18668921 tales from the halling valley

8/14/2019 18668921 Tales From the Halling Valley

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although they have also been described as Anglo-Norman, Cambro-Norman and Anglo-French. The Flemish contingent was culled largely fromthose Flemings whod arrived in Britain with William I, and had beensettled in Wales by Henry I, to be perceived by the hostile Welsh asEnglish. Also believed to have taken part in the invasion was one TheobaldWalter, patriarch of the Butlers of Ormond.Two years afterwards, Henry II set foot in Ireland, the first English King to

do so, and so High Kingship was brought to an end, to be replaced by over750 years of English rule. Henry was an ancestor of future generations of Butlers, and a grandson of William the Conqueror, which may provide akinship with the mysterious Merovingian dynasty of Frankish Kings. WhenHenry's son with Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the future King John of EnglandPrince John arrived in Ireland in 1185, he was accompanied by TheobaldWalter, and as his father had been Butler of England, he was appointedButler of Ireland and given a portion of land in eastern Munster that wouldbecome known as Ormond. Hence the name, the Butlers of Ormond.Theobald wed Maud le Vavasour around 1200, and they had one son,

Theobald le Botiller, 2cnd Baron Butler (1200-1230), whose son with Joandu Marais married Margery de Burgh, a descendant of both DermotMcMurrough and the legendary Brian Boru, thereby bringing royal Gaelicblood into the Butler bloodline. One of their grand-children James Butlerwas appointed Earl of Ormond in 1328. Hed been born to yet another

Theobald and the beautiful Eleanor de Bohun, grand-daughter of Edward Iof the House of Plantagenetalso known as the Angevins from theirorigins in Anjou, France. Dubbed The Hammer of the Scots, he was theAnglo-Norman monarch who'd had Scottish landowner Sir William Wallaceexecuted in 1305 for having led a resistance during the Wars of Scottishindependence. The Earldom of Ormond was created for Theobald's grandson, JamesButler, son of Sir Edmund and Lady Joan Fitzgerald in 1328. Through theirissue all subsequent Earls of Ormonde were descended. The 7th Earl,

Thomas Butler was the great-grandfather of Anne and Mary Boleyn. On hisdeath, Piers Roe Butler became the 8th Earl, but as the King wanted theEarldom of Ormond for Thomas Boleyn, father of Anne and Mary, Piersresigned his claim in 1528. Ten years later, it was restored to him,heralding the title's third creation. By this time, England had become aProtestant nation, and the Anglican faith established in Ireland as the statereligion, despite the fact that the vast majority of the people wereCatholic. Years of vicious feuding between Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond -

known as the Black Earl - and his own mother's family the Fitzgeralds,culminated in a victory for the Butlers in 1565 at the Battle of Afane. whichhelped provoke the Desmond Rebellions of 1569-73 and 1579-83, thesecond of which was bolstered by hundreds of Papal troops. Defeated bythe Elizabethan Armies and their Irish allies - Court favourites the Butlerspredominant among them - they were succeeded by the first EnglishPlantations carried out in a devastated Munster.A few years later in 1609 the first Ulster Plantation came into being in the

wake of the Nine Years War which was largely fought in Ulster, the island'smost Gaelic region, between Ulster chieftains and their Catholic allies,including in 1601-1602, 6000 Spanish soldiers sent by Phillip II, and theProtestant Elizabethan government. The routing of the Ulster Earls andtheir allies led to the famous Flight of the Earls to Europe, the end of theGaelic Clan system, and the colonization of Ulster by English and Scottish


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Protestants.As for the Earldom of Ormond, the fifth Earl of its third creation James

Butler was placed in command of English government forces based inDublin following The Irish Rebellion of 1641, which was an uprising by theOld English Catholic gentry who had become more Irish than the Irishthemselves. Most of the country was taken by the Catholic rebels, whoseleader was the Duke's own cousin Richard Butler, 3rd ViscountMountgarret, and in time it evolved into a conflict between the native Irishand the newly arrived Protestant settlers from Britain which resulted in themassacre of thousands of Protestants, the precise number being a matterof much debate.A year later, with the English Civil War (1641-1651) under way, Ormonde,

who was a Royalist sympathizer, despatched an estimated 4000 troops toEngland to fight for King Charles I of the Scottish House of Stuart againstthe English Calvinist Roundheads under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell,and was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by Royal Appointment in 1643.By 1649, Ireland had become a stronghold of support for the King with

Ormonde in overall charge of the Royalist forces and Irish Confederation of native Gaels and Old English Catholics, all of which had the effect of attracting the attention of Cromwell and his New Model Army. Ormondeattempted to thwart the English Puritan invaders by holding a line of fortified towns across the country, but their leader defeated them oneafter the other, beginning in 1649 with the Siege of Drogheda.In the summer of 1650, following a long series of humiliating defeats for

the Irish, Ormonde, having been deserted by Protestants and Catholicsalike, was urged to leave the country by the Catholic clergy, which hepromptly did, seeking refuge in Paris with the exiled Charles II. On theRestoration of the Stuart Monarchy in 1660, James Butler was showeredwith honours by the new King of England, Scotland and Ireland and wasmade Duke of Ormonde in the peerage of Ireland in the spring of '61.Eight year later, he fell from favour as a result, allegedly, of courtlyintrigue on the part of Royal favourite James Villiers, the 2cnd Duke of Buckingham. In 1671, an attempt was made on his life by an Irishadventurer named Thomas Blood, but Ormonde escaped, convinced thatBuckingham had put him up to it, but nothing was ever proven. In 1682,he became Duke of Ormonde in the peerage of England, dying four yearslater in Dorset, and soon after his death, a poem was published whichcelebrated his great nobility of character, an essential decency that wasnever compromised.One of his sons, the 2cnd Duke of Ormonde, commanded a regiment at

the Battle of the Boyne under William of Orange, and took part in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. His son was the third and final Duke of Ormonde. The Earldom, however, lasted until the end of the 20th Century,becoming dormant in October 1997 with the death of James Butler the 7thMarquess of Ormonde, who had two daughters, but no sons. It may be thatIm a distant relative of theirsand given that my great aunt Joan was adown to earth person and no mere fey moon spinner, it seems churlish todoubt that I am, and if indeed I am, then I'm related to many perhapseven all of the most blue-blooded families not just in Europe but the entireworld.

