Frequently Asked Questions:

This is a recently added page to  the website, to give people the opportunity to ask Jez, or Kate, Andy and David, any questions (within reason) about the songs, music, instruments, gigs, past, present and future. Contact us at jez@jezlowe.com with all your queries, and we will update this page on a regular basis.

These questions were sent in between October 2009 and February 2010. The questions came from Susan Jarrett, Peter Rowtledge, Mason Russer, Lucy Parrott , David Dixon, Maureen and Gordon Leadbitter, Neil Martin, Dennis Carter and Rob Darby.

WE SAW YOU DOING THE WINTER ALMANAC SHOW IN HALIFAX AND REALLY ENJOYED IT. WILL IT BE COMING OUT AS AN ALBUM, AND WILL YOU BE DOING ANOTHER TOUR?

We are doing the tour again in December 2010. It will be a similar show, based on the same theme, but with new songs and bits too. Same cast, The Bad Pennies, with Benny Graham and Andrew Cadie, all being well. Also some of the same venues as last time, but some new ones too. As for it coming out as an album, I’m not sure. Hopefully, as most of the songs are new, they will be put on a CD at some point, but we’re not sure, when or how to do it.

WHAT WAS THE SOURCE OF THE TRADITIONAL SONGS IN THE WINTER ALMANAC, THE PIPER’S SONG AND THE LULLABYE?

The lullaby was a song that Benny brought in at the very start of rehearsals. He has an enormous repertoire of unusual local songs from Tyneside and Durham. He’s a real treasure trove of great stuff. The LOST PIPER was a song that I found a few years ago, in a book called “Rhymes of the Northern Bards”, and which I restructured and put a new melody to. I’d been looking for a chance to use it and it seemed to fit in well in the show.

WHEN WILL YOU BE RELEASING YOUR SONG “CHAMPION LIFE” THAT YOU PLAYED AT THE WINTER CONCERT? IT’S HILARIOUS!

Thank you. No plans to release it to be honest. The funny songs are the hardest to get right on a record, and of course, once they’re recorded, that’s the end of the joke, so I’m not sure what to do with that one. It also depends on how the football season ends of course.

YOU MENTIONED IN THE WINTER ALMANAC SHOW THAT ANDY MAY WAS USING ONE OF BILLY PIGG’S OLD SETS OF PIPES. WAS THAT TRUE AND DOES HE ALWAYS USE THEM?

It’s not a whole set of pipes, it’s only the chanter that once belonged to Billy Pigg, the famous Northumbrian piper. Andy only used it on one song in the show, because it’s not in concert-pitch, just like most of the old sets of pipes. He used it in the pipes duet with Andrew Cadie. He also used it on the track we did for Steve Tilston’s box set of CDs a few years ago. Usually he uses a set of pipes that he made himself.

I WAS AT A SONGWRITING WORKSHOP YOU DID MANY YEARS AGO AT BEVERLEY FOLK FESTIVAL, AND YOU SAID YOU’D SPENT TWO YEARS WRITING A SONG AND WHEN YOU FINISHED IT, YOU DECIDED IT WAS NO GOOD. YOU PLAYED THE SONG AND WE ALL LOVED IT. CAN YOU REMEMBER WHAT SONG IT WAS AND IF YOU EVER RELEASED IT? IT MENTIONED A ROPE TURNING ITSELF INTO A NOOSE.

Yes, it was called “Sons of the Century” and it was on a CD called “Tenterhooks”. I’m still not sure about the song, but we were very pleased with the arrangement, which all of the band worked very hard on. It was a real high point of the old band working together and just totally hitting the spot. I think we got a four-star review in Q magazine because of that one! The lyrics of the song still bother me though. They were trying to reach too far. That is, I was trying to reach too far!

WHEN WILL YOUR OLD ALBUMS BE RE-RELEASED. OUR LP VERSIONS OF OLD DURHAM ROAD AND BAD PENNY ARE WORN OUT!

