John Tams
Encyclopedia
John Tams is an English
actor, singer, songwriter, composer and musician.
folk group Muckram Wakes
in the 1970s, then worked with Ashley Hutchings
as singer and melodeon
-player on albums including Son of Morris On, and as a member of the electric folk
group Albion Band. Splitting with Hutchings in the 1980s, he formed Home Service
. He is now a solo performer, either fronting a folk-rock band or in a duo with Barry Coope (of Coope Boyes and Simpson
).
In December 2009, Tams released a single of "Love Farewell" with the Band and Bugles of the Rifles. The recording of this song, dating from the Peninsular War
, was for the benefit of Help for Heroes
, a charity dedicated to supporting injured British service personnel and their families.
to make field recordings of highly-regarded traditional players of the concertina
. The recordings were issued on the "Free Reed" label in the '70s. These recordings then became very scarce until 2007 when all the tracks were issued as a 6-CD set called The Clare Set.
Tams was a musical director and actor at the National Theatre
from 1976 to 1985 and then again from 1999 to 2001, working on such shows as The Mysteries
, Lark Rise to Candleford
, Glengarry Glenross, The Crucible
, Golden Boy
, The Good Hope
and The Mysteries Revival in 1999. He was a member of the creative team headed by Bill Bryden
.
He also worked as a music consultant at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
on Holding Fire (opened July 2007), and on War Horse
(opened October 2007) at the National Theatre. War Horse
has been described as the most successful show ever staged by the National and has resulted in several awards. It received six nominations for the Olivier Awards
, including one for the Best Sound, for Tams and fellow team members Chris Shutt and Adrian Sutton.
as one of the "Chosen Men": rifleman and former poacher Daniel Hagman, a whimsical, sober, steady hand in the 95th Rifles; always ready with a deadly eye behind a Baker rifle
, a folk remedy for an ailment or a song for a weary heart. He also co-wrote the music for each film (18, as of Nov. 2008) alongside Dominic Muldowney
.
In 1996, Tams and Muldowney released the best-selling album Over the Hills & Far Away: The Music of Sharpe
to accompany the series. This album has sold over 120,000 copies.
, Tams won Best Album for The Reckoning, Best Traditional Track (for Bitter Withy) and Folk Singer of the Year. Tams is the only artist to have won the Album of the Year award twice, the first time was with his first solo album Unity in 2001. At the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2008 he and singing partner Barry Coope were presented with the prestigious Best Duo award from actor Sean Bean
, alongside whom he acted in the Sharpe
TV series. Tams has now received ten nominations, resulting in six BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
2006 Radio Ballads, an updating of Ewan MacColl
's Radio Ballads. The series was short-listed for two Sony Radio Awards
in 2007. In the event it won a Sony Gold Radio Academy Award for Song of Steel and a Bronze award for Thirty Years of Conflict. It has been nominated for a Clarion Award. The song Steelos, written by Tams for the Song Of Steel episode of the 2006 Ballads, was nominated Best Original Song at the 2006 Radio 2 Folk Awards. Currently, Tams is also working on a stage version of Steelos to be performed at the Magna Centre
in the Rother Valley
in 2009. He worked on John McCusker
's commission 'Under One Sky' alongside Graham Coxon
, Roddy Woomble
, Julie Fowlis
and others.
In November 2007, Tams was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University
, then in January 2009 another Honorary Doctorate from Derby University.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actor, singer, songwriter, composer and musician.
Folk musician
John Tams was a member of DerbyshireDerbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
folk group Muckram Wakes
Muckram Wakes
Muckram Wakes was a folk band from the north-west midlands of England.The original line up of Muckram Wakes was Roger and Helen Watson and John Tams. Their album Map of Derbyshire, on Trailer Records, contributed greatly to the promotion of folk music from that county...
in the 1970s, then worked with Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Stephen Hutchings is an English bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founder member of three of the most noteworthy English folk-rock bands in the history of the genre; Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band...
as singer and melodeon
Melodeon (organ)
A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-operated vacuum bellows, and a piano keyboard. It differs from the related harmonium, which uses a pressure bellows. Melodeons were manufactured in the United States sometime after 1812 until the Civil War era...
-player on albums including Son of Morris On, and as a member of the electric folk
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its...
group Albion Band. Splitting with Hutchings in the 1980s, he formed Home Service
Home Service
Home Service are a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album Alright Jack, which is usually considered one of the finest products of the electric folk...