Joans sister, my grandmother was born Phyllis Mary Pinnock sometimetowards the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century.According to my father's account, her first true love David Wilson was a


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scion of the Wilson Line of Hull which had developed into the largestprivately owned shipping firm in the world in the early part of the century.Sadly, he perished during the First World War like so many of Englandsmost gilded young men, the flower of England, immortalised in WilfredOwens Anthem for Doomed Youth.She subsequently married an officer in the British army, the aforesaid

Peter Robinson, and they had two children, Peter Bevan who went on tobecome a successful musician, and Suzanne, known as Dinny. At somepoint between Peters birth and that of Patrick, Phyllis decamped with herhusband to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, with the purpose of working as a teaplanter, where she met two fellow workers who went on to become hersecond and third husbands, and these were the Dane Carl ChristianHalling, and the Englishman Christopher Evans.According to what Pat has told me, Carl was some kind of student of

several Eastern religious traditions including Buddhism, fluent in the greatIndo-Aryan language of Sanskrit, one of the liturgical languages of bothHinduism and Buddhisma well educated man whod once been quite

wealthy, but who somehow ended up in Ceylon among the tea planters.At some point after becoming pregnant with her third child, she took off with Carl to Tasmania, where the child was born Patrick Clancy Halling, tobe raised as Carls son, but largely in Sydney, New South Wales. It was inSydney that Carl contracted multiple sclerosis, after which according tofamily accounts, Mary made a living variously as a journalist, and teacher.Her three children were musically gifted, Patrick as a violinist, Peter as a

cellist and Suzanne as a pianist, but of all of them Pat was the trueprodigy. At just eight years old, he won a scholarship to the SydneyConservatory of Music, soloing for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra a yearlater, but he reserved his real passion for the water, this love of the seaand ships and specifically sailing being a legacy from his mother Mary - asshe went on to be known by Pat and his immediate family who spentmuch of her adult life by the sea.Soon after Carls death on the eve of the second world war, Mary and her

family set off for Denmark, Carl having wished to be buried in his nativecountry, and then to London where Pat studied both at the Royal Academyof Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the tutelageof the great Austrian violinist Max Rostal.He joined the London Philharmonic 0rchestra while still a teenager during

the Blitz on London during which he served in the Sea Cadets as asignaller, seeing action as such on the hospital ships of the Thames RiverEmergency Service, which, formed in 1938, lasted for three years, using

converted Thames pleasure steamers as floating ambulances or first aidstations.Following his time with the LP0, Pat played with the London Symphony

Orchestra together with his brother Peter, going on to specialize inChamber music, his career including eight years with the Hirsch quartet,led by Leonard Hirsch, and the formation of his own string quartet, theQuartet Pro Musica. He also played with the Virtuoso Ensemble, whosedistinctions included first UK performances of works by Peter RacineFricker and Humphrey Searle, among other British 20th Centurycomposers.

The Ascent of Miss Ann Watt

In the late 1940s, Patrick Clancy Halling married my mother, the Canadian


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singer Ann Wattborn Angela Jean Watt to British-born parents in the cityof Brandon, Manitoba. Her father an Irish builder had been born into anUlster Presbyterian family in the village of Castlederg, County Tyrone,while her mother came from the great industrial city of Glasgow, her ownfather having been a Mr Hazeldine possibly from Liverpool or Manchester.

This means that AJ Watt is of mixed Scottish, Scots-Irish and Englishancestry, not that theres any real difference between these threeethnicities. My mother is an ethnic Briton, full stop.My paternal grandfather was probably a descendant of the planters sent

by the English to Ulster, many of them originally inhabitants of the Anglo-Scottish border country and the Lowland region of Scotland. According tosome sources, Lowlanders are distinct from their Highland counterparts,being of Anglo-Saxon rather than Gaelic ancestry, although how true thisis Im not qualified to say. Whatever the truth, the sensible view is surelythat their bloodline contains a variety of kindred strains including as wellas Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic, Pictish, Norman and so on, depending on theprecise region.

Thousands of these Ulster Scots emigrated to the United States in the1600s, and their descendants are to be found all throughout the US, butmost famously perhaps in the South, where the greatest proportion of those identifying as just American are believed to be the descendants of the original Colonials and therefore mainly of British (English and Scots-Irish) ancestry.Angela Watt was the youngest of six children with only five surviving -

born to James and Elizabeth Watt and the only one not to be born in eitherScotland or Ireland. While Angela was still an infant, the family moved tothe Grandview area of East Vancouver where James found work as acarpenter. By this time, James had abandoned the extreme PresbyterianCalvinism of his Ulster boyhood and youth for the sake of the Wesleyantheology of the Salvation Army, and my mother was raised in the Army ata time when their approach to Scripture was what would be described asfundamental today. His swing from the extreme (Calvinist) Protestantismof his youth in Ulster to the Wesleyan Arminianism of the Salvation Armycould not have been more radical, leastwise as I see it. To explain, Calvinists are those Christians who've traditionally subscribedto what is known as the Doctrines of Grace - or Five Points of Calvinism -which stem from the Protestant Reformation. According to these doctrines,God predestined a limited Elect of men and women to be saved and thatthis election is unconditional, given Man's total inability to respond to theGospel without Grace, which is irresistible, and that salvation is

irrevocable.Calvin was himself powerfully influenced by Augustine of Hippo (345-430),the great North African Church Father who was an early proponent of atype of Christian determinism known as Predestination. This is based onthe belief that God has foreordained every minute detail of history fromthe foundation of the world, including who would come to salvation inChrist, and who would be passed over. Double predestination, which wasemphasized by John Calvin involves God's active reprobation - or rejection- of the non-Elect. Up until Augustine, the majority of Church Fathers wereadvocates of the doctrine of Free Will, later revived by Jacobus Arminiusand John Wesley.Some Calvinists are what is known as supralapsarian, from the Latin

lapsus meaning fall. They believe that God's Elective Decree occurredprior to the Creation and Fall, and that it was accompanied by the


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reprobation of the non-elect. Calvin himself was a supralapsarian. Others,known as infralapsarian, maintain that Election followed the Fall. Mosthave been supporters of double predestination, thereby allegedly formingpart of the largest group within Reformed theology.Calvinist Churches became known as Reformed in Germany, France,

Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and Presbyterian In Britain and thenations colonised by British Presbyterians such as the United States,Canada, Australia and so on. Their faith was expressed in writtenconfessions, or creeds, such as the Heidelberg Catechism, the BelgicConfession of Faith, and the Canons of Dordt, as well as the WestminsterConfession of Faith and the Westminster Catechisms. All are in essentialagreement, together with the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, whichhas been upheld by Calvinist Baptist churches to this day.After having been employed to defend Predestination from the attacks of

fellow Dutchman Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, The Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius began to have doubts about the validity of Predestination himself and so the seeds of what ultimately became known

as Arminianism were sown. However, no doctrine was formulated inArminius' lifetime, and Arminius never saw himself as anything other thanReformed.After Arminius' death, his followers became known as the Remonstrants.

They maintained Election doesn't involve reprobation, and is inaccordance to God's foreknowledge of who will and who won't come tosaving faith under the influence of God's universal or Prevenient Grace,rather than as a result of Predestination. They also maintained thatsalvation is for everyone who responds according to their own God-givenpower of choice, and that far from being eternal as the Calvinists believe,it can be shipwrecked and finally lost. The only one of the Five Points of Calvinism which they upheld was Total Depravity, although for them, thisdidn't involve a total inability to respond to the Gospel. They expressed their beliefs through the Five Articles of Remonstrance.However, the Synod of Dordrecht of 1618-'19, which had been organisedfor the express purpose of condemning Arminius' theology, declared bothit and its followers anathemas, before drawing up the Five Points of Calvinism, and expelling all Arminian pastors from the Netherlands.As I see it, few if any men have done more for the cause of classical

Arminianism than the great John Wesley. It should be emphasized at thisstage that Arminius himself was far from latitudinarian in theology, andthe same is true of the great English cleric. Both upheld the doctrine of

