www.writerinjapan.com

Bob Fox and Billy Mitchell
Q: There's been pockets of music from all across the UK. Liverpool had Merseybeat, Tottenham had the Tottenham sound and later on, Birmingham gave us Heavy Metal. Newcastle as well, you've got the Shadows, the Animals, yourselves, Lindisfarne, Sting, Venom…what is it about that area that brings up so much variety of music?

BM: It's the panic to get away from the shipyards and coal mines. That's what it is.

BF: It's the industrial heritage there.

BM: The only way out is either the army, boxing, football…

BF:… or play music…

BM: …and I wasn't a very good boxer so I did this.

BF: It's exactly right what Billy says. In the old days, whatever job your dad did, whether it be in the shipyards or down in pit or wherever, you followed them. In fact, if they got you a job, you would leave school early, 12, 15, or whatever and you would go to a job that your dad had sorted out for you, where he worked. That was it. And that was the tradition for generations. Being able to play, got you out of it.

Q: You two weren't expected to go down the pit were you?

BF: Yeah, I was.

BM: Yeah, we would have. I was born up in a pit village in Northumberland. Luckily, or unluckily, the mine closed in 1956 so my dad had to move as there were no other jobs in the area, so we moved to Newcastle and he took over as a manager of a pub. So that got me out of the mining village. But if that coal mine hadn't closed, I would have been destined to go down to the coal mine once I left school.

BF: And I was from County Durham, you know. Similar, a tiny pit village in County Durham where everybody left school and went down the pit unless you were really, really clever. You know, if the careers officer would say, “What do you want to do?” You know, I want to be a vet. “No, no, no, not a vet.. it’s the pit for you.” (all laugh)

Q: We're laughing about it, but it's not funny, is it?

BM: No, it wasn't funny.

BF: I tell the story when we do a show called The Pitman Poets, which is all about our experiences. We show slides, we tell stories, we sing coal mining songs. I always tell the story that, you know, my dad, our generation were the first ones that didn't want me to go down to the pit. Previous to that, they all said, oh yeah, when you leave school, you go down to the pit. Ours were saying, no, there's more to life and my dad said to me, “You're not going to go down to the pit. You've got to stick in at school, get a good education, do something sensible with your life.” So this is what I'm doing.

Q: You must have done some of the working men's clubs in the seventies. That must have been tough.

BM: I did them in the eighties.

BF: I wouldn't. I wouldn’t dare.

BM: I was in a comedy duo for a long time and we had a go at some of the working men's clubs. Some of them were great, some of them were awful. So, you do your best.

Q: You've got a lovely smile on your face when you say that. There's a very rich tradition of Geordie songs going back to the mid-eighties. “I Drew My Ship,” all of Joe Wilson's, George Ridley's stuff. How do you choose what to cover?

BF: It's me more or less that chooses what to cover because I don’t write. I know all those songs you just mentioned. You just have to listen to them. Look at them and evaluate them and say, “Is this worth singing? Will people understand it? Will it mean something to you?” and if it does, you can do them. Some of those songs are very relevant to the day that they were written. Some of them are universal truths.

Q: Which brings me to your writing Billy. How do you manage to write in the style of something you've never actually experienced?

BM: I was asked to do a selection of songs for a thing called the Northumbria Anthology which is a 25-CD set of songs from the north - most of them are from the north. Some very old songs, some new songs. New artists are on some of the CDs, etc and I was asked if I would contribute a CD. I thought about it and the only thing I could do was to encamp my experiences of the coal mining village that I was brought up in, until I was nine years old. So that's what I did. I wrote songs about the people, my family, the coal mine… all of that. That's the selection of those songs mostly that I do with Bob but I write other songs as well that have nothing to do with industry or coal mining or anything else. I just write songs.

Q: When does it come into your mind?

BM: Usually after a long session sitting with a blank sheet of paper. Then you get a trigger. You hear somebody say something. I wrote a song a few years ago called “Born at the Right Time” which is probably, I think, the most popular song I've ever written. I'd heard that phrase numerous times before I wrote this song but I do believe that we were born at the right time. We've had the best and most of it is gone. It's gone down the line rapidly. “Where My Heart Lives” is a song about where I used to live that I still go to visit occasionally. It's about 30 miles from where I live now and I like to go back and relive the experiences in there that I had when I was a kid.

Q: So if you write or if you choose a cover, how long does it take you to come up with an arrangement?

BF: Not very long usually because when we decided to do this together, obviously we've both had separate careers for a long time before we started to play together and it was just a happy accident that we decided that we might do something together. So it was basically just Billy saying “I like that one that you do” and me saying, “Well I like that one that you do.” We just knocked it out. Basically I do my songs the way I do them…

BM: …and I try not to get in the way. (both laugh)

BF: Billy adds something to it. Another vocal line maybe, a harmony and another guitar part or a mandolin and similarly with Billy's songs, he does them the way he always does them.

BM: We just try to be sympathetic to what's happening.

BF: We didn't want to come up with anything complicated or clever or anything.

