Irish Folk, Trad, Blues - A Secret history by Colin Harper & Trevor Hodget
  Burt Jansch and Anne Briggs c 1965
Colin Harper and Trevor Hodget have put together a book that is more then a history of Irish music. It expertly describes how irish musicians have always been influenced by other musical styles. In this edition we have exclusive extracts featuring Christy Moore. Plus visit our competition page to win a copy of this wonderful book
‘The first folk club I ever encountered in my life was the Scot’s Hoose [in Cambridge Circus, London],’ says Christy Moore, ‘and Annie Briggs was the guest. It was a very interesting experience hearing this woman singing unaccompanied to a quiet room. It was quite a turn-on. I think that night was the only time I ever encountered her and I didn’t actually get to speak to her. At that time I was playing in Irish pubs in London and it was difficult. People didn’t listen. Really, you sang a few songs when those who played the jigs and reels wanted a break. You were the filler and, in the main, the people who went to hear Irish music weren’t that good at listening to songs. And then I went to this folk club and the order, the atmosphere . . . I said, I want some of this! I never actually worked at the Scot’s Hoose myself, but shortly after that I went up to Manchester and really started my career working on the folk-club scene there. But the Scot’s Hoose – I went there one night, Anne Briggs was playing, I proceeded to get drunk and I was chucked out. I’ve no doubt it was entirely my own fault!’
I first met Anne Briggs in the relatively tame wilds of Lincolnshire in 1991, during the first phase of working on what would eventually see the light of day, ten years later, as a biography of Bert Jansch. How I managed to locate such an elusive figure, known to me only from a handful of song credits on Bert Jansch albums from the Sixties and from a then recent, and captivating, reissue of her own recordings from that decade, I no longer remember. But reputation can be deceptive. The restless, solitary young woman of old with a voice of such personal vulnerability yet age-old power had become a self-contained, rough-hewn but contented individual who was ready and willing to welcome, and be interviewed by, an awestruck novice.
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