The other day, I was watching Michael Powell's early masterpiece "The Edge of the World." Inspired by the evacuation of St Kilda, it tells the story of a community torn over the way forward - do they stay and make the best of the only life any of them have ever known, or do they cut their losses and leave?
Of course, Scotland has been gearing up to ask, and answer, a similar question for some time now, with a final agreement reached last year on a referendum for 2014 on whether it should remain part of the United Kingdom. As in Powell's film, there are voices on both sides of the argument, but it is a fairly fundamental question that faces the Scots - stick with the UK, or go it alone; reset the clocks to pre 1707 and forge a new path.
I've always been fairly persuaded that the SNP would lose that vote. But now we have to factor in something else. Europe.
The prospect on a referendum on the UK's future in the EU is a potential disruptor for the unionist cause. If the majority of the UK votes to leave the EU, but there isn't a majority in Scotland, then Scotland would presumably be taken out of the EU along with everyone else, but against the wishes of its population. Scots might presumably look over the border between now and 2014 and wonder what the English are thinking. The unionists have been saying that a vote for independence would be to introduce uncertainty over Scotland's future, particularly with regard to automatic continued membership of the EU. This is a fairly convincing argument. However, if we're now saying that the only way to guarantee continued Scottish presence within the EU (even if there has to be a hiatus while they apply for membership) is a vote FOR independence then the rules of the game have changed slightly. All of this presupposing of course that the Scots are more pro-EU in the first place.
Since devolution a lot of genies have escaped from a lot of bottles, and now that's happening on both sides of the border-that-currently-isn't-a-border. Mr Cameron could be shaping up as the Prime Minister who took Britain out of Europe and presided over the break-up of the UK. Well, it's certainly a legacy.....
Interesting times.
Friday, 25 January 2013
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
The electric heart of England
Last weekend's castaway on Desert Island Discs was Martin Carthy. Although he's rightly a folk legend, one of his throwaway lines in particular resonated with me - that the average man in the street would be "blown away" if a decent morris dancer danced in front of them.
I have to admit to being ambivalent about the morris - there is a certain element of leather elbow patched, Cortina driving geography teacher about its image, but it really doesn't do to be snobby about these things. Having said that, I still think anyone using the words "methinks," "mine host," or "quaffed" probably needs to be rapidly censured. I've come to be more appreciative of the genre and its place in our folklore since being in Oxfordshire (it's difficult to ignore on the streets of Oxford around May day), and done well it can be very good indeed.
But at the tail end of the 60s morris was moribund. After having been revived much earlier in the 20th century in Thaxted it had once again fallen by the wayside, with the early 1960s folk resurgence focusing much more tightly on Britain's musical heritage. So it must have seemed to many that the form was about to be lost.
If, then, you're Ashley Hutchings, riding high on the success of the early Fairport albums, you decide to do something about it. But what a something. It's genuinely difficult to pitch this to an impartial audience so if you've wandered here by accident you'll have to take my word for it; he made a folk-rock electric morris album.
Uniting morris' John Kirkpatrick with fiddler Barry Dransfield and Fairport's Dave Mattacks and Richard Thompson, they set about a deliberately uncurated album of morris tunes, with the idea not so much being to preserve the genre in aspic, as take it on through both traditional and modern instruments - morris as a living form even as it must have appeared in its death throes. Add in contributions from the ethereal Shirley Collins, and the Chingford Morris Men (God knows how they got them all in the studio), and they created something very special - vibrant, alive, shorn of cliche, and giving dignity to a very English folk form.
Particular highlights on the album range from the moment in Morris Call where a very tentative fiddle is utterly swamped by the joyous arrival of accordion, bass guitar and drums, right through to a barely controlled version of the Cuckoo's Nest (possibly the filthiest song in a genre not exactly known for holding back - it's right up there with say The Bonny Black Hare). Everything about Morris On screams England and Englishness - you've got ploughboys, drinking, sailors, tailors, and a bunch of raucous tunes any one of which, as Ashley Hutchings once remarked, would do as our national anthem (although, as suggested, some of the lyrics might be slightly problematic....).
