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Chris Haigh- a fiddle without a cause!
I started playing violin at the age of seven, and laboured with little success for ten years until I discovered that, for me at least, fiddle music could be a whole lot more fun than classical music. Promising careers in geology and teaching were recklessly abandoned, and I began a lifelong search for the most obscure, unpopular and uneconomic niches of the musical world to which I could devote my limited abilities. Things began well when I started playing fiddle with progressive rock band Speedy Bears and jazz-rock band Inner Ear, just as punk was at its height in the mid 70's. Encouraged by the total failure of the former band, and being sacked from the latter, I progressed backwards and downwards through traditional folk and bluegrass, stopping just short of New Orleans jazz, where I would undoubtedly have spent an eternity in the unmerciful flames of hell. Bankruptcy and destitution caused a radical change of direction, and I started demanding money for my services, instead of paying people to listen to the dulcet tones of my fiddle.
Ignored!
I then embarked upon a long and illustrious career as a sideman in a hundred anonymous function bands, and over the years have been ignored by, underpaid by, or asked to turn down by, a glittering array of notables including Jefferey Archer, Tony Blair, Princess Diana, Tom Hanks, Sting, Elton John, Naomi Campbell, Michael Caine, Kylie Minogue, Judie Dench, Brian May, Muhammud Al Fayid, Barbara Cartland, Ruby Wax, Princess Michael of Kent, David Frost, David Beckham, Kate Winslett, William Hague, Uri Geller, Chris Evans,Terance Conran, Michael Howard, Michael Portillo, Lord Owen, the cast of East Enders, and Adolf Hitler. OK, I made the last one up.
Session fiddler for hire
Over the past fifteen years I have played and recorded with a motley crew of musicians, from Pop artists such as Alison Moyet, Michael Ball and the sadly missed teen idols Steps (I'm proud to have played on 5,6,7,8..recently voted one of the UK's most hated singles of all time!), the off-the page trip-hop of Morcheeba to the Goth-Rock of All About Eve and the chicken-head biting rock excesses of Rolf Harris and James Galway. Desperate for some semblance of credibility, I began working with the impossibly eclectic Zumzeaux, and bluffed my way into the sublime Malian grooves of Oumou Sangari.
I got into swing working with Ricky Cool and his Western Swing Allstars, with Diz Disley , Le Jazz , The Hot Club of London, Robin Katz, the QuecumBar Allstars and the Kimbara Brothers. I explored jazzgrass with my own group Spice Trade, and the further limits of blugrass with the Daily Planet, Southern Exposure and The Coal Porters. I played Jewish Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs with Stewart Curtis, Gilad Atzamon, Ben Morris, Dave Bitelli, Danny Shine's Neshama, Yuval Havkin's Kedma Band, The Gilev Showband and Klezmania. I bluffed my way into Russian and East European folk playing with Vladimir Asriev, Igor Outkine, Serguei Pachnine and Zvuk Bazaar. I played Indian Jazz fusion with S.Harikumar; I filled in for NetiVaan with Companions of The Rosy Hours (including playing Paul McCartney's Christmas party!) and with Bill Caddick's Urban Legend. I sampled some Scandinavian avant garde with Andrew Cronshaw, Mike Adcock and the Norwegian band Utla, and bluffed my way into Indian film music with Diwana Arts. I played medieval banquets with Dragonsfire; Scottish ceilidhs with Kafoozalum; tried some East African Jive with the Rift Valley Raiders; mixed celtic and jazz with Carmina, blues and celtic with Brendan Power, blues and Cajun with Short Fuse; blues and folk with Jenny Beeching , blues and more blues with Hans Theesink; Mexican and Salsa with Trio Azteca and Los Charros; country and rock with Crazy Hearts,Tender Mercies, Audio Murphy and The Brokovitch Band; Country and Irish with Two Loaves Eddie and Acoustica: Zydeco and Rock and Roll with Chris Jagger; I played an Irish wedding with Cara Dillon and Davey Spillane, and recorded some tasteful Irish dance tunes with Shamrock (their 3-million selling "Tell Me Ma" was dubbed worst single of the decade in the NME!
