Category Archives: Mike Hebbert

Mike Hebbert, Pip Ives, Ruairidh Greig, Will Duke

Upcoming visiting guests at the Unicorn session, Marden

The free tune and song evenings at The Unicorn, Marden start at 8pm on the last Sunday of the month and are open to everyone: just pull up a seat and listen or bring a song, a tune, a story, or a dance.

We say the agenda is ‘trad, old fashioned and entertaining’.

We always have visiting friends to bring something a little different to the entertainment, so here’s our schedule for winter and spring:

29th January: Pip Ives Tunes and songs from a widely admired melodeon and anglo concertina player. (You may also recognise him from his day job at Hobgoblin in Canterbury.)
26th February: Will Duke Will is a fabulous anglo concertina player and singer with an interesting repertoire drawn mainly from Sussex. He’s also an entertaining performer possessed of an excellent dry wit, so expect to be amused into the bargain…
26th March: Mike Hebbert Mike’s a Jeffries duet concertina maestro with a cheeky grin and an old fashioned and entertaining repertoire you might not expect — but which may remind you of the BBC Light Programme.
30th April: Ruairidh Greig It’s great to have Ruairidh back again — he’s a proper scholar of the songs of his home county of Lincolnshire, some collected by Ruairidh himself. Expect to hear material we don’t often come across in the South East of England.

Malcolm and Ollie Woods, Michael Hebbert, Mike Hebbert, Musicians, Traditional and old fashioned songs, dances and tunes in mid-Kent

Tunes workshops – and the big spring dance, Brenchley 25th March

The Horsmonden tunes workshops are back in operation again on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month after the Christmas break – and will soon be practising a list of tunes for the spring barn dance, which will be at Brenchley Memorial Hall on the 25th March.

More details will follow – but I can already say that our friends Ollie and Malcolm Woods will be with us. If you don’t yet know them, Ollie’s a percussionist and Malcolm’s a melodeonist and both sing…

And of course on the Sunday night we have Jeffries duet concertina  exponent Mike Hebbert at the Unicorn at Marden!

Mike Hebbert, Traditional and old fashioned songs, dances and tunes in mid-Kent

Jeffries duettist Mike Hebbert comes to Frittenden at the end of April

Mike Hebbert more contrast

We’re delighted that entertaining Jeffries duet maestro Mike Hebbert has agreed to return to Frittenden to feature in the regular free end-of-the-month session on the 26th April – the last of the season.

The session starts at 8pm, and we’ll ask Mike to chip in three short sets  of three items, as usual. No doubt it will another night to remember, as Mike takes his little box through an astonishing range of musical forms – last time, in addition to his famous performance of the Dambusters March, I remember he also played material ranging from tango to slow Irish airs.

In the usual Frittenden way, there will also be lots of time for songs and tunes (and anything else that’s follows our usual agenda of trad, old fashioned and entertaining) from session attenders. Contact gmatkin@gmail for information.

In the meantime, here’s what Mike has to say:

‘Concertinas are uncommon enough instruments and Jeffries duets are the most uncommon type of concertina – but Gavin Atkin plays one of these oddities, and so does this evening’s guest  Michael  Hebbert.

‘Michael was born in Glasgow, grew up in Blackburn Lancs and began his performing career in Wallingford Oxon as a pub musician and dance band leader, contributing to Ashley Hutchings’s Kicking Up the Sawdust  (Harvest SHSP4073) and releasing his own LP The Rampin’ Cat (named after the pub, Free Reed FRR 009).

‘On the folk circuit he has a long-standing double act with singer Andrew Frank and his concertina classes and workshops have featured at Kilve, Witney, Swaledale, Bradfield and the English Country Music Weekend.

‘With a huge repertoire of tunes from many traditions, Michael shows the tremendous versatility of the instruments made by the Jeffries brothers. A triumph of late Victorian craftsmanship measuring only 6in across, the little squeezebox packs the essence of the music whether it’s blazing away like a fairground organ, punching a tango rhythm, or unfurling the long melody of an Irish slow air fit to break your heart.’