Patricia Hammond

It’s taken a while but it’s here at last. A journey from London’s West End to Canadian recruiting halls, to the roses of Picardy and the Chimes of Normandy, taking in French Inns with saucy barmaids called Madelon, a New York peace rally, a German destroyer (complete with shanty), a nursing station in No-Man’s-Land, a German trench in Verdun, and the poppy fields of Ypres. We have rarities that haven’t been recorded in a century, and we have the most well-known WW1 songs of them all, dusted up and polished to shine in their original, fresh and energetic glory.

You can purchase a copy HERE.

Okay that’s enough sales pitch. But I really do believe in this CD. It contains violin, clarinet, piano duo, cello, saxophone, xylophone, glockenspiel, trombone, harp, flute, accordion, banjo, Irish bouzouki, mandolin, drums, guest soprano Emily Atkinson (who also plays the xylophone), piccolo, bass saxophone and even some Hawaiian slide guitar in the interlude to “Long Long Trail”. All has been arranged carefully by Mr. Matt Redman (www.matt-redman.co.uk where you can hear the Hawaiian slide guitars for yourself!) so you never hear all of this at once, but selectively according to the mood and background of the piece.

There are two songs in German and one in French, and translations are given in the booklet. You get a lot for your £10!

I am at the moment selling it through BigCartel, which is a more personalised service than Amazon. For now. I may move to a distributor later. It depends on how things go. At the moment I haven’t got any sound samples up, but as I have more time I will do something about this. In the coming weeks I have a lot to do, telling radio, TV and print media about this recording while it’s fresh, and also a mini tour of Ipswich for Music in Hospitals, and then a week in Swaledale for the WW1 show, followed by some community outreach work: the Festival’s “Wandering Minstrels” scheme. Then it’s some horsey ragtime songs for Derby Day with the Saint Cecilia Choir in Epsom. I may have some time after that!

Anyway! Step right up! The CD is available and can be bought! And all credit to Harrison Phair photography, who captured the image that is the cover. For your interest, I’ve attached the original version! A lot of people think that the CD cover is a composite and the crowd is from 1914, but we only made it look that way. The parade was rounding the vintage streetcar singing “Pack up your Troubles”, and I joined them with “Tipperary” at the moment the photo was taken. It was in Fleetwood, on the 11th of November, 2014.

The CD’s track list:

1 If You were the Only Girl in the World
2 Somewhere in France
3 Over There
4 Roses of Picardy
5 Gegen England
6 Stay Down Here where you belong
7 The Rose of No Man’s Land
8 Bald, Allzubalde
9 Kristiania
10 Red is the English Rose
11 I’m Always Chasing Rainbows
12 Chimes of Normandy
13 Quand Madelon
14 You’d Better Be Nice to them Now
15 Pack up your Troubles in your Old Kit Bag
16 Till We Meet Again
17 Long Long Trail

I appreciate ENORMOUSLY that I have subscribers who would like to know my musical updates! Which is why I get so terribly upset when you’re sent gratuitous updates in error. Today it was a very well-meaning and lovely fellow who is helping me with my website. I can sing, I can research songs, I can talk to audiences and even attempt to drown out the sounds of vintage motors on top of a Battle Bus (as you’ve all been shown, by now!) But website codes have me stumped.
So, this fellow has gone and inadvertently sent you all two ‘junk’ emails. For this I apologise profusely. Just thinking about it makes me break out into a cold sweat. I know what a nuisance being on a mailing list can be.

In the meantime, the CD is going to press! This is the cover:

I’ve also started doing Rural Touring, with concerts in Norfolk like the one pictured below, in a wonderfully atmospheric pub:

And closer to London, I and a trio will be doing songs of Sunshine from the 1910s to the 1940s, though the feel will be bouncy 1920s, at the Wellcome Collection’s “On Light” event! It will be tremendous fun. Songs will include Painting the Clouds with Sunshine, The Sunshine of your Smile, Powder Your Face with Sunshine, What’s at the top of a Sunbeam, and even O Sole Mio. It is also FREE!

Details, plus a pic of me in my 20s wig here: http://wellcomecollection.org/events/songs-sunshine

I’ll be on BBC Four TV this Friday, making a wax cylinder! It was a real test for me; I’d grown up listening to cylinders and 78s in my parents’ collection, and always thought that if a modern singer did one, modern stylistic tics would give the game away despite the lo-fi sound. In the end, it was quite spooky, the nearest thing to time-travel I’m likely to experience.

