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GUITAR MAGAZINES
Guitar, 1975 Guitar
Player 1976 |
RALPH, ALBERT & SYDNEY Guitar When I saw Ralph McTell before Christmas he was standing at the back of the Half Moon Folk Club in Putney, admiring his old mate Sammy Mitchell's impeccable bottleneck playing. He was looking tired but relaxed after a tough concert tour and obviously hoping for a quiet, peaceful Christmas. But the release of the new single version of Streets of London, the home-grown anthem of the folk-clubs which Ralph originally recorded on his second album. Spiral Staircase, changed all that. As it shot to the top of the national pop charts, it brought with it all the complications of instant stardom, though it should also have the effect of focusing attention on Ralph's other, often underrated, songs. When I first opened a folk club, in 1968, Ralph was already a marketing man's dream. A mature and polished songwriter, with the face and personality of an engagingly amiable gangster and the guitar technique to carry off tricky ragtime versions of songs like Hesitation Blues and Too Tight Rag as well as the slower ballads, we could not believe that the hit machine would fail to cotton on to him immediately. That it didn't do so is almost certainly the result of the fact that Ralph was diffident about his talents and distrustful of the music business as a whole. He still is. But having worked away for years to build up a very real personal following in the clubs and the college circuit, he can at least be sure now that no-one's going to exploit or mismanage him into being a computapop nine days' wonder. Ralph has been fully professional for eight years now. But he learnt his trade as a guitarist well before the big step in 1967. He spent a long time busking in London and Paris and even played at the Paris Olympia, though the audience wouldn't have known that. 'I used to sit behind the curtain at the side of the stage, filling in the twiddly bits that the guy out front couldn't manage.' Now that he's the one in the spotlight, he uses the acoustic guitar more effectively than almost any other well-known singer/songwriter, playing with the ease and dexterity that only years of nimble-fingered picking can develop. On stage he plays a powerful black guitar, custom-made for him by Brighton luthier Keith Johns. It's basically a Gibson J200 body married to a J45 neck, though it has been modified so much that you'd scarcely recognise its parentage. And now and then he switches to his vintage 1954 Gibson 145, the instrument many of his best songs were composed on. He also has a Zemaitas 12-string, a Danelectro, a big Martin and a Harmony Sovereign. Ralph has very few fixed ideas about guitar techniques. He likes many of the more stylish players still to be seen in the folk clubs, such as Martin Carthy, Isaac Guillory, John James and Pete Berry man. He has long rated his friend and mentor Bert Jansch as one of the all-time greats and he's got a lot of time for John Martyn, a contemporary of his from the club circuit days before their musical paths diverged. I am delighted to see Ralph doing so well; not only because he deserves his long-awaited recognition, but also, as I explained in this column last month, because his success may open doors for many other talented acoustic players. I just hope that the ballyhoo of chart success doesn't blind people to the fact that Ralph McTell is first and foremost a guitarist and a working musician. And it is good to see hard work get its reward. Guitar Player Besides being a fine songwriter, Ralph has proven
to be an excellent guitarist, demonstrating his instrumental abilities by
playing such tunes as “Cocaine Blues” or “Statesboro Blues” by Blind
Willie McTell. It was,
incidentally, out of deep admiration that Ralph (May) selected Willie’s last
name as his stage name. McTell has long been an avid player of stringed
instruments. When he was twelve
years old he toyed with the ukulele because, as he put it, “I couldn’t
afford a regular guitar at the time.” Although
he occasionally practiced some songs, it wasn’t until he entered college that
someone introduced him to the records of various folk blues artists who nudged
him towards that style of music and influenced him to search deeper into the
blues and folk idiom. Displeased and unhappy with college and the whole
academic atmosphere, Ralph decided it was better for him to quit the campus
scene and travel through Europe. Although
he stayed in France for a limited time, McTell discovered new ideas there for
his music. But just when things
were rolling, he ran out of money and his journey was cut short.
