Miwsig.com


Blog: * Lost Summers, Past Lovers, and Broken Summer Soundtracks * Like Romeo and Juliet, in a bunker, shot through the head * Cosmic Melodies * Duet on Religion * Peeling Back Time * Who's to say that secret loves are not the deepest loves of all? * Win or Die! * Moon River * All is Dream < See All > Archives: 2010 2009 2008 2007 About/Contact	Hand in Hand With the Midnight Man Ronnie Parry speaks with ex-Davy Graham producer Mark Pavey on new musical passions and the Davy legend Late guitar legend inspires young artist NORTH Wales singer song-writer Mark Pavey releases his debut album this November. Hailing from Llandudno via Oxford and London, Mark is steadily becoming a word of mouth success story. In 2004 he set up his own label Les Cousin Records to promote and explore the music of the sixties folk revival based on the ideals of the famous London Soho folk cellar. In his quest for folk authenticity fate lent its hand and Mark’s voyage of discovery led to the rediscovery and a close friendship with one of Britain’s greatest ever guitar-playing legends; Davy Graham. Earlier this month Mark spoke to Ronnie Parry from his West Shore studio in Llandudno about how the road began. It starts during his school days, leads to an involvement with the folk scene, meeting up with Davy Graham, how their friendship and collaboration developed, what he learnt from the great man, how a debut album was spawned from the teachings and what Davy’s rich legacy really is. “Back in my teens I was a lot more into pop and mainstream stuff, especially the Indie scene in Manchester,” said Mark. “But at the same time I was aware of rockabilly and Buddy Holly. I once played in a school band concert playing Eddie Cochrane’s C’mon Everybody when I was eleven. When I heard Nick Drake’s music for the first time at sixteen I was drawn in. There was that late-adolescent tone which resonated with me. And I wanted to explore further. I had already picked up on finger-style guitar playing from The Beatles’ White Album; in particular John Lennon’s song Julia. Around that time my mum paid for me to take some lessons from a jazz player called Steve who drove a Citroen CV. He was a fine, dedicated musician. "The first week I started at University Blur and Oasis released Morning Glory and Great Escape; which led me into being interested in Indie music again. At the time it was considered somewhat unusual to have both records; there was a strong North South divide at Cambridge I suppose. I studied economics and English literature at Cambridge but became more drawn to the art side of my studies. In 2004 I went to a Nick Drake gathering in Tanworth in Arden and met Peter Rice who recorded Drake when he was at Cambridge, Iain Cameron who played flute with him and Robert Kirby. Robert did the unique string arrangements for most of the Nick Drake material. I’ve just heard he’s sadly died. I played a version of Black Eyed Dog there. I then wanted to listen to folk revival stuff that centred around the legendary Les Cousins club. After doing teacher training for a bit I signed to a development deal with Edel Records in London. That’s where I learnt about production. Then I met Michael Chapman, one of John Peel’s favourite singer-songwriters. We hit it off straight away, both having a northern background. I’m originally from Poynton, Cheshire. “I was encouraged to approach the original Les Cousins venue at 49 Greek St in Soho, now a typical Friday night club full of workers letting off steam as the economy was overheating. Much of the music played in clubs and bars at that time was just a soundtrack to binge drinking and excess from borrowed money, so it had an anxiety to it. So imagine the atmosphere when I organised a Nick Drake tribute concert there on the 25 November 2004, 30 years after the night he died…. Anything delicate and gentle would be drowned out. It was what you’d expect. A review in the Daily Telegraph was favourable. I tried to do subsequent nights but it was a financial strain. One night I got clamped whilst loading the PA into the venue, it cost me £160! And there was always a danger the events would turn into a greatest hits type of nostalgia trip. I wanted to look back for a different reason, to bring an art form to the present. “Michael Chapman told me about another huge influence.... Davy Graham,” said Mark. "I looked out for his records but it wasn’t until a year later that Davy’s landmark 1960s recordings would be re-released for the first time in 40 years. So I got Folk Blues and Beyond on E-bay. It had a complicated sound, incredible. It was folk music but then it wasn’t. Michael said that Davy was still alive but there was very little known about him and he couldn’t play guitar live any more. Michael heard rumours about Davy doing one gig where he started singing hymns. I thought now that’s very weird. But I was intrigued. I then bought Davy’s first album The Guitar Player. Just listening to him playing his bistro-set; it immediately connected. I then read the sleeve notes saying he was living alone in Camden." In 2005 Mark managed to track down the elusive, reclusive legend Davy Graham in Camden Town. And so began dedicating three years of managing and producing the guitar pioneer who back in his day fused blues with jazz, introduced the groundbreaking DADGAD guitar tuning and created a unique folk baroque sound. Mark added: “So I’d called Rollercoaster Records up to say I would like to meet Davy, to see if he would like to perform again. I couldn’t equate someone with that ability not being able to play anymore. It didn’t make sense. So it went to the back of my mind for a while. Then, the exact day I was moving into a cottage in Cleveley, near Oxford, I discovered a voicemail message on my mobile phone from Davy Graham saying he would like to meet up. It’s weird how things are fated. He sounded slightly unusual.” It was a cold February day in 2005 when Mark ventured over to Camden Town to meet the legendary composer of fabled folk instrumental Anji and the man who became the undisputed hero of the British folk blues scene from the early 1960s and inspired the likes of Paul