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By Root 1075 0

things all the time. I used to frequent a coffee bar in Richmond called L’Auberge. It was on the hill just by the bridge, and across the river in Twickenham was a funky old place called Eel Pie Island. This was an island in the middle of the river, which had a massive dance hall built on it. It was an ancient, creaky wooden gin palace, and on a Saturday night they would have New Orleans jazz bands playing there, people like Ken Colyer, and the Temperance Seven, and we loved it. The routine was to start out at L’Auberge in the early evening, have a couple of coffees, and then wander over the bridge of Eel Pie. I’ll never forget the feeling as you got about halfway across the bridge, and you’d suddenly realized you were in the middle of a swelling crowd of people who all looked vaguely the same. There was a tremendous sense of belonging back then. In those pre-hippie, beatnik days, it did seem to be all about the music. Drugs were rare, and even the drinking was fairly moderate.

I used to play there with Dave Brock, who later went on to found Hawkwind, and I fell in with the crowd of musicians and beatniks who used to hang out there. Sometimes we’d all jump on the train and go up to London to the folk clubs and pubs around Soho, places like the Marquess of Granby, the Duke of York, and the Gyre and Gimble coffee bar in Charing Cross. The first time I ever got beaten up was outside the “G’s.” A bunch of squaddies lured me outside and gave me a good kicking for absolutely no other reason, as far as I could see, than to let off steam. It was a pretty nasty experience, but in a perverse way I felt like I had made my bones, another rite of passage completed. It did teach me, however, that I was not cut out for fighting. I made no attempt to protect myself, maybe because I intuitively knew that would make matters worse, and from then on I seemed to develop an alert instinct for potentially violent situations and from then on avoided them like the plague.

The folk scene had a real following in those days, and in the clubs and pubs I began to meet loads of like-minded people and musicians. Long John Baldry was a regular, and I know Rod Stewart used to sing at the Duke of York, although I never saw him there. Also, two guitarists who used to play regularly in these places had a big influence on me. One was a guy called Buck, who played the first Zemaitis twelve-string I ever saw, and the other was Wiz Jones, another famous troubadour of the time. They’d play Irish ballads and English folk tunes, mixing them with Leadbelly songs and other stuff, which gave me a unique view of the world of folk music. I’d sit as close to them as possible, which was often difficult as they were so popular, and watch their hands to see the way they played. Then I’d come back home and practice for hours and hours, trying to teach myself to play the music I’d heard. I’d listen carefully to the recording of whatever song I was working on, then copy it and copy it till I could match it. I remember trying to imitate the bell-like tone achieved by Muddy Waters on his song “Honey Bee.” It was the first time I ever got three strings together on my guitar. I had no technique, of course; I just spent hours mimicking it.

The main man for me was Big Bill Broonzy, and I tried to learn his technique, which was to accompany yourself with your thumb, using the thumb to play eighth notes on the bass strings while you pick out a riff or countermelody with your fingers. This is a staple part of blues playing in one form or another and can be developed into a folk pattern, too, like clawhammer, where you move your thumb rhythmically between the bottom strings alternately while picking out the melody on the top strings with your first, second, and sometimes third fingers. My method of learning was pretty basic; I’d play along with the record I wanted to imitate, and when I thought I’d mastered something, I’d record it on the Grundig and play it back. If it sounded like the record, then I was satisfied. As I slowly began to master the art of finger-style acoustic playing,