Among the more unusual and entertaining gigs over the years have been playing a Burns Night in Iceland, playing Russian music for the Mafia in Beiruit, playing Italian mandolin for a marriage proposal in Rome, playing for cossack dancers in Elton John's back garden, playing for a line-dance in the French Alps, and doing a Jewish wedding in a pine forest in Athens.
Fiddle Teaching
I have developed an easy way to teach improvisation, (some people call it bluffing!) and give workshops in schools, at festivals and every year at the London Fiddlers Convention. I have done educational tours for Folkworks, and was recently involved in a long series of school performances by Mike Adcock's Last Dance Orchestra, funded by the national Lottery. I have taught jazz violin at Middlesex, Newcastle,and Brunel Universities and Truro College, and have been booked as tutor at "Hands On" fiddle weekends (Fiddles@Witney), and at the Wigmore Hall. Workshop subjects include improvisation, swing, klezmer fiddle, East European fiddle, Western Swing and composition of fiddle tunes.I also give private tuition.
My books "Fiddling around the World" and "Any fool can write Fiddle Tunes" are published by Spartan Press; I've written articles for Fiddle On, Acoustic Musician, the MU Musician magazine and the American Old Time Monthly.
Writing for the fiddle
I specialise in writing instrumentals in specific folk and other acoustic genres, and my compositions have been recorded by Jenny Beeching, Zumzeaux, Spice Trade, the Kimbara Brothers , Tziganarama and Diz Disley. I have written and recorded three complete albums of TV production music; English Folk, Scottish Folk and Eastern European Folk. The latter is also available as a commercial album under the title Tziganarama. Tracks from these albums have been used on over three hundred different films and TV programmes around the world; one tune has been licensed for a global ad campaign by Nike; my tunes have also appeared on The Archers, Angel, Malcolm in the Middle, Rosanna, Emmerdale, Guinness world of Records etc. I was the winner of a national competition to write a theme tune for the Sidmouth Folk Festival (I'm not sure that anyone else entered!)
Philately- who's the fiddle player on the 50p stamp?
In October '06 the Royal Mail did a series of stamps called "Sounds of Britain", designed to represent the cultural diversity of Britain through its music. Alongside such styles as drum'n'bass, banghra and blues was a Celtic stamp, featuring a harpist and a fiddler. I was lucky enough to be that fiddler on the 50p stamp! I'd like to think this was in recognition of my services to fiddle playing, but sadly it's more due to the fact that this site, and hence myself, are very easy to find in Google. Plus, the fact, apparently, that I look like an Irish fiddle player is supposed to look.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY (the good, the bad and the ugly!) or "Who selected them?!"
Zumzeaux; Blazing Fiddles Pug CD 001 .........................................................Zumzeaux; Wolf at your Door; PUG LPOO1
Tziganarama; Tziganarama; PUG CD002...................