Simon, Jimmy Page, Bert Jansch and Ray Davies. Mark continued: “I was a bit late. There was a note on the door saying “Mr Pavey, I’ve gone out, back in half an hour.” There was no sign of him. I was sitting on the step for an age. I’d brought my Martin guitar with me. I wandered, came back and knocked on the door. I think of this moment all the time. It’s internalised. The door opened and strangely enough a burning object flew just past my shoulder. It was either a cigarette or cigar. Davy was dressed very formally, in a suit. He ushered me in. He had a great dignity about him. He offered me a cigarette, which I declined and he conducted a very formal interview. I suppose he had a haunted look. His flat was tidy but had an abandoned feel to it. There was a guitar lying in the corner, but a cheap £30 one. At some point he had suffered a burglary and all his instruments were gone. It was all a bit saddening. The second time I went to see him and took a tape recorder. He opened the door and looked a completely different person, completely smartened up, dressed in a black velvet jacket with leather trousers. So we went out to the pub. Davy had a port brandy. He was interested in the guitar I had; a mahogany bodied Martin. It gave him trust and confidence in me I think. I remember playing something back from the pub, a basic finger picking, some open chords and basic structures. I was fairly competent. Then Davy took the guitar. He picked it up and played some strange music but his posture and poise were perfect and he sounded good. "We eventually agreed to do some warm-up gigs but Davy warned me never to wear a pair of leather cowboy boots I had in my possession at the time. He just hadn’t taken to the pointed toes. Devilish he said. Despite losing much of the sight in one eye following a childhood accident his attention to detail was astonishing. He could pick out the perfect tie in seconds from a tie shop like TM Lewin. I lent Davy my Martin guitar for a bit and we did some gigs in Oxford with some friends. I later contacted Roger Bucknall in Penrith who made English guitars. So we got two custom-made Fylde instruments to use for our concerts . “There were up and down days when I visited Davy. Looking back I still learn more about him all the time. He was such a deeply intelligent man. When he was teaching someone he didn’t want them copying him. Lots of students collected his music, took down tablatures and then would play something of his way too quickly, as if they’d achieved mastery without comprehension. Davy took me back to the basics and sent me to take extra lessons with his teacher Steve Benbow and Duck Baker. I became confident over time, despite being back on the beginners’ bench and learning again. Davy’s approach would be to listen only to the individual notes and their timing. He wanted me to extend my listening. He had a fantastic vinyl collection. He said some lack confidence and have all the information, and some have the confidence but not enough information. Davy reckoned I was in the latter category. “We wanted to concentrate and work in general quiet. Davy would stay with my family and I after shows to relax. Like the earlier experience of playing in London, the Oxford gig nights had to contend with lots of background noise. After a while it didn’t matter. We were playing into the noise. We didn’t hear it. It became irrelevant. I got a shock when I opened for Davy at his first major London show though. From playing in a noisy pub to a quiet hall was a massive difference. But Davy was quite used to it and like a footballer who may lose form over the years, class always remains. The issue became a choice of material. Everybody wanted to hear him playing the blues and he did some of it but was also determined to play his own stuff. He would refuse to play Anji. Perhaps it gave him this mystique. Perhaps people function on that level. But many people were turning up at our concerts with strong expectations. Davy’s playing was also getting better and better and he was enjoying it.” As their friendship strengthened, Mark got to hear more about Davy’s controversial and courageous approach which took him beyond the English folk scene to discoveries of many ethnic styles which founded the concept of world music. He largely disappeared from public life by the late 1960s with a view that “you can sell your anonymity but you can never buy it back.” Almost 35 years later, Graham shot back into the spotlight. BBC4 documentary Folk Britannia sparked wider interest with a rare interview in 2006 at Mark’s home near Oxford. A tour followed and Mark produced Graham’s last studio album, 2007’s “Broken Biscuits”. Mark added: “Being so close to Davy I listened intently. He told me you cannot be completely introverted in music but you mustn’t be a clown either. The first stage for anybody learning music, Davy said, was to listen to what you like and learn to play what you like. Gain confidence and affirmation from a crowd. Almost like the X-Factor contestants do. But then you extend to stuff you don’t like. At the time, I didn’t have a taste for Balkan music. Davy liked it and I learnt to appreciate that. “As our friendship grew he gave me an insight of how things were in the 1950s and 60s and the Bohemian lifestyle of places like the Troubador, London’s rare taste of Paris at the time. His doctor had told him after the childhood injury to his eye that he should lead a life of gentle indolence. He wasn’t going to be anything other than a guitar player. Even when things got tough for him later on in the 1970s, royalty cheques were enough to allow him to travel a bit. It all stems from when he left school and got a job in the British Library in late fifties where his knowledge of world music grew from their un-equalled sound recording archive. He told me how, in the late 1950s he’d hop over to Paris, taking Anji with him to busk. Anji was a very good looking woman and encouraged more people to throw coins into Davy’s hat. I’ve met some of his former busking comrades, Peter Golding the fashion designer and Neil Rock who lives in Ibiza now. “I also realised why he later stepped off