Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Mark Feltham interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Mark Feltham grew up with a love of country music and just knew he had to play harp when he heard Stone Fox Chase on the UK music programme, Old Grey Whistle test.

As he entered the London music scene he found he had to adapt his style to create a fusion of melodic and blues playing, which has served him very well throughout his career. 

Best known from his work with Punk Blues band, Nine Below Zero, Mark also played with Rory Gallagher for a long spell. Alongside this he has had a great career as a session musician, recording for television adverts, films and playing with such giants as Oasis, The Christians, Talk Talk and Godley and Creme, of 10cc fame.

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Links:
https://www.ninebelowzero.com/mark-feltham

YouTube:

Dennis Greaves duo trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZYApDHJZtU&feature=youtu.be

Rory Gallagher:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePJmB4yqV60&feature=youtu.be

Masterplan with Oasis:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZxexZ8v-QI

Playing on the Young Ones TV show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYx9wgK2q20


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_02:

Mark Feltham joins me for episode 22. Mark grew up with a love of country music and just knew he had to play hard when he heard Stormfox Chase on the UK music programme Old Grey Whistle Test. As he entered the London music scene, he found he had to adapt his style to create a fusion of melodic and blues playing which has served him very well throughout his career. Best known from his work with punk blues band Nine Below Zero, Mark also played with Rory Gallagher for a long spell. Alongside this, he had a great career as a session musician, recording for television adverts, films and playing with such giants as Oasis, The Christians, Talk Talk and Godly and Cream from 10cc fame. A word to my sponsor again, thanks to the Lone Wolf Blues Company, makers of effects pedals, microphones and more designed for harmonica. Remember when you want control over your tone? You want lone wolf. Hello, Mark Felton, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks very much, Neil.

SPEAKER_02:

So, yeah, we'll start a little bit with your early life. So, you're a South London boy, yeah, born in Southwark. I was

SPEAKER_00:

born overlooking Big Ben, actually, in central London. But I can remember my mum showing me where the room was overlooking the Big Ben. So, right on the river. Can't be any more central than that.

SPEAKER_02:

Does that make you an official Cockney?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it probably does. My mother certainly was. She was born in Bow Church, right next to the Bovells. My mother certainly was, and my father was a Londoner as well. So I come from a very, very London family. Central London family, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

So did those early years in country music, did you dig into that London music scene at all when you were younger?

SPEAKER_00:

Historically, what happened was that my grandfather worked as a professional engineer out in Saudi and places like that, down in Iraq. In those days, nobody flew down there. Everybody went on merchant ships because it was ongoing back a long time. That was my... my mother's father because it was a long old journey a lot of sailors used to play chromatics and tremolo harmonicas He used to bring them back for me off the ships. And that's how I kind of got interested in these big old chromatics and tremolo tune things. Some Chinese, some Hona. And he used to bring them back for me on these trips down to the Middle East. And that's how I kind of got into it.

SPEAKER_02:

So was your first harmonica then a tremolo or a chromatic?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it would have been a tremolo. I used to puff and blow on it. I mean, I was a baby then. I was six or seven years of age when I started. And I carried it because I always had harmonicas laying around the house because he was whenever he'd come back he'd bring me fresh ones home so I'd pick them up and not really knowing what I was doing to be honest but I was never a kid to pick a guitar up you know I just couldn't get that head and fingers thing going kind of discovered that I was better with my lung function than with my hands and fingers I could never quite get that right and I'm a frustrated bass player actually I adore the bass part but I couldn't couldn't make their hands do what they had wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So you touch on other instruments there. So has harmonica then always been your only thing, apart from some singing maybe?

SPEAKER_00:

I actually love singing. I love the singing voice. I think it's nice to see a harmonica player sing as well, which a lot of them don't do. I like singing and I've always sung. BVs, I sing backing vocals with a lot of artists that I've worked with. I'm not a lead singer as such, But I enjoy the harmony and backing vocals. I do like that. And I would have loved to have also doubled and played bass. I do love the bass guitar as well. But as I said to you, that coordination, getting the hands and the fingers, I just could never quite get it right. My head knew what to do, but my fingers couldn't make it work.

SPEAKER_02:

So, as you say, you started playing the harmonica around the age of six. But I don't think you seriously got into it until you sort of got into it as a teenager. And I think you heard the old grey whistle test inspired you. Is that what really got you into play.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think someone had bought me a diatonic, and, you know, from going from the big harmonicas and tremolos and chromatics that was given to me by Grandad, all of a sudden someone presented me with, it may have even been a golden melody or predating a golden melody, so I didn't quite like it after playing all the full sound of a big tremolo thing, you know. And then I thought, I've got to try and learn this. And then I started to get into watching lots of bands on TV, going out to see bands as a young lad. And then the Old Grey Whistle Test theme tune kind of got me interested in that. That's really nice. I wonder how they do that. That doesn't sound like a chromatic or a tremolo, you know. And of course, it was only later that I realized it was Charlie McCoy, of course, playing on that. And I had to get the theme tune. And in those days, we had no computers. So I looked at an advert in Melody Maker, which is a thing that we have here in the UK and they had lots of shops selling albums and import albums. I think I wrote to the BBC in those days, a letter, open letter, you know, what was this music? Where did it come from? I got an answer to say it was from this album, I think A Trip in the Country by McCoy and all the Nashville Session players. I ordered it, I think an outlet in Aberdeen that used to import a lot of American country stuff. So I ordered it and then it came and I listened to it and I thought, Christ, this is what I want to do. You know, this is me. I can really dig this I mean you've got to remember it was in the days we never had none of this online tutor stuff that they've got now you know I think that in the old days I can remember spinning the old put my hand on the record deck and slowing it down to try and find out what other players would do how do they make that and of course when you put your finger on it to slow the turntable down it knocked the key down knocked it all out of tune so it was frustrating but the award that you got after and when you cracked it and found out what they were doing was fantastic. You know, it took me a long time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think it's a topic we touched on a few times on here is that that time, and I was spot on that era just about, you know, you kind of taught yourself, didn't you, by going through the pain, was kind of getting going. Everyone sort of expects answers for everything now, doesn't it, and sort of be told what to do. So I think there is something to be said, isn't there, about learning in that way, which may be...