The album is a folk rock essential, even for those who think they hate the morris - it brought morris to a new generation and was instrumental in kickstarting the resurgance of the art in the early 1970s. I've still got no wish to get involved in the dancing side of things, but it's great that other people want to do it, and Morris On holds a worthy, if ever so slightly bizarre, place in my affections.
I have to admit to being ambivalent about the morris - there is a certain element of leather elbow patched, Cortina driving geography teacher about its image, but it really doesn't do to be snobby about these things. Having said that, I still think anyone using the words "methinks," "mine host," or "quaffed" probably needs to be rapidly censured. I've come to be more appreciative of the genre and its place in our folklore since being in Oxfordshire (it's difficult to ignore on the streets of Oxford around May day), and done well it can be very good indeed.
But at the tail end of the 60s morris was moribund. After having been revived much earlier in the 20th century in Thaxted it had once again fallen by the wayside, with the early 1960s folk resurgence focusing much more tightly on Britain's musical heritage. So it must have seemed to many that the form was about to be lost.
If, then, you're Ashley Hutchings, riding high on the success of the early Fairport albums, you decide to do something about it. But what a something. It's genuinely difficult to pitch this to an impartial audience so if you've wandered here by accident you'll have to take my word for it; he made a folk-rock electric morris album.
Uniting morris' John Kirkpatrick with fiddler Barry Dransfield and Fairport's Dave Mattacks and Richard Thompson, they set about a deliberately uncurated album of morris tunes, with the idea not so much being to preserve the genre in aspic, as take it on through both traditional and modern instruments - morris as a living form even as it must have appeared in its death throes. Add in contributions from the ethereal Shirley Collins, and the Chingford Morris Men (God knows how they got them all in the studio), and they created something very special - vibrant, alive, shorn of cliche, and giving dignity to a very English folk form.
Particular highlights on the album range from the moment in Morris Call where a very tentative fiddle is utterly swamped by the joyous arrival of accordion, bass guitar and drums, right through to a barely controlled version of the Cuckoo's Nest (possibly the filthiest song in a genre not exactly known for holding back - it's right up there with say The Bonny Black Hare). Everything about Morris On screams England and Englishness - you've got ploughboys, drinking, sailors, tailors, and a bunch of raucous tunes any one of which, as Ashley Hutchings once remarked, would do as our national anthem (although, as suggested, some of the lyrics might be slightly problematic....).
The album is a folk rock essential, even for those who think they hate the morris - it brought morris to a new generation and was instrumental in kickstarting the resurgance of the art in the early 1970s. I've still got no wish to get involved in the dancing side of things, but it's great that other people want to do it, and Morris On holds a worthy, if ever so slightly bizarre, place in my affections.
Sunday, 20 January 2013
Hartlepool as muse
PG Wodehouse memorably reviewed the first Flashman novel in terms of privileged "watcher of the skies" observers being present at the birth of something special. I suppose, to extend a battered metaphor, that's how I felt at the Whitby Folk Festival in 2011.
A capella folk is not the most obvious genre for young musicians to start out in - risking credibility immediately by coming out somewhere on the spectrum between The Flying Pickets and a poor man's Ladysmith Black Mambazo. However, that night, high on the headland overlooking the harbour, we made the acquaintance of The Young 'Uns. Over a 45 minute set they showcased a seemingly effortless ability to marry three part harmony with North Eastern folk. Obviously, with a new band it's easiest to measure them by their interpretations of standards, and their rendition of John Ball certainly seemed competent enough. But what really made the difference was the strength of their own material. It just didn't seem like there was going to be a gap in the market any time soon for 3 twentysomethings and an accordion.
How wrong can you be? The Young 'Uns have a sound quite unlike anyone else out there currently. Seth Lakeman's a great fiddle player, but his material can seem a bit one note - if he had the courage to slow things down a bit and get rid of the softer folk rock elements he'd be roughly in the same ballpark. Similarly, if the Unthanks were just a bit more cheerful.....
