Gordon Giltrap Radio Kent Interview 2nd Dec 2006

      Gordon Giltrap
                RADIO KENT INTERVIEW
                   2ND DECEMBER 2006

sueholton.co.uk

On Sat 2^nd Dec 2006 Gordon was interviewed for Radio Kent by Paul Harris and Paul James to promote the lastest cd release "Captured From a Point in Time". Here is a transcript of the interview for you, but I haven’t tried to differentiate between which of the two Pauls was speaking!

Paul: Gordon Giltrap has graced the music business with his dedication to his craft and his affection for his audience, he’s one of the UK’s most respected guitarists, and he joins us now.

Paul: He does. Morning Gordon.

Gordon: Morning chaps. Well, how are you?

Paul: We’re ok, how’s yourself?

Gordon: I’m pretty good.

Paul: Sorry it’s so early in the morning, especially for a muso. (Laughs)

Gordon: Yes it is a bit, you know what us rock and rollers are like, out all night partying

Paul: Those were the days

Gordon: Oh, my goodness

Paul: Course you were born in the county wasn’t you?

Gordon: I was born there yes indeed, and do you know, just a few weeks ago I played in a village very very close to where I was born. I was born at a place called East Peckham in Paddock Wood.

Paul: Oh yes

Gordon: It was just after the war, 1948, a place called the British Home for Mothers and Babies. It was called Moatlands, and is now a very very exclusive Golf Club. But it was really quite a thrill to go back to the actual building I was born in, I didn’t expect it to be so posh, but my goodness it was pretty privileged.

Paul: Oh lovely.

Gordon: Obviously I don’t remember it, and I was then brought up in Deptford.

Paul: A South London lad.

Gordon: I’m really a South East London boy and very proud of it.

Paul: And how did you start out with music? How old were you ?

Gordon: Well, I’d always loved singing and listening to music and stuff, but I was about 8 or 9 when I was first exposed, if you like, to a guitar, when a kid down the road called Roy Sarti (sp?) had a Spanish guitar and he turned up at the house with it. He could play maybe 2 chords on it and the thing was probably incredibly out of tune, but it just sounded like the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I was captivated by it, and from that point on, I thought I want to be able to play the guitar. The fascination with that guitar continued.

Paul: Yeah, so you badgered Mum to buy you a guitar?

Gordon: I did indeed. The first thing they bought me was a plastic one from the Freeman’s catalogue,

Paul: Oh yeah

Gordon: with a picture of Elvis on the headstock (laughs) they fetch a lot of money now because they are basically antiques.

Paul: Yeah (laughs)

Gordon: But I could sort of get a tune out of that, and I learnt the mechanics of how a guitar would work, in as much as you have to put your fingers down on the frets, that’s what creates the sound and makes the tune. When I was 12 my mother bought me my first proper 6 string guitar and I was in trouble then guys. I didn’t know what to do with the extra 2 strings.

Paul: And also, I bet the action was about 2 foot off the fret board wasn’t it?

Gordon: It was, it was pretty high, but that sorts out whether you want to do it or not.

Paul: That’s true. Of course, you started on the London Folk Club circuit didn’t you?

Gordon: Really, yes I did, erm, that was when I kind of took myself and the guitar seriously, when I was about 17, and within a year I’d kind of developed the playing technique I use today which is a very hybrid way of playing, Hope your listeners won’t die of boredom when I get a bit anorakish about this, but I just use a thing called a plectrum and my little finger on my right hand to play the thing. It kind of gave me my musical fingerprint if you like, it gave me an identity and a sound that is totally unique, you know, I couldn’t wish for a better way of things working out. It all came about by accident really.

Paul: So if you started with music in the Folk Clubs when you were sort of a teenager, does that mean you’ve been a pro in the music business all your life?

Gordon: No, no, I left school at 15 and for about 5 or 6 years, best part of 5 years, I did various jobs, ranging from a photographers assistant, to a bricklayer’s labourer to working in a department store. The usual kind of thing that people do, you know? I think in my early years I looked back on those periods and think I had it fairly tough, you read any biography of anybody that’s made it and you’d be surprised at the menial jobs they’ve done, incredibly menial jobs, and its all part and parcel of the growth I guess.

