Global Hit

Kit Hawes

Audio: Play | Download

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Every now and then we check in on how folks somewhere around the world decide to spend their Friday night. Today we visit the English countryside town of Burford, where guitar virtuoso Kit Hawes fills the local pub with music and fans. Download MP3

• Kit Hawes on MySpace
• Global Hit archive
• Global Hit on Facebook

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: So what are you doing tonight?  Every now and then we check in on how folks somewhere around the world decide to spend their Friday night.  We end today’s program in the Cotswolds – the quintessential English countryside with sloping hills, rivers edged with willows, and shops with more tea cozies than you can count.  High Street in the beaucolic Cotswold town of Burford is bustling by day.  But when the sun sets, the boutiques empty out, the street quiets down, and one pub in particular fills up.  It’s the Cotswold Arms – a 14^th century stone corner store that was once a bicycle shop and a butcher’s.  Mostly locals lined the bar on this particular Friday night.

BARKEEP1: …Really, really fun; good atmosphere, so…

BARKEEP2: It’s typical, isn’t it?

WERMER: Typical, sure, but the barkeep isn’t pouring a typical English ale.  Instead?

BARKEEP3: A lot of wine.  A lot of wine, and we sell a lot of pink lemonade, as well, which is sort of a fruity, summery drink.

WERNER: Another draw, aside from the wine and Pimms, is the live music.  This night a local lad named Kit Hawes, playing acoustic guitar by the front windows.  Hawes was raised in the small town of Swindon, where he was weaned on Woodie Guthrie’s children’s songs.  As a teenager, Kit took to the music of guitar legend Django Reinhardt, and even learned to play some of his songs.  Funny story Kit told – it even had to do with this grandfather.

KIT HAWES: Well, his name is Harry Hawes, and I always heard stories of him being in a band that was famous, when I was young.  And my dad was searching – on the internet, he searched his name in.  And on the Pathe news archives came up the video from 1938 of his band, the [INDISCERNIBLE] playing.  And it’s astonishing, and he was playing a song that I’d been playing for about a year, before I’d even known he’d done it.  So it was really an amazing moment.

WERNER: The song was “Sweet Sue” – Kit didn’t put it on the bill at the pub.  Instead, he strummed Johnny Cash, some of his own stuff, and a classic Hungarian piece called “Csardas”.  It was written by Italian Vittorio Monti and is named after the traditional Hungarian dance.  It’s also a standard for gypsy bands.  At this pub in the Cotswolds, Kit Hawes played it solo.

[MUSIC]

WERNER: The flying fingers of Kit Hawes there.

Our theme music was composed by Eric Goldberg.

The World is produced by Andrew Sussman with Amy Bracken, Andrea Crossan, Joyce Hackel,

Carol Hills, David Leveille, April Peavey, Adeline Sire, Traci Tong, Marcus Wraight, and Carol Zall.

Ann Lopez is our director — assisted by Katherine Griffin.

Our editors are Ken Bader, Jennifer Goren, and Aaron Schachter.

William Troop is Senior Editor.

Chris Woolf is News Editor.

Our Managing Editor is Jonathan Dyer.

The Executive Producer of The World is Bob Ferrante.

From the Nan and Bill Harris Studios at WGBH, I’m Marco Werman.

You can join us on line at the-world-dot-org, where you can find out more about English acoustic  guitarist Kit Hawes.

Thanks for listening.  Have a great weekend.

[MUSIC]

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.