Ken Hunt

Best of 2024

[Ken Hunt, London] 2023 into 2024 felt like bursting smiling into sunshine after being under one of the darkest clouds imaginable. In July 2024 I went back to the Rudolstadt Festival. The 2023 Festival had been really important. Santosh and I arrived there a month after being discharged from hospital and six weeks after major surgery. I guess I really needed to get there. I finished dressing and sterilising my operation wound in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg was the first Kiez (‘neighbourhood’) of Berlin where I felt totally at home in and I first visited West Berlin in 1970. Kreuzberg is the first multicultural district of Berlin I’ve encountered and I’ve been going there since the 1990s.

The 2024 Festival was immeasurably better. Shit journey from Prague with delays and missed trains. Thanks for nothing, Deutsche Bahn. We checked in at the festival office and hotel and bee-lined straight to Iva Bittová and Antonín Fajt’s concert at the Stadtkirche (‘town church’).

This year, again, Peter Uhlmann (1950-2018), one of the co-founders of the festival was on my mind. I met him in July 1991, the first year of the festival. He and I got a chance to talk deep and heavy in July 2018. This year his wife Christine and I left the others and walked together to the English elm planted in his memory in the Heinepark. Peter was responsible for the festival’s street music component. Name another festival programming street music. In 1991 Peter focussed my head. Ever after I have paid more attention to street entertainers and buskers. And have dropped coin into hats. The doyen of Cologne’s street musicians, Klaus der Geiger came back in 2024. Naturally, he figures in my Germany chapter in the third edition of the Rough Guide to World Music. If there was one mention of a street musicians in any other chapter in any other volume, I never spotted it. I saw Klaus der Geiger performing in the grounds of the Schillerhaus where Goethe and Schiller supposedly first met.

Anyway, Deutsche Bahn and České dráhy, between them, wrecked returning to Prague by train. Iva Bittová and Antonín Fajt graciously gave us a lift back to Prague. It was a journey filled with talk about Czechoslovak literature, Moravian music, cabbages and kings. Toni got so wrapped up in talk about Kafka and Hašek that he decided to stay in Prague and heard back to Brno by coach. We ate at what I like to call my Prague office, U Zavěšenýho Kafe on Loretánská (formerly Úvoz at the bottom of the hill) Then we took the 22 down to the Franz Kafka Museum. Toni helped me with something bothering me for the Martin Carthy biography. (The work progresses.) I also brought Reiner Stach’s three-volume German-language biography of Kafka back from the festival, thanks to Bernhard Hanneken.

2024 saw me return to reviewing music from the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. To be honest, post-Covid and post-Brexit, most of my outlets had gone. I came out of retirement for Aruna Sairam’s recital at the Darbar Festival at the Barbican Centre on Sunday, 17 October 2024. And she sang magnificently. Pulse commissioned me to review the concert. I thank them enormously. After the concert we talked at length.

The prospect of one side-commission for 2025 is already exciting me enormously. It would take a great deal to divert me from the Martin Carthy biography. It is special – which is all I can say right now.

New releases aka Playlist

Laurie Anderson / Amelia / Nonesuch Records www.nonesuch.com
Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings / Parlour Ballads / Hudson Records https://hudsonrecords.co.uk
Nikol Bóková Trio / Feathers / Soleil et Pluie www.soleiletpluie.com
Johnny Campbell / True North / (Own Label) Bandcamp https://johnnycampbell.bandcamp.com/
Hlaskontrabas Oktet / Kaleidoscapes / Animal Music https://animalmusic.cz/en
Lankum / Live in Dublin / https://www.roughtrade.com
MichaelAnnJillo / I’ll Give You One More As You Go / Rezound [No website information from Contact michaelannjillocd@gmail.com with details of your address for PayPal information.]
Angeline Morrison / Ophelia / (Own Label) https://angelinemorrisonmusic.bandcamp.com
Mucha Quartet / Štyria hudci/Four Fellow Musicians / Pavian Records www.drhorak.sk
Rachel Newton / Sealladh / Hudson Records https://hudsonrecords.co.uk
Silk Road Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens /American Railroad / Nonesuch Records www.nonesuch.com
Martin Simpson / Skydancers / Topic Records www.topicrecords.co.uk
Seb Stone / Young Tamlyn’s Away / Scribe Records www.scriberecords.co.uk and www.sebstonefolk.co.uk
Linda Thompson / Proxy Music / Storysound Records http://storysoundrecords.com/
Richard Thompson / Ship To Shore / New West Records https://newwestrecords.com/
Macdara Yeates / Traditional Singing from Dublin / Bandcamp https://macdarayeates.bandcamp.com

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

Martin Hayes & The Common Ground Ensemble / Peggy’s Dream / 251 Records
Richard Thompson Band / Historic Classic Concert – Live in Nottingham 1986 / The Store For Music www.thestoreformusic.com
Emil Viklický / Za horama, za lesama. Beyond The Mountains, Beyond The Words / Supraphon Music Publishing www.supraphon.com / or available from https://cdmusic.cz/inshop/scripts/search.aspx?q=Za+Horama%2C+Zu+L esama

Events of 2024

Angrusori, featuring Nils Henrik Asheim and Iva Bittová / Grand Junction, St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Paddington / 17 January 2024
Iva Bittová and Antonín Fajt / Stadtkirche, Rudolstadt Festival / 5 July 2024
Klaus der Geiger / Schillerhaus, Rudolstadt Festival / 6 July 2024
Iva Bittová and the Mucha Quartet / Stadtkirche, Rudolstadt Festival / 7 July 2024
Leon Rosselson’s 90th Birthday Bash, The Studio, The Questors Theatre, Ealing / 28 July 2024
Nancy Kerr & James Fagan / TwickFolk, The Cabbage Patch, Twickenham / 29 September 2024
http://www.pulseconnects.com/aruna-sairam-darbar-festival
June Tabor and The Oysterband / Barbican Centre, London / 20 October 2024
Aruna Sairam / Darbar Festival, Barbican Centre, London / 27 October 2024
Nikol Bóková Quartet / Spice Jazz Soho, EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 / 28th Made in Prague Festival, The Crazy Coqs, Brasserie Zédel, Soho / 18 November 2024
Hamilton : An American Musical / Victoria Palace Theatre, London / 23 November 2024

Ten music projects released before 2024. Some new discoveries, some catching up, some revisitings, some music returned to for inspiration and entertaiment.

