Another enthusiast who saw Derek in action at The Shades
was Rick Stokes. In later years Rick got in touch with Derek and
corresponded with him a number of times. He remembers:-
‘’I
first encountered Derek's playing and singing when, in late 1965, I
started visiting the Shades folk club in Gunn Street, Reading - I was
17, and already getting into folk music (via an eclectic appreciation
of skiffle, Chicago R&B/blues, and the first four Dylan
albums). I was tipped off about the Shades by a folk-guitarist friend
who sometimes played there. The growing folk scene then was the
hip/alternative thing to be into and I much preferred it to the
mainstream, Mod-dominated, dancehall alternative...much more affable
and the music was much better!
So,
Saturday nights down the Shades was a must - you needed to be there
early to get a seat, and right away I knew we had something special
in both the resident performers, Derek Hall and Mike Cooper - quite
different from each other stylistically, but both of them highly
accomplished.
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Derek at The Elephant Folk Club, Reading, once again with his Martin D28.
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In
Derek's case, he covered pretty much every aspect of
guitar-accompanied folk music, all superlatively well. This included
traditional songs like ‘Geordie’, contemporary guitar-folk (a la
Jansch/Renbourn/Davy Graham) such as ‘Strolling Down The Highway’,
‘National Seven’, ‘Hares on The Mountain’ and various
Anji-type instrumentals. He was a master of Blind Blake style
ragtime (which he played with far more drive and less 'politeness’
than that Ralph McTell chap - not to knock Ralph). He also played
blues and Elizabeth Cotten tunes. Then there was what is now called
‘Americana’ (e.g. The Delmore Brothers 'Deep River Blues’ and
Gary Davis' Candyman’ ); music-hall type songs, eg ‘The Coffee
Pot Song’ and then that fantastic flatpicking he did in the
styles of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (‘San Francisco Bay Blues’) &
Doc Watson (‘Sitting On Top Of The World’) and the Delmores
(‘Nashville Blues’) and so on .
So,
quite a comprehensive coverage of guitar-based folk music, all played
with great virtuosity (though in recent times he referred to his
delivery as 'raw', but it didn't seem so to me). He always held the
audience completely spellbound - inspiring enough (together with Mike
Cooper's excellent east-coast style blues playing) to impel me to get
a guitar and learn to play it. Although I never have managed to
achieve the level of skill of Derek (or Mike), I was certainly
advantaged in getting a close-up 'lesson' in fingerstyle guitar every
week. This was never more memorable than when Sid (the Shades' owner)
organised a folk all-nighter on a barge moored up on the river
Kennet. I was happily sat opposite Derek and able to take in a
master-class.
When
Mike & Derek released their ' Out Of The Shades ' EP, Derek's
virtuosic playing was well to the fore, evidenced especially on
'Darlin' ' and 'Skillet', (both of which I've striven to emulate over
the years since, without success). I wore out both of my copies over
the years, so I was very pleased to see its recent re-release.
'Skillet' in particular is a spectacular tour-de-force of
guitar-playing, showing Derek's great facility in fingerpicking, as
well as inventiveness in the way he morphs the rhythm from something
folky to a very cool swing/jazz time - I did ask him what the tuning
was, but he couldn't recall whether it was DADGAD or dropped-D.
'Darlin' ' is further evidence of his creativity in re-working a
skiffle/Leadbelly blues into something altogether funkier - I read
somewhere an interview with Mike Cooper where he rates Derek's
playing at least on a par with Davy Graham's, and I think those
two tracks certainly evidence this.
The
only other recordings I had of him was his playing on Mike's ' Oh
Really!?' album, on ' Lead Hearted Blues ' and ' Send Me To The
‘Lectric Chair ', both of which again demonstrate his extraordinary
facility as a player,
By
'67, I'd moved away from Reading, and only caught a couple of Derek's
subsequent performances, one at Mike Cooper's Elephant Folk Club in
the market Place, and again at the White Horse, in Caversham Road, as
I recall, so I only had the 'Shades' EP and the couple of tracks on
Mike's album to remind me of Derek's skills.
