Tom Clough

Tom Clough (1881-1964), known as 'The Prince of Pipers', was an English player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. His three surviving recordings and his considerable body of music manuscripts, including his own compositions, give considerable insight into the traditional playing technique and style of the instrument. This is particularly so because at least four previous generations of the family had been pipers - they thus form a continuous link with the earliest players of the modern instrument. In contrast to the widely accepted notion of traditional folk music as an essentially rural activity, he and his family lived in the mining community of Newsham in south-east Northumberland, and were miners themselves.

Read the rest of the article on Wikipedia

Discography

There are only three recordings of him playing. You can find them occasionally on YouTube https://youtu.be/f5rGRr-CYu8

• Holey Ha'penny: Classic Recordings Of Traditional Music From The North-East Of England Topic Records 1976 Ho'ley Ha'penny / Elsie Marley Keel Row 2 versions

• The Northumbrian Small Pipes ‎(CD) Topic TSCD487 1996 Keel Row and 1 more…

• The Ace & Deuce Of Pipering (1906-1946) ‎(CD, Comp) Heritage HT CD 21 1993 The Keel Row

• Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History Of The World's Music Dust-to-Digital 2020 Tom Clough The Keel Row (Northumberland, United Kingdom)

Bibliography

The Clough Family of Newsham,(ISBN 0-902510-20-7, edited by Chris Ormston and Julia Say), was published by the Northumbrian Pipers' Society in 2000. https://www.northumbrianpipers.org.uk/product/the-clough-family-of-newsham-tune-book/

To English Traditional Players