STEVE
TURNER
Whirligig of Time
by Pete Heywood
Steve Turner is one of those artists who
have been the backbone of the British folk scene, a confident
performer, setting the definitive standard for several
songs and introducing them with an appropriate line of
patter and yet is somebody who has not been given the recognition
he himself now feels he deserves. Steve has been out of
circulation on the folk scene for around eleven years,
tempted back recently, in part by Mick Peat. ‘Braiding’,
Steve’s fourth LP released on Fellside, was hailed
as a great album but in 40 years Steve has never had a
major article in a magazine. Sitting in a railway station
in Newcastle, he said that this was the first interview
that he had ever done.
Steve's musical story starts in the Manchester folk scene
in the late 60s. His route to music was via the Beatles
and then Dylan. “I stood in front of the mirror with
a tennis racket, harmonica holder and a hat. I finally
got a guitar for seven pounds.”
Steve was singing songs like the ‘Zoological Gardens’ and
was told to go to John Rylands Library in Manchester to
look for songs. His choice of songs and quality and sensitivity
of accompaniment have marked him out as somebody special.
I first met him at the Bury Folk Club when Heather and
I were visiting relatives in Manchester on a fairly regular
basis.
Steve was playing a floor spot in 1971 where Canny Fettle
were the main act and Bob Diehl, their fiddler, asked if
he wanted to join the band. Steve was in the group for
seven years during which time they made two albums, ‘Varry
Canny” and an LP of tunes from the Joshua Jackson
collection – both groundbreaking albums for their
time. The band members were all part-time; Steve wanted
to turn professional but they didn't. “I pretended
I was a Geordie for seven years, nobody seemed to notice!” Steve
must be good at accents as in 1972 he came equal third
with Alison McMorland at a Scots singing competition at
the Kinross Festival. Stanley Robertson came first.
After Canny Fettle, Steve spent three years working for
Hobgoblin then went fully professional as a musician from
1980 until 1991. He made four solo albums, all with Fellside
and set the standard for a number of songs. Mary Black
credits Steve as a source of her version of the ‘Isle
of St Helena’; others credit Steve for ‘Hard
Times’ and the ‘Glendy Burke’.
There was no specific reason why he stopped playing although
one interesting story gives a hint at some of the issues. “Braiding,
my last LP for Fellside got the top write-up in an issue
of Folk Roots, ahead of a new release by Bob Dylan, and
a writer in Sandy Bell's Broadsheet said that it was the
best album he had ever heard. An Italian agent heard about
this and came on the phone wanting to book ‘The Steve
Turner Band. I explained that there was no band, there
were five people on the album but they were never all together
in one place. The Italian agent insisted and myself and
the musicians from the album decided to do a one-off gig
in Italy. There were three acts playing that night in a
2000 seater marquee. We were to be on between 11 and 12
o'clock. The first two acts overran and we finally went
on at five minutes to midnight. After two minutes on stage,
the sound and lights were switched off on the instructions
of the Police and the band were stopped in the middle of
the first song. Apparently there was a local bylaw stating
there was to be no music after midnight. I had to go back
onto the stage to explain to the audience. We were paid £5,000
for the two minutes performance but something told me we
were not supposed to be doing this!”
This was reinforced two weeks later at Tonder Festival
when a pad fell off his concertina just before going on-stage.
Any concertina player will know that the effect of this
is to leave a note sounding constantly, making the instrument
unplayable. Steve was playing with George Faux at the time
and they winged a complete set without the concertina. “We
were proud of ourselves but I still felt somebody up there
was trying to tell me something.”
Coming from a self-taught background on concertina means
that Steve has no particular role models for his style
of playing. He plays concertina in a percussive style more
influenced by guitar players such as Carthy, Nic Jones
and Ri Cooder and transferred that to concertina.
Although Steve is generally modest with his talent, the
Steve Turner this time around is more self-confident, although
still understated. “It is not perhaps that I am great,
there just aren't many other people around! All that I
can do is what comes within my remit, but I would like
people to be able to say – ‘If you want a concertina
accompanist, Steve Turner is your man!’”
