What We Did On Our Holidays
After a couple of weeks travelling all over California from the Mexican border, to San Diego, Los Angeles, Yosemite and Santa Cruz - I'll tell you about just two of the memorable gigs. ...Picture yourself halfway up a mountain in The Santa Cruz Highlands in the grounds of a charming, small white church, the sun is going down and you realise that in the foreground is a simple rugged cross, whilst in the distance is an uninterrupted view of Monterey Bay. Such was the idyllic setting for a gig organised by our host and friend Phillippa. Now Rottingdean this ain't, nor Lewes nor anywhere else within our ken, so we had quite a few emotions to deal with. Safe to say as usual we enjoyed ourselves doing the only thing we know how - sing a few songs, tell a few stories and try and let our audience 'pull up a chair around the kitchen table of the cottage in Rottingdean a hundred years or so ago'. Now believe me, in such a place as we found ourselves, this involved a considerable feat of imagination, on everyone's part! Still, it seemed to work and as the evening wore on, as the air became chillier, the warmth of the audience increased and sure enough, the old songs (for it's the song not the singer, remember) wove their spell, and what had softened the hearts of folks all those years ago came back to haunt us thousands of miles from home and more than a lifetime later.
Now let's move up to The Freight and Salvage Club in Berkeley. Another memorable night, this time organised by Pam Swan, who with her husband Dave and the rest looked after us royally. The only night we were available was Sunday July 2nd which clashed with a group already booked, namely, Oak Ash and Thorn ... "That's OK," said Pam, "they'll stand down for you"!! Not until later did your correspondent realise that Pam's husband is non other than the aforementioned Dave, a member of said OA&T ... the power of one's spouse, eh. As good as their word, OA&T graciously stood down to allow us in their stead. We were greeted by Tom, Dave, Doug, Pam and others with a cooler full of (mainly) English beer and sat down to chat like long-lost friends, which I suppose is what we were. OA&T opened with a set of songs in their own inimitable style and were extraordinarily generous in their (Dave's to be precise) introduction to us. Suffice to say we had a great time aided by an audience more than a little familiar with The Copper Family repertoire; so much so that one was heard to mention that The Coppers were doing quite a few songs normally associated with OA&T!!! Fun with a capital 'F'.
We signed plenty of books and CDs during the interval which gave us all great deal of pleasure, especially Bob who is terribly heartened to know that people appreciate his writing since it is almost thirty years since the publication of 'A Song for Every Season'. Imagine his joy therefore when people produce some of those original books to be dedicated! We'd already decided that OA&T would join us for the finale which they needed little persuasion in doing, in fact they knew the song we'd chosen with which to conclude :-) 'Thousands or More' ... by the looks on their faces they enjoyed this as much as we did.
So concluded an evening of great hospitality and mutual back-slapping, swearing of everlasting friendships and undying love as we emptied into the Econoline van.
Once again we felt the spirit of the past generations of the men and women who'd sung these songs stirring - not a few ghosts travelled back to Santa Cruz with us that night, as each lost in their own thoughts considered what a privilege it is to be custodians of a tradition that has the power to bring us so far and put us in touch with such fine people.
So thankyou California we loved it.
Jon Dudley
18 July 2000
Dave Swan's account of the Berkeley gig
New: 6 August 2000 | Now: 6 August 2000 | The background to this page is an enlargement from the Index to Jim Copper's pre-War song book written in an account book. | Garry Gillard