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The songs
| "The River": a song about morals. Lads watch out!!! | "Butterfly": the first folk song I wrote and probably one of the most requested at gigs. A girls eye view of love through the seasons |
| "Dilemma": where did those ideals go? (and those people) | "Free and easy": money can't buy everything, or anybody |
| "Blow out the candle": started as "carry on song writing" and ended in tragedy. Goes back to The Duke at Woodford, Northants where I first started playing acoustic music | "Daisy of mine": sad, and had to have this title because just about everyone has a song called Daisy these days. Also introduces the thumb piano! |
| "Morwenstow": probably one of the most researched of my songs until I found out it was all myth, still a good story though | "The wager" a true love song. 2 boys, 1 girl -no death but loads of trauma |
| "Cherry tree": traditional and the first song I wrote on the accordion. Death and morals plus a bit of anti religion and republicanism thrown in |
"Waltzing with the moon": had a title , needed a song, and this came out. Another popular number at gigs. A sad story of war and loss. |
| "Wild Flowers": A commission from one of my Irish friends about a battle in Eire in 1921 in which a flying column of IRA were murdered in Clonmult, a true story which can be read about via the above link. | |
The tunes
| "The old mandolin": In remembrance of a mandolin I bought for £15 from an auction and it sounded like it. Still managed to write this on it though, but for this recording a more tuneful Ashbury instrument was used. | "Abigail's Waltz": written for Abigail Washburn, banjo player extraordinaire. She turned me on to "old time" and I went home and penned this. Helped on this track by my co-Creosote Brother, Alan Jenkins |
| "The Dublin Breeze": first written on keyboards as an experiment to find sounds, now converted to this arrangement for whistle, guitar and fiddle. | "White Dog Skip" Written in Rochetta in Italy, for Kelly, after the open day at the brewery. Another "southern belle" and wife of Steve the brewer. |
CD Singles
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click on pic for mp3
The full track is 7min 35secs.and can be purchased for £3 from brianjeffels@ntlworld.com
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| This is a commissioned single requested by an Irish friend of mine who had a personal interest in the story. It's a rambling ballad that tells the story of a historic battle in 1921 when a number of IRA men hid up in a cottage in Clonmult in central Ireland and were betrayed by an unknown member of the community leading to the deaths of 12 of the group. | |
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click on pic for mp3
The full track is 5min 45secs.and can be purchased for £3 from brianjeffels@ntlworld.com |
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Originally called Morwenstow Lights this is a ballad about the tiny village of Morwenstow in Cornwall. Situated just over the border with Devon, the area was renowned for it’s association with smuggling and wrecking. The well-known vicar of Morwenstow at the time was Robert Stephen Hawker,the man whose Harvest Festival revival popularised the hymn ‘All things bright and beautiful’; but all was far from beautiful in the area in those days. Wrecking was a pastime frowned upon by many outside of the bands of people involved, and consisted of shining lights from the cliff tops out to sea to confuse the captains of boats. Believing that they had found a safe harbour, they navigated in to the rocky bays that wreckers frequented, holing their boats upon the rocks. This provided the wreckers with their spoils. A bill was passed by parliament stating that ships could not be described as ‘wrecked’ unless there were no survivors of the event. This accounts for the line ‘ murder them men, women, dogs, as we must - it’s the law’, although nobody was ever convicted under this law and some say it was improvable with the code of silence that existed within the wrecking gangs. It
is possible to stay in the rectory at Morwenstow and it is a great place
to investigate these stories from.
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CD News
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At present there's five albums released or being worked on. One with the Creosote Brothers, two solo and two with Clarke, Gittins and Blundell. |
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CLARKE, GITTINS AND BLUNDELL I've worked on two CDs with these guys. They play traditional English folk music in a very traditional way, using fiddle, guitar and whistle as their main instruments. Their album "And to you my jolly souls" was recorded earlier in 2008, and I played cittern and mandolin on it. The theme is songs and tunes with Northamptonshire connections. |
THE CREOSOTE BROTHERS The Creosotes are at present living in two different countries. Alan is in Italy working with his Italian band, near Turin and Brian is still working in England on his next CD. We should be gigging late 2010 and into the new year but then Alan returns to his new land and things are on hold again. It might sound awkward but the breaks give us both renewed enthusiasm when we meet up and the gigs are more adrenalin fuelled!!! |
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BRIAN JEFFELS SOLO Well, at last the CD is out. The main recording and mix was at Studio in the Sky and the mastering went to DTM in Long Sutton, Lincs., where they did a good job in a very short time. We managed to get the project mastered and out in three days, so thanks to all. The title is 'For whom the willow weeps', and more info can be obtained by clicking here. The new CD is now being worked on with no current working title. |
CLARKE, GITTINS AND BLUNDELL Another CD from the trio this one titled 'Without Fear or Doubt'. Once again I play cittern and mandolin, this time on four of the 16 songs and tunes on this recording. The songs are all traditional and are a collection that Rod and Bob have been singing for many years throughout their career. Some date back to their Folk Club days of the 60's so I learnt some things doing this one! |
