Greg Hancock: Archaeologist turned Musician.

Something a bit different for the Heritage Journal today: a music review!

Our attention has been drawn to a recent album by Greg Hancock, an archaeologist turned musician.

 

His guitar playing has developed from roots in the new folk styles of the 70s and 80s, with influences from players like Nic Jones, Martin Simpson and Joni Mitchell, to become a unique, intricate style through which many different moods can be expressed, and different genres explored.

His songs deal with a wide range of topics – from love-gone-wrong and personal emotions to topical issues and current affairs but all share an unusual, slightly skewed view of the world and everything in it.

His album, entitled “A303” has received good reviews from people much better qualified to comment on the musical content than we are:

• Fatea – “Greg has a wonderful lightness of touch and tone, which is complimented perfectly by the talented group of musicians that support him throughout the album. Lyrics, vocals and melodies are all near perfect, and the intricate guitar work is at times truly breath-taking.”
• Folkwords – “‘A303’ is a collection of narrative-driven songs to make you think. Hancock moves through sadness and sorrow, sarcasm and sensitivity, reminiscences and recollections with his stories, each one a tiny cameo that takes the listener into his world.”
• Blues and Roots Radio – “A303 is the finest folk album I have had the pleasure of listening to in years, and it was impossible to write a review impartially because the impact of it, causing smiles, tears and happy memories to come flooding back”

The lyrics of the title track will be particularly evocative to readers of the Heritage Journal, recalling Greg’s days as an archaeologist working in the trenches:

Deep up to my elbows in Victorian shit
Trying to remember why I got involved with this
Then finding my first Roman coin at the bottom of a pit
And getting into trouble for going home with it
Weeks and months spent learning
How to tell the tell-tale signs
Of hand-flaked flint from Neolithic mines
And hours spent marking out medieval boundary lines

When you’re driving on the A303
I wonder if you’ve ever had the same thoughts as me
Fascination mixed with irony
Taking pictures with my mobile phone
Of piles of ancient stone

Greg can be seen performing live on his current Spring Tour throughout March in the south of England, with outlying gigs in Milton Keynes, London and Epping, and the full album is available for streaming or purchase from his web site.