Delwyn Siôn is a Welsh singer, songwriter and musician from Aberdare, a town in the Cynon Valley. Since he started making music, the valleys and their people have always been a key subject matter for him, as seen in his extensive discography. From 1971 to 1979, he was in the folk-rock band Hergest, where he sang and played guitar and keyboards. After Hergest’s disbandment, Delwyn Siôn created the progressive rock band Omega, which lasted until 1983. Since 1976, he’s also made his own solo music. His latest album, from 2022, is named ‘Arfer dod â Blode’ (Used to Bring Flowers), and it might just be available digitally this Christmas, according to Mr Siôn himself.
Today, he has joined me to talk about his music journey, the valleys, and the topic of his last album, his family history. Diolch o galon.
C (Cari): How did you get started in music?
DS (Delwyn Siôn): “Well, like most Welsh people, we either started in school, when we were in primary school, or in the chapel. I started in both, singing in chapel as a small boy, and then in school. Then, either with what we call the Eisteddfod, Christmas concerts and other concerts in school. I can’t actually remember not singing. I’ve always sung since I was about three or four years of age, which is very fortunate. I was born with a cleft palate, so I wasn’t really sure if I was going to be able to speak or sing. But a very good doctor, Mr Tempest, managed to correct my palate.”
C: When did your interest in folk and rock begin?
DS: “My interest in folk music and rock music started at the end of my time in secondary school. I’d say I was about 16, 17. I listened to loads of rock music on the radio, bought records on the television. And then one day, I decided to compete in the school Eisteddfod. I translated an English song by Dave Edmunds, ‘I Hear You Knocking’. But a friend of mine said, ‘You can’t do that, it must be an original song’. So, I wrote my first original song to compete in the Eisteddfod. I didn’t win. But I went on to the next Eisteddfod, and then that became a sounding board for me to carry on composing some more.”
C: What were your musical influences before you started?
DS: “In the beginning, I used to have piano lessons, so I played Beethoven. Then the Beatles arrived, Simon and Garfunkel arrived, the Kinks arrived, the Byrds arrived, and poor old Beethoven went back in the cupboard. I also had a love of Welsh folk music, because it had nice tunes, nice words, and there was a feeling that it belonged to us, that it was always there in the background. And I found out years later that my grandmother used to work as a maid in Aberpergwm House in Glynneath, which was the home of a lady who used to collect Welsh folk songs. And then more than anybody else, I think it was Paul Simon, James Taylor, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell who inspired me. Those are the four people who I thought the world of as composers. I tried copying them, and I was influenced by them. And they’re still my favourite four, really.”
C: Before Hergest formed, you’d already performed at an Eisteddfod in Swansea in 1971. What was your experience like?
DS: “In that eisteddfod, I heard a man called Dafydd Iwan singing. And I’d been singing in the valleys in both Welsh and English, but in 1971, when I heard him singing in Welsh, I decided that’s the path I would follow as well. Also, the judge was Huw Jones, and although I didn’t win, he felt I’d had a new sound. So then a year later, after I’d formed Hergest, Huw wanted me to record an EP. But I felt I’d prefer to record an EP with Hergest rather than just myself. And then I waited for five long years before I actually made my own solo album. But it was worth the wait, because I wasn’t ready in 1971, I needed the help of others around me. And then by 1976, I was ready.”
C: How have the valleys and the town that you grew up with helped first shape your music?
DS: “They definitely influenced me. It was very much a close community, very close-knit working class. And when I went to college, it was a big step, leaving the valley for the first time and living somewhere else. It was so different, meeting people from other parts of Wales, with very different backgrounds. And there was a great movement at the time to take people back to West Wales, to rural Wales. There wasn’t much thought for the valleys, and that, I think, inspired me to write some songs. When I left the valleys, I knew I was going to write a song about my hometown, and maybe about my family. After seeing so many people giving their attention to going back to rural Wales, I felt I had to raise my voice on behalf of the Welsh valleys. And that’s when I wrote Adferwch y Cymoedd, which was one of the songs people still connect me to as an early song of mine.”
C: You initially released the song ‘Adferwch y Cymoedd’ with Hergest, but then you re-recorded it with your next band, Omega. Why was that?
