Welcome to my home page. Here you will find details of my gigs, a brief but utterly fascinating bio, a photo gallery and links to some of my favourite sites on the web - performers, instrument makers, venues and information sites, all dedicated to keeping the old country blues, folk music, good songwriting and great guitar picking alive. If you want to book me for your club, festival or party, e-mail me here: gerry@gerrycoopermusic.co.uk

Hello again!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Hello out there!

Due partly to technical problems with my website access, I've been a bit remiss on the blog front, so this is an attempt to update matters.

It's been a pretty good year for me: plenty of gigs, most of them in good venues to appreciative audiences; I've also made any number of new friends and learned a fair number of new songs. That actually means old songs (1920s and 30s) but they are either new to me or ones that I used to sing badly years ago but can now make a slightly better fist of, so they are new to my repertoire. I've also begun trying to write songs, starting off with a few blues which are really re-arrangements of old blues numbers but with new words and - often - chord progressions, but I'm also trying my hand at 'proper' songs, inspired by such pals as Christopher Anderson, Nick Hall and Gerry McNeice.

At the moment I'm not taking any bookings for the first part of 2008, as I shall be out of the country. I'm off to the Antipodes for about two months! My daughter moved to New Zealand in November last year, so I'm going to visit her, and also my oldest pal, who lives in Christchurch. Colin and I started grammar school (= US high school) together when we were 11, got up to mischief together as young men, swapped best man chores - you get the picture. I haven't seen him for a few years so I'm really looking forward to visiting him and his family in the Land of the Long White Cloud and hopefully getting up to some more mischief. Whilst I'm out there I want to see as much of the country as possible and check out the acoustic scene.

Two other events I'm looking forward to are the first weekend in December and the middle weekend of January 2008. During the first I'll be taking part in a guitar workshop at Pocklington (near York) with slide ace Michael Messer and US bluesman Michael Roach. I expect to finish up with sore fingers and a whole new bag of hot licks. In January I'll be celebrating my 60th birthday. It'll mostly be a family do but I will be getting together at some point with a few friends for a cup of tea and some gentle picking...!!!

I hope to be playing more gigs after March 2008 - clubs, pubs and festivals. If anyone would like to book me please get in touch. I will, of course, be able to visit my website and MySpace whilst I'm away but not as often as I can whilst at home.

Take care and see you somewhere down the road.

Happy New Year!

Monday, January 15, 2007


A slightly belated but nonetheless sincere wish for a peaceful and happy year to all of you.
I have posted a calendar of the bookings I have so far for 2007 on the Gig Dates page: I hope more are to follow shortly, including some festivals. You will notice several MC dates for the Topic Folk Club in Bradford, which is one of my three favourite clubs. I'm happy to act as compere for acts, especially when they are mates such as The Hall Brothers or legends such as Martin Carthy and Steve Tilston. The other artists for whom I'll be acting as MC are Sketch, who are the new incarnation of Boyle-Devine-Boyle, with Dave Bowie coming in on bass to replace Scott Devine; the wonderful voice and flute of Maggie Boyle are still underpinned by the magical jazz guitar of Gary Boyle, the man with two hundred fingers...

I'm also excited by a couple of guitar workshops coming up. I'll be presenting one in Altrincham for the Plain Truth Music group in February, and then in March I'm taking part in one taught by none other than Stefan Grossman. I've seen Stefan in concert a couple of times over the years and I (along, I suspect, with many other acoustic blues guitarists!) have learned a huge amount from his teaching materials, ranging from the early transcription books in the 1960s to the modern DVDs and CD tuition materials.

Keep checking back for new gig details. You can also find information, and links to many other musicians sites, at www.myspace.com/gerrycooper

BIG UPDATE!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

It's been a while since I updated this page, so there is quite a lot of info to pass on...
OTLEY FOLK FESTIVAL has had some last-minute problems with venues this year, so news of my gigs there has only just escaped! I'm appearing at The Mex late on Friday night (as the name implies, it's a very good Mexican restaurant) and The Black Horse late on Saturday afternoon. I'll also be compering a concert on Saturday night. See the festival website (www.otleyfolkfestival.com) for full details of events. Details of my gigs are, unsurprisingly, on my gigs page...
NEW CD! At long last my new CD is finished, mastered and being duplicated as I write. I hope to have copies available at the Festival. It contains sixteen tracks, including two of my own songs for the first time. It seems a long time since I began recording back in October last year, but there were various problems with software which delayed matters considerably. I'd like to thank Jamie Condliffe and Jim Dolan for sorting out my computer - more than once... I recorded far more tracks than appear on the CD, so there might be a limited edition EP in the near future. I took the decision this time to have my album professionally mastered. This was done by Jon Loomes of Talking Cat Recordings (www.talkingcat.co.uk) in the studio at The Music Room, Cleckheaton. This is a superb facility and Jon did a magnificent job on all my songs. Big thanks also to Shirley Lewis, who was responsible for the artwork. (As well as being a terrific designer, Shirley also has a great bluesy voice; we've already worked together and she may well be guesting at my Festival gigs when not working with her band St. Louis Zipper.) The photo of me which appears inside the CD sleeve was taken by Ani McNeice at Masham Festival this year: thanks, Ani, for letting me use it!
The album is called My Train Is Waiting. There are several songs on it which have a theme of travelling and trains, so it seemed a reasonable choice. The CD is dedicated to Daniel Stuart Bramley, my first and therefore extra-special grandchild, who was born on May 13th this year to my daughter Rachel and Paul.
LAUNCH PARTY I intend to arrange a proper launch for my CD in the near future. Details will follow soon.
MYSPACE MUSIC Many people will be familar with myspace, which provides a forum for internet chat and befriending. The equivalent for musicians is myspacemusic, which provides a free site to people wishing to network and get their music more widely known. Since the beginning of this second week in September I have such a site! You can visit and become my friend at www.myspace.com/gerrycooper Many thanks to Gerry McNeice for helping to get this working. (You can visit his myspace by going to mine first and clicking on his 'friend' thumbnail.)

