Will You Have a Listen?

For a friend having a bit of a hard week - my version of Hazel O'Connor's "Will You".

I met her (Hazel not the friend) a few years ago (see this previous entry) and what a lovely person she is. So I hope she doesn't mind me doing my own arrangement and version! ACtually I suppose I met the friend a few years ago too, but I'm talking about someone other than Hazel now... Confusing this, isn't it? Have a listen then...

Cracklin' Rosie

Just spent three and a half hours working out arrangements and recording this one following a challenge on the Billy Fury website by fellow artist Paul "Bulldog" Staines.

It has a keyboard backing track, a synthesizer track, four guitar tracks and one of my voice - which is probably the most disappointing of the 7...

"I think you'd do a good job of this," said Paul in a blatant attempt to make me stir my butt.

Ok Mr Staines - just see how wrong you were...

Listen to Cracklin' Rosie!

School Prom Night

Monday night saw David and I playing at a junior school prom.

I think that an apt description of the audience would be "wildly enthusiastic"! In fact so loud we could hardly hear the music ourselves. We'd had to turn the speakers away to avoid feedback, it was cranked up louder than we'd ever had it before just to cut above the noise from the kids.

They weren't particularly running wild or anything, they were singing along, cheering, in fact giving us an amazing reception. Thank you to the kids and teachers at Blackpool's St John Vianney. We finished off an exuberant night with the Blackpool Football Team's anthem - the old Dave Clark Five hit, Glad All Over and I think everyone was!

As David said afterwards, "I can cope with 11,000 coming through the gate at Liverpool but that was scary!!!" An excellent night!

John's Burkes

Yep, ok...

I've seen it now!

Sorted!

It was a mistake not a new collection...

A New Look and a New Name

Welcome to the first entry under the new blog name "John Burke's a-Musings".

I wanted the blog to be found a bit easier if anyone was searching for my name.

Besides there are hundreds and thousands of John Burkes. Bad enough coping with that never mind all the millions of Johns with any old surname. I'm obviously far more common than I thought...

A quick look on Google tells me there are about 4,760,000 entries listed under "John Burke". If you use google.co.uk I am the first of those with another 3 entries on the first page. I might slip down the ratings if you use any other country's google homepage!

There are a few noteables though - a lot of us John Burkes are musical and there is one after my own heart who performs with sea lions in Germany...! Good on you, me!

Hope you like the new look - the name will stay the look might change every now and then!

October Music Track at Billy Fury Website

The monthly track for October on the Billy Fury website is one from my solo album.

It's a Patty Loveless country song called "Blame It On Your Heart" and you can hear it by going to the website linked above and clicking the blue bar that says "Click to Play".

I'm very grateful to the Billy site and its regulars for including a track from myself or the band every month. The site is a tribute site to Billy Fury, a fabulous singer who ranks way up there with the greats.

The Beatles wanted to be his backing band at one time but he knew that John Lennon would never be content to be just a member of a backing band.

He left us far too early aged only 43 following long standing heart problems.

Birthday Garden Party

This afternoon, once the rain stopped and the sun came out, the two flowerpot men shook off their flowerpots and rocked around the little weed...

It was a birthday garden party but we started out indoors as the rain bounced down and then back up again! It's the third year we have been invited to play at this one and we felt very much part of the family as we were greeted enthusiastically by the guests.

"You look younger this year!" said one discerning lady of excellent taste and 20/20 vision. Not sure why Fran and Jeannie collapsed in giggles at that moment but anyway, moving right along...

The rain stopped after we had sampled our hosts' delicious food - ahhh, that trifle! So it was unplug, decamp and we met up with the biggest sunflower in the garden!

For the past two years we've been promising to learn Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" for Gran so this year we were almost as good as our word - which means we hadn't learned it but we did it anyway! "Sounded really good," Fran and Jeannie decided, "you should keep it in!"

First Guitar

A lot of people ask me how long I've been playing guitar and I can nail it down to the day.

This is Christmas Day 1965. I was 11 and am on the right of the photograph with my parents and brother Frank on the left. The electric guitar was made by my Dad from scratch. The acoustic guitar had been rescued from someone's coal bunker and Dad measured it to provide the details to build the electric guitar. Consequently it has all the parts of an acoustic and the neck is shorter than an electric should be but to our eyes at that time, it was wonderful! The frets were actually made from Hornby Dublo model railway lines and instead of a standard jack socket it had a television aerial socket but these were the two guitars I learned to play on. Explains a lot... (just thought I'd get it in first...)

Return to Family Memories Index

Cancer Charity Gig

Last night David and I played at Larbreck Hall Caravan Park. Bob had a prior engagement with The Old School Band but we gave them a good night of music and they got up and filled the dance floor!

We have played there several years - the first one at Larbreck was for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002 - and we usually do an outdoor gig. The weather looked a little suspect yesterday so we were inside a huge barn and with a few pallets, boarded over for a stage and a couple of caravans as a backdrop, we added a few lights and it made for a good atmosphere!

Since Dad died in 2004, Mum (pictured with the band's organiser and fixit, Jeannie) has organised an annual charity event in benefit of MacMillan Cancer Support. The afternoon is spent on the lawn at the side of her caravan, with piles of jumble, bric-a-brac and competitions - a whisky wall, a photo caption competition, raffles, tombola, etc.

Fran spent most of the weekend, making mix and baking scones for cream teas or just for selling. At least 6 dozen went through the oven!

The residents and holiday makers on the caravan site and various family members raised over £500 for the charity. During the gig we auctioned a couple of bottles of whisky and a large dinner service that someone had donated and until Mum does her reckoning today I'm not sure just what the final total will be.

