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SITE LAST UPDATED: 1st FEBRUARY 2012
MR ROY BLACKMAN
(Man of memories)
It’s some eight years since I first came across Roy. I was just beginning to rediscover
the joys of Folk Clubs and had been dragged along to the Rotherham Singers Club,
then meeting in the Clifton Lane Rugby Club, by a mate who was encouraging me to
perform again.
Roy stood out in the room, this hot July evening, He was the only person wearing a heavy bright yellow anorak, fully zipped up!
“Don’t you know who he is” my mate asked. And to be completely truthful I had to answer in the negative. “Well, that Richard is Rotherham’s Mr Memory Man”
Was I any the wiser? Nop.
The full story came out triggering from deep in the recesses of childhood memory a chap on one of Hughie Green’s quiz shows, “The Sky Is The Limit”, who could reel off complete Football team line ups and scores from obscure games, and if I remember correctly collected a minor fortune by going on week after week.
What my friend did not tell me was that there is a lot more to Roy than the simple
robotic ability to recite obscure football team line ups.
The moment Roy took to the stage he demanded the attention of his audience. His self penned songs being performed a' cappella yet with a dynamism and warmth that has you hanging onto every word.
As the years went by I got to know Roy a bit better and how he came to writing late in life, and that even now at the age of 73 (2009) he is studying for a Degree at Sheffield University.
In the fourteen years or so that Roy has been song and poetry writing he has of course accumulated a fine body of work, non of it published or recorded.
Some of his friends got together, realising that if we did not get some recordings
soon our opportunity may be lost. So with that in mind Roy was dragged screaming
and
kicking down a Garden path to a secret recording studio disguised as a Summer
House / Shed and with a microphone thrust into his hands was instructed to sing.
And sing he did, between sips of hot tea and and chewing on chocolate biscuits.
We’ll be honest, the recording are not great, but they are the best we are going
to get in the short-
We have promised Roy to get some decent studio recordings done when we are all rich
-
forward.
So ENJOY what we have listed here.
You can listen to the tracks individually or down load the packaged file which has all the tracks for you to listen to at your leisure.
JOIN US AT ALL THE FOLLOWING LINKS TO GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM
THE MASHERS / ACOUSTIC ROTHERHAM / THE MYKE BARRITT MUSIC TRUST
MYSPACE FACEBOOK REVERBNATION BLOGSPOT FOLK ALLEY TWITTER TOOL BAR
DOREEN BOTTOMLEY: 27/11/1925 -
It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of Doreen. Even though I did
not get to know her well, she was great fan of The Mashers and always seemed to be
somewhere in the audience when we played.
Sue Sutherland has very kindly put together a short account of Doreen’s life which I’ve published as a Blog HERE
It’s also available as a PDF File HERE
You may like to have a listen to some of Doreen’s work. Here is some very rare material :
Insect Eating Plant HERE
The Bus Queue HERE
ROY’S CD
NOW AVAILABLE
YOU CAN KEEP UP TO DATE AS TO WHERE ROY WILL BE APPEARING NEXT BY FOLLOWING THE MYKE BARRITT MUSIC TRUST PAGES AND THE DIARY PAGES GO HERE
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MYSPACE FACEBOOK REVERBNATION BLOGSPOT FOLK ALLEY TWITTER TOOL BAR
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Ok!!!! Enough arm twisting -
1. God's Gift To Women
2. Like a Pot of Golden Tea
3. The Jolliest Drunk In Rotherham
4. Crazy Northern Clown
5. Collapse of a Family Firm (Poem)
6. Fare Thee Well South Yorkshire
7. The Handsworth Bells
8. Featherstone Mine
9. Buggle Hull Pirates
10. Appreciation Parts 1 & 2 (Poem)
11. Man of Steel
12. Ginger Haired Cornet Player in a Yorkshire Sally Army Band
13. Bye Gone Trains (Poem)
14. The Last Resort
15. The Rose Is Always White
ROY BLACKMAN -
SOON TO BE RELEASED ON THE MBMT LABEL -
AT THE AGE OF 76 ROY BLACKMAN, ROTHERHAM’S MAN OF MEMORIES WILL BE LAUNCHING HIS DEBUT ALBUM.
THE RECORDING HAS BEEN POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM THE MYKE BARRITT MUSIC TRUST : RECORDED AT THE PARKHEAD STUDIO, BIRDSEDGE AND PRODUCED BY BRIAN BEDFORD
PRICED £9.99
FIRST 150 COPIES PERSONALLY SIGNED + FREE DOWNLOAD PACK OF 5 EXTRA TRACKS
ORDER YOUR ROY BLACKMAN CD HERE
TEASER TRACKS NOT ON CD CAN BE FOUND HERE ON ROYS PLAYER
ORDER YOUR ROY BLACKMAN CD HERE
15 ORIGINAL ROY BLACKMAN SONGS AND POEMS ON CD
20 PAGE insert with the lyrics
FIRST 150 PERSONALLY SIGNED
PLUS + PLUS + PLUS + PLUS + PLUS + PLUS
FREE FIVE TRACK BONUS DOWNLOAD
ROY BLACKMAN IN THE BISHOPFM STUDIO WITH THE RAWMARSH MASHER AND IN THE CHAIR TERRY FERDINAND.
THE START OF THE PUBLICITY PUSH
ROY BLACKMAN
In 2001 / 02 Roy spent a year at Ruskin College, Oxford on a Residential Creative Writing Course.
Roy used the year to build upon his writing skills and passed out top of his class for which he was given a small prize that he used to publish a Volume of his Poems.
The Book was published in 2002, and as one might expect sold out very quickly, and
was not re-
Unfortunately all that Roy now has is a photocopy of the book’s pages and even that appears to be two poems missing.
We think that the book deserves to be out in the public domain, and so we have digitalised what we have and collected it into a PDF file, containing 35 of Roy’s Poems, many of which were written during the Ruskin years. A small donation is requested for access.