Total Depravity, while Wesley laid great emphasis on the importance of

personal sanctification or holiness. Sadly though, during the early 16thCentury, the epithet Arminian was applied to those Anglican divines whosought to return the Church of England to the ritualism of pre-Reformationtimes, but their theology was a serious deviation from the classicalArminian model, while that of Wesley was wholly in tune with it even whilehe added certain distinctions of his own.Out of this mix, the Wesleyan branch of Methodism ultimately emerged,

there having also been a Calvinist one, which was the basis for WelshPresbyterianism. Significantly thanks to Wesley, the one true Arminianismwas handed down to succeedent generations of Arminians up to andincluding the Pentecostals and most Charismatics. At the same time, JohnWesley never left the Church of England, and considered himself to beboth Anglican and Reformed, which today would automatically meanCalvinist. Wesley was a fervent Free-Willist who yet upheld God's fierce


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hatred of sin...bequeathing this fiery brand of Arminianism to subsequentadherents within the Holiness churches and beyond...and it's still inexistence today, among those devoted to a return to BiblicalPentecostalism and fundamental Wesleyanism, such as the Alliance of Biblical Pentecostals, and the Fundamental Wesleyan Society.The Salvation Army was arguably once a haven of fundamental

Wesleyanism, and one of its zealots was my paternal grandfather JamesWatt, who was opposed to worldly pleasures such as dancing and thetheatre, and in his day, even the drinking of tea or coffee was frownedupon. This was the spiritual climate in which my mother came to maturity.

At the age of 14, Angela joined her friend Marie and Maries mother on acar trip just beyond the US-Canadian border into the state of Washington,where she saw her very first movie, a romantic civil war picture entitledOnly the Brave starring Gary Cooper and Mary Brian. Its effect on herwas little short of seismic, as by her own admission it introduced worldlyideas into her psyche for the very first time.

After leaving school, Angela worked for a time as an office worker in alaundrette managed by her sister Cathy until such a time as she was ableto make her living exclusively as a singer. Many of her greatest triumphstook place at the Theatre Under the Stars, one of Vancouvers mostfamous musical theatres, which officially opened on August the 6th 1940.At the TUTS, Miss Ann Watt as she became known played the lead in suchclassic operettas which were the musical comedies of their day asOscar Straus The Chocolate Soldier (1908 ), based on the GeorgeBernard Shaw classic Arms and the Man, Naughty Marietta (1910) byVictor Herbert, with libretto by Rida Johnson Young, and The StudentPrince (1924 ) by Sigmund Romberg, with libretto by Dorothy Donnelly.For the CBC with full orchestra, she broadcast many popular classics.

Among those she performed to the accompaniment of Percy Harvey andthe Golden Strings were Ill See You Again from Noel Coward'sBittersweet (1929), and with baritone Greg Miller, A Kiss in the Darkfrom Victor Herbert's Orange Blossoms (1922), and Sweethearts fromthe musical play also by Herbert. Among her loveliest interpretations were- in addition to those already mentioned - Herbert's "Neath the SouthernMoon from Naughty Marietta, Strange Music from The Song of Norway (1942), adapted by Wright and Forrest from Griegs Wedding in

Troldhaugen and Cant Help Singing (1944) by Kern and Yarburg fromthe eponymous movie featuring Deanna Durbin. She also broadcastClassical songs such as Delibes' Les Filles de Cadiz (1874) and

Charpentier's Depuis le Jour from "Louise" (1900), and German liedesung due to wartime restrictions on the German language - in English tothe piano accompaniment of Phyllis Dylworth.After the war, she hoped to expand her career either in the US or the UK,

but despite a successful audition for the San Francisco Light OperaCompany, she ultimately opted for England, once a ticket to sail hadbecome available to her.She set sail for Britain laden with letters of recommendation from her

singing teacher Avis Phillips, as well as numerous press cuttings from herbrilliant Canadian career. She'd been led to believe that once in London,she'd effectively take the singing world by storm, at Drury Lane andelsewhere. Sadly though, soon after arriving, she failed an audition for theinternationally famous Glyndebourne Opera House, home of the annualfestival of the same name.


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However, she did land a small role in the Ivor Novello musical, KingsRhapsody which opened at the Palace Theatre on the 15 th of September1949, with its author one-time matinee idol Novello in the title role. It ranfor 841 performances, surviving Novello who died in 1951. She alsobroadcast for the BBC, and among the performances that were capturedon record were her versions of De Fleurs... from Debussy's "ProsesLyriques" (1892-'93), the only songs for which he wrote his own - heavilySymbolist - lyrics, and the popular Harry Ralton standard I Remember theCornfields (1951?) with lyrics by Martin Mayne...and appeared in an earlytelevision show called Picture Post. Sadly though, it wasnt long after herarrival in London that she realized her voice was deteriorating, and her topnotes most of all...possibly as a result of sleeping difficulties; although herformer lifestyle in Vancouver, where in the citys night clubs she was oftento be found carousing into the wee small hours must also have played itspart.She went from one singing teacher after the other in the hope that her

once near-perfect voice might be restored to her but little came of her

efforts, although one of her tutors, who just happened to be the greatGerman soprano Elisabeth Schumann did offer some hope. Schumannsuggested to my mother that once her time in England was over sherecorded her last liede 78s in London with the British pianist Gerald Moore- she accompany her back to New York City where shed been residentsince 1918.My mother, however, turned the great Schumann down, feeling shed

already spent enough money on lessons, and besides she was seriouslyinvolved with a London-based musician my father Patrick Halling, whomshe married in June 1949, and so uprooting would not have been easy,and they were far from rich. They spent the next seven years living the viede bohme in a peaceful post-war London and on the continent, travellingby car or motorcycle, just happy being young and in love in that relativelyinnocent period between the end of the Second World War and the birth of the Youth-Rock culture, after which things would never be quite the sameagain Patrick Halling: A Musical Voyage 1 On the 7th of October 1955, Pat and Ann Halling's first son Carl Robertwas born at the former site of West London's famous Queen Charlotte'sHospital, and two and a half years later, a second son came into the worldin Bethnal Green. The 1960s were only two years away and unless I'm

mistaken it was in this totemic decade - which witnessedan unprecedented explosion of pop and youth culture - that Pat movedinto the session world where he was to record for film, television andabove all popular music.In the meantime, my mother's musical life was put on hold while she

concentrated on being the mother of two small boys, and supportingher husband in his various passions, which included dinghy racing on the

Thames and elsewhere. Despite her strong aversion to sailing, she crewedfor him for many years...specifically at the Thamesis Sailing Club in

Teddington, West London where he was a member for much of the sixties,winning several racing trophies initially in a Firefly (number 1588)..whilehis career as a session player thrived.


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According to what he's told me, he worked on early sessions for Britishmusical sensations Lulu, Cilla Black and Tom Jones, as well as withsuperstar producers Tony Hatch and Mickie Most. Hatch wrote most of Petula Clark's hit singles of the sixties, some alone, some with his wife

Jackie Trent, and she went on to become a major star in the US as part of the so-called British Invasion of the American charts, as did several actsproduced by Most, including the excellent Herman's Hermits, featuringformer child actor Peter Noone.Pat became close to both Most and composer-arranger John Cameron,

who together helped Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan achieve a stringof international hit records once he'd moved away from his early Folk-Protest style towards something far more Pop-oriented, starting with thepsychedelic "Sunshine Superman" (1966), which was a massive statesidesmash, and the first produced by Most.Among those session musicians who played for Most in the '60s were Big

Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, who also arranged for him.Page went on to join seminal British Rock band The Yardbirds, which had

been managed first by Simon Napier Bell, then by Most's business partnerPeter Grant. When the Yardbirds collapsed in 1968, the two remainingmembers Page and bassist Chris Dreja set about forming a new band, alsoto be managed by Grant. Page's first choice as vocalist Terry Reid turnedthe job down, but he recommended a young 19 year old singer from theMidlands of England known as Robert Plant. Page duly travelled toBirmingham with Dreja and Grant to look the youngster over, and wasimpressed by what he saw. He then invited Plant to spend a few days withhim at his home, the Thames Boathouse, in the beautiful little Berkshirevillage of Pangbourne for initial discussions related to the band...all thistaking place in the summer of '68, just months before I joined the NauticalCollege situated a few miles from the village itself. So, the nucleus of theNew Yardbirds came into being.Shortly afterwards, a friend of Plant's, fellow Midlander John Bonham

came onboard as drummer, and an old session buddy of Page's, John Paul Jones replaced Chris Dreja as the band's bass player, as Dreja wished toleave the music scene to concentrate on a new career as a photographer.