The Black Sheep Festival

Monday, June 12, 2006

Here are details of what I'll be doing during the 2nd Black Sheep Music Festival at Masham this weekend. Ann and I will be travelling up late on Friday afternoon and checking out a few gigs in the early part of the evening; then, at 10:10, I'm scheduled to play at the Sports Club. The show there starts at 8:30 with The Friendly Visit followed by Loctup Together; following me is the great Harvey Andrews, one of this country's foremost songwriters and a superbly entertaining performer.
On Saturday at 12:30, I'll be conducting a blues guitar workshop in the Town Hall with - as his website rightly proclaims him - the legendary Steve Phillips. I think the format will be similar to last year when I shared a workshop with Jimi Savage: I'll do the 'basic' stuff for an hour and then Steve will do an 'advanced' session. Needless to say, I'll be staying for Steve's section... In the afternoon I want to try and catch St Louis Zipper at the Brewery Visitors' Centre (3:20) and the wonderful Christine Collister in the Town Hall (4:30). In the evening I'll be catching Steve's gig at the Town Hall (8:00), not least because I'm on immediately after him at 9:00. After me come The Hamsters - top-class electric blues rock with everything up to 11! Other commitments on Sunday mean that Ann and I have to head home on Saturday night.
I'm looking forward to this event. If you see me, say hello!
The New CD
Various technical and other problems have held up the production of my second CD, now provisionally (re)titled My Train Is Waiting. After Masham I'll be doing a lot of hard work to have it ready for the Otley Festival in September. My mate Brian is working on the live DVD and I hope to have some copies of that available soon.
Freshradio Session
Many thanks to Laurence and Michelle at freshradio in Skipton for a very pleasant evening. I enjoyed both the interview and the performance, much more than my preceding state of nerves had led me believe! If you did not catch the live broadcast, freshradio have archived the interview and songs on their website: go to www.freshradio.co.uk Choose 'Features' and then 'The Sunday Evening Session'. There is even a video of me performing You Got To Move...

Latest News

Thursday, May 04, 2006

The last few weeks have been busy! I've been in my home studio recording songs for my second CD. A serious software problem caused frustrating delays, but since that was solved thanks to a purchase and the skills of my webmaster, Jamie Condliffe, things have improved. I have now recorded about eighteen songs (far too many for one CD!) and have another couple to complete. After that it will be mixing, mastering, selecting, sequencing, artwork, reproduction.... I hope to have copies available for the Masham Festival on 16th-17th June.
My next two gigs both involve steps into new territories for me. On Sunday May 7th I'm playing a return gig at Worth Valley Community Church which my old friend Brian Wylie will film, hopefully for a 'live' DVD. The occasion will also involve a revival of the OKeh Boys: Richard Young and I will be playing a few numbers together. On Sunday June 4th I will be appearing on FreshRadio (www.freshradio.co.uk) as the guest of Laurence Budd on his Sunday Evening Sessions programme between 7:00 and 9:00 pm. This will be my first solo appearance on the radio.

More Gig News

Monday, February 27, 2006

First, please note that the date for The Hall Brothers' 15th Anniversary gig at Addingham Memorial Hall has been changed from Thursday 23rd to Friday 24th March; another of the guests, the folk-rock band Entropy, was unable to make the 23rd.
Some initial details are now available for the Black Sheep Music Festival at Masham on the weekend of June 16th-18th. Although the arrangements are subject to change, the current plan is for me to play a concert on the Friday night (16th) in the Sports Club with the superb singer-songwriter Harvey Andrews and another guest tbc. Saturday night sees me in concert at the Town Hall (where I opened the first concert of last year's festival) with two other great acts: The Hamsters, one of the top blues-rock bands in the UK, and acoustic blues legend Steve Phillips. I suspect this might be a pretty good night for blues fans.... Check out the Black Sheep Festival website for further information and a list of other guests(see links page).

New Gigs

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Check the Gig Dates page for my current bookings for March and April.