Captain Swing

The sessions continued each week down at the Duke of Clarence, with guests sitting in most weeks. I can't remember all the artists who played with us but
(NAMEDROPPING ALERT!)
Eddie & Finbar Furey were regulars, as were another band called The Exiles featuring a fine fiddle player called Aly Bain. We started playing at other pubs in the area, including one just around the corner from Notting Hill Gate, another in Barons Court and various parties and benefit dos across North London. We even played a couple of festivals.
I particularly remember the Chelmsford Folk Festival in 1972. I managed to borrow a tent from the local scouts and nearly killed myself carrying it. A heavy canvas tent with wooden tent poles and big enough to sleep ten. I took a couple of friends along and we had a great time.
The organisers lost their shirt on the festival. I'm not sure how many they thought would turn up, but we ended up with a couple of thousand there. Even that was too much for the toilet facilities. There was a huge queue every time I walked past, and the only time I managed to find the toilet block empty enough to have a good wash and brush up was at seven in the morning.

Once we arrived on the Friday night and pitched the tent we set off for the beer tent, where we promptly got a session going. Aside from a few hours on Saturday night where we trooped off down the road to the village pub and had a session there, we stayed in the beer tent all weekend. As usual the circle expanded as more and more players came and joined in.
I recall Al Stewart (oops- name drop again) turned up and borrowed a guitar and attempted to get everyone playing rock and roll. Imagine- the best selling singer songwriter with his album "Bedsitter Images" having sold hundreds of thousands- sitting in the midst of a bunch of whistle and fiddle players and singing Little Richard. Too bizarre.

One of the acts on stage on the Saturday was blues singer Jo-Ann Kelly and her bass player turned up in my musical career a few years later when he joined my rock band Left Hand Drive.

I don't remember many of the acts, after all- I was in the beer tent most of the time. Two acts did stand out though.

The first was The Strawbs. They were just about to hit the big time with their song "Lay Down". Their keyboard player Rick Wakeman had just left them to join Yes, and had been replaced by Blue Weaver, who I'd last seen with Amen Corner a few years before. Three or four years later and he was a member of the Bee Gees band and played on most of their disco hits.



They'd just brought a new guitarist into the band,and founder member Tony Hooper was relegated to playing congas. He left soon afterwards, and the band split a year or so later. Their bass player and drummer had a few hits with their band Hudson-Ford, including a cool song called "Pick up the pieces"

The other band I enjoyed was Steeleye Span, with their new guitarist Bob Johnson. A few months later they'd added a drummer and went on to superstardom.

This track is from their 1972 album "Below the Salt" and features Maddy on Spoons


I drank so much that no matter how much I drank I was still sober. We trudged back to London on the Monday morning and it was back to the boring day job, made bearable by the fact that I was out with the band five or six nights a week. We had a few invites to play folk clubs and we decided we needed a name. I don't know who came up with it, but we became "Captain Swing". I know that there have been other bands with that name, but between 1972 and 1974, that was the name we went under.

We played support for a few artists you may have heard of. Jasper Carrot? He was a very funny folk singer when we supported him in a club somewhere in North London. I think we supported Cyril Tawney as well, and we played loads of benefits for the left wing newspaper The Morning Star.
It's true what they say- anyone who's not a socialist in their twenties has something wrong with their heart. Whoever said that went on to add that anyone who was still a socialist in their thirties had something wrong with their head!