Jones supplemented this role by helping Page with the arrangements, andperforming keyboard duties. The New Yardbirds were now ready to fulfilltheir contractual tour of Scandinavia, which they began in September1968.With their first album - recorded at West London's Olympic Studios - not

yet released, they made their debut as Led Zeppelin at the University of

Surrey on October 15, 1968. This was followed by a U.S. concert debut onDecember 26, 1968, and so Led Zeppelin went on to become the mostfamous Hard Rock band of them all equalled only by the Stones in termsof legendary darkness and mystery.It seems incredible that a force of such seismic power and influence as

Led Zep should emerge from the relative innocence of the London Bluesand session music scenes of the sixties. But then a similar thing could besaid of British Rock as a whole. What was it that transformed an interestamong young men of largely middle class origins in the bleak broodingmusic of the Blues into a musical movement which took America and theworld at large by storm in the late '60s and early '70s? That's not an easyquestion to answer, but I'm going to give it some sort of a go. The Blues themselves may provide something of a solution to the puzzle,because they are believed to have begun life as a secularised version of


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the black Gospel music of the American south, with lyrics reflecting thesensuality, isolation and anguish of lost souls victimised by life andalienated from God, and they found fertile soil in the still repressed UnitedKingdom of the late 1950s and early sixties, and especially in the affluentsouth among men such as Brian Jones from the genteel spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucester, Eric Clapton from Surbiton - via Ripley - inSurrey, and Jimmy Page from nearby Epsom, also in Surrey.But the British Rock explosion was not just fuelled by the Blues. By the

early '60s, an effervescent fusion of Rock and Roll, Skiffle, R&B, Doo-Wop,Soul and even traditional Classic Pop had emerged from several Britishcities most notably the tough industrial towns of Liverpooland Birmingham, before going on to take the UK charts by storm. It wasthe sound of Beat, and no band encapsulated it quite like the Beatles. Thatsaid, to further confuse matters, the term Beat - or rather Big Beat - hadbeen used to describe a music genre as early as 1961 by the writerRoyston Ellis, a close friend of John Lennon's due to their sharedappreciation of the Beat poets. In Ellis's book "The Big Beat Scene", the

term Beat is used to describe the music of the first British Pop stars toemerge in the wake of the Rock revolution, such as Billy Fury, Joe Brown,Marty Wilde et al, as well as a host of lesser known ones...but then Rock isalso used as an abbreviation for Rock and Roll in the same book. The Beatles are seen by some as the inventors of modern guitar Pop.While this is debatable, they are without doubt the best known and mostsuccessful Pop group in history. Yet they themselves resisted beingtypecast as mere Pop, and could be said to have ultimately promoteda type of Rock with Pop elements which was yet no less removed frompure Pop than the Blues-based Rock of their chief rivals the RollingStones. The overwhelming melodicism of their classic period of 1964-'69 wasfounded on a vast variety of musical genres including Classical andFolk, Classic Pop, Country and Western, Rock and Roll, Soul and Motown,and even the Blues, leading one to conclude that largely through theBeatles, Rock became the ultimate musical smorgasbord, a veritableBabel of musical styles. During their brief few years of existence,they informed the development of Rock to a greater degree than anyother group or solo singer, and that includes the Rolling Stones, whoseearly style was far more rooted in the Delta and Chicago Blues than that of the Beatles, which was lighter, or Poppier . The Stones' uncompromisinglyprimal rythmic proto-Rock went on to form the basis of Hard Rock andHeavy Metal, and yet even these have to a greater or lesser extent

benefited from the unrelenting melodic inventiveness of the Beatles,although the same could not be said of Punk, which is Rock stripped to itsmost essential ingredients. That's not to say, however, that the Beatles introduced melody into Rockand Roll, because it already existed by the time they had their first hitsingle in 1962. One of its chief sources was what has become known asthe Brill Building Sound, named after the very building in New York Citywhere many of its songwriters were housed and which had been a Popmusic centre since the '30s, the term Pop music having been coined -allegedly - as early as 1926. Brill Building Pop could be described astraditional Pop informed by the Rock and Roll revolution, and so partakingof Rock rythyms as much as the sophisticated songwriting techniquesof Classic - pre-Rock - Pop.


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There was a somewhat notorious interregnum period of Popular Musicbetween the decline of the first wave of Rock and the onset of Beatlemania and it lasted from about 1958, the year of Elvis Presley'sinduction into the US Army, and around 1963 when the Beatles started togo global. Much has been made of the fact that the music's initial threatwas neutralised during this brief era, and that this process coincided withthe first wave of teenage idols - both in the US and UK - who while heavilyinfluenced by Elvis visually, had nowhere near the same devastating effecton the moral establishment.It's my contention that in spite of the bad press it's received over the

years, the first wave of Pop to arise in the wake of the Rock and Rollrevolution was infinitely more fertile and diverse than it's been givencredit for, and that's especially true of the Brill Building Sound, whosemelodic and lyrical sophistication harked back to the golden age of the Great American Songbook. It's sheer wholesomeness has attractedmuch hostility, but it should be remembered that for the first two years orso of its existence, the music of the Beatles was pretty wholesome too,

and I can't help thinking it's a shame it didn't remain that way; eventhough many - perhaps most - of their finest songs were written after1965.Its chief songwriters included Goffin and King, who wrote hits for the

Shirelles, the Crystals, the Drifters, Bobby Vee, Gene Pitney and others inthe immediate pre-Beatles era. They certainly influenced the Beatles, whocovered one of their songs, "Chains", which was soulfully sung by JohnLennon. Carole King of course went on to become a superstar in her ownright during the singer-songwriter era of the late 1960s, one of the mostobvious examples of a survivor from the Brill Building era. Another wasBurt Bacharach, who with lyricist Hal David went on to even greater gloryin the '60s at the height of Beatlemania. Despite reversals, he continues tobe recognised as one of the greatest popular songwriters of all time. OtherBrill building teams included Leiber & Stoller, Sedaka & Greenfield, Mann& Weil and Barry & Greenwich. As well as writing songs for major actsfrom Elvis Presley to the first great girl groups, their work facilitated thepioneering production techniques of Phil Spector, and influenced much of the Pop that was to dominate the '60s, including the Beatles themselves.Yet, while the Beatles remain indelibly associated with modern Pop, by

about 1966, they were as much a Rock as a Pop group and this had less todo with their music than their lyrics. These had started to acquire anintellectual dimension by that totemic year, which was significantlyattributable to the influence of Bob Dylan. Pop as a whole in fact

had acquired a gravitas at odds with the innocent and sentimental musicof the early Beatles - as well as other bands within the outdated Beatgenre - as a result not just of Dylan's influence as the first great poet of Rock, but an increasing melodic complexity on one hand...and anincreasing spiritual darkness on the other. This latter was at leastpartly founded as I see it on the growing influence of the Blues, which ledultimately to the British Blues movement of the late 1960s. The termRock was somehow perfect in describing the way out new music thatarose out of it, although when this moved in to supplant Pop as its mainname it's impossible to say. One thing is certain...as soon as it did, Rockbecame far more than a mere music form. I'd go so far as to say that itwas a way of life of life almost from the outset, a philosophy, even areligion one of whose prime components was rebellion against thetraditional Christian moral values of the West.


