alwaysperfectlywrite

I’ve just realised why clarinet music has been my favourite since childhood.

Long, long before I discovered the Mozart concertos or  my mother introduced me to Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, I was captivated by the tender, slightly melancholic refrain of the modern classic, Stranger on The Shore.

I’ve just learned that I must have heard it first while watching a BBC TV young people’s drama of the same name in the early 60s and that it became the UK ’s biggest-selling instrumental disc - ever.

I am musing upon this as I was astonished - and delighted - not only to learn that the wondrous Acker (né Bernard) Bilk is still going strong at 80-years-young but that he and his chum, trombonist, Kenny Ball will perform in concert together this Autumn at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.

It’s said that Acker took his delicious soubriquet from the Somerset dialect word for ‘mate’ and it strikes me that ‘acker’ isn’t a thousand miles from the Australian ‘cobber’ or indeed the Yiddishised-Hebrew ‘chaver’, both of which also mean ‘friend’. And while I leave you to ponder on the loom of slang lingo, it gives me time to explain that the news about Messrs Bilk and Ball was a blessed relief for me from the mounting hysteria surrounding Michael Jackson.

I will give my own gloss on the brouhaha soon, but suffice to say  I am not among those who believe he will rest alongside Mozart, Bach or Beethoven, although he suffered from a surfeit of the agonising  grit of eccentricity that develops the oyster pearls of artistic merit.

For me,  Bilk’s wistful melody has that intangible magic that will make it endure. But only incessant replays of Jackson’s ‘greatest hits’ have reminded me what they were supposed to be. Sorry, you can’t win ‘em all.

I opened this post with a clip of Bilk playing his most celebrated tune - originally named after his daughter, Jenny, so I’ll end with the lyrics to accompany it penned by Robert Mellin. To be truthful, they probably don’t do the melody justice, but they’re rather fetching all the same.

Here I stand, watching the tide go out
So all alone and blue
Just dreaming dreams of you

I watched your ship
As it sailed out to sea
Taking all my dreams
And taking all of me

The sighing of the waves
The wailing of the wind
The tears in my eyes burn
Pleading, “My love, return”

Why, oh, why must I go on like this?
Shall I just be a lonely
Stranger on the Shore?

The sighing of the waves
The wailing of the wind
The tears in my eyes burn
Pleading, “My love, return”
Why, oh, why must I go on like this?
Shall I just be a lonely
Stranger on the shore?

msniw

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