Pearls of wisdom as the Oysterband head to park
LAUGHING while admitting he has a feeling Eric Cox may have been plotting to get Oysterband on board for a while, violinist and singer Ian Telfer says that the band are delighted by being at this year's Folk In The Park.
Still going strong after more than three decades, the Oysterband's appearance at the open-air event at Biddulph Grange next month is a highlight for Staffordshire's folk music fans.
"We met in the usual kind of way. When young people are at college and leave home, if they are musically inclined, they fall in with one another and end up jamming together in their kitchens," recalls Ian. He and his bandmates first got together in the 1970s.
"I was originally in another band called Fiddler's Dram, along with Alan Prosser. The singer was called Cathy Lesurf. We had a freak hit with a song called Day Trip To Bangor. It was something of a novelty and killed that band off.
"But we had another band at the time too," he says, "the Oyster Ceilidh Band. Purely a folk dance band and weekend hobby at first. We gradually began to notice we were starting to make a living out of it, so we decided to go for it full-time, recruited a drummer, and called ourselves the Oysterband."
When, in 1984, Pete Lawrence and a friend of his started up a new folky, rootsy label, to be called Cooking Vinyl, the Oysterband launched their first professional album from it, Step Outside.
"We'd done a lot of messing about before that, but it had all been very much home-produced with a little tape recorder in the kitchen cellar," Ian says.
"But Cooking Vinyl was our first step into the world of professional recording and luckily the second album they put out was Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes. A hit, it allowed us to carry on making records with the label for another eight or nine years."
Asked why the Oysterband has managed to stay afloat where others have fallen, Ian says:
"There are a couple of reasons. "As I said earlier, having a hit is a mixed blessing. In one way it's good, because it's your pension fund. But then it can define you so completely that you are no longer allowed to do other things.
"If you don't have hits, you are more free to define yourself and to evolve, which is what the Oysterband has been able to do. We've been able to go for different moods and different flavours, and we also realised a long time ago that we are the sum of our parts in that usually our best songs come from writing together.
"It also means that while our creative energy has gone up and down at different times in our careers, it has never faded away."
Left shattered after 30th anniversary celebrations last year which saw the band touring everywhere from Venice to Vancouver, they are ready to go back on the road, armed with their new album Meet You There, available on the Westpark Music label.
Selecting his personal favourite tracks from it, Ian says: "When you are in a studio, it's tempting to keep throwing ideas at a song, but often the simpler it is, the more effective it is. I very much like Here Comes The Flood, because we had the nerve to do it in a really basic, bash-it-out form.
"Although it's very political and about global warming and rising tides, it's also a very cheeky one. We're having a go, but with smiles on our faces."
He says: "I am also especially fond of Dancing As Fast As I Can, which I think is very atmospheric. I wrote the lyrics some years ago, but this is actually the third piece of music we've put to it. We tried two others, but the result was never quite as it could be; the third time, we struck gold."
Folk In The Park – where the Oysterband will be joined on the bill by rock and rollers The Jalapenos, hot brass and cool guitar heroes The Weavils, and traditional Irish band Tri – will take place at Biddulph Grange Country Park on Saturday, July 11, from 5.30pm until 11pm.
The Oysterband, from left, front, Chopper, Ian Telfer Alan Prosser, John Jones and Dil Davies who will headline Folk In The Park festival.
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