The Young 'Uns first album, "When Our Grandfathers Said No," hit the streets at the back end of last year, and is about as far away from the North London "I can't get over Laura Marling" banjo feyness of your Mumfords as you can get (and a prudent man would like to go much further). What you've got here, is love, loss, heavy industry, beautiful harmonies, and the glamourisation of Hartlepool that that town has long unaccountably lacked.
I like Hartlepool personally; it has a certain honesty and stark beauty - especially to the north, where it shades round to Easington and Seaham Harbour. However, I'd be lying if I said I'd ever seen it as romantic - I once stood above the town and took in the panorama, from the steelworks via Cameron's Brewery to the nuclear power station, and wondered who the town fathers had upset.... The closing track on the album, Jenny Waits for Me, which they performed in Whitby 2 years ago, makes it all much clearer. This is real folk, it's also real life - from the depressing drudgery of "The Chemical Worker's Song," to the gruff honesty of "Love in a Northern Town," the Young 'Uns take you further into Britain's folk scene than many will be comfortable with, but God they can sing.
Disappointingly, they won't be at Cropredy this year (my one man lobbying mission obviously needs to step up a gear), but they are on the Whitby bill again - go and see them, and, if you can't, buy their album.
A capella folk is not the most obvious genre for young musicians to start out in - risking credibility immediately by coming out somewhere on the spectrum between The Flying Pickets and a poor man's Ladysmith Black Mambazo. However, that night, high on the headland overlooking the harbour, we made the acquaintance of The Young 'Uns. Over a 45 minute set they showcased a seemingly effortless ability to marry three part harmony with North Eastern folk. Obviously, with a new band it's easiest to measure them by their interpretations of standards, and their rendition of John Ball certainly seemed competent enough. But what really made the difference was the strength of their own material. It just didn't seem like there was going to be a gap in the market any time soon for 3 twentysomethings and an accordion.
How wrong can you be? The Young 'Uns have a sound quite unlike anyone else out there currently. Seth Lakeman's a great fiddle player, but his material can seem a bit one note - if he had the courage to slow things down a bit and get rid of the softer folk rock elements he'd be roughly in the same ballpark. Similarly, if the Unthanks were just a bit more cheerful.....
The Young 'Uns first album, "When Our Grandfathers Said No," hit the streets at the back end of last year, and is about as far away from the North London "I can't get over Laura Marling" banjo feyness of your Mumfords as you can get (and a prudent man would like to go much further). What you've got here, is love, loss, heavy industry, beautiful harmonies, and the glamourisation of Hartlepool that that town has long unaccountably lacked.
I like Hartlepool personally; it has a certain honesty and stark beauty - especially to the north, where it shades round to Easington and Seaham Harbour. However, I'd be lying if I said I'd ever seen it as romantic - I once stood above the town and took in the panorama, from the steelworks via Cameron's Brewery to the nuclear power station, and wondered who the town fathers had upset.... The closing track on the album, Jenny Waits for Me, which they performed in Whitby 2 years ago, makes it all much clearer. This is real folk, it's also real life - from the depressing drudgery of "The Chemical Worker's Song," to the gruff honesty of "Love in a Northern Town," the Young 'Uns take you further into Britain's folk scene than many will be comfortable with, but God they can sing.
Disappointingly, they won't be at Cropredy this year (my one man lobbying mission obviously needs to step up a gear), but they are on the Whitby bill again - go and see them, and, if you can't, buy their album.
Sunday, 19 August 2012
No More Parades
As the summer goes into overdrive just as peoples' thoughts start to turn to going back to work, and the Olympics retreat into what already feels like distant memory, so the TV channels unveil their autumn line-ups.
