From Derek Gifford’s Website:
Derek developed a love of singing from his early experiences in his school choir. Later while working as an Ordnance Surveyor he also worked as a part-time youth club leader, singing mostly contemporary folk songs with the young people. This experience developed his interest in folk song and eventually led to a new career in teaching.
Having completed his teaching qualification, he became a resident of the Knowle Brow Folk Club in Skelmersdale with his teaching colleague John McAlister. Having formed as a duo at this club, Derek and John moved on to found the, now legendary, Dicconson Arms Folk Club at the aptly named Dangerous Corner, Wrightington. During the late 70s and early 80s this Friday night club became one of the foremost folk venues in the North-West, hosting national guest appearances. Many were people not so well known in the area at the time such as Johnny Collins, Roy Harris, Isobel Sutherland and Dick Miles.
It was also at this time that John Meadows, a mandolin player, guitarist and singer, joined Derek and John (‘Mac’) McAlister to form the group ‘Titanic’. They worked all over the north for a while, later continuing as a duo when John ‘Mac’ left the group due to family commitments.
Meanwhile Derek moved to Leyland in 1977 and became a member of the Leyland Morrismen.
As is often the case, the brewery decided that the folk club room at the Dicconson was to become a restaurant and the club had to go! Unfortunately, ‘Titanic’ went down with it!
After a break of about 12 months and a house move to Mawdesley, Derek opened the Yarrow Valley Folk Club with some of the residents from the Dicconson Arms including Mark Dowding who, from his initial appearances at the Dicconson, has now become a well known performer in his own right. The new club started at The Black Bull, Mawdesley and then moved to The Grapes in Croston. Although this club had some memorable nights with top line artists such as The MacCalmans and the Wilson Family it began to decline and the club closed. This, at least, gave Derek more time to concentrate on developing his, now national, reputation as a solo artist. This also meant that his morris dancing days were numbered!
Derek completed his first ‘on the road’ tour in the north-east during the Autumn half-term holiday in 1981. His school holidays gave him opportunities for both touring and making new friends in the folk clubs around the country. It also gave him time to do some birding in the areas he visited!
At about this time Derek met Bury poet Keith Scowcroft. Derek has set many of Keith’s poems to music and the cassette ‘When All Men Sing’ was released in 1989 through Fellside. This was a collection of 11 Scowcroft/Gifford compositions. The title song has become something of a folk ‘standard’ having been recorded by a number of well known national artists and is being sung across the world much to the delight of both Derek and ’Scowie’! Pleasingly other songs in the repertoire have also been taken up by others. A few years ago at the National Folk Festival someone entered the Traditional Singers’ competition with the Walling Song announcing it as traditional. Thus Derek and Scowie now rank among the best ‘traditional’ song writers!
The 1990s was a period of consolidation and development. Following his early retirement from teaching Derek’s first singing trip to Australia in 1998 gave him some international recognition. He could now go on tour without having to wait for the school holidays to start.
Due to customer demand, that same year saw ‘When All Men Sing’ re-released on CD with four extra Scowcroft/Gifford compositions added to the original 11 songs.
The Millennium saw Derek developing new projects and, in 2001, he became a guitar tutor and Board member of Folkus, the folk arts organisation of the North-West chaired by Alan Bell. As a result he has developed guitar courses for beginner and intermediate standard players. He continues to tutor for Folkus and, through Folkus, is now involved in a project with Chris Harvey to archive material collected from Lancashire folk clubs by Stan Mason who ran clubs in the East Lancashire area in the 1960s. They are working towards applying for lottery funding for this project.
Early in the Millennium Derek also joined forces with Geoff Higginbottom and Keith Kendrick to form the group ‘Three Sheets to the Wind’ specialising (obviously!) in maritime material. Although they can’t perform together as often as they’d like due to their other commitments in the music scene, they can be seen from time to time at various clubs and festivals throughout the country. They have released a CD “All ‘Tide’ Up” (pun intended!) which has been a hit among shanty aficionados.
In the last two years Derek has gone back into schools (voluntarily!) working with Artmatters to teach multi-cultural folk song specialising in calypso and Antipodean songs.
Derek’s most recent recording, ‘Sunny Corners’, was issued in 2005 and contains a mixture of traditional and contemporary songs mostly land based.
Apart from enjoying music in general, Derek’s other great interest is bird-watching (or ‘birding’) and he has developed a couple of shows called ‘Birds in Folk Song’ and ‘More Birds in Folk Song’ which combine his two major interests. These have been popular with both wildlife groups and folk audiences. As a result in 2006 he brought out a compilation CD from his previous recordings featuring the songs performed in the shows. This is called, appropriately, ‘Birds in Folk Song’ and makes a pleasant memento of the shows.
Because of his teaching background Derek finds it relatively easy to adapt to different types of audiences and is able to take the music out to groups other than those primarily involved with folk music. He does this through these talks and shows which include ‘A Brief History of Sea Songs’, ‘British Sea Shanties’ and ‘The Natural History of Folk Song’. He’s even written a workshop on his other instrument, the bowed psaltery.
Whether accompanying himself on guitar or bowed psaltery or singing unaccompanied Derek’s enthusiasm becomes contagious. Relaxed and confident, with chorus songs a speciality, Derek’s humorous approach will soon have any audience singing along.
Visit Derek Gifford’s website at www.derekgifford.co.uk