So he went back to England, formed a small jug band, and worked long
hours playing in pubs and concert halls. It
wasn’t until he recorded a demo tape for a record producer that McTell’s
career soon flourished and made him a respected figure in the music world. Undoubtedly a unique individual, Ralph’s
acoustic guitar playing has a distinct quality that successfully paved the way
for his musical accomplishments. He
has toured occasionally here in the United States, and he can still be heard on
two albums, Not Till Tomorrow and Streets. Did you
have any money left to take lessons? How did
you learn to fingerpick with no formal instruction? Do you use
a thumb pick? What sort of guitars are you
using now? What type
of strings do you have on your J-45? Are there
any sort of tunings you like to use? After
quitting college, you went to Paris – did you find the music scene there any
different from England? When you
came back from Europe, did you eventually land a recording contract? What
happened after you did the records? You named Jesse Fuller and Jack
Elliott as some of your early influences. Are
there any others? Aside from
your admiration for Willie McTell, was there any other reason why you used
Willie’s name? Have you
ever done any session work? Now that
you’re a success what are some of the things you are looking forward to in the
future? Do you
have any suggestions for aspiring young guitarists who are trying to break into
the music business? Guitar Player
Guitar When
Ralph McTell last spoke to Guitar in 1974, he'd just crowned a ten-year career
as busker and folk-circuit stalwart by becoming the first British solo artist
for 14 years to fill the Albert Hall to capacity. But the crest of the super
star wave was too far from reality for Ralph, and reality is what his songs are
about. He stepped down. His songs though, are not all that distinguish Ralph
from the crowd. Of equal appeal is the uniquely tasteful and satisfying way his
guitar-playing becomes an integral part of the song structure. And
there is of course Ralph McTell the ragtime guitarist, giving new life to the
intricate folk-ragtime of the US East Coast guitarists of the 1930s. I wanted to
try and learn a little more about taste, about altitudes to playing, and - I
might as well face it - about how to become a good guitar-player. Ralph,
you're known not just for your guitar playing and your songwriting, hut for the
way the guitar and vocal work together in the end-product. Can you tell me
something about how you set about writing with the guitar . . . does the guitar
mould the tune, or vice versa? Well.
I used to play with a following melody line. on my early songs like, say,
Factory Girl or Clown ... I was actually playing what I was singing. 1 think,
probably ... it was a slow thing, but I would say it was probably James Taylor's
playing that influenced the way I though about playing. I rate James Taylor as
one of the best accompanists, he never does the obvious thing to my mind, he
always finds an accompanying chord or an accompanying line, rather than
something that duplicates what he's singing, and I found that really quite
interesting. I would say that First Song war probably inspired by his approach
to the guitar. But
when you're actually writing a song, do you have the words in front of you while
tinkering about on the guitar, and the melody just comes? Or do you have the
melody in your head first and then fit the guitar to it? What I'm trying to say
is, how big a part does the guitar play in the writing of your songs? Well.
I've very rarely had a melody come into my head. I usually I'm sitting down and
working around a two or three string harmony which might give me an idea for a
tune, and I'm messing around with two strings or three strings or a chord until
I get something that sounds nice, or a nice run down, or something like that. I
sort of play it a few times and it leads to another one, and then to another one
... like that's how Summer Lightning came about, you know. The
tunes sort of write themselves. I mean the classic song The Streets of London
which is basically a chord run-down ... In
the last line - you're very conscious of bass lines aren't you? Very
much so, yes. Because I think the best melodic music has a bass line that is
very rich, like brass band music, syncopated ragtime music, the bass end is
doing lovely things. I learnt the importance of that from this friend of mine
that I think you've probably heard of. Gary Petersen, he took me on to stage two
of the guitar just by hearing him play. The way he played ... he played things
by Buddy Bolden and it just opened up a new thing to me and I started to think
that way. And if I can't get a good bass line for a song. I'll either try it in
another key or I'll scrap it. So
your songs are written in pretty close interaction with the guitar? Yeah!
Mainly because they suit my voice. Previously I used to write play chords, you
know, do it that way. Although some of the most successful songs ... I've had
the words and I'm picking around on the guitar, and I'll write that way. They're
very simple tunes basically because the guitar has come in at a stage where it
can't dictate the chord sequence and the line ... though others are quite tricky
to play because they're from the guitar. The simpler tunes are the
ones I've written the words for first, usually. Listening
to your work, it seems obvious that you have favourite keys Yeah!
Mainly because they suit my voice. Previously I used to write in G and A more.
But D, I love D. It's the greatest one, you know. I never seem to run out of
ideas with D. I think it's because of the extra scope on the bass . . . because
I turn the E string down to D nearly always ... ...
giving you a full octave for the bass line ... That's
right. You get more to play around with on the bass end. C also suits me very
well. C. D ... I haven't really got into E yet because I've only just learnt to
play a B7th, with an A shape with a bar, you know (laugh)'. Thinking
about the James Tar/or thing you mentioned, that's alright if you don't have
sausages for fingers, so you can use three fingers for A and get that hammer-on
on the 2nd string/2nd fret he uses. Mine are too podgy, I can only use two. I
use two. I think. Let's see. (Picks up guitar) Yeah. you have to do it by moving
the end-joint to lean your fingers over to get the 2nd string ... Thanks!
I'll practise that! I
had a friend I hated because he could play an A with just the first joint of the
first finger, because his joint bent straight out at right angles! What
about your instrumental numbers, let's talk about them. The right hand. You use
thumb and three fingers - do you always keep them on the same strings, you know,
index on 3rd siring middle on 2nd ... ...