SPEAKER_00:

And it was discovering as well. Everything is in your... you know you don't know who to turn to I'm not really saying I'm not saying that that's fantastic for some but I can remember the thrill of hearing something on late night radio you know just going to bed putting the headphones on the big old wolf down headphones on and listening to country music on the records and put my records on and thinking oh man you know that's a beautiful instrument when played that like that all those lovely bands as Charlie Charlie McCoy was doing then and Don Brooks from Waylon's band and then I used to go to the London functions with Tommy Riley. I used to sit next to Tommy Riley.

SPEAKER_02:

Really?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he was a very nice guy, actually. He used to give me tips on breathing and things of that sort, but he was a straight chromatic player, and none of those chromatic guys got into diatonic at all, whether they looked down their nose at the diatonic players. In fact, there were very few that do the two well. Stevie Wonder was a beautiful player that could play at the top register as well in diatonic, but in those days, it was very much Mel Bay's tutor book type thing. I'm going back to the late 60s now, late 60s, when I first kind of wanted to get serious. I was about 15, I suppose, 16.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, as you said, you were influenced by country players initially, and you mentioned there Charlie McCoy and Don Brooks. So how long did it take you to maybe start getting into blues? Was that something

SPEAKER_00:

you thought? Well, it was around about, I guess, the first blues player I ever heard was probably Snooki Pryor. and Sonny Boy Williamson I, John Lee. And then Sonny Boy Williams in the second. The kind of blues thing was much more accepted in London and the UK at the time because you had the Stones, Clapton and all that that was doing white boy blues. And they were doffing their caps to the great bluesers that were coming over on the blues packages. Whereas country music here was kind of scoffed upon. But for my instrument, my learning, for me to get on, I wanted to play country music because it opened up exciting possibilities on the diatonic for me the way that blues didn't. Some of these blues guys, when they played and when you listen to it now, no matter how much you master it or how much you try and sound as good as you can like them, you just can't feel it like they felt it. You just can't feel it the way that they feel it. It's just an expression of that pain and that anguish and that feeling that we're I don't know. It's just impossible to say. Whereas the white country players that were playing. Well, country music, I've always said, Neil, that country music is white man's blues. And I feel that I was much more attracted to melody, you know, and playing the melody lines. I mean, the first time I was given a little Ultra album, and I thought, Christ alive, his timing is unbelievable. Now, where is his head? Let's get inside that brain. No, I can't make that look like that. you know that's unique to him it's his thing and there are very few white guys that can do that you know that was predominantly a black man singing and very proud they should be of it too because a lot of white guys just shouldn't even go there you know they're just unique to them and that's why I followed the country path rather than the blues path it wasn't a kind of accepted country music in 70s London the beginning of punk for a start and then I up joining a punk blues band. So I had to lean on the blues thing and kind of mix it with what I knew from the country thing as well, a melody. So I had to kind of combine the two because I did actually find, I found a country band called Pony Express. All these guys that were in the band were very, very successful traveling salesmen. They all were great looking men. They all looked like country stars they all had suit and ties on by day doing their up and down the country selling toys one of the guys selling toys and then by evening they'd put the Stetsons on and the big old gear all the gear and start performing country stuff and it was lovely for me I did about two years of that and the band was called Pony Express so good for me you know all get all the chick muchops together but that would have been proud upon by the guys I'm with now well the guy that I come And they still were. People would have laughed at him.

SPEAKER_02:

So was that your first band?

SPEAKER_00:

No, because that was running parallel to the Stans Blues Band that I started working with in 1976. So,

SPEAKER_02:

yes, as you say, I mean, your melodic approach to playing country obviously influences your style a lot and allows you to get some great chops, which are a little bit different, and also allows you to do a lot of the session work, which we'll get on to later. But before then, you joined Stans Blues Band, which was the name before it turned into Nine Below Zero. So, Dennis Greaves, of course, the lead singer and guitar player, for that he lived on the same street as you and that's how you met and it got started yeah

SPEAKER_00:

yeah that's correct I had a job as a lineman with post office telephones I was working full time as a full location engineer with the post office as a lineman I think they called him lineman America