the bus which was headed for stardom. The prevailing culture wasn’t agreeable to him. Despite being on the Decca label, Davy would get a fraction of a penny for every record sold. This was the label of Tom Jones and the Rolling Stones who were given all the attention. But you have to appreciate where he slotted in when the Beatles arrived on the scene. Davy had an enormous reputation by 1962. Decca were interested in Davy but passed on the Beatles. Davy and his producer, Ray Horricks had some kind of licensing agreement at the time with Hugh Mendl at Decca. He pretty much gave up on being a star in 1972 saying’ "I'm not going to make any more records until they learn how to sell them. They should have been advertising in the Press. Companies have seen fit to advertise meteoric rises to stardom...people who have a year or less of experience. Now that's rude to people like me. "Paul Simon had visited Davy at his flat to learn how to play Anji one afternoon in 1964 and Davy had accompanied Paul to a recording studio. He asked Davy to join his group. But Davy declined this and explained to me that “you can sell your anonymity but you cannot buy it back”. Nevertheless Davy said receiving subsequent royalty cheques for Anji pleased him very much as did making money from concerts. Davy had a song for everything. He only wanted one place to live. He was as happy without external things as he was happy to have them. He was an inward extrovert having to navigate through the world in one dimension because of his mono-eyesight but he had a tremendous sense of proportion. Davy’s guitar technique typified his methodical approach. He always used a footstool, thumb behind the neck and his fingers properly ordered. He got quite into classical playing. An avenue of music he preferred. He wanted to combine the folk claw hammer picking style with classical in a folk baroque sound, on different tunings. He understood where all the octaves started and finished with a piano player’s perspective. His music was based on such a huge foundation. “In the late 1960s he intentionally cultivated a mysterious reputation but was always aware of stories prone to exaggeration about his lifestyle; especially in relation to drug use. Davy would be particularly upset when Martin Carthy and others continually referred to him as a heroin addict. This was only true during a very short period during the sixties when he was on the national heroin register. Medical matters were different then. The press would continually use the same old line about drugs and discount Davy’s contribution to music. It caused him great distress and the blank, narrow-minded attitude towards Davy made him think...well, screw that whole thing. I’ll be a private musician and take on some students and do the occasional gig. Davy also said there was an English folk establishment elite element which he didn’t like. It was peculiar, almost racist. You didn’t see people of colour in many folk clubs. How would this make Davy feel, being of mixed race? If you tend to present music in a less orthodox way the scene had all sorts of ways of doing it down and criticising it. Davy said even if you played the folk establishment’s game the rewards aren’t great especially in terms of enjoyment. “We encountered some negativity when Davy returned onto the scene in 2005. There were people openly rude about Davy and I, not supportive at all. People who now claim to be associated with him would cross the street to avoid him when he was alive. There were few good Samaritans. “I appreciate the way people name check him nowadays. Davy would as well. He loved enthusiasm and had a paternal care for anyone who asked him for help. But I also remember Davy urging people, if they claimed to be influenced by him, to travel to the places he went, to listen to the music that made him tick, like how he sent me to take lessons from Steve Benbow; rediscover the roots and continually let your mind travel. Despite Davy not being invited to attend the BBC Folk Awards in his lifetime or being mentioned or asked to participate at Shirley Collins “Folk Routes, New Routes” season at the South Bank in 2008, in the weeks following his death, the national obituaries published attested to his influence in folk music. Mark was saddened that this was too late for the man himself. “In my mind, making Anji into a duet for two guitars, and playing it out of time and out of tune at the 2009 Folk Awards made for a very odd spectacle. This increases my fears that the English folk scene, which tried so hard to cajole and censor Davy, will misinterpret his meaning and mistranslate his art to future generations. That’s why it’s so important to retain the true sense of him. I feel very privileged to have known Davy and to keep the memory alive. “Davy had for many years what we’d now call a schizophrenic condition according to his doctor. Davy said it was like having two nerves. He didn’t see his condition as being different to anybody else. Who didn’t hear voices in their heads asked Davy. We all do from time to time, he reasoned. So, he had issues with mental health but Davy had a clarity to work to better the cause of those similarly affected. He was on the executive board of the charity Mind and lecturing during his quiet years. Davy had what I would call a beautiful schizophrenia. You couldn’t know all the while what was going on in his mind. But one thing for certain, he was never going to be cowed into anything. He wasn’t here to be what was expected of him by others. His music kept him focussed. “Before I met Davy I was probably quite a gloomy person at times, many are prone to it in art. Music has many egos and unless you concentrate they’ll grab you. Davy was an eternal student. So I’m happy to be the same, Davy said in India there are no teachers just students. He likened perfection to mediocrity and reckons people have been getting too used to things being airbrushed. Like Davy’s stage shows in the 1960s ours were kept to just one microphone and one amp. If there’s quietness in your approach then more people will be quiet, listen and concentrate. They will feel you inviting them in. It’s