The most eye-catching of what has been announced so far is undoubtedly the BBC's adaptation of the Parade's End tetralogy, which starts on BBC 2 on Friday. The Sunday papers have pushed this heaily today, as the BBC's answer to the Downton Abbey behemoth, but I do hope that people aren't going to get too excited, as, unless Tom Stoppard has ripped tha heart out of it, Parade's End is a much more difficult and involving proposition than its ITV rival. You can almost feel the slight anxiety that this adaptation has caused amongst the litterati in their pre-screening articles. "Waugh we're ok with, we know where we are with Waugh - 500 words by tomorrow morning?" "Ah yes, Greene again - Catholicism, tortured soul, affairs" "Ford Madox Ford- ???"
Poor old Ford Madox Ford is little read these days, although he really deserves to be more mainstream. In part, I think it's a question of style. I've never really gone overboard on modernist writing, but his prose has a far greater clarity than Virginia Woolf, say, and his dialogue is better than Henry Green's (whom I think he probably most resembles). Persevere with the first 50 or so of the well over 800 pages of Parade's End, and once you "get" the narrative voice it's really absorbing stuff.
It would be unfair of me to blow the lid on the plot so I'll restrain myself, but I hope the cast are up to their roles. Benedict Cumberbatch has a tricky job to pull of as the lead, Tietjens is quite a difficult hero for the early 21st century. Even in the social milieu of pre Great War England his 18th century Tory attitudes mark him out from the crowd, and there are several occasions when you want to do nothing so much as give him a damn good shake. The problem of course is that he tends to just roll with whatever punches life throws at him; which, given the scheming of his ludicrous wife, and his (chaste) love for the young suffragette Valentine Wannop, are legion.
Where Ford succeeds is in exposing the destructive effects of the war on the class system and the rigid certainties of the Edwardian age. By offering Christopher Tietjens up as a saintly every man, we can observe the conflict as it deconstructs his personality and very sense of self, before rebuilding him anew.
I'll withold judgment for now (and the previews of the adaptation have been uniformly positive), but if they get Parade's End right, we could be looking at landmark television that can stand alongside Brideshead Revisited or The Jewel in the Crown. If they miss the mark, then perhaps the book is truly, as I suspect it might be, unfilmable.
Watch this space.
The most eye-catching of what has been announced so far is undoubtedly the BBC's adaptation of the Parade's End tetralogy, which starts on BBC 2 on Friday. The Sunday papers have pushed this heaily today, as the BBC's answer to the Downton Abbey behemoth, but I do hope that people aren't going to get too excited, as, unless Tom Stoppard has ripped tha heart out of it, Parade's End is a much more difficult and involving proposition than its ITV rival. You can almost feel the slight anxiety that this adaptation has caused amongst the litterati in their pre-screening articles. "Waugh we're ok with, we know where we are with Waugh - 500 words by tomorrow morning?" "Ah yes, Greene again - Catholicism, tortured soul, affairs" "Ford Madox Ford- ???"
Poor old Ford Madox Ford is little read these days, although he really deserves to be more mainstream. In part, I think it's a question of style. I've never really gone overboard on modernist writing, but his prose has a far greater clarity than Virginia Woolf, say, and his dialogue is better than Henry Green's (whom I think he probably most resembles). Persevere with the first 50 or so of the well over 800 pages of Parade's End, and once you "get" the narrative voice it's really absorbing stuff.
It would be unfair of me to blow the lid on the plot so I'll restrain myself, but I hope the cast are up to their roles. Benedict Cumberbatch has a tricky job to pull of as the lead, Tietjens is quite a difficult hero for the early 21st century. Even in the social milieu of pre Great War England his 18th century Tory attitudes mark him out from the crowd, and there are several occasions when you want to do nothing so much as give him a damn good shake. The problem of course is that he tends to just roll with whatever punches life throws at him; which, given the scheming of his ludicrous wife, and his (chaste) love for the young suffragette Valentine Wannop, are legion.
Where Ford succeeds is in exposing the destructive effects of the war on the class system and the rigid certainties of the Edwardian age. By offering Christopher Tietjens up as a saintly every man, we can observe the conflict as it deconstructs his personality and very sense of self, before rebuilding him anew.