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Could this be the reason - or at least one of the reasons - why the US andBritain came to be its spiritual homelands, given that these are thenations most associated historically with the rise of EvangelicalChristianity? Perhaps so. Whatever the truth, Rock is clearly more than

just another form of Pop. Yet, in the modern sense of the word, Pop isintrinsically tied to Rock, or rather was...until about 20 years ago,when the latter started to decline as the leading voice of youthfulrebellion, to be slowly replaced as such by other forms of popular musicsuch as Hip Hop, Contemporary R&B, and Electronic Dance Music.Today, Rock no longer represents the dark side of popular music, being

just one of its many faces, just another branch of the entertainmentindustry. After nearly half a century of waging war against a world viewrooted in God's Holy Word, Rock has very little ability leftto shock...although some may still be offended by its persisting lyricaldarkness...I certainly am, but I'm in the minority in the UK, if not inAmerica. Yet, the damage has been done: Western society has beenirrevocably altered by Rock Music and the socio-sexual revolution it led.

Had it not been for this devastating youthquake, Pop might never havemoved beyond the kind of novelty song Tin Pan Alley was producing atsuch a furious rate in the early 1950s, such as Bob Merrill's wonderful "SheWears Red Feathers"; but would that have been such a bad thing, whenyou consider Rock's ultimately disastrous legacy, the result of over a half acentury of "letting it all hang out"? I don't think so.But to return to Pat, whose contribution to the growing Rock movement

was ever both innocent and involuntary:For the legendary Beatles producer George Martin, he led the string

section that was filmed live for "All you Need is Love", written specially forthe "Our World" program which secured an international audience of 350million people at the height of the so-called Summer of Love on July 25th1967. It was the first satellite broadcast in history, and one of the mostfamous pieces of film ever made. Also taking part were Mick Jagger, KeithRichards, Donovan and Marianne Faithful.A year later, he worked on a project that was as much a concept album as

any of the Beatles records of the same period, Ken Moule's superb"Adam's Rib Suite", which fused elements of Jazz, Pop and Classical musicto recount the history of womankind from Eve to Cleo Laine. Needless tosay though, it was infinitely less successful than any comparable recordwithin the Rock genre, Rock being at the cutting edge of popular culture ina way that Jazz had once been, but no longer was.However, by the turn of the decade, a reconciliation between the

two alienated factions was well under way, with Jazz-Fusion coming fromone camp and the more populist Jazz-Rock from the other. In '75,Pat served as leader for Mike Gibbs' "Only Chrome Waterfall Orchestra",an unsung classic of British Jazz fusion which was finally released on CD in1997. Adam's Rib followed it on CD exactly ten years later.By the time of his involvement with "Adam's Rib", Pat had already moved

into the worlds of film and television, and his early TV career includedsolos for the much-loved British sitcom "Steptoe and Son" (1962-1974),penned by one-time Tony Hancock writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson,with music, including the well known theme tune, by the Australiancomposer Ron Grainer.When it came to his early film career, he served as concertmaster for the

great Johnny Green on Carol Reed's version of Lionel Bart's "Oliver"(1968), arguably the greatest film musical of recent times, and for John


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Williams on Fiddler on the Roof (1971), another film masterpiece basedon a stage musical, this time directed by Norman Jewison. In addition toWilliams, he's served as concertmaster for several other major 20thCentury musical figures, Dimitri Tiomkin, Nelson Riddle, Maurice Jarre,Georges Delerue and Wilfred Josephs among them.He worked with Williams again on the musical version of James Hiltons

Goodbye Mr Chips (1969), directed by Herbert Ross, and featuringwonderful performances by Peter OToole as Chips and Petula Clark as hiswife Katherine. The screenplay was fashioned by one of the 20th Centurysleading playwrights, Terence Rattigan, while Leslie Bricusse provided boththe music and lyrics for the songs, some of which are enchanting despitewhat certain critics have said about them. David Lindup, father of Level42's Mike, whom Pat had first met while they were both working for British

Jazz legend John Dankworth was one of the orchestrators on the project,under the masterful musical direction of John Williams. Sadly for all itsvirtues, "Chips" was not a critical success, although it was nominated forseveral major awards and enjoys a passionate following today, notably on

the internet.Also in '69, Pat worked on another film which has since grown in stature,David Lean's penultimate movie "Ryan's Daughter", written by playwrightand screenwriter Robert Bolt and with music by French composer Maurice

Jarre. Like "Chips", "Ryan's Daughter" was poorly received by the critics,although it was a moderate box office success, and is considered by manytoday to be a worthy addition to Lean's superb body of work. Patrick Halling: A Musical Voyage 2 As the sixties gave way to the '70s, Mickie Most entered the second phaseof his glittering Pop career, although he was briefly involved with highlysuccessful Hard Rock band the Jeff Beck Group which had been formed inearly 1967. Beck had signed a personal management contract with Mostwho apparently wanted to turn him into a solo star, even though hisbacking band included one Rod Stewart on lead vocals. The Jeff BeckGroup having failed to produce any hit singles, Most's business partnerPeter Grant eventually took over their management, arranging a six weektour of the US in early '68. They went on to take America by storm,anticipating the success of another Grant-led band, Led Zeppelin.While Grant went on to Rock mega-glory with Zep, Mickie set about

turning RAK - which they'd founded together in 1969 - into one thekey Pop record labels of the '70s and home to several classic Glam, Pop

and Teenybop acts such as the soulful Hot Chocolate and former Detroitrocker Suzi Quatro - with whom Pat worked on several occasions withMickie at the helm - as well as Mud, Arrows, Kenny, Smokie and Racey.Talking about Pop, in the early 1970s, John Cameron became an unlikely

member of a successful Pop act himself as part of CCS, a band he puttogether with Mickie for RAK, and featuring the Blues guitarist AlexisKorner as band leader, but with Danish musician Peter Thorup doing mostof the vocals.Alexis Korner has been called the Founding Father of British Blues , and

with good reason because possibly more than anyone he was theincubator of the '60s Blues Boom which was one of the great cornerstonesof the entire Rock movement. Some of the bands who were swept tostardom in its wake went on to be part of the celebrated British Invasion of


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the US charts which could be said to have transformed the Americancultural landscape.Born in Paris of Austrian and Greek ancestry, Korner began his musical

career in 1949 as a member of Chris Barber's Jazz Band, but his love of thethen lesser known music of the Blues led to his forming the band BluesIncorporated in 1961 with singer Long John Baldry, harmonica player CyrilDavies, guitarist Jack Bruce, saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith anddrummer Charlie Watts.The list of musicians who were drawn to Korner's regular Rythym and

