Best of 2025
27. 1. 2026 | Rubriky: Best of Year
[Ken Hunt, London] Let’s say goodbye to 2025 with an anniversary. At the very beginning of 2010 I pitched the idea for a regular column to Sean McGhee, the editor of RnR (after its original name Rock’n’Reel. My idea was to write about a socially engaged or political song or piece of music. I had approached another, since deceased magazine the previous autumn, eventually to be told “nobody’s interested in political song”. Sean welcomed the idea with alacrity and chose RPM as the column’s name. The column has now passed its fifteenth year.
In January 2009 I had seen the Plastic People of the Universe with my old Czech friend Jana Oršulíková at the Plastics’ London concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. That October, thanks to Petr Dorůžka, I was at Prague’s MOFFOM (Music on Film Film on Music) Festival drinking beer with one of the Plastics. There was a confluence of events going on. (Later, I spent hours sitting and talking with the Canadian translator and Plastics lyricist Paul Wilson in Ostrava.) Choosing them for first song in March 2010 came naturally. ‘Mír’ is a punk Zen koan of a song. ‘Mír’ means ‘peace’ in Russian and Czech alike. It has six words: “Mír, mír, mír/Jako toaletní/papír“. A free translation, with a little poetic licence, is “Peace, peace, peace/Just like a piece/Of bog roll”. (‘Bog roll’ is hajzl papír but sounds better than ‘toilet paper’.) The message was that peace, like toilet paper, was in short supply.
It set the column’s style. The first flush of songs included Tom Robinson discussing his brilliantly relevant ‘We Didn’t Know What Was Going On’, and a pairing of the Thai agit-prop group Carabou’s anti-imperialist ‘New York’ and ‘Tokyo’. The Ex learned the Hungarian folksong ‘Hidegen Fújnak A Szelek’ (‘Cold Winds Are Blowing’) had from Muzsikás’ Nem arról hajnallik, amerr‹l hajnallott (‘The sun doesn’t rise from the direction it used to’). The album became The Prisoner’s Song outside Hungary. That RPM included interviews with members of The Ex and Muzsikás’ Dániel Hamar. The message is nothing good comes from the East, that is, Russia. The column has covered the German revolutionary song ‘Die Gedanken sind frei’ (‘Thoughts are free’), Joni Mitchell’s harrowing ‘The Magdalene Laundries’ (published as new revelations emerged about the Roman Catholic Church’s abuses in Eire), and José Afonso’s Carnation Revolution signal song. ‘Grândola, Vila Morena’ (‘Grândola, swarthy town). We’ve had Nina Simone’s ‘Mississippi Goddamn’, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s ‘Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead’ and Sydney Carter’s ‘John Ball’ about the ‘hedge priest’ John Balle executed at St Albans in 1381. By the start of each year the whole year’s columns are planned. Many are timed for anniversaries. The first RPM of 2026 is Christy Moore’s ‘Viva la Quinte Brigada’. It marks the death of the Irish poet Charlie Donnelly fighting the fascists in February 1937 with the Abraham Lincoln battalion. I love it that Sean McGhee has never asked what’s coming. Perhaps there should be a book of the columns.
Over the course of 2025, I saw few buskers or street musicians in my travels. And still fewer who stood out. The musician that really shone out was an accordionist at in the tunnel system at Châtelet Métro station in Paris this December. His playing was worthy of a Joni Mitchell song. Châtelet is renowned for its inaccessibility for wheelchair users, people with motor disabilities or people who have problems with stairs. Its maze of tunnels and stairs go on and on. It does have great acoustics for French melodies, though.
And now it’s head down and back to Prince Heathen and the Age of Martin Carthy.
