Guitarist Brian Willoughby is best known for his time with Strawbs and work with Dave Cousins, as well as playing for Mary Hopkin and Nanci Griffith. His new solo instrumental album “Twiddly Bits” demonstrates his guitar virtuosity and ability for composition. Jason Barnard speaks to Brian to find out more.
What is the concept behind “Twiddly Bits”, is it a way to collect many of your instrumental pieces?
I have scores of instrumental snippets on the voice recorder of my mobile phone and during the “lockdown” period of 2021, I went through them all and chose what I thought were the most tuneful. I recorded those 19 tracks in my home studio and then took them to engineer Steve Fearnley at Narrow Water Studios, who fed them through his more sophisticated equipment, adding reverbs and delays, etc. I’m most proud of my string parts, whose sound was vastly improved by running them through samples of real orchestral instruments.
Now, I have my favourite pieces, all in one place!
Who did you collaborate with to record the album?
My wife, Cathryn Craig is a great acoustic rhythm guitar player, so I asked her to join me on 6 of the tracks. Danny McGreevy is a brilliant Uillean Piper, but he agreed to play whistle on “Rosie’s Tale”. All-Ireland bodhran champion Niall Quinn, worked on “Long Tall Kelly” and I used a couple of tracks of drums by Amen Corner and BeeGees drummer Dennis Bryon, on the tunes that I wrote with him.
Brian Willoughby and Cathryn Craig
Playing ‘twiddly bits’ has been long associated with you, who coined the phrase?
Ah yes…when I was with Strawbs, singer Dave Cousins used to call my lead guitar parts, “Twiddly Bits” and it seemed like an apt title for the album!
When did you first pick up the guitar and who were you influenced by in your early years?
My parents bought me a “Russian” guitar for my 14th. birthday. It was £4, unplayable then and still unplayable, now. My fingers would go green and then bleed! When a school pal was selling his electric guitar and amp, to buy a scooter, I was the willing buyer. It was a Fenton Weill, with a Linear Diatonic amp. Weill it was, too!
I was and still am, a Beatles and Stones fan, but I loved The Shadows and Pop music in general. My acoustic guitar heroes were Red Shea, who played with Gordon Lightfoot, Mike Taylor from The John Denver Trio and Maury Muehleisen, Jim Croce’s accompanist. Electric players would be George Harrison, Keith Richards, early Clapton, Peter Green and Paul Kossoff, but my all-time favourite, has to be Jeff Beck.
When you came over to England your agent was Jasper Carrott, what are your memories of working with him?
I left Ireland when I was eight, but moving on swiftly…as a student in central London, I helped run the college Folk Club. Maureen Kennedy Martin was a guest and she invited me to join her when her American guitarist didn’t show up. I played with Maureen for the next couple of years, with some of our shows booked by Fingimigig, a Midlands agency run by Jasper. I met him on occasion, but I’m afraid that’s the extent of our relationship!
The title track ‘Twiddly Bit’ is a piece of music you played for your audition with Mary Hopkin and Tony Visconti? Can you tell how much you worked with them?
Dave Cousins and Ralph McTell played on Mary’s “Earth Song, Ocean Song” album and she needed a guitarist to play ‘live’ with her, so Dave kindly put me forward for the job. I auditioned on my 22nd. birthday and less than a week later, we were on national TV, on The David Nixon Show. As well as concerts in the UK and Europe, we toured New Zealand, Australia and Israel. We always had at least a string quartet with us and it was a wonderful musical experience. Both Mary and Tony are great friends of mine – Mary sang a beautiful duet with Cathryn on our album “Calling All Angels” and Tony conducted the orchestra for Strawbs’ 50th. Anniversary concerts. I have played on some of Mary’s solo albums and she and I wrote “Love Belongs Right Here” for my “Black & White” and her “Painting By Numbers” records.
What did you do afterwards?
After Mary and Tony decided to stop touring and start a family, I joined the Yorkshire-based Foggy, featuring Danny Clarke and Lenny Wesley. My time with them was short and en route back to London after leaving them, I saw an advert for the Australian trio New World at a Birmingham night club.
In 1969, I was on Scottish TV with Maureen Kennedy Martin and also appearing, were New World, fresh off the boat from Australia. Later, like Mary Hopkin, they went on to win Opportunity Knocks. I had stayed in touch with the boys and that night, I broke my train journey and went to see them. Their Swedish guitarist was leaving and I took over immediately, learning most of their set on the beach at Llanelli in Wales, their next port of call! I played with them for 3 years and we’re all still great friends.
My next job was with Joe Brown, who is a brilliant musician and I learnt a lot from him, just as I did from Tony Visconti. New World’s sound engineer Ian Fieldsend left to work for Roger Whittaker and when Roger was looking for a guitarist, Ian suggested me. I spent a very enjoyable year with Roger, travelling first-class and quaffing champagne with him, but I always wanted to be in a rock band… I joined No Sweat, who were signed to Eel Pie Records, owned by The Who’s Pete Townshend. Pete was very generous towards me, lending me his vintage Fender amps and letting me play some of his impressive collection of guitars.
