Summer 2021Ian Jenkins: Forty Years of Making Music

A lifetime of playing music has been the fulfilment of a dream for 64-year-old local professional entertainer Ian Jenkins.

Born into a family of musicians, Ian began playing cornet at the age of five and played in brass bands from the age of nine until he was 24.

Along with playing brass, Ian, whose family lived in Harpurhey when he was born but moved to Middleton when he was four, also taught himself to play piano.

As a keyboard player and vocalist, Ian has played in many bands, gracing the stage with some well-known stars along his musical journey.

Having taken his A-levels, including music, Ian left school and started work in the gas showroom in Middleton, but in his words, “working was only ever a means of funding my passion for playing music”.

Following working at the gas showroom, Ian took a position at Chase Music on Oldham Street in Manchester, demonstrating and selling keyboards.

In 1978 he started a rock band, called ‘Idol Fret’, with friends, playing the local pub and club scene, a highlight being a gig at the Apollo in Manchester. Though the band parted in 1982, the members remain friends and are still in touch to this day.

After a short stint as keyboard player in a funk rock band called ‘Red on Black’, Ian joined a ten-piece soul band, ‘Souled as Seen’. As well as being regulars on stage at The Carlton on George Street in Rochdale town centre, ‘Souled as Seen’ were booked as a support act for stars such as Russell Watson, Edwin Starr, The Real Thing, and in 1995 supported Jules Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra.

When Souled as Seen disbanded in 1999, Ian took time out from playing with bands before joining a functions/cabaret outfit called ‘Snapshot’. As well as instrumentalists (drums, bass guitar, guitar and keyboard), all four band members also sang, and Ian fondly remembers their “great harmonies."

Having worked the club scene throughout the North West, the band parted when one of the four secured a job with world-famous guitar makers, ‘Martin’, in America.

Finding himself at a musical loose end, Ian answered an advert and formed a band, called ‘The Woos’, with other local musicians, playing contemporary pop and rock covers in mainly local pubs, followed by a stint in another pub/functions band called ‘Ask Anyone’.

Alongside his musical career, Ian will be known to some in Rochdale for his work as fundraising manager for Springhill Hospice between 2001 and 2011.

He has also spent a couple of years working as an extra in the TV and film industry. This has included work on soaps such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale and one particular highlight, described by Ian as “great fun” was being an extra in the Harry Potter spin-off film ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them’.

A phone call out of the blue from Kevin Parrott, one half of music duo Brian and Michael, best known for their 1978 UK number one hit single ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’, led to Ian becoming the keyboard player in their backing band, playing gigs alongside famous names such as The Hollies, Swinging Blue Jeans, Easy Beats and Gida Park.

Ian said: “It was a privilege to play with guys who had had a number one hit, and I only left because I was so busy with my own work as a professional entertainer”. Having left his job at the hospice in 2011, Ian had begun playing keyboard and singing as a solo artist, and found himself being booked for between six and 10 gigs a week to entertain in care homes and dementia cafés."

Things changed dramatically in early 2020: when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Ian’s gigs dried up.

During that period with no gigs, Ian began working part-time as a Co-op member pioneer helping local not-for-profit groups with funding and awareness raising through the Co-op. He also had a chance conversation with Malcolm Journeaux, whom he had known for almost 20 years but had not been in touch with for a decade, which led to him joining local recording band, ‘Sable 097’.

In May this year, Ian’s bookings started again, he explained: “Having had both doses of vaccine, and testing twice a week, I am delighted to once again be enjoying entertaining ‘the young at heart’.”

After Rain Comes Sun is the first Sable 097 song to feature Ian on keyboard and vocals, after joining the band in November 2020. The song, written by Malcolm Journeaux and Ian, is a blues/jazz influenced number.

Music producer Duncan Rigby reviewed the song and had this to say: “On first hearing, this song triggered deep wide emotions; for me this is one of those songs which is on top of the game, all the parts make the whole. The track is cinematic in the visions it manifested for me: throwing a dinner jacket over my shoulder, undoing the bow tie whilst walking out of the casino/club into the rain, and then walking on to the dawn of a new day with a wry smile on my face.

“So the scene is set on your ears and then the two counterpoints emerge, one is the sultry saxophone, slightly jazz, dancing the melody and then... the vocal draws you in - I haven’t heard that perfect tone or phrasing for a long time, it’s done so naturally and eloquently on this track with an essence of the very young ‘Piano Man’, not a tribute act copy that is ‘like’, but the ‘same as’ and now."