Q: You have a great rapport with the audience. Between yourselves and with the audience…

BM: That's part of it. It's a big part of it. We don't want an audience to just sit there and wait until the end of a song and then clap.

BF: And we also don't want them to go, “Wasn't that really great? Weren't they really great, those two?” We want them to say, that was a really good song. We know it's the song that's the important thing. That's what we're trying to get over and if they do say they were really great, that's fine as well.

BM: It's the songs that are important. It's not us.

Q You guys, between years on the road, how many?

BF: I've done 50. You must have done 50…more than me, because you're a little bit older.

BM: I started when I was 15.

BF: I did my first gigs, my first professional gigs in 1974. That's 50 years ago.

BM: I did my first professional gig when I was 15. A group, a beat combo and we got paid £2 which was ten shillings each and we came out of the gig and it was windy, and the ten shillings note blew away. So I never got paid. (all laugh)

Billy Mitchell and Bob Fox

The banter between Bob and Billy continues and fades as I walk towards the press tent, thank the crew from One Fell Swoop Media for everything over the weekend and head back to watch the next turn. It always astonishes me when I see any ‘Greatest guitarists of the 1970s’ lists that float around the internet that Martin Barre is never mentioned. Not that those lists hold any credibility as they are purely the whim of the compiler but the simple fact that Martin is omitted on such a regular basis, gets my goat as his phrasing and melodic lines were as big a part of Jethro Tull as the one-legged flute antics. Today, Martin lets his solo material take a backseat performing just “Eleanor Rigby” and “Back to Steel” from his solo album of the same name, the rest being filled with Tull songs including the complete Aqualung album. Approaching the octogenarian club of Classic Rock guitarists, he showed no signs of slowing down nor taking simpler solos because of aging fingers and in fact, he played the best I’ve seen since him the mid-eighties.

Bob Fox & Billy Mitchell is more entertainment than anyone deserves. Their arrangements of the old songs are done with affection and respect, two examples being their upbeat version of Silly Wizard’s “The Ramblin’ Rover” and the Geordie classic “Dance to Your Daddy.” They nestle very comfortably alongside original compositions “Shiftin’ to the Toon” and “The Collier Laddie’s Wife,” all of which, if you didn’t know better, you would swear were also traditional. Throughout the show, they laugh, joke, tell stories and rib each other and then to end, an embracing version of The Mama’s and The Papa’s’ “Monday Monday.” Sheer class.

Flagging a bit, Gil had bought us two whopping coffees towards the end of the last set. We mused for a while about our hosts opening number. “Walk A While” had been Fairport Convention’s first song on the Saturday for the past few years but this year, on Thursday, they had opened their acoustic show with it, so, what would they open with tonight? Buzzing with anticipation, Gil made half a dozen rapid-fire suggestions; me, none. It turned out to be “Come All Ye” which hasn’t been played on this sacred ground since 2017; excellent choice, it was one of Gil’s suggestions. Guessing game over, we settle into the cool night air for the usual treat of old favourites and lovely surprises. Ric Sanders playing “The Rose Hip” sweeter than ever melted me and led to another Cropredy moment. “Fotheringay” had just finished, “Moondust and Solitude” just started when Luna made herself known. Radiant and full, she beamed a pastel yellow blanket over us all, celestial, seemingly within touching distance…

‘Fairport’s friends’ have become a feature of the show over the years and there is a monstrous cheer when Ralph McTell is introduced to play “Sweet Mystery” and “Tequila Sunset.” He’s followed by newcomer Danny Bradley who given his talent and the reception he received, will most likely be making a return to Cropredy in 2026 with his own set. We are over halfway through when Fairport perform the instrumental from their Gladys’ Leap album, “The Riverhead/Gladys’ Leap/The Wise Maid” it being the 40th anniversary of its release and followed it with Cropredy favourite“ The Hiring Fair” from the same record. Into the home stretch and “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” joins hearts before we dance to “John Gaudie”, after which “Matty Groves” and “Meet on the Ledge”, as they do every year, bid us goodnight.

Afterglow

Festivals have an air of melancholy the morning after the final night. Somewhat reluctantly, the packing up begins. The thought of the long drive home beckons where upon arriving, everything needs to be cleaned and stashed away for eleven and a half months whilst work, having been forgotten for a few days, is an approaching nimbus cloud. One more sleep and then it’s back to the grind, the long, lost, dark tea-time of the soul as Douglas Adams put it. This morning, Cropredy doesn’t feel like any of that though. I walk over from the glamping site to the backstage to pick up my car, saying my thanks to the remaining security staff who wish me well. I notice there’s very little litter in the field; Cropredy attendees always clean up after themselves. Gil has packed up most of her stuff by the time I return, mine takes only a few minutes and then, after hugs and pledges, we head off down the Williamscott Road. At the Banbury roundabout, I wave Gil goodbye in my rear-view mirror as we head towards our separate destinations. It’s the 50th Cropredy Convention next year and it’s already in our diaries, in ink.