Vote Now - Or I'll Kum Round And Sing Yer Winders In!
When The Hat was a
small boy – yes, I know that is a difficult concept for you my
friends, but bear with me, think Precocious, a Bad Haircut and
Grandma's hand-knitted pullover – he used to sing, in exchange for a silver
coin, all eight verses of 'The Runaway Train'. Later this changed to
'Last Train to San Fernando' with its great chorus of bee-dee
bee-dee bom bom which changed, inevitably, to a shouty dodgy biggy biggy bum bum.
Then Girls appeared and The Hat very quickly dumped Shouty and
exchanged it for Cminor, Dminor and Eminor, Subtle, Sensitive and Shades. I am not
telling you this because it is my infallible secret formula for a
successful life of adoring bliss, but simply because it is something every
musician learns very early in his career....Everything does not have
to be at Eleven on the dial.
The Hebden Bridge Blues
Festival this year, as is right and proper, had many shouty, whoop-whoop
moments. Punching the air, embracing that well upholstered bloke next
to you and braying joyfully at the top of your voice are
pre-requisites at any blues festival worth its salt....and the
Hebfest had them in truck-loads. Northsyde, The Detroit Breakdown and
John Crampton seriously rattled the rafters; Aynsley Lister had wild
deadly guitar duels with the two roaring Jules, Carter and Fothergill and
peppered the plaster; The Mentulls blew the mains with their mighty power surge and Simon Peat's
saxophone shattered the silence as it chased young Alex McKown's
riffs around the room. And then, of course, Paddy Maguire's Midnight
Wrecking Ball took out anything still standing. Oh Yeah Baby, Oh
Yeah! Hit me with those Rhythm Sticks! Hit Me, Hit Me, Hit Me!
But Wait. At the same
time as the Richter Scale was rocking, you could find quiet – even
intense, silence – in many other corners of the weekend. As a young
feller, years ago listening to the Mercury (MG 20662 on Youtube) recording of Errol Garner playing 'Misty' - where he actually stops playing to leave space - it was a
simple matter for The Hat to get an appreciation of the skill of breathing space and timed
silence. I have often talked before of the continuing respect for the
power of those musicians who have that gift of Absolute Subtlety
leaving gentle spaces and silences in a number that effortlessly
draws you in almost as if they are doing nothing. Once again, those
experiences were everywhere in Hebden - and not just those soulful, soaring electric guitar solos. Lucy Zirins sang songs that,
oh so quietly and stealthily, shredded your heart, Wooden Horse
stilled a packed room with sweet harmonies and subtle soft slide and there
were times when Kyla Brox was giving her powerful Master Class in the
Baptist Chapel that, so fragile was the air in the room, even a delighted sigh might have seemed out of
place. Wait till the last note dies away and then whoop-whoop...
So there you have it.
A rainbow of every hue arching right across Hebden in front of us. We have to thank the Blues for providing us with this broad church
full of every genre, style and feeling of music, dishing out Darkness
here and Delight there, so that we can Shed a Tear, Hug Our
Neighbour and Dance a Daft Dance. But, let me remind you, we
must thank The Festival for somehow rounding up and herding all these musicians into
one place over one weekend....
Last year the Hebden
Bridge Blue Festival won the British Blues Award for the Best UK
Blues Festival. This year's Festival was even better, so much so that
it is rumoured that The Hat momentarily broke cover and burst into
print to tell the world on the Festival's own Facebook page. If you
were there in Hebden, you will know how good it was. If you weren't
you will have read the reviews, watched the videos and maybe bought
the CDs. Now there is one more thing You Have To Do. The voting for
the Blues Awards is taking place now. The Hebden Festival is once
again nominated as Best UK Festival. You can vote here...pop this in your browser... http://britishbluesawards.com/
One final word. If you don't vote do
consider the possibility of The Hat coming round to your house with a megaphone and
singing all eight verses of The Runaway Train. Trust me, there will be
no Subtle Silences.....
Pip Pip Voters!
The Man in The Hat