Angrusori / Live at Tou / Hudson Records, 2020
Nikol Bóková / Expedition / Soleil et Pluie, 2023 www.soleiletpluie.com
Jackson Browne / For Everyman / Elektra/Asylum, 1973
Burd Ellen / Says the never beyond / [own label], 2020, www.burdellen.com
Jerry Garcia All Good Things: Jerry Garcia Studio Sessions / Jerry Garcia Estate and Warners, 2004 out-of-print
Nancy Kerr & James Fagan / An Evening With Nancy Kerr & James Fagan / Little Dish, 2019
Joseph Spence and The Pinder Family / The Spring of Sixty-Five / Rounder, 1992
Škampa Quartet / Kaprál Kaprálová Martinů String Quartets / Radioservis, 2012 www.radioteka.cz
Various / Proměny v čase: Tradiční lidová hudba na Moravě ve 20. století / Transitions in Time – Traditional Folk Music in Moravia in 20th Century / Gnosis, 2001

Top to bottom: Aruna Sairam at the Darbar Festival, 17 October 2024; unknown 6-string amplified zither musician playing dub and reggae at Clapham Junction on 19 December 2024; Angeline Morrison at Cecil Sharp House on 20 October 2022; Iva Bittová with Angrusori on 17 January 2024; David Dorůžka with the Nikol Bóková Quartet on 18 November 2024.

All photos © 2024 Santosh Dass/Swing 51 Archives (Aruna Sairam) or © 2024 Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

30. 12. 2024 | read more...

Best of 2023

29. 12. 2023 | read more...

Best of 2022

[by Ken Hunt, London] Intensive treatment for cancer prevented me working much on Prince Heathen – The Age of Carthy and England’s Folksong Revival for most of 2022. I resume work on Martin Carthy’s biography 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 I managed to to read or write for 10 to 30 minutes a day before needing to rest.

There were hardly any live concerts and no street music to speak of. In tiny windows of opportunity, I did get to see one photographic exhibition, Gli Isolani (The Islanders) of mainly Sardinian and Sicilian pagan and pre-Christian folklore at Hackelbury Fine Art. I went along with Barry Pitman who specialises in photographing England’s morris and folklore.

New releases aka Playlist

Eliza Carthy And The Restitution / Queen of the Whirl / Hem Hem https://www.eliza-carthy.com
Tom Delany / The Lark’s Call / [Own Label] https://tomdelany.bandcamp.com/
Nick Hart / Sings Ten English Folk Songs / Roebuck Records https://www.nickhartmusic.com
Nancy Kerr / The Poor Shall Wear The Crown / Little Dish Records https://nancykerr.bandcamp.com
Kronos Quartet, Van-Ánh Vanessa Vo and Rinde Eckert / My Lai / Smithsonian Folkways https://folkways.si.edu/
The Legends of Tomorrow / Days Full of Rain /
Calum MacColl / About Time / Red Grape Music
The Magpie Arc / Glamour In The Grey / The Magpie Arc
Angeline Morrison / The Brown Girl and Other Folk Songs / (Own Label) https://angelinemorrisonmusic.bandcamp.com/
Angeline Morrison / The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience / Topic Records https://www.topicrecords.co.uk
Emily Portman & Rob Harbron / Time Was Away / [Own Label] https://www.emilyandrob.uk
Rowan : Morrison / In The Sunshine We Rode The Horses / MillerSounds https://rowanmorrison.bandcamp.com/
Sam Sweeney / Escape That / Hudson Records https://hudsonrecords.co.uk
Phil Tyler & Sarah Hill / What We Thought was a Lake was a Field of Flax / https://philtylersarahhill.bandcamp.com/
Ye Vagabonds / Nine Waves / River Lea Records https://www.roughtrade.com

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

Little Feat / Electrif Lycanthrope – Live At Ultra-Sonic Studios, 1974 / Rhino
Grateful Dead / Dave’s Picks Volume 43, Family Dog At The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA (11/2/69), McFarlin Memorial Auditorium, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX (12/26/69); Family Dog At The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA (11/2/69) / Rhino
Hamish Imlach / Ballads of Booze/Old Rarity/Fine Old English Tory Times/Murdered Ballads /
BGO https://www.bgo-records.com
The Watersons / Frost and Fire / Topic Records https://www.topicrecords.co.uk

Events of 2022

Squeezed in four live concert performances (all reviewed in RnR) and one photographic exhibition. All four concerts stood out musically and planting seeds of thought. As did Gli Isolani (The Islanders) photos of “festivities and celebrations in Sicily, Sardinia and islands of the Venetian lagoon”.

Peggy Seeger & Calum MacColl / The Stables, Waverdon / 2 March 2022
Martin & Eliza Carthy / Kings Place, London / 12 March 2022
Yorkston-Thorne-Ghatak / Kings Place, London / 18 May 2022
One of my two reviews is online at: http://www.pulseconnects.com/yorkston-thorne-ghatak
Alys Tomlinson / Gli Isolani (The Islanders) / Hackelbury Fine Art / 19 October 2022 https://hackelbury.co.uk/alys-tomlinson-gli-isolani-the-islanders/
Angeline Morrison & The Sorrow Songs Ensemble / Cecil Sharp House, London / 20 October 2022

Books reading of 2022

Nature abhors a vacuum and books elbowed out film and television for my time. The ten new, old or returned-to books which left the greatest mark during 2022 were…

