‘Hastings Is Music’ seems to be a key tenet of the town’s identity. We can boast a remarkable number of music venues, a proliferation of pop-up events featuring live music in shops, bars, arts and public spaces and an extraordinary number of record shops, given the town’s size and population. There is also a strong identification with folk music, especially in the Old Town.
For me, this goes back to the mid-1970s when I ran for four years a record shop in the High Street in Old Hastings. Key figures in the local music scene included John Martyn, whose song Over the Hill from his album Solid Air rhapsodised walking over the West Hill on his way home to his house in Coburg Place in the Old Town (Martyn was distinguished by his stellar run of solo albums but also, sadly, his volatility and misogyny); Peter Knight, fiddler for a term with Steeleye Span; Liam Genockey, drummer on Martyn’s album Sunday’s Child and who also worked with Hastings jazz supremo Trevor Watts, and later, Steeleye Span. And, towards the end of the 70s, the arrival of violinist Barry Dransfield, who in 1986, opened a repair shop specialising in violins and cellos. Affable and charismatic, Dransfield’s presence in Hastings instilled a sense of pride in the local community: that, following a run of albums that were highly regarded in the wider folk community, he had chosen to live here was a Good Thing. Central to his reputation was his membership of folk-rock super-group Morris On which featured Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson and Dave Mattacks with accordionist John Kirkpatrick – variously members of the Albion Band, Steeleye Span and Britain’s premier folk-rock ensemble Fairport Convention. Morris On recorded a single self-titled album in 1972 which rapidly acquired a reputation for a more authentic, rough-round-the-edges sound than either Fairport or Steeleye, and brought Dransfield to wider public recognition.
Fellow violinist living and teaching in Hastings, Garry Blakeley, who worked with Dransfield and who currently plays with in Feast of Fiddles with Peter Knight and Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Jethro Tull) remembers that
‘When Barry first arrived in Hastings, the word travelled round very quickly. A legendary musician
from the folk scene was moving into the Old Town.
I connected with him almost immediately, because as it turned out, my name had been mentioned to him numerous times and his curiosity was getting the better of him. He wanted to hear me play. While he was always complimentary about my fiddle playing, he was also critical of my guitar playing, singing and “music school” harmonies. I found this to be really helpful on my journey to improvement. I feel very honoured to have spent many hours with him, playing fiddle and having what were always extremely interesting and sometimes challenging conversations. I also spent time in his workshop watching a masterful luthier express his art in bringing back to life old instruments. We enjoyed many a session in the Duke of Wellington, and for me a highlight of my time with him would be the bacon sandwiches and cups of tea. Sometimes you just don’t know what you have until it’s gone. I can’t thank him enough for being Barry.’
Barry Dransfield was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in 1947. With his brother Robin he became a key figure in the burgeoning late-1960s folk revival movement. Their 1970 debut album, The Rout of the Blues, was nominated album of the year by British weekly music paper Melody Maker. When the duo split two years later Barry recorded with Shirley Collins and the Albion Band before joining Morris On. As well as with Robin, with whom he reunited towards the end of the 1970s, he recorded many albums in his own right. He also frequently featured on other artists’ albums and can invariably be found on compilations of British folk music. He met his partner, Christine Goldschmidt, in 1979 at the Queens pub in Crouch End, north London, at one of his gigs. After leaving Hastings in 2007 they moved to France before returning to the UK to settle in Barnstable in 2016. For the last three years of his life he lived with Alzheimer’s disease. He died on June 14th. He is survived by Christine and Robin.
Keith Rodway
With thanks to Stewart Rayment and Garry Blakeley