The Folk Rock Years

Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

During my student career at Cambridge, my one and only pastime was playing folk and rock music with a student club, which had been founded by some like-minded students in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The full title of the club (which we never used, except on official business) was: the Cambridge University 20th Century Christian Music Group. The reason for this CUC20CMG mouthful was that:

• we were an officially-constituted society of the University of Cambridge;
• we were a bunch of Christians dedicated to making an impact on the world;
• we distinguished ourselves from another CUCMG that played classical music;
• instead, we played contemporary 20th Century folk and rock music styles.

1974: The Next Generation

As usual, the personnel in the group turned over at the end of every academic year. By this time, the group only had a few members left who had been involved in creating and recording A Folk Passion, which was handed down from generation to generation. Steve Furber (subsequently a distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Manchester), who had been lead guitarist since 1971, passed on this mantle to Rob Matheson in 1973. In those days, the guitarists in the group possessed a couple of vintage Burns electric guitars (a British guitar maker) - Rob played a red sunburst model with three pickups; and Mike Beasley (rhythm guitar, 1974-6) played a green Burns model, which seemed quite a colourful contrast.

The group continued to perform A Folk Passion in the Easter and Summer vacations. This was a very sociable activity for the group! Steve Furber, who supplied many photos of this era, says: "I had to filter the pictures to remove any that showed folk snuggling up to people who didn't eventually turn out to be their spouses." Touring with A Folk Passion was responsible for more marriages within the group than we care to count! Apart from Vince Cross having wooed Sue through 20th Century, Peter "Bong" Taylor also married Polly (née Munroe), John Lockley married June (née Mavis Watt), Paul Samuels married Mary (née Moss), James "Jam" Malcolm married Helen (née Samuels), Steve Furber married Val (née Elliott) and Rob Matheson married Caroline (Née Robinson). Michael "Clem" Clements eventually married Mary Moss's cousin Heather, after regretting that the 20th Century marriage bureau had nearly passed him by: "20th Century comprises three main groups: gentlemen, fellows and blokes" (recalls David Woodward).

Increasingly, the folk-rock side of the group's repertoire was expanded. We performed a mixture of current covers and self-penned songs. Some of the artists we covered included Graham Kendrick, Barry McGuire, Larry Norman - basically currently popular singer/songwriters. Songs I remember from old cassette tapes of this era include Kendrick and Giltrap's Half a Word, Norman's Why Should the Devil? and McGuire's The Father's Son. Others included No Room at the World and a self-penned number Help Me!, which was just an excuse for each member of the all-electric rock band to have an extended solo in between the verses.

1976: The Skye Tour

On the way back from my first gig outside Cambridge, Bertha broke down, after rattling horribly for the previous five miles. Bridget the mechanic got into her boiler suit and went under the ambulance. Checking the exhaust system, she couldn't find a single loose screw until someone touched a hub-cap, which was hot enough to fry an egg on. Eventually, we prized this off and found that the rear wheel bolts had unscrewed themselves and the wheel was bouncing around on the threads of the bolts, which had worn away like hourglasses. Another mile, and the wheel would have snapped off altogether. We checked on the map - it was an established Bertha black-spot, where she'd blown a head gasket last year.

Anne Attridge (née MacDonald), chorus and occasional guitarist, 1974, recalls:

I toured with the Folk Passion team (fond memories of Bertha) in 1974 as a chorus member and occasional guitarist. My main claim to fame however is as the organiser and promoter of the Skye tour where my family lived. It was a bit of a coup getting Graham Kendrick as the warm-up act!

1977: The Kent and Liverpool Tours

Tony Simons, lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

Originally, the aim was for me to learn bass guitar, to fill the shoes of a departing member who had just graduated. At that time, Peter Searle-Barnes was lead male vocalist, with Ruth Beckerlegge on lead female vocals, supported by Rob Matheson on lead guitar, Mike Beasley on rhythm, Nigel Halliday on keyboards and Barry Jones on drums. The chorus included Bridget Eickhoff, Heather Morrison, Caroline Robinson and Margaret Jubb; and Martin Short was the sound engineer. Then, part-way through the Autumn term, we were joined by David Hobson (the brother of Pete Hobson, who had played in an earlier line-up), who was already a passably good bass player and, more to the point, had a really good Gibson Grabber bass guitar which sounded so much crisper than the rather soggy Hohner bass which I had borrowed. After one memorable gig as a bassist in Clacton-upon-Sea, I transferred onto electric guitar. This suited me fine, since I was already a passably good acoustic player, with most of the chords and a number of finger-picking rhythms to offer.

Over the Easter vacation, the group toured Kent, performing in places like Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and Bexhill-on-Sea. At this time, the group's pièce de résistance was a self-penned folk-rock oratorio called A Folk Passion, which a previous line-up from the early 1970s had recorded on 12" vinyl. Basically, we had to shoe-horn the entire group into a church for this, since the piece required a full pipe organ, in addition to the electric instruments we brought along. The line-up required: two solo vocalists, a chorus of four, three guitarists, bass, piano, pipe organ and drums. I mostly played the decorative lead electric guitar lines, borrowing Rob's Burns guitar (see picture).

Shortly before our summer tour to Liverpool, my coach and mentor Rob Matheson told me that, since he was graduating and starting a job, he wouldn't be able to perform in the Folk Passion. This left me with two weeks to learn all the remaining acoustic and classical guitar parts. After examinations, I did nothing else for the two weeks leading up to the tour; the effort gave me Carpel Tunnel syndrome in my left wrist! In Liverpool, we toured round the Wavertree and Holly Bush areas, mostly playing the Folk Passion. I was now the main guitarist, with a stack of instruments in front of me. I had to swap between an electric (the first I owned was a Fender Telecaster copy, which I had bought second-hand from Steve Furber), a twelve-string steel acoustic, and a nylon-string classical. I had Mike to back me up on rhythm guitar. It was quite a heavy tour; I just about survived, camping out on the hard floors of local club halls with a head-cold and aching wrist.