DS: “We rehearsed with Omega every week before we did our first concert. We probably rehearsed for over three months. We played the first concert, and we had our set, and as I got to know the musicians, they were playing around, and that inspired me to write a certain type of song. And then, I thought, ‘Wow, I’m sure this band could make another version of Adferwch y Cymoedd’. It was a song I felt proud of, in the sense that it was about my valley and my people. So, I started to rehearse it with Omega, and within two rehearsals of the song, I knew that this band was going to make an even better version, or a different version. A version that people would really enjoy, and Len Jones’ guitar work is astounding on it. Simon Tassano was the engineer, and he helped us achieve a really, really great sound for us, a big, open sound. We really enjoyed playing the song on stage as well. Although it was a slow song and a long song, people loved it. Once we sang Adferwch y Cymoedd, you could sense the audience. They really enjoyed the performance. We always play it. I think, to be honest, Adferwch y Cymoedd was one of the strongest songs we did. I’m very pleased I re-recorded it.”
C: While you were in Omega, Duran Duran’s management team took interest in you, but you chose not to pursue anything because you wanted to sing in Welsh. So, I wanted to ask you, what is the importance of singing in Welsh to you?
DS: “Well, I think once I got to college, I realised that there was a great need to stand up for the Welsh language, with Cymdeithas a’r Iaith Cymraeg, the Welsh Language Society, becoming more and more part of my college life. At the time, I didn’t feel I could give more to Cymdeithas a’r Iaith Cymraeg than my talent for writing songs, singing, and performing. So I decided that that’s what I’d do. My aim was to give as much as I could in Welsh, in song and in performance, and I felt that that was my contribution then to the fight to make sure the Welsh language survived. And it just felt right somehow. Some people protested, went to jail, etc. I felt I couldn’t do that. But what I did feel I could do was to develop the entertainment value of Welsh singing, and to appeal to a younger political audience. And I’m hoping that I did something of worth in that field. With Duran Duran, it was true, one of the members of the band had contacts in London, and the Duran Duran management contacted me and said, ‘Would you be interested in singing in English?’ Some of the band members in Omega, I think, would have liked to do it, but I felt by that time, one, I didn’t want to do it politically, but two, I don’t think I could have done it then, because I was then composing in Welsh only. I was thinking totally in Welsh as a composer, whereas back in 1971, 72, I did compose a few songs in English, but by 76, 77, 78, I don’t think I could have composed in English.”
C: As an artist, you’ve worked extensively with the legendary Welsh label Sain Records. From your point of view, what is its cultural significance?
DS: “Massive, massive. It meant that we could record for a Welsh company. We did some stuff for Dryw, a local Swansea company, but I don’t think they had the wherewithal to move on to incorporate the new bands that wanted to go through recording in a proper studio. Dryw would use the old BBC studios, which were small and didn’t have much equipment. Sain went to Rockfield Studios. Getting to record in Rockfield was incredible. That’s where all the big bands recorded. The sound was better, the instruments were better. We were totally focused and totally professional because we knew we were going to Rockfield. Then Sain developed their own studio and then an even bigger studio, a 16-track rather than the old 8-track. So everything was moving forward, and Sain really did push the boundaries.”
C: Why did you name your latest album ‘Arfer dod â Blode’ (Used to Bring Flowers), or how you wanted it to be named initially, ‘Arfer dod â Blode a Storïau eraill’ (On the Habit of Bringing Flowers and Other Stories)?
DS: “Well, it’s an album about my family. I thought I needed to remind myself of my roots in an album. Slowly but surely, I decided, ‘Oh, I could write a song about my uncle; I could write about my auntie losing her husband in a mining disaster’. So slowly, the album grew. And I had an auntie whose husband was the black sheep of the family. He wasn’t a very nice person. He was controlling and quite violent. I’d thought about writing the song [‘Arfer dod â Blode’, the name of the song and the name of the album], but I didn’t think I was ready. So, on the album, I wrote the song for her, in the sense that she would be standing in the window, expecting to see him come home with his food in the oven, and she caught sight of him by the front gate. Then, she’d have to rush back to the kitchen and get the food from the oven onto the table as he walked in through the back door. If she couldn’t manage that, he’d throw the food on the floor, and sometimes he would hit her. I know my grandfather had to be restrained at one point by the rest of the family to stop him from going down to ‘sort things out’, if I may be so subtle. But the wedding photo I have of them is so fashionable; it looks almost middle class for a working-class family. We were all in light suits, apart from my grandfather and grandmother. It looks like something out of an old Agatha Christie novel. It was all so joyful, and he would bring flowers home, and he’d be nice to her, but that soon faded away. She deserved her song. I wanted to bring the idea that this still happens back home in the valleys. Men are still controlling toward women. Not everybody, obviously, but it’s still something that happens. It’s still an old thing that shouldn’t be there anymore. It meant a lot to me to sing her story, so I went ahead and named the album after the song. It’s a sad song, which was also a change for me, but to me, it’s the best one in the album.”
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