SPEAKER_02:

it wasn't the Wichita

SPEAKER_00:

lineman Wichita lineman that sort of thing I was always up telegraph poles full location and I enjoyed it but I got this strange call from a bloke one day that said listen I heard you play a bit of harmonica you went down to a friend of mine I'm actually in the process of putting a band together and I didn't really want to push that angle. I was quite happy playing indoors, you know, with my songs and with my bunch of harmonicas. I was happy. I didn't really want to make a career of it because I had a steady career going at the time. I was a very young man, just started work. And then this guy called me and he happened to live on the same estate that I did, a very working class council estate. In fact, he only lived about 12 doors away. It was most bizarre. And he said, I'm putting about and he was full of go and Dennis was full of verb and get up and go where I was completely opposite I was completely laid back and he would do all the pushing and reluctantly drag me with him so he said I'm putting a band together a blues band I'd like to come down and have a sit in and have a little play you know so I went down to this pub one night he was playing that ferocious kind of really hard edge blues punk you know he'd come from that mob blues punk thing and it didn't appeal to him to me at all and I said it's not my thing and all the noise of the amplifiers and you know he was in a thrash 100 watt marshals and I didn't like the sound of you know I was more into the American thing and after a time of sitting with me and going through my record collection and listening to his record collection I said to him look you know why don't you listen to this have a listen to this see where this come from see where this stuff that you're playing now it come from somewhere else before that this is where it came from so we would get together and I would kind of try and calm him down and let him listen to some other stuff. And then we finally come to a kind of agreeance that he would do half of the stuff that I liked and I would do half the stuff that he was. He formed this band called Stan's Blues Band, which was named after Stan Webb, that was an English blues guitarist that the blues aficionados out there would know Stan Webb. And he had a band called Chicken Shack, and Dennis adored him. And that's what the name of the band was. But as it was called in the day by journalists... It was called a loathsome navvy of a name, Stan's Blues Band. We got spotted in a pub one night by a guy that had come along, a manager that was working as a talent scout for A&M Records. And at the time, A&M Records had Joan Armatrade in the police, the carpenters. So we were in good company. And he said, I'd like to take you up to meet the MD, Derek Green at A&M Records, who'd just signed the carpenters.

SPEAKER_02:

How long have you been playing as a bum, though? this

SPEAKER_00:

time? Well, we were a steel stands blues band at the time, and a guy called Mickey Modern walked in the apartment. He said, that name's could go. I had a name. I thought it was my name. I said, well, what about Nine Below Zero? I said, Nine Below Zero, what's all that about? I said, well, it's an old Rice Miller song. I remember it from Rice Miller. You know, I did Sunny Boy, too.

SPEAKER_04:

It done got nine below zero, and she done put me down for another man.

SPEAKER_00:

How about that? And they all liked that. So we changed the name overnight. We were quickly signed by the record company to do an EP as a kind of, let's see how we go with this EP. Let's go and do a demo for us. So they paid for it all. We went down to Vineyard Studios that was subsequently owned by Stock Aitken and Walterman. But in those days, it wasn't. So we went down there. We did a four-track EP, Pack Fair and Square, and Last Night and This and The Other was on it. And the Pack Fair and Square Fair and square was a kind of rough and ready version of what Jay Gulls and Magic Dick had done already. record of the week on Radio 1, and Dave Lee Travis, who was a DJ, maybe, you know, it was guaranteed five plays a week. We still had day jobs. And because of that, all of a sudden, the promoters, International Talent Booking, ITB at the time, said, you know, how about doing a tour? And I'm thinking, how am I going to do a tour? I've got a day job going here. And Dennis, the singer of Nine Blows Zero, was carpet fitting. And Peter, the bass player, had a very good job of in WH Smiths we all had kind of decent careers but Dennis just wanted to get rid of the career and just go into music full time you know and all of a sudden the ITB the talent people the booking agency was saying well I've got a show in Huddersfield tonight that was on a Wednesday night then you're in Bolton the next night or whatever and I'm thinking hold on a minute how am I going to get up in the morning for work if we're playing in Huddersfield or Bolton the night before And we did. We did that for a time. And we bought an old yellow bus. We converted it with milk crates. We had them for seats in the back of an old rickety old big transit thing that we bought. And sit on that old hard, hard seat all the way up to Bradford and places like that. And then straight after the gig, come straight back to London, get in bed for three hours, get back home here at four in the morning. And you could do it in them times. You can't do it now with the M6. But in those days, you could get up there and in four hours to be young again oh man it was a nightmare because I'd get like three hours sleep and then I realised I was losing a bit of time at work and then one day the governor come up to me he said I've heard you're doing a bit of playing up and down the country and still doing this you're losing a bit of time he said I'm just telling you you've got to give you a warning so I'd already had a warning for a job that I loved anyway and then the record company said I want you to do a proper album which meant taking more time out going in and recording live at the which we did and then we subsequently did another album and it all got too much for me and I had to go up to the guy that was running my manager there and say you know I've got to leave

SPEAKER_02:

no regrets now though you think you made the right choice back

SPEAKER_00:

then Yeah, no regrets. I've had a wonderful life and I've seen the world with somebody else praying for it. And that's what music can do for you.

SPEAKER_02:

So you mentioned that your first album, as you say, Live at Marquee, which is a really big album in the harmonica world, you know, and obviously your first album, lots of great songs on there. Riding on the L&N is a song which I think you're famously associated with. It's a song I learned when I was younger and really love that intro you do. And Winged Job, another great instrumental, not an ETA. It really shows that harmonica being a really strong part of the driven sound of the 9 below 0, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it had all been done before me by great players. I don't think it was ever done with such verve and aggression. because you've got to remember that Dennis wouldn't allow the beat to slack. He wouldn't allow anything to chill every now and then. It was a race to get to the end of the song, and that's what he was like, and the kids loved him for it. And I, unfortunately, had to keep up with him, and it wasn't my style at all. I mean, when I listen to Homework, the way that Magic Dick plays it, it's beautiful, that lovely slow vibe, and the same with Peter Green, you know. And Dennis had to punk it up and make everything a million miles an hour. And when I listen back now to Live at the Marquee, I go, oh, man, what am I doing? Why am I going, man, I really, really, it annoys me, it irritates me, my playing on that, you know. And yet at the time, it was looked upon as being quite a strong, harmonic and listening album, you know. But now I listen to it and I wouldn't play it like that now, you know. But I think that's what experience and years under the give you meals.