No. I always tell people actually, when they're asking me, to adopt a
disciplined approach, and try and do that. But I tend now myself to move about a
bit. I mean I might use the first finger on the 3rd string, or even sometimes on
the 1st. Because when I was playing ... and I mean this is absolutely true ...
when I first started playing I was working manually, you know. doing building
site work, or factory work or whatever, and I became terrified of the very real
danger of losing a finger. So I practised with every combination. I could play a
clawhammer with my thumb and index, or thumb and middle, thumb and ring, and
even with thumb and little finger. I learned to do that, and I think that
probably ruined any chance I had of developing a really disciplined right-hand
technique. Ok,
so you use three fingers and move them about, but with many people there's a
problem straight away. Take your Blind Blake pieces for instance - it seems to
me that you use your third finger, the right finger for some very fast picking.
With most people that third finger is quite weak and just can't move that fast.
No,
I use ... I ... well actually I'm never really that aware of what I'm doing. 1
can show you, that's probably the best way. (Plays
a Blind Blake rag) I
use it quite a bit! I'm more disciplined on that than some of the other things!
But see how long my nails are? If I lost a nail I couldn't play because, for
some reason my skin has never callused up in all the years I've been playing.
And if I break a nail, I've got a blister on the
finger by the end of the gig, and then the next gig I break the blister, and it
starts to become really painful. I look after my nails very much. You
don't reinforce them? No.
I'm very lucky there. I don't seem to need to. I just look after them. I mean,
by the end of a 30-day tour say, I only have to trim that side of them, the
other side is kept trimmed just by playing. I'm very lucky - they're very hard.
But anyone with weak nails should take care of them. After every session they
should take an ordinary safety-match box and just take off the little rough
bits, because that's what breaks nails - they chip, or they catch on something and
tear off. I
seem to remember you recommending at one time that someone with weak nails
should eat a whole pack of jelly a day to strengthen them? (Laugh}
Yeah. Well, actually, somebody told me that see, and I mentioned it in an
interview, and the next thing it's "Eat jelly every day", says Ralph
McTell'! So I imagined there were all these guys going out and buying up
shopfuls of jelly! I should have had shares in Hartley's Jelly! But it does
help, I believe. Though it's not a question of desperately strong nails. If you
play lightly and just use your nails for a percussive sound ... you know, you
don't have to claw it as hard as I do, 'cause I do hit the guitar very hard. But
then, I've got strong nails. If you've got weak nails then you should play a
little softer. When
you're learning these ragtime numbers - Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Buddy Moss - do
you try to play exactly what they play, or do you go more for getting the right
feel? Well,
if I'm playing the slower things - say a Blind Blake blues - I think I tend to
try and learn it more exactly, but I think the essence of that ragtime music was
that it was an expression of joy, and it was played without going, 'Oh, it's got
to be this note, or this note'. When I'm playing what I regard as fun ragtime
stuff - skiffle really, that's what 1 call it - it's got to be fun. The feel is
the important thing, communicate the excitement, communicate the fun. If you can
get better at it, put in the little riffs as you get better, but still get the
feel - I think that's what I do. I do the same for bottleneck stuff. It's not
good slaving over it night after night to get all the notes exactly right, the
right feel is the important thing. I've never done that. it would take the joy
out of it for me. Besides, if I knew all the little riffs, I wouldn't get any
fun when 1 play my Robert Johnson records! And I still get off on them, you
know, even today. So
your advice to anyone wanting to play these old ragtime and blues pieces would
he? Enjoy
it. If it becomes hard work or starts to get you down because you're saying,
'Oh, I'm never going to do it', put the guitar down and do something else. If
you're trying too hard to play to the letter, it'll show in your playing. You'll
be demonstrating something, rather than playing something. I heard Dave Bromberg
when I was in the States last, two nights running. What a fantastic bunch of
musicians they are. Though the first night I almost felt, goodness me,
they're playing all the right notes but they're losing the song, you know, like
in the Incredible String Band. But then I stopped and thought, no just relax,
listen to the music, and he does it with the same sort of respect as Ry Cooder
does it, and he plays beautifully. He's got a brilliant guitar player in his
band too. We've produced some great guitar players over here. Bert Jansch never
fails to delight me in everything he does, John Martyn, and of course one of the
most brilliant guitar players we have over here is Martin Carthy. Absolutely
brilliant. We've got some great ones over here, but over there ... oh ho ho! So you would recommend any up-and-coming guitarist to listen to Jansch, Martyn, Carthy. Bromberg ... Yeah. and take in all the American guitarists you can as well ... and for people who are heavily acoustic-biased, try not to be. Because American guitarists have gone beyond all this playing for volume's sake and effects, they're going back to playing old Fender Strats and Telecasters from 1954 and playing them straight, through small amps and getting wonderful sounds out of them, you know.
As
must have been the case for many other independent makers, it’s taken Tom
Mates a long, long time to reach the stage where a part-time dedication to
guitar building could be transformed into a full-time vocation.
