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        e-mail:  petefyfe@aol.com

        phone   020 8680 4302
 

 
       

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Chris Fyfe (1956-2007) Passed away on Friday 4th May 2007.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: The Hastings community have all been very supportive of Chris who has been a familiar face in the area for some years having emigrated from Croydon. Chris started his music career performing alongside brother Pete in a stage musical “Young Tom” (based on Tom Brown’s Schooldays) in 1971. Then again, with his identical twin brother Pete as THE FYFE BROTHERS, they quickly established themselves as folk club and festival favourites renowned for their duelling mandolin performances. As residents for over seven years at the famed Half Moon in Putney, Pete & Chris were used to being invited to play alongside any number of well established artists including Rory Gallagher or anyone else that required dueting mandolins! (One other thing about their Half Moon gig; a certain Declan McManus used to support Eavesdropper before he went onto International fame as Elvis Costello – how’s that for name-dropping)?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: They progressed to work with the folk/rock band HECK SPECKLE’S PHANTOM (which also included two fiddlers!) and when that band broke up, they were joined by fiddler Bill Perring to become THE KITCHEN BAND. This unit worked together for two years and were part of the line-up for Fairport Convention’s Farewell (?) Festival. EAVESDROPPER was the duo’s next project and it was with this band that they became nationally recognised with their first appearance at the Wimbledon Theatre supporting Fairport which according to Richard Digance “…pulled the rug from under the headliners!” Recording ‘The March Hare’ the title track of the album featuring Chris’s stunning mandolin playing the track was used by numerous folk radio programmes as their intro music. After disbanding Eavesdropper, Chris and Pete worked in the Celtic Rock band COLLABORATION. The background to the band’s debut gig at The Cambridge Folk Festival no less is best summed up as six weeks of Hell (due to two of the original members departing early). But, the festival appearance was greeted with glowing accolades from everyone who saw them. That weekend also witnessed the birth of a new Morris Dance craze ‘plastic bottle bashing’ when Chris and Pete decided to conjure up a ‘folk’ version of ‘Smoke On The Water’. Another notable event came about when Chris & Pete joined Richard Digance at Capital Radio (to help him keep awake) on one of his early morning shows. Hale & Pace – yet to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world stage - were also in the studio and asked the twins where they came from. Thus was born the Pipesmokers Association Of Croydon whose ‘problem page’ ended when a terrified station manager (on being told that a listener had phoned in with a really serious problem!) telling Richard off for using insensitive behaviour. Some time later when Chris moved to Hastings he quickly became an established part of the folk music fraternity and formed THE STAG BAND at The Stag pub in the Old Town along with many local musicians including Charlie Gask, Russ Haywood and Pete Sedgewick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Chris was a real gentle-man who, via the local Hastings Observer gained the nick-name “Mr Angry Of Hastings” although all those that knew him knew he loved Hastings and only wanted to see justice served for an area he had such compassion for. He will be greatly missed by all his many friends and particularly his brother Pete.

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Chris Fyfe (1956-2007)