on a personal level and I’ve always wanted to perform on that level, in theatre-type settings.” The collaboration went from strength to strength when, three years after they met, tragedy struck. Graham died last December. The sudden loss of his friend and teacher left Mark devastated. “It’ll be strange without Davy, doing his Balkan numbers, a bit of blues and jazz and us closing together with something like Sloop John B, a bit of a fun number, letting loose and sharing happiness with our audience,” said Mark. “Davy had been nervous about recording Broken Biscuits. We got through it and the record has really nice pieces. He would phone me up at 6am in the morning and play something. That’s how reinvigorated he was. But at that time of the day it wasn’t always welcome! Notes became more important to him than the texture in the end. The context meant everything. When he was young he was playing a lot gentler. But Davy’s bass note remained a trademark glancing touch. And he kept his modal playing to the fore with an Arabic sound. He said he was playing for God at the end. He was always onto something, always onto the next thing. He only found out he was ill shortly before he died but carried on regardless. We went to the doctors in Chipping Norton when Davy had a problem with his hands. They didn’t detect anything until late 2008. Carol Ballard, Davy’s girlfriend insisted his cough wasn’t getting better and then he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Davy got a lot of pleasure out of smoking cigarettes. I would often smoke with him but he would urge people not to smoke. He was friends with lots of non-smokers you see. "Davy did visit North Wales once before he died. He came to my mother’s once in Penrhyn Bay. She cooked him a marvellous breakfast. He really liked the area and praised the beautiful scenery.” Struggling to come to terms with Davy’s death Mark’s life took a positive turn when he married Canadian girlfriend Alana in May this year. Both are becoming involved in the local arts scene, Mark with the Llandudno Folk festival and Alana with the Helfa Gelf arts initiative. Mark is also building contacts with other independent record labels in the region having attended the recent Welsh Music Foundation gathering to discuss online marketing strategies. He’s producing for American guitar legend Duck Baker who’s on his label. And with renewed optimism, Mark’s eagerly awaited self-titled album will be released on Monday, November 9 followed by a single “Brothers” on Monday, November 23, and a subsequent tour starting early next year. “I didn’t feel like doing anything for a while after last Christmas but I finished the record this summer. Davy would have wanted me to get on with it. He was really happy again and liked the fact we had his records out again. He had lots of guitars again and was going out to play for a younger generation. Our audience members have tended to be young people. I do feel determined to go out there and help keep the tradition of such music alive.” Mark has also learnt the subtle art of song collection and arrangement from his mentor and taken older song forms and adapted their lyrics and melodies to a contemporary context. This sense of modernity is increased by the contribution of Lawrence Colbert, drummer for legendary indie band Ride, to the record. Mark added: “The songs here were at the back of my mind and in progress as Davy and I worked together on other things. I was only happy with a song when it made a good connection with him. These are songs we both agreed upon. Davy was very specific about the order of songs and how the keys ought to flow in a certain progress. So, my songs complement each other. It’s also a concise album like Davy wished, at less than 40 minutes with 10 tracks. “It's not a gloomy record. Davy taught me that the ascents are more valuable than descents. So I start with “Kingdom” which is in ¾ and imagines mortality. Tolling Bell is an optimistic tune in DADGAD. Blue Door is about gratitude. Its recurring metaphor is that of passing through different doors, as a metaphor for life. “Brothers” is about touring with Davy. “Mistakes” is about regret but how good things come from seemingly hopeless scenarios. “God Given Things” will be the next single and I’m proud of its structure. High Days is a Bert Jansch song; “Live Not Where I Love” is another one arranged with Davy. Goodbye To My Loving You is a Jackson Frank song, which I rearranged. Precious Memories was first played in the scale of C but Davy said stick it in E Flat, change the tuning to DADGAD in ¾ time and do something simple with the chords. It worked! I like the drumming on the tracks and the arrangements with Tim Cotter, Laurence Colbert and Pete Banks widens the scope for concert performances. I could go out there and play acoustic and even present a quartet. It’s exciting. I hope to tour with Duck Baker. He’s a great influence as is Scott Matthews, a big favourite of mine.” “It wouldn’t make sense for me not to talk about Davy. As well as a great musician he became my friend. I feel very privileged to have known him and I will keep his memory alive while developing my own music and helping others. I’m looking forward to performing live shows mixing my own and Davy’s material. “But Davy wouldn't like homage from me,” added Mark. “He wouldn't ask for a tribute. He never wanted carbon copies of himself. I think it would please him to be alluded to and for my work to refer to his on some kind of inter-textual level. For his work to add some context to mine is fitting. I can add a modern context to his. Much more is pushing it. There were always lots of ideas on the boil with Davy, lots of possibilities. You miss that. But he would have wanted me to carry on. Ideally I want to remain in small theatre type venues and hope the CD gains a word of mouth reputation. It’ll be the first time to tour without Davy. It’s sad but this is the natural time to restart.” © 2009 Ronnie Parry Images copyright 2009 Les Cousins Mark Pavey's self-titled debut album will be released on Monday, November 9, followed by the single Brothers on Monday, November 23.
© Miwsig