Something like thirteen years in fact. Last autumn, after a decade of making and
repairing instruments whilst working for various music stores and three years at
the London College of Furniture before that, Tom took up residency in his own,
fully equipped and humidity controlled workshop but a deep-fielder’s throw
from the Thames at Putney. With an impressive client roster over the
years including the likes of Gerry Rafferty, Jerry Donahue, Albert Lee, Billy
Connolly, Denny Wright, Diz Disley, Iron Maiden, Westworld, Gordon Giltrap and
Messrs Gallagher (Rory and Bennie) – not to mention an enviable reputation for
sumptuous inlay work – it’s no accident that Tom’s most recent customer
for one of his immaculate Custom Telecasters should be Ralph McTell. For Ralph is, in the nicest sense,
Tom’s minder, providing guidance and help in the new venture.
Indeed, the lease of the building in which the basement workshop is
located is owned by Ralph’s brother. Very
much a family affair then, but one which would not exist if it weren’t for
Ralph’s high regard for Tom’s craftsmanship. Inspiration for asking Tom to build the
Tele came partly from chum Jerry Donahue’s highly figured maple version built
by Dick Knight. Remarked Ralph,
“I’ve always loved the Telecaster design and Jerry’s one is great.
But we reckoned we could come up with something even tastier, and Tom
has. It was definitely ‘beat
Donahue’ time!” The Canadian rock maple 25½” scale
neck was already in existence. Tom
had made it seven or so years ago for a customer who never returned to collect.
Actually two-piece, i.e. separate fingerboard because Tom dislikes truss
rod installation slots up the backs of necks, it is supremely comfortable.
For dimension collectors, depth at the graphite nut is 22mm graduating
modestly to around 24mm by the octave. Width
is fairly conventional: from 42mm at the nut to a string width over the bridge
of 53mm. Radius on the 22 fret fingerboard is
shallow enough to permit one of the lowest, choke free actions anyone could wish
for, with the nut cut and the medium grade nickel silver, semi-wide oval
fretting dressed to a tee. Result
is an octave action height over bass and treble less than 1.5mm and 1.00mm
respectively. Strings fitted are
Ralph’s usual choice for electric – Ernie Ball .010” to 0.46”. To minimise weight and provide the warmth
of sound Ralph was looking for, the 45mm depth body is not solid maple.
It’s a core of mahogany – “old, lightweight and really dry”, says
Tom – faced on top, back and sides with 1mm bird’s eye maple veneer.
Colour tone for the body binding was chosen to endow an antiqued look
from the word go. Originally, cosmetic emphasis for the
hardware was ‘blacker’ than it actually turned out. A mix-and-match of black and gold was eventually chosen to
compliment or contrast with the black position markers and sunny-hued natural
finish. A mix to the extent of
taking two Schaller bridge units and installing gold saddle assemblies from one
into the black base casting of the other. Remaining
hardware including the one humbucker and two single coil pickups is Gotoh. “The pickups were a bit of an
experiment”, says Tom, “but the Gotohs proved so good we didn’t see any
point in fitting more expensive EMGs or whatever.
They also make fabulous machine heads”.
Mounted on the traditional Tele-type control panel is a five-way switch
and push/pull coil-tap tone pot which, unusually, is wired for single coil when
in its down position. All circuitry is front loaded with no
back access plate required. Was
this to maintain an uncluttered appearance?
“Yes, partly”, says Tom, “in fact in that sense I’d have only
fitted two pickups but Ralph wanted three.
“I’m happy to do what the customer wants”. Here it’s worth mentioning that Dave
Pegg, after recently clapping eyes on the guitar, immediately ordered one.
Same pickups but his will carry black tuning machines and scratchplate,
and Kahler tremolo. Two thoughts may be forming in your mind.
First: sure it looks jolly spiff but I bet it’d cost an arm and a leg
if I wanted one. Second: what’s Ralph doing playing electric…? Wrong about number one. Spec’d
exactly as Ralph’s, Tom will build one for you at a modest £500 or
thereabouts! For what amounts to
many days’ worth of one man’s labour that’s a snip by anyone’s
yardstick. The only significant
extras to be taken into account would be the requirement for more expensive,
sprauncey-brand pickups, trem system etc. As to Ralph himself I, too, was intrigued
about this apparent change of direction. “I feel I’ve reached a point where
I’ve done just about as much as I can as an acoustic soloist”, volunteered
Ralph, “and went to branch out a little.
I can go back nearly ten years to when I started writing in a band
context and using other musicians for recording, and it’s frustrating that I
can use only a small percentage of that material for solo performance. “Also, although we’ve sorted out the
situation of amplifying the acoustic guitar, when you’re with a band you’re
really up against it and obviously an electric blends in much better.
I don’t know whether I’m actually going to form a band but I
definitely want to play more with other musicians…and use this Tele.
I’ve other electrics at home but this one will do everything I need.
