Dave Favis-Mortlock: Mortlock and Underwood

Mortlock and Underwood, c. 1981: Frank standing, me sitting. (Click for a larger version.)

Westron Wynd grew out of a long-enduring (1980 onwards) musical partnership: Mortlock and Underwood with Frank Underwood. We mostly played blues, ragtime and folk. Frank played guitar and keyboards, I played fiddle, flute and mandolin, recorder, spoons, kazoo and whatever; both of us sang.

We met in Woolworths (now vanished) in Banbury, and did lots of gigs in all kinds of odd places. Most of these I cannot now remember (though Frank probably can). Some I do remember were:

• the Bishops Blaize at Sibford Gower. A regular spot, with regular lock-ins after the gig!
• the University of London Union, when we barely played because the act before us went on, and on, and on...
• one at Sheffield (I think) University, when Tony Freeman (our roadie) built a stage entirely from beer crates and odd bits of wood. Well done, Tony!
• the 'Renaissance to Folk-Rock' gigs which we did at local schools. At Sibford School, I recall, Frank left his empty beer bottles under the school piano. This didn't go down well.
• not a gig, but recording at Dave Pegg's Woodworm Studios in 1980. The morning session went smoothly, but not the afternoon one. We were foolish enough to drink Guinnesses with Peggy at lunchtime...
• the Railway Hotel in Hook Norton. Now closed, it was not a million miles from where Jo and I now live. It was also one of dingiest pubs I've ever played in. Really, it isn't surprising that it closed.
• Norton's Wine Bar (now defunct), in Chipping Norton, as "Luigi and the Boys"
• at the Oxford Union, in a marquee. Frank waxed lyrical about the Union's gents' loos, because members of the Pre-Raphaelites had presumably used them many years before when painting the murals there.
• a benefit gig for Education for Democracy in South Africa in 1990, together with (most of) Fairport Convention.

Me on flute, Frank Underwood on guitar, in 2004. (Photo: Jem Hayward)

Frank and me still get together (often with friends) for the occasional gig.

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