All the old LPs, including those two, were brought out on CD in the 1990’s by Fellside Records, but they’re not available now. We were talking about re-releasing them all, just last year, but I’m not sure there’s such a great demand for them, so we decided against it in the end. We did compile a single CD “Best of” sort of thing as well, and we’d even got as far as doing a cover and sleeve notes for that, but as we’d only just brought out the NORTHERN ECHOES live album of old songs, we’ve decided to hang fire with that as well. It actually came together quite well as an album, so we might get around to it, but there are always issues with financing and licensing and distributing a re-release, so I’m not sure what will happen in the end.

WHY HAVE YOU BECOME INVOLVED IN SO MANY SONGWRITING PROJECTS, LIKE THE DARWIN PROJECT AND THE RADIO BALLADS? DO YOU ENJOY THEM?

I just get invited to do them. They sort of lead into one another. If they’re successful, and capture a certain thing that the project-leaders are after, then there’s a chance that I get invited to the next one. I do enjoy them. I like the collaboration element, learning things from the way other writers work and tackling different subjects outside my usual range.

HOW MANY SONGS HAVE YOU WRITTEN AND HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHICH ONES TO PERFORM AT YOUR CONCERTS?

I’ve no idea how many songs I’ve written. A canny few, as we say up here! I’m not sure how I choose which ones to play at gigs either. I tend to play through lots of the songs, old ones and recent ones, regularly, and if they feel right as I do them, then I’ll try them out at gigs. It’s a bit different with The Bad Pennies, because it takes more rehearsal, but essentially it’s the same.

WHY DO YOU USE THE HARMONICA? IS IT A BOB DYLAN COMPLEX?

Yes, of course, though I’m not sure what exactly a Bob Dylan complex is. All my favourite bands use harmonica, John Mayall, The Beatles, Planxty, and it was the first instrument I learned to play! I started using it when I first was doing the folk clubs, just to add a different sound to the songs. A different colour if you like. I don’t use it so much these days.

I HAVE A RECORD OF A RADIO CONCERT YOU DID IN GERMANY IN THE 1990 AS STARTING FOR DONOVAN AND SPENCER DAVIS AT THE TOWN HALL IN KOLN. DO YOU INTEND TO BE RETURNING TO GERMANY SOON?

Yes I hope to be touring back in Germany in 2011. I remember doing a radio concert in Koln, but I recall it with Bleizi Ru, the Breton band. I don’t remember Donovan being there. We also did a concert somewhere else with Spencer Davis, but I can’t remember him being at that radio show.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING MANDOLIN AND DO YOU HAVE IT IN A SPECIAL TUNING? WHAT MAKE IS THE MANDOLIN YOU USE?

I’ve been playing mandolin for years, but I only started using it at gigs in the last ten years or so, again just to add another colour to the sound of the gig. I used to use lap-dulcimer, but it was hard to amplify it, so I changed to mandolin. I change the tuning of it a little bit, depending on what song and what key I’m in. It’s usually just tuned to an open chord. I’ve got a few mandolins, but the one I use at gigs was made for me by Chris Woodward who lives near Perth in Australia.

MY FRIEND SAYS YOU STARTED OUT IN A GROUP CALLED DAB HAND. CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT DAB HAND.

I didn’t really start with Dab Hand, we were all already making records and playing around the place when we started that group. As i think I’ve said before here, it was Tom McConville, Tom Napper and me, and it started in 1983. I was only part of it for a few months, because I wanted to do more of my own stuff, but the band went on, with Gordon Tyrell replacing me. They made a great album, but I wasn’t involved in it. Tom Napper told me just recently that he has a very good recording of a concert we did somewhere. It would be nice to hear it again.

WILL YOU BE PLAYING CONCERTS WITH THE PEOPLE YOU WORKED WITH ON THE “ROMAN WALL” PROJECT?

The project is called “All Along the Wall”, and we’ll be performing it at Brampton Live Festival in June, and then we hope to do some concerts later in the year. It’s obviously very tricky trying to get all the people who are involved in it back together as we’re all busy with other things and live so far apart. It’s also coming out as a CD, from the concert we did in Cumbria at the end of the week of writing.

CAN YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE “ALL ALONG THE WALL” SHOW? DID YOU ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS THE DARWIN PROJECT?