SPEAKER_02:

But I think, you know, that was probably quite a big part of Namblo's zero success, wasn't it? That you were, even if that's on a punk edge, you might not have got the commercial success you did.

SPEAKER_00:

That's absolutely right. And as I say, at that time we were coming off the back of Punk and Dennis was very much a mod and mods tended to club together a lot because that was a little set in itself, you know, up around Carnaby Street and all that. And he was in with all those guys. So it was almost like Rent-A-Crowd. You know, whenever we went down the country, there was all young mods coming up to us and we had a good time. We had a good time for a long time.

SPEAKER_02:

And then you started writing a few of your own songs as well, didn't you, on your second and third album. I think Egg on My Face is an example of

SPEAKER_00:

the one you wrote yourself in. Yeah, and then it... Dennis then started writing with Mickey the drummer at the time and it got a little bit more serious because you know we couldn't carry on doing covers all the time so we had to try and find some new material I didn't really have a hand in the writing process there but it made me think in another way because all of a sudden I had to come up with my own stuff rather than listen to other players and try and emulate some of the greats of the past which I enjoyed doing you know doffing my cap to them but I also now I had to start thinking for myself it was a different ball game and that's really when the learning process come in and when it started to get a bit hard stand up now and come and let's hear something from you Felton you don't need to play everybody's stuff now the more I did of that the more I enjoyed it and that's when I kind of did the very first session I did was on the very day just before when I was just about to get signed I think it was a band called The Gels as I remember and that was the very first session I did I think they went on to become to be Bananarama I think it was one of their demos years and years ago in the late 70s mid late 70s you know that was the first session and I can remember always I like that I like to play on other people's stuff because I was never 100% into what I was doing with the Nine Below Boys because if I'd have had my way I'd have said Dennis no let's go away from this let's get some country so you know I was I Older, much older in my thinking than they were, you know, almost to the point of being old-fashioned, you know, and a little bit stayed. That's where my thinking come from and my learning come from.

SPEAKER_02:

You had a few stints to name below, didn't you? So I think you left around 1982 and then went off to do, first of all, the Yardbirds and then you went to Rory Gallagher. Is that the decision?

SPEAKER_00:

We'd been around each other for a long, long time. At one stage, Neil, I think we were doing something like 290 shows a year. Couldn't do that now, but you did in those days down the country, flying around. Most of it was in the back of a bus unless we were flying out to Europe. Thankfully, we ended up getting a bit of a fan base in Europe and some bands don't but we slogged out there as well France especially that loved their rock and roll France got different taste to anybody else that we used to have really old rock and roll fans big American cars turning up you know and we did Sweden Norway we did all Scandinavia in the early days so when we finished we were all very very tired young men but very tired we'd done the circuit and we'd all got fed up with each other and then I initially was signed as a solo project for A&M Records again as a singer, harmonica player. I did a couple of demos for A&M and then A&M folded. So that went nowhere. And then I thought, you know what, I'd love to continue with my session work. I wonder if anyone would be up. So I had some cards made up because I always really fancied being a session player. And then I went over to a pub in the east end of London called The Bridge House. This was in 1982. And I met Gerry McAvoy and Brendan O'Neill from Rory Allo's band. Gerry said, it'd be great to drag you in to work with Rory, you know. And I thought, it was just too heavy for me, you know. Yeah, it's got, again, quite a heavy blues vibe. Again, you've got it in one. You've absolutely got it there. Heavy blues again. Anyway, so I went down and As it happened, I found him absolutely charming. There's no secret what I thought of Rory. He was also a wonderful player. So I thought, you know what? This would be nice for me just for a little while. And he asked me, could I come out and sing Pisa and do the Italian Blues Festival in Pisa? By this time, it was 1983-84. I joined Rory. and rock stuff. I wasn't involved in none of that, so I'd wait in the wings, and they'd call me on for six or seven songs as a guest. and that continued through the years with Rory and the good thing was with Rory while this Rory thing was going on and we were going out doing you know Scandinavia then we did a world tour you know it wasn't physically difficult because I didn't have to play like the other three did the whole set you know Brendan was coming off with he did long sets Rory long long sets and it was a breeze for me because I had a wonderful governor in Rory himself and he and I had a great understanding between us and I'd come on for the bluesy things and the folky things and then go on with Rory and just do the duo, myself and Rory, on a couple of slow country blues, you know, which was lovely. So I was kind of tagged along around the world a couple of times, just doing seven or eight songs in the set, you know. But it allowed me also, when I got back to London, to do work with other artists. which I really enjoyed, you know. And then I got a call from the Yardbirds to front the Yardbirds to sing and play harmonic, which I did. I did that for a couple of shows, including a tour in Spain where I got electrocuted out there. I had a terrible electric shock on stage. Yeah, that frightened me.