Paul: Yes I suppose it is really.

Paul: So, we are both of course, members of the Grand Order of Water Rats, you and I, and we sit in the Lodge, when you get together with people like Brian May and Joe Brown and Bert Weedon, I mean, do you talk guitars ?

Gordon: Yes, all the time, it’s wonderful. Particularly with Joe, I haven’t seen Joe for a couple of years actually, but we used to visit his house, and he would have this incredible collection of guitars. We just used to have a great time, a great sharing, you know, playing stuff for each other and trying different instruments out. We were there one day when George Harrison rang funnily enough,

Paul: Yeah?

Gordon: He put George on the speaker- phone, and George didn’t actually say “Oh hi Joe, how you doing? It’s George” he put it on the speaker-phone and George started to play the ukulele. He’d bought a new ukulele and he wanted to play it to Joe down the phone.

Paul: Fantastic, fantastic.

Gordon: We were there listening, quite a privilege really.

Paul: Did you do the bit when Chas Mc Devitt was King Rat at the Grosvenor, all the boys got on stage and did a session, was you part of those lads that night?

Gordon: Yes, The only thing I did, and in all honesty I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t do more, I’d seen Chas at one of my concerts, he turned up at a gig I did at the Windsor Arts Centre, and I do this Brian May spoof on my tiny little baby guitar, I do an overdriven version of “God Save the Queen” a la Brian. Its really a fun thing, because that kind of sound shouldn’t come out of a tiny instrument, and Chas says “Oh, you’ve got to do that at the Ball“ “Ok, great.” And I said “well when I’ve done that can I play something else, something serious?” “Oh no, no time, no time!”

Paul: So that’s all you did?

Gordon: That’s all I did, yeah, got up and played the National Anthem, and of course I was playing it, really into it, and when I looked up of course the whole room was standing ! (All laughing) Well it is the National Anthem! I did it as a joke, a fun thing, but of course it was meant to be taken seriously (all laughing)

Paul: Brilliant! Well it was a good way of getting a standing ovation!

Gordon: Yeah, I do it every night now! Every gig!

Paul: Do you collect guitars? Do you find you can’t walk past a music shop without coming out with something?

Gordon; I do, I do collect them, but it gives the wrong image really, um, I do have a collection of guitars but they’re forever changing. I buy guitars that I like and I love and I would want to own and play and record with and whatever. I have them for a few years, I enjoy them and then I suddenly realise that I’m not really using that guitar any more, and half a dozen more have kind of arrived in the intervening period, and so I sell them.

Paul: Right, right.

Gordon: I just pass them on to other people that will enjoy them as much as I do. I don’t like the idea of guitars not being used.

Paul: The thing about guitars now, when I started playing the clubs many, many years ago it was literally a Gibson, a Fender, I mean I had a Hoffner Verithin for years, but now there are so many to choose and of course there are so many good Japanese ones these days for people just starting to play the guitar. As I said when I first got one, the action, which is the difference between the strings and the fret board was about half an inch, but now you can buy one for less than £100 and it’s absolutely brilliant, isn’t it Gordon ?

Gordon: I’m using one on stage, and in actual fact there’s a track on the new album called the “ Dodo’s Dream” it’s a bonus track on the end of the album, and it’s a guitar I’m using, just the one guitar, an electric guitar, that’s made in China that retails at £128.

Paul: Yeah, exactly, there you are.

Gordon: You know I used it last night at a concert, it plays and sounds fantastic. Now, obviously this begs the question, how can they do it so cheap? And then you get this pang of guilt. You think oh my God, I’m perpetuating this kind of erm..

Paul: Cheap labour?

Gordon: Yes, cheap labour. But then of course there’s the other way of looking at it, if these guys weren’t doing that they wouldn’t be having a job anyway, and everything’s relative I suppose. So I kind of think well maybe, but it still, it’s a worry.

Paul: Yeah. I’ve got to ask you also, another Water Rat, well a Companion Water Rat, is Jim Marshall who makes Marshall Amplifiers. So do you use Marshall?

Gordon: I have used Marshall Amplifiers, yes. I don’t, because of the nature of what I do, I’m an acoustic musician, I don’t use on stage amplification when I do concerts, I just take my guitars and my little effects pedal board and it goes, plugs straight in to the house public address system.