Here’s a CLIP.

In any case, watch the series! 9pm, and naturally on iPlayer. Neil Brand is a tremendously engaging host. And a truly funny, very nice man, too.

In the meantime, I’m sure my mum will want me to remind people that I also do a mean Petite Messe Solennelle, and a very good Mozart Requiem, but I’d like to say that I don’t just do 1910s music. Heck, I can do 1940s. Here is evidence. Matt is wearing a genuine Demob suit, too.

Also something I wish to prove in my next album (after the WW1 album which has finally been mixed, and will be released early March!), which is that there was a different style to microphone crooning, a halfway-house of smooth, yet unamplified, singing. Very prevalent in hotel lobbies, even nightclubs. I’ve now spoken to enough 90-year-olds who used to sing in such places to know that microphones were by no means taken for granted!

Aaaaand, if anyone is in the Vancouver area, I’ll be doing a concert of 1940s and 1950s songs, unamplified, and in some nice frocks! Very appropriately, as it will be in the frock-tastic Museum of Vancouver!

Apologies for a false update (thank you WordPress). Now here’s a real one!
And a preview of the WW1 CD as promised!
This is a piece of sheet music I picked up for 25 cents in BC, in a shop called Carillon music on the King George Highway. Matt was very taken with it, and for the album he made an arrangement that replicated, as closely as possible, the sort of ensemble that was used in recording studios back in 1914, the year of its composition. We all crowded into the Cabin in Walthamstow, and did it, with no overdubbing. We made quite a din. It is the largest ensemble in the album, and the loudest.
Personnel:
Patricia Hammond: voice
Anna Ter Haar: Piccolo
Kit Massey: violin
Simon Marsh: clarinet
Sam Kinrade: cornet
Jon Carvell: trombone
Rupert Gillett: cello
Matt Redman: piano and arranger
Richard White: bass saxophone
Nick Ball: drums
Arranger and conductor: Matt Redman.

There we have it, the sneak preview I promised, highly compressed for a WordPress upload of course (imagine it’s on wax!). Everything for the album is done, but we are waiting for permissions. Oh the joys of doing things the proper way!

And speaking of making recordings in 1914, I will be in my 1910s clothes on BBC4 TV on Friday the 16th of January at 9pm, demonstrating the cylinder-making process! It was hugely entertaining and enlightening to hear my voice on wax. The series will be in three parts, and I’ll reappear in episode 3 to demonstrate one of Cher’s most well-known hits. I tried to dissuade them, but they were firm in their folly! I shall be watching through my fingers.

And if you live in the Vancouver area, do drop round the old Planetarium on the 17th. See the “Gigs” link!

Again, apologies for a silly blunder that sent out a nonsensical “update”.

Here is a photograph from a Victorian Christmas concert in December. Matt and I now have programmes for a Victorian Christmas, a 1940s Christmas, and a Christmas from the Trenches.

Now, back to trying to sort out my Gallery! I hate website admin!!!

The CD preparations continue apace, but meanwhile here are some videos of Centenary activity! And a photo of myself and Matt performing in the driver’s seat of a WW1 Battle Bus!

Now! On the hundredth anniversary of the start of the First World War, Matt and I were up in Cromer, performing for veterans in Nursing Homes, going from bedside to bedside. Many requested “Cowboy Songs” which, believe it or not, I can do, and Matt can certainly play, but one said “I would like some songs of the Great War.” We did “Home Fires” of course, but we also did “Somewhere in France” and how he loved it. Was amazed anyone knew any of the songs, let alone one off the beaten track. That evening, the hundredth was celebrated in Norwich with a candle-lit vigil. Here we are performing for 3,000 people in front of the City Hall.

The following day, more bedsides, then London’s Green Lanes, to replicate a peace protest that happened on the day after War was declared. And someone filmed that, too. Note we’ve not had a chance to change our clothes.

Then the week after, we went back in time to the Edwardians, for the Horniman Museum’s Edwardian Late. Great fun, though incredibly hot.

So, two days ago, we were at the London Transport Museum on Ole Bill, the bus that went to the trenches. The day after that, we were at a “Fundraiser for the Troops” tea-party in Hampstead. We are the specialists in re-enactment! I’m going to be doing something extremely fun for BBC Four in early October, more on that later, then Matt and I will be increasingly busy in the run-up to a particularly special Remembrance Day, given the year we are in. As well as mixing all those WW1 tracks, and making the CD cover, which has gone through several different styles. Nobody seems to agree! I am so sorry not to give you a taster track as I’d promised. I shall do that next post. You shall have a song from Canada, published in 1916.