It has the most comfortable neck I’ve ever played.” With Ralph looking forward to debuting
the guitar in public when he guests with Fairport Convention at their annual
August reunion, will more electric playing involve a relearning process to some
extent? “Yes”, he reckons, “I developed my
technique in the days before the clubs used mics. so I’d use fairly heavy
strings, a thumbpick, really dig in hard and sing quiet.
As soon as I plug in to an electric I have the urge to sing loud and I
need to control that. “Also, I push the acoustic – it’s
part of my public identity – and insist that it’s pretty well forward in the
mix. Really, that’s not a natural
place for it, so with electric I’ll need to learn to play less, lay out a bit
more. Actually I wouldn’t be
embarrassed to take lessons, because you do have to unlearn things. For instance, nowadays I hardly ever use a pick and want to
continue with finger style or maybe use one of those very soft thumbpicks that
Ernie Ball make. So I’ll have to
adapt my right hand position to avoid things like hitting the pickup covers –
I keep my nails very long.” I wondered whether Tom had taken
Ralph’s predominantly acoustic background into account when he was building
the Tele. He quipped, “I took it
into consideration but it didn’t make any difference!”. His standpoint is that if you fashion a neck with an acoustic
feel on an electric instrument the player will tend to stick with acoustic based
ideas. If, however, you give the
whole guitar an out-and-out electric persona the player will then be more
inclined to experiment. If Ralph’s Tele is a one-off, another
collaboration between he and Tom is manifest by the first few of what they hope
will be many Tom Mates AP Acoustics. The AP is dedicated to Arthur Phelps, aka
Blind Blake. As Ralph remarked,
“We share an interest in old ragtime players, especially Blind Blake, and
decided to try and make a guitar which looks approximately like the one he’s
playing in that only known photograph. It
may be a Martin, we don’t know. In
a romantic sense, it’s nice to pay this wonderful guitarist a tribute.
I’ve collected almost his entire recorded works and he’s
staggering!”. For reference Tom used a very old Gibson
of Ralph’s and “kinda stretched it out here and there, gave it a more
pronounced waist, used a Martin style headstock and incorporated a 14th
fret neck join. Sort of a cross
between a 00028 and a J-200”. As
for materials, the top is solid cedar with mahogany back, sides and neck.
Fingerboard and bridge are rosewood.
The guitar is finished with “as little lacquer as possible – just
enough to protect the wood”. Especially pleased with the sound,
they’re convinced this is down to the strutting. Ralph continued, “The Gibson, which hasn’t been
particularly well looked after, still shows no signs of bellying and has its
strength not from the width of struts but their height.
By adapting this, we worked out we could achieve the same strength but
with one less strut overall. The AP
therefore resonates more and sounds fantastic”. Tom explained, “I’m using basically X
bracing but, depending on the piece of timber being used for the top, I’ll
shift the angle of the cross struts and maybe the two lower struts around a bit
to where I feel it needs the support.” “We aimed for a mean average”, added
Ralph, “between the sound of an old Gibson and a vintage Martin – both quite
beautiful with sounds all their own. What
Tom’s come up with is something that sounds good and mature new, and can only
get better. So many new acoustics
sound new – very bright and thin – and don’t always improve that much. “The AP’s response across the strings
is also very evenly balanced – unlike some Jumbos which can be bottom heavy
– so it will be great for stage work and melody lines. We’ve also made sure there’s not too much material
underneath the neck, so it’s very comfortable to play.” Price wise, an AP is in the same ballpark
as the Custom Tele – around £550, and each will be sequentially numbered
AP003, 4 and so on. Visitors to the
West End can see an ‘Arthur Phelps’ in Ivor Mairants, that is if the shop
hasn’t already sold it. Right now, Tom is signing the headstocks
although they’re looking at the feasibility of incorporating a line reduction
of the Blind Blake photo as a headstock motif.
Actually, Tom’s quite obliging about choice of logo on all his guitars.
There’s either the AP or Mates Custom style, or his enigmatic
‘Mates’ mirror image motif. Of the last he says, “People used to
come in and stand for ages trying to figure it out. But as it’s so easy to run past a row of names which may
mean very little, at least they were trying to figure out who built it!”.
He is, however, tired of ambulance-in-the-rear-view-mirror gags. The importance Tom attaches to functional
and pre-requisite attributes like good playability and sound quality seems
typical of his overall approach. He
eschews the hype and indulgent metaphysics of his craft.
As he recalls, “I heard the story of a guy who would never use a router
because he believed it instilled “too many unwanted frequencies into the
timber”. Mind you, this bloke’s
guitars were about a thousand pounds a throw, so maybe he was asking his
customers to pay for the bullshit!”. For more (bull-free) information you can reach Tom Mates at 33, Felsham Road, Putney, London, SW15 1AY. Tel: 01 788 1098. If you’re visiting be sure to ask for a look through his photo album. You’ll then realise why he’s considered no slouch in the art of inlays.