Blues night at the Ealing Jazz Club in the early '60s included futuremembers of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian

Jones, as well as Rod "The Mod" Stewart, and spectacularly handsomeOxford undergraduate Paul Jones. Paul had apparently been Brian Jones'first choice as vocalist for his band the Rollin' Stones, which he puttogether in 1962 with piano player Ian Stewart from Cheam in Surreywho'd been recruited from an ad in Jazz News , but he turned himdown, only to resurface at a later date as front man for another Blues-

based band which achieved mainstream Pop success, Manfred Mann.A mere nine years after their formation, with poor Brian Jones no longerliving, the Stones started work on the album which is widely considered tobe their masterpiece, "Exile on Main Street". These first sessions tookplace in the basement of the Villa Nellcte, a 19th century mansion on thewaterfront of Villefranche-sur-Mer in France's Cote d'Azur, which had beenleased to Keith Richards in the summer of '71, although several tracks hadalready been recorded at West London's Olympic Studios, as well as atMick Jagger's country estate, Stargroves near Newbury in Berkshire. Muchhas been written of the ultra-decadence surrounding the "Exile" sessions,which saw various icons of the counterculture passing through Nellcote asif there to bestow their blessings on the proceedings. They could be saidto be the quintessence of the Rock and Roll lifestyle following amere decade of Rock culture, which had yet already altered Westernsociety as a whole almost beyond recognition. However, blame for thistransformation can't in all good conscience be laid exclusively at the feetof Rock. That would be absurd.It seems pretty clear to me that the cultural revolution of the 1960s didn't

just appear out of nowhere, and that tendencies inimical to the Judaeo-Christian moral fabric of our civilisation can be traced at least asfar back as the Enlightenment of the 16th and 17th Centuries, which couldbe said to be the starting point of the Modern Age. Much of thegroundwork had already been done in other words, and that's especially

true of the two immediate post-war decades, in which the Existentialistsand the Beats became international icons of revolt, with lesser groups likethe Lettrists of Paris acting as scandal-sowing forerunners of the '60sSituationists...Britain's first major youth cult surfaced in the shape of theEdwardians who later became known as Teddy Boys or Teds...a cinema of youthful discontent flourished as never before creating a desire amongmany young people to be identified as wild ones and rebels without acause...and Rock and Roll - perhaps already jaded as an art form by1972...the year the Stones' "Exile on Main Street" finally saw the light of day - took over the world, with Elvis Presley as its first true superstar.That same year saw Pat work on an infinitely more humble musical

project, Richard Harris' "Slides" which, while a success on the Billboardcharts at the time has since been sadly overlooked, although it was


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released on CD with another Harris album "My Boy" in 2005, receivingvery high ratings from Amazon reviewers both in Britain and the US.A year later, Pat worked on the first of two pictures helmed by the great

Fred Zinnemann, whom he was kind enough to introduce me to - and onthe set of "Julia" (1979) unless I'm mistaken - and he was utterlyenchanting. This was "The Day of the Jackal", based on the novel byFrederick Forsyth, and with music this time by Georges Delerue, whom Ialso met with Pat. Although not a commercial success, it's now seen as aclassic British thriller in the tradition of Carol Reed's "The Third Man", andEdward Fox's mesmerising performance as the elegant ruthless Jackalhelped turn him into a major star. Patrick Halling: A Musical Voyage 3 By the start of the 1970s, for a teenager like myself and many of myfriends, Rock and Roll music had divided into two categories. One we knewas Commercial , a word we tended to spit out like some kind of curse, the

other, Underground , or some other term reflective of its shadowyexclusivity. While the former was effectively pure Pop, whose domain wasthe Hit Parade or Pop charts weekly featured on the British TV program

Top of the Pops, the latter consisted of groups who made music largely forthe growing album market...and there were those Rock acts such as LedZeppelin who never graced the singles chart despite earning fortunesthrough concerts and album sales. Within album Rock many strains co-existed as I recall, including Hard or Heavy Rock, Soft Rock of the type of

Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash, and the Art or Progressive Rockpioneered by the Beatles, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, the Doors and others.Despite himself Pat was part of it from the outset, notably through his

association with the Beatles, who by '67 were at the forefront of the Rockrevolution, having arguably left much of their Pop career behind themonce they'd retired from touring, although their Rock was ever replete withbeautiful Pop melodies.However, it was Jethro Tull, a British band that achieved both commercial

and critical success on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, that markedthe height of his relationship with the new Art Rock phenomenon. Workingwith front man - as well as singer, flautist and composer - Ian Anderson,and conductor, arranger and keyboard player David Palmer, Pat served asleader for two Tull albums, which is to say, Warchild from 1974, andMinstrel in the Gallery from a year later, both recognised today asundisputed masterpieces of the Progressive genre.

During the Prog Rock boom which was at its height from about 1969 to1975, Pat played on several albums which while not successful in themould of best sellers by Tull, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and others, havenonetheless received fresh critical acclaim through the internet, some of this verging on the adulatory.They include Definitely What (1968) by Brian Auger and the Trinity,

Cosmic Wheels (1973) by Donovan, Beginnings (1975) by Yes guitaristSteve Howe, "Octoberon" by Symphonic Rock pioneers Barclay JamesHarvest, and two by Gordon Giltrap, Visionary from '76 and Perilous

Journey from the following year. Giltrap, I feel safe in asserting, is one of the most outlandishly gifted guitarists -acoustic or otherwise - in thehistory of recorded music.For composer-producer-arranger-conductor Johnny Harris, who has

worked in various capacities with some of the greatest names in


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entertainment of the last half century including Michael Jackson, SammyDavis Jnr., Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick,

Johnny Mathis and Tom Jones, Pat led the strings on All To Bring YouMorning (1973), his second solo album, which featured no less than threeone-time members of Prog Rock legends Yes, namely the aforesaid SteveHowe, vocalist/composer Jon Anderson, and drummer Alan White, who justhappened to be recording next door at the time as Johnny and friends andwere great admirers of his work. It achieved a CD release in 2008.For his very close friend Derek Wadsworth he played on Metropolitan

Man (1974) by Alan Price, the former keyboardist for British Invasionband the Animals. They scored an international mega-hit in 1964with their version of the traditional Folk song "The House of theRising Sun" produced by Mickie Most, who masterminded the first twoyears of their career, during which they became Pop sensations in the USalmost on a par with the Beatles and the Stones. Alan Price left in 1965 toform his own Alan Price Set, which, with songs such as the classic Housethat Jack Built from '67, combined musical virtuosity with lashings of

commercial appeal, a gift that was one of the hallmarks of classic sixtiesPop, but which had perhaps declined somewhat by the turn of the ultimatePop decade.In the early '70s though, the Glam-Glitter genre took off in Britain, taking

the Pop charts by storm in the process. Among those artists whobecame superstars through Glam, a heterogeneous mixture of Pop andRock whose purveyors flaunted an outrageous androgynous image wereMarc Bolan, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and Elton John, all of whom hadbeen striving for Rock and Roll success for years .Bolan is widely credited with inventing Glam, although it had

been foreshadowed in the '60s by the Stones and others, but its truepioneer was arguably Little Richard, known today as the Reverend RichardPenniman.Among the first generation of Rock stars he was the most overtly

androgynous, although it's been said he took much of his image from alittle known Rock shouter named Esquerita, who was believed to havebeen even wilder than Richard....if that were at all possible. A product of the southern Bible Belt like Richard, Esquerita died young at only 49 yearsold from an AIDS-related illness after a life of relative obscurity.As a child Richard had attended Pentecostal churches in his native