SPEAKER_02:

Was that on stage?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, that just stopped the show. I was really bad. I really got whack. Yeah, right across my chest. I can't remember much else. I woke up in the dressing room and the electricians didn't check all the way and the mic was live because I had the bullet mic in the left hand and I touched the vocal mic with the right hand and it shot straight across my chest.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a new dimension onto being annoyed with a sound man, doesn't

SPEAKER_00:

it? Oh, well, the whole thing was shabby. You know, the promotion was shabby as well. For a band as big as the Arbor, the promoter at the time wasn't the right promoter, you know, and I kind of, when we went in there, I didn't like the look of the venue. I a funny feeling about that venue but that's a long time ago another story that's what happened with Oso I did that and then I come back in and then they asked me to do the Box of Frogs album which was a spin off from the Yardbirds and I kept myself busy with various sessions and then I got what they call a fixer for anyone that may be uninitiated might not know it's the kind of guy that literally fixes the sessions for you and I got in with a big agency in London and They said to me, would you go down and play on maybe a lolly or an ice cream advert? So I'd go on the train up to London, do a few ice cream adverts in the morning, then do a few American truck adverts in the afternoon, playing. I had that voting as well, you know, I... I think I had a fairly good ear, although I wasn't classically trained and I couldn't read music. I think I was blessed with a decent ear. So I could anticipate what they wanted to hear, where they wanted to hear it. And those days you'd have all the clients coming in to the listening room down in Soho, where I used to do all the session work. All the clients used to come in and they'd all be sitting on the other side of the glass and then you'd be performing. Come out, what do you think? Have a listen. Oh yeah, that's great. Can you do a bit more? So in Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

any famous adverts from back then?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, funnily enough, one of the best ones I did was on Chromatic, would you believe? Which was the cowboy, the John Voight Midnight Cowboy. I did that on Chromatic. Unbelievable. I've probably never picked it up since. That was for the AA. I've tried to find that and I can't even find that. I'd love to get that. But I did a load. I must have done certainly more than anyone else in this country, harmonica adverts, because there wasn't many of us around for a start.

SPEAKER_02:

This was through the 80s you were

SPEAKER_00:

doing these? Absolutely, yeah. Mid-80s and through the 90s, yeah. And while you were still touring

SPEAKER_02:

with Rory on and off

SPEAKER_00:

through this time as well. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And then I got asked to do records as well, signed bands records, and I did a lot of records in the 80s and 90s as well. You did two albums with Rory?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Yeah, Defender and Fresh Evidence.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I believe you even played at Rory's funeral. He sadly died quite young, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00:

He did. He did. He died at the age of 47. Well, I've become very close to him. I mean, you couldn't really get to know him too much because he was a very private man, private person, and we all respected that. But his love of country music and his love of ragtime and old blues was similar to where my head was. That's why I liked working with him. I just knew where he was. I just had this thing. You very rarely get it with players. I had it with Dennis when we play acoustic now. I've now got him to do an acoustic show with me, Dennis, at last, after all these years. But I had that with Rory then. Sadly, Rory became very ill, slipped into a coma, and the family asked me to go to the hospital and play for him while he was in a coma to see if I could bring him round. He had a liver transplant. It was a sad time, you know, it was a sad time going up there and trying to... He was a huge Bob Dylan fan and he loved George Jones, people like that, no-show Jones. He loved all the bad boys, you know, he loved all the bad boys. Johnny Paycheck and all these type of guys. And I loved working with him. I liked where his head was. And it was a terrible loss when he went because, you know, I lost the career myself as well. I'm not being selfish here, but I did actually lose everything when after that. So to start again, I'd lost the Nine Below, lost the Rory thing. Did this

SPEAKER_02:

lead you, because you reformed with Nine Below in 1991 as part of that process.

SPEAKER_00:

That's completely right. Well, Rory had started getting ill now. Our old manager had a kind of idea to put the old band Nine Below back again. And Dennis and I were still actively working as musicians. He had a band called The Truth, and I was still working with Rory. And he said, well, where are we going to find a bass player and a drummer? So I said, well, I've already made one here with Rory. Why don't I ask Brendan and Jerry McAvoy to come and be the rhythm section for a little Nine Below Zero showcase? So he said, that's a good idea. Yeah, the three of you, you know. So we were out in The first album you did back then, the first album with that was On The Road Again album. And then we did Chilled,

SPEAKER_02:

which I was very proud of. It's got Spanish Harlem on, which is a great tune with you, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I enjoyed Chilled. more my baby because I said to Dennis we should really do something a little bit toned down and at that time it was when people when the unplugged thing was very popular you know everybody was unplugged it seemed so I said why don't we try and do something a little bit softer so we did Chilled and I think that I think it's a nice record generally Chilled it's quite nice pleasant record but Chilled come and then we started touring as Nine Below again with Gerry and Brendan and myself and Dennis and was you're old today sir did they all come back out the modern yeah they did they were a little bit older but they generally they did yeah and then we went we were on the road doing a lot of shows and we were in Sweden I'll never forget it and I got very ill in Sweden I was just very tired I needed a break you know I got flown home, by the record. That was it. I fell out with the guys over it, and I think subsequent interviews with them, they said that we didn't realize. We could see he wasn't quite there, but I don't mind admitting it. I was just out with the fairies. I was just exhausted, mentally exhausted, physically exhausted.

