[John] …let’s move on to something else shall we? OK. Live Aid. You mentioned when we met up last year, just in passing, that you had recorded a song for ‘Live Aid’ before the big event itself - if I’ve heard that right?

[Ralph] Yeah.

What’s the story there then, please?

Well, I wish I could tell you more. I remembered it because I was counting up the number of times I’ve played at the Royal Albert Hall: which is about twelve, I think. Twice on my own; or, once with Danny Thompson, I think, playing bass with me, and twice headlining, as it were; and then nine times with other people.

And one of them was the first ‘Live Aid’. I don’t think it was called that, but they asked me to write a song. It wasn’t properly formed when I did it. But I did it, and I was very happy with the images that I created in the song, which were like newsreel. They were describing newsreel footage, not so much of starving children, but the opulence of something that I touched on in ‘I’ve Thought About It’ - you know, the idea of food being destroyed in order to keep prices up, while these people were starving to death.

The Royal Albert Hall

One of the twelve gigs Ralph has played at the Royal Albert hall was a precursor to 'Live Aid'.

I wrote this lyric and created a tune around it. Not much of a tune, but I got it enough to play and record. And I’ve lost it, and it’s the one song that got away that I can’t remember. I can remember just a few lines from it. Its about an African woman holding a child and dreaming of a lake of milk; and wheat fields in the prairies where there are ten combine harvesters in a row just gobbling up the food. And she’s not getting any of it. And the children waking up in the morning with hungry bellies and all that, you know.

It wasn’t written as a tub-thumping rant. It was just… these lines were dropped in as a very kind of laconic tune…

It sounds like a typical Ralph McTell song to me.

[Laughs] Possibly. I wish to goodness I had it, but was scribbled down on a piece of paper and I…

Do you have a title? Can we give it a title?

I don’t know what I called it, actually. One of the lines was:

‘There’s a woman dreaming of milk to fill a lake’

I think, was one of the lines, and the line about the prairie; but I haven’t… and

‘Children waking clothed in the thin threads of the dawn’

was another line about, you know, sunlight, morning sunlight lighting up a child as only light does in the morning, but it was shivering in the morning, you know. It was

‘Clothed in gold thread from the sun’

or something like that.

That image of the…

…little kids waking up…

…shivering versus the shimmering…

Yeah. I’m afraid the rest is…

I shall have to invent a song title from what you’ve told me.

I’ll give it some more thought, see if it comes back to me.

I’ll have to say it was one that got lost.

Well, it was filmed – they filmed all that, but of course everything, that effort, was just totally eclipsed by the massive nature of 'Live Aid' which followed it. But someone, somewhere, will know about that concert.

This was an Albert Hall concert before the big ‘Live Aid’?

Action Aid

This benefit CD includes a live recording of Ralph singing 'Wonderful Country'.

Yes, it was. It was just before, a few months before, I think. You know, I can’t even remember who else was on it, because shortly…. about that time we did another concert, for the miners, you know, there was a big… the Miners’ Strike. And certainly Lindisfarne were on that, so they might remember more about it.

I feel some more Google searches coming on! (1)

OK, since we're talking about activism – you know, ‘Action Aid’, that sort of thing – how about Wandsworth, and the ‘Stop the War’ gig you did last year? I came across that quite by accident by Googling, and you announced it yourself just the day before the gig.

Yeah. I had good reason to think that… I’ve been a socialist all my life, I suppose, quite naturally. But they’re amongst the most arrogant, smug people that you can possibly find. And when you… there’s no defference to you. You just… there’s nothing, you know, the standard that you would require to do a gig in a folk club, they don’t even provide that. So they are smug, arrogant, argumentative, difficult to please, intellectualizing everything.

But this guy, he was just so well-meaning, and he put pressure on a friend of mine, called Paul Millns - a very fine pianist and writer of dark songs, but a marvellous creative artist. Anyway, “Would Ralph do a concert? Would Ralph do a concert?” And I thought, “I’ve done nothing to show which side of the fence I’m on”. I would have hoped it was obvious, so this was an opportunity to do a gig.

I was told there would be a PA. The very basic rudiments of trying to do an acoustic gig at this place were just not adhered to. There was no dressing room; I was nervous as could be.

And I just did what I did when Iris Bentley asked me to sing at Derek’s reinternment in Croydon cemetery… I just looked at the back wall, and shouted my head off, and played as loud as I could to try and get their attention. And they did; they clapped at the end and went home.

It was shambolic... they didn’t know how to organize the proverbial p-up in a brewery, you know; it was just… it was shambolic.

And I thought, “Well I’ve done it now, I’m not doing another one.” If I want to do a show for any of these causes, I shall have to organize my own, like we used to.

How do you prepare a set list for that sort of audience?

Well, I want them to know that, apart from ‘Streets of London’... that my credentials are intact. I think I used a couple of Woody Guthrie songs, and dear old Wizz come up and played a couple with me as well.

Wizz played there again in November, by the way.