PS Apologies for the “Tester” email earlier! I had a problem with video embeds and a very capable fellow in Pakistan (highly recommended, Joshuwash on fiverr.com) was in the process of fixing it when that went out!

This is just a few photos. In the next post I’ll give a sneak-preview of the forthcoming CD; I promise!

Here is one configuration of the group, performing for the operagoers at Grange Park. The crowd seemed happy! In fact, one fellow came and did a dance with me and a bit of barber-shop harmonizing to Moonlight Bay, and someone whispered to me that he’d conducted that evening’s opera!
Hilariously, one of the principals, a baritone, recognised me from a Messiah we’d done together last Christmas in Derby Cathedral. I love it when worlds collide.

Here is the same dress, but instead of Matt, Zac (accordion, piano), and Nick (percussion), we have Matt, Kit (violin, piano), and Simon (baritone saxophone, flute, clarinet). And Matt doing arranging, directing, piano, banjo, guitar.
The music-stands are all side-by-side for this particular number that Matt arranged, because the arrangement needed to be spread out over three of them. The banners looked very funny like this!

Kit and Matt did some wonderful 4-handed numbers. The venue was the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, for the festival. We had a very full house, and people were enormously enthusiastic. It made me happy that the 1871 Conservatory was given something befitting (or at least closer to) its era. We were entirely unplugged, but everyone said that we were very easily heard. It can seem wrong for these Victorian tea-houses to vibrate to amplifiers thudding away.

Now, lest it appear that I wear the same dress to everything, here is another one, at the Branscombe Festival, only a week later. I sang with Albert Ball’s Flying Aces, and we were very honoured to be one of the select acts to appear at this very exclusive delight of a festival. We were in good company: I Fagiolini, Philip Higham, Ailish Tynan (every bit as nice as everyone says she is), the Band of the Royal Marines. Above you can see the C.O. of Albert Ball’s Flying Aces, with his spoon-guard. Without it, the clanging cutlery can cause serious bruising. We were entirely acoustic for this, too, in the Village Hall. Everyone had cream teas, and there was dancing, and some very illustrious guests, including famous Wagnerians and members of Her Majesty’s Government.
Standing, left to right: Mr. Dickie Evans, sousaphone; Mr. Jon Butterfield, piano; Mr. Nicholas David Ball, C.O. and percussion; Mr. Ian Rosenblatt, fabulous patron of the arts, whose festival it is and whose guest we were; crazy singing gal in frock; Mr. Petroc Trelawny of the BBC. Front row, kneeling: Mr. Matt Redman, mandolin-banjo; Mr. Simon Marsh, saxophone and clarinet; Miss Ellie Smith, trombone.
And we were on In Tune! I believe you can still hear it HERE.
On Monday and Tuesday Mr Matt Redman and I will be playing WW1 songs at the bedsides of veterans in Care Homes in Cromer, performing at the Norwich “Lights Out” Commemoration in front of an estimated 2000+ people, and then haring back to London to take part in a re-enactment of a Pacifist meeting at the Salisbury Hotel! Then it’s all 1910s for the Horniman’s “Edwardian Late”.

The Victorian Galleries of the National Portrait Gallery resounded to a sing-off of “Pack Up Your Troubles” and “Tipperary”. I really relished the back-drop of busts:

Jolly fun. We performed German trenches songs to pin-dropping silence and attentive faces, and then everyone clapped in time to the saucy French march of the chorus to “Madelon”. Mr. Redman was his usual dapper self. This was, for him, the third of four gigs that day. For me it was only the third of three.
My goodness it was hot.

We have several interesting things coming up: A re-enactment at the Salisbury Hotel on Green Lanes of the first peace demonstration on August the 5th, 1914, the day after War was declared. And an Edwardian ‘late’ at the Horniman museum, and of course Buxton, Branscombe and Deal festivals. Just hit the ol’ “Gigs” link at the top of this page!

In the meantime, if you’re interested in the Victorian and Edwardian phenomenon in ribbons, lace and chiffon that was the Gaiety Girl, do buy the current copy of the Chap magazine! I’ve written another article for that esteemed – or infamous – organ.

I now have a Vimeo channel!