Guitarist Most people only know one song and one
jingle by this highly talented musician – but there’s a lot more to Ralph
McTell than generally meets the ear! Nick
Webb went along to the studio to talk about life, London and Lager
commercials… NW:
What are you working on at the
moment? RM:
I’m in the middle of a tour just now, so my actual projects are limited
until the tour is over. I have just
finished another TV series for kids which comes out on November 5th
and I’ve been writing little bits of my own stuff.
I feel that the last two years have been occupied with children’s songs
for Alphabet Zoo or whatever, so I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and
let what’s going to come out of me happen naturally. That’s what I’ll be doing in the next few weeks.
So in terms of projects I’m just getting on with the business of
playing to a live audience. NW:
Why the meeting at Air Edel? RM:
Well, today I’m here to adapt the commercial we did recently for Skol
Lager for a possible single. So
that should be a lot of fun! As far
as the guitar goes I’m getting virtually as much pleasure now as I did when I
first started. NW:
Was there a period in your life
when your interest for the instrument waned? RM:
In a way, yes, there was a period of such intense work, the guitar simply
became a tool to help you do the job. I’m
rediscovering it as an instrument again, listening to my old blues records.
Some people might find it strange to think that that’s where I came
from, but my earliest roots were the blues and ragtime, the singer-songwriter
came later. I love that music,
Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, marvellous stuff. NW:
How would you describe your
audience on this tour, what sort of people do you feel you appeal to? RM:
That’s a difficult one. I’ve
always had a very broad-based audience but it does seem to divide up into
sections. One section would be
quite happy for me to play guitar and sing on my own. NW:
Let’s go back to that period when
you were ‘top of the pile’ in the early/middle seventies, riding high on
‘Streets of London’ then virtually overnight the picture changed and the
punk/new wave explosion made massive casualties of the acoustic folk artists.
What do you think went wrong from your side? RM:
Well, looking back on it one tends to take it all personally!
I think what happened was we’d had a period of fascination for the
solo/acoustic guitarist and I had ‘Streets’ which gave me such a boost
during the mid-seventies, but it all finally got too much.
What happened, as often happens, was a great surfeit of players trying to
hit the same market. A lot of people were trying to get on the band wagon and as a
result there was a lot of dross appearing.
Frankly a lot of them hadn’t had the folk club experience which
toughened you up for live work, so when the new wave arrived very few survived.
NW:
Some of your previous material
never received the acclaim it should have done, numbers like ‘First and Last
Man’ and ‘The Ferryman’. RM:
Both of those tracks are in my present set and go down extremely well,
perhaps they were a bit before their time.
I was certainly writing well during that time and I sometimes wonder if I
could ever write as well again…I hope I can! NW:
Apart from your own following, the
general public still know you as the man who did ‘Streets of London’ and
that was a long time ago. Do you
think it’s ever held you back? RM:
Yes…because it has been so massively popular, it’s just incredible
the success of that song. I still
get reports from people who say they stumble into a bar in Bangkok and the
band’s playing ‘Streets of London’! It’s
a world-wide song, it’s much bigger than me.
I’ve always said that ‘Streets of London’ has it’s own career and
I have mine. When I shout out for
requests at the end of my set, I get maybe twenty songs called out for, only one
person will timidly call out ‘Streets of London’ because they’re the new
boy in the audience…but somehow I always feel obliged to play it. NW:
What about future recordings? RM:
I’m keen to record an acoustic bass/guitar ballad album using some of
those old sentimental songs from the 30s and 40s which really had good melody
lines strong formats and plenty of scope for individual playing, that’s a
temptation. The other is to do a
straight acoustic album, and the last is to go for broke, really pull all the
stops out, spend a lot of money and do an across the board album. NW:
So you don’t really know which
direction to take? RM:
No I don’t. These last two
years have been constant work and I just have to sit down and think what’s the
best way for me. I’m sorry I
can’t be more specific! The new
children’s show will go from November to Christmas ’85, but I don’t want
to get stuck into children’s programmes, I think I’ve had enough of that.
I would like to do more television though because there’s so much
material that has never been played on the air and the public know me only for
‘Streets of London’ and the Skol advert!
That’s all the vast majority know.
There’s talk about me hosting a TV show, just a half hour maybe.
Two or three of my own songs and a guest musician.
