It is the fall, or as we say in England, autumn. Whatever you call it this is a time for transition and renewal. When change comes some of us embrace the change and some of us fight tooth and nail to make things stay the same. Ultimately, we have to accept the new state of affairs and move on.
One week ago, last Wednesday, just after 8am, I was heading to the studio to do further work on the next McShane & Shaw album when the phone rang. It was my friend and musical partner Chris McShane. His words were succinct. Due to recent health concerns he needed to reduce his workload. Chris had made the incredibly difficult decision to retire from our duo McShane & Shaw, with immediate effect.
There is a bewildering array of feelings that go through you on receiving news like that. Anyone who has been through a life-changing moment knows what it is to have powerful feelings that swirl and surge within you, affecting your every thought and action.
But the ending of a musical partnership is unlike anything I’ve ever known. On one hand there is a certain inevitability that, from the moment of formation, a musical partnership will eventually end. Incredibly, even knowing this will one day happen, the act of making music with another person is so immersive that we willingly throw ourselves into it completely without a thought of when and how the end will finally come.
We’ve been playing together for over seven years. I was lucky to find in Chris that rare thing: a musical partner who was equal to my own talents and abilities in a way that made us both lift our game to benefit each other and, thereby, our entire act. And yet we’re so different. Obviously, there are the physical differences in stature. These made comedy easier to achieve since we were funny just to look at. Musically our very different training had made us both high achievers in our respective fields. Chris plays a variety of stringed instruments, picking out melodies and bass lines while effortlessly harmonising (it seemed to me) to my singing. My specialities within the duo were rhythm playing, lead singing harmonica and, latterly, the spoons.
We both loved song writing. Some of my favourite times were the practice rehearsals that were soon abandoned in favour of knocking a new song together. Chord changes, melodies and lyrics would emerge over a couple of hours. I now realise with dawning shock that these gems of recent songs we both envisioned singing time and time again will now never happen. Not with us at least. It seems impossible. It’s too early to know yet whether our song creations will wither on the vine or burst back into life at a later date.
In the aftermath of the news, I had the realisation that we had a gig booked for just over one week later. I performed the booking this past Sunday on my own. I was part of a 3-act variety show in our local Paramount Theatre. While I’ve been a solo act before, the thought of being onstage without Chris was daunting. (I remember the first time I saw Ernie Wise appear on TV after his comedy partner Eric Morecambe had passed away. He seemed so small and alone without Eric to reflect back at him using comic insults and one-liners). An announcement about the programme change was made just before my show and, with that, off I went. Solo again.
Losing my musical partner has been like losing a limb that I didn’t know I had. When you do music, you don’t realise until it’s taken away how much of you goes into being in sync with the sound and moves of someone else. Try to imagine all the hours of memorising and training yourself to move and make sounds that are in lock-step with the sounds and moves of another human. Take that human away and all the training and effort is suddenly redundant and, to all intents and purposes, worthless.
It has been such a good and precious time. A chance to share the highs and lows of shows that can go amazingly well, or amazingly badly. To share these times with a like-minded soul who knows exactly what it all means has been an infinite joy.
My family had a meeting and we realised that my time of caring for my parents on my own has also now passed. Mum and dad have gone into care. Within a few short weeks I find myself open for business as a solo act once again. And the show goes on.
I will miss McShane & Shaw for the rest of my life. But, as they say, when a door closes another one opens. And as summer gently pulls the door to on its warm breezes, barbecues and bathing suits, I welcome the autumn to deliver for me a landscape of colourful possibilities and magical moments waiting to be uncovered somewhere beneath its fallen leaves.
Keep Strumming and Smiling,
Ralph
P.S. Does anyone know what to do with 50 Disco Ukulele t-shirts, 10 Your Cars Too Big! baseball caps and 200 McShane & Shaw tote bags & stickers?