Georgia, and seriously considered becoming a preacher of the Gospel; butit was also in these churches that he developed the musical gifts that wereto lead to his ultimately embracing the music which he has gone on

record as declaring to be incompatible with the Christian life. In fact, fewRock stars have been quite so vocal in their denunciation of the spiritualdangers of Rock music as Little Richard Penniman. For a time, however, hewas the most outrageous of the early Rock idols, and many of Rock'smost dynamic performers - Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and David Bowieamong them - have cited him as a seminal influence. The Glam Rock era of 1971-'73 was to some extent a revival of the sartorial flashiness - and musical simplicity - of early Rock andRoll...and one which swept a host of gifted young musicians who'dbeen striving for major success since the early 1960s to fresh levels of stardom in the UK and elsewhere. Yet, despite the Pop star status theyenjoyed in the UK, several of these were viewed as serious album artistsas well as TV idols, among them Rod Stewart, David Bowie and Elton John,and significantly all three remain international Rock icons to this day. On


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the other hand, other Glam acts were viewed largely as singles bandsduring a golden age for the British Pop charts...and one thatseriously advantaged a certain East End boy of part Irish Travellerextraction by the name of David Cook.As David Essex, he became a star on the fringes of Glam, not

through Rock nor teeny bop Pop, but largely through acting both onstageand in the movies. It was his own song, "Rock On" a massive hit on bothsides of the Atlantic in 1974 that really put him on the map as a majorheart throb...together with the '73 movie "That'll be the Day", directed byClaude Watham, in which he plays a young tearaway in a bleak pre-Beatles Britain who yearns for Rock and Roll stardom, and ultimatelyleaves his young family to pursue it. In the follow-up, "Stardust" (1974) -also the name of Essex's third British hit single - he achieves hisdream...but ends up living as a wasted recluse in a vast castle in Spain.Both "Rock On" and "Stardust" were produced by New Yorker Jeff Wayne.

Pat worked with him not just on "Rock On", but his own Jeff WaynesMusical Version of The War of the Worlds which has achieved classic

status since its release in 1978. Towards the middle of the '70s, Soul music, a popular genre which hadevolved out of Gospel and R&B birthed a mutation known as Disco, one of whose hallmarks was the liberal use of strings often played in a staccatostyle. In consequence, Pat was involved in several major Disco projects,including the band "Love and Kisses" formed by Alec R Costandinos, whichproduced three albums between 1977 and '79. While these have beenobscured by Giorgio Moroder's groundbreaking work with Donna Summer,they were massively successful at the time, yielding several US hit singlesand helping to define the Disco sound. Both Pat and Costandinos hadearlier worked with another French Disco pioneer Jean-Marc Cerrone on hishit album, "Love in C Minor" from 1976.Pat played on several other Costandinos records, including an

acknowledged Disco masterpiece "Romeo and Juliet" (1978) which unlikemany of the classic works of the Disco era was not flagrantly risqu in thelyrical department, which for a Christian such as myself can only be agood thing.He also worked on the album Limelight Disco Symphony (1978) by

Melophonia which was a Disco tribute produced by Franck Pourcel andAlain Boublil to Sir Charles Chaplin, who'd died on Christmas Day'77. Some years previously, Pat had worked with him on sessions whichinvolved some of his classic films being set to new musical arrangements,

and he'd introduced me to him, and he was charming; in fact it was one of the most memorable events of my life.Boublil went on to write the libretto for the musical "Les Miserables" with

composer Claude Schonberg, and it was John Cameron who arranged it forthem. Pat was involved with the London production of "Les Miz" for manyyears as the leader of the orchestra, one of several highlights of atheatrical career which has involved his working with such legends as EllaFitzgerald, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Tiny Tim, Barry Manilow and BoyGeorge of Culture Club, and touring with Tom Jones, Barrie White andothers. But it's his participation in Bing Crosby's final tour of Londonin September 1977 that is perhaps the most memorable of all. In thatsame month, Bing, his family, and his close friend Rosemary Clooneybegan a concert tour of England that included two weeks at the LondonPalladium. He recorded an album "Seasons", and a TV Christmas special


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with David Bowie and Twiggy in the UK. His duet with Bowie on "Peace onEarth/Little Drummer Boy" was listed in Britain's TV Guide as one of the 25most memorable musical moments of 20th Century television. After thetour Pat actually managed to wangle an autograph from Bing during a lastrecording session at Maida Vale studios. Der Bingle had initially objectedto Pat helping himself to a piece of his sheet music, before relenting withthe words, " he seems like a good man ", and autographing the music intothe bargain. He died some days afterwards on October 14th, following around of 18 holes of golf near Madrid where he and his Spanish golfingpartner had just defeated their opponents, towards the end of a yearwhich had seen the deaths of a string of cultural giants including - inaddition to Bing - Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, MariaCallas and Elvis Presley.Speaking of John Cameron...he was one of the men responsible for a rare

classic of British Soul, "Central Heating" (1978) by London-based Funkoutfit Heatwave. John served as producer on the sessions, with Pat as hisconcermaster, while the songs were mainly written by keyboardist Rod

Temperton. Temperton was the white Englishman who went on to writeseveral of the most memorable numbers from the best-selling long playerin musical history, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" from 1982, which wasproduced by Quincy Jones, as well as for Quincy's own album "The Dude",for Patti Austin, George Benson, Anita Baker and others. Three Heatwavesongs, all written by Temperton and produced by Cameron were millionssellers in the US, these being "Boogie Nights", "The Groove Line" and thelovely ballad, "Always and Forever", sung straight from the heart by tragicformer US serviceman Johnny Wilder Jr, who had one of Soul's greatestand most underrated voices.At the end of the '70s, Pat played what was possibly his most memorable

ever solo for a television program and that was for the stunning openingand closing theme to BBCs Life on Earth (1979), composed by EdwardWilliams and conducted by Marcus Dods. This 13-part documentary seriesby British naturalist David Attenborough - whom I met very briefly at asocial function with his wife in the late 1970s, most probably 79 - is widelyconsidered to be one of the greatest ever made; but for some people- andas a Christian I include myself among them- it was controversial, given itsfoundation in the Theory of Evolution. Patrick Halling: A Musical Voyage 4

The '80s was a difficult decade for session musicians like Pat as the

synthesizer started making stronger inroads than had previously been thecase into the world of recorded music, and that's especially true of the so-called New Pop that arose in Britain in the wake of Punk. Several New Popacts took part in the so-called Second British Invasion, which saw Britishbands dominating the American Pop charts to a degree unknown since thefirst one led by the Beatles. This was significantly due to a demand on thepart of the newly launched MTV music channel for colourful videos of which there was a shortage in the US at the time, and it enabled several -largely synth-driven - British bands such as the Human League, DepecheMode, Duran Duran, Culture Club and Eurythmics to score massivetransatlantic hits.Despite the inexorable rise of electronic Pop, Pat's career proceeded

apace during the '80s. In 1980, he worked once again for his close friend John Cameron, this time on "The Mirror Crack'd" based on the Agatha


