Untitled Document

Scottish Hammered Dulcimer player - ' Jimmy Cooper'

Extract from David Kettlewell's excellent website:

Jimmy was interviewed by Alan Ward in Traditional Music, No.7, mid-1977
This is the great dulcimer player from Coatbridge near Glasgow telling his own life story.

'Learning & Busking'

"Well, I started to play the dulcimer when I was about 12 year old, that's away about 1918-19. I played myself to learn the job. It was a great instrument during that time in Glasgow way back from the 1900s. 'Cause I remember when I was at school, there was a man used to come round the school with his dulcimer, and it was really my older brothers after the First World War that decided to make one, and that started it. See they used to play it but I wouldn't get touching it - I was only young then. And when they'd all gone out my mother used to tell me 'Come on up, there's nobody in', and I got stuck in! ...

But before that I was on the penny tin-whistle - I was only about six year old, I could play that. But I was never taught music, no musical education. And we used to have open-air dancing - no money, nobody'd any money then anyway. See the place that we worked in, the houses belonged to them ironworks you see. When the works shut down about 1920-21, they got slack, they were maybe a week on and a week off. Then all the people would collect round about, and we'd have open-air dancing, and I played to it myself, the dulcimer alone, without any other accompaniment. And then some melodeon player heard about me playing it and he come down and listened and he says 'Right, I'm going to come along and make a band'. So we got together.

'Ceilidh Dancing at Five Bob a Night'

And I played at the Irish ceilidh dancing. Away back in the 20s there was an influx of Irishmen into Coatbridge Iron Works 'cause they were busy then, just after the First War. And there were a lot of widows, and the Irishmen married them! You know widows from the First War - men who were killed - this is how it happened really - they married the widows. And then they booked a little hall - Irish dancing, ceilidh dancing, and it was all men - no women in it - it was all men. That's how I learned to play jigs and reels playing at these Irish dances. It was all 4-hand jigs and things like that y'see. So it went on from that till somebody else heard of me playing and says 'Right, come on, we'll have ago at the real old time dancing'. Went into a place in Coatbridge. We played a few halls with ordinary old time - Veleta waltzes and eightsome reels and Salisbury quadrilles and things like that.

But during that time there wasn't much money in it y'know you was lucky if you got about 5 bob for about 8 to 4 in the morning - you're lucky if you got 7/6d. Dulcimer and melodeon was the band... There was Mick Finnegan, there was Felix Dolan, Hughie McKenna, Johnnie McKenna, Cooper and Freal - dulcimer players. This is another Cooper - Cooper was a dulcimer player and Freal was an accordeon player. Then there was Skillen's Band from Bargeddie - Dick Skillen - his brother was blind, a blind accordeon player. Then if you went into Bellshill there were dulcimer players there - people I didn't know. (The dulcimer players listed above were) just in Coatbridge itself. Nearly all in Coatbridge, not in Airdrie - there wasn't any in Airdrie. It's funny that - all the dulcimer players were in Coatbridge. In fact most of the dulcimer players that I found were nearly all of Irish descent.

But then again to make a bit of money we went and done a bit of busking. We got three of us - one singer, a cornet player and a dulcimer. We're away up to Dundee and done a bit of busking there. Then we used to do the miners' rows in Armadale, that's up towards Edinburgh - busking - made a few bob. There wasn't much money about because they were idle as well ... but nevertheless we always made a few bob; and that was the size of it.

'Tuning'

(The cornet player) could only read, and when he got a piece of music, we had to learn the tune off him 'cause we couldn't read it. But I had to play it on the key it was written on. And the dulcimers were all tuned to G. Well I fixed my dulcimer that I could play in B flat, I could play in F, I could play in all these keys which no-one else has ever done with a dulcimer, I know except the big cymbalom.

Later on I made a discovery by accident. I had a dulcimer tuned to G. I could play it in F, I could play it in G, I could play it in C, I could play it in D. But one time I went to the dulcimer and it (had gone) down... a tone... from G to F. I found when I was playing in G, I was playing in F... c was B-flat ... F was E-flat. The result is I had two so I could play in whatever key you wanted. If you'd a singer - if he sung in three flats I'd go onto this dulcimer that's tuned to F. If he sung in D or G I could do it on the one in G. I conquered all the keys - just by pure accident... but then I played with a 10-keyed accordeon.

But y'know those fellers had good ears because they could camouflage - they could skip over things that had a half-note - there was no note there ... you didn't notice... marvellous! Then when you didn't read (music) y'learned it by ear and y'done what y'wanted with it. It wasn't as the composer meant it to be nevertheless but it was music and it suited dances.

'Instruments'

The fiddle was looked on as a very unusual instrument... in fact you were looked on as a cissy if you played the fiddle... I knew one or two fiddlers but they never amounted to much.

Then there was a few pianists that learned by music so they could just play tunes that they could see... but never a right good busker. We never had a piano player with the band... It was songs that we played - Danny Boy and all these things. But the music was just plain and simple ... we all learned from one another. Somebody'd maybe learn something I'd done and I'd learn something somebody else done... The first (melodeons) used to be 'four spades' like the 'International Accordeon, that was the first accordeon... double-keyed with spades (on the bass) - two spades for the inside (treble row) and two spades for the outside. Well I played with that first. Then this player - he was good - he decided to get a box with bass notes on, and we thought we'd an orchestra when he'd this 19-button bass - it was really good - he had the chords which we'd never had before - it was an advance. Then he bought a cymbal!