From this time henceforth, any footage I have will be uploaded to Vimeo, to this channel.

http://vimeo.com/channels/patriciahammond

So if you like, subscribe, or bookmark! I love Vimeo. They even have a tip-jar system. Unlike greedy YouTube who say that you can ‘monetise’, which means that they sell advertising space and you only get paid pennies after thousands of people have actually CLICKED on said ads and bought something! When was the last time you bought anything through a YouTube ad? Precisely.

Any tips I get I shall share with Mr Matt Redman, above, who worked SO hard on the arrangements of these pieces.

So many people are asking me if I can do concerts with just one other person, rather than the full band, and so Matt and I have formed a duo. Matt can play the piano, but often places have no piano either, so he brings along his banjo, mandolin or guitar. Or all three. This photo shows Matt with a banjoline and also a guitar from 1908, which he borrows. One day we’re hoping that someone donates one of these artefacts to Matt, who will do so much more with it than hang it on a wall, which is where most harp-guitars end up!

We will be performing in a concert in Southport on June the 11th (look at the Gigs link for more information!) and we will also be providing authentic Edwardian music at Havering’s Heritage Day on Easter Sunday (Had to say no to a Bach Cantata to do this one!)

But as you can see from the picture here, we are not averse to providing music from the 1950s if there is demand for such a thing. This picture is from the Russian Revels event at Pushkin House in Bloomsbury. It was entitled “The Spies Came in from the Cold”.

If you’re in the City of London this Tuesday, do come round to St Edmund’s on Lombard Street. Matt and I will be trying out songs from our forthcoming album. It is unplugged, and rather minimal, just the two of us. But it is free. St Edmund in the City’s “house style” is to have the musicians play on and off (or constantly if they feel like it) from 12:30 until 14:00, and people can come and go, or just sit for the duration, or get up and look at the building, or what-have-you. In any case, we shall be playing many songs, mostly from the First World War. (This picture shows us at a vintage fair doing the 30s thing. If you think that looks dapper, wait till you see Matt’s 1910s clothes)

And the latest Chap magazine is on the shelves, and in it is another article by me, on Whispering Jack Smith this time. It is criminal how little is written about Jack. I’ve long been annoyed at the contradictory accounts in Jazz Encyclopedias, spurious conclusions by YouTube commentators, and the same quotes showing up again and again on the internet. It’s lovely to go to a library and open old books and feel your pulse quicken as you piece things together, then go to another library, and then another. Also, the last time I went into the British Library I was looking at 1920s Vogues and felt terribly shallow. This time I felt as if I was using the building properly.

More about the Chap magazine HERE

More about St Edmunds HERE

(Both open in new windows)

I guess my entire life has led up to this Centenary. All those hours listening to the hundreds of unfiled 78rpm records outside my bedroom as a child, the sheet music collecting since the age of nine, then discovering all the marvellous, keen-as-mustard musicians in London who are equally passionate about bringing this music to vivid life…well! It’s here. 2014. And I have a heck of a collection of set-lists. Here’s a picture from my first full-blown centenary gig, of many.

In July, with Albert Ball’s Flying Aces – headed up by the amazing dynamo (and arranger for Our Lovely Day) Nicholas David Ball – I’ll be appearing at the Branscombe Festival (more anon), in truly august company. Other performers at this small but oh-so-select festival include Sumi Jo, I Fagiolini and the Royal Marines! ABFA, as you may remember, is a band of First World War Flying Aces who happen to play exceedingly good ragtime.

With Matt Redman, absolute master of more instruments than I can list here (and arranger for Our Lovely Day) I am planning a CD. More on THAT, later. Matt, and new band member Zac Gvirtzman, provided a most astounding two-man-band at “All Over By Christmas”, the New Sheridan Club Ball, where guests dressed up as Nurses, FANYs, Suffragettes, Edith Cavell, German soldiers, Tommys, Incompetent Generals, wounded, Lord Kitchener…

Matt and Zac played banjo, accordion, clarinet, guitar, mandolin, piano, piano duet, saxophone, and also did backing vocals. There were no two numbers using the same combination.

We are, emphatically, for HIRE. Book soon. We’ll be appearing in the Buxton Festival, at Grange Park Opera, the aforementioned Branscombe, and Swaledale.

We have pacifist songs, we have laments from poppy fields, we have German songs on the inevitability of death in battle. We have rip-snorting recruiting marches, we have hilarious singalongs, and we have tributes to Red Cross Nurses in French and English. Instrumental numbers include all things 1910s including tangos, chorinhos, and of course, ragtime. And some Elgar.