Sue Allan / The Cumberland Bard – Robert Anderson of Carlisle 1770-1833 / Bookcase / 2020 https://www.bookcasecarlisle.co.uk
Herbert E. Badham / A Study of Australian Art / Currawong Publishing / 1949 [no website]
Caroline Davison / The Captain’s Apprentice: Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Story of a Folk Song / 2022 https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/444958/the-captains-apprentice-by-davison-caroline/9781784744540
Alan Garner / Treacle Walker / HarperCollins / 2021 https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/treacle-walker-alan-garner
Blair Jackson & David Gans / This Is All a Dream We Dreamed – An Oral History of the Grateful Dead / Flatiron Books / 2015 https://www.flatironbooks.com
Neil Philip / The Watkins Book of English Folktales / Watkins / 2022 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/719587/the-watkins-book-of-english-folktales-by-neil-philip/
Barry Pitman / Jack in the Green – “Ladies & Gentlemen are you ready for Jack in the Green” / 2022
S. F. Said with Dave McKean (illustrator) / Tyger / David Fickling Books /2022 https://www.davidficklingbooks.com
Paul Thompson and John Watterson / Beware of the Bull: The Enigmatic Genius of Jake Thackray/ Scratching Shed Publishing, 2022
Richard Thompson with Scott Timberg / Beeswing – Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice 1967-75 / Faber & Faber / rev pbk 2022

Ten past music projects released before 2022. Some are newly discovered. Others ones revisited or returned to inspire or entertain.

The Bonzo Dog Band / Cornology / EMI, 1992
Coope, Boyes & Simpson / In Flanders Fields / No Masters, 2014
Jerry Garcia David Grisman / Shady Grove / Acoustic Disc, 1996
Ranjana Ghatak / The Butterfly Effect / Own Label, 2020
Los Lobos / KIKO Live / Floating World Records / 2012
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band / Will the Circle be Unbroken / Capitol / 2002
Al O’Donnell / Ramble Away Collection: Live & Studio / All Media Entertainment / 2008
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss / Raise The Roof / Warners / 2021
Django Reinhardt / Rétrospective 1934-53 / Saga / 2003
Jean Ritchie / Mountain Hearth & Home / Rhino Handmade / 2004

How the People’s Republic of Hounslow appreciates art is distilled into Hounslow’s one and only Banksy. His much degraded ‘Smile’ graffito is on the wall of what the railway pub. Since 2021 it has covered up by a Dosa advert. Unless otherwise stated, all original photos © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

25. 12. 2022 | read more...

Best of 2021

[by Ken Hunt, London] Another strange year spent thinking, living, breathing and writing about Martin Carthy and his approved biography, Prince Heathen. All I shall say on the subject is to say that Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker came out in October 2021. He crams into 150-some pages a lifetime of writing and many years of ideas and imagination. It took Alan a fair few years to write it and it was worth the wait. (A link to my Swing 51 interview Alan Garner: Read more ) A quote of his in the FTWeekend Magazine of 18/19 December 2021 caught my eye and imagination and will be in Prince Heathen and will serve to explain much. I hope. Enough about Prince Heathen.

In part this Best of 2021 reflects reviewing commissions from RnR and Jazzwise. Incidentally, for over ten years I have written a political music column called RPM in RnR; each issue homes in one piece of music ranging from the Plastic People of the Universe, Woody Guthrie and the Kronos Quartet  to Robert Burns, Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros and Bonnie Dobson. As I have for over twenty years I have been adding new musical entries to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The Dictionary of National Biography is Britain’s standard work of reference on notable figures who have coloured British history and culture. Its first edition was published in 1885. I joined the team for the Millennium edition and have now added more new folk music-related entries than any individual contributor in its entire history. I’d love to tell you the next ones I’ve written for 2022 but that is the way it works. https://www.oxforddnb.com/

Little of the 2021 assembly may on the face of it look as if it has anything to do with Martin’s biography. Much of it doesn’t: much of it does.

A total highlight of 2021 was seeing Tom Constanten perform with Live Dead ’69. Tom is now the longest postal correspondent of my life. In 2022 we breach our fifth decade of sending postcards, letters and those flimsy blue things, aerogrammes to each other. What with Coronavirus test results coming back and all that jazz, Tom and I only squeezed in 90 minutes sequestered alone to talk. Oh boy! Isn’t mortality amazing!

This Best of… was, as always, written and added to over the course of the year.  The final stages of this 2021 appraisal were written to the accompaniment of the Grateful Dead’s Cornell 5/8/77 (2017) and Melody Gardot’s My One And Only Thrill (2009). On the cover of which a sticker says, “The Holy Grail of Dead shows”. Especially, compact disc 3. Still blows me away years after reviewing it in Jazzwise. Play it.

Before you read on, a tip. Boys and girls, do remember when you shower to come out with three good ideas and do remember get them down real quick before they dry.

New releases aka Playlist

Angrusori / Live at Tou / Hudson Records
Bellowhead / Reassembled / Hudson Records ↑
Iva Bittová / Pro Radost // For Joy / Indies
Norman Blake / Day By Day / Smithsonian Folkways
Nora Brown / Sidetrack My Engine / https://jalopyrecords.bandcamp.com/
Peter Case / The Midnight Broadcast / Bandaloop Records
Dose Hermanos [Bob Bralove and Tom Constanten] / Persistence of Memory / Blotter Brothers Publishing
Samantha Ege / Fantasie Negre – The Piano Music of Florence Price / Lorelt
Ian King / Inebriate of Air – Songs for Emily – / http://fledglingrecords.co.uk/

Mec Yek / Taisa / Choux de Bruxelles / https://choux.net/mecyek
Scarlett O’ & Jurgen Ehle / Selbst die Sintflut / Dauert nicht ewig – Helene Weigel und Bertolt Brecht in Buckow / https://www.scarlett-o.de/sinneswandel/electrocadero/
Polly Paulusma / Invisible Music – Folk Songs That Influenced Angela Carter / http://www.olirecords.com
Romanovska, Tichý, Hrubý & Blaziková / Jsem Navždy Jedním Z Nás / I Am One of Us Forever / https://www.hevhetia.com/
Peggy Seeger / First Farewell / https://www.redgrapemusic.com/
Spiers & Boden / Fallow Ground / Hudson ↑
Jon Wilks / Up The Cut / Jon Wilks Bandcamp