Back
in those days, I was far too shy to make the effort to get to know
Derek in conversation, but a couple of years ago, Mike was kind
enough to furnish me with Derek's present address, so I was able to
write him a long-overdue letter expressing my appreciation and
gratitude . I've made a living out of playing fingerstyle guitar, and
used many of the songs I first heard from Derek, thereby avoiding a
lifetime of 'proper' employment!. Derek wrote back very graciously
and enthusiastically, and we embarked on a fairly frequent
correspondence for a couple of years, until his sad death in 2019. We
mostly discussed guitars (natch) and music, discovering a mutual love
of jazz/dance-band music of the 1920s & musicians such as
guitarist Eddie Lang and bass-saxophonist Adrian Rollini, amongst
others. He didn't seem overly keen to talk about his personal life,
but the gleanings that I got that might be of interest are as
follows:
Early
influences included Rambling Jack Elliott - Derek said that he found
a Topic LP of him ('Jack Takes The Floor') in Dobell's record shop
and learned most of the tunes on it. He taught himself fingerpicking
by copying Rambling Jack’s version of 'Cocaine Blues' note for
note, from which he was able to work out other fingerpicked tunes. He
learned 'Geordie' from a guitarist friend named Ron Simmonds. Ron
introduced him to an LP of Blind Blake, who then became another major
influence. He was also influenced, of course, by Doc Watson's
flatpicking.
Before
he got the Martin D28, he (like many of us back then) played a Levin
Goliath, which his brother Alan traded for him against the Martin,
Derek being laid up with illness at the time. Unfortunately the
Martin got damaged when Derek stepped on it while climbing down from
a chair after changing a light bulb. He reverted to a Harmony
Sovereign, which is what he used on the 'Oh Really' tracks. Over the
years he amassed a fine collection of guitars, acoustic (including
Ivor Mairants' own Martin D28 ), classical, fine archtops and
electrics, and also banjos and many other instruments. He was a very
expert banjo-player, both classical and plectrum-style, and used to
compose pieces which he wrote out in both notation (having taught
himself to read music) and tab. A number of these compositions were
published pseudonymously by Clifford Essex in their ‘Banjo,
Mandolin and Guitar’ magazine.
After
leaving Reading and moving back to London, he worked variously in a
passport office, Islington Social Security and the British Museum
library, which is where he met Sheila, his future wife. Derek and
Sheila couldn't afford to buy a house in London so they moved up to
Kendal (Sheila's home town). There they found work and bought a
house. Derek worked for a time in a Social Security office and
subsequently was employed by the local council as a peripatetic
guitar teacher.
He
told me that he had kept playing in clubs (including a residency in a
Windermere club) up to the age of 70, when arthritis in his hands put
an end to flatpicking and to public performance. He also said that
he'd always been a nervous performer (never seemed so to me!). He
steadfastly refused to record anything (despite my urging him to do
so) because of nerves. He mentioned that it took six or seven goes
to record ' Skillet '.
It
seemed from his letters that he was quite happy to have stepped away
from the more high-pressure London folk-scene in favour of a more
easy-going life. I have no doubt at all that if he'd had the ambition
he could have become as well-known and highly regarded as artists
like John Renbourn - in fact, he mentioned in one letter that John
would often come to watch him and Davy Graham playing jazz numbers.
He described John as a 'frustrated jazz guitarist'. At one club Derek
remembered playing ' Candyman', after which John Renbourne sidled up
and muttered "great Candyman, you bastard!". Derek ended up
teaching his version to John.
Derek's
tastes in music were very wide-ranging. His preferred playing style
in more recent years was chord-melody jazz which he applied to
1920s/30s jazz and dance band tunes. We had great mutual enthusiasm
for this music as well as show-tunes and pop songs from any era. His
knowledge of all aspects of music seemed quite encyclopaedic, e.g. he
amazed me with information on Adrian Rollini and the bass- saxophone.
(Rick
Stokes)