Sometimes tunes just pop into your head, for no reason at all. Dirty Old Town is a song written by Ewan MacColl in 1949. The song was written about Salford and the gasworks and old canal referenced in the song is the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal.
My parents used to sing the song a lot when I was growing up, and recently at a Spaceheads rehearsal we filmed a bit of us playing unplugged, that is just trumpet and drums without the usual effects and loopers going. Dirty Old Town suddenly popped into my head!
A week later and the James orchestra tour started. One of my parts was to find a balcony in the theatre to play a fanfare introduction to the song Hymn from a Village, one of the classic old James songs from 40 years ago. I set out to improvise a different fanfare every night.
The opening night was in Brighton, and Dirty Old Town popped into my head again. The first few notes are quite fanfare like …. so understandable.
The next Morning a review in the Times said:“Indeed, one early standout was a vivid string-and-brass reworking of Hymn from a Village, a shimmering experiment in urban Afropop pastiche from 1985, which began with the trumpet player Andy Diagram appearing on the balcony in a white ballgown blasting Ewan McColl’s Salford-inspired 1949 folk standard Dirty Old Town.“
I recieved a lot of messages from people saying the tune bought back memories. It suddenly seemed inseperable from “Hymn from a Village” and I found myself playing it every night.
I will post videos below of bits captured
Above: On the Balcony at Sheffield City Hall – May 4th.
Below: I broke my foot coming off stage after the first night at the Manchester Apollo. I played the second night (May 10th) on crutches and took a seat at the front of the stage for the fanfare….. unfortunately I forgot to tell the lighting operator where I was!!
