Cock & Bull: the story so far

This edition is from our archives, so it is presented as scanned pages rather than text.

Cock and Bull: The Story So Far

As early as 1972, when a French woodwind player joined a Stony Stratford guitar-based [!] folk group called Fillip the Toad to form the basis of what was to become Cock and Bull, the accent was already on an original treatment of ‘folk’ music, both English and French.

The same core of musicians formed Hemlock and, with Dave Whetstone on melodeon and the addition of French bagpipes and Auvergne music, took off in the folk-club circuit with the aim of exploring new directions in arranging traditional music.

It became The Hemlock Cock and Bull Band for dances when its singer Brad took up euphonium and John Maxwell added percussion. When Paul Martin came back on acoustic bass, the band had acquired its own distinctive sound as represented on its debut album ‘All Buttoned Up’, and proceeded to develop further its unique approach to dance music.

Following the album’s success came the Albion Band merger, professional status and the possibility of a different development of ‘electric folk’, hinted at on the Albion Dance Band’s ‘Shuffle Off’ album, and when the dust had settled on the various ideas and changes, ‘Eyes Closed and Rocking’ was finally released, the summary of five years of progress.

The next logical step was for the band to perform live the studio research of their last album, and this has been achieved by integrating the synthesizers and saxophone of Peter Lockwood, to send Cock and Bull off onto hopefully successful new horizons. And the good news for the readers of this magazine is that the ‘front’ instrument is now ’the bagpipe’!

Jean-Pierre Rasle

50 Chanter