I'll withold judgment for now (and the previews of the adaptation have been uniformly positive), but if they get Parade's End right, we could be looking at landmark television that can stand alongside Brideshead Revisited or The Jewel in the Crown. If they miss the mark, then perhaps the book is truly, as I suspect it might be, unfilmable.
Watch this space.
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Fun in the Sun - Or Cropredy for those who couldn't quite make it this year
Being the fine upstanding folk rock obsessive that I am, I thought I'd take myself off to the Cropredy Festival so that none of you had to go...
Blessed with astonishingly good weather this year, the scene was set for what I hoped was going to be 3 days of top quality folk. Was it? We'll come to Fairport in a bit. Read on....
The Highs:
Bellowhead - I've always been a bit ambivalent about them, but this was the weekend where I finally got the point. An absolutely storming set, and looked like they were enjoying themselves more than anyone else on the bill. Several albums purchased.
Calan - really good Welsh folk; sort of sound like 9/Jewel era Fairport (unsurprising maybe given the involvement of Maart), they even managed to work in a bit of clog dancing. Would have purchased the album, but it had sold out by the time I got to the tent.
Tarras - nice to see them back, after so nearly making it big round the turn of the last decade. Line-up's a bit different, but they make a good big sound!
Richard Thompson - he was a bit naughty really. It was billed as a solo set, second headlining on Friday, but then he brought on Mattacks, Pegg, Nicol, and blew the site away. We had some Bright Lights, a bit of Sandy, and the whole thing was a bit emotional.
The Middling:
Larkin Poe - just about got what they did, but they were probably a bit too "mainstream" for Cropredy.
Ellen and the Escapades - bland, inoffensive, nothing further to say...
Dead Flamingoes - I really wanted to like them, what with Kami Thompson being the singer (and sounding an awful lot like her mother), but even by the standards of folk the lyrics were bleak. If they cheer up a bit, they might be rather wonderful, but they're not there yet.
Big Country - sort of got it, but not my scene, and the new vocalist is a bit too different.
Legend - fun reggae covers band with some impressive session pedigree.
The Lows:
Joan Armatrading - I like her, I really do, but I'm not sure what she was doing at Cropredy. There was a hard core in front of the stage who were obviously enjoying themselves, but also a steady stream for the exits (she was the Friday headline), and lost me after about 20 minutes. In some ways I think it was through poor choice of material, but admittedly she wasn't helped by having to follow Richard Thompson.
Squeeze - why? Just why?
And so to Fairport, who came on at 2030 on Saturday night and played until midnight. Before we go any further, let me just list the personnel involved over the 3.5 hours so you get some idea of why this was one of the strongest Cropredy sets for a while:
Ashley Hutchings, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, Judy Dyble, Maartin Allcock, Gerry Conway, Jerry Donahue, Chris Leslie, Ric Sanders, Blair Dunlop, Kami Thompson, the excellent Kristina Donahue, and the two singers from Larkin Poe.
Given the above wouldn't it have been nice if they'd cobbled together the "Full House" era lineup and gone heavy on that? It would? Lucky they did then.
Set list (copied from Andy at talkawhile's post with due attribution as my own notes were illegible thanks to a combination of darkness, alcohol and emotion):
1. Mercy Bay 2. Albert & Ted 3. Fotheringay 4. I'll Keep It With Mine 5. Percy's Song 6. Lark In The Morning 7. Come All Ye 8. The Deserter 9. Walk Awhile 10. Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman 11. Sloth 12. Bring 'Em Down 13. White Dress 14. Night Time Girl 15. One More Chance 16. The Gas Almost Works, Cat On The Mixer, Three Left Feet (instr.) 17. Red Tide (by Rob Beattie) 18. Jewel In The Crown 19. Honor And Praise 20. Dangerous 21. Portmeirion 22. The Hiring Fair 23. The Brilliancy Method & The Cherokee Shuffle (instrumental) 24. The Hexamshire Lass 25. My Love Is In America 26. John Gaudie 27. Danny Jack's Reward 28. Farewell, Farewell 29. Matty Groves
Encore:
30. Meet On The Ledge
Well, where do you start? Swarb was excellent, stood up for most of it, and looked a lot better than he had at the Barbican during the Sandy tour earlier this year. Jerry D has always been one of my favourite guitarists and did little to disappoint here. Kami Thompson did a bit of a Sandy impression, Richard Thompson picked up where he'd left off the night before, and the whole field was singing bethankit (to horribly mangle PG Wodehouse).