NORTH Wales singer song-writer Mark Pavey releases his debut album this November. Hailing from Llandudno via Oxford and London, Mark is steadily becoming a word of mouth success story. In 2004 he set up his own label Les Cousin Records to promote and explore the music of the sixties folk revival based on the ideals of the famous London Soho folk cellar.

In his quest for folk authenticity fate lent its hand and Mark’s voyage of discovery led to the rediscovery and a close friendship with one of Britain’s greatest ever guitar-playing legends; Davy Graham. Earlier this month Mark spoke to Ronnie Parry from his West Shore studio in Llandudno about how the road began. It starts during his school days, leads to an involvement with the folk scene, meeting up with Davy Graham, how their friendship and collaboration developed, what he learnt from the great man, how a debut album was spawned from the teachings and what Davy’s rich legacy really is.

“Back in my teens I was a lot more into pop and mainstream stuff, especially the Indie scene in Manchester,” said Mark. “But at the same time I was aware of rockabilly and Buddy Holly. I once played in a school band concert playing Eddie Cochrane’s C’mon Everybody when I was eleven. When I heard Nick Drake’s music for the first time at sixteen I was drawn in. There was that late-adolescent tone which resonated with me. And I wanted to explore further. I had already picked up on finger-style guitar playing from The Beatles’ White Album; in particular John Lennon’s song Julia. Around that time my mum paid for me to take some lessons from a jazz player called Steve who drove a Citroen CV. He was a fine, dedicated musician.

"The first week I started at University Blur and Oasis released Morning Glory and Great Escape; which led me into being interested in Indie music again. At the time it was considered somewhat unusual to have both records; there was a strong North South divide at Cambridge I suppose. I studied economics and English literature at Cambridge but became more drawn to the art side of my studies. In 2004 I went to a Nick Drake gathering in Tanworth in Arden and met Peter Rice who recorded Drake when he was at Cambridge, Iain Cameron who played flute with him and Robert Kirby. Robert did the unique string arrangements for most of the Nick Drake material. I’ve just heard he’s sadly died. I played a version of Black Eyed Dog there. I then wanted to listen to folk revival stuff that centred around the legendary Les Cousins club. After doing teacher training for a bit I signed to a development deal with Edel Records in London. That’s where I learnt about production. Then I met Michael Chapman, one of John Peel’s favourite singer-songwriters. We hit it off straight away, both having a northern background. I’m originally from Poynton, Cheshire.

“I was encouraged to approach the original Les Cousins venue at 49 Greek St in Soho, now a typical Friday night club full of workers letting off steam as the economy was overheating. Much of the music played in clubs and bars at that time was just a soundtrack to binge drinking and excess from borrowed money, so it had an anxiety to it. So imagine the atmosphere when I organised a Nick Drake tribute concert there on the 25 November 2004, 30 years after the night he died…. Anything delicate and gentle would be drowned out. It was what you’d expect. A review in the Daily Telegraph was favourable. I tried to do subsequent nights but it was a financial strain. One night I got clamped whilst loading the PA into the venue, it cost me £160! And there was always a danger the events would turn into a greatest hits type of nostalgia trip. I wanted to look back for a different reason, to bring an art form to the present.

“Michael Chapman told me about another huge influence.... Davy Graham,” said Mark. "I looked out for his records but it wasn’t until a year later that Davy’s landmark 1960s recordings would be re-released for the first time in 40 years. So I got Folk Blues and Beyond on E-bay. It had a complicated sound, incredible. It was folk music but then it wasn’t. Michael said that Davy was still alive but there was very little known about him and he couldn’t play guitar live any more. Michael heard rumours about Davy doing one gig where he started singing hymns. I thought now that’s very weird. But I was intrigued. I then bought Davy’s first album The Guitar Player. Just listening to him playing his bistro-set; it immediately connected. I then read the sleeve notes saying he was living alone in Camden."

In 2005 Mark managed to track down the elusive, reclusive legend Davy Graham in Camden Town. And so began dedicating three years of managing and producing the guitar pioneer who back in his day fused blues with jazz, introduced the groundbreaking DADGAD guitar tuning and created a unique folk baroque sound. Mark added: “So I’d called Rollercoaster Records up to say I would like to meet Davy, to see if he would like to perform again. I couldn’t equate someone with that ability not being able to play anymore. It didn’t make sense. So it went to the back of my mind for a while. Then, the exact day I was moving into a cottage in Cleveley, near Oxford, I discovered a voicemail message on my mobile phone from Davy Graham saying he would like to meet up. It’s weird how things are fated. He sounded slightly unusual.”