It was strange to think that our next gig will be a spot at the reception of Gill's wedding next week! When we played "Constantly" which is destined to be the married couple's first dance together, both Fran and sister-in-law Joyce had tears streaming down their cheeks! As David said, "I didn't think we were that bad..."

Creeping Bentgrass at Witton Park

Well the weather forecast was anything but good, but in the event it was quite kind to us!

We took up our usual spot in one of the outbuildings around the courtyard at Witton and were soon joined by an enthusiastic crowd of people as we went through a country set, then folk and Irish before moving onto a few 1960s numbers.

Lunchtime came and it was still fine and most of the crowd stayed put whilst we took a break and came back to let Bob play his mandolin to John's keyboard to get everyone tapping their feet to "Bluebell Polka".

We went back to do a few more country hits then started on the 1960s with the bit between our teeth. "The Young Ones" (our signature tune for obvious reasons!) then "Halfway to Paradise", "I'm a Believer", "The Wonder of You" (gives the audience a chance to go "Whoa-oh-oh-ohhh!"), "Please Please Me", "When You Walk In The Room" and onwards through the afternoon to "The Wanderer", "Johnny B Goode", "That'll Be The Day" before finishing with "The Night Has 1000 Eyes".

Fran and Jeannie were kept busy giving out cards and seling the odd CD although Jeannie found time to wrap a couple of snakes around her neck, perhaps getting a little mixed up? No dear - it was a "feather boa" you were after!

If you were there, then thanks for the support - the rain caught up with us later on in the afternoon but it wasn't going to deter the hardy folk who were sitting listening to us and umbrellas came out, hoods went up and feet kept tapping!

Thanks also to the organisers, to Blackburn Council and Myerscough College, who were instrumental (sorry about the pun!) in getting us there and who were showing some of the animals and other resources used by them in their courses that are held at Witton.

Our next public appearance is another Myerscough Open Day on Sunday 3 June from 10:30 to around 4:00pm, this time at their main campus at Myerscough Hall, St Michael's Road, Bilsborrow, just north of Preston.

April Memorabilia Show, 2007

Hazel O'Connor and Ingrid Pitt

Actress and singer, Hazel O'Connor (the film "Breaking Glass" gave her punk rock status and hits such as "Eighth Day" and "Will You") catches up with actress and writer Ingrid Pitt. Ingrid is best known for Hammer Horror roles in "The Vampire Lovers" and "Countess Dracula" but has an impressive string of movies including a debut in mainstream movies as the lovely Heidi in "Where Eagles Dare" starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

I met up with them at the Memorabilia Show, held this weekend at the NEC in Birmingham. I've been friends with Ingrid for ten years but it was the first time I've met Hazel, whose first Memorabilia appearance this was. I've always said I don't have favourite artistes, as every song has to stand on its own merits, but Hazel's "Will You" would be in my top ten of best ever musical recordings!

I also caught up again with Toyah Willcox and owe her a debt of thanks. Fran took a photo as we were talking and she said "Take it again - I probably look all gobby!" Anyway Toyah, you looked fine but I look like a complete prat in it... The second one has been added to the Celebrities set at my Flickr site (no longer available) along with others of Dr Who, Colin Baker, helper Deborah Watling, and me with Hazel and Ingrid. The first one will never see the light of day!

Ah, and thanks to Ingrid who enthusiastically told all these successful singing artistes that I was a "fabulous singer"... Yep - 35 years on now so it can't be long before I become an overnight success...

Hobnobbing with Celebrities

I've added an album of photos of myself with some celebrity friends to my Picasa site.

Bond Girls Caroline Munro, Martine Beswick, Tanya Roberts, Britt Ekland, Carole Ashby and more, Hammer Horror stars Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, singers Toyah Wilcox and John Leyton and a few other assorted people!

Since this post was originally published the album has been taken down, sorry! There's several of the photos elsewhere on the blog though - click the link below for topic "Celebrity"

From Leeds to Taunton!

After leaving the AoC NILTA conference yesterday, I drove down to Taunton, where today I've delivered a session at an RSC seminar for South West Colleges and Universities.

The seminar was all about bidding for project funding from external sources and the session I gave was about ensuring your business case matched the needs of the funders and presented what you wanted to do in the best light. "RSC" means the JISC Regional Support Centre, 13 of which support Further and Higher Education Colleges and Adult Continuing Learning in their region of the UK.

I was the last speaker of the day and wondered whether delegates may have gotten a little jaded after a day of what could have been quite a dry subject, but they seemed to be up for it and nodded in the right places!

We were at Hestercombe Gardens, perhaps not seen at their best today, but I'll bet it's a beautiful place on a sunny day from spring to autumn. One tree had a gnarled trunk, looking like a face.

Return to Work Index

My Music Online

A while ago on the blog site of my band Creeping Bentgrass, I mentioned Billy Fury and got a reply from Moya from the website http://www.billyfury.com.

I registered on the site which is an excellent resource for Billy's fans and this month they are featuring a track from my solo album - "Blue Bayou".

This can be heard by clicking the "Click to Play" link from the Billy Fury site.

Introducing John!

Hi all,

Well after trying MySpace for a while I decided that I was going to keep that for work-related stuff and following the success of the blog I created for the band, Creeping Bentgrass, I decided just to start a personal blog here.

You can find out a bit more about me by visiting my web site (pictured) which has pages devoted to lots of different holiday trips, plus pages about my home town of Blackpool, the city of London, a couple of pages for those who still enjoy listening to records at 78rpm and if nostalgia is your thing then I've got a number of pages of nostalgia too!

All websites listed above are no longer available and content is being recreated on this blog.