There was some good accordeon players round about where I came from... That was the time of Mackenzie Reid. He played quite a bit in Coatbridge... And there was Muirhead of Shotts - he'd 5-row button - he was good. Then there was Willie Muir - he played a 5-row buttons. Then there was Bob Busby - he played a 5-row buttons. But one of the best accordeon players that's still playing in Coatbridge was Willie Tomley. He's now got an electronic box - but he's a wonderful player.

Then on from that to - the saxes came in - the jazz came in - and we were out! Finished us y'see. That would be about 1922, 23, 24... and drums got all the paraphernalia that they've got and all that... So I left it all, chucked it, gave it all up.

'Working for a Better World'

I used to be a member of the Anti-Parliamentary Federation. It was against the Communist Party. We had a man called Guy Aldred. He was what you would term an anarchist. Then there was the I.L.P., Jimmy Mackerson's crowd. Aldred's crowd was the A.P.F. And then there vas the Communist Party. And they hated one another. People had a lot of freedom, idle - no job. In fact there were more rebels than there is now. We went to religious debates as well, became anti-religion, atheist. We seen through the whole stinking society when I was young.

And 40 years ago I was put out of a communist meeting because I told them what Stalin was, and they've only found out lately what Stalin was... See Russia to me is state capitalism - which we're gonna be - it's not any better than private capitalism, it's worse in fact 'cause you're only a number. We were always against the state being too powerful. That's where I disagreed with the Communist Party...

There were so many unemployed and we got no dole. I got nothing. My brothers and myself - got no money whatever. There were seven of us in the family and my father got £1 a week to keep seven. It was the Labour government that also brought out the Means Test. And... supposing I was in a family of seven and I got a job. They took my wages into consideration, so the result was that young fellers left the house - it drove people apart...

It was horrible because nobody had any money - you couldn't believe it... the shops were all shutting - people had no money to buy things. I never saw so many shut shops as there was... and things were really cheap, but nevertheless... I can go back when Woodbines were a penny for five - but I hadn't a penny. It was a hard time, and jobs were hard to get...

'You're Not Genuinly Seeking Work'

When the Works did close finally I had to go to the labour exchange to see them. And I went up and this little man sitting behind the desk said 'you're not genuinely seeking work, y'know'. I said 'Man, I would work if I only got my food'. He says 'You're not genuinely seeking work and you're not getting no money' - and I got no money, nothing. So that's why we had to go busking or something, nothing else to do; but it was an education.

I started on the buses about 1926-27. We were working practically seven days a week then. I started on lorries first - I learned on a lorry... I drove the last solid tyres - chain drive sprockets - an old 1914 Albion out the First war. That was my first job at driving from Glasgow to Dundee. I used to run Glasgow to London 1929. Then I left the buses in '42, during the War, and I went on the the Ministry of War Transport. I was based in Airdrie but was travelling long distance y'know- Lowestoft, Liverpool - travelling with beef y'see to the army and navy.

'The Great Scott, & McNally on the Clyde'

During the War we parked our vehicles one night and went into this pub. I think it was the Balloch Mile in Dennison. And sitting on the table was a dulcimer. And I hadn't looked at it for many years. (It was) the great Scott of Glasgow - but I didn't know that then... he must have been away round with the bonnet or something. And I started playing it and he came running in. He says 'Oh you'd make a great dulcimer player!' I said 'I flung it under the bed a year ago!' So we had a bit of a confab, you know different tunes - could you play that... play the next thing. It was quite interesting.

But I also knew a few dulcimer players in Glasgow. I never heard any of them that were awful advanced, y'know. They would play maybe single notes and things like that, but I never heard any that could really make a job of it. Course there used to be a dulcimer player on the boats. I didn't hear'm - I was too young then - the boats that went up the Clyde during the summer had a dulcimer player. MacNally was his name... he was reckoned to be really the best, but then there weren't an awful lot of good players.

'War-time Xylophone Band'

It was during the War I bought it. It was a pure accident I bought the xylophone. We'd a fellow, one of the drivers. He was a drummer. And he said to me one day - somebody had told him I had played the dulcimer a few years back, 'Oh' he says 'I know a feller that's got a xylophone for sale'... So I went and had a look at it. And it was a 3 1/2 octave - it was a big one... it was a smasher; and I bought it...

I started a band and it went from there. We played in St. Mungo's for about four years with the band, with xylophone, piano, drums, trumpet. We'd Bob Busby playing the accordeon... we'd Jackie Hughes on drums, Johnny Brown on the piano, me on the xylophone. Busby, he was from Airdrie, Johnny Brown was from Airdrie, Jackie Hughes was Coatbridge.

'The band was called 'The Cosmo' .. (The Cosmopolitan)

We used to play at the sequence dancing in Airdrie during the War. That was the old time sequence dancing. We played there for a long time. Where we scored - where the buskers scored - there were some dances, they weren't 16-bar dances - we could break them up. See the buskers could always do that without interfering with copies you see, so we could always watch the dancers and fit the tune to fit the dance, whereas these blokes their eyes was on the music so they couldn't get on with it.