Mark continued: “I was a bit late. There was a note on the door saying “Mr Pavey, I’ve gone out, back in half an hour.” There was no sign of him. I was sitting on the step for an age. I’d brought my Martin guitar with me. I wandered, came back and knocked on the door. I think of this moment all the time. It’s internalised. The door opened and strangely enough a burning object flew just past my shoulder. It was either a cigarette or cigar. Davy was dressed very formally, in a suit. He ushered me in. He had a great dignity about him. He offered me a cigarette, which I declined and he conducted a very formal interview. I suppose he had a haunted look. His flat was tidy but had an abandoned feel to it. There was a guitar lying in the corner, but a cheap £30 one. At some point he had suffered a burglary and all his instruments were gone. It was all a bit saddening. The second time I went to see him and took a tape recorder. He opened the door and looked a completely different person, completely smartened up, dressed in a black velvet jacket with leather trousers. So we went out to the pub. Davy had a port brandy. He was interested in the guitar I had; a mahogany bodied Martin. It gave him trust and confidence in me I think. I remember playing something back from the pub, a basic finger picking, some open chords and basic structures. I was fairly competent. Then Davy took the guitar. He picked it up and played some strange music but his posture and poise were perfect and he sounded good.

"We eventually agreed to do some warm-up gigs but Davy warned me never to wear a pair of leather cowboy boots I had in my possession at the time. He just hadn’t taken to the pointed toes. Devilish he said. Despite losing much of the sight in one eye following a childhood accident his attention to detail was astonishing. He could pick out the perfect tie in seconds from a tie shop like TM Lewin. I lent Davy my Martin guitar for a bit and we did some gigs in Oxford with some friends. I later contacted Roger Bucknall in Penrith who made English guitars. So we got two custom-made Fylde instruments to use for our concerts .

“There were up and down days when I visited Davy. Looking back I still learn more about him all the time. He was such a deeply intelligent man. When he was teaching someone he didn’t want them copying him. Lots of students collected his music, took down tablatures and then would play something of his way too quickly, as if they’d achieved mastery without comprehension. Davy took me back to the basics and sent me to take extra lessons with his teacher Steve Benbow and Duck Baker. I became confident over time, despite being back on the beginners’ bench and learning again. Davy’s approach would be to listen only to the individual notes and their timing. He wanted me to extend my listening. He had a fantastic vinyl collection. He said some lack confidence and have all the information, and some have the confidence but not enough information. Davy reckoned I was in the latter category.

“We wanted to concentrate and work in general quiet. Davy would stay with my family and I after shows to relax. Like the earlier experience of playing in London, the Oxford gig nights had to contend with lots of background noise. After a while it didn’t matter. We were playing into the noise. We didn’t hear it. It became irrelevant. I got a shock when I opened for Davy at his first major London show though. From playing in a noisy pub to a quiet hall was a massive difference. But Davy was quite used to it and like a footballer who may lose form over the years, class always remains. The issue became a choice of material. Everybody wanted to hear him playing the blues and he did some of it but was also determined to play his own stuff. He would refuse to play Anji. Perhaps it gave him this mystique. Perhaps people function on that level. But many people were turning up at our concerts with strong expectations. Davy’s playing was also getting better and better and he was enjoying it.”

As their friendship strengthened, Mark got to hear more about Davy’s controversial and courageous approach which took him beyond the English folk scene to discoveries of many ethnic styles which founded the concept of world music. He largely disappeared from public life by the late 1960s with a view that “you can sell your anonymity but you can never buy it back.” Almost 35 years later, Graham shot back into the spotlight. BBC4 documentary Folk Britannia sparked wider interest with a rare interview in 2006 at Mark’s home near Oxford. A tour followed and Mark produced Graham’s last studio album, 2007’s “Broken Biscuits”.

Mark added: “Being so close to Davy I listened intently. He told me you cannot be completely introverted in music but you mustn’t be a clown either. The first stage for anybody learning music, Davy said, was to listen to what you like and learn to play what you like. Gain confidence and affirmation from a crowd. Almost like the X-Factor contestants do. But then you extend to stuff you don’t like. At the time, I didn’t have a taste for Balkan music. Davy liked it and I learnt to appreciate that.

“As our friendship grew he gave me an insight of how things were in the 1950s and 60s and the Bohemian lifestyle of places like the Troubador, London’s rare taste of Paris at the time. His doctor had told him after the childhood injury to his eye that he should lead a life of gentle indolence. He wasn’t going to be anything other than a guitar player. Even when things got tough for him later on in the 1970s, royalty cheques were enough to allow him to travel a bit. It all stems from when he left school and got a job in the British Library in late fifties where his knowledge of world music grew from their un-equalled sound recording archive. He told me how, in the late 1950s he’d hop over to Paris, taking Anji with him to busk. Anji was a very good looking woman and encouraged more people to throw coins into Davy’s hat. I’ve met some of his former busking comrades, Peter Golding the fashion designer and Neil Rock who lives in Ibiza now.

