Giant Donut Discs ® – May 2011
2. 5. 2011 | Rubriky: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[by Ken Hunt, London] Darndest thing happened after drinking some fermented coconut juice. Passed out, woke up and I had been transported back to England and the only music I could hear was stuff with Martin Carthy on it. Still stranger it happened to coincide with his 70th birthday on 21 May 2011. Such a delightful coincidence. Truth is stranger than fiction. No, sorry, Ruth is stranger than Richard. Always get that wrong after a sea of reviving coconut cocktails.
The Rainbow – Martin Carthy
The Rainbow first appeared on disc on Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick’s 1969 masterpiece Prince Heathen. This is a solo version from 1978 that emerged out of the woodwork in 2010. Travelling over the North Yorkshire Moors on the way to interviewing Martin Carthy – or, in seadog terms, bearding him in his den – in Robin Hood’s Bay The January Man – Live in Belfast 1978 was a travelling companion.
The Rainbow, a tale of two maritime nations – Spain and England – at war, opens the Sunflower Folk Club set. But that isn’t why it leapt out. It leapt out because of its visual impact. This is harrowing stuff about no quarter given and, to introduce an anachronism, it is television for a pre-television age. From The January Man – Live in Belfast 1978 (Hux Records HUX119, 2010)
The Harry Lime Theme – Martin Carthy
Imagine the scenario. Anton Karas (1906-1985), who has shlepped his zither around to entertain his Wehrmacht comrades and officers, gets a gig in post-war Vienna. He comes to the attention of the British film director Carol Reed. He is making the film The Third Man. Reed hears the instrument’s far-fetched sound, probably has no flipping idea what a zither is, and hires Karas. The Harry Lime Theme becomes the film’s signature tune. Try unimagining that. It is so integral to the film’s atmosphere. Many years later, Carthy remembers and sets zither to guitar. Flaming brilliant. From Waiting For Angels (Topic TSCD527, 2004)
Bonny Kate – Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick
The title of this tune was in my head when we named our daughter. It was more influenced by Shirley Collins’ recording, though. This EP had long been out of catalogue by then. It was later missed off the Selections anthology even though most of No Songs appeared there. From No Songs (Fontana TE 17490, 1967)
Company Policy – Martin Carthy
One of Martin’s originals. When did war and warfare ever go out of fashion? This one concerns an extreme post of British outreach. “As an avid stamp collector when I was a little boy,” wrote Carthy in the notes, “I was, for some reason, fascinated by the Falkland Islands, and I remember first hearing the name Malvinas during the fifties and then approximately every ten years after that.” Yet another conflict that had nothing to do with oil. Oh, hang on, there was oil there as well. From Right of Passage (Topic TSCD 452, 1988)
The Maid And The Palmer – Brass Monkey
Can’t imagine life on this infernal island without this everyday story of incest and damnation, originally released in 1983. I think of this track and I conjure memories of my friend, Howard Evans who played trumpet and flugelhorn in Brass Monkey. And I picture a young girl dancing to this track. Her dad said of Brass Monkey, “It was the most exciting thing I’d heard in ten years.” Her name was Roseanne Lindley. Mostly I think of Howard. And him talking about Martin staying at their house in Carshalton and waking in the early hours to the sounds of “flaming Carthy” still playing his guitar downstairs long after everybody else had turned in, working on bedding in a piece instead of going to bed. From The Complete Brass Monkey (Topic TSCD467, 1993)
Rave On – Steeleye Span
Originally released as a single, this unaccompanied cover of the Buddy Holly song garnered some notoriety. At one point the needle sticks. The record player duly gets a knock and continues. Other territories, the Netherlands, for example, were not in on the vocal joke and therefore excised the offending ‘a-wella-a-wella’ ‘stuck’ section. After all, no sane person was going to release a faulty record deliberately. From the Carthy Contemporaries volume of The Carthy Chronicles (Free Reed FRQCD-60, 2001)
Byker Hill – Martin Carthy
A song that only got better. From Life and Limb (Special Delivery SPDCD1030, 1990)
Famous Flower of Serving Men – Martin Carthy
This studio recording fixes Carthy’s grafting of a tale on a tune half-inched from Hedy West. Its meaning and shifting meanings reinforce the latent potencies and potentialities of traditional song. He revisited the song on Waiting For Angels. From Shearwater (Castle Music CMQCD1096, 2005)
Stitch In Time – Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy popularised this song by his brother-in-law Mike Waterson. This is a live version recorded in December 1987 by Edward Haber, Natalie Budelis and Ilana Pelzig Cellum. It’s a morality tale about domestic violence. From the Carthy Contemporaries volume of The Carthy Chronicles (Free Reed FRQCD-60, 2001)
Prince Heathen – Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick
It is frankly impossible to imagine the impact, to put oneself back in those bygone shoes, of hearing Prince Heathen back in 1969. It felt like this song’s subject matter was just too outré to be sung aloud even though it derived from a published Child ballad. It concerns a battle of minds and wills. It involves non-consensual sex, marital rape and extraordinary cruelty. Carthy boldly and logically ditched the text’s happy ending in order to retain the force of this psycho-drama.
I first heard it in Collet’s at 70 New Oxford Street in London a week or two after its release. Hans Fried played the album to me and I had to have it. I bought my brand-new Fontana copy of Prince Heathen on the spot. It was an instance of financial recklessness that I have never regretted because this song has stayed with me ever since and with the passage of the years I have come to understand and appreciate it in different ways, for example, variously as a feminist, political and philosophical statement. This psychological drama is like a full-length feature film. From Prince Heathen (Topic TSCD344, 1994)
Small print
The image of Brass Monkey from the Goose Is Out, Dog Kennel Hill, London on 15 February 2009 is © Santosh Sidhu. The copyright of all other images lies with the respective photographers, companies and image-makers.