New releases aka Playlist
Nikol Bóková Trio / Hawk Springs Concert / Soleil et Pluie s.r.o. https://www.soleiletpluie.com
Nikol Bóková Quartet / Live At Colours of Ostrava / Soleil et Pluie s.r.o. https://www.soleiletpluie.com
Laura Cannell / Brightly Shone the Moon / Brawl https://brawlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/brightly-shone-the-moon
Martin Carthy / Transform Me Then Into A Fish / Hem Hem https://transformmethenintoafish.com
Tom Constanten / Solace / private release
Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars / Dreams / Loose Music
Robb Johnson & The Irregulars / Voila! Here We Are / Irregular Records
Sam Kelly / Dreamers Dawn / Hudson Records
Little Feat / Strike Up The Band / Hot Tomato www.littlefeat.net
Peggy Seeger / Teleology / Red Grape Music www.redgrape.com
Katie Spencer / What Love Is / www.katiespencer.net
Steve Tilston / Last Call Talking / Talking Elephant Records www.talkingelephant.co.uk
Historic releases, reissues and anthologies
Bob Dylan / Through the Open Window: The Bootleg Series Vol. 18 / Sony/Legacy
Dick Gaughan Untroubled: Live in Belfast 1979-82 / Last Night In Glasgow https://shop.lastnightfromglasgow.com/
Dick Gaughan / Live at the BBC 1972-79 / Last Night In Glasgow
Robert Hunter / Tiger Rose Rarities / Rhino
Petr Ostrouchov / Želary (Original Soundtrack) / Animal Music https://animalmusic.cz/en
Various / When Will They Ever Learn? / Cherryred Records https://www.cherryred.co.uk/
Events of 2025
Gerry Diver & Lisa Knapp / Hinterland launch / World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, Nine Elms, London / 1 March 2025
Corin Johnson (sculptor) / Folk Roots, New Routes exhibition / Fitzrovia Chapel, Fitzrovia, London / 7 April 2025
Iva Bittová and JeFis Duo / St Philip’s Church, Earl’s Court, London / 10 May 2025
The JeFis Duo is violinist Pavel Fischer and accordionist Jakub Jedlinsky.
Steve Tilston / TwickFolk, Twickenham, London / 11 May 2025
Shujaat Husain Khan / Legacy of the Maestrost / Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music, London / 6 September 2025
Rory McEwen (artist) / Nature’s Song exhibition, Garden Museum, Lambeth, London / 7 November 2025
Ben Edge (artist) / The Children of Albion exhibition / Fitzrovia Chapel / 7 November 2025
Triveni Quartet: An Homage to Zakir Hussain (Fazal Qureshi, Kala Ramnath, Jayanthi Kumaresh & Anantha Krishnan) / Ismaili Centre, London, South Kensington / Afternoon recital, 20 November 2025
Ten music projects revisited
Some new discoveries, some catching up, some music returned to for research or entertainment.
Café Tabuna / Re / Warner Music Mexico, 1994
Sara Cleveland / Ballads & Songs of the Upper Hudson Valley / Folk-Legacy Records, 1968 reissued https://folkways.si.edu/sara-cleveland/ballads-and-songs-of-the-u pper-hudson-valley
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra / Masterpieces by Ellington / Columbia/Legacy, 2004
Jayanthi Kumaresh / Mysterious Duality / EarthSync, 2010
Tom Lehrer / That Was The Year That Was / Reprise, 1965
Oskorri / Oskorri / Xoxoa Diskak, 1979
Polissia and Poltava Singers / Budema wesna spiwaty / Song Tree / private release, Radio Lublin, 2001
Mariana Sadovska curated the Song Tree project. In 2008, under the name Drevo (‘Tree’ in Ukrainian), she brought a sample of these Ukrainian folksingers to TFF Rudolstadt 2008. It was their third time outside their homeland. Hanna Czudinovycz from the village of Zelen village in Polissia told her: “I sing for you, because when I die maybe somebody somewhere will sing this song and remember.” With all that has gone on since the Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014, I have often thought about the six singers of Drevo and what happened to them.
More information at https://www.victormorozov.com/eng/mardiscogr.html
Joseph Spence / Encore: Unheard Recordings of Bahamian Guitar and Singing / Smithsonian Folkways, 2021
Wenzel & Band / Grünes Licht / Conträr, 2001
Various / Simply Heavenly (Original Broadway Cast) / Sepia Records https://www.sepiarecords.com/sepia1105.html
Top to bottom:
Busker in Châtelet, Paris, 2 December 2025
Steve Tilston at TwickFolk, Twickenham, 11 May 2025
All images (c) 2025 Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives