The Folk Rock Years

How Bertha broke down (again) and we picked up Kendrick on the way to Skye.

By the mid-1970s, the name of the group had changed into:  the Cambridge University 20th Century Christian Music Group.  The reason for this CUC20CMG mouthful was that the group had become an officially-constituted student society of the University of Cambridge.  Its mission was to have a Christian impact on the musical arts, but distinguished its 20th Century repertoire of folk and rock music from that of another CUCMG that performed strictly classical music.   In brief, we were known as 20th Century and they were The Icthyan Singers.

1974: The C20th Marriage Bureau

Steve Furber, lead guitar 1971-73 recalls:

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.  I had been lead guitarist since 1971, but I passed on this mantle to Rob Matheson in 1973.  The group continued to perform A Folk Passion in the Easter and Summer vacations.  This turned out to be a very sociable activity for the group!  When looking through all my photos from this era, 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).

1976:  The Skye Tour and Clacton

Tony Simons, bass 1976 and lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

When I first joined the club in  autumn 1976, it was rather wheezing along with some fantastic ancient kit, including Selmer tube amplification, a heavy backline and totally inadequate vocal speaker stacks.  In those days, the guitarists in the group possessed a couple of vintage Burns electric guitars (a British guitar maker), as played by The Shadows.  Rob Matheson (lead guitar, 1973-76) played a red sunburst Burns model with three pickups; and Mike Beasley (rhythm guitar, 1974-6) played a green Burns model, which seemed quite a colourful contrast.

To cart all this around, we had a 1952 Humber ambulance, long since retired from medical service, known as Bertha.  During her lifetime, Bertha had crossed the Indian sub-continent, and she still bore the scars.  She regularly broke down, usually in the same few places around the UK, which therefore became known as "Bertha black-spots".  Anyhow, in the summer of 1976 before I joined, Bertha had made it all the way up to the Isle of Skye, where 20th Century played for a week, supported by a then still little-known singer/songwriter.  I wish I'd kept that poster, now:  20th Century in Concert! With supporting artist Graham Kendrick. 

Anne Attridge (née MacDonald), chorus and occasional guitar, 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 1976 Skye tour where my family lived.  It was a bit of a coup getting Graham Kendrick as the warm-up act!   He was just starting to become known in those days as a solo singer-songwriter, with recent albums Paid on the Nail and Breaking of the Dawn.

Tony Simons, bass 1976 and lead guitar 1977-80, recalls:

Originally, the aim was for me to learn bass guitar, to fill the shoes of a graduating member.  I duly borrowed a rather soggy-sounding Hohner bass to play, and picked up bass-lines by studying cassette tapes.  My first trip with the group was to Clacton-on-Sea and Frinton.  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.

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 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 was expecting to play just the decorative lead-lines.  I was under-rehearsed and fluffed many of my lines, especially for the song Mañana.

By this stage, I had my own electric guitar, a cream-coloured Fender Telecaster copy, which I had bought second-hand from Steve Furber, a previous guitarist (subsequently the inventor of the ARM chip in your phone, and a distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Manchester).  Shortly before our summer tour to Liverpool, my coach and mentor Rob Matheson told me that, since he was graduating and starting a new job, he wouldn't be able to tour with 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 carpal 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  guitar, a twelve-string steel acoustic, and a nylon-string classical.  I had Mike Beasley 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.