Simon Mayor | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Simon Mayor |
Born | 1953 (age 69–70) Sheffield, Yorkshire, England |
Genres | Folk, classical |
Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, record producer |
Instrument(s) | Mandolin, mandola, mandocello, guitar, violin, ukulele |
Years active | 1976–present |
Labels | Acoustics Records |
Website | www |
Simon Mayor (born 1953) is an English mandolinist, fiddle player, guitarist, composer and humorist. [1] [2] [3] He is noted for a series of instrumental albums featuring the mandolin, live performances with his partner Hilary James and his groups The Mandolinquents and Slim Panatella & the Mellow Virginians, and (with Hilary James) for writing and performing for children.
He has produced a series of instructional books and DVDs for the mandolin, [4] and is also a regular columnist for Acoustic magazine, [5] along with Martin Taylor, Doyle Dykes, Gordon Giltrap, Maartin Allcock and Julie Ellison.
Mayor cites fiddler and mandolinist Dave Swarbrick as a teenage musical influence, [6] after being taught to sing in tonic sol-fa by his father when very young. [7] With his solo debut The Mandolin Album in 1990 he embarked on a series of recordings with the stated aim of giving the mandolin a uniquely British voice. [7] The CD was made Recording of the Week on BBC Radio 2. His mix of original and traditional material alongside classical pieces has been noted by BBC World Service (Recording of the Week), Q , Cosmopolitan , Living Tradition (Scotland) and Sing Out! (U.S). [8]
In May 2000 he entered the UK's Classical Artist Top Ten with Mandolin Moods, a 'best of' release of his own compositions and classical works on Universal Records.[ citation needed ]
His touring schedule has included the Rudolstadt International Folk Festival, Shetland Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, The Stephen Leacock Humour Festival (Canada), Cheltenham Literature Festival (England), Edinburgh Fringe (Scotland), The Classical Mandolin Society of America and others.
He leads Britain's first modern mandolin quartet, the Mandolinquents. The quartet emerged from a 1997 line up, The Mandolin All-stars with multi-instrumentalists Maartin Allcock and Chris Leslie of Fairport Convention, and longtime musical partner, Hilary James. The Mandolinquents now includes the classical guitarist Gerald Garcia, multi-instrumentalist Richard Collins, and James on mandobass and vocals.
He played swing fiddle on the album for the show Five Guys Named Moe , and plays fiddle with his occasional trio Slim Panatella & the Mellow Virginians.
Mayor and James have also written satirical and topical songs for BBC news programmes including Newsnight . An admirer of fellow Yorkshireman the late Jake Thackray, Mayor occasionally performs a special programme of Thackray's songs.
Mayor tours regularly with James. The duo have worked extensively with young people, mostly in theatres and schools, and have written over fifty children's songs, many for their own Musical Mystery Tour children's CDs, and the Musical Mystery Tour songbook, which was published by Faber Music.
Their work had featured widely on the BBC. For six years, they were regular hosts of BBC School Radio's The Song Tree. They also wrote for, and on occasion presented, BBC's Play School , [9] The Listening Corner and Play Days. In addition, Mayor worked as multi-instrumental session musician for other BBC radio programmes Singing Together, Music Workshop and Time and Tune.
Their songs have been used extensively in education, including English language teaching courses for Danish schoolchildren. [10]
In 2011, Top That! Publishing published I'm A Parrot [11] and Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!, [12] two children's illustrated rhyming story books, using the lyrics from two Mayor/James songs, and with drawings by Hilary James.
Alongside their other websites, they set up Childrensmusic.co.uk in 1999.
(with Hilary James - for children)
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater They started out influenced by American folk rock, with a set list dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
A Whisky Kiss is the second studio album by Scottish Celtic fusion band Shooglenifty. After releasing their first album Venus in Tweeds in 1994, the band toured, and then began work on A Whisky Kiss in late 1995. Some of the album's tracks were premiered in early 1996 ahead of its release. The album combines the band's Scottish Celtic music with genres such as worldbeat and techno. The band described the album as "acid croft", whilst one reviewer termed it a unique variation of Celtic rock.
Maartin Allcock was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer.
Doyle Lawson is an American traditional bluegrass and Southern gospel musician. He is best known as a mandolin player, vocalist, producer, and leader of the 6-man group Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. Lawson was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2012.
Malinky is a Scottish folk band specialising in Scots song, formed in autumn 1998.
Hilary James is a British musician. A vocalist and multi-instrumentalist she plays guitar, double bass, mandobass and is a singer, and songwriter. She works mostly with her partner Simon Mayor and with their ensemble the Mandolinquents. Mayor and James originally toured as the duo "Spredthick".
The Flow is an album by Chris Leslie released in 1997.
Stuart Duncan is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo.
Irish traditional music is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland.
The Cropredy Box is an album by Fairport Convention recorded at their annual live concert in Cropredy, Oxfordshire, England to celebrate the band's thirtieth anniversary in 1997. Featuring many songs for which the band had become noted, the set also features performances from many former members including violinist Dave Swarbrick, original vocalist Judy Dyble, and Ralph McTell. Commentary is provided by their first manager, Joe Boyd, and Ashley Hutchings.
Red & Gold is a 1988 album by British folk rock band Fairport Convention, their sixteenth studio album since their debut in 1968. The album was released on the Rough Trade label.
Old New Borrowed Blue is the nineteenth studio album by folk rock band Fairport Convention, although for this release, they were billed as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" as it was the band's first all-acoustic album in 29 years. Part studio, part live, it was recorded to publicise a tour of the United States and consisted of cover versions, new songs and classic tracks dating back to the band's early career. Dave Mattacks, who had provided drums and electronic instrumentation for previous albums, was absent.
Who Knows Where the Time Goes? is the twentieth studio album released in 1997 by folk rock band Fairport Convention. It is a mixture of studio and live tracks recorded by Mark Tucker at Woodworm Studios, Oxfordshire, The Cropredy Festival 1995 and the Fairport Convention Winter Tour 1997. It was Fairport Convention's first studio album with singer and violinist Chris Leslie, who replaced Maartin Allcock and would become a mainstay in the band.
The Bad Shepherds were an English folk band, formed by the comedian Adrian Edmondson in 2008. They played folk punk songs with traditional folk instruments. The band primarily consisted of Edmondson and Troy Donockley.
The Mandolinquents is a British musical quartet. It was formed by its core members Simon Mayor and Hilary James. In the present line up, which has been together since 1997, they are joined by Gerald Garcia and Richard Collins.
Ray Legere is a Canadian bluegrass fiddler, mandolinist, guitarist and band leader from Sackville, New Brunswick.
Jerome Henry "Butch" Baldassari was an American mandolinist, recording artist, composer, and music teacher.
Following its invention and development in Italy the mandolin spread throughout the European continent. The instrument was primarily used in a classical tradition with mandolin orchestras, so called Estudiantinas or in Germany Zupforchestern, appearing in many cities. Following this continental popularity of the mandolin family, local traditions appeared outside Europe in the Americas and in Japan. Travelling mandolin virtuosi like Carlo Curti, Giuseppe Pettine, Raffaele Calace and Silvio Ranieri contributed to the mandolin becoming a "fad" instrument in the early 20th century. This "mandolin craze" was fading by the 1930s, but just as this practice was falling into disuse, the mandolin found a new niche in American country, old-time music, bluegrass and folk music. More recently, the Baroque and Classical mandolin repertory and styles have benefited from the raised awareness of and interest in Early music.
Sand in Your Shoes is a studio album by English singer-songwriter Ralph McTell. It was released in the UK in 1995 by Transatlantic Records and received a US release in 1998 through Red House Records.