Stockport Accordion Club Page 3 - Newsletter, CDs, Sheet music, Books

New CD - Legacy by  Eamonn O’Neal

In 1979 Eamonn made an LP Give Us A Step at the famous Strawberry Studios in Stockport. It has taken a mere 44 years for him to record another album, but the wait has been worth it, evidenced by the excellent CD Legacy (Wagon Records 101) on which he plays the piano with some accordion added in here and there. This is music typically used for Irish step dancing, played in a danceable tempo, and makes irresistible listening. Some of the tunes are composed by Eamonn, most of the others are traditional. There are also supporting contributions on the recording from Angela Usher MBE – banjo, Seamus O’Sullivan - piano, Mike McGoldrick – flute, Dezi Donnelly – fiddle, Tim Edey – guitar, Michael Coult – flute, Bernie O’Neal – dance steps and guitar, Clara O’Neal – saxophone, and Dave King - violin.

Irish step dancing – featured in competitions known as feisanna - is a sub-genre of Irish traditional music, and this sparkling new recording presents typical jigs, reels, hornpipes, slip jigs and set dance tunes. If I close my eyes listening to this fabulous CD I can visualise Irish dancers moving magically across a stage, and floating on a virtual cushion of air. Eamonn has a light yet resonant touch on the piano, and the tunes are performed neatly and with just the right amount of ornamentation that gives this music its life and unique character.

Tracks: Off To Vancouver/The Big House/That’s a Wrap; Sheila’s Reel/Sheehan’s Reel/Lovely Ella Rose; The Showman’s Fancy/Dunphy’s/The Galway Hornpipe; The Three Sea Captains//Planxty Drury; Kitty’s Twelve Roses/Delaney’s Gate/O’Shaughnessy’s; The Legacy; Kilkenny Races; Barney Brallaghan/The Boys of Ballysadare/Another Jig Will Do; Harry Finn’s Favourite/Eamonn O’Neal’s Hornpipe; First Night In America/Rambling Pitchfork/The Tongs By The Fire; The Craic in Killarney/Swinging On A Gate/Fr Kelly’s Reel; Peppermint Grove Sunset; Job of Journeywork; The Traveller/Olly’s One/Miss Thornton’s

Legacy is available on CD, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. For a copy of Legacy, contact Eamonn O’Neal – email eamonn.oneal@gmail.com. The CD costs £7.99, and the downloads are free

How we came to play the accordion…

Dorothy Brincat writes ..... How I came to play the accordion is a twisted story.

            My grandfather was a concert pianist and a Professor of Music; my mother a pianist and teacher of the piano; my dearest Auntie Hilda played for the silent films and I rejected them all. My mother tried to teach me and I hated every moment of it and I wouldn’t even join the school recorder group. Practice, that was a forbidden word as far as I was concerned as all I wanted to do was act, dance and read books. Force fed I never forgot the musical notation and the fact that at grammar school they persisted in teaching us the theory of music.

            Fast forward 30 years.  Maurice and I were camping on holiday in Ireland with the girls Cassie and Lara. Lara was about 8 and it was her birthday. Now there isn’t much to do in rural Ireland apart from climb the hills and look for dolmen or other ancient remains so we were very pleased to spend the day at the Wicklow carnival, a tiny fair and a parade with ice-cream and a walk round the bookshop. In the Parade was a children’s band from Ballymun just outside Dublin. Now, we know Ballymun as we used to stay there so we watched to cheer on the marching accordion band, all in perfect time with their small accordions. There was also a band from the North, quite an achievement in those days before the Good Friday agreement.  Then I knew that was the birthday present for Lara and what is more she thought the idea fabulous.

            Fast forward, return home, accordion bought from Rochdale and both Cassie and Lara enrolled in the Tameside Junior Accordion Band. They were soon learning fast. I think Cassie just went along for the ride although she enjoyed it but Lara became an expert player and British Champion at 17. At this point I knew I had to learn, and quickly, in order to keep up, at least one step ahead of Norbert. Lara taught me how to hold it and what to do. Maurice bought me a brand new Hohner accordion from Hobgoblin in Manchester and I was off.

