Dave Favis-Mortlock: The Rollright Stones

The Rollright Stones, 1979. L to R is Pete Kenna, Christine Sheppard, me, Brian Sheppard. Click for a larger version

The Rollright Stones were a short-lived but successful folk song and dance band, 1978 to c. 1980, Banbury. 

• Adderbury Village morris dancer Bryan Sheppard was on concertina and melodeon, and also did some morris jigs. Bacca Pipes Jig involved a pair of unbreakable fake clay pipes which I made from coathanger wire, wood and a lot of filler. Brian would offer to buy the whole audience a drink if he made a mistake while dancing, and broke the pipes.
• Christine Sheppard (Brian's then wife) was on vocals and percussion, and also did some clog dancing. We made up an amplified clogboard for her, see below.
• Pete Kenna, with whom I used to play in The Worcester Brawles, was on guitar, glockenspiel, and accordian.
• I played fiddle, flute, recorder, and other instruments, and sang too. 
• Fiddler Chris Leslie (nowadays, a member of Fairport Convention) played bass for us once or twice at some ceilidhs.

Christine Sheppard clog dancing at Fairport Convention's Farewell Concert, August 1979. Click for a larger version

We started with floor spots in Banbury Folk Club and went from there. In the short time that the group existed, we did lots of gigs, of all kinds. Some were hard work, like one bitingly cold outdoor gig at Moulton near Northants. Others rather forgettable: at a Sports and Social Club in Bicester, the audience had left completely by our second or third song, but rushed back in and began dancing once we were paid off by the organiser and the juke box restarted. Others were a lot of fun, like The Lacock and Chippenham Folk Festival in May 1979. Also fun (if nerve-wracking at the time) was supporting Fairport Convention at Banbury's now-vanished Winter Gardens (it had a bar which was a real haunt for the local hardened drinkers). We also really enjoyed the gigs we did in Belgium. Following one of these, Brian got so drunk that he climbed in underneath (rather than above) the rubber sheets which were on all the beds in our rather unsalubrious Brussels hotel. Yuk!

Playing at Fairport Convention's Farewell Concert, August 1979. Click for a larger version

When The Rollright Stones played at Fairport's Farewell Concert at Cropredy, Oxfordshire, in August 1979, it was meant to be Fairport's final gig: though they subsequently reformed. We got very nice reviews. Folk Roots described us as "... a really dazzling little folk group who were the first bright spark of the afternoon, with a programme that was varied, in content as well as dynamics, and representative of the best that the folk scene has to offer at a grassroots level...". Melody Maker said that "... a group called the Rollright Stones brought the crowd to its feet with some lively concertina-based music".

Things were looking good, but we split up not long afterward. Bryan went off to The Hookey Band. Pete and me continued as a duo, calling ourselves The Rollrights (we had become fed up with jokes from comperes along the lines of "... not the Rolling Stones, but the Rollright Stones").

The Rollright Stones in full flow: Cropredy, August 1979. Photo by the Banbury Guardian. Click for a larger version

Pete and I did more European gigs in November 1981. At one of these, we were told we could sleep in the bar where we'd been playing, and help ourselves to any drinks we wanted. I remember that Pete ate a pepperami with the plastic wrapper still on it. 

One of the experiments we tried at that time was playing folk dances with a drum machine. The technology was still pretty primitive, but taught me a few things which came in handy years later, with Tricks Upon Travellers.

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