Dullan, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Wrexham is today unveiled as one of four acts chosen to visit, write and perform at Paul & Mike McCartney’s childhood home (20 Forthlin Road) in “The Forthlin Sessions”, a performance that will be filmed on 17th June 2022, the eve of Paul’s 80th Birthday.
The National Trust this week (17 May 2022) announced the four acts chosen to play in The Forthlin Sessions, which launched last month to find unsigned musicians to play at 20 Forthlin Road, with the aim of inspiring new generations of creativity through the story of ‘an ordinary house, in an ordinary street’.
Dullan was chosen from hundreds of entries nationwide by a judging panel, including representatives of the National Trust, music writer, DJ and founder of Needle Mythology Records, Pete Paphides, and Paul’s brother Mike.
Sitting in the very same spots where around 30 of the world’s most famous songs, including ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Hold Me Tight’, ‘I’ll Follow The Sun’ and ‘When I’m 64’ were written and rehearsed, Dullan and three other aspiring acts will get the chance to soak up the atmosphere of the house renowned as “the birthplace of the Beatles” to help inspire them to write new music, which will be performed at 20 Forthlin Road on 17th June, ahead of Paul McCartney’s 80th Birthday. The acts will also be mentored by the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) ahead of the main event on 17th June and for six months afterwards.
Talking about this once in a lifetime experience at Forthlin Road, Dullan says: ‘’As someone who grew up playing and writing music, particularly with Paul McCartney as a primary influence, it is an incredible opportunity to have just a small part of his music’s legacy. Not only is this a tangible way of honouring that influence he has had for me personally, it’s also great to share this with other UK musicians.
Looking back at McCartney’s childhood and seeing what inspired his music, and by extension, a lot of British music afterwards, will be rather poetic done by up-and-coming artists in this way, and it means so much to be a part of that.’’
Celia Richardson, from the National Trust and one of The Forthlin Sessions judges says: “We had a really wide range of entries, from up and down the country, of different ages, backgrounds and musical genres, making the judging a tough decision. This is all about giving an opportunity to unsigned artists and more widely using the story of the house and the Forthlin Sessions to inspire the wider public. The walls of 20 Forthlin Road are still buzzing with creativity and we can’t wait to see how that inspires the four acts we’ve chosen.”
The acts are visiting 20 Forthlin Road on 17th May, where they will be given a tour of the house to learn about its history and meet Mike McCartney.
To help inspire the music the four acts will play on 17th June, the British public are also being asked to share on social media using #TheForthlinSessions what the creativity sparked at 20 Forthlin Road has meant to them. This could be a memory, a favourite song or how music, photography and art gave them courage to follow a different path in life.
To kick start this, a poem – ‘An Ordinary House, An Ordinary Street’ has been released. The short film features figures from the history of the house including Mike McCartney, the Quarry Men drummer Colin Hanton, Colin and Sylvia Hall, custodians of Mendips – John Lennon’s Liverpool home -and 20 Forthlin Road respectively. They appear alongside schoolboy Luca from the Wirral and a number of creatives from across the City of Liverpool, including former students of LIPA – the performing arts education institution – founded by Paul McCartney and Sir Mark Featherstone-Witty in 1996, in Paul and Mike’s old school.
