Sometimes people say that I don’t mention gigs until I’ve done them and it’s too late to get to them! So here’s an update that includes a concert I’m doing tomorrow! Plus, a little bit about our trip to the Channel Islands…
Matt and I just did a tour of Guernsey, where we appeared twice on the BBC, and had a wonderful time performing Songs of the Great War at the National Trust Victorian Shop, where they now play our CD on repeat all day every day! There was footage of the event so do keep an eye on the YouTube channel for when we have it. Lovely William Morris wallpaper:
Photo: Sara Lampitt for National Trust, Guernsey
Wonderful Jenny Kendall-Tobias, who knows a lot about music, had us back a few days later to perform the anthem of Guernsey, “Sarnia Cherie”, which was written in 1911, so completely central to the stylistic world of our Songs of the Great War project and CD, which she played on air as well. We sold a few copies! Here is the first radio appearance…will upload the 2nd in due course. Please do SUBSCRIBE to the YouTube channel; and please give a thumbs-up to anything you like on it. It helps the videos to be seen!
I do highly, emphatically, recommend the Victorian Shop in Guernsey, if you’re ever there. It is run by wonderful people, really passionate about the area, and also absolute genius knitters. In the downstairs room are GORGEOUS, criminally-affordable creations. If you don’t believe me, believe Timothy Spall, who came there and bought loads of hand-knit treasures while we were there.
Now! There are a few things coming up, very soon. Tomorrow evening I will be singing Dowland with Emma Kirkby’s Dowland Works, at 6:30pm at Holy Trinity Stroud Green. It’s “pay what you can”. Bring a sandwich and a cushion. I sing at 6:30, and then at 9:10pm in a different dress, I’ll be doing Songs of the Great War with Matt Redman! Early Music, but a little later! (In more ways than one) LINK HERE.
THEN!
On Sunday evening, at the Rosemary Branch Pub Theatre, something really special. Of course everybody knows about silent films with live musical accompaniment. How about live story-readings with live musical accompaniment! We’re hoping to start a trend, but we need lots of people to know we’re doing it, so please spread the word. Matt and I are teaming up with Nunkie Theatre in two Sherlock Holmes stories, the Dying Detective and the Veiled Lodger. Robert Lloyd Parry, famous for his dramatic and immersive readings of MR James’ ghost stories complete with candles and bucketloads of atmosphere, will read these stories as Matt underscores with appropriate music and sound effects. I sing, too! There will be songs and singalongs as well. Here is a little sneak preview from a rehearsal. Just on a phone, the sound etc. is much better in person and in the venue. Tickets and info HERE
And! Yet another event in the London area. With Andrea Kmecova (You can hear her piano in “Always” as well as the title track on Our Lovely Day…just hit THIS LINK and click on the tiny little play button next to that title below the description) I have been exploring the unique contribution to the popular Parlour Song made by women. Derided as a domestic, and therefore trivial art form, we’re going to tell the stories behind the songs, the achievements of these composers, and crucially, demonstrate that they are jolly good music too!
This will be in Deptford, for Goldsmiths, University of London, and the concert is called Women Who Wrote Songs.
Information HERE!
Thank you for your patience in reading all of this! Also I realise this is all a little last-minute. You know how it is, you work to do things, and to take the time out to promote them seems counterintuitive!
After recording the CD “Songs of the Great War” I sent a copy to the German War Graves Commission; I was interested in finding out more about the composer of “Bald Allzubalde”. The old sheet music in which I found the song (dated 1917), said that he’d composed it on the 20th April, 1916 and died there on the 7th of June, 1916. They told me they would start a search, and incidentally, they liked my CD and performance and would I and Matt be interested in coming over and singing the song, and a couple more, at the hundredth anniversary commemoration of Verdun? Would we!
Here I think I should remind everyone what this extraordinary song sounds like:
And it uses accordion, guitar and clarinet on the CD! Well, two months ago, Arne Schrader of the Volksbund Kriegsgräberfürsorge contacted me to tell me that they have found him! He was buried nameless, as “E.B.” of the 39th Fusiliers. And they sent me the exhumation photos. I have never, ever had an experience like this! They positively identified him, and found that he had been buried with a clock. On the 27th of this month, I and Matt will go over there and with some Wandervogel, or Boy Scouts, lay a wreath on his grave, restore his name to him, and sing this song over him. As I say, amazing. Then the next day we will perform at the Romagne sous Montfaucon cemetery, where a Commonwealth, a German and a French section lie side by side, and a lone trumpeter will stand at each, and perform “Aux Morts,” “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” and “The Last Post” in turn, and we will sing later in the ceremony. This story of Ernst Brockmann, young composer buried without a name, is one that I was certain that the radio would be all over. I have told as many producers as I can find, but no bites. Astonishing, really. If anyone knows anyone, please spread the word. I think this is a great story, and important.
Never mind!
We’ll be rushing from the Verdun battlefields to the Yorkshire Dales to demonstrate wax cylinder making…driving through the night!
I was also hugely honoured to be a living exhibit in the Edwardian Parlour that is in the TRULY BRILLIANT and UNMISSABLE exhibition “Remembering 1916” that is in South Croydon at the Whitgift School…seriously, GO. It is a fiver for seniors, seven quid for adults, next to nothing for students. 
Open to the public from 10-5 daily. It has more rarities than I would have thought possible, and is put together with passion and no expense spared. Take a train from Victoria, and just go! Then I sang in the concert that opened the exhibition. That is one extraordinary school.
My CD “Songs of the Great War” has been reviewed by a major critical music journal, at long last (Well, you see, it’s not classical, and it’s not jazz, is it! Even Norman Lebrecht sympathised) But bless the American Record Guide, they DID review it. Read it HERE.
Oh! On the 26th of June I’ll be performing songs about the cinema with the Mighty Wurlitzer, at the Musical Museum in Kew! With, moreover, Donald MacKenzie at the console! Following me will be Laurel and Hardy’s “Angora Love”, Mack Sennett’s “Teddy at the Throttle” and Charlie Chaplin in “The Rink”, all with Wurlitzer accompaniment! Starting at 3pm. Do come along and say hello!
The Renaissance CD is all recorded, and all I’m waiting for is booklet text approval from my colleagues! I’ll announce when this beauty will be available! It’s tremendous fun, and will contain the bawdy Broadside Ballad “Watkins Ale”. And this song:
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”.
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.
(Alas, my feathers aren’t visible in the above shot.)
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.
(Zac on the piano, Matt on the banjo, though it was the other way round for the Red Pepper Rag.)
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