The song ‘Blow The Man Down’ is an old English sea chanty of course from the back end of the 1800s, it was popularised by the Popeye cartoons as it featured (in tune only) as the background music to the infamous baddy Bluto! Our version features yours truly singing lead vocals with my partner in crime Mike Wilbury on backing vocals, the searing guitar track is provided by Mark Sansom of The Kinx with drums played by the one and only Steve Farmer. Please take a look at the gig guide on the band’s site and go see them sometime! She currently performs in a Lincoln (UK) based five piece soul/rock/blues band called Caught Red Handed where you can see her playing the keyboards. From there she progressed to piano accordion performing French, Russian and Italian tunes typical of the instrument. By the age of 9 was also learning the keyboard and performing small live gigs as ‘The Emerald Roses’ with her sister Sarah (who sings backing vocals on Irish Lullaby by the way).

A brilliant and professional job was done by Charlene so many, many thanks go out to her and her husband Mark for being part of our project.Ĭharlene started to learn her first instrument, the tin whistle when she was only 7, she was learning Traditional Irish tunes right from the start. A piano accordion is a wind instrument with a keyboard, chord buttons and with squeezable bellows providing the wind – it swells in a characteristic way and is perfect for French, Russian and Italian music.īack to Charlene: what a musician she turned out to be, ending up playing accordion on this week’s free download ‘Blow The Man Down’ as well as on Five Little Frogs, Oh Suzanna, Nicky Nacky Nocky Noo and Sleep Sweet Babe (from the Lullaby Album) as well as providing Irish Whistle on To Market, To Market, Sing Sing Sing (This Song Grows), Little Robin Redbreast and finally Irish Lullaby (Toora Loora Looral) where she even provided the mezmorising lead vocal not bad for coming over to do ‘one or two bits’ for her husband’s work colleague. Anyway Charlene was duly invited to come over to Comfy Towers recording studio to add some real ‘live’ accordion and whistle to some of the tracks I was working on. I wish I’d known that at the start of The Nursery Rhyme Collection – but by now we were producing Volumes 5-8. Charlene is the wife of a friend I currently work with and in a conversation with him he informed me that his wife played both the accordion and Irish whistle. This week features the wonderful piano accordion playing of Charlene Pike.

Song 43 (2015, October 2): Blow The Man DownĪrticle by Ian Watts, Producer of The Nursery Rhyme Collections ('right click' on the link, then 'save as')

Nursery rhymes mp3 album free download