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".. interpreting
a song is a subtle art, and that when art is to the fore, the song
is not."
A wise woman once said life is a series of well-mets and fare-thee-wells,
and its pivotal moments are seldom heralded by blaring trumpet overtures.
Certainly this is true for Jack Beck, a musician who, by working
diligently at what comes naturally, and never trying to be other
than what he is, has become something worth being. With nine recordings
and an honorary lifetime membership in the TMSA to his credit, his
unassuming ways have meandered him along the path to excellence.
Jack is highly regarded by audiences and peers alike. Dr. Hamish
Henderson called Jack 'a fine singer, with a uniquely compelling
quality of delivery'. But Jack finds such praise strange – "I
always think of myself as a lucky painter."
"The song is
the thing with Jack," says Archie Fisher. 'He's one of the
last of the singers that form the bridge between the old rural tradition
and the urban revival."
In the late 1950s, Jack bought a second-hand
guitar "because everybody else was". As the Skiffle craze
swept Britain with its jazzy blues feel, Jack put steel strings
on his classical guitar, learned the required three chords, and
set himself in motion. "I had a lot to learn," he said
of this period. "I didn't know about the steel string thing,
for instance." His opportunity was coming. When Dunfermline's
folksong club 'The Howff' began in 1961, and traditional singers
like Jeannie Robertson, Jimmy McBeath and Willie Scott appeared
alongside young skiffle-ites, Jack was there, soaking it all in
- a connection that now shows in his delivery. "The song is
the thing with Jack," says Archie Fisher. 'He's one of the
last of the singers that form the bridge between the old rural tradition
and the urban revival."
Enjoying these singers led to Jack's
previously Irish and American repertoire ebbing into Scots ballads
and songs. (He also re-strung his guitar with nylon.) Enter the
first prodigious 'well-met': in 1963 a teen-aged Barbara Dickson
sang her first Howff floor spot, followed by Jack singing his regular
one. Before the evening was over, they had cemented a musical partnership.
Heeding advice from Howff guest Cyril Tawney to 'learn more Scottish
songs,' they were in the right place at the right time. Scotland's
interest in its own song traditions was flourishing in the 1960s.
Jack attended the inaugural Blairgowrie Festival, and was inspired.
Soon after, he and Barbara spent three weeks camped at Arthur Argo's
home while they sang nightly at The Music Hall in Aberdeen's summer
music festival. They sang Scots songs.
In the 30 intervening years, Jack has
built quite a reputation as an interpreter of Scots and Scottish
traditional songs. But Jack never sought a career from his musical
inclinations. In fact, he dropped out for several years to follow
in his father's footsteps as a painter and decorator after he and
Barbara parted company. Disgruntled with his own interpretations
of traditional music, and unsure of his place in the revival, Jack
concentrated on establishing a successful business. But even there
the music would not leave him alone. "Do you know how rhythmic
a paintbrush can be?" he laughed. "And out there all day,
no one to talk to, just you, the wall, the paint. . . well, I learned
a lot of songs that way.'"
Soon Dunfermline's folk club scene
beckoned, and he once more became a regular. There he met Lindsay
Porteous and Jimmy Dunn, part of the 'Causeway Folk' who ran the
club. When it folded in 1976 the survivors began an informal weekly
session that gradually evolved into the multi-instrument folk group
'Heritage'. During the 15 years Heritage existed it became known
for its striking mix of instruments and singing combined with a
deep love for Scots tradition.
Invited to tour the United States in
1989, Jack and long-time friend and fellow Heritage member George
Haig went on the first of many such pilgrimages. This led to work
with ballad scholar Dr. Tom Burton and the Scots-Appalachian Studies
Programme; Jack was soon asked to rebroadcast his monthly radio
interviews with Scottish musicians, in Tennessee. It was also on
a Tennessee tour that he played a festival where an American storyteller
was appearing, and the two fell to talking. The teller, headed for
Newfoundland to begin a Folklore Ph.D., interested Jack-in how to
further interpret the stories within Muckle Sangs.
In 1996 a further partnership developed
from yet another chance meeting. John Watt and Jack were appearing
separately at the TMSA's Auchtermuchty Festival; John tracked Jack
down to explain he required a guitarist. When Jack agreed, John
said, "Good. We're on in half an hour." Since that inauspicious
beginning the combination of John's singular original songs and
Jack's masterful traditional songs has been heard across the land.
Jack teamed up yet again for 'Muchty Festival's most famous performance
of 1998 - a wedding to the storyteller he met in Appalachia. Since
then, he and Wendy Welch have taken their story and song performances
to various venues in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United
States. He continues to tour with other musicians as well; Sara
Grey and Anne Neilson got together with Jack to present a programme
of Old World/New World ballads for the 'Celtic Connections' festival
in Glasgow, and on a three-week tour of America, bringing the old
songs to new listeners.
"..Ballads are
as adventurous as a time machine, the distillation of some ‘boy’s
own’ novel."
Jack credits his grandfather as the
inspiration for his singing avocation. "Granddad lived with
us, and was always an important figure in my life. He used to sit
by the fire in his favourite chair, singing 'The Muckin' o' Geordie's
Byre' and 'The Wee Cooper o' Fife'. It was so natural, just sitting
there with his hands drumming a rhythm on the sides of the chair.
That's what singing should be - a natural, unaffected activity.
That memory is what really got me back into folk music after I was
skunnert in the '70s. After 15 years of folk club participation,
that 25 year-old memory of my grandfather taught me how to approach
Scots songs. The sad bit is that Granddad died in the 1950s of Miner's
Lung, so he never knew how much help he gave me."
"With this breakthrough I turned
to recordings of the great Scots singers (Jeannie Robertson, Davy
Stewart, Jimmy McBeath, et al) who I had heard live back in the
1960s - without, it is sad to say, genuine appreciation at the time.
Thankfully some, such as the Stewarts of Blair and Lizzie Higgins,
could still be heard and appreciated in the flesh. Thus I came to
understand that interpreting a song is a subtle art, and that when
art is to the fore, the song is not. Singers such as Andy Hunter,
Jimmy Hutchison, Gordeanna McCulloch and Norman Kennedy, each with
their unique voice and sensitive touch, are heroes of mine; they
interpret a song without letting the art show through and take the
song over. That's what I try to do each time I sing."
"I hope the material that I now
sing evidences my great love for ballads and the Scots language,
and my respect for the multiple voices that brought these songs
to us. Spoken Scots is to me a tremendous confirmation of my roots,
my history and my culture - all that I am. Ballads, on the other
hand, thrill me for quite different reasons. They are as adventurous
as a time machine, the distillation of some ‘boy’s own’ novel. Ballad
language is ‘otherworldly’ and unco, and their melodies are hypnotic."
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