News
June 2022
The Devil & the Deep
Blue Sea
Written and Directed by Stephen Banham
This wonderfully atmospheric little movie, features my old friends Johnny Collins (RIP) and Jim Mageean, on the opening of the sound track, and my own 'Marching Inland' as the video draws to a close. A salutory tale indeed!
January 2022
Here I am again – remember me – Tom Lewis? Of a surety: no one can accuse me of inundating you with bothersome amounts of internet communications. I could make the claim that such reticence is an example of my wish to avoid being a pest: but – in reality – I have to admit that my lack of interaction is proof only of my innate indolence.
I am such an unreliable communicator, that I cannot be confident of when we were last in contact, at what stage of the never-ending saga we last parted company; nor yet your degree of interest … if any! I note, from my last posting to Watery Peregrinations, that – ‘way back in September - Lyn and I had lately returned to Ireland and brought Vent-du-Nord to her new home in Tara Marina. Since then, over a two-month period: we have made some fairly major refurbishments to VDN’s interior (with the invaluable assistance of Paul Croley, of www.boatfiteurope.com): making our latest home a more reasonably comfortable habitat. With the onset of winter, we shall see exactly how comfortable. We do miss the heartening radiance of Moonstone’s solid-fuel stove, but the large, fully-equipped, modern kitchen: complete with dish-washer; is a definite ‘plus’. The next stage will involve some dry-land renovations to the exterior paintwork, and a few minor, underwater, items: such as renewal of the sacrificial anodes. Our target for completion of all of this work is (nebulously) Spring/early Summer. We make no predictions as to what might be the state of the world, by the Summer of 2022: but we are hoping it will be such that we can continue our ‘peregrinations’.
As for getting back ‘on the road’ – in the folk music sense – a short (very short) burst of activity on the U.K. folk club scene, will transpire around the end of March/early April and a jaunt to Vlissingen - in the Netherlands - for a concert with the Scheldt River Pilot's Choir, is on the calendar for August. Understandably: any glimpse of a more detailed future is clouded by the vagaries of Covid. However: I shall do my best to keep my Touring Schedule page updated.
Meanwhile: keep well and stay cheerful ... and
sing whenever you can!
April 2021
As stated on my Welcome page, to celebrate my latest birthday I’m pleased to announce a new ‘shanty’, specifically designed to encourage and proliferate communal singing … so do, please, sing along! This is A SHANTY FOR SINGING. Downloads of this song may be purchased from Bandcamp for $3.00 US. All monies raised by purchases of this song will be donated to the charity: GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance; which helps vaccinate almost half the world’s children against serious diseases. If you purchase this (or any other recordings) from Bandcamp on the first Friday of the month, Bandcamp waives all artist fees.
You can watch a you-tube
video of me singing it, accompanied by the amazing
Seadogs, HERE.
September 2020
All of us are displaying - to a greater or lesser degree
- symptoms of Covid-19; though very few, in real terms
have caught the actual disease. Nearly all of us are, in
some wise, bereft of the physical company of our
friends. Many are limited in the freedom to move
around. Of course; attending any sort of actual
‘live gig’ is just an impossibility. The simple offer of
an outstretched hand to a person with whom one wishes to
make a connection is, in these days, regarded as
somewhere on the spectrum between a death-defying act
and a grave social faux-pas.
For myself; the coronavirus symptom most hard to bear,
is the prohibition from performing for an audience. Many
other entertainers, in a myriad of disciplines, are
doing sterling work in various internet formats … for
which I salute their dedication and ingenuity. I;
however; feel quite crippled in this regard. One
technical excuse is that I have no recourse to a
land-line, nor any sort of high-speed internet
connection. Inevitably, this engenders multiple
buffering hiatuses/freezes/skips/drop-outs and the like;
on my attempts to ‘play for the camera’. Of much heavier
impact - on a personal and professional level - is my
seeming inability to ‘turn on’ in the absence of an
audience. Sad but true: without the two-way flow … the
inimitable audience feedback … I have difficulty
locating both the essential spark and the sparkle!
(That's not to say that I won't be doing anything at
all. Good friends, with the technical expertise I lack,
have offered assistance. There could be a couple of
video-experiments in my future!!!)