What led you to join Strawbs after the departure of Dave Lambert? What are your highlights from playing with Dave Cousins and the group?
Strawbs’ bass player Chas Cronk used to come and watch No Sweat at a Friday residency in Twickenham and when I met him, I asked him to pass my regards to Dave Cousins and Dave Lambert, both of whom I’d known since I was 16. The following Monday, I got a call from Strawbs’ management, asking me to meet the band, as Lambert had left and they needed a replacement.
I rehearsed with them, but their music wasn’t for me. Dave Cousins suggested that he and I should do some acoustic shows together and then when the band was offered a headline slot at The Portrush Festival in 1979, I was cajoled into joining them for the next 25 years!
We had many happy times together, with several different line-ups and we toured America, Canada, Italy, Norway and the UK, often. I left the band in August 2004, but rejoined them for their 40th. Anniversary at Twickenham Rugby Stadium and their 50th. in 2019, in Lakewood, New Jersey, where I was presented with a Proclamation, from The New Jersey Legislature, for my “meritorious record of achievement and artistry as a member of Strawbs”!
Strawbs’ drummer Richard Hudson, bassist John Ford, keyboard player Chris Parren, sound engineer Terry Cassidy and I were also The Monks and I have a gold album from the Canadian release “Suspended Animation”.
You’ve also recorded and played albums jointly with Dave, how did that partnership work compared with Strawbs?
Dave and I had great fun on the road and we worked in Denmark, Holland, Italy, America and Canada, as well as Ireland and the UK. We acted like a vanguard for the band, paving the way for Strawbs tours and if push-came-to-shove, I would admit that I preferred our duo to the more unwieldy, larger combination of personalities.
You’ve also recorded material with Monty Python – can you tell me more about those sessions?
I used to do a lot of session work for André Jacquemin, who was Monty Python’s Music Producer. We would do lots of TV commercials and recordings for the likes of The Oxford University Press. When Python were recording their “Contractual Album”, André invited me to play on it. It was a fantastic experience, sitting on a sofa in between the two giants, John Cleese and Graham Chapman and listening to the whole team’s familiar banter. Michael Palin asked if I could play Flamenco guitar and I replied that I could fool most people for 2 minutes! I launched into my best impression and Michael started singing the now-infamous “Finland”, making me fall off my stool, laughing. The song has appeared on every Python compilation, so I’m very proud of that! (Sadly, I missed meeting George Harrison after that session – he walked into the studio just after I’d left, but he sent his compliments on my playing, via André!)
‘Buenos Sueños’ is dedicated to Nanci Griffith who sadly passed away last year. What are your memories of her?
Nanci was a generous and gifted artist. She asked me to play on her “Other Voices, Too” album, recorded in Dublin and to tour the UK with her. My favourite times with her, were playing ‘live’ as a duo on The Gloria Hunniford TV Show and doing a ‘live’ concert with The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. She was a great guitarist!
Your first solo album was Black & White in 1998, featuring Cathryn Craig who you still play with. How has the musical partnership developed and how did you meet?
In 1992, Dave Cousins and I did a duo tour of The States and I had some free time at the end of it.
I flew down from New York to Nashville and I met Michael Snow, an ex-pat from Liverpool, who wrote “Rosetta” for Georgie Fame and Alan Price. We got on really well and ended up writing a song together. He suggested I should come back to Nashville and write some more, which I did and we have seven songs on my “Black & White”.
One of those songs, was “Hard Luck Cafe” and Michael said he knew just the woman to sing it. He called Cathryn and she came into his studio, nailed it and that evening, the three of us performed it ‘live’ on Peter Rodman’s show on Radio Lightning 100. We all stayed in touch and when I decided to record “Black & White”, I asked Michael to play and Cathryn to sing on it. She and I wrote our best-known song, “Alice’s Song” plus the title track and we have now written all the material for our catalogue of 6 duo albums.
(“Alice’s Song” was recorded with a string quartet and released as a single, from the Acoustic Strawbs CD “Baroque & Roll”. It was adopted by The National Autistic Society, as their theme tune for Autism Awareness, in 2002.)
I left Strawbs to concentrate on my work with Cathryn and we have toured regularly since 1998.
What are your future plans and how can people find out more about you?
I carry on recording for other people – most recently, the great rock singer Damian Wilson (I played the guitar solos on his last 2 singles), Northern Irish blues singer Allison McGrath and pop-rock artist Stephen Rafferty, who won Ireland’s Best Song award in 2021.
Cathryn and I have just finished an 11-date tour of the UK and we’re looking forward to May festivals in Holland, followed by July in Denmark and Northern Ireland. We will be in the UK again, from September until November.
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