Interesting use of the younger generation, which might point the future direction for the Fairport slot (at this rate, they'll have perfected the creation of a perpetual band!) Must stop rambling now, but Fairport alone made the festival one not to have missed - certainly the best set they've done for a decade I'd have said.
Oh, also enjoyed (and bought) the excellent 45th anniversary t-shirt they've produced which helpfully shows a lego character of each of the 25 people who have so far been member of the band!
Hopefully, if I can link the two for a moment, it's the start of an upswing for both Fairport and this blog.....
Blessed with astonishingly good weather this year, the scene was set for what I hoped was going to be 3 days of top quality folk. Was it? We'll come to Fairport in a bit. Read on....
The Highs:
Bellowhead - I've always been a bit ambivalent about them, but this was the weekend where I finally got the point. An absolutely storming set, and looked like they were enjoying themselves more than anyone else on the bill. Several albums purchased.
Calan - really good Welsh folk; sort of sound like 9/Jewel era Fairport (unsurprising maybe given the involvement of Maart), they even managed to work in a bit of clog dancing. Would have purchased the album, but it had sold out by the time I got to the tent.
Tarras - nice to see them back, after so nearly making it big round the turn of the last decade. Line-up's a bit different, but they make a good big sound!
Richard Thompson - he was a bit naughty really. It was billed as a solo set, second headlining on Friday, but then he brought on Mattacks, Pegg, Nicol, and blew the site away. We had some Bright Lights, a bit of Sandy, and the whole thing was a bit emotional.
The Middling:
Larkin Poe - just about got what they did, but they were probably a bit too "mainstream" for Cropredy.
Ellen and the Escapades - bland, inoffensive, nothing further to say...
Dead Flamingoes - I really wanted to like them, what with Kami Thompson being the singer (and sounding an awful lot like her mother), but even by the standards of folk the lyrics were bleak. If they cheer up a bit, they might be rather wonderful, but they're not there yet.
Big Country - sort of got it, but not my scene, and the new vocalist is a bit too different.
Legend - fun reggae covers band with some impressive session pedigree.
The Lows:
Joan Armatrading - I like her, I really do, but I'm not sure what she was doing at Cropredy. There was a hard core in front of the stage who were obviously enjoying themselves, but also a steady stream for the exits (she was the Friday headline), and lost me after about 20 minutes. In some ways I think it was through poor choice of material, but admittedly she wasn't helped by having to follow Richard Thompson.
Squeeze - why? Just why?
And so to Fairport, who came on at 2030 on Saturday night and played until midnight. Before we go any further, let me just list the personnel involved over the 3.5 hours so you get some idea of why this was one of the strongest Cropredy sets for a while:
Ashley Hutchings, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, Judy Dyble, Maartin Allcock, Gerry Conway, Jerry Donahue, Chris Leslie, Ric Sanders, Blair Dunlop, Kami Thompson, the excellent Kristina Donahue, and the two singers from Larkin Poe.
Given the above wouldn't it have been nice if they'd cobbled together the "Full House" era lineup and gone heavy on that? It would? Lucky they did then.
