Aberdeen Folk Club celebrates its 60th anniversary this month with a three-day festival starting on Friday.
In the convivial surroundings of the Blue Lamp in the Gallowgate, there will be gigs from The Spiers Family, Vair, Beth Malcolm, Dave Sharp and plenty more.
While looking forward to another 60 years to come, the occasion will give pause for thought to some of those who were there in the early days.
People like Lindy Cheyne and Sandy Cheyne, both hugely active on the folk scene and lifelong friends of the club’s founder, Arthur Argo.
From P&J reporter to folk club founder
The P&J can get a mention here too, as Arthur started out as a reporter with the paper, before seeing the error of his ways and immersing himself in folk music.
The first time Sandy saw Arthur was in 1961.
He said: “I was sitting in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall at a folk-song concert which featured some of the great names of the folk revival, like Jeannie Robertson and Matt McGinn.
“Hamish Henderson came on-stage and announced his latest discovery, the great-grandson of no less a person than Gavin Greig, a young man called Arthur Argo.
Wee scrawny youth
“A wee, scrawny, curly-headed youth came limping on to the stage and, without any words of introduction, started to sing Nicky Tams.
“He had pitched it rather high and had to stretch his neck considerably to reach the high notes.
“I took him to be a teenager, maybe nineteen or so, but was later to discover he was the same age as myself – twenty-six.
“Two years later I moved from Fife up to Aberdeen and got to know Arthur through the Aberdeen Folk Club, which he had founded a year earlier in 1962.”
Lindy was there on the second night of Arthur’s Aberdeen Folk Song Club, then in the Royal Hotel.
Arthur inveigled herself and her friends to sing, “promising that if we did we’d get our money back,” Lindy said.
“This was a definite enticement, because we were young and broke.
“Before we knew it, we were up front performing – a four-part Dowland madrigal – and got our money, I think it was a shilling, back.”
Arthur’s massive personality
Arthur’s personality shaped the club from the start.
He was irreverent and fun loving, Lindy says.
“Combined with his formidable knowledge of song, made the Aberdeen club the extraordinarily influential organ that it became.
“He was a benevolent despot: if anyone forgot their words more than once, they didn’t sing again until Arthur was convinced they knew them.
“I became totally immersed in the club, wearing many hats on the committee, organiser, transcriber of music for Chapbook, president, putter upper of many itinerant musicians.”
The club flourished with audiences of more than 200 ramming into the Royal.
Lindy recalls evenings with the legends of the scene.
“Songwriter and poet Hamish Henderson would expound on his wartime experiences in North Africa and Italy with the 51st Highland Division, teaching us the music of the time.
Iconic names
“The didactic Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger would follow the course of a traditional ballad as it moved, in its many versions, around the world. We listened and learned.”
The club hosted names to conjure with— Matt McGinn, Tom Paxton, Dick Gaughan, Billy Connolly, Gerry Rafferty, Aly Bain, Jean Redpath.
The illustrious list goes on and on.
Local singers included Jimmy McBeath, Jeannie Robertson, Norman Kennedy, Belle Stewart.
Sandy recalls: “There was a great deal of fun at the many after-club parties. Arthur had a repertoire of bawdy songs – all traditional, you understand – the likes of which you may have never heard, if you’ve led a sheltered life.”
Current president is Richard Wyness, who is amassing a collection of memorabilia associated with Aberdeen Folk Club.
He has signed programmes, magazines, and clippings which he is hoping to bring together into a display case.
He said: “It would be great if P&J readers could have a rummage in their attics and come along to the 60th anniversary celebrations with their own memorabilia of nights gone by at the club.”
For musicians like Dave Sharp, co-fonder of The Alarm and constantly on tour in the 80s and 90s, Aberdeen Folk Club felt like the promised land.
“People would talk about it in hushed tones all over the country,” he said.
Eventually, Dave had to opportunity to do an open mic night at the Blue Lamp, and then another few before he received an open invite to play there any time.
Dave said: “I jumped at the chance of helping with the 60th anniversary celebrations.
“We’ve brought in a good spread of musicians locally and from around the UK, and I’ve mentioned it to Radio 2’s Mark Radcliffe and Bob Harris to try and get the club in the spotlight.”
Hope for young artists
Dave hopes young folk singers will be inspired to come along to the Blue Lamp to appreciate live music.
He said: “In the old days you cut your performing teeth touring the country in a van for years on end.
“Nowadays, the process is much more speeded up, where record labels sign people before they get to have that experience.
“There’s a high rate of turnover, and not enough is invested in the artists’ development.
“At Aberdeen Folk Club there’s a large sense of community, and coming along to open mics always inspires and raises the bar.
“Folk music speaks to the rhythm of the human spirit, the human heart.
“It’s real and like all music, has a lasting effect on the community.”
Dave is on tour in the north at the moment, playing in The Shore Inn, Portsoy, on Friday October 7, MrC’s in Thurso on Saturday October 8, and at the Aberdeen Folk Club’s 60th at the Blue Lamp on Sunday October 9.
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