Granada have been considering it as a result of the ‘Ralph McTell and
Friends’ radio show, which again was acoustic based and mainly guitarists. NW:
Are you still using the old Gibson
J45? RM:
Yes, I still love that guitar. It’s
about forty years old now and I’ve literally grown with it. I think the new ones are awful, whenever I have a guitar made
I get the neck based on the J45. I’m
comfortable writing with that guitar. NW:
Do you find writing comes easily? RM:
No. It never has done and I
don’t suppose it ever will do. Somebody
asked me on TV, ‘how do you write songs, Ralph?’ and I was stumped. I was holding the guitar and the studio was full of little
kids, so I leaned forward and pointed to the sound hole and said, ‘they’re
all in there’ and all these kids came up peering into the box to see … it
was lovely! Guitarist Ralph McTell isn't taken seriously as a guitarist. At
least, that's what he thinks. Despite
being one of Britain's most accomplished fingerstyle players, known for weaving
melodies around independent bass lines, the man who wrote Streets Of London feels his lyrics and arrangements have often
masked the underlying guitar work. "People think McTell songs are simple,"
says Ralph. "But try to play them and you'll see they're not. If I'm
writing a piece, then it has to stand by itself without words. As the guy who
transcribes my material said, 'no one knows you play guitar, Ralph. It's hidden
in your arrangements'. He's right." It's the song that he's most often associated with
that Ralph feels may have done the most damage to his standing as a player.
"Oh yes, Streets Of London has
been a huge burden," says Ralph, "but I'll never know what would have
happened without it. Still, if it hadn't been a pop hit, which it was, and I
hadn't been treated as a pop star, then I might have been taken more seriously
as a player, "I'm a syncopated fingerstyle guitar player with independent
bass and topline..." says Ralph, absent-mindedly plucking a blues piece
that clearly illustrates his point. "The breakthrough for me came when I
met a guitar dealer called Chris Aleph... he showed me the secret of clawhammer
guitar in the style of Freight Train and
Railroad Bill. That was used or
adapted by a wonderful lady called Elizabeth Cotton who died a few years ago in
her 90s. She wrote and played Freight Train, but what no one told me was that
she was left-handed and played the guitar upside down; she played the melody
with her thumb and bass lines with her fingers. "The secret is to give each of your fingers a
specific job. You need to assign them a certain string and mustn't let them play
anything other than that string, at least when you're starting out. So the thumb plays the three bass strings, the first
finger plays the third (G) string, the second finger plays the second (B) string
and the third finger plays the first (E) string. "Chris showed me how to play the 5-4-3-6-2-4-3
rhythm. It gives you that dum-diddy-dum-a-diddy feel and that rhythm gives you a
rolling clawhammer feel. Then your third finger can pick out the melody on the
top to go against it. Freight
Train is the first tune that comes out of that pattern without having to do
anything against it," says Ralph launching into a rendition of Elizabeth
Cotton's natural clawhammer tune. But learning the secret of clawhammer was only the
beginning. Ralph was inspired by guitarists like Davy Graham to develop
increasingly independent bass and melody lines. "Davy was probably the best and most innovative
British guitarist we've ever had. When his song Angi came on the scene, it just blew everyone away. Without Davy
it's hard to imagine that there would ever have been a Bert Jansch or any of the
others. Davy's playing was far in excess and so beautiful, there was no-one like
him." But living in Britain had some major drawbacks for an
aspiring guitarist. Ralph was listening to the songs of American blues players
but there were few opportunities to actually see people playing that kind of
music. "There was no-one to learn from," says
Ralph. "You can't imagine what it's like trying to learn everything off
records, when you've got no tab, nothing! That's why I think we've developed a
very identifiable British acoustic guitar style, the kind of thing Bert Jansch
and John Renbourn play." It wasn't until Ralph got to Paris, a trip inspired
by a heady mix of romanticism and socialist ideals, that his playing took
another major leap forward. "I'd basically gone as far as I could without
watching someone play. I'd been busking on the streets of Europe, flatpicking
and everything, but my first love was to fingerpick. Players like Blind Boy Fuller were a mystery to me. But in
Paris in '65 I met an American guitar player called Gary Peterson who'd had
lessons with Rev Gary Davis. He didn't play the Reverend’s religious songs,
that's what held his music back in terms of popularity because they were all
spiritual songs. But Gary played a
few ragtime pieces and I can remember thinking 'fuck, what's going on here?' It
was a song with this fantastic independent bass line. I sat and watched what he
was doing and then went back to my grubby flat and spent an evening lost in the
guitar. It was like I was playing for the first time." Ralph was offered his first job while busking to a
cinema queue in Paris when he was spotted by 'France's answer to Bob Dylan'.
"He was a guy called Antoine and he asked me in bad English, 'can you play
with the fingers?' I ended up playing in the Olympia in Paris for three weeks.
They were so worried that the audience would realise that one guy was
doing all this on just one guitar that they put two other blokes on the stage
with me. We were all dressed in tuxedos and these other guys were told to
pretend to play while keeping their fingers an inch off the strings so it looked
like there were actually three of us playing.
