Anthony Toner - Earlyriser (2024)

In the 50s my grandmother Mary Toner would stitch together Morton’s flour sacks to make extra blankets for the children’s beds. My father once told me that he remembered on many mornings waking up to see the image of the blackbird at the foot of the bed. The blackbird was the logo for Morton’s Earlyriser flour at that time. I think many families did the same – the story seems familiar. I’ve been playing Arty McGlynn’s version of the tune ‘The Blackbird’ for years, and it often reminded me of the inky presence of the bird in my father’s childhood mornings – and also somehow, of the smell of bread baking downstairs.

As a teenager, when I started playing guitar, I used to hang around Ivor Gordon’s music shop on Long Commons in Coleraine, looking hungrily at the shiny instruments and the complicated equipment. The shop was upstairs above a bakery, so I have since associated the smell of fresh bread with unattainable gorgeous guitars.

Over a year ago, luthier Neil Robinson of Hook Guitars in Bangor kindly offered me a long-term loan of a beautiful handmade parlour guitar. ‘The Hooklet’ is all-mahogany, with stunning decorations and attention to detail. I had the idea of using it to record a handful of folk-style guitar instrumentals (I only have a few of these, like a small clutch of eggs, some of them directly inspired by Arty’s stunning, landmark collection McGlynn’s Fancy). I’ve added a couple of my own here. The intention was to honour Neil and his beautiful work. I should stress that I’m not usually this kind of guitarist, so these are very brief - and also occasionally misshapen. What goes into the oven is never quite what comes out.~Anthony