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

Chris Barber / A Trailblazer’s Legacy /  https://www.lastmusic.co.uk/
Mimi Farina with Lowell Levinger / Live in Germany / http://www.breadandroses.org /
Various / Hamish Henderson Tribute Vol. 2 – Ballad of the Banffies / https://www.greentrax.com/ /
Ashley Hutchings / An Hour with Cecil Sharp & Ashley Hutchings / Talking Elephant Records

Andy Irvine / Old Dog Long Road Vol. 2 1961–2015 / http://www.andyirvine.com

Ali Akbar Khan / That Which Colors The Mind / Bear’s Sonic Journals https://owsleystanleyfoundation.org/
Christy Moore / The Early Years – 1969-81 / Tara Music  https://www.overdraftrecords.co.uk/label/tara-music-division-of-universal-music-ireland/https://www.overdraftrecords.co.uk/label/tara-music-division-of-universal-music-ireland/
Joseph Spence / Encore: Unheard Recordings of Bahamian Guitar and Singing / Smithsonian Folkways ↑

Rod Stradling / Treacle & Bread / http://ghostsfromthebasement.bandcamp.com

Various / Deutschfolk: Soundtrack zum Volksliedrevival in der BR[D]DR / NoEthno
Various / Roy Bailey Remembered / Towersey Festival
Various / The Electric Muse Revisited / https://www.gooddeedsmusic.com/
Various / The Village Out West – The Lost Tapes of Alan Oakes / Smithsonian Folkways ↑
Various / Working River – Songs and Music of the Thames / Folkfree Recordings

Events of 2021

Once again Covid-19 reduced a healthy diet of live music to starvation rations. Squeezed in four concerts stood out musically and/or for planting seeds of thought.

Love Letters, Anoushka Shankar / Royal Festival Hall, London / 30 May 2021
Read more
Eddi Reader / Kings Place, London / 1 October 2021 Read more
Paul Novotný Trio / Ta Kavárna, Na Topolce, Praha 4 / 6 October 2021
Live Dead ’69 / Under The Bridge, London / 12 November 2021

If you’d like to visit a bunch of Ken Hunt’s reviews in Pulse pop along to:

Films of 2021

Nature abhors a vacuum and film and television filled part of stimulus void left by the poverty of live concerts. Nine outstanding films that left the greatest marks during 2021 were… [Sound of envelope being opened]

Wayne Blair / Top End Wedding / 2019
Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed / My Octopus Teacher / 2020
Marleen Gorris / Within the Whirlwind/Stalin – Reign of Terror / 2009/2018

Byron Howard and Jared Bush / Encanto /2021
Mimi Leder / On the Basis of Sex / 2018

Gillies MacKinnon / The Last Bus / 2021
Alan Rickman (director) / A Little Chaos / 2014
Jessica Swale(director) / Summerland / 2020
Chloé Zhao (director) / Nomadland / 2020

A baker’s dozen of past music projects released before 2021 whether newly discovered or revisited ones which returned to inspire over the course of the writing year.

Breghde Chaimbeul / The Reeling / River Lea, 2019
Chieftains / 4 / Claddagh, 1973
Paul & Liz Davenport / Spring Tide Rising / Hallamshire Traditions, 2011

Jerry Garcia / Jerry on Jerry – The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews / Hachette, 2015
Grateful Dead / Cornell 5/8/77 / Rhino, 2017
Jablkoň / Devátá Vlna (‘Ninth Wave’) / Panton 1988, expanded edition Supraphon, 2003

Udo Lindenberg / Live aus der Hotel Atlantic – Unplugged / Warner Music Group, 2011 https://www.udo-lindenberg.de
Mighty Baby / At A Point Between Fate and Destiny – The Complete Recordings / Grapefruit 2019
Paul Novotný, Aliaksandr Yasinski and Petr Tichý /Jazz Gypsy N Tango / 2019 www.paulnovotny.eu
Peggy Seeger / Live Nelson, New Zealand / 2012
Various / The Real Bahamas in Music and Song / Polydor Special, 1969

Various / World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume V: Yugoslavia / Rounder, 1999
The Watersons / Mighty River of Song / Topic, 2003
Hedy West / Serves ‘Em Fine / Fontana, 1967

Small print

The topmost image is of Aliaksandr Yasinski playing a Jupiter bayan (thanks to my occasional song collaborator Jürgen Ehle for transliterating and identifying the model) and Tom Constanten playing the Casio. © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

How the People’s Republic of Hounslow appreciates art is distilled into Hounslow’s one and only Banksy. This much degraded ‘Smile’ is on the wall of what became a Dosa joint in 2021. It once was a very average railway pub, meaning it was opposite the station and was handy for sheltering in from foul weather got. The very distressed Smile 2021 is from summer 2021. © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

1. 1. 2022 | read more...

Best of 2020

[by Ken Hunt, London] 2020 will go down as the first year of Covid-19. It was the strangest year for making music and writing about it many of us have ever experienced. In late February I was working in Gaienhofen on the German bank of Lake Constance on a radio script for my contributions to Ulrike Zöller’s Pandit Ravi Shankar 100th birth anniversary event for BR-Klassik (Bavarian Radio’s classical station): https://www.br-klassik.de/programm/radio/ausstrahlung-2058660.html

I spent time drafting and testing phrases and sentences while gaining insights into what ordinary people who had never listened to Indian music understood made of what I said. I re-drafted my script with ordinary radio listeners in mind who were listening in their kitchen or sitting room or while driving. One aspect of the musician I knew I wished to communicate was his sense of humour. We laughed a lot together.

Afterwards it was the Stein am Rhein train back to Zürich. The hotel was close to, and handy for the city’s main station. One time crossing its concourse – ShopVille-Zürich Hauptbahnhof – on 1 March 2020 there was a white-clad ensemble playing, engaging with passers-by. They were exquisite. They stuck in my mind and I wish I knew who they were. Please let me know if anyone knows. I would love to know more about them.