SPEAKER_02:

So that ended your second stint with Nine Below. It did. So a big thing which a lot of people will know you for is playing with Oasis, which I think you did first in 1995. How did that come about and how was that?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that was the fixer again. That was the fixer calling me. Our old guitar tech joined Oasis, Spooner, and he was with Oasis. He'd mentioned me to Noel, and Noel said, okay, then we get Mark in, touch with the people that know how to get hold of Mark. So I come down. In the albums I did, they were never there. I never even met them. And then the most famous, if you will, thing that I did with them was from the Royal Festival Hall that we did, which is on MTV. That was a fluke as well, because Nolan had a fight with Liam just before filming. So I hadn't rehearsed nothing. Absolutely nothing. So... We had a big brass section. Now, all the brass guys was with each other. and they were all mating because they were the jazz boys. I was the country blues boy that didn't know that set because they were session players in their own right doing film, TV, orchestral, jazz stuff. I didn't go in those circles because when I did a session, I was always the last one to go on. So everyone had always gone home when I got there. So I didn't actually ever really do a lot of playing with other people when I did my studio work. All the players had been and gone. So... I didn't know a lot of players around. So with this Oasis thing, it was fixed up by the fixer. The jazz boys were all there, all chatting to each other. The band were all there, all looked after and very much in cotton wool by the management and myself. There was nothing to do with either of them. And then we got down to the festival hall. Very big filming thing for MTV. And there's a fight between the two lads, Lim and Noel Gallagher.

SPEAKER_02:

So these fights were genuine. These weren't just put

SPEAKER_00:

on for the... Oh, no. No, no. They had their fisticuffs, the two of them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Instead of Liam funding it, he goes and sits up in the gods looking down on the show because he's refused to be on the same stage as Noel. So Noel just looked round at the rest of us and said, you know what, I'm going to do this myself acoustic. And I thought, not only am I in at the deep end, I don't know what I'm playing on. Now we've not got no singer as well. Surely MTV are going to pull this now and it's all cancelled because there's a live audience as well. And he just said to me, this is a song called Master Plan. He said, it's a kind of minor thing, just make up something on the front for me. It was that loose. And to this day, that was it. I did that thing, and I don't think I ever saw Noel again after that show.

SPEAKER_02:

You played a few like Nedworth with him. You must have been the biggest audience you've ever played to. Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

absolutely. It was very much us and them. I got the train up there. I was met by the runner, taken backstage, did the show. After the show, I was put back on the train by the runner, straight home. I was probably home here before they finished the show. So I didn't feel ever part of that.

SPEAKER_02:

It wasn't like a rock and roll lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00:

It was for them, but it certainly wasn't for us. And the Jazz Boys, it was a piece of cake for them. Piece of cake and all that. Their parts were all scored. They had a guy scoring their parts that was part of them. But no, I was completely on my own and I was given a complete foot and I spoke to Liam once and in the bank in Manchester. He came up and he went, hello, how are you? It's your last name. That was the only time I ever met him. I never spoke to him again. I never spoke to him again.

SPEAKER_02:

But still, nevertheless, a great feather in your cap to have played with Oasis. Great thing to have on the CV and have some recordings.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it was.

SPEAKER_02:

I went

SPEAKER_00:

out to Sweden as well. And yet again, they were on a different flight to us. I think that private aircraft they went in. I went out on my own. The jazz guys went out on their own on a different flight. So it was a really odd thing to do. Whereas with Nine Below Zero, we all lived together, slept together, ate together. And all of a sudden, I was just a real freelancer, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, amazing, yeah. So yes, you did that. I was your oasis for a little while. And then you had your third stint with Nine Below, again, reforming in 2001. So how did you get back together for the third time?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I can't remember offhand. Well, I think we've done about, yeah, I think we've now got 21 albums under our belt. Yeah. And that's been good, obviously. I've had to rethink anew every time. Different amps and different acoustics and different approaches, different studios, different engineers. You know, everyone's got their own take on it.

SPEAKER_02:

And your last couple of albums, you've had like a big band with you, haven't you? The latest album, Avalanche 2019. Yes. It's quite soulful, isn't it? You've got horns on there and the album before that Yeah, I'm

SPEAKER_00:

actually pleased with what I've done on the last two albums and some of the best work Personally, I think I've done, I've come off those last two albums. I wasn't 100% sure of the direction that Dennis wanted to go in with the last two albums. And thankfully, Dennis agreed with me to do an acoustic album called The Duo, which we did. I'm glad that I have the acoustic album to go and play live now, you know, well, pre-COVID, obviously. I'm glad that I have that to fall back on because it would drive me mad to keep doing the electric show. I like him to keep in touch with where our roots were, you know, and by doing the acoustic stuff, it lets me do that and pulls him back

SPEAKER_02:

into line. I actually saw you play that show. I came to see you at the gig in Surrey, you know, that Dave Raphael organised. I saw you there and I met you there. I talked to you about that gig afterwards. Some harmonica favourites on there. You do Stone Fox Chase, of course, and you do Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, which is one of my favourites. I know from a Kim Wilson song. Is that where you got

SPEAKER_00:

it from? Yeah, that's correct. I actually got to play with Kim as well in Italy. We were opening for the T-Birds. He was great. We were backstage and he said, do you want to get up and play? And I said, I'd love to. I got up with him, with his band. So I've met Kim a couple of times and he's a very nice man too, he is. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

definitely, yeah. And with Nine Below Zero, you played Glastonbury in 2016.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it poured a rain. All day long, we got stuck on the furthest tent away from where the Panthers were. There was hardly anybody in when we played, so that was a complete damp squib of a day. It was a nightmare. But, you know, you get these good ones and bad ones.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and on the duo album with Dennis again, Carmelita, you singing that one?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

I hear mariachi static on my radio And the tubes, they glow in the dark But you're there in Ensenada And I'm stuck here in Echo Park

SPEAKER_00:

We opened for Willie DeVille. So I stood there and watched his set and I was completely blown away with everything that he did. And one of the songs he did was Carmelita. So I found the original and it was a Warren's Evens song. And I said to Dennis, this would be great for an acoustic set for me and you. Let's try this. And he loved it too. So we recorded it.

