For those of you hearing Davey’s music for the first time you are in for a real treat, the bare-bones arrangements only serve to focus the listener’s attention to the story within the song and the power behind the voice compels you to feel the sincerity in every tale as it unfolds. The guitar and banjo set the mood and Davey does the rest. For anyone hearing these songs after so many years’ recollections of the above will come flooding back.

These however are not meant to be sleeve notes, I’d like to use this space to tell you a little of Davey Speirs. Davey taught me (and countless others) to play guitar and introduced me to the wonderful playing and songs of his contemporaries. On any given night you could drop into Davey’s and share tea and supper with the likes of John Martyn, Billy Connolly, Hamish Imlach, Dave Campbell, Martin Carthy and the list goes on. But, no matter who was there, if you turned up you got an instrument thrust in your hand and played along with everyone else sink or swim.

As well as being a consummate performer Davey the teacher didn’t just teach guitar, he introduced you to the music, the lifestyle, the politics and humour from several generations the world around. The eclectic collector, in fact truth be told, Davey would need a bigger house if half the folk that borrowed an Album (CD) to learn just one track returned them, I’m beginning to feel pangs of guilt as I write (sorry Davey). It is with this in mind I and many others felt it was only right that future generations got the opportunity to hear these songs performed once again as only Davey can sing them.

Special thanks to Ronnie Cairns (Beltona Records) for permission to pursue this project. Not forgetting Bill Dean Myatt for lots of help and research thanks guys.

Davey Speirs was my tutor, my friend, and the inspiration for a lifelong passion for music in general, and for guitars in particular, thanks Davey.

Dave Cherry

Cherry Guitars

Original Sleeve Notes from 1969

Davey Speirs comes from Paisley, near Glasgow, and must be unique among folk singers in that his material is almost equally divided between songs in some way connected with his own Scottish roots and songs which he heard and re-shaped from America.
“As a Paisley boy,” he says the only places I ever knew were Paisley and Glasgow. Paisley which is famous for the Paisley Pattern and for Wilson the Ornithologist, who can be seen today standing at Paisley Cross holding a bird in his hand. And Glasgow which is the biggest, warmest and toughest city in Scotland.

“Unfortunately, unlike some folk singers around, I haven’t had a folk grandfather or grandmother to blame for my material. Apart from Paisley and Glasgow, the other real influence on me was my fathers taste for Negro Blues and Jazz, and also an early EP by Pete Seeger that I came across. The latter was the the first singer I ever heard who seemed to be stripped of any kind of affection.

I spend all my days working and my nights singing, and so I am unable to tell fabulous stories of travel in foreign lands. I sing about Scotland as know it, and also the American songs I like and can feel.”
“I used to run a folk club called ‘The Attic’ and I’ve sung with The Tannahill Folk Four and more recently with Pat and Mary Mulligan. I’ve also recorded with Matt McGinn.”

What does emerge from this, his first LP as a solo artist, is that that he is a singer with warmth, grit, humour and an immediate sincerity. He seems to enjoy the songs, even the ones that are intended as protests; but perhaps this is because they have something to say both above and below the surface. As well as being an interesting singer he is, within the framework of his singing, a commentator on the Scotland he knows and the America he has gradually discovered.

Side One

CHARLIE GREEN.
An old Bessie Smith number which she wrote as a tribute to her trombone player. Davey first learned this song from David Campnell.

OH I HAD A GOLDEN THREAD.
One of the songs written by Pete Seegar for a United Nations concert, billed as “Rainbows Quest”. “It should be adopted as an international anthem” Davey says.

I’M LOOKING FOR A JOB.
A Matt McGinn song. Comments the singer: “It takes a humorous look at the ridiculous amount of overtime we men have to work”.

RED MAN.
This was written by David Campbell to express his feelings about the hardships and privations of the American Indian, whose fight for equality is even harder than that of the American Negro, since the Indian cause doesn’t seem to evoke the same emotional reaction as does the Black versus White problem.

THAT’LL NEVER HAPPEN NO MORE. Davey picked up this song from a repertoire of Blind Willie McTell, but has added a few verses of his own. It has a jazz-folk feel and Davey says he enjoys playing as much as singing it.

BLACK LEG MINER.
A violent song from the violent times in Scotland, expressing how desperate men can become if their daily bread is threatened.

HOBO’S LULABY.
The theme of this song has always held an attraction for folk singers. Probably because Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Lec Hayes and other legendary names all took to the road during the American depression years.

LONG JOHN.
A song about the famous character long John Green, a Negro prisoner who outsmarted the prison authorities just whenever he pleased. The lyric describes the chase and the tricks John used to make good one of his escapes.

The “Roffey Park Tapes” doesn’t have the same cache as the “basement tapes” but believe you me it has all the sincerity of a man singing it his way and, to hell with what the critics think.  These moments are rarely captured on tape as by the time the artist gets into the studio and because studio time is so prohibitively expensive, by and large the songs are rehearsed and polished to perfection.  The songs presented here are far from perfect and all the better for it.

Here we have Davy Speirs in his own front room at home singing what he chooses, in the way he chooses, not directed or edited by anyone or slavishly performed take after take.  Each song is delivered as the mood descends upon him and that is the essence of folk music.  Emotion drives the delivery and the “great” for want of a better word folk singers seem to have an innate ability to present their material with the right dynamic time after time changing the nuances of the song to suit the situation and providing the right amount of dialog to get the message across to the audience.