Best of 2023
29. 12. 2023 | Rubriky: Best of Year
[by Ken Hunt, London] Medical stuff prevented me working on Martin Carthy’s biography, Prince Heathen as much as I’d hoped in 2023. The upside was spending much of the year thinking about and challenging what I had already written. The downside was that for months all I could manage was to read or write for 10 to 30 minutes a day before being forced to rest.
In July the first, post-surgery turning-point was getting to experience the Rudolstadt Festival for the first time since Petr Dorůžka and I went together in 2019. Bizarrely I had completely forgotten writing an essay about the history of Folker magazine for the 2023 festival programme. The next, in late November, was Peggy Seeger and me talking as part of the MOTH Club’s all-day event Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records. https://mothclub.co.uk/ It felt marvellous getting back in the saddle. Word spread. By the end of December I had three bookings for ‘Meet the Artist’ conversations for three clients in two countries in the diary for 2024.
Musically 2023 was the bouncing back year after the pandemic. It was an extraordinary year for the kinds of folk and world music that has motivated me for decades as a writer. It was also the first chance for us to catch the Kronos Quartet and their Five Decades. Bittersweet too because a unique programme we had planned first for 2020, then 2021 got kicked into the long grass [post-2026…to be confirmed]…
New releases aka Playlist
Alistair Anderson / Hethpool Linn / White Meadow Records https://alistairanderson.bandcamp.com/album/hethpool-linn
Vráťa Brabenec & Romanovská Tichý / Nejsem na to zvyklá / Guerilla Records / available from https://cdmusic.cz/
Eliza Carthy and John Boden / Glad Christmas Comes / Hudson Records https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/
Mike Cooper / Life & Death in Paradise & Milan Live Acoustic 2018 / Paradise of Bachelors https://mikecooper.bandcamp.com
David Dorùžka Robert Fischmann Martin Novák / Gilgul / https://animalmusic.cz
Daoirí Farrell / The Wedding Above In Glencree / (Own Label) https://daoirifarrell1.bandcamp.com/
John Francis Flynn / Look Over the Wall, See the Sky / River Lea Recordings https://riverlea.bandcamp.com/album/look-over-the-wall-see-the-sky
Folkländer / So viele Wege Vol . 1 / Galileo https://galileo-records.com/
Folkländer / So viele Wege Vol . 2 / Galileo https://galileo-records.com/
Rhiannon Giddens / You’re The One / Nonesuch https://www.nonesuch.com/
Hack-Poets Guild / Blackletter Garland / One Little Independent Records wwww.olirecords.com
Liz Hanks / Land / Hudson Records / https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/
Jennie Higgins / Where Are All The Women? / (Own Label) https://jenniehiggins.bandcamp.com
Maggie Holland / The Dust of Rage / Irregular Records https://www.irregularrecords.co.uk/
Damir Imamovic / The World and All That It Holds / Smithsonian Folkways https://folkways.si.edu/
Lankum / False Lankum / Rough Trade https://lankum.bandcamp.com/
Alasdair Roberts / Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall / Drag City https://alasdairroberts.bandcamp.com/
Martin Simpson & Thomm Jutz / Nothing But Green Willow: The Songs of Mary Sands and Jane Gentry / Topic Records https://www.topicrecords.co.uk/
Jenny Sturgeon with Alice Allen and Grant Anderson / Wintergreen / https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/
Tęgie Chłopy/ Rakieta! / https://tegiechlopy.bandcamp.com/
Jon Wilks /Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost / (Own Label) https://jonwilks.online/
Historic releases, reissues and anthologies
Barbara Thompson / First Light /Jazz in Britain / www.jazzinbritain.co.uk
Various / Magic Cimbalom / No Ethno www.noethno.de
Events of 2023
Sarah McQuaid / TwickFolk, The Cabbage Patch, Twickenham / 22 January 2023
Eliza & Martin Carthy + The Restitution / Barbican, London / 4 February 2023
Dolly Collins and Maureen Duffy’s Missa Humana (‘Human Mass’) / Conway Hall, London / 25 February 2023
TwickFolk 40 / TwickFolk, The Cabbage Patch, Twickenham / 5 February 2023
Martin Simpson / Kings Place, London / 16 March 2023
Hack-Poets Guild / Cecil Sharp House, London / 23 March 2023
Folkländer / Burgterrasse Rudolstadt Festival / 8 and 9 July 2023
Tęgie Chłopy/ Konzertbühne and Am Markt, Rudolstadt Festival / 8 and 9 July 2023
A Filetta / Am Markt, Rudolstadt Festival / 8 July 2023
Leyla McCalla / Heidecksburg Große Bühne, Rudolstadt Festival / 9 July 2023
Eddi Reader / Union Chapel / 10 October 2023
Kronos Quartet / Five Decades / Barbican / 21 October 2023
Ranjana Ghatak / Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records / MOTH Club / 26 November 2023
Alasdair Roberts / Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records / MOTH Club / 26 November 2023
Robin Gillan & Ben Paley / Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records / MOTH Club / 26 November 2023
Martin Carthy with Jon Wilks / Kings Place, London / 10 December 2023
Ten music projects released before 2023. Some new discoveries, some catching up, some revisiting, some returned to for inspiration and/or entertaiment.
A Filetta / Bracana / Harmonia Mundi, 2008
The Chieftains / Bear’s Sonic Journals: The Foxhunt, The Chieftains Live in San Francisco 1973 & 1976 / 2022 https://owsleystanleyfoundation.org/bears-sonic-journals/
Spencer Davis / So Far / Evangeline, 2008
Dillard & Clark / The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark and Through the Morning, Through the Night / A&M/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, 1989 [out-of-print]
Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis / She Walks in Beauty / BMG, 2021
Katerina Göttlichová / Zimnice / Indies Scope https://www.indies.eu
John Hammond / So Many Roads / 1965, reissued Ace/Vanguard Masters, 2005
The Kossoy Sisters / Hop On Pretty Girls / Living Folk, 2002
Various / San Diego Folk Festival 1974 / KPBS, 1974 [out-of-print]
XTC / Apple Venus: Volume One, 1999
Top to bottom:Tęgie Chłopy, Folkländer and A Filetta. Unless otherwise stated, all original photos © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.
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