Set list (copied from Andy at talkawhile's post with due attribution as my own notes were illegible thanks to a combination of darkness, alcohol and emotion):
1. Mercy Bay 2. Albert & Ted 3. Fotheringay 4. I'll Keep It With Mine 5. Percy's Song 6. Lark In The Morning 7. Come All Ye 8. The Deserter 9. Walk Awhile 10. Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman 11. Sloth 12. Bring 'Em Down 13. White Dress 14. Night Time Girl 15. One More Chance 16. The Gas Almost Works, Cat On The Mixer, Three Left Feet (instr.) 17. Red Tide (by Rob Beattie) 18. Jewel In The Crown 19. Honor And Praise 20. Dangerous 21. Portmeirion 22. The Hiring Fair 23. The Brilliancy Method & The Cherokee Shuffle (instrumental) 24. The Hexamshire Lass 25. My Love Is In America 26. John Gaudie 27. Danny Jack's Reward 28. Farewell, Farewell 29. Matty Groves
Encore:
30. Meet On The Ledge
Well, where do you start? Swarb was excellent, stood up for most of it, and looked a lot better than he had at the Barbican during the Sandy tour earlier this year. Jerry D has always been one of my favourite guitarists and did little to disappoint here. Kami Thompson did a bit of a Sandy impression, Richard Thompson picked up where he'd left off the night before, and the whole field was singing bethankit (to horribly mangle PG Wodehouse).
Interesting use of the younger generation, which might point the future direction for the Fairport slot (at this rate, they'll have perfected the creation of a perpetual band!) Must stop rambling now, but Fairport alone made the festival one not to have missed - certainly the best set they've done for a decade I'd have said.
Oh, also enjoyed (and bought) the excellent 45th anniversary t-shirt they've produced which helpfully shows a lego character of each of the 25 people who have so far been member of the band!
Hopefully, if I can link the two for a moment, it's the start of an upswing for both Fairport and this blog.....
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Like An Old Fashioned Waltzer
The other day the estimable Jonathan Calder over at Liberal England drew attention to the Homage to Sandy Denny that’s currently touring
the UK, and posed the question as to whether she really was Britain’s greatest
singer songwriter. Last night, I took
myself off to the Barbican to find out…
Sandy has certainly always been difficult to pigeonhole, not
that that has ever stopped people. Her
early work with Strawbs and Fairport put her quite neatly into the folk
category, but I think that to see her as a purveyor of folk whimsy would be to
do her a great disservice. Nowadays, she
is frighteningly forgotten. I don’t mean
by the trad folk denizens of the Whitby or Sidmouth folk festivals, who still
recognise her even though she had arguably outgrown them even before she joined
Fairport Convention, or even by the attendees of the latter’s annual Cropredy
Festival. Mr Calder is absolutely right
when he contrasts Sandy with Nick Drake – once united in their relative
obscurity and unacknowledged genius, he has gone on to TV background music
ubiquity, while poor old Sandy, outside the cognoscenti, continues to languish.
The current tour is a restaging of a one-off show put
together for the 30th anniversary of her death in 2008, and features
a host of Sandy’s contemporaries, along with the best of a new generation of
folkies. Well, I say folkies, but it is
still as you would expect drawn largely from the compromised electro-folk end
of the scale, rather than the new-trad exponents like say the Young ‘Uns. A quite extraordinary line-up has been
assembled including Joan Wasser (Joan As Policewoman), Lavinia Blackwall from
Trembling Bells, Thea Gilmore, and Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside, coupled to
PP Arnold, most of Bellowhead and three people who actually knew Sandy well –
Maddy Prior, Jerry Donahue and the legend that is Dave Swarbrick.
Before we get on to the meat of the show, a quick word about
Swarb. He’s announced his retirement in
the near future, and to see him now is rather akin to seeing say Barry Cryer
performing with I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue – worth going a very great distance
to be in on it.
The material spans the whole of Sandy’s career from the
earliest days, through Fairport to the tragically short-lived Fotheringay, out
the other side with the North Star Grassman and the Ravens album which was
salvaged from the ruins of that band’s projected second album, and then onto
the solo work which saw her increasingly spread her wings and move beyond folk
through the course of the seventies.