Paul: PA system, yes.

Gordon: And when I do my small village hall gigs which I did recently when I was playing very close to where I was born, I think it was a place called Brenchley?

Paul: Yes, yes,

Gordon: I use my own little PA system, a little Mickey Mouse one, but it does the job.

Paul: Now of course one of your, you’ve written loads of great music, but one that everybody would know of course is “Heartsong”, which was of course the theme tune to the BBC Holiday Programme, ( Heartsong playing ) Did you write that for the programme or did they use it off of one of your albums ?

Gordon: Yeah, it was quite a long circuitous route to that programme and that music being used. I wrote that piece of music in about 1977 for an album called “Perilous Journey” and I was with a great little record company and of course those days have gone. The music business has changed beyond recognition really, but they decided to put out a single because, they felt that “Heartsong” was a catchy piece. They put it out and I didn’t think it would be a hit, the next thing I knew, I was on Top of The Pops. With Terry Wogan, when he had a hit with the “Floral Dance”! (All laughing) Heady stuff eh guys? (Laughing) And, er, then it as picked up by everybody as an instrumental filler - all the local Radio stations, Frank Delaney used it for his “Bookshelf” programme, the Holiday Programme used it for about 10 years I guess.

Paul: They did, yeah.

Gordon: I think that usage alone got it nominated for the Ivor Novello Award, just that alone really.

Paul: Your new album is all live tracks isn’t it?

Gordon: It’s all live tracks, the album is called “Captured From a Point in Time” and it was an album I recorded a couple of years ago and it was released privately. When I say privately, I did it for the Arthritis Research charity ARC, as a fund raising tool if you like.

Paul: Yeah…

Gordon: And the fund raising side, I was involved with a thing called “Make Music Live”

Paul: Oh yes

Gordon: And the guy at the top, who shall remain nameless, decided that he was going to close down that kind of fund raising side of the operation. So all the local fund raising people went by the wayside and so did I.

Paul: Oh.

Gordon: And er, it left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, the way I was treated, which is a shame as it is a great great charity, one I’m very close to as my father had arthritis, my grandmother had arthritis, so it was a big part of my childhood memory, you know ?

Paul: Yes

Gordon: Of course, us musicians, you know, we just hope and pray that we will never get it, because if you get it, that’s it. You can kiss goodbye to your career.

Paul: Yes, of course.

Gordon: And anything I could do at that time to raise the awareness for Arthritis Research was a good thing. That then kind of ended, and the album was on the shelf if you like gathering dust, and I thought no, I don’t want to do anything with this, because it was done as a charity album, and I thought you never know, the guy at the top, somebody might shoot him, that would be great ( all laughing ) and then they’ll revive it. They’ll go oh wow, we’ve got this great album, how can we let this go? This is a great tool to raise money for the charity. But it never happened, and so many friends of mine were saying “That album is stunning, you know, it’s some of your best live performances, you must do something with it” and I thought ok, lets see what we can do, so I put it in the direction of Hypertension, and I had this studio recording of “The Dodo’s Dream” which is the electric guitar thing which I do live..

Paul: uh huh

Gordon: using a thing called a loop station, I actually create a full band sound through modern technology, and I thought I’ll do a studio version of that and put it as a bonus track. That’s what you have there today really.

Paul: Right, Right. And it’s out now?

Gordon: It’s out now. In actual fact, it’s only been out about a week and I looked on the Internet last night and it’s on all the listings. If you Google “Gordon Giltrap” you’ll find various online record stores listing it, which I’m thrilled about.

Paul: Wonderful, absolutely. Good.

Gordon: And it’s a mid price album as well. I think it’s only about £10 or something.

Paul: Great. That’s excellent.

Paul: Gordon, thank you for joining us today.

Gordon: A pleasure chaps, always nice to talk to you.

Paul: And you too. It’s always a joy to hear your music, and I know you are always welcome to county. Come back any time.

Gordon: Thank you.

Paul: Please do.

Paul: Gordon, “Happy Christmas”

Gordon: And to you guys.

Paul: Cheers mate

Gordon: Bye bye

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