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Christie novel, with music by John C., and featuring a roll call of Hollywoodlegends including Elisabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, and KimNovak, with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple. Pat even had a small non-speaking cameo in the movie as a World War II bandleader, a walk-onadmittedly but a featured one. He worked with John Cameron again on afurther star-studded Christie movie, "Evil Under the Sun". Both werehelmed by Bond director Guy Hamilton, and produced by John Brabourne,and Richard Goodwin, who became a friend of Pat's, and they were towork together several more times in the '80s and '90s.For Richards wife writer/director Christine Edzard, he was the violin

soloist for Biddy (1983), working again with Christine - with Richardproducing - on Little Dorrit" (1988), based on the Dickens novel, and TheFool (1990), which was written by Christine with Oliver Stockman. Allthree movies were scored by French composer Michel Sanvoisin.Incidentally on Little Dorrit, based on the novel by Charles Dickens, Patis credited either as soloist or song performer, duty he shared with hisbeloved friend, Catalan cellist Francisco Gabarro, known as Gabby, as well

as the celebrated clarinettist Jack Brymer.For Beatles legend Paul McCartney he led the orchestra for thesoundtrack to the movie Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), whichsold well, including as it did reworked versions of six Beatles classicsincluding "Eleanor Rigby", although the film itself performed poorly at theBox Office. Since '84, its reputation has barely improved, although on theUS and British versions of Amazon it benefits from a good dealof affection on the part of everyday net users, a testament to theenormous good will MacCartney continues to generate on a worldwidebasis. Three years later, he worked with another Pop superstar of Irish ancestry,Enya Brennan - although unlike Macca she was actually born on theEmerald Isle - on "To Go Beyond II", final track of the highly successfulEnya album to be precise. The album was later remastered andrenamed The Celts, for use by the BBC for the 1992 TV series of thesame name.Other television projects on which Pat worked in the '80s include Hold

that Dream (1986) based on the novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford, withoriginal score by longtime friend Barrie Guard, Tears in the Rain (1988),from a novel by Pamela Wallace, with music again by Guard, and TheDarling Buds of May (1992-1993), based on the novel by HE Bates, andwith music by Pip Burley and Guard.In 1989, he worked with a yet another Rock legend, Pete Townsend,

serving as leader on the concept album "The Iron Man - The Musical",based on the novel by Ted Hughes. Townsend was of course the guidingspirit of the Who, whose contribution to the so-called British Invasion of the US by English bands, led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, waslittle short of earth-shaking...as even more than the Stones they providedthe basis for much of the Hard and Heavy Rock to follow. Interestingly,Pete's father Jazz saxophonist Cliff Townsend had been a colleague of Pat's during their time together on the BBC 1 program Parkinson, namedafter British chat show master Michael Parkinson.In 1990, he appeared on John Williams album The Guitar is the Song,

having earlier worked with the great Classical guitarist on John Williamsplays Patrick Gowers and Scarlatti (1972), and specifically on GowersChamber Concerto for Guitar, as well as Portrait of John Williams(1982), on which he served as leader of the String Orchestra for Vivaldis


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Concerto in D major, and Cavatina by Stanley Myers, known by many asthe theme to The Deerhunter.Moving into the so-called Noughties... between 2000 and 2002, Pat played violin for

Nuages, a band specialising in Swing, Vocal Jazz and Classic Easy Listening formed by his good friend Barrie Guard, and featuring myself on vocals. We laid down a

series of superb demos - beautifully arranged by Barrie - at his home studio in theouter suburbs of London, and even went so far as to record a pilot radio show but tono avail. We gigged sporadically for about a year and a half, and response to our music was polite at best, until a final concert at the 2002 Shelton Arts Festival broughtus into contact with the kind of intimate cultured audience we perhaps should have

been aiming for all along...and we all but brought the house down. Sadly though, for avariety of reasons Nuages dispersed soon afterwards.On a brighter note, there's a fascinating tale attached to singer-songwriter John

Dawson Read for whom Pat served as leader on his two '70s albums, A Friend of Mine is Going Blind (1975) and Read On (1976). Sometime around 2005, fellowsinger-songwriter Michael Johnson included an MP3 of Read singing the title track of his first album, A Friend of Mine on his website, and many Read fans begancommunicating through the site in consequence. His subsequent re-entry into themusic world after nearly thirty years of relative - although not complete- inactivity, resulted in a third album, NowWhere were we? being released thatsame year.Until quite recently, Pat served as leader - under the headship of conductor and

composer Ronnie Hazelhurst - for the BBC comedy series that is the longest runningin television history, Roy Clarke's "Last of the Summer Wine". Working alongsidePat on the series was harmonica maestro Jim Hughes, whose playing it is thatmakes Ronnie's gently pastoral theme tune so distinctive. With Jim's help, Pat beganwork on an album of popular song standards - featuring myself on vocals - some timein the mid Noughties , possibly 2006. Eventually given the title A Taste of Summer Wine thanks to the generosity of Ronnie Hazelhurst, it's credited to James HughesCarl Halling with the London Swingtette, the latter consisting of, in addition to Pat'sown Quartet Pro Musica, Judd Procter on guitar, Manfred Mann founder member Dave Richmond, and John Sutton, on bass, and John Dean and Sebastian Guard ondrums. The album was engineered by sound recordist Tony Philpot, and Keith Grant -formerly of West London's legendary Olympic Studios - and finally released in 2007.Olympic became one of the great recording centres of British Hard Rockafter it had been bought by Keith and Cliff Barnes in 1966, with theStones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Queen all recordingthere, as well as the Beatles, The Small Faces, Procul Harum, Traffic,Hawkwind and others. Other recent projects of Pat's have included the world premiere of thestring quartet A Poets Calendar by long-time friend Derek Wadsworth,which took place at the Riverhouse Barn studio in Walton on Thames,Surrey, on the 10th March 2007, with Pat leading his own revived QuartetPro Musica, and the first live performances of Quartets 1 and 2 by Jazzdrummer and composer Tony Kinsey. As things stand, Pat plays in twoquartets, the previously mentioned Pro Musica, and the Leonardo, formedin 1993.Despite having worked as a professional musician for more than half a

century, Pat is still a force within the music industry, and has recently

spoken on television and elsewhere on his work with the Beatles. He alsopaints now under the quaint monicker of Clancy, the middle name he once


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rejected. Furthermore, he's still winning up to two races every Sunday forhis local sailing club. There seems to be no end to the man's almostpreternatural energy and force of will. Although there's no hard and fastevidence that Pat has Scandinavian blood, research related to theNorwegians who emigrated to the American Midwest - and particularlyMinnesota -from about the mid-19th Century onwards, reveals that one of the characteristics of the inhabitants of the Halling Valley known asHallings and speaking a dialect known as Halling is firmness in thoughtsand beliefs, so that he would rather break than bend. This in the wordsof the Norwegian-American writer Syver Swenson Rodning, who in 1917took first prize in an essay set by a man called Hallingen called A Hallingis a Halling wherever he is. The Hallings themselves settled primarily inSpring Grove, Minnesota, with traces of their subculture surviving into the1930s. Perhaps then, alone among the three children born to Phyllis MaryHalling, Patrick is a true Halling with roots deep in the Hallingdal inNorway's Buskerud County where the Halling Valley River lies.

18668921 tales from the halling valley

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