars (A Harper)
  • Andy Ross Two Step (I Duncan & B Watt)
  • Dance de Chez Nous / Aunt Mary’s Canadian / Neil Taylor’s Jig (W Taylor)
  • Mrs Helen Robertson (A S Robertson) / The Glakey Hornpipe (E Kirkby)
  • John MacDonald’s March (J Shand) / Susan Stewart / Ian McPhail’s Compliments to Chriss Leatham (I McPhail)
  • Partons in his Creels (A Windwick) / Farewell to the Dene (W Taylor) / Turiff Schottische
  • Tich’s Reel / The Pearl Wedding / Nancy Taylor’s Reel (all W Taylor)
  • Hopeman Hornpipe (C Sherrit / The Kirkgate / The Road to Ballysodare
  • Alistair J Sim / Snowy Monday / Christine Taylor (all W Taylor)
  • Westphalia Waltz
  • Drystane Dyker (C Sherrit) / Roland and Cynthia Taylor (B Black) / Cave Hill
  • Lament for Lockerbie (A Fitchet)
  • Burnhervie Picnic (J Morgan) / John Gideon Jamieson (I McPhail) / Willie Taylor’s Fiddle (L Robertson)
  • Patchwork Polka (I Peterson)
  • Reverend Peter Fenton / Jean Kirkpatrick’s Fancy / Kinclavin Brig (all A Rennie)

Autumn – Traditional Music Concerts

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Autumn is traditional music season in Northumberland – there are always a whole slew of events from September through to December. Here’s a selection:

  • September 25th – Songs of Terry Conway @ Queens Hall, Hexham – a quite wonderful selection of artistes have come forward to sing a celebration of one of the best songwriters I have ever known
  • October 9th – Northumbrian Variety Concert @ Elsdon – the incomparable Bob Bolam is compering this village concert with a great local line-up Contact Me for more details
  • December 6th – Jimmy Little (Mouthorgan) is hosting a CD launch concert at the Coquetdale Music Trust in Thropton

 

Dunn/Reid smallpipes: refurbishment part 1

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Here’s a very interesting set of pipes that came to me last year. It’s a hybrid set; a 9 keyed James Reid chanter (~1830’s) coupled with a much earlier set (1780’s) of John Dunn drones that almost certainly started life as part of a simple unkeyed set.

There are some interesting engravings on the drone sliders and also on the original stocks (of which more later). I’ve traced the set back through the 1900’s and back in to the 1800’s; this is the set of pipes illustrated in the painting which is currently on display at the Bagpipe Museum in Morpeth. The set played in the painting includes an early blackwood Reid chanter and Reid bellows. This chanter & drones became separated and formed part of another set in the early 1970’s and the drones were paired at that point with the current chanter. The chanter itself has been heavily played, snapped and long since repaired; unfortunately at some point the silver key pins have been replaced with copper wire which will prove difficult to extract.

I’ve been considering what approach to take to take with them – they’ll never be an everyday instrument but it will be great to bring such a significant set back in to full playing order. I’ll start by fitting everything to a new bag and getting the drones playing with a contemporary chanter – this should be completed shortly. Once this is done I can take a long slow look at the chanter to work out how to effect a repair that will hold the two halves together with minimal interference on the musical qualities.