            For some time Lara ran the Tameside Junior Accordion Band but then came the infamous Battle of the Bands, immortalised by the artist Tony Hubbard, a split, and the Rainbow North West Accordion Band was born. We were a mixture of adults and children with Norbert and I both playing. Lara left to have a baby and that was it.  I found that I was running an accordion band, playing and conducting, taking us all over the country to competitions, relying on my granddaughter Kesia to play the bass. Maurice quickly learned how to repair accordions and amps and all the other paraphernalia. Kesia also became a national champion and with a group we reached the top spot but that is another story.

            Finally I joined the Stockport Accordion Band.

            So I could play, I could learn and I could practise after all.

Rob Howard reflects…

            At a gig last year somebody asked me “Have you being playing the accordion all your life?” to which I replied “Not yet!” I began attempting to play the accordion way back in 1968, and after initially struggling to teach myself had lessons at the Manchester School of Music in the 1970s, first with Kevin Munster and later with Ken Farran. I’ve owned several accordions, the first one being a creaky old 1930s Hohner Tango 1V and the current one being a musette tuned Cooperativa. Along the way I’ve dabbled with the Roland FR7 and FR8X, but never really took to them.

            I have done a lot of gigging since the late 1970s, and have variously played for English, Scottish, Irish and Polish dancing. There have been many French themed gigs, war songs in the Stockport Air Raid Shelters (with John Jones), and stints with The Over 80s Nudist Leapfrog Troupe and the Baron Wolfgang Bavarian Band. That’s not all as I’ve also played in accordion orchestras and in numerous stage shows such as ’Allo ’Allo, Piaf, Dad’s Army, Oliver!, Joseph, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. It’s all been a lot of fun, interrupted for the time being by the dreaded virus.

Diana Ainscough explains…

            I used to go swimming with Marguerite Hill. She and her husband Tony played accordion, fiddle and pipes for Manchester Morris. They used to come to our house regularly and we went to theirs and we had jam sessions with Tony A on fiddle and Marguerite on fiddle or pipes, Tony H on accordion and me on the piano.

            I was quite interested in the accordion so Tony H lent me a small one for 6 months. I ended up buying a 48 bass and having a go. Another friend told me that his friend's wife (keep up - it’s getting complicated) played an accordion in a band. He got me a telephone number - I rang it and it was Betty! The rest is history - lessons with Peter and joining Stockport Accordion Club.

How I took up the accordion, by Brennan Wilson

            At school, we had to choose between art and music. I loved art and I found the way we were taught music rather humdrum, so I gave up music classes when I was thirteen. When I left school they told me that I wasn’t musical and I ought to leave the playing to someone else.

            I believed it for nearly thirty years. Then I thought I might have a go at music again. I decided I might be able to manage one note at a time so I asked Mary to buy me a concertina for Christmas 2003. She went off to see Ken of the wild hair at Johnny Roadhouse Music on Oxford Road (remember him?), and came back with a cheap Chinese 48-bass accordion. I opened the box and thought, what a funny-looking concertina.

            I can’t remember how I found Peter Whiteley, but one day there he was, standing on my doorstep like a visiting doctor, donning his reading glasses on my sofa and tapping the end of his pencil on the lid of his attaché case. He terrified me. He was, you will remember, a stickler for accuracy – for Peter, ‘busking’ was a swear-word. (So was ‘jazz’.) If I got one note wrong I was scolded and sent off to practise for another week. But I am grateful for the basic skills he taught me. How many of you can play a scale on the left hand?

            He introduced me to Stockport Accordion Club about a year later, and I arrived at the old Boy Scout hut (St John Ambulance Brigade HQ, Cheadle Heath) feeling like a fish out of water. I said I couldn’t play well enough to go on the Christmas gig. Adrienne gave me a quizzical look: “So what? You can eat mince pies, can’t you?”

            So I’ve spent freezing November weeks at festivals on the Norfolk coast and laughed at Peter’s endless anecdotes. It was Peter who recommended a year’s part-time study with the Open University, and it was an eye-opener. The highlight was a week’s summer school at the University of Durham: among other things, that was the first time I ever enjoyed being in a choir. I’ve used those skills time and time again, writing choir and accordion music, conducting, and above all just understanding music more than I had ever hoped I could.