Not that I am suffering a complete lack of performing
opportunities. Having become, over the decades, happily
familiar - though not, I assure you, blasé - with a
position in the spotlight, I am finding that role
usurped by our boat: Moonstone. The fairly recent
gorgeous paint-job (thank you BBC Films and Elan
Eshkeri) is evidently greatly appreciated by
multifarious Irish observers. At practically every lock
and dock, we field glowing comments along the lines of:
“That’s a luvly berge, y’ve got there!” (For the Irish,
evidently, a ‘boat’ is made of white fiber-glass; whilst
anything visually unalike and constructed of steel, is a
barge … ‘berge’!) Often these encounters lead to
conversations, not rarely encompassing some singing and
story-telling. The youngsters amongst the admiring
throngs (small throngs!), are particularly
impressionable. Performances such as these hardly
compensate for the lack of an evening in a folk club,
but they do serve to ‘keep the aspidistra flying’.
(George Orwell. © 1936).
When I will next be entertaining in a folk setting, I do
not know … I’ve recently had the last confirmation of
the cancellation/postponement of the whole of my Autumn
tour. Hard-working and under-appreciated folk club
organizers are being gracious and cooperative; so nearly
every date is ‘postponed until one year hence’. I thank
all of them, most sincerely.
Hope springs eternal; so Lyn and I have our fingers
firmly crossed for Ontario, next May. We can only
maintain an optimism that; in one form or another;
festivals and clubs will resurrect themselves, in 2021.
Of recent time, signing off with a wish for the
recipient’s health and safety, has fallen into
disfavour; so I shall close with … Wassail! (Wha’s
hale?) Tom.
April 2020
Update re. "DEMAND PERFORMANCE", Tom's new double
CD.
We now have a stock of physical CDs in both the UK
and the USA. Downloads are available from Bandcamp
March 2020
February 2020
CYRIL SAID IT ALL
BEFORE (a new workshop)
Anyway; as with nearly all writings … and particularly with folk songs … things become dated, and terminology subject to becoming arcane. Even more so in matters of technology and closed social societies. Like submarines and submariners!!! Much of the wording, in Cyril’s wonderful songs, suffers from the ravages of time. Likewise; renditions of those songs are easily prey to mis-hearing and mis-interpretation.
As a youngster, not long after WW11, there were very few civilians who did not have a service-person as a relative or neighbour. Their ‘lingo’ and life-style (as we would now put it) was fairly familiar to the majority of the population. Prior to the 1960’s, almost anyone would have no problem understanding that a ‘matelot’ was a sailor. Service personnel in uniform were an unremarkable commonplace on our streets; and their jargon loosely understood. As a young lad I, myself, needed no explanation for ‘No names, no pack-drill’; nor for ‘Batten down the hatches’. Yet ours was not a service family. With the passing of time, much of the terminology of Cyril’s songs is sorely in need of clarification and explanation. Thusly; I have devised a workshop, or show; featuring some of Cyril’s - now - anachronistic language.
It is entitled: CYRIL SAID IT ALL BEFORE. Sub-titled: (but what did he mean?) I'm offering it to festival organizers and other presenters. It is musical, interactive, audience responsive, informative and - I hope - entertaining. If you see it advertised (not that likely, I’ll admit) come and be part of it.
It is always a pleasure – though a pleasure all too rare - to perform with my Polish friends: QFTRY; so four days in Brittany, at Paimpol's Festival du Chant du Marin, was pleasurable indeed. On the Saturday evening /night we were allotted the midnight slot … and it swiftly became obvious to us that somewhere in the audience on the quayside, was a person (perhaps even two or three?) who was not intoxicated.
Of course, we would like to think that the crowd was intoxicated by the music; but that’s just wishful thinking. However; as you can see; the folks on the stage were, likewise, having a great time!
Photo: François
Bensignor (Used with permission)
May 2019
THE WORTH THE SINGIN’ SONGBOOK.......
May 2018
I
normally update this page on a very
unreliable and indecently intermittent
schedule, and at unconscionable long
intervals. But now I must have too much time
on my hands; or perhaps I'm a little
overwhelmed, because I've just been sent a
review of my gig at Tigerfolk,
at The Stumble Inn, Long Eaton, Derbyshire.