Did he? Yeah, that sounds about right. Wizz is having a bit of an upsurge at the moment, in performance and writing again. I’m delighted he seems to have rekindled his enthusiasm for the job. He remains a wonderful, eclectic infuence on me, and his taste, I think, is pretty exemplary, you know. He’s totally shambolic in his presentations and his career. But I’ve now abandoned all hope of ever changing him or steering him back onto the main line. He’s happy enough and he’s doing great work, and he’s always done great work. I’ve always… to me, a Wizz Jones gig is always a wonderful occasion. I enjoy it tremendously. I’ve never seen a bad one.

Party 4 Peace

Wandsworth 'Stop the War Coalition' benefit gig flyer.

Wizz has done a DVD on the ‘Guitar Maestros’ series.

Oh, right. He asked me to do one, but I didn’t want to do it for sombody else.

Well, I won’t ask that question, then!

I think if I did do it, I would want to do it for myself, you know. I don’t see doing it for… I don’t know when I’d get round to doing it.

Well, there are so many things, aren’t there? I’m up to the fifty-year plan now - so many you want to do.

There are.

First of all, we have a wedding this year. When there’s nobody at home, then we can think about the retirement plan; and then we’ll see what’s left.

Yeah, I sort of think… I must be honest, John, I’m slowly moving in that direction.

I’m sure you are.

But not yet.

Well, the signs are there for all to read, really, that you’re “clearing the decks”, in your own words.

I am.

And that’s starting to happen. And I believe you’re going into the studio, or hoping to go into the studio, this year?

I’m hoping to go into the studio… I want to have a new album before the Autumn tour, or to coincide with the Autumn tour. I’m just hoping I can get… and I’m not going to put twenty songs on the next album… I’ll put twelve or fourteen songs on, and that will be enough.

I’ve also got another plan for another album, tangentially and concurrent with that one, but we’ll talk about that perhaps in a minute. Yes, I’ve got plans; but I shalln’t be going into the studio before Easter, that’s for sure.

Right. OK, that's great, thank you. That was Wandsworth. I just though that was interesting because it was a direct statement – and you haven’t often done that in your career.

Well, that’s very true. I’ve avoided… my brother, when he was managing me, encouraged me… he’s a very wise, and clever man, my brother. He said to me, “Ralph”, early on, “Don’t be against things. It’s much better to be for things”.

So, you know, I wasn’t against the bomb, and I wasn’t against this, and I wasn’t against that. I tried to be for things, and my songs should probably hint at where I lay politically.

I’m surprised when people are surprised that I’m still an old lefty in my heart. Unfortunately, I’m not represented by anyone that I could think of in Government, any more, but there we are.

Well, I don’t think any of us are.

No, which is very, very sad.

Folk For Peace

...not ‘Folk Against War’.

Well, what you say about being ‘for’ things is very interesting, because there was ‘Folk for Peace’, wasn’t there?

Was there? Oh, that album, that song?

Yeah, you sang a couple of lines in there, with a host of other folkies.

Yeah, I did the opening line, I think.

Yeah. That came across really well. What came across was the positivity of it - it’s not ‘Folk Against War’, it’s ‘Folk For Peace’. That’s good.

Well, more of that, I think. It’s too easy for people.. you know, that lovely line in Shakespeare… ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’ …that it can be self-seeking, and I think that there are a few artists that, you know, they’ve got a weather-vane on their cap, and they just go from one cause to another, you know, which is a bit silly, really, I think. Mind you, it doesn’t seem to have harmed them. But I prefer doing it my way.

Great stuff. And still enjoying doing it, obviously?

Yeah. I mean, I dread to think of the organization behind these things, but in the end, you know, when we do these charity performances, it is not to perform so much as to show solidarity. I have views on festivals, which are the worst places to go to listen to music in many respects. But what we do is reaffirm our collective belonging to something personified by a type of music that we love. And, you know, I wouldn’t go to a festival to hear a band; I go to a festival to see my friends.

Indeed, you see your friends. Exactly. It’s meeting the guys, isn’t it?

Yeah

Cropredy Festival, 2003

"...reaffirm our collective belonging to something

Zest of the West, 2003

...personified by a type of music that we love"

OK. Moving on to another area, then…

[Go to Next Tale: The Klan]

(1) Postscript.

It took a few months for the world wide web to give up its secrets, but I eventually found what I was looking for.

A charity concert for the 'Action for Ethiopia' programme was held at The Royal Albert Hall on 7 December 1984. Billed as 'Dinner at Albert's', the performers included Aswad, Matt Bianco, Dennis Brown, Robbie Coltrane, Feargal Sharkey (and The Assembly), Rick Wakeman, Mari Wilson... and Ralph McTell.

The concert raised more than £80,000 for Ethiopia.

This noteworthy effort was, as Ralph says, totally eclipsed by 'Band Aid' and 'Live Aid' which followed. The original 'Band Aid' single, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, was first released on 15 December 1984, and eventually raised over £8 million. The 'Live Aid' concerts were held on 13 July 1985, and raised over £50 million for famine relief.

Action for Ethiopa...

...was held at The Royal Albert Hall 7 months before 'Live Aid'.