Reading the Swiss broadsheets, I watched the daily Covid-19 infections springing from canton to canton. I went into lockdown when I got back to London at the very beginning of March. Days later, before the official lockdown had started, we saw our last live music of 2020 in a physical venue. I was commissioned to review the Yorkston Thorne Khan concert at King’s Place in London. Sod’s Law, one magazine pulled out of running a review. Pulse did not. Doubly pleased to have gone because YTS were magnificent and their Navarasa : Nine Emotions is spectacularly good.

That gig ended the year’s usual spate of discoveries through live performances at festivals, in folk clubs and concert halls.

Lockdown gave and took. Martin Carthy and I did a batch of interviews face to face in February for his approved biography, Prince Heathen. My stereo stopped talking to me – and couldn’t be repaired until July – meaning no access to old vinyl releases I needed to listen to. But isolation gave me the chance to get stuck into Prince Heathen while unfortunately without access to libraries and galleries. The stuff we used to take for granted! Much of the year was spent tracking down and buying research materials to continue working on the book.

New releases aka Playlist
Najma Akhtar / Five Rivers / LM Productions
Steffen Basho-Junghans / The Dancer on the Hill / Architects of Harmonic Rooms & Records https://architectsofharmonicroomsrecords.bandcamp.com
Burd Ellen / Says The Never Beyond / [Own label] www.burdellen.com
Katy Carr / Providence / Deluce Recordings
Shirley Collins / Heart’s Ease / Domino www.dominomusic.com/uk
Harp & A Monkey / The Victorians / [Own label] www.harpandamonkey.com
David A. Jaycock / Murder, And The Birds / Triassic Tusk https://www.triassictuskrecords.com/
Peter Knight’s Gigspanner Big Band / Natural Invention / [Own label] www.gigspanner.com
Kronos Quartet & Friends / Long Time Coming / Smithsonian Folkways
Lo’Jo / Transe de Papier / Yotanka https://www.yotanka.net/fr/home/
The Magpie Arc / EP1 / [Own Label] https://themagpiearc.com/
Thomas McCarthy / Comfort / Deafear Productions [no website]
Scarlett O’ / ob Du mich lieb hast? / Electrocadero
Jackie Oates & John Spiers / Needle Pin, Needle Pin / [Own label]
Romanovská Tichý Hrubý / Bylo To Právé / It Was Right At / Hevhetia http://www.hevhetia.sk/Hevhetia/
Anoushka Shankar / Love Letters / MercuryKX
Jack Sharp / Good Times Older / From Here Records https://jacksharp.bandcamp.com/
Martin Simpson / Home Recordings / Topic Records https://www.topicrecords.co.uk/
Trolska Polska / Eufori / GO’ Danish Folk Music https://folkshop.dk/ 

Yorkston / Thorne / Khan / Navarasa : Nine Emotions / Domino

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies
The Band / The Band – 50th Anniversary Edition / Capitol
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen / Found In The Ozone / Owsley Stanley Foundations https://owsleystanleyfoundation.org/
The Dubliners / The Dubliners, In Concert, Finnegan Wakes, In Person, Mainly Barney and More of the Dubliners / BGO https://www.bgo-records.com/
Grateful Dead / Workingman’s Dead – 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition / Rhino
Andy Irvine / Old Dog Long Road Vol. 2 1961–2015 / [Own Label] www.andyirvine.com
Joni Mitchell / Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol.1: The Early Years (1963–1967) / Rhino
Richard and Linda Thompson / Hard Luck Stories (1972–1982) / Universal
Trees / Trees (50th Anniversary Edition) / Earth Recordings https://earthrecordlabel.com/
Various / How the River Ganges Flows – Sublime Masterpieces of Indian Violin [1933–1952] / Third Man Records https://thirdmanrecords.com/
Various / Working River – Songs and Music of the Thames / Folktree Recordings https://folktreerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/working-river-songs-and-music-of-the-thames

Events of 2020
Covid-19 reduced a healthy diet of live music to a starvation one by March. Three gigs stood out musically and/or for planting seeds of thought – which is pretty much a prerequisite for me.

Martin Carthy & John Kirkpatrick / Cecil Sharp House / 16 January 2020
Martin Carthy / Kalamazoo Club, London / 14 February / 2020
Yorkston Thorne Khan / Kings Place, London / 11 March 2020
Read more www.pulseconnects.com/yorkston-thorne-khan

A baker’s dozen of past music projects, released before pre-Covid (2020), either newly introduced journeys of exploration or ones which returned to inspire over the course of writing this year.

Martin Carthy / Prince Heathen / Fontana, 1969
Dillard & Clark / The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark / Through The Morning, Through The Night / A&M / Mobile Fidelety Sound Lab, n/d
Snooks Eaglin / New Orleans Street Singer / Smithsonian Folkways, 2005
Davey Graham / After Hours at Hull University, 4th February 1967 / Roller Coaster, 1997
Los Lobos / Acoustic en vivo / Los Lobos Records, 2005
Lisa O’Neill / The Wren, The Wren / River Lea Recordings, 2019
Carlos Paredes / Concerto en Frankfurt / Polygram, 1993
Jean Ritchie / Mountain Heath & Home / Rhino Handmade, 2004
Paul Simon / Graceland – 25th Anniversary Edition / Sony Legacy, 2012
Sutari / Osty / Unzipped Fly Records, 2017
Various / Songs from ABC Television’s “Hallelujah” / Fontana, 1966
Various / Stick In The Wheel present From Here: English Folk Field Recordings / From Here Records, 2016
Various / The Trallaleri of Genoa / Alan Lomax Collection, Rounder, 1999

The latest installment in the People’s Republic of Hounslow’s very own Banksy. ‘Smile’ is on the wall of what used to be a pub. This is the hugely distressed ‘Smile’ in December 2020. Unless otherwise stated, © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.



31. 12. 2020 | read more...