All the best 'folk-music Degree Courses'
include seminars on how to choose the best
Promotions/Public Relations company, to blow
your trumpet for you. Even were I able to
afford such, I am philosophically opposed to
such 'show-biz' shenanigans (dictionary
definition: ‘secret or dishonest activity or
manoeuvring’); so here goes me:
blowing my own trumpet, with
some snippets from this review. The article
can be read in full on my reviews page.
..... it is indeed a delight to have
experienced, and now to write about, a
tour of matters maritime with
submariner-singer Tom
Lewis....................
This was a distinctive
and very enjoyable evening, and I’ll
finish by just adding that Tom’s
performance included a good infusion of
singable choruses alongside the body of
more reflective material. All told, damned
good stuff.
Paul
Mansfield
Thank
you, Paul. As an old-time sailor might
expostulate: "Well; blow me down!"
All
for now, Tom.
February
2018
If
‘no news is good news’, then ‘good news’ MUST be
‘no news’ … so that’s good news!
I’m dreadful at this modern ‘media’ stuff … that’s
why I’m not on Tweetter, Wha’s’at?, Blinder,
Snappychat, Intelegram, and other like platforms.
I do have a b-log going (that’s the one after
‘a-log’, I suppose) but I’m hardly the world’s
most assiduous ‘blogger’. I sometimes leave so
long between one post and the next, that I need a
refresher-course before I can bring pen to paper …
so to speak! If you’re interested – or terminally
bored – you can click onto: WATERY
PEREGRINATIONS and find out
where Lyn and I have been on our 3-year
exploration of the English and Welsh waterways.
We’re now ashore (‘on the bank’ as the old-time
canal people would say), in the People’s republic
of West Yorkshire; with Moonstone moored behind
the house, on the Leeds and Liverpool canal.
Touring is carrying on apace; with a show
especially for folk clubs, entitled:
‘SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS IN SEVENTY-FIVE MINUTES
(that’s just about two sets!)’
It has to be seen to be appreciated … or believed.
This year has shaped up to be one with plenty of
foreign travel. I’ll be gigging in Poland,
Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Spain; and mayhap a
couple more of them ‘abroad’ places! That’s in
addition to quite a few bookings at folk clubs and
festivals, in the U.K. That’s not a complaint …
more bookings are always welcome. ‘Use it, or lose
it!’
So that’s it for now … no news is good news. Tom.
September
2016
I t has
been a year (and a bit) since last I updated this
page. Where does the time go? However; there is
stuff which can definitely be classified as
'NEWS'!
COMPOSER ILAN ESHKERI BORROWS FOLK MUSICIAN'S MELODY AS THEME IN EXCITING FILM SCORE FOR SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
When award winning
composer Ilan Eshkeri created the music for the
latest film adaptation for Arthur Ransom’s
SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS, he incorporated the melody
SAILOR’S PRAYER as one of the signature themes (All Aboard -
click here). Although originally convinced
that this beautiful melody was traditional, he
was very upset to discover subsequently that it
is the in-copyright work of the established
musician and songwriter TOM LEWIS. Although Tom
is hugely complimented that his music has been
melded into a beautifully evocative
orchestration, the revelation came 2 months
after the film’s release and therefore too late
for Tom’s work to receive an on-screen credit or
official acknowledgement. Hopefully this notice
will go some way to putting the record straight.
Ilan Eshkeri wishes to express his apology to
Tom for what has happened and is very grateful
to Tom for his gracious handling of the
situation.
Whilst hoping for great audience response to the
film, and for blockbuster sales of the DVD, Tom
says that Tinseltown fame will not impede him
from his normal gigging, far and wide. Tom, and
his wife Lyn, have now decided that their return
from a 30 year sojourn in the Rocky Mountains of
British Columbia will be permanent, and he’s
looking forward to bringing his songs and
stories back to the British folk club and
festival scene.
(This was first drawn to my
attention by Hilary Waitt; for which I am
eternally grateful. Thanks Hilary.)
As a nice little ego-boost (for
me), part of the promotion for the movie
involved a conversation between Ilan Eshkeri and
the film's director: Philippa Lowthorpe; whilst
the London
Symphony Orchestra were actually recording
the sound-track ... in Abbey Road
Studios!!!
Personally ... I'm thrilled to hear my music -
so beautifully rendered - in such a context.
Cheers folks. Tom.
