Red Shoes History 

Once there was a band, in Redditch Worcestershire,  called Basement Daze.  As I understand it, it was Carolyn (Cook) on vocals,  two synthesizer players, a bass player (and band leader) Pete Deeves and a drummer, John Bate.    The band felt they needed a guitarist to fill out the sound and they  advertised, probably in the Birmingham Mail.    Mark Evans answered the  advert,  and ended up more or less taking over.  He sacked the synth players - and Mr Deeves -  replacing the bass player with long time collaborator Derek Eynon (i.e. me)  and eventually married Carolyn.   I sacked John Bate,  well  I sacked  his dad, to be absolutely accurate, he answered the phone that day and they had the absence of forethought to have the same name as one another.

With a completely rebuilt set and band and renamed Red Shoes (from the idea that you can’t stop dancing to it/them)   and with a guest drummer (Nick someone from UB40’s organisation, DEP International)   they played the first gig at The Junction, Harborne, Birmingham in 1983, supporting Nick’s band Distortion.

The band then recruited Mark “Wombat” Mullen as  permanent  drummer and became a very popular live act in the West Midlands .  Later Wombat  was replaced by  another Nick : "No nickname Nick"  Millward “whose profound skills on the kit transformed the band” – What’s On.     

After various radio sessions  Red Shoes released  two singles during  the 80’s:  All Fall Down on the band’s own label, which received airplay in the USA and was much admired by Howie Klein (later to become president of Reprise).  Clive Gregson  played the  guitar solo  on the band’s recording of Jumper Of Love on the B side of All Fall Down.    

The second single, released in 1987,  was By The Time It Gets Dark, written by Sandy Denny and released on Island’s  Mooncrest label.  “A Spine-shivering version, drawing praise and production interest from legendary Fairport producer Joe Boyd”,  wrote  Mike Davies, in What’s On.   By The Time It Gets Dark received airplay on Radio 1 and also in The USA and Canada. 

In 1987 the band recorded a full album at Wolverhampton’s Mad Hat Studios. These recordings, titled “Something Wicked” , were never released,  though a selection is now posted on Soundcloud.

The band constantly approached record labels such as Stiff and were even under observation  from Geffen's A& R Rovena Cardiel  at one time:  "Rovena Cardiel, a tenacious and pretty hustler who ran the local office of Geffen Records."  - Mike Scott, The Waterboys 

Reportedly, the minutes from a Geffen  board meeting detail a conversation proposing to send Red Shoes out on tour, as support to Fleetwood Mac.  None of this ever came to anything;  the band were never signed, other than for that  one Mooncrest single.        

In 1989 the band went on  hiatus, as Mark and Carolyn had then married, and were expecting their first child.  

In 1990, Mark, Carolyn and Derek resumed playing, this time under the name “The Lorelei”,   with a second female vocalist Madeline Mann also including Shane Ball (electric guitar) ,  Lloyd Mattis (Vocals) and Adrian Norris (Octomandola) . There were  no drums.   This line up, despite having some fine  new material, for example “Keep On Loving You” and “Hostile Place” ;both of which would be magnificently  re recorded in the Fairport  era, The Lorelei  failed to engage Red Shoes fans -   or  indeed to attract new ones.   The Lorelei project   was  abandoned in 1991.

On to 1994 Derek and Mark travelled to London to witness  the  first UK  tour by   Counting Crows, with support from Roachford.   The two acts seemed to echo  both  the electric  and the acoustic facets  of Red  Shoes and the venue was sold out  with rapturous fans.  Then and there Mark and Derek decided to resurrect Red Shoes.  Nick Millward was unavailable, touring the world with Kenny Ball, so local drummer and folk fan Bert Priest  stepped in.  He was also capable of playing  bass, and with Derek playing mandolin on some songs, the band were able to field five instruments and four vocals from four people.        The first gig, an acoustic warm up, was back at The Junction, Harborne,  and twenty or so people were invited.  The comeback gig proper was at The Hibernian  with support from Rubber Monkey,  when around fifty people attended,  which whilst they were very enthusiastic,  was a disappointing turnout from the get go.  Red Shoes had routinely pulled a hundred or more people into stronghold venues like The Bredon Bar,   Peacocks and Piranhas,  back in the day.  It soon became clear that the world had turned.   Despite the band’s former  legendary  status and strong press support it became evident that the younger bands on the circuit were able to pull in far more people to live shows and in 1996, after a final show at a Firkin pub – back in Harborne –  Red Shoes ceased trading once more.

Another five years on  and  World International asked Red  Shoes to play at the prestigious Midland Arts Centre at Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham,  a double header with Dave Onions on November 5th 2000.   This was a sell out show – admittedly with only a capacity of 60 – and was one of only two shows ever  with a lineup of Carolyn Evans vocals/guitar, Mark Evans vocals/guitar and Derek Eynon on lead acoustic guitar, mandolin and vocals.  It was entirely  unamplified and  also featured for the first time  “the story behind the song”    which is sometimes still done in the 2023 format.     This format was repeated early in 2001 at Robin 2 Bilston,  but after  that there were  no more shows.

Nothing to tell after this …until:

Flashing forward now to the 2000’s, Mark and Carolyn's  demos of new material  in 2007 drew the interest of Fairport Convention bassist  Dave Pegg who went on  to produce the band’s three album sets; “Ring Around The Land”   “All The  Good Friends” and “It Isn’t Over Yet”  Fairport also covered Red Shoes’  original song  Celtic Moon  on their  Festival Bell  album and performed same on stage at the legendary Cropredy.    These albums drew guest  appearances from  Dave Pegg, Dave Swarbrick, Ric Sanders, Chris Leslie,   Joe Brown and ELO’s Bev Bevan.   

The band has since gone  on to become a folk festival favourite in it’s own right;  performing most recently at The New Forest Folk Festival  (2021) The South Downs Folk Festival (2021) Banbury (2022) and Cropredy Fringe (2022) with a line up of Carolyn , Mark and guitarist Nigel King for some shows and  Carolyn, Mark and Derek Eynon for others.