Do you remember the days of slavery?

I had been looking forward to last Saturday's event organised by the Manchester Literature Festival. Held in the Great Hall at Manchester's wonderful Town Hall, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, we were surrounded by Ford Madox Brown's Manchester Murals, illustrating the rich past of the city. Behind the stage was the mural showing the arrival of the Flemish weavers in the 14th century. My aunt thinks that's how our family came to the area, generations of involvement in textile production in a particular area of Lancashire, with an unusual surname tied to that location. Whether that's true or not, I am keenly aware of my Manchester connections now I am working there again.

Lemn Sissay, a local poet with an international reputation, was booked to perform his poetry written in response to Martin Luther King's ' I have a dream' speech. Manchester Camerata were providing the musical part of the evening, playing Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Op.130. It was passionate music, exploring the relationship between instruments and musicians through an emotional conversation. Sometimes it was unbearably melancholy, but then the sadness was transformed to hopefulness. I wondered why the piece had been chosen to accompany Lemn Sissay's poetry. With his powerful and raw performance, with his references to Manchester, the Reno, the Hacienda, and even John Cooper Clarke, I could imagine the music of Gil Scott-Heron, Culture, Burning Spear or the early Wailers forming a soundtrack to the themes of fear and slavery days, recovery and belonging. It soon became clear that the music echoed his themes as many worlds wove and spun in that Great Hall, Ethiopia and Germany,the Deep South and Manchester. North and South, truth and lies, healing and reconciliation. Rivers of blood in the DNA echoing Enoch Powell's infamous speech.The fierce love of the mother, holding her child under water to protect it from the slave owner's vicious dogs. I wondered how easy it was to live each day as a poet. Can you be so passionate, philosophical and above all raw and not be damaged by it? Or is the poetry the very thing that heals the damage? It's an intense way to be. Poetry can short circuit a soul connection. Where do I belong? I was reminded of my family connection to Lancashire though I wasn't born there. I'd spent the day rediscovering an area of Manchester, its trees and autumn scents, red brick and heritage architecture, which is going to be my mid week base for a few winter months.

I'd been reading Mike Scott's Adventures of a Waterboy, dreaming of the West of Ireland where many of my family came from. I'd travelled on a bus with a young man who looked and acted like an Arabian prince in a turban and djellaba , but with a Mancunian wife and shopping trolley to test his exotic image. Manchester continues to transport me back to Casablanca when I least expect it. I felt I belonged there too but I can't trace that connection through my own rivers of blood. Music and poetry make the same connections. Sissay is a truth sayer, a soothsayer, a preacher and a soul singer. Beethoven faced down his own demons. Transformation was in the air. The Great Hall has absorbed something into its fabric, its stone and marble. Earth, fire, air and water. It was elemental. There had been a thunderstorm and a double rainbow over Manchester. A full moon was on the rise. Once upon a time these would have been considered signs and portents. Saturday night lived up to that promise.

Don't Look Back

Today I went to an event organised by the Manchester and District Music Archive.Play/Record was part of the Manchester Weekender. To celebrate 10 years of the archive, the MDMA were invited to put on an exhibition at the Lowry, Defining me : Musical Adventure in Manchester . It's a great way of sharing some of the stories through people's private collections and reminiscences. It's the tip of an iceberg in that everyone who connects to the Manchester music scene, whatever their age, their era, or their tribe, has their own tale to tell. Visitors could take their own items - tickets, posters, flyers and the like to be scanned for uploading and sharing on the MDMA website. I took some of the random bits and pieces I have, mostly dating from the late 1960s through the early 70s and kept in a particular 'treasure box'. It's amazing that they have survived when so much has been lost or thrown away. One of the items is this half of a ticket from a showing of the Bob Dylan film, Don't Look Back. Deciphering the ticket, I can see it was promoted by the Magic Village and therefore by Roger Eagle. It was shown at Houldsworth Hall on Deansgate, a useful venue back then. I didn't know the date. Last Wednesday I met up with one of my oldest friends, oldest in that we met on our first day at school. I mentioned the half ticket. She recalled that we had gone to see the film on her 16th birthday. She remembered that she was wearing pink cords and chelsea boots. It must have been June 21st 1969. I enjoy looking back to where I have come from, at the influences that have shaped my life. A massive part of that process for me is to do with music. It's how I found my friends and my life has a soundtrack. I know which songs I want played at my funeral. My taste in music and my musical memories still define me. As I look back I wonder what's influencing me now. I seem to be rediscovering old favourites, making sure I go and see the artists I have loved for many years. Even 'new to me' artists like the Mountain Goats last Wednesday night or Public Service Broadcasting in a couple of weeks are old favourites for other people. I don't believe it's an age thing. I have always been open to discovering the new. Maybe there's just too much choice nowadays. I have been reading around the Manchester music scene and it feels as if it's not just me who is looking back. I wonder what is the present and the future. Answers on a torn off ticket stub please.

