I’ve finally managed to hear a lot of Peter Bellamy music that I’d been reading about for years, but never saw in any record store. Now I get what the folks at fRoots were on about all these years.
Here’s a mystery, however. He sang and played concertina on stage, and I gather was a fine blues guitar player when off stage. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a whistle on any of his recordings. This record, for instance, credits:
Musicians
Peter Bellamy: vocals, concertina;
Bill Shute: guitar;
Dave Swarbrick: fiddle;
Anthea Bellamy, Lous Killen, Lisa Null, The Watersons, Royston Wood & Heather Wood, vocal harmonies and chorus
He certainly drank pints, and smoked smoke, so the other two props make sense. What’s with the whistle?
A stripped Clarke, from the looks of it. I don’t think they made anything but the old black and diamonds back then (I mean Peter Bellamy’s day, not the period of the painting!).
Don’t know, Simon. My (possibly faulty) recollection of recordings of PB are of him singing or with concertina.
Could the portrait be a parody reference to some other painting?
It actually has the slightly sleeker lines of the other rolled tin whistle you see around, but I’m not sure I’ve ever known what to call them. The same model appears with two or three different stamped cartouche-like marks, right under the second knuckle of his forefinger. I think one I’ve seen was a US eagle or something. Anyway, I don’t remember much about these, but they do look slightly thinner than a clarke. If he was a very accurate draughtsman, that’s what I’d guess he was drawing. If not, well, it’s a Clarke.
The record’s from 79. Dave Shaw’s been making whistles and NSPs for quite a while. I wonder if he goes back as far as the late 70s?
Edited: I fired off an email to the address on his site, asking if that’s one of his. If he’s not overworked and I don’t end up in his spam heap, we might get a reply.
I haven’t heard any of these yet, but I’m eager to.
*Peter Bellamy recorded three LPs of Rudyard Kipling poems set to music; either english folk standards (Kipling’s house in england was in the village of Rottingdean, where generations of the Copper family have been singing their unique book of songs since at least the later 19th century.) His first collection consisted of songs from Puck of Pook’s Hill, and he went on to also record poems from Barrack Room Ballads.
It was Bellamy’s quite plausible theory that certain of Kipling’s metrical verse rollicked so successfully that it might well have been composed (as other poets are known to have done) by being set to some well-known tune.
As a warning, however, be aware that his singing style was brilliant but not unchallenging. Some people get scared right off. Ballamy was trying to reproduce the excitement and energy of the Rolling Stones (seriously!) while singing english traditional song either unaccompanied or with his black, proto-punk concertina. His work is nothing at all like folk-rock, however.
Steve would know; he was right there at the time, or soon after.
I saw the same ad in 92, and sent off for a copy of his catalogue, now that I think about it. It’s probably in the filing cabinet behind me as I type. What a ridiculous thing to have dragged from Montreal to Ontario to Vancouver.
Ah! Maybe I get it. It’s a self-portrait. He’s in that odd over-the-shoulder pose because he’s got an easel or drawing board in front of him, with a mirror set up right where the viewer’s eyes should be. In that case, it’s not really a whistle he’s holding, it’s his paintbrush. Once he got the pose, he had to find an appropriate object of about the same size and shape to substitute for the brush. Thus, a whistle. This might also explain why this whistle looks small - it’s definitely too small for a C, and on the small side even for a whistle in D.
I think that’s deliberate. Joni’s music is what north americans call folk - singer-songwriter fare + accoustic guitar.
Bellamy’s record contains what brits call folk - anonymously-composed songs from an earlier era.
The Both Sides part also refers to the atlantic; on this record Bellamy also sings north American material like shape note songs. Add it all up and the title tells you that this is an album of the music of ‘then’ from either side of the pond.
In any event, it is a very odd and unlikely pose, with the crossed arms. Conjures up a sort of awkward version of a Dutch Old Master type of portrait, with the random objects–clay pipe (I think,) and playing cards in the foreground.
As for the stein, my aunt gave us a set just like that as a 25th anniversary present. I will have to start buying ale. Gets way to hot to drink coffee out of.
The composition is all about shape and space, and the outfit & props have gotta be a conscious pastiche of Dutch baroque paintings.
..with the random objects–clay pipe (I think,) and playing cards in the foreground.
I think those are printed ballad broadsides under the pipestem, which would mean that the objects are all representative. There’s a lot more space on a 12" LP cover than a 3" CD insert.
[click for larger]
As for the stein, my aunt gave us a set just like that as a 25th anniversary present.
One of the affectations of the english folk revival was the use of personal pewter tankards in the pub. In an earlier day, when the local might have had only a few score regular customers, having a tankard and keeping it at the pub made sense*. The barman knew everyone’s by sight, and it was easy to keep track of. The revived fashion has often meant that several thousand hippies would turn up at a festival, all with their own individual tankard to lose, each of which identically proclaimed its owners individuality.
*In fact, it became a standard ‘coming of age’ gift for a young man’s 21st birthday. I have one that has my dad’s initials and the date of his 21st birthday engraved on it.
However, as the laws of curious circumstance go, I just had Neil Wayne (of concertinas) drop in and asked if he knew. He phoned his mate Nigel Schofield who I think did some biog of PB. Nigel says it was a Clarke, and he would have played it with the Young Tradition group when they first set it up [1965-69 ~S] . After going solo he would use it as a pitch pipe for singing when not using the concertina.
Hope that sorts it out for you.
Cheers,
Dave
Dave Shaw, Northumbrian and Scottish Smallpipes, Irish Pipes and SHAW
Whistles http://www.daveshaw.co.uk
I’m bumping this thread because I’ve come across a recording of Peter Bellamy playing The Streets of Derry as an air on whistle. A Clarke in C is my inexpert judgement.