Best of 2019

[by Ken Hunt, London] Another year of writing, though ever fewer outlets didn’t bother me unduly. 2019 still meant masses of musical discoveries, reaffirmations and new historic explorations. The last quarter of the year turned golden with the prospect of concentrating more or less exclusively on the approved Martin Carthy biography Prince Heathen in 2020. I returned to Venice to work on the book in the spring of the year and managed to pick up a little Italian and vèneto in side-moments.

2019 saw me once again writing, reading and researching at U Zavěšenýho Kafe (‘At the Hanging Coffee’) in Prague. This July’s visits (with the Rudolstadt Festival as the sandwich filler in the middle) coincided with the birth of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and I went prepared. I was not prepared, however, for the phenomenal bilingual Czech/German Čechy Sasko/Böhmen Sachsen (‘Bohemia Saxony’) art exhibition at the nearby National Gallery Prague, Sternberg Palais across from the castle. I finished Jeremy Adler’s Kafka (Penguin, 2001) there, now pretty familiar with Prague compared to not knowing the city at all when I devoured most of Kafka’s works in German in Schleswig-Holstein in the early 1970s. I had started re-reading Die Verwandlung only for it to be set aside to read the Čechy Sasko/Böhmen Sachsen exhibition book, flipping between its German and Czech text.

When the year began I had no conscious memory of ever hearing – or needing – words like prorogation and prorogue or spaff. No matter the outcome of Brexit and the general election of 2019, I shall remain proudly mongrel European till the end of my days.

Two years now into tweeting mainly about music, the arts and the natural world. Catch up and follow, if you fancy: @KenHunt01

New releases aka Playlist

Jan Kučera/Epoque Quartet / [same] / Radioservis
Laurie Anderson Tenzin Choegyal Jesse Paris Smith / Songs from the Bardo / Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Iva Bittová Paolo Angell / Sul Filo / ReR MEGACORP/Morphius Records
Kapela Brodów / Polski, Polonez, Chodzony / www.fundacjamemo.pl

Eliza Carthy / Restitute / originally a 1500-copy release on own label www.eliza-carthy.com later Topic

Josienne Clarke / In All Weather / Rough Trade
Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turisi / There Is No Other / Nonesuch
Bruce Hornsby / Absolute Zero / Zappo
Kayhan Kalhor Rembrandt Frerichs Tony Overwater Vinsent Planjer / It’s Still Autumn / Kepera Records
Kronos Quartet & Terry Riley /Sun Rings / Nonesuch
Lankum / The Livelong Day / Rough Trade Records
Amira Medunjanin & Trondheimsolistene / Ascending / Croatia Records
Ralph McTell / Hill of Beans / Leola Music
‘Let Nature Sing’ / RSPB
Mozaik with Chrysoula Kechagloglou / The Long and the Short of It / Own Label (www.andyirvine.com)
Novotny Yasinski Tichý / Jazz Gypsy N Tango /
Johnny Óg Connolly / Fear Inis Bearachain / Cló Iar-Chonnacht
Lisa O’Neill / The Wren, The Wren / River Lea
Martin Simpson / Rooted / Topic Records
June Tabor & Oysterband / Fire & Fleet – A Tour Memento / Running Man
Trio Dhoore / August / TRAD Records
Marry Waterson & Emily Barker / A Window to Other Ways / One Little Indian
James Yorkston / The Route to the Harmonium / Domino

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

Gene Clark / No Other – Limited Deluxe / 4AD
Grateful Dead / Aoxomoxoa 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition / Rhino
Grateful Dead / Dave’s Picks Vol. 30 Fillmore East 1/2/70 / Grateful Dead Productions
Grateful Dead / Dave’s Picks Vol. 32 The Spectrum, Philadelphia 3/24/73 / Grateful Dead Productions
Andy Irvine / Old Dog Long Road Vol. 1 / Own Label (www.andyirvine.com)
Christy Moore / Magic Nights / Sony Music (Ireland)
June Tabor / Airs and Graces / Topic
John Tams / The Reckoning / Topic
Various / Music from Turkey / Caprice Records
Various / Rudolstadt Festival 2019 / Heideck
Various / Strings That Nimble Leap / Fylde/Fellside
Hedy West / Untitled / Fledg’ling

Events of 2019

A very good year for the roses, golden raspberries and live music. As in years past, these are listed in chronological order. These are the ones that stood out both for the music and also for planting seeds of thought.

Eliza Carthy / Cecil Sharp House, London / 14 February  2019
Live Dead ’69 / Under The Bridge, London / 29 March 2019
Marry Waterson & Emily Barker / Hall One, Kings Place, London / 4 April 2019
Olivia Chaney / Cecil Sharp House, London / 7 March 2019
Plays the Ray Davis Songbook / Ben Crosland Quintet / 606 Club, Chelsea / 23 April 2019
John Kirkpatrick / TwickFolk, The Cabbage Patch / Twickenham / 28 April 2019
Kapela Brodów / Ethno Port Poznań, Castle Courtyard / 14 June 2019
Lankum / Ethno Port Poznań, Castle Courtyard / 16 June 2019
Gaizca Project / Rudolstadt Festival, Heidecksburg / 5 July 2019
A Tribute To Márkos Vamvakáris / Rudolstadt Festival, Heidecksburg / 5 July 2019
Ivan Vilela / Rudolstadt Festival, Neumarkt / 6 July 2019
Spooky Men’s Chorale / Markt, Rudolstadt Festival / 6 July 2019
Café Charbons / Tanzzelt, Heinepark, Rudolstadt Festival / 7 July 2019
Čechy Sasko/Böhmen Sachsen (‘Bohemia Saxony’) art exhibition / National Gallery Prague, Sternberg Palais / July 2019
Sight Machine / Kronos Quartet & Trevor Paglen / Barbican Centre / 11 July 2019
Richard Thompson and Guests / 70th Birthday Concert, Royal Albert Hall / 30 September 2019
Kala Ramnath / Darbar Festival, Minton Hall, Barbican, London / 19 October 2019
Read more → www.pulseconnects.com/tabla-grooves-and-kala-ramnath-darbar-festival
Len Graham / Return To London Town Festival, Musical Traditions Club, The King & Queen, London / 25 October 2019
Bruce Hornsby / O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London / 3 November 2019
Oysterband and June Tabor / Union Chapel, London / 14 November 2019
Martin Simpson / Cecil Sharp House, London / 30 November 2019
Purcell Sessions / Anoushka Shankar / Purcell Room, Southbank, London / 4 December 2019 Read more → www.pulseconnects.com/purcell-sessions-anoushka-shankar

Ralph McTell / Royal Festival Hall, London / 13 December 2019

A baker’s dozen of past music projects, released before 2019, either newly introduced journeys of exploration or ones which returned to inspire in the course of writing this year.