Inevitably, some of the performances were stronger than
others – Lavinia Blackwall stands out as perhaps the most Sandy-like of the
cast, and her interpretation of A Sailor’s Life (accompanied by Swarb) was a
great intro. She then moved on to a
perfect rendition of the eerily bleak Late November, a song whose lyrics sound
traumatic enough before you know what the subject being obliquely treated is…. I did feel though that the evening was
weirdly stop-start, and a lot of the enjoyment depended on sympathy or
otherwise with the person who happened to be singing at the time. I thought Green Gartside’s highly distinctive
voice just about got through The North Star Grassman and the Ravens, but he
murdered Nothing More. I don’t think
there’s anything he could have done differently, and it’s a shame because
between songs he came across as possibly the most genuine fan, but it just wasn’t
for me.
Thea Gilmore ran through a few numbers from last year’s Don’t
Stop Singing, which confirmed Sandy’s status as a lyricist of the first rank I
think, but the night seemed on surer ground when it was going through the back
issues of the sandy songbook. Maddy
Prior got going with a slightly halting version of Fotheringay which had me
fearing she had some sort of throat infection, but as her vocal chords warmed
up over the evening she was on her usual transcendent form with a storming
rendition of John the Gun – a track crying out for its own horror film.
My personal highlight of the evening was when Maddy, Thea
and Lavinia combined with Swarb for a rendition of The Quiet Joys of
Brotherhood so perfect that any record label with half a brain will get it
released sooner rather than later – it really was joyous.
The male side of things was less satisfactory, I think
because you just don’t associate Sandy’s songs with anything much below an
alto. Having said that, the Dennis
Hopper Choppers’Ben Nicholls pulled off
a wonderful interpretation of Matty Groves (although I suppose, strictly
speaking, that’s “trad. Arr.” In any case).
Blair Dunlop got through a competent take on It’ll Be A Long Time, but
other than that, nothing else really stuck in my mind.
Joan Wasser, on the other hand, was a revelation. She;s another one that really ought to get
something from the night released because that woman was born to sing The
Lady. PP Arnold was extremely nervous,
and had to start I’m A Dreamer three times before getting beyond the first
verse, once she’d got over the hump though she was as good as you would
expect. Incidentally, for all Arnold’s
fans namecheck her work with Nick Drake, Roger Waters and Ike and Tina Turner,
I bet I was the only one there last night who first saw her onstage with Ocean
Colour Scene at the NEC in 1998….
Last night in many ways was an opportunity to sit down and
really put Sandy in context across the output of her career. Consequently, it was possible to see how much
she progressed as a writer, and experimented with different genres, whilst all
the time managing to pull off the difficult trick of being life affirming
whilst being very red wine at three am ( at trait she shares with early Barclay
James Harvest in that respect).
I suspect globe spanning fame will continue to elude her for
a while yet, although if enough of us keep the flame it can only be a matter of
time. Personally I think it went a long
way towards answering the question posed on Liberal England at the beginning of
the week:
“Up to a point, Lord Bonkers”
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
the head pokes up above the parapet
Blogging has somehow slipped back into hiatus - one thing after another seems to be conspiring to keep me away from the keyboard. Actually, it keeps me at the keyboard, but on the revenue earning stuff rather than the pleasure writing. Even the short stories have taken a bit of a back seat recently.
However, there is starting to be a light at the end of the tunnel again, and there's quite a bit to get through, so hopefully soon you'll be treated to my views on Sandy Denny, 10k road races, Loch Ness, and, if you believe the MOD rumour mill, catastrophic procurement U-turns that will render our new carriers what could euphemistically be termed "interesting"....
However, there is starting to be a light at the end of the tunnel again, and there's quite a bit to get through, so hopefully soon you'll be treated to my views on Sandy Denny, 10k road races, Loch Ness, and, if you believe the MOD rumour mill, catastrophic procurement U-turns that will render our new carriers what could euphemistically be termed "interesting"....
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