“I also realised why he later stepped off the bus which was headed for stardom. The prevailing culture wasn’t agreeable to him. Despite being on the Decca label, Davy would get a fraction of a penny for every record sold. This was the label of Tom Jones and the Rolling Stones who were given all the attention. But you have to appreciate where he slotted in when the Beatles arrived on the scene. Davy had an enormous reputation by 1962. Decca were interested in Davy but passed on the Beatles. Davy and his producer, Ray Horricks had some kind of licensing agreement at the time with Hugh Mendl at Decca. He pretty much gave up on being a star in 1972 saying’ "I'm not going to make any more records until they learn how to sell them. They should have been advertising in the Press. Companies have seen fit to advertise meteoric rises to stardom...people who have a year or less of experience. Now that's rude to people like me.

"Paul Simon had visited Davy at his flat to learn how to play Anji one afternoon in 1964 and Davy had accompanied Paul to a recording studio. He asked Davy to join his group. But Davy declined this and explained to me that “you can sell your anonymity but you cannot buy it back”. Nevertheless Davy said receiving subsequent royalty cheques for Anji pleased him very much as did making money from concerts. Davy had a song for everything. He only wanted one place to live. He was as happy without external things as he was happy to have them. He was an inward extrovert having to navigate through the world in one dimension because of his mono-eyesight but he had a tremendous sense of proportion. Davy’s guitar technique typified his methodical approach. He always used a footstool, thumb behind the neck and his fingers properly ordered. He got quite into classical playing. An avenue of music he preferred. He wanted to combine the folk claw hammer picking style with classical in a folk baroque sound, on different tunings. He understood where all the octaves started and finished with a piano player’s perspective. His music was based on such a huge foundation.

“In the late 1960s he intentionally cultivated a mysterious reputation but was always aware of stories prone to exaggeration about his lifestyle; especially in relation to drug use. Davy would be particularly upset when Martin Carthy and others continually referred to him as a heroin addict. This was only true during a very short period during the sixties when he was on the national heroin register. Medical matters were different then. The press would continually use the same old line about drugs and discount Davy’s contribution to music. It caused him great distress and the blank, narrow-minded attitude towards Davy made him think...well, screw that whole thing. I’ll be a private musician and take on some students and do the occasional gig. Davy also said there was an English folk establishment elite element which he didn’t like. It was peculiar, almost racist. You didn’t see people of colour in many folk clubs. How would this make Davy feel, being of mixed race? If you tend to present music in a less orthodox way the scene had all sorts of ways of doing it down and criticising it. Davy said even if you played the folk establishment’s game the rewards aren’t great especially in terms of enjoyment.

“I appreciate the way people name check him nowadays. Davy would as well. He loved enthusiasm and had a paternal care for anyone who asked him for help. But I also remember Davy urging people, if they claimed to be influenced by him, to travel to the places he went, to listen to the music that made him tick, like how he sent me to take lessons from Steve Benbow; rediscover the roots and continually let your mind travel.

Despite Davy not being invited to attend the BBC Folk Awards in his lifetime or being mentioned or asked to participate at Shirley Collins “Folk Routes, New Routes” season at the South Bank in 2008, in the weeks following his death, the national obituaries published attested to his influence in folk music. Mark was saddened that this was too late for the man himself.

“In my mind, making Anji into a duet for two guitars, and playing it out of time and out of tune at the 2009 Folk Awards made for a very odd spectacle. This increases my fears that the English folk scene, which tried so hard to cajole and censor Davy, will misinterpret his meaning and mistranslate his art to future generations. That’s why it’s so important to retain the true sense of him. I feel very privileged to have known Davy and to keep the memory alive.

“Davy had for many years what we’d now call a schizophrenic condition according to his doctor. Davy said it was like having two nerves. He didn’t see his condition as being different to anybody else. Who didn’t hear voices in their heads asked Davy. We all do from time to time, he reasoned. So, he had issues with mental health but Davy had a clarity to work to better the cause of those similarly affected. He was on the executive board of the charity Mind and lecturing during his quiet years. Davy had what I would call a beautiful schizophrenia. You couldn’t know all the while what was going on in his mind. But one thing for certain, he was never going to be cowed into anything. He wasn’t here to be what was expected of him by others. His music kept him focussed.

“Before I met Davy I was probably quite a gloomy person at times, many are prone to it in art. Music has many egos and unless you concentrate they’ll grab you. Davy was an eternal student. So I’m happy to be the same, Davy said in India there are no teachers just students. He likened perfection to mediocrity and reckons people have been getting too used to things being airbrushed. Like Davy’s stage shows in the 1960s ours were kept to just one microphone and one amp. If there’s quietness in your approach then more people will be quiet, listen and concentrate. They will feel you inviting them in. It’s on a personal level and I’ve always wanted to perform on that level, in theatre-type settings.”