            I amaze people by saying I went on a tour of accordion factories, but in fact the trip to Castelfidardo in 2016 was a hoot. When they gave a demonstration at the Beltuna factory I was blown away. On the last afternoon I took a new friend for moral support in a taxi back to the factory and ordered an accordion – hand-made and bespoke. You don’t want to know how much it cost. It arrived six months later, and it is divine.

            Winning a prize for guessing the judges’ choice in a composing competition at Seacroft; trying to keep Leo in time as we played duets at our local community café; conducting Ged in a helmet and cape to the Policemen’s Song from Pirates of Penzance… where do I stop? The best thing about music is that it makes you laugh. I know I’ll never read or play music very fast or treat it as seriously as some do, but who cares? I’ve made firm friends and had so much fun. So thank you all, thank you very much.

Adrienne Sharpe looks back…

            I was very young when I first heard an accordion being played by a street musician outside our local railway station - New Malden. My mum had to drag me away.

            Then my uncle came back from Burma after the war, bringing his accordion with him - I have no idea where he got it from - did he take it with him or find it there? He apparently entertained fellow soldiers with it. As was the custom at that time, we went to 'tea with grandma' every Sunday and I would beg my uncle to play, which he always did, mainly old wartime songs. He would let me have a go too, and he would stand behind me holding the straps tightly and presumably taking most of the weight of this massive unwieldy machine. I was about 7 years old and I was 'hooked'. He left it to me when I was about 20 but by then I had bought (on Hire Purchase) my own 48 bass Hohner from Bell Accordions in Surbiton - giving my dad as guarantor as I was still at school! They didn't question it, but my dad did! He insisted I play it every day to prove how much I needed it and I did. I formed a duo with a lad who played Guitar and we had many bookings for Masonic nights - get this, we used to sing too!!! Happy days!

            When I got married the inevitable happened, the children came along and the accordion was consigned to the loft. Strangely, as if it was meant to happen, as my daughter left home (the last one to go), my husband saw the advert for the Clifford Wood Accordion Orchestra and practically had to force me to go!! The rest is history! 

Helen Rich’s new Serenellini accordion

Rob’s Writings

        As many of you reading this will know, apart from writing these bi-monthly newsletters, over the years I have also written and self-published several books. These include An A to Z of the Accordion (volumes 1, 2, 3 & 4), Len Johnson and The Colour Bar (the life and times of Len Johnson, Britain’s best middleweight of the 1920s/1930s, whose career was adversely affected by an official boxing ‘colour bar’), Stockport Accordion Club through the years (tracing the club’s history from 1937 to the present time), Vintage Accordions (an illustrated history of the accordion), Accordion: A Pictorial History (the sequel to Vintage Accordions), Accordion Anthology, and Accordion Anthology 2. Each has been a labour of love, and none written for profit, only to cover costs. I have thoroughly enjoyed researching, writing and producing these books, and the huge amount of positive feedback I’ve had over time has been most gratifying. I have been pleasantly surprised at the overseas sales of these books as they are mainly about the accordion in the UK and Ireland, and they have to date been sold in 52 countries. The best seller is still the first An A to Z of the Accordion, which was published in late November 2003.
       Len Johnson and The Colour Bar, Vintage Accordions and Accordion: A Pictorial History are all out of print, but are available on request - free of charge - as printable pdfs, just contact me. The four An A to Z of the Accordion books and Stockport Accordion Club through the years are still in stock, but numbers are low and reprints are unlikely.
       Accordion Anthology and Accordion Anthology 2 are my most recent efforts. Each contains a mixture of accordion related articles, biographies, and autobiographical contributions from well-known names in the accordion scenes in the UK and Ireland. With declining sales, they are likely to be my finale. I’m proud of my contribution to the world of the accordion, and the many friends I’ve made through producing these books.
        As for the newsletters, I have been writing these since 1988 and all those written since 2013 are stored as pdfs on my computer, and any of these can be sent on request.

