It’s not every day you get a chance to talk to one of your music heroes.
I’ve been a solid fan of Tom Paxton, a grammy-winning folk legend, for more years than I care to admit, and I could not miss the opportunity of phoning him for an interview in his home at Alexandria in Virginia overlooking the Potomac River near Washington.
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The early Tom Paxton in his album Rambling Boy.[/caption]
Tom is touring the UK… 50 years on from his first UK tour… and will be appearing in the Ulster Hall in Belfast on Sunday 10 May.
Given his enormous breadth of songs produced over decades, touching on social and political commentary, love, children, and many other themes, I posed the question to him whether he saw himself as a songwriter or a singer. Tom said: “I love writing music, but when I go on stage I just get into singer mode and enjoy it.” His songs have been recorded by over a hundred top artists such as John Denvir and Joan Biaz and many others.
The many songs that lifted Tom Paxton to stardom are eternal anthems include Last Thing on My Mind, Rambling Boy, I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound, and The Marvellous Toy.
I used to go to the Aberdeen Folk Club in Scotland back in the mid sixties and first saw the young up-coming Tom Paxton perform to around 200 folk enthusiasts in late 1965 in a relatively small smoke filled room in the Royal Hotel in Aberdeen. His incredibly relaxed manner showed a canny professionalism and as he fingered his acoustic guitar to life he cracked a few jokes and told a few stories.
Tom even stunned me as we chatted on the phone as he remembered the name of one of the club’s leading lights, Arthur Argo … a name I had forgotten after 49 years. Incredible! I saw Tom Paxton again later in the sixties in the Music Hall in Aberdeen but this time he was playing to around 4000 dedicated fans as he rose to the world of folk fame.
He said: “I just love touring Britain. My fans there has bee terrific and I don’t know what I would do without them. I first came to Belfast in the late sixties and played in the Ulster Hall so this will be a walk down memory lane for many including myself.” Tom Paxton has kept in touch with his fans, and the people that help make him tick as a musician.
Looking back to his formative years in America, Tom said: “My time in Greenwich Village with great musicians such as Phil Ochs Arlo Guthrie Bob Dylan really shaped me. They were very interesting times and so much was happening musically. I played there for about two years learning my craft and then things started to happen for me.
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US folk music legend Tom Paxton plays The Ulster Hall on Sunday 10 May, 50 years on from his first UK tour.[/caption]
“Back then I was greatly influenced by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie and just wanted to emulate them. They were my heroes along the road with Burl Ives.
“Over the years I guess I wrote a lot of political songs from the Sheriff of Hazzard about down-trodden miners to President Bush’s involvement in the Iraq war. I was a bit like Woodie in that I just sang about the things I saw and the times I was just recording events in songs.
“I have a very loyal fan base in the UK and Ireland and they have followed me through my career over decades. My wife and I did spend around four years in London and we toured from there. I have now made now 62 albums I am told. I’ve lost count. It’s been a long a very happy road for me.”
I asked Tom if he could remember the early song book I bought at his first concert in Aberdeen in 1965. It was called ‘Rambling Boy’ and contained a selection of his greatest hits up to the mid-sixties. He was surprised when I mentioned it to him, and explained: “I remember the songbook well. It included a song, ‘My Lady’s A Wild Flying Dove‘ which I wrote as an engagement present to my wife Midge.” I’ve treasured that book for all those years along with his very first Rambling Boy LP. Midge passed away sadly last year but was with Tom all the way through his incredible career in folk music travelling through continents, a true wandering minstrel:
“It’s a long and dusty road, and a hot and heavy load, And the folks I meet ain’t always kind,
“Some are good and some are bad, some have done the best they could, Some have tried to ease my troublin’ mind… and I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound…”
There is a sort of folksy philosophic aire about Paxton, often asking questions, humorous, satirical, exposing, touching on the existential at times, but always with his feet on the ground. Somewhere on our journeys we will find the answers to life through our experience of hard times and good times. And in the prolific range of songs penned by Tom Paxton.
Don’t miss this performance: in the Ulster Hall, Belfast on Sunday 10 May.
Tickets can be ordered from the Ulster Hall box office at: 028 44 334455.
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