SPEAKER_02:

During all this time, you've done lots of session work, and as you say, really love playing with different bands, pop acts, and all sorts of great stuff. So just picking out a few of the songs you've done there. One song which I think is you is playing with the Christians on Born Again. Is that you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

produced by Laurie Latham who I'd worked with with Paul Young he asked me to go in and do that and I also played on the Harvest for the World yeah I played first position on that that all of a sudden was played every day on radio that got played

SPEAKER_02:

so you have a few more you played on Love and Regret with Deacon Blue I

SPEAKER_00:

played Love and Regret with Deacon Blue um But I think, you know, if you was to ask me what the highlight is in that long career, it has to be that Godly and Cream album.

SPEAKER_02:

That Goodbye Blue Sky.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. I mean, I just felt rejuvenated when I did that. We spent six weeks on that. You've got to remember that 10cc had just had enormous success with I'm Not In Love and Life Is A Minestrone, big, big songs. And all of a sudden, Godly and Cream have come up with this weird harmonica album that's got layers of harmonicas and gospel singers I just went in, and we did auditions for that, and they chose me, and they chose the guy that was playing with the rap, Nick Gaiman. Nick was very good on that very fast, percussive stuff, you know, he perfectly went underneath me all the time, and I played most of the lead stuff on it. We made them songs come alive in the studio when we did it, and it was just six weeks of pure, pure heaven. And when I listen back to that day, I'll never forget, I thought, that has been the most productive six weeks of my entire life. That's what being a professional harmonica player is all about. That album is everything to me. And do you know what? The toilet that we recorded in had a beautiful natural reverb as well. Everything was natural, you know? It's funny you should say that.

SPEAKER_02:

I was just talking to Mickey Raffaele. He said he recorded a lot with Emily Harris in like a really small shower. And he said it was kind of really small and he said it was like really compact and the reverb was really nice. There

SPEAKER_00:

you go. That's exactly the same what happened to me on that album. Lowell said to me, Lowell Cream said to me, Mark, I'm going to put you in the toilet. And, you know, I've gone from, like, studios that are completely soundproofed to a live toilet. And we had some amazing results on that. I mean, if you listen to that album, some of the sounds, forget the playing, I'm not bumming myself up here. I'm just saying some of the sounds, the harmonic of the way she called it, are beautiful. And that was down to Lowell and Kevin being so, you know, kind of the art student type ears on them. You know, they The modernity, is that a word, of the harmonica, and also keeping it, you know, nice and soulful with the gospel singers as well. To me, it's the highlight of my career. And the frustrating thing about it, as soon as the damn thing was released, it was deleted by the record company. They've re-released it since then. A lot of the 10cc fans kind of went, what is this? What have they done? But to me, it's a masterpiece. And then I did Mark Hollis' stuff and Talk Talk stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a great album, that Spirit of Eden.

SPEAKER_00:

I played on The Rainbow on that track called The Rainbow.

UNKNOWN:

The Rainbow

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so atmospheric, isn't it? It really suits that kind of really atmospheric harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

playing. Yeah, and it was a real difficult session because, you know, he did a record from the throat and... Everything was, I wasn't allowed, no reverbs, no toys you couldn't use, everything had to come from the throat. And that was really tiring, those sessions. I did three Talk Talk albums, which I'm really proud of as well. We'll move on

SPEAKER_02:

from your recording career, because there's so much we can stay on forever. I heard you saying that you're pretty dedicated to practicing. You make sure you kind of get 90 minutes in a day. Is that something you still do?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, yeah. I found it difficult to get motivated. during this COVID thing because I genuinely couldn't see when we were going to start again. How long am I going to be sitting in here not playing? I can carry on practicing for the rest of my life, but if COVID takes away everything, what's the point? A musician feeds off his audience. I had a gig two nights ago, so that's kind of lifted my spirits up a bit.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So this question, you know, obviously, like you say, you're dedicated to practicing. The question asked each time is, if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend 10 minutes working on?

SPEAKER_00:

Simple, simple tunes. Melody and breathing. I find a lot of kids, when they first start, just get shoulders too far up. They just don't relax. And it's kind of counterproductive to be in that stiff mode. You can't breathe properly. And you know when you go into this stress management, the thing that you have to master is breathing. And I think when kids are learning, I don't actually teach, but I've actually had one student, and that was Jude Law, the actor. I went to Jude's place. I showed him what to do, and he was the same. He was hunched up, and I just said, you know, chill down. Let's just play single notes, maybe a folk song, or let's just play single notes. The bends come later. Let's just get the tunes. Let's get a single hole. Let's get your breathing right first. Forget about bullet mics and overdriving an amp. Forget all that. That comes way down the line. Let's get your melody, and let's get your chops together first.

SPEAKER_02:

When you're learning melodies, do you learn them by ear or do you learn

SPEAKER_00:

them from written music? No, I've learned them by ear. I don't read, Neil, but I think I've got a decent ear.

SPEAKER_02:

So, yeah, talking about gear now. First of all, which harmonica do you play? I think you're a Horner and Doherty.

SPEAKER_00:

I am indeed, and I'll use anything they throw at me. They're very, very good, and they're... I'm not, to my detriment probably, a technician with regards to tampering with my harmonicas like Joe Felisco does for his players. Fantastic. I'd love to have someone do that for me. I have to blow them out of the box. I might take the plates off and lift a few reeds just to loosen them up.

