Thanks, Ralph Jordan

[Irene S.]

I thought it might be appropriate to share here a video which was posted up yesterday by Bart de Cock, Belgian musician and friend of Ralph Jordan. Ralph died a year ago today, and this video is a tribute to him from Bart - it contains snippets of Ralph's playing, including a live performance by the Fraser Sisters (a band that he was a member of ) of his only composition ,entitled "Fairlop" or alternatively "Ralph's tune". The other tracks have been taken from his only solo CD "Eloise".

http://youtu.be/XwRRxrYFJDQ

[Geoffrey Crabb]

Thanks for posting the link Irene,

 

A fitting tribute to Ralph.

 

Geoffrey

[Irene S.]

Thanks Geoff. I very much agree - Bart made a good job of it.

[Geoff Wooff]

Thanks for posting this Irene!

 

I was taken back by some of those eariler pictures to the day I met Ralph for the first time at the Rising Sun Folk Club in Catford... 41 or 42 years ago. How we formed a little band, on the spot, with the encouragement of the organiser, Dave Cooper.

 

That band lasted for a couple of years untill I emigrated to Australia in 1976.

 

Geoff.

[Wolf Molkentin]

Lovely pictures (and sounds anyway) providing a further notion of Ralph's apparently pretty charming personality... Thanks for posting Irene!

 

P.S.: Really enjoy listening to my copy of "Eloise"!

[Irene S.]

Thanks for posting this Irene!

 

I was taken back by some of those eariler pictures to the day I met Ralph for the first time at the Rising Sun Folk Club in Catford... 41 or 42 years ago. How we formed a little band, on the spot, with the encouragement of the organiser, Dave Cooper.

 

That band lasted for a couple of years untill I emigrated to Australia in 1976.

 

Geoff.

Thanks for that Geoff - that was Fingers Galore, I take it? There were some photos in those which Bart had used that I had never seen before (although some of them were ones that I had taken - a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar) - a nice mix..In my case I actually have a video of Ralphie playing concertina on the first day that we met personally, as he was playing out the Bismarcks at the last gig they played in 2006. At that point I had no idea that we would end up working together ... or indeed that I would be talked into taking up the Maccann duet by him.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Irene S.

[Geoff Wooff]

It was indeed "Fingers Galore" Irene; there used to be a cassette tape that we made during a band practice session in late 1975 , there was only one copy and it bit the dust many years ago.... but, you never know... someone might have recorded one of our gigs.... someone might even have taken a photograph... !

[mike byrne]

Here is a picture of Ralph playing my Wheatstone mini anglo at Bradfield in 2010.

Edited January 16, 2015 by mike byrne

[Irene S.]

Thanks for that Mike - I often wondered whose concertina that was. I have one or two of my own photographs of that moment or two.

[Wolf Molkentin]

Here is a picture of Ralph playing my Wheatstone mini anglo at Bradfield in 2005

 

which had been included in the video too...

[Irene S.]

 

Here is a picture of Ralph playing my Wheatstone mini anglo at Bradfield in 2005

 

which had been included in the video too...

No,in fact it's a different but similar one. I think quite a few of us took shots of that, thanks to the slightly humorous sight of 6'4" Ralph playing such a tiny instrument. But at the same time he pronounced it to be LOUD!! Edited January 4, 2015 by Irene S.

[Dan Worrall]

Thanks very much for posting this, Irene. I never had the chance to meet him, but between the photographs and the selected tunes one can get a good idea of who he was and of his musical tastes. Wonderful stuff.

 

Dan

[Irene S.]

Dan - I think you'd have enjoyed his company. His enthusiasm for fellow musicians and for sharing music was immense,and his musical tastes were wide,extremely varied and sometimes quite eccentric (thanks to his sense of humour I think). As a sound engineer and studio manager for the BBC he worked with musicians of all types and genres in that capacity, and so was widely exposed to many influences during his working life. He claimed that you could play "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" to anything - which I doubted until he actually proved it at a session which we were both at! Bart has made a very good choice of those tunes as they span quite a few areas of his musical tastes, including, of course, his love of Swedish/Scandinavian music and his homage to Alexander Prince with Hopscotch.

[Irene S.]

Here is a picture of Ralph playing my Wheatstone mini anglo at Bradfield in 2005.

 

 

Hi Mike - I've just realised that you have put the date down as 2005. In fact it was later than that. We were at Bradfield to give our presentation of our show on Lucy Broadwood, and that was actually in 2010, five years later than you have suggested. He was playing your mini Wheatstone in that very cold barn after he had taken part in the five way discussion on Duet concertinas with Jon Boden, Geoffrey Crabb, Gavin Atkin and Roger Digby.