Ralph McTell

Forbes Mutch reports on the Ralph McTell concert at St Andrew’s on 17 November 2022

The name Ralph McTell is synonymous with one huge hit from the 1970s. You know what it is and so, like the singer himself, I’m not going to mention its name until the end.

McTell is the latest in the growing line of premier folk performers to grace the altar stage at St Andrew’s. He comes with a professional career spanning 50 years; a catalogue of over 200 original songs and collaborations with some of the most famous folk musicians around, including Dave Pegg, Richard Thompson and Tom Paxton. His latest record – A Hill of Beans – was produced by Tony Visconti in 2019 before COVID closed live performances for two years. Now he’s back.

Aged 76, he ambles on stage from his vestry changing room and starts a two-hour show with his trademark rich and earthy, yet smooth voice. He is on fine form, both musically and anecdotally, in true folk tradition, telling the stories behind the songs, often highly personal, poignant and witty.

?He switches between six- and 12-string guitar, and even plays a rubbed-steel National guitar with its distinctive twanging tone. The respectful audience is spellbound by his fluent, finger-picking style, and his blend of material old and new feels particularly intimate in the church.

He explains that his guitar ‘tutors’ and mentors have been mostly great blues and ragtime players from the past, and he dedicates songs to the likes of Big Bill Broonzy and Blind Willie McTell, whose name our Ralph has borrowed for his professional career. He talks about the musicians, the songs and the guitars, joking with pride that guitar manufacturer Martin has named a guitar after him, the Ralph McTell Guitar, which he designed.

Highlights from the show include the autobiographical Heron Song, based on being stuck in the same place in Yugoslavia for three days while he was hitchhiking around Europe in the 1960s; Barge, about the childhood summers he and his brother Bruce spent in the ‘far north’ of England near Banbury (he quips) and a song from his last album called Gammel Dansk, one of his few minor key tracks and a tale about drinking a bitter liquor near the docks in Denmark.

He plays one request (tabled before the gig by organiser Chris Seward) called Girl on the Jersey Ferry. We find out after the show that he hasn’t played this song live for nearly five years, and yet he remembers the chords and words perfectly.

By this time, the audience is beginning to get nervous, wondering if he’s actually going to play his big hit. Will he, won’t he, we ask ourselves. Finally, he jokes that he’s going to finish with a ‘medley of his greatest hit’ and he gives us Streets of London.

First recorded in 1969, his best-known song was re-issued in 1974 and shot to Number 2 in the UK charts and was a hit worldwide for years, making McTell internationally known. 

After the show, I ask him if he’s ever given a live show without playing Streets. He says that he tried it on a tour many years ago, but it caused such a furore, with members of the audience demanding their money back, that he only did it on five occasions and never again since.

He chats comfortably with members of the audience and, knowing that he has played great venues such as Glastonbury and the Albert Hall, I ask him what his biggest audience has been? Quick as a flash, he says: ‘The Isle of Wight Pop Festival in 1970, alongside Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez and Leonard Cohen, in front of 600,000 people’. Wow, I think, and now you’ve played happily for 160 people in our church. What a treat, what an honour, what a great evening from a hugely talented, but humble singer of many songs.

Thanks go, as always, to Chris Seward for organising the event; to Pat Crilly for helping with the sound and lighting and everyone who helped with the bar and front of house duties on the night. Look out for more folk concerts in 2023. They’re really good.

Forbes Mutch
Find out more about Ralph McTell on his official website: www.ralphmctell.co.uk

Article photos, top to bottom

1/ Ralph McTell (left) with event organiser, Chris Seward
2/ Ralph performing on stage at St Andrew's
3/ Ralph, happy to chat and pose for photos with his fans
4/ The ever-willing and hard-working Pat Crilly, who helps make these events happen.