Accordion Anthology

         Accordion Anthology (2016) presents lots of accordion related articles and biographies. The articles include: Getting to Know the Accordion; Making a start; Useful Contacts; Accordion Tips and Hints (Steve Roxton); Be a Better Player (Rosemary Wright); Use of the Couplers (James Sexton); Playing For Others (Rosemary Wright); The Ken Hopkins Accordion Collection; Manfrini Accordions; Evolution of the Accordion; Melodica, Accordina, Steirische Harmonica; Accordion Concerto; The Accordion and Popular Music; Accordion Festivals; Accordion Dynasties; Northern Ireland Open Championships; Zuckerbrod & Peytsche; Tales & Trivia; Polka and the Accordion; CD/DVD/Book Reviews; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Biographical articles include: Amanda Robinson, André Verchuren, Brandon McPhee, David Vernon, Dawn Loombe, Dermot Lyons, Eddie Hession, Freeland Barbour, Gary Forrest, Bartosz Glowacki, Matthew MacLennan, Gervasio Marcosignori, Gordon Pattullo, Helen Maher, Helen Rich, Jack Emblow, Jackie Hearst, Joe Cooley, John Jones MBE, John Leslie, Ksenija Sidorova, Classic Kyiv Duo, Kosmos, Igor Outkine, Leonard Brown, Malachy Cairns, Michael Coyne, Martynas Levickis, V. Marceau, Paul Chamberlain, Pearl Fawcett-Adriano, Rob Howard’s ‘French Connection’, Stewart Walker, and Will Hannah.

Accordion Anthology 2

       Accordion Anthology 2 (2019) - the sequel – is yet another book intended for accordion enthusiasts. Articles include Accordion Family Members; Accordions in the eras of Music Hall and Variety; Looking After Your Accordion; Castelfidardo; Diatonic Accordion Musings; The No 1 Ladies
Accordion Orchestra; The Serious Performer (Douglas Ward); Learning the accordion – a work in progress; Using the Accordion for Vocal Accompaniment (Jack Emblow); Tales & Trivia; The London
Accordion Orchestra; Accordion Clubs; Accordion Festivals; Midland Accordion Festival (Barry Smith); Scotland’s Accordion Heritage; Ireland’s Accordion Heritage; Overseas accordionists who have performed in the UK; 1829…and more milestones in the accordion’s history. The biographies (many are autobiographical) include Gina Brannelli, Julie Best, Jean Corrighan, Gary Blair, Mario Conway, Dave Cormack, Jean Hanger, Harry Hussey, Yvette Horner, Roy Hendrie, Jonny Kerry, Owen Murray, Bert Santilly, Sharon Shannon, Gordon Shand, George Syrett, Karen Street, Karen Tweed, Nigel Pasby, Dermot O’Brien, Seamus O’Sullivan, Douglas Ward, Charlie Watkins, and Robert Whitehead.
Both books are A4 sized high quality hardbacks, and each has well over 300 colour photographs. Each book costs £15 + p/p, from me. Payment by cheque, postal order, Paypal or bank transfer to Rob Howard. For further info give me a call on (0161) 480 8858 or email me for full details at robaccord5@hotmail.com.

CD - David Vernon ‘On the Level’

        I have some copies of David Vernon’s excellent new CD On the Level for sale. Those
of you who have seen David play at our club or at festivals will know what a superb accordionist and entertainer he is. On this CD there are five of his compositions, and a range of moods and styles that make great listening. The tracks include: Terminal 3, Waltz for Irene, The Ornithologist, The Braid View, Gay Gordons, The Roulette Wheel, 6/8 Pipe Marches, Frolickin’ Phil, Jimmy and Mickie, The High Level Hornpipe, The Grace Renwick Polka, Polish Medley, La Valse Vernon, O’Kane’s March, Samba Samsara. The CD costs £10.

Stockport Accordion Club through the years is a high quality souvenir hardback book that tells
our club’s story, from 1937 right up to the present time. Included are numerous interesting contributions from some of our present and past members plus there are tribute articles to the club’s past and present ‘top brass’ Pearl Fawcett-Adriano, Johnny Coleclough, Brian Jenkins, Peter Whiteley, Derek Stubbs, John Nixon and Walter Perrie. There are 200+ photos, including band line-up photos from the 1950s to 2017. It costs £15 + p/p from Rob Howard, 0161 480 8858.

Phillip Watson has had his first novel - The Kirkbridge Legacy - published.
This work of fiction is a tale of intrigue and mystery in the world of motor cycle racing, and incorporates motor bikes, accordions and organs – three of Phil’s hobbies – in its story, which makes a good read. The book is available from Phil at 15 Hedge Lane, Darton, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S75 5PJ for £13.50 + p/p; there is also a hardback edition for £25 +p/p