Why thirteen albums is very simple. A healthy annual musical diet, just like what we stick in our stomachs, should be varied, full of fibre and seasonal

Sara Cleveland / Ballads & Songs of the Upper Hudson Valley / Folk Legacy, 1966
Phil & June Colclough / Players from a Drama / Celtic Music, 1991
Peter J. Conlon / The Genius of Peter Conlon / OldTime Records, 2012
Lowell George / Thanks I’ll Eat It Here / Friday Music, 2014
Len Graham / In Full Flight / 2008 www.storyandsong.com
The Kinks / Something Else By The Kinks /Sanctuary, 2011
Andrew Manze and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6 / Onyx, 2018
Ökrös / Bonchida, Háromszor / Bonchida, Times Three / ABT, 1998
Karine Polwart / Laws of Motion / Hudson Records, 2018
Anoushka Shankar / Land Of Gold / Deutsche Grammophon, 2016
Škampa Quartet / Václav Kaprál, String Quartet in C minor; Vítězslava Kaprálová, String Quartet op.8; Bohuslav Martinů, String Quartet no.5 / Český rozhlas, 2012
Various / East Anglia Sings / Snatch’d From Oblivion Records / undated
James Yorkston / When The Haar Rolls In / Domino, 2008

Martin Simpson image is © Elly Lucus/Topic Records and Gene Clark image courtesy of Rich Walker in 4AD’s press office. Plotting the trials and tribs of the People’s Republic of Hounslow’s very own Banksy ‘Smile’ skipped; here is the 2013 shot in happier times for the much degraded Banksy (plus my granddaughter is now six years old) © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives. Ivan Vilela and the Spookies © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives and Anoushka Shankar image © Santosh Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

9. 1. 2020 | read more...

Best of 2018

[by Ken Hunt, London] The year went very well indeed with masses of musical discoveries and reaffirmations. For decades I have written in U Zavěšenýho Kafe (‘At the Hanging Coffee’) in Prague 1. The image is of me at its previous site when it was on Úvoz with Jakub ‘Kuba’ Krejčí’s mural of Czechoslovak historical and literary figures behind me. Now at Loretánská 13 I still write and hold meetings there.

31. 12. 2018 | read more...

Best of 2017

[by Ken Hunt, London] The music I love music best tends to be music that needs to be played live, the better for it to evolve, blossom, thrive and survive. Music you know or suspect is never going to be performed exactly that way again. In Britain, compared to the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent’s music, concert-goers get relatively few chances to see Persian classical music reveal its merits and mysteries. It is often better on mainland Europe. Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat revealed that with a marvellous concert at the Parisian Théâtre des Abbesses in Paris. (One of the Théâtre de la Ville’s temporarily relocated venues.) The common link was they all left me thinking.

Compared to recent years, little by way of street music or busking made me stop and listen. The band at the Dar Essalam in Marrakesh, the restaurant in which Hitchcock filmed a restaurant scene for The Man Who Knew Too Much, with its excellent (Egyptian) oud player stood out. We talked about the Nubian oud player Hamza El Din and old Bombay film hits afterwards. On San Marco in Venice an ensemble fielding shifting  line-ups played a mixed repertoire of jazz and dance band standards. Apart from an unidentifiable tango, they wafted me back to my father’s warm-ups before going out gigging. Naming that tune in three turned into two, then one. The photo here is of a musician who “played real good/On his clarinet, for free”. Or if not for free then for the price of a chair, a plate of nibbles and an Aperol sprit in St. Mark’s Square. (Spritz seemed to be sprit in the osterie mainly frequented by locals for a glass of something wet and cicchetti or Venetian tapas-like snacks.) As this musician whose name I don’t know played, that line from Joni Mitchell’s For Free flashed into my head. ‘Cin cin!’ to a musician whose name I don’t know.

One of the great joys, illuminations and ruminations of the year had Peggy Seeger at its centre. Two books about her – a biography and her autobiography – emerged. Experiencing her breathtaking concert-reading with her sons Neill and Calum MacColl at Cecil Sharp House in London in November 2017 in the company of Bonnie Dobson and my wife Santosh heightened the experience. A remarkable friend and a wonderful friendship.

New releases aka Playlist

The number reflects travel and music festivals and a more active reviewing year than planned or originally wished for.