SPEAKER_02:

You had some Anton Danica though,

SPEAKER_00:

didn't you? I did indeed. When Anthony started, I said to Anthony, these diatronics, they're too heavy for me. So we We worked on a couple of things together and he did a couple of major seven tunings for me. But going back, I'm back with Honus now and I like to use the crossovers. I'm not really a gear person, probably because I've done a lot of acoustic stuff. That's where my head is. My head's not really a gear person. I've tried everything. You know, if someone puts a nice mic up for me in the studio and I'm on an acoustic session, all that goes out the window. Come on, we're listening to you now. We're not listening to the gear.

SPEAKER_02:

So do you have a favorite key of diatonic?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I do, actually. I like playing in the key of F sharp. I play in three positions, predominantly second, as a lot of us do, except for the wonderful Mr Levy, of course. He plays in a million positions. I'm a huge Northern Buffalo fan as well, you know. MUSIC

SPEAKER_02:

So you say your favourite key was a B? Tonally, yes. And that's a different tuning. You mentioned country tuning. Do you use any other different tunings?

SPEAKER_00:

I do use a couple of minor harmonicas. We do a song called The Ballad of Domboval, which is a Middle Eastern flavoured thing that I wrote.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC

SPEAKER_00:

Do you use any overblows? No, not a single one. And what about

SPEAKER_02:

your embouchure? Which embouchure do you use? Pucker. So there's a big debate, isn't there, about getting tongue-blocking for tone. Do you think maybe because you're more melodic playing, that's drawing you to that sound? Yes,

SPEAKER_00:

I think

SPEAKER_02:

so.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that was the different embouchures later. This, again, is a year 2000 onwards kind of thing. I'm not saying that players didn't use that before, but what with the internet, everybody knows about these different things now, whereas before, you picked it up and you did what you did. I think that the U-bend thing that no I don't think nobody ever taught him that that was right or wrong. He just did it that way, you know. And so many big Americans have got these big fat tongues, tongue blockers, you know. But I pucker. That's kind of how I am. There's certainly some beautiful things can come out of tongue blocking, mate. There's absolutely. But myself, I've always pucker.

SPEAKER_02:

So you could talk there about you're not massively into gears. I've got

SPEAKER_00:

a Fender champ that's been faithful with me, Neil, for 40 years now. Belonged to Brian Connolly of the band The Suite. That was Brian's amp, and I took that on. And apart from putting a new 12AX7, I have a valve guy now that looks after me from Scarborough. But basically, I'm using a basement for life, but I'm consistently searching. So if someone says to me, that's God's gift for harmony, I'll always say there's something else out there that's got to be better than that.

SPEAKER_02:

But obviously because you're interested in playing melodic stuff a lot you're playing for a clean sound for a PA a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_00:

50-50. If someone says to me play acoustic on this I like working off mic when I'm playing acoustic rather than on mic because I think that's a horrible sound when you get right on top of that 58 or beta I like the big 58s for acoustic harmonica work anyone that may consider investing in a beta 58 or a beta 57 for their acoustic work because it certainly sounds sweet as compared to the regular 58. That's what I find anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

And what about recording? For

SPEAKER_00:

recording, Neil, I leave it purely up to the engineer that knows the rules. Normally a nice warm valve mic for recording acoustic. And a mic in an amp up, they know nothing. Quite often they say to me, what do you do? Do you put a mic in front of that amp? Do you mic it from the back? I haven't got a clue. They're okay when they put the big mic in the middle of the studio and you're playing acoustic, but very few of them have mics in amp up harmonica. And what about any effects pedals or any effects you use? I do. I've just one that I use an older DD2 I think I'm using by price. Just a slight one, not a lot though.

SPEAKER_02:

A delay pedal?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, digital delay,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah. So just a touch of delay. Just a touch. Okay, and then final question. Any particular things coming up or things pretty quiet now?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I just spoke to Dennis Greasy, lead singer with my band, and he said it looks like everything now is out until March next year. But one particular show that we had booked in a big church in Farncombe in Surrey, that was pulled out from March 29 or April 29 this year to be played next year, March 29. So tickets are all still valid. But that's now been pulled because the governors of the church area where we're going to do the show just can't risk it. 350, 400 people in one room. It's not going to happen. I mean, we've got two nights booked at the 100 Club in January. 350 people capacity over two nights. It's not going to happen, is it, in one room? It's definitely not going to happen. Officially, they're not pulled, but I just can't see it happening at all. A lot of the stuff still probably is advertised, but everybody knows it won't happen. The only reason that we did this gig on Wednesday was purely because the guy that ran the show said instead of playing it indoor, we're going to put it out in a tent. So he put it out in a marquee, put some tables in this big marquee with at least six or seven meters between tables. It was a huge big marquee, and we only had 50 people in there because that way he could get his social distancing in so we was able to do it problem is and it's like with this O2 arena you know it was suggested to me that in the O2 in the O2 they'll have one seat taken one seat empty one seat taken one seat empty the problem is with that you only sell after tickets the promoter needs to sell the venue 75% and make money and then on top of that a great point was made by Bjorn Alvarez who's the guitarist with ABBA the original guitarist and he said 98% of the world's people don't have it so when this all opens up again is it going to make them fearful of going into a packed arena I think this is a real real issue whoever will work again I don't know I really don't know. Glad I've done my work anyway. My best work is behind me, so it's there for people to hopefully enjoy anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's been great speaking to you, so thanks very much for joining me today. Thank you, Neil. That's it for today, folks. Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica. Be sure to check out their website. Mark, for the last page, it's over to you.

UNKNOWN:

One, two. Music.