North West Bluegrass News Interview 1999

Pete Mackie, Barry Flynn, Ted Costello and Pat Lyndon, known collectively as The Britannia Bluegrass Band, (cover photo) are some of the kingpins of the North West England Bluegrass Scene. So I decided it was time their story was chronicled, wrote Derek Brandon of the NWBN....

Well, the band have been going with the current line up and name for about 3 years, started Pete. Before that we were part of the Backporch String Band. That band started with Bernie Davies as the main singer playing mandolin, fiddle and guitar, Joe Rooney on guitar and vocals and Barry on banjo and dobro plus some guitar. This trio used to play each week in the Scotch Piper in Lydiate, the oldest pub in Lancashire, with beer on tap directly from the barrel! After a while Pete joined as a novice, playing a borrowed double bass which would not fit under the low rafters in some parts of the pub, and eventually Pat joined playing banjo and dobro.
This operated as an informal session, although few people came to join in. The notable exceptions were the nights with the bodhran player and the time Phil Newton turned up with his trumpet...
After a year or so we moved to the Prince Albert in Westhead, which was a bit bigger than the Piper. But it was noisy and definitely not conducive to working on any songs. While we were playing here Ted became a regular and then oe left to move to Ireland and Bernie returned to the olk scene.

That left the band with a bit of a dilemma - their main singer had gone. Ted, however, stepped into the role and Pete and Barry started to sing some songs.  "We also thought a bit more about our approach and became more disciplined practising arrangements and working on harmonies and this approach has now become one of the main features of the band.
We then started to look for a more suitable venue and one Monday night we went to the Britannia Inn in Upholland to play at a sing-around folk club. Unfortunately the club had disbanded but the landlady said we could have a pick in their back room. A few locals popped in to listen and the landlady sent us down free beer all night. How could we go anywhere else after that? " How indeed!
It also solved the problem of a new name because we wanted to make a clean break from the old band. We also started to take a few more gigs, although the bluegrass scene doesn't give the opportunity for many of these.
"So you've been on the music scene for about five or six years then?"  I suggested...  "Oh, no - we've all been around a lot longer than that!"

Pat played banjo with brother Mike in the Flat County String Band in the sixties and seventies,and also in The Acme Band - no, not that one! - this was an English country dance band playing Ceilidhs and Barn Dances.
In the sixties Barry played in a folk group called The Moonshiners with a guy called Tony Shann. doing all sorts of material including a bit of old time. In 1967 he joined Hank Walters and his Dusty Road Ramblers playing electric bass. In fact, he was with Hank for over 20 years, playing semi-pro all over the country. This was one of the earliest Country bands in Britain.
Ted was already in Hank's band when Barry joined and played with him for over 30 years until the band broke up in 1990. In the band Ted played guitar - a Telecaster - and some mandolin and fiddle.

I knew they are all multi-instrumentalists, so I asked what each plays...
"Well, I play a D41 on gigs and a Gibson Mastertone RB250, said Barry. "I also use a Martin J40 which is better balanced for finger picking, but this does not have the bass and drive of the D41 for standard bluegrass Flatpicking."
Pat plays a Gibson Mastertone RB800 and also a dobro on a lot of the slower songs.
Ted made the instruments that he plays. The guitar is based on a D28 and the mandolin is based on a Gibson F5. He also plays a fretted fiddle. "I have made several instruments and each of them have their own personalities. The ones I use on gigs are those which work best together through the PA since it's difficult to balance the boom of a guitar with the top of a mandolin through the same mic.
When prodded Pete, said "I play a three quarter size plywood bass - I don't know what make it is. I picked it up from The Echo to replace my previous one. By the way, does anybody want to buy my old one? They take up a lot of house room and my wife is not happy!"

When I asked about their use of PA Ted explained that they use Shure prologue for the instruments and SM58s for the vocals - using mics rather than DI, to try to keep the acoustic sound. Pete's bass is the only instrument DI'ed. We tried mics but they didn't produce a true acoustic sound. I now use a Fishman bass pickup through a pre-amp to the desk and this produces a truer acoustic sound.

When asked about their main musical influences, Barry spoke for them all  "Its difficult to cite specific influences, but there a number of artists who we all like, and these cover quite a broad range of styles in and around the bluegrass idiom. Traditional bluegrass from the likes of Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, the Osborne Brothers, Doc Watson - current bands like the Nashville Bluegrass Band - harmony from The Louvin Brothers - magnificent, timeless, song writing from Hank Williams. There are far too many others to mention but one of the best bands currently performing mustbe The Del McCoury Band. We saw him at the Phil recently, although personally I wasn't sure about his collaboration with Steve Earle..."

The band seems always to be introducing new material and they explained how they go about it. Its really up to anyone with a new song to come along and suggest that we try it out. The singer will suggest the instrumentation he wants, and if the song is new to the rest of the band he'll play it through and suggest where he would like some harmony. We'll then play it through a few times and refine a few points such as intros, breaks, endings and harmonies. We normally do this before people arrive at our Monday Clubnight. Its usually evident pretty quickly whether a song will suit us, but since our tastes are similar not many get turned down. We do have a problem now as we add new songs , because some of our older material is not getting played. Every now and again we have an evening going through all the old stuff. Barry thought that one thing they have to be careful about is keeping a balanced repertoire. "We like to think we have a broad base," he said "with some songs in a more country style, but we want to make sure we retain the basic bluegrass element as the backbone of the repertoire. Our approach is to tend to concentrate on songs at the expense of instrumentals. I think this is right but perhaps we ought to put a few more instrumentals in. We tend to go for songs we like rather than thinking about whether there is a market for them - This means that when we play non-bluegrass venues, we often find ourselves saying Sorry, we don't do Duelling Banjos..."

I asked "Where do you think the future of bluegrass music lies in Britain?"   For Ted "one thing is for sure No one is going to make any big money out of it, so it will remain a music for enthusiasts," he said.  Pete thinks the public is very much brainwashed into loud electric music as a background to be talked over and dipped into occasionally, or as an accompaniment to dancing. As he says, "Many of the members of the PTA I was on looked at a live rock band as second best to a disco for our functions."  Bluegrass is a music for listening to and in this environment it is likely to remain a minority interest.  "There's another thing". said Pat, ";we have quite a lot of pickers around and there are sessions where one can play.  However, music can't grow on performers alone and what we don't have is a lot of people who want to listen.  Folk clubs may have declined from their heydays in the 70s but they still get in audiences who are prepared to listen to others. I think folk clubs are some of the places where we can hope to extend the interest but we must not be too precious about the purity of the music!"  Pete thinks Bluegrass festivals are a major influence and help promote the music. But, as he says, "They miss out on a lot of people like myself, who have family commitments and don't feel it is fair to go off for weekends by themselves. I have only been able to attend the North Wales festival, which was excellent, by the way."
Local promoters such as Dave Bresnan, who put on visiting American bands, were thought by Barry to be another important element. In particular this brings in some of the country audience, he said. We should encourage them by organising more concerts for local and other British bands. Bryn Williams seems to be making efforts in this direction. We should support him and also follow his example.

"That was much more response than I expected - " said Derek "thanks, guys, for your comments. Its interesting to see how different bands work. Why not try to see the Britannia Bluegrass Band in action at their weekly Monday night session or at one of their gigs?"

By a NWBN reporter. 26th Nov 1999