. He is now a solo performer, either fronting a folk-rock band or in a duo with Barry Coope (of Coope Boyes and Simpson
Coope Boyes and Simpson
Coope, Boyes and Simpson are an English vocal folk trio, formed around 1990. Their sound is rich and often has unusual vocal harmonies.The group comprises singers Barry Coope, Jim Boyes and Lester Simpson, and almost all of their music is sung entirely a capella, although they have occasionally...
).
In December 2009, Tams released a single of "Love Farewell" with the Band and Bugles of the Rifles. The recording of this song, dating from the Peninsular War
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
, was for the benefit of Help for Heroes
Help for Heroes
Help for Heroes is a British charity launched on 1 October 2007 to help provide better facilities for British servicemen and women wounded since September 11, 2001. It was founded by Bryn Parry OBE and his wife Emma Parry OBE after they visited soldiers at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham...
, a charity dedicated to supporting injured British service personnel and their families.
Collector and stage actor
In 1974, Tams and Neil Wayne went to County ClareCounty Clare
-History:There was a Neolithic civilisation in the Clare area — the name of the peoples is unknown, but the Prehistoric peoples left evidence behind in the form of ancient dolmen; single-chamber megalithic tombs, usually consisting of three or more upright stones...
to make field recordings of highly-regarded traditional players of the concertina
Concertina
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...
. The recordings were issued on the "Free Reed" label in the '70s. These recordings then became very scarce until 2007 when all the tracks were issued as a 6-CD set called The Clare Set.
Tams was a musical director and actor at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
from 1976 to 1985 and then again from 1999 to 2001, working on such shows as The Mysteries
The Mysteries
The Mysteries is a version of the medieval English mystery plays presented at London's National Theatre in 1977. The cycle of three plays tells the story of the Bible from the creation to the last judgement....
, Lark Rise to Candleford
Lark Rise to Candleford
Lark Rise to Candleford is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. They were written by Flora Thompson and first published together in 1945...
, Glengarry Glenross, The Crucible
The Crucible
The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...
, Golden Boy
Golden Boy
Golden Boy is a drama by Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced on Broadway by The Group Theatre in 1937. Odets' biggest hit was made into a 1939 film of the same name, starring William Holden in his breakthrough role, and also served as the basis for a 1964 musical.-Plot:It focuses on Joe...
, The Good Hope
The Good Hope
The Good Hope, a play written by Herman Heijermans in , was translated in a new version for the Royal National Theatre which relocated the action to the Yorkshire fishing community of Whitby in 1900, by Lee Hall, writer of the award-winning Billy Elliot and Spoonface Steinberg.The voyage of The...
and The Mysteries Revival in 1999. He was a member of the creative team headed by Bill Bryden
Bill Bryden
William Campbell Rough Bryden CBE is a British stage- and film director and screenwriter.-Biography:...
.
He also worked as a music consultant at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
on Holding Fire (opened July 2007), and on War Horse
War Horse (play)
War Horse is a play based on the book of the same name by acclaimed children's writer Michael Morpurgo, adapted for stage by Nick Stafford. Originally Morpurgo thought "they must be mad" to try to make a play from his best-selling 1982 novel. He was proved wrong by the play's instant success...
(opened October 2007) at the National Theatre. War Horse
War Horse (play)
War Horse is a play based on the book of the same name by acclaimed children's writer Michael Morpurgo, adapted for stage by Nick Stafford. Originally Morpurgo thought "they must be mad" to try to make a play from his best-selling 1982 novel. He was proved wrong by the play's instant success...
has been described as the most successful show ever staged by the National and has resulted in several awards. It received six nominations for the Olivier Awards
Laurence Olivier Awards
The Laurence Olivier Award is presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre. Named after the renowned British actor Laurence Olivier, they are given for West End shows and other productions staged in London...
, including one for the Best Sound, for Tams and fellow team members Chris Shutt and Adrian Sutton.
Television actor
John Tams may be best known to the general public through having played one of the supporting roles in the ITV drama series SharpeSharpe (TV series)
Sharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean about Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books...
as one of the "Chosen Men": rifleman and former poacher Daniel Hagman, a whimsical, sober, steady hand in the 95th Rifles; always ready with a deadly eye behind a Baker rifle
Baker rifle
The Baker rifle was a flintlock rifle used by the Rifle regiments of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was the first standard-issue, British-made rifle accepted by the British armed forces....