Time, Clock of the Heart

Yesterday I went over to Liverpool to catch the Marc Chagall exhibition on its last weekend.It was the second time I'd been.Last time it was midweek and midsummer. This time it was very busy and it took some doing to read the captions for the paintings. I have always been a fan. There's a depth to his work that isn't always apparent in the reproduction postcards and posters. The light and colour can be deceptive because the images are so attractive . Some of the interpretation didn't address the questions we had. There were a couple of surprises in the gift shop too. A lovely edition of his illustrations for the Bible and a book about the stained glass he did for Chichester and Tudeley, none of which was included in this major exhibition. The topsy turvey perspective and his use of colour play with your perceptions. Sometimes the interpretation referred to Yiddish expressions and there were several paintings when we wondered if we were missing something in our ignorance of this aspect of folklore. A peasant's green hand makes me think of green fingers, a good gardener.Green faces elsewhere made me wonder about inexperience, innocence or even foolishness. There's a favourite painting which I hadn't seen before this exhibition of a clock with one blue wing. There are other symbols and images in the background. 'Time flies' interpreted my cousin. So clear once he had said it. But it made me think of Culture Club' 'Time, Clock of the Heart'. I hummed it to myself for the next ten minutes. Last night I switched on the radio before bed, hoping to stay awake and see what was on Bob Harris' late night show. The presenter before him announced that Boy George was coming into the studio. That made me think of looking for 'Time' on youtube and next thing I knew it was daylight and morning.The radio was still on. Curiously 'Time, Clock of the heart' was playing on the Sunday morning show. I never got to see Culture Club, though I nearly met Boy George once. I worked with a young lad called Frankie at the Hacienda who was completely modelled on Boy George in 1982. 'Time' came out in November that year . I found Culture Club and Boy George fascinating. He was on the cover of Woman's Own. He was everybody's darling. He broke down barriers. His appearance crossed cultural boundaries and created its own fashion. There is something about this song that makes my heart swell and my eyes fill with tears. I don't associate it with any particularly happy/sad period of my life, though I know I was in a good place in my work and personal life when it came out. It's described as a love song,but it is also said to be about his difficult relationship with John Moss. Much of Chagall's work is described as being about love. It's the possibility of loss that highlights the appreciation of romance in the paintings. It's the tenderness in Boy George's song that makes it so powerful at a time when his personal and professional life must have been as topsy turvey as the perspective in any Chagall painting.

Transformational times - Music and Live Art at Bank Street Arts

Last Friday night I went to an event at Bank Street Arts, organised as part of the Sensoria Festival in Sheffield.

It had been one of those magical days, end of the summer, when each sunny day is a precious gift and there's a hint of woodsmoke and falling leaves in the air. I'd had a good day at work in Manchester, and had wandered down to Albert Square to take in the scene and get myself some street food from the Food and Drink Festival based there. My journey on the stopping train through the Hope Valley was as good as it gets. Dusk was falling over the landscape. As we pulled into Sheffield Station lights came on, lifting the darkness. I'd got talking to a travelling companion. She had her bike. The train was delayed. She was anxious about being on time for a gallery opening. At first I thought she must be heading for the same event I was, but as we talked, I found out she was heading to Snig Hill. She was performing in an anti-choir, an experimental sound accompaniment to an art show. I pointed her and her bike in the right direction as we left the station and made my way to Bank Street. A singer in an anti-choir. A summer day at the end of September. The scene was set for a special evening. Bank Street Arts has its home in some lovely interconnecting terraced houses in a part of Sheffield that has always had an air of mystery for me. I found a door and opened it. In the room in front of me were my friends Keith How and Jim Ghedi. Jim is a wonderful musician and Keith is an inspired artist. Keith brings experience and a young soul to his work. Jim brings youth and an old soul to his. Their collaboration is something very special. Their performance started on time, in a room with some of Keith's paintings on the wall. Jim had his musical instruments and a chair in a corner, by a window. The room swiftly filled with an audience curious to see what this performance was all about. The idea of painting in response to music isn't new. Many artists and writers work to a soundtrack in their studios. But working in direct response to a musician's performance is an unusual and courageous experience for all concerned. The audience quickly settled into concentration, sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall. In a one hour performance there was very little movement. Everyone wanted to see what happened next. Jim's music, incorporating his lovely voice, his guitar and saxophone, samples of conversations with meaning, filled the room and cast its spell. Keith started work on his canvases, three on the wall and one next to Jim. The two bigger canvases were painted red. Working with colour, hands and brushes, Keith painted,sometimes moving to the rhythm of the music, working across the four canvases. The painting made the music manifest. The sound became visual. Psychedelic. Synaesthetic.

The performance was placed in time, there were other musicians and collaborations due to perform that night.There were limits set. The audience witnessed the music turning to shape and colour. Were the paintings complete when the music finished? How many paintings had been created and then changed during a one hour performance? I imagine everyone had a favourite stage of the process. The audience witnessed transformation. Not only did they witness it, but they were part of it. It was a shared experience which can never be repeated. I'm looking forward to the next time Keith and Jim work together.

