Christchurch Folk Music Club

Tony Hale takes great pleasure in announcing the 10th in his series of guitar concerts. This year’s theme illustrates how British Isles fingerpicking styles came to Christchurch. It turns out they accompanied adult migrants, having been learned years beforehand. This means the onstage explanations will be laced with a delectable range of accents!

With last year’s concert a sell-out, pre-booking is strongly recommended.

Opening the show is the Irish duo Sionna (pron. Shonna), currently entertainers at Victoria Street’s The Bog on Monday and Wednesday early evenings. Formed in 2023, they have earned appearances at the Akaroa International Music Festival, Canterbury Folk Festival, Rose of Tralee festival, three successive concerts at The Piano, and of course, the Christchurch Folk Music Club. This marks a welcome first appearance in this concert.

Lorcan Bolster (guitar and bouzouki) arrived from Limerick in 1998 while Helen Fahy (fiddle) is from Galway, leaving for Christchurch in 2012. Lorcan was a founding member of Bang Your Frog and Catharsis, keeping the bands on pace with his Davy Stuart-made bouzouki. Helen has performed widely as a musician, actor and performer for over a decade. She has appeared in lead roles with Showbiz Christchurch, The Court Theatre and was a mainstay of the much-loved vocal trio Molly’s Remedy. All of that plus being a mum!

Lorcan and Helen harmonise and share the singing roles while engaging with each other and the audience. This is their first appearance in Fingerpicking Delights and their Irish banter is sure to delight.

Website: https://www.sionnamusicduo.com/listen

Scotland’s Willie McArthur is next, and his main reason for migrating in time for Christmas 1993 was to bring his Kiwi wife home. He writes that he comes ‘from a musical heritage of pipers, fiddlers, pianists and competition Highland and ballroom dancers’.

Willie was encouraged to learn songs from his culture and pick up the guitar by his father. Bill McArthur was a folk musician, recording artist, and ‘no stranger to Scottish Television’. He had a unique melodic finger and flat-picking style, which in turn, inspired his son.

A relatively late starter at 18, Willie has since added mandolin, harmonica, bodhran and low whistles to his armoury. These have been incorporated into his One Man Band performances since about 1999, and groups such as The Shameless Few.
He is also well-known as a soundman for others, a host of Open Mics, and for supporting up-and-coming talent within the Canterbury Folk Festival’s Youth Band. He is a giver and an encourager.

Willie has grown into the Kiwi community but keeps his culture strong by being involved with local Scottish culture groups, the Hororata Highland Games and ‘A Scottish Fling’, a monthly Scottish show at The Rose and Thistle pub in Papanui.

We welcome this encourager to his first Fingerpicking Delights concert.

• https://www.facebook.com/theshamelessfew/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHQ3lBbJo68 

Closing the first half is another new guest. Arriving from South Wales at the end of 2011, Adrian Hughes is a fingerstyle guitarist now based in Christchurch. He began playing at the early age of eight and was inspired by his teacher Dave Crawford who introduced him to everything from early blues music to jazz and Celtic music. We all need an uplifting teacher. One of Adrian’s first CDs was by progressive folkie John Fahey, whose music sparked a lasting love for the guitar’s possibilities.

His style is rooted in fingerpicking, with influences from blues and folk shaping both the rhythm and the detail of his playing. Adrian has performed across the UK but only recently taken to the Christchurch stage, sharing music that balances technique with feel and expression.
Alongside performing, Adrian works as a guitar teacher. Well-qualified in formal music with a BA (Hons) in Music (Jazz), he is the New Zealand representative for the London College of Music, supporting students of all ages on their musical journeys. We welcome him to Fingerpicking Delights.

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cDZLElhQwRsp8RcXZS9FO34sbyXXoT_T/view
• Adrian Hughes LCM/RGT Rep for NZ – NZ Music Teachers

Following the break, opening the second half is a Kiwi born to an Englishman, and thereby marginally qualifying for inclusion in this concert. Concert founder Tony Hale has performed at this Folk Club since 1971 and enjoyed duets with Jon Hooker in last year’s concert. Tonight, he focuses on influential English guitarist Ralph McTell. Born Ralph May, he adopted the surname of Blind Willie McTell, an innovative black American guitarist who entertained with blues and ragtime guitar.

Before becoming a recording artist, McTell busked in Paris in the mid-1960s. Back in Cornwall, pal John Hayday learned some of McTell’s repertoire and subsequently moved to Christchurch in the late 1960s, performing these songs at the 137 High Street folk club run by Phil Garland before vinyl versions were available.

Tony, enamoured in the mid-1970s with McTell’s stylings and songs, including the definitive Streets of London, pursued his own ragtime guitar journey, and at the 1979 Canterbury Folk Festival presented a workshop on McTell’s guitar stylings. Limited in singing voice now, he appreciates his longstanding singing partner Kristina Godfrey stepping up to give life to the vocals. Kristina performs with the choir Jazzamatazz and the trio Saffron Sisters as well as solo spots featuring selections from her 2018 CD Good Enough for Love.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TATNh3K9Soo 

Headlining Fingerpicking Delights for the first time is Club stalwart and guitar teacher Jon Hooker. When he arrived from Oxford, England in 1986 he had already absorbed the styles of folk guitar pioneers John Renbourn and Bert Jansch (from Pentangle), Davey Graham, and the enigmatic Nick Drake. He will present these great artists tonight. A Press newspaper article from 1994 noted Jon once toured in England with famous literati John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey) providing backing for the great man’s poetry and eventually earning his own solo spots in the month-long assignment.
In Christchurch, Jon quickly found favour as a sensitive backing guitarist for prominent local singers Isabella Miller Bell, Jan Elliot, Denny Stanway, blues harp/singer Billy Vallance, and singer Laura Taylor, who will take the microphone tonight. Jon’s reputation spread quickly, highlighting his exceptionally clean picking and attention to harmonic detail. Being the sole musician accompanying a singer is one thing, but sharing the musical space in an already highly competent band is quite another. Jon took the guitar role from 1994 in the Celtic-infused and much-loved Rua until its demise eight years later. Taking the lead at times and also underpinnng the efforts of other instruments led to John describing his membership as a ‘significant period in my musical journey’.

A surprise guest and thrill for the audience tonight is Jack Hooker, Jon’s son from Wellington. While new to this concert, the two have spent much time recording original material at NightShift Studios. We can look forward to some awesome guitar duets.

Jack Hooker is an accomplished guitarist in his own right. Based in Wellington, he is active as a guitarist, electronic musician and composer. His work spans solo acoustic guitar, electronic groups Ambient Ousìa and The Shocking and Stunning, Indonesian gamelan music and other international collaborations, and regular work with composer John Psathas (including the monumental No Man’s Land project, filmed across Europe and India).

Laura Taylor was drawn into folk and acoustic music in her late teens. She has had a long association with Jon and both were members of the award-nominated Emeralds & Greenstone group. Laura has added her vocals to Jon’s recorded work and she also plays keyboards, whistle and flute. She is a long-time supporter of other musicians at the Folk Club, where she has appeared many times.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAUXTHWLHcg
• https://jonhooker.bandcamp.com/album/if-life-were-like-this
• https://www.jackhooker.co.nz/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m5Y26sRm30
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP_bHTo3Q5E
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES-LRuvUewk