I enjoyed them both very much, but they were quite different. The Wall project has a lot more humour, thanks to the poets, Kate and Elvis, who were involved. The overall result is much less “folky” than the Darwin show, because all the writers are much more “contemporary” in their approach. I’m probably the most folk-orientated amongst them, apart from Ruth Notman, who sings a lot of traditional songs and has more of that style. But Julie, Boo and Rory are less deeply grounded in traditional British music, I would say. But it all fitted together really well. Julie has been one of my favourite writers for many years, and I think she’s much better than most of the female singer-songwriters on the scene today actually. And I get to write a song with her! And Boo is great and Rory is unique. There’s a My Space website you can look at, under the “Brampton Live” name I think.

WHO ARE THE “BIG BAD PENNIES”, AS ADVERTISED AS BEING ON AT UK FESTIVALS THIS SUMMER?

We’ll be augmenting the group with some extra members in September. The line-up will be announced nearer the time. It’s something we do occasionally, because it means we can try out some different songs, with bigger arrangements. We tried it in rehearsal a while ago and it was very exciting!

WHERE CAN I BUY BOOKS BY JACK COMMON?

There are two novels, “Kidder’s Luck” and “The Ampersand”, but I think only the first of those is currently in print. It’s been published by various companies over the years. Newcastle University Press springs to mind. I don’t have my copy to hand, so I’m not sure. Keith Armstrong just published a biography of Jack Common too, which is readily available.

WHY DO YOU SING SONGS ABOUT THE GLORIES OF COAL MINING, WHEN COAL HAD SUCH A BAD EFFECT ECOLOGICALLY, AND ON THE HEALTH OF EVERYONE INVOLVED?

I’m trying hard to think of a song which glorifies coal-mining! I think I mainly write about the people and the communities who were involved in coal mining, and the effect it had on them when mining was still a going concern, and the subsequent effect of the closing down of the industry. I don’t think I’ve written a “bring back coal mining” song either. It’s a very emotive subject, and a very difficult subject, and I hope nothing I’ve written ever tries to portray things in terms of black and white. And I would deny a nostalgic attitude as well. It’s more of a chronicle of past times that I would be after, and always in the context of what’s going on today. The closing of the coal mines has given us some clean air, yet has left generations of people sitting around with no hope, no future, no dignity. That’s what it’s like where I come from and it’s the same all over the world, is it not? But I don’t know what the answer is, so please don’t shoot me down, I’m just another messenger. And just today I was reading how Mr Obama is trying to convince us that nuclear power is the best and safest option to provide us with energy. It doesn’t seem five minutes ago that we were fighting that battle!

THERE WERE SOME CRITICAL THINGS ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THE RADIO BALLAD’S MINER’S STRIKE PROGRAMME (WHICH HAD NOT BEEN BROADCAST AT THE TIME OF RECEIVING THIS QUESTION), SUGGESTING THAT YOU AND THE OTHER WRITERS WERE TOO INVOLVED TO GIVE A BALANCED VIEW, AND THAT THE SONGS WOULD SUFFER BECAUSE OF THAT. HOW DO YOU REACT TO THAT?

I did see something about that, saying there were other writers who would do a better job! That cheered me up, as you can imagine, firstly because no-one has even heard the programme yet, so that’s a rather ridiculous thing to say at this point. Also, it shows a complete lack of understanding of the process of the Radio Ballads. The songs are there solely to reflect what is said by the interviewees, and not to put across the opinion of the songwriter or the singer. That’s how a committed anti-hunting person like myself ended up writing songs from the point of view of the hunters and houndsmen in the last series. I also have a song written from the point of view of a non-striking miner and his wife in this new programme. I’d be the first to acknowledge that there are some fine songwriters on the UK folk-scene, but there’s a definite approach to these Radio Ballads programmes that might not suit everyone. More than a few songs of mine were not included last time because I’d stepped out of that approach, and I know that one of the best and most well-known songwriters in the country backed out of the project early on because he realised he couldn’t work within it’s parameters. It’s quite a different process to what all of us would do normally, so don’t judge it all too quickly please.