Sim Daley, builder of the acclaimed Daley Mandolins, and banjo picker with Cages Bend, shares this lovely remembrance of the Christmas season where he grew up in the south of England.

As some of you may know, in a former life I was a commercial fisherman in the small Cornish fishing village of Looe in the South West of England. I grew up in the village and as one of the predominant industries in the town, I naturally fell into the fishing trade. I worked on the boats pretty much from leaving school up to a few years before I moved to Nashville in 1995. I started off by crewing for other skippers & eventually worked my way up to owning and operating my own Trawler.

Christmas in Looe was always a special time of year for me. Not only did the fish market shut down for the Christmas holidays, around the 20th of December - which meant we could not go to sea until it re-opened again after Christmas - but the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Looe were reported to be the 3rd best in the whole of England!!

As I have said, it would all start off by the closing of the fishmarket. The next few days were spent mending fishing nets and give the boats a clean and scrub up. A good portion of our time spent ashore seemed to be spent in the cafe drinking mugs of steaming tea, eating big fried breakfasts and spinning yarns, or else in the pub for a pint at lunch time which usually developed into an all day session.

Christmas Eve was a tradition in itself. At lunch time everyone would descend on the Decker, one of the pubs in the town. They always had a local rock band called No Picnic playing live. Three or four hours later, and several pints of beer heavier, most people would stagger home to spend the evening lounging on the couch in front of the fire watching TV and eating Christmas goodies.

Christmas morning would start by unwrapping presents. Once this was accomplished, and a significant amount of chocolate consumed, I would sit and watch TV until the ordeal of Christmas dinner presented itself. To say the meal was big was always an understatement but somehow I managed to struggle through. As the inability to move subsided I would go for a walk down to the quay and if I was feeling really adventurous, an extended walk out to Hannafore Point. It was always nice to run into friends also walking their dinner off and spend time taking in the scenery and sharing good conversation. (more…)

Another CD we received at IBMA that we haven’t yet mentioned is Now I’m Lonely from Cages Bend. It’s a release well worth your attention, and we had held off posting about it on The Bluegrass Blog until online distribution was in effect.

The band is based in Nashville, and fronted by the husband/wife duo of Sim Daley and Missy Radeke-Daley. Missy handles the fiddle and the bulk of the lead vocals, with Sim on banjo. Missy has been playing bluegrass since she was a child with her family’s band, Misty Ridge.

Oddly enough, many folks in bluegrass and acoustic music know Sim from the mandolin world, as his Daley Mandolins are highly prized, and played by such noted artists as Dan Tyminski and Adam Steffey. He was born and grew up in England, developed a taste for the banjo and bluegrass music while still a youngster, and won the UK’s Edale Bluegrass Festival Banjo Contest in 1994.

They are joined by a trio of hot young pickers: Tony Watt on guitar, Jenni Lyn Gardner on mandolin and Daniel Hardin on bass. All three play brilliantly on the CD, with special emphasis on Watt’s rhythm and lead guitar, and Gardner’s vocals and mandolin work.

Now I’m Lonely was produced by Stephen Mougin, guitarist with Sam Bush, and the band credits him for the polished sound they achieved in the studio. Stephen also engineered and was deeply involved in helping select and arrange the songs for this project. The bulk of the songs are originals written by band members, and they show a dexterity in treating a variety of styles with authority - and passion.

Audio samples are available on the Cages Bend site, and on CD Baby.