Sam Amidon / The Following Mountain / Nonesuch
Slick Aguilar, Tom Constanten, Mark Karan, Peter Kaukonen and Prairie Prince / Live Dead ’69 / Tyrell Replicants
Ridina Ahmedová and Petr Tichý / HLASkontraBAS / Poli5
Maniucha Bikont and Ksawery Wójciski / Oj borom, borom…/ Wodzirej
Blazin’ Fiddles / The Key / Blazin’ Fiddles Records)
Billy Bragg / Bridges Not Walls / http://billybragg.co.uk/bridgesnotwalls/
Jackson Browne / The Road East – Live In Japan / Inside Recordings (Japan)
Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band / Big Machine / Topic
Daphne’s Flight / Knows Time, Knows Change / Fledg’ling
Debashish Bhattacharya / Hawaii To Calcutta: A Tribute To Tau Moe / Riverboat Records
The Dhol Foundation / Basant / ECC Records
Rhiannon Giddens / Factory Girl EP / Nonesuch
Rhiannon Giddens / Freedom Highway / Nonesuch
Gwyneth Glyn / Tro / bendigedig
Mickey Hart / RAMU / Verve Forecast
Robb Johnson / Songs From The Last Seven Years / Irregular
Lisa Knapp / Till April Is Dead – A Garland of May / [promo]
Kronos Quartet, Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens & Natalie Merchant / Folk Songs / Nonesuch
Lankum / Between Earth & Sky / Rough Trade
Lo’Jo / Fonetiq Flowers /World Village
Christy Moore / On The Road / Sony Music
Lars Mřller & Aarhus Jazz Orchestra feat. The Danish Sinfonietta, Kala Ramnath & Abhijit Banerjee / Glow of Benares / Dacapo Records
Nishtiman Project / Kobane / Accords Croisés
Offa Rex / Queen of Hearts / Nonesuch
Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters / Carry Fire / Nonesuch
Christine Primrose / Gràdh is Gonadh – Guth ag aithris (Love and Loss – A Lone Voice) / Temple
Alan Reid & Rob Van Sante / The Dear Green Place / Red Sands Records
Martin Simpson / Trails & Tribulations / Topic
Jenny Sturgeon / The Wren and The Salt Air / www.jennysturgeonmusic.com
Sutari / Osty / Unzipped Fly Records
Richard Thompson / Acoustic Classics II / Proper
Tiger Lillies / Cold Night In Soho / Misery Guts
Happy Traum / I Walk The Road Again / Lark’s Nest Music
Trad Attack! / Kullakarva Shimmer Gold / Trad.Attack Music
Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet / Ladilikan / World Circuit
Various / Babylon Berlin – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack / BMG
Various / Too Sad For The Public – Vol 1 – Oysters Ice Cream Lemonade (American Folk Fantasies Written and Arranged by Dick Connette) / Storysound Records
Marry Waterson & David A. Jaycock / Death had Quicker Wings than Love / One Little Indian
Yorkston/Thorne/Khan / Neuk Wight Delhi All Stars / Domino
Maria Youssef / Syrian Dreams / Harmonia Mundi

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

The Bulgarian Voices / Angelite – Passion Mysticism Delight / Jaro
Archie Fisher & Barbara Dickson / Thro’ The Recent Years / Gonzo
Lal & Mike Waterson / Bright Phoebus – Songs by Lal & Mike Waterson / Domino
Roger McGough / Summer with Monika / Fledg’ling
Ravi Shankar / Ghanashyam: A Broken Branch / East Meets West Music
Various / Rudolstadt-Festival 2017 / heideck
Various / Woody Guthrie – The Tribute Concerts / Bear Family

Events of 2017

There were many outstanding concerts this year. In chronological order these stood out for planting seeds and sending me away thinking. Beyond the sheer pleasure of music, what finer criterion is there?

Tom Constanten, Slick Aguilar, Mark Karan, Tony Morley and Richard Newman / Under The Bridge, Fulham, London / 3 February 2017
Broadside Ballads / Folk at The Foundling, Foundling Museum, London / 26 February 2017
Leon Rosselson and Robb Johnson / Cecil Sharp House, London / 8 March 2017
Iva Bittová with Marc Sinan and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra „I Exist“ – nach Rajasthan  / Radialsystem V, Berlin / 2 April 2017
Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat / Théâtre des Abbesses, Paris / 20 May 2017
Abida Parveen / Royal Festival Hall, Alchemy Festival, London / 28 May 2017
Iva Bittová & Cikori with Antonin Fajt At Home / Castle Courtyard, Ethno Port Poznań, Poland / 10 June 2017
Debashish Bhattacharya & Kacper Malisz / The Grand Hall, Ethno Port Poznań / 11 June 2017
Yorkston Thorne Khan / Stadtkirche, Rudolstadt-Festival / 7 July 2017
Sutari / Theater im Stadthaus, Rudolstadt-Festival / 8 July 2017
Chitravina Ravikiran / Stadtkirche, Rudolstadt-Festival / 9 July 2017
Trio-Da-Kali / Konzertbühne (Heinepark), Rudolstadt-Festival / 9 July 2017
Roy Bailey with Marc Bloch / Green Note, London / 6 September 2017
Happy Traum Coming of Age in the Greenwich Village Folk Revival and the Woodstock Scene (1954-1971) / Cecil Sharp House / 20 October 2017
Amit Chaudhuri and Adam Moore, On Inspiration / Asia House, London / 2 November 2017
Yorkston Thorne Khan / London International Arts Festival / Rich Mix, London / 3 November 2017
Peggy Seeger and Family / Cecil Sharp House, London / 16 November 2017

A baker’s dozen of past music projects, released before 2017, either newly introduced journeys of exploration or ones which returned to inspire in the course of writing this year.

B.J. Cole/Emily Burridge / Into the Blue / www.bjcole.co.uk and www.emilyburridge.com / 2008
Olivia Chaney / The Longest River / Nonesuch, 2015
Ornette Coleman and Prime Time / Jazzbühne Berlin ’88 Vol. 5 / Repertoire Records, 1990
DagaDana / Meridian 68 / Karrot Kommando, n.d. [2016]
Kaleidoscope / Pulsating Dream – The Epic Recordings / Acadia/Evangeline, 2004
Kaia Kater / Nine Pin / Mavens Music
Yusef Lateef / Eastern Sounds / Prestige
A.L. Lloyd / Bramble Briars and Beams of the Sun / Fellside, 2011
Nørn / Fridj / Suisa, 2004
Helena Matuszewska & Marta Sołek / Projekt.Kolberg/ Karrot Kommando, 2015
Traffic / Mr Fantasy / Island Masters, 1968 (sic)
Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat / Twinklings of Hope / Kirkelig Kulturverksted, 2012
Yorkston/Thorne/Khan / Everything Sacred / Domino, 2016

The Woody Guthrie – The Tribute Concerts image of Rick Danko and Bob Dylan is courtesy of and © Bear Family. The image of Nørn circa Fridj is © Suisa. In the latest installment showing its varying fortunes, Smile is the 2017 edition of the local Banksy, taken one day in July 2017. The images of the (unknown) clarinettist in Venice and this year’s