Stammer Band

Back in 2016, the British Stammering Association conference in Manchester saw the debut of a collective titled “Stammer Band”. This was a band comprising only people who stammer, and who would only play songs which were either about stammering, or which featured stammering.

It was the loosest of collectives. This happened partly out of necessity – band members were based all over the UK and Ireland. In this regard, I must give a special shout out to Ian Hickey, who was the only person other than me who could rehearse in Manchester regularly. So, by conference time, the skeleton of each song consisted of just Ian on drums, and me on guitar. In a hugely risky and vainglorious move, the first time the full band played together was at the conference itself. We had a 45 minute rehearsal on Friday night and that was it – we were the main entertainment following the Saturday gala dinner. To call the performance under-rehearsed would be an understatement.

Sadly (or perhaps not!) I am unaware of any record of the occasion. All I have is a grainy photograph, shown at the top of this post. From left to right are me (Max Gattie, guitar), Ronan Miller (bass), Steve Hignett (percussion), Stu Ford (vocals), Lynne Mackie (vocals), Michael Ryan (keys), Ravi Hensman (guitar) and (I think!) Steven Halliday, who seems to be on sound engineer duties. Ian Hickey is on drums but obscured. There were other performers too. But they will have to remain the stuff of legend, because this performance was too ad hoc for any documentary. Maybe some of the audience made videos? Do send them to me, and I’ll add them in the comments.

It is possible to recreate some of the atmosphere by recalling the set list. The combination of stammering and music is unexpectedly fierce – indeed, exploring the overlap is one of the reasons I started this blog. Among the huge number of songs to feature stammering, I’m not even sure which is the most famous. But a top contender, which was the centrepiece of the Manchester performance, is “My Generation”. The original by The Who is a classic, but it might be bettered by Patti Smith’s indelible cover:

A swathe of hit records featured stammering in the 1960s and 1970s – Changes by David Bowie, Lola by The Kinks, Bad to the Bone by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet by Bachmann-Turner Overdrive, My Sharona by the Knack, Cherry Bomb by The Runaways, and so on and so forth. We played most of these, or all of them – I can’t remember now. What’s striking is not just that these are hit records, but moreover that the stuttering improves them. Try to imagine any of the songs without the stuttered sections to see what I mean. When singing, stuttering is an attractive and valuable form of expression which enhances the underlying message. The juxtaposition with feelings about stuttering in the spoken word could hardly be more distinct.

These 1960s and 1970s songs are actually the second wave of stuttering in recorded music. Almost as soon as the phonograph was invented, songs with stuttering were recorded. Many of these early songs aren’t nice – the Locust Street blog has a thorough review. Most famous among them is K-K-Katy, released in 1918 by Bill Murray. This was apparently a huge hit. The song has by now been largely forgotten, and it might be for the best. Search out versions by Carmen Miranda or Mel Blanc to get a feeling of how questionably stuttering can be portrayed. I have no wish to traumatise my readers beyond the cloying melody, as demonstrated in this one man barbershop version:

Everything about the song seems dated. However, if you play it on an acoustic guitar using just downstrokes in the strum pattern, an indie twee version reminiscent of the Moldy Peaches is possible. So, of course, that’s what Stammer Band did. We also performed The Stuttering Lovers, an Irish music hall number from 1906 now known best in its version by the Clancy Brothers. But perhaps the oldest song we performed is this tune available only in an a capella version from Library of Congress. It goes nicely with a Travis fingerpicking style in G7 and C.

Stuttering in music has never ceased to be popular. After about 1980, representations of stuttering in song shifted with the pulse of popular music to expression through electronic manipulation. Think of Ride on Time by Black Box, No Limits by Two Unlimited, or any number of R&B/Urban hit records. Those songs are a discussion for another time – Stammer Band couldn’t really attempt them with its drums/guitar/keyboard/bass combination. There were also songs such as Welcome to the Jungle, by Guns’n’Roses, whose chorus has a magnificent stuttered section but which was simply too difficult for us. We did manage The Modern Age by the Strokes. And I can see from old emails that we were trying hard to work up a version of Sussudio, by Phil Collins, but I’m not sure if it ever happened.

Songs which are about stuttering are rarer than songs which feature stuttering. Several pop songs address a phenomenon in which people who don’t usually stutter have stutter-like dysfluencies when in dating situations. Examples are Stutter by Elastica, which we didn’t play, and Stutter by Maroon 5, which we did play. There are also songs about how distressing and isolating the experience of stuttering can be. A notable example is “Stutter” by James:

I found the linked performance, an audience recording from 2021, in the course of writing this post. “Stutter” is one of James’s earliest songs, and is also one of their signature songs. Search around on YouTube, and you’ll find a version from 1984, predating “Laid” or “Sit Down”, or any of their other big hits. It captures the full bore stuttering experience – simultaneously scary and glorious. I’d love to know how the song was written. Did the lyricist have a first hand experience of stuttering? Or was it imagined based on a friend or acquaintance? The chords and melody are a straightforward blues structure (e.g. base around Am and Dm), making it somewhat reminiscent of stuttering portrayals such as this one by John Lee Hooker:

However, the distinctive and jarring stop/start rhythmic pattern makes James’s “Stutter” harsh and confusing. It was a challenge to fit it in alongside the lighter and more celebratory pop-rock fare in the Stammer Band set.

There is much more to stuttering in song than outlined here. As with so many things stuttering, Judy Kuster’s website is a great resource. More on stuttering songs another time!