The collaboration went from strength to strength when, three years after they met, tragedy struck. Graham died last December. The sudden loss of his friend and teacher left Mark devastated. “It’ll be strange without Davy, doing his Balkan numbers, a bit of blues and jazz and us closing together with something like Sloop John B, a bit of a fun number, letting loose and sharing happiness with our audience,” said Mark. “Davy had been nervous about recording Broken Biscuits. We got through it and the record has really nice pieces. He would phone me up at 6am in the morning and play something. That’s how reinvigorated he was. But at that time of the day it wasn’t always welcome! Notes became more important to him than the texture in the end. The context meant everything. When he was young he was playing a lot gentler. But Davy’s bass note remained a trademark glancing touch. And he kept his modal playing to the fore with an Arabic sound. He said he was playing for God at the end. He was always onto something, always onto the next thing. He only found out he was ill shortly before he died but carried on regardless. We went to the doctors in Chipping Norton when Davy had a problem with his hands. They didn’t detect anything until late 2008. Carol Ballard, Davy’s girlfriend insisted his cough wasn’t getting better and then he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Davy got a lot of pleasure out of smoking cigarettes. I would often smoke with him but he would urge people not to smoke. He was friends with lots of non-smokers you see.

"Davy did visit North Wales once before he died. He came to my mother’s once in Penrhyn Bay. She cooked him a marvellous breakfast. He really liked the area and praised the beautiful scenery.” Struggling to come to terms with Davy’s death Mark’s life took a positive turn when he married Canadian girlfriend Alana in May this year. Both are becoming involved in the local arts scene, Mark with the Llandudno Folk festival and Alana with the Helfa Gelf arts initiative. Mark is also building contacts with other independent record labels in the region having attended the recent Welsh Music Foundation gathering to discuss online marketing strategies. He’s producing for American guitar legend Duck Baker who’s on his label. And with renewed optimism, Mark’s eagerly awaited self-titled album will be released on Monday, November 9 followed by a single “Brothers” on Monday, November 23, and a subsequent tour starting early next year.

“I didn’t feel like doing anything for a while after last Christmas but I finished the record this summer. Davy would have wanted me to get on with it. He was really happy again and liked the fact we had his records out again. He had lots of guitars again and was going out to play for a younger generation. Our audience members have tended to be young people. I do feel determined to go out there and help keep the tradition of such music alive.”

Mark added: “The songs here were at the back of my mind and in progress as Davy and I worked together on other things. I was only happy with a song when it made a good connection with him. These are songs we both agreed upon. Davy was very specific about the order of songs and how the keys ought to flow in a certain progress. So, my songs complement each other. It’s also a concise album like Davy wished, at less than 40 minutes with 10 tracks.

“It's not a gloomy record. Davy taught me that the ascents are more valuable than descents. So I start with “Kingdom” which is in ¾ and imagines mortality. Tolling Bell is an optimistic tune in DADGAD. Blue Door is about gratitude. Its recurring metaphor is that of passing through different doors, as a metaphor for life. “Brothers” is about touring with Davy. “Mistakes” is about regret but how good things come from seemingly hopeless scenarios. “God Given Things” will be the next single and I’m proud of its structure. High Days is a Bert Jansch song; “Live Not Where I Love” is another one arranged with Davy. Goodbye To My Loving You is a Jackson Frank song, which I rearranged. Precious Memories was first played in the scale of C but Davy said stick it in E Flat, change the tuning to DADGAD in ¾ time and do something simple with the chords. It worked! I like the drumming on the tracks and the arrangements with Tim Cotter, Laurence Colbert and Pete Banks widens the scope for concert performances. I could go out there and play acoustic and even present a quartet. It’s exciting. I hope to tour with Duck Baker. He’s a great influence as is Scott Matthews, a big favourite of mine.”

“It wouldn’t make sense for me not to talk about Davy. As well as a great musician he became my friend. I feel very privileged to have known him and I will keep his memory alive while developing my own music and helping others. I’m looking forward to performing live shows mixing my own and Davy’s material.

“But Davy wouldn't like homage from me,” added Mark. “He wouldn't ask for a tribute. He never wanted carbon copies of himself. I think it would please him to be alluded to and for my work to refer to his on some kind of inter-textual level. For his work to add some context to mine is fitting. I can add a modern context to his. Much more is pushing it. There were always lots of ideas on the boil with Davy, lots of possibilities. You miss that. But he would have wanted me to carry on. Ideally I want to remain in small theatre type venues and hope the CD gains a word of mouth reputation. It’ll be the first time to tour without Davy. It’s sad but this is the natural time to restart.”

Mark Pavey's self-titled debut album will be released on Monday, November 9, followed by the single Brothers on Monday, November 23.

Blog:

Archives:

About/Contact

Hand in Hand With the Midnight Man

Late guitar legend inspires young artist