Mandolin Kings - #1 Ray Jackson
This is a series of
pages featuring some of the mandolin players who have inspired me. And
I have to start with the original mandolin king: Ray Jackson.
Lindisfarne were the band that made me take up the mandolin. Their
unique sound was not just due to their superb folk-rock harmonies but
also, to my ears, it was due to Ray's mandolin (although, to be fair, Si Cowe
played the mandolin too). Chief songwriter in the band, Alan
Hull, came up with Ray's moniker in a song from the 1972 album Dingly
Dell:
"Listen to the mandolin king, doing his own special thing
strumming his strings, singing his songs
and when he sings you all sing along"
One of the great Lindisfarne tracks is Lady Eleanor. In an article on Lindisfarne's official website,
Ray has this to say about the recording: "during the mix down
of
Lady Eleanor, I remember John Anthony asking our engineer Robin Cable
if he could make the mandolin sound bigger. To my surprise he
diverted the signal from the mandolin track to a Leslie speaker on
the studio floor: these normally were used to play a Hammond organ
through. The speaker has a spinning horn which has
the
effect of making the notes swirl around, similar to phasing. The
sound was recorded and routed back through onto the mixing desk
producing the mandolin sound on the record. I was suitably
impressed at the transformation of my little mandolin line to the
feature instrument it became in the song".
Perhaps
the best known mandolin riff in pop history is the one played by Ray on
Rod Stewart's "Maggie May". Brought in to add something to lift the
song, Ray came up with the riff that everyone knows. And how was he
credited on the sleeve of Every
Picture Tells a Story ?
"The mandolin was played by the
mandolin player in Lindisfarne. The name slips my mind." Thanks a lot,
Rod! And to add insult to injury, when performing the song on Top of
the Pops, the Faces asked dj John Peel to mime the mandolin
part.
Here's
part of the Maggie May riff story, as told to the BBC One programme: you tube clip
Next
time you hear Maggie May don't forget to credit the mandolin king - Ray
Jackson of Lindisfarne. And thanks for getting me started on the mando,
Ray.
Ray Jackson on wikipedia
Key
tracks:
Lady Eleanor -
Lindisfarne you tube
Maggie May - the
infamous Faces appearance on Top of the Pops with John Peel miming you tube
Mandolin Wind - Rod
Stewart you tube
Farewell - Rod Stewart you tube