Tziganarama; Tree of Life; TZCD001
Alison Moyet; Essex; Columbia LC0162..........................................................Steps; 5,6,7,8; Zomba LC7925
Andrew Cronshaw; Language of Snakes SPDCD1050....................................Paris Hot Club Style; Nectar NTWCD355
Paris in the Small Hours: Cooking Vinyl....................................................... ...Daily Planet; Clark's Secret ; GRCD005
Brendan Power; Plays the music from Riverdance; Greentrax CDTRAX 135
Brendan Power: Tanks Aloft.............................................................................Kimbara Brothers;Time to Leave MMK BCD9015
Regina; Entwined with Magic; RG001CD........................................................Various Artists; Gypsy Swing ;HCRCD89
Various Artists; Georgia on our Mind; Deep Sea SeaD8001............................ Mike Ruff; Man of Parts; MRMCD03
Steve Marshall; Ethnic lands; Carlin274............................................................Various artists; Harmonica and Banjo Carlin 241
Andy Dewar/Brian Burrows; Lo Fi Fo Fum JW2119........................................Andy Dewar/Paul Kerr:New Country: JW2101
Andy Dewar/Paul Kerr: Celtic Fusion: JW 2132 ..............................................Rod Bowkett: Image and Illusion JW2126
Chris Haigh; Klezmania (Music of Eastern Europe) JW2105.............................Chris Haigh; English Folk; JW2097
Steve Booker; Every Time you Walk Away; EMI 12R6268... ......................... Last Dance Orchestra; Lost For Words 33 WM105
.Jenny Beeching and Chris Haigh; Hotline from London; ULP1787................. JJ; Intro; Columbia 468085.4
Oumou Sangari; Worotan; World Circuit WCDO45...........................................Frasier Chorus; Ray; Virgin TCVFC 2654
.Michael Ball ;One Careful owner; Columbia ; 477280 2 ..................................All about Eve; December; Phonogram; ...
Henry Gray, Clarence Edwards and Short Fuse; Thibodeaux's Cafe ,............... Lisa Dery; Montage
Various Artists; The Best of British Country WOWCD01................................ Matt Redman ; Passion for your name; KMCD 857
Celtic Expressions of Worship; Be Thou my Vision ; Kingsway KMCD867 .. Maartin Allcock; OX15; ANOCD 0019Celtic Expressions of Worship;Vol 2-The King of Love ; KMCD980..............Joshua Stonebridge; The Mountain; JSBR1
Celtic Expressions of Worship;Vol 3-Breath of Life ; KMCD2017
Celtic Expressions of Worship;Vol 4-The Prince of Glory; Kingsway KMCD2170
Celtic Expressions of Christmas;Immanuel ; Kingsway KMCD2265
Celtic Expressions of Worship; A Celtic Blessing; Kingsway KMCD2481
Hans Theessink; Johnny and the Devil;Blue Groove BG2040
Hans Theessink; Blue Grooves from Vienna; Minor Music CD MM 801066
Rusti Steel and the Tintacks; Tribute to Hank Williams ;Be Be CD004Alisha Sufit; Alisha through the Looking Glass; SUFIT 010CD.......................Rolf Harris; 70/30 ; RHE70
Mike Mower's Musical Postcards; Boosey And Hawkes .................................Fraser Nimmo; Heavy Weather; SPEUG 0019
Samuel& Son; Hear Me; Estereo 032................................................................Barry& Batya Segal: Sh'ma Yisrael
Scottish Folk Music; Soundstage Music Library AVF 164 CD........................James Galway; Unbreak my Heart GO57
Alan Dunn and Chris Haigh; Cafe du Monde CDMCD01...............................Tollgate Primary School; A Brighter Future
Ute Lemper But One Day:Decca (Germany), 470 279-2.................................Godwin Junior School; Today and Tomorrow
Tollgate Primary School; We are what we do songs........................................ Klezmania; And the angels Sing KLCD01
Kremlinaires; The Kremlinaires; 33WM129.....................................................Russel; Travelling Light; BMGZomba BR441
Rolf Harris; Now and Then RHE2004.............................................................Morcheeba; The Antidote; ECHCD65
Alex Keen; France-Songs; Carlin375 ..............................................................Gabriel Doyle; Lifelines
.......which just goes to prove that you can fool some of the people some of the time!
there are more details and soundfiles of some of these fiddle sessions here.
Here are some of the bands I play with at the moment:
The Kremlinaires; seven piece "Soviet Swing" band
Tziganarama; Three-piece gypsy/east european band
Klezmania; three-piece klezmer band
Quicksilver; barn dance/ceilidh band
Cafe du Monde; strolling fiddle/accordion duo
Carmina; atmospheric celtic/jazz fusion
If you want to come and see me play, here's where..
Email me : Chris@fiddlingaround.co.uk