, a folk remedy for an ailment or a song for a weary heart. He also co-wrote the music for each film (18, as of Nov. 2008) alongside Dominic Muldowney
Dominic Muldowney
Dominic Muldowney is a British composer.-Biography:He studied at the universities of Southampton and York , and took private lessons with Harrison Birtwistle. From 1974 to 1976 he was composer-in-residence to the Southern Arts Association...
.
In 1996, Tams and Muldowney released the best-selling album Over the Hills & Far Away: The Music of Sharpe
Over the Hills & Far Away: The Music of Sharpe
Over the Hills & Far Away: The Music of Sharpe was released in 1996 as a companion to the Sharpe television series. The recording features performances by various artists, including British folk musicians John Tams and Kate Rusby, composer Dominic Muldowney, and The Band and Bugles of the...
to accompany the series. This album has sold over 120,000 copies.
Solo singer
Tams has released three solo albums to date, Unity (2001), Home (2002) and The Reckoning (2005); all of which have met with critical acclaim. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk AwardsBBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2....
, Tams won Best Album for The Reckoning, Best Traditional Track (for Bitter Withy) and Folk Singer of the Year. Tams is the only artist to have won the Album of the Year award twice, the first time was with his first solo album Unity in 2001. At the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2008 he and singing partner Barry Coope were presented with the prestigious Best Duo award from actor Sean Bean
Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
, alongside whom he acted in the Sharpe
Sharpe
Sharpe may refer to:*Sharpe , people with the surname Sharpe*Sharpe James, American politician, New Jersey*Richard Sharpe , the title character of the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell...
TV series. Tams has now received ten nominations, resulting in six BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
Radio producer
In 2006, Tams became musical director of the BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
2006 Radio Ballads, an updating of Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
's Radio Ballads. The series was short-listed for two Sony Radio Awards
Sony Radio Academy Awards
The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...
in 2007. In the event it won a Sony Gold Radio Academy Award for Song of Steel and a Bronze award for Thirty Years of Conflict. It has been nominated for a Clarion Award. The song Steelos, written by Tams for the Song Of Steel episode of the 2006 Ballads, was nominated Best Original Song at the 2006 Radio 2 Folk Awards. Currently, Tams is also working on a stage version of Steelos to be performed at the Magna Centre
Magna Science Adventure Centre
Magna Science Adventure Centre is an educational visitor attraction, appealing primarily to children. It is located in a disused steel mill in the Templeborough district of Rotherham, England. The site is formerly home to the Steel, Peech and Tozer steel works...
in the Rother Valley
Rotherham
Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Don, at its confluence with the River Rother, between Sheffield and Doncaster. Rotherham, at from Sheffield City Centre, is surrounded by several smaller settlements, which together form the wider Metropolitan Borough of...
in 2009. He worked on John McCusker
John McCusker
John McCusker is a Scottish folk musician, record producer and composer. An accomplished fiddle player, he had a long association as a member of the Battlefield Band beginning in the 1990s and was later a band member and producer for folk singer Kate Rusby...
's commission 'Under One Sky' alongside Graham Coxon
Graham Coxon
Graham Leslie Coxon is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter. He came to prominence as the lead guitarist, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of rock band Blur, and is also a critically acclaimed solo artist, having recorded seven solo albums...
, Roddy Woomble
Roddy Woomble
Roderick "Roddy" Woomble is the lead singer of Scottish rock band, Idlewild and a solo contemporary folk musician. To date, Woomble has released six full-length studio albums with Idlewild, and two solo albums, My Secret is My Silence and The Impossible Song & Other Songs...
, Julie Fowlis
Julie Fowlis
Julie Fowlis is a Scottish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who sings primarily in Scottish Gaelic.-Musical career:Fowlis grew up in North Uist, an island in the Outer Hebrides, in a Gaelic-speaking community, and has been involved in singing, piping and dancing since she was a child.She is a...
and others.
In November 2007, Tams was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield Hallam University is a higher education institution in South Yorkshire, England, based on two sites in Sheffield. City Campus is located in the city centre, close to Sheffield railway station, and Collegiate Crescent Campus is about two miles away, adjacent to Ecclesall Road in...
, then in January 2009 another Honorary Doctorate from Derby University.