Eventually we were shifted behind the curtains so the attention was kept
on Antoine, who was also pretending to play." It was in Paris that Ralph wrote Streets
Of London, which started life as Streets
Of Paris; a ragtime melody with a syncopated bassline. "Gary suggested
that I played it a little slower and so it developed into a rolling clawhammer
piece. If you play it in first position with these chords, then that tune just
comes out of it." Ralph doesn't read music. Having learned mainly by
ear, he's developed an instinctive approach to the guitar. "I've acquired
some knowledge," says Ralph, "But I couldn't tell you what I'm doing,
I can only tell you what sounds right. It's been a slow process, but I've
enjoyed my route through it all and my music is more sophisticated than it ever
was." That growing level of sophistication continues to be
incorporated into his music and the guitar is starting to take a front seat once
again. "I wrote songs because I needed something
more than instrumentation to play them. Then gradually, the lyrics started to
take over. Just recently I've rediscovered the joys of the guitar, I've started
to play it every day and there was a time when I didn't do that." Despite winning an Ivor Novello in 1974 and despite
the complexity of his guitar work, Ralph takes a surprisingly simple approach to
songwriting. "It has to be a
beautiful thing to play on the guitar. It'll have a bass line and something of
interest rhythmically... nothing too complicated because you've got to fit a
tune over the top of it and it's got to fit into the first three frets to do it
comfortably. A lot of people have missed that and there are a lot of songs that
use three chords that are pretty dull. They might be witty, so you'll remember
the words, but it's got to have a good tune, be fun to play and have
harmonically interesting content. "On the last album one of the nicest pieces to
play, which still delights me, is called After
Rain which is complete on three or four frets and works really well. I
didn't think 'right I'm going to write a song about what it's like after rain. I
just found these three-finger chords and they worked so well within the
structure of the song that I just had to do something with them. Then came the
idea of the earth smelling sweeter after rain and of the soul feeling cleansed
after tears." Rather like After
Rain, Ralph's songs have seldom touched on those lyrical mainstays of love
and desertion, partly because by the time fame came along he was already
married. "I was settled down
with a family, so I didn't write about love and conquests," says Ralph.
"I wrote about Sunday school teachers, disturbed children, racism and all
the things that no-one else was touching on. I was lucky that the folk boom was
going on and I could play the guitar and write about that sort of thing." But whatever he chooses to write about it's his
guitar style and unique approach that give his tunes such a distinctive feel.
"I was always much more interested in the bottom end of the guitar than the
top end," says Ralph. "The fact that if you're singing a tune and
playing these bass runs in and out of chords, it makes it sound so full." The String’s
The Thing “I’ve got a little secret to impart to Guitarist
readers about re-stringing,” says Ralph.
“Do it right and you can play a two hour set without touching the
machine heads once and the guitar won’t go out of tune . . . And I really dig
in, I play with a thumb pick and I’ve got hard nails and, thanks to my days
playing folk clubs with no amplification, I really do play very hard. “First make sure it’s pegged properly at the
bridge – you just need enough to grip the bead at the end. I go in East to West at the string-post, then go over and
under, turning it so it locks under the string.
Stretch each string for five minutes and you’re sorted. “Jerry Donahue showed me that method of
re-stringing, he plays a Strat and he often bends over a tone and a half." Ralph on his
Influences Ralph spent most of his early days trying to learn
fingerstyle blues from records which, with no one to watch, was a fairly tough
task. “I started off wanting to sound like Jack
Elliot,” says Ralph, “because he had such fantastic open chorded style and
lovely bass runs. I was interested
in the originators of these songs, particularly Jessie Fuller, Rev Gary Davis,
Blind Boy Fuller, Arthur Blake, Woodie Guthrie and Big Bill Broonzy, but I had
to try to work out what they were doing. “All those old black guitar players would break the
rules in the most charming, wonderful way, they’d often imply the music and in
some cases play out of tune. Not
because they didn’t know how to tune it but because being out of tune gave
them a bigger sound, like a chorus pedal. Someone
did an interview with Broonzy where he said, ‘they give me a guitar that’s
perfectly in tune and I make it right for myself.’” Ralph on kids
TV In 1982 Ralph began work on the kids’ TV show Alphabet
Zoo and the popularity of that led to the birth of Tickle
on the Tum in 1984. At first he
was understandably worried about what effect it would have on his standing.
“It’s sobering for me,” agrees Ralph.
“When they asked me to do it I said ‘No, I don’t want to do
children’s TV, I don’t want to be jumping around in a pair of Kickers,
braces and a bib’, I wasn’t ready for it. But then the Director told me that what he wanted were Ralph
McTell songs for children. My
brother, who was also my manager at the time, said, “What are you afraid of?
Everyone you admire has written songs for children that can hold their
attention. Woodie Guthrie has done
it, Leadbelly did it . . . are you frightened of having a go?’ and I thought,
‘yes, I am . . . I don’t want to be perceived that way.’ “But when I got involved in the project I found myself saying . . . ‘no, that story’s not good enough!’ I really got into it. And I tell you, those albums are still selling, even people who don’t remember the programme are buying them . . .”.
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