If walls could talk

Last week I found myself at an International Students' event at Manchester Metropolitan University. To get to the venue I walked past this building.

I hadn't realised quite how significant it was for me. I think of On the 8th Day on Oxford Rd as my anchor in that corner of Manchester, even though that block has changed. 8th Day is in its new building. Cape,Grass Roots and Zouk are long gone. Johnny Roadhouse is still there, though the man is no longer with us. And whatever happened to Carroll Arden, Stylist to the Stars and the photography studio? Cross the road to the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall and take a left towards the Manchester Art College, a stylishly updated MMU facility. On your right is a building that I was told was built as a department store, top lit for better displaying the goods on sale. A mahogany staircase led to a mezzanine overlooking the shop floor. In the early 70s it was the Poly students' union, famous for its discos. We played there several times as Drive In Rock and the Rockettes, stage to one side of the dance floor, and dressing rooms upstairs.As Rockettes we struggled to convince the doorman that we really were 'with the band'. Always a great homecoming gig. I wish I could remember whether Mal rode her motorbike on stage for us or Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias. Whoever it was for, it was very effective.I saw The Albertos there more than once. Later I remember seeing The Thompson Twins and the Cimarons. I saw my first snooker game there featuring Hurricane Higgins and lost one of my favourite earrings. The Thursday night soul discos were part of my social life. Then in the early 80s I found myself back in the building. Newly refurbished with an exhibition space on the ground floor, the offices upstairs became home to Manchester Studies and the North West Film Archive. I was a researcher based there. Sometimes I'd look over the balcony and remember the old days , but I was too young to hang on to nostalgia. It's only now when I consider the ripples and circles of my past and present that it strikes me as remarkable.

We are stardust

Earlier this week I rummaged through bags in the bottom of the wardrobe. I had a hunch that some of my teenage diaries were there. Not a complete set, but enough years covered through my early teens and then early twenties to make for some interesting reading. Closely written with a sometimes illegible writing style, it's hard to connect with some of the thoughts and events I tried to decipher. Lots of names I can put faces to, others I have no recall of at all. I think I have a good memory, so it was strange to have to reassess some of my history. One name I couldn't put a face to though I had good memories of our friendship, is Marilyn Zuckerman. Back in those days of letter writing and pen pals we wrote to one another regularly whilst I was at boarding school and in Sarawak with my parents. She lived in New York. We never shared photos, but we did share a birthday. Coincidentally we discovered we were exactly the same age. My friend Gerry had signed up for pen pals and had passed Marilyn on to me. We got on really well.It seems so odd to think of that form of friendship nowadays. Now we would be sharing photos and news via social media and a visit to New York would certainly have been on the cards. I often wonder where she is now. I found her address in New York in one of my diaries and I am tempted to try and find her as we head towards a significant birthday. What I would love to find amongst my papers and correspondence is the letter she wrote me about her brother's experience of going to a music and arts festival called Woodstock. Woodstock took place in mid August 1969 and I remember reading the letter in our house in Kuching before I came back to the UK, so she must have written as soon as he returned from what is now an historical occasion. We were very envious of the bands he had seen and intrigued by the idea of a weekend long rock music festival. Peace and Love.

When Smokey sings....

ABC from Sheffield recorded the song running through my head all day yesterday. Once Smokey Robinson walked on stage at Hyde Park that ear worm chorus was replaced by a stream of favourite Smokey Robinson songs. I have loved his music for as many decades as he has been writing and performing. Like the Beatles and the Stones, I can remember when I first became aware of his music. It goes back even before I officially became a teenager. I got what I thought was a once in a lifetime chance to see him at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester about six years ago. There's always the risk of disappointment when you finally get to see your heroes. I've mentioned this before as I catch up with tours of my particular living legends. That night the Bridgewater Hall audience became a community choir, entertained and encouraged by Smokey, recalling his past and sharing songs that live right in the heart of his fans. Soul music as we used to call it. I didn't expect to get the chance to see him again. I had neglected to tell my lovely friend Sheila about that concert six years ago. When I realised how much she would have loved to see him, we made a pact that if he was ever on again, we'd do our best to go. Radio 2 set up their Festival in a Day at Hyde Park, with Smokey headlining and we managed to get tickets. Once more I felt the fear of disappointment. He's getting older. It might rain. The audience might be disrespectful and spoil the mood. I needn't have worried. Perhaps the hair is a shade darker, the face carrying a little more botox , the eyes a more startling blue.His gyrating hips were more grind than bump. Was he wearing a corset, we wondered! None of that mattered once he started to sing those miraculous songs and tell his Tamla tales. Talk about Motown memories! The outdoor acoustics couldn't contain the sound of thousands of voices,singing along with him, floating up into the night sky. I realised that we were more than an audience, we were a congregation, reliving all our bittersweet memories. I second that emotion .