“That is all I have tried to do but it would be
good to get some recognition after 40 years. There are
more players around now. At a recent workshop at Whitby
over fifty people turned up. That surprised me - people
came with questions and with instruments!”
Steve respects virtuosity and lists Frankie Gavin and
Alistair Anderson as people he admires. Turner Violins
has given him an insight into other spheres of music where
he found standards of stage performance to be generally
higher than those found in the folk scene.
Steve is now able to be more choosy in the gigs that he
does because he now has a ‘day job’ in the
form of his business Turner Violins. “I suppose you
could say that I am coming back to my music now that I'm
semi-retired. I am not retired at all, but the business
is well-established and I can take time away from it.”
“I was known as a folk club performer and it is
has been easy to me to return there. The lead time for
festival bookings is longer these days and soloists seem
scarce on festival bills, so I have yet to experience the
change at that level. Next year I am planning a trip to
the USA and Australia and my diary is now filling up to
a point where it is close to being as much as I can cope
with, although I would like to do more festivals.”
Steve's principal instrument is still the concertina but
this time around he is comfortable adding cittern, mandolin
and tenor banjo to the mix. Steve sees himself as a concertina
song accompanist rather than a tune player and gives accompaniment
workshops. He once did a Grateful Dead song, ‘Me
and My Uncle’, in what he now describes as his avant-garde
period. Perhaps this is as far as he has pushed the concertina
so far.
Steve is currently tracing his family tree. He is half
Scots, his mother came from Cluny near Blairgowrie and
his old aunt, now 92, lives next door to Dougie MacLean
and is a big fan. Steve is from Manchester and his grandfather
was a barber for the Manchester City players. His father's
birth certificate lists his father, Steve's grandfather,
as a journeyman hairdresser. “My grandfather was
a sailor, played concertina and was a silver tenor – whatever
that is! He gave my grandmother eight children and left
her ashore as a charlady.”
Steve's grandfather was playing the concertina and singing
as late as 1890s and Steve inherited his grandfather's
concertina. “The concertina lay in a box in the shed
for over ten years. I popped in occasionally and opened
the box but when I eventually took it out it came out of
the box in two halves.” He still has that concertina.
Towards the end of our conversation we strayed back to
the topic of recognition and to the subject of awards. “It
is interesting to see this change. When I and my fellow
professionals were making a living in the folk clubs, we
never expected to receive the kind of public recognition
that can come with awards. I suppose I have come to realise
that this kind of opportunity for most of the people of
my vintage has passed. But one can always hope!”
Cricket is Steve's other passion. His commitment is mirrored
in the hard work he puts into his music to reach the technical
standards that he has set himself. In both of these are
areas of his life there is unfinished business and whilst
cricket is his hobby, music will surely be his legacy.
His cricketing achievements are clearly important to him,
but with a target of only fifty, he does realise that he
will never feature in any world rankings. His music however
has taken him to a different level. As far as concertina
accompaniment goes, Steve has reached peaks that few can
share. And he can go on achieving. He has just finished
recording an album that has been on the go for some time.
It has been largely self-produced although with the recording
controls in the capable hands of Ollie Knight, who’s
help in arrangements has brought Steve into the 21st century.
Steve thinks that it is his best work to date, which is
saying something as he sets his own standards very high.
The recording recently reached a stage where it needed
to be finished or he might have been re-recording forever.
Steve thought that it might have been of interest to a
major label but he has now realised that things have changed
during his period away. The music business has its fashions
and middle-aged men playing concertina, fall somewhat short
in the visual stakes. Conversations during the research
for this article led to it finding its niche on the Tradition
Bearers label. It wasn't planned that way but it could
be that it has found a fitting home.
Thanks to Pete
Heywood of The Living Tradition for allowing this
reprint of his article
www.folkmusic.net and www.thetraditionbearers.com
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