Fresh from releasing the brilliant Riverbank last month, we welcome Dale Husband aka Glad Town Ghost to At The Barrier’s Why I Love Column.
Dale takes his musical inspiration from the sounds of the Appalachian Foothills, to which he adds the gritty reality of the environment – and the stories – of his native Cleveland.
Here, he shares his love for one of Teesside’s folk heroes, Vin Garbutt.
GROUND ZERO
I once spoke with a man outside a Madball show in Newcastle. He was ruminated on Nirvana in the 90’s, and realised he could do that too. I think all musicians have that time where an atom bomb goes off internally, and everything changes.
For me, this was seeing Vin Garbutt, randomly get up and play an open mic night at the Station Hotel.
We had walked from Carlin How to the big city of Loftus, East Cleveland. Me and my friend Matthew, I was playing bass backing his acoustic covers of Every Rose Has It’s Thorn by Poison and Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. We got there, couldn’t get served, then told the auld fella running the night what songs we were playing.
“Too modern for us but give it a bash lads!” So give it a bash we did. It felt like we were professionals, and was a solid warm up for our huge upcoming date at Skelton Youth Club. I played a stupid busy bassline that literally walked all over the song, and thought I was the woolyback Vic Wooten.
MY NIRVANA MOMENT
As you can guess by the 80’s ballads being too modern in 2007, Loftus is a rural place, and this was a folky open mic. After us, a man called Martin Nesbitt played a hilarious song about ASBO teenagers, which was culturally relevant to the time and place. Then I had my Nirvana moment.
This man Vin Garbutt who i had heard people speak of with hushed reference for years got up on stage. Ambled on in rockport boots and cargo pants a 3 quarter zip, looking like any one of my peers Grandads.
He cracked a few jokes about the miners strikes; I laughed a bit. The people that had been there laughed properly.
Then, he told us a story about a man called John Gates who had been laid off from his colliery and became a dress maker. He had been given a song about this by a man called Brynn Phillips at a folk club somewhere in Wales (if memory serves me). Vin had adapted the song.
SOMBRE DUST
Within seconds I was in tears, the laughter in the room hung in the air and became the sombre dust of coal in a working men’s club. The true story of John Gates and his daughters wedding dress, the incredibly intricate open tuned guitar that weaved like a needle, barely hanging onto time signatures.
I realised that this was someone exactly the same place as me, performing something that was beautiful beyond words. I realised in those 7 minutes or so that I didn’t need to play stadiums, I didn’t need to make money, I just needed to play music, I had no idea it was possible for a man and a guitar to capture lightning in a possible within the side of the station hotel.
SILVER & GOLD
Everyone in the room apart from me and Matty knew the chorus to Silver and Gold. After Vin’s set, he gave me some advice on live music (mainly play less notes), then when my mam showed up and told me off for being out late, he told her I had been with the old folk heads, and hadn’t been up to anything naughty.
Vin did a version on his album Persona…Grata. It is a song I sing often to my daughter; hearing it for the first time informed my music more than any other moment. I would encourage fans of trad folk to listen to the huge back catalogue Vin left behind. I wish I had gotten chance to tell him how much he inspired me that night, and I hope I can represent our area half as well as he did.
Riverbank is available now. You can read our review here, and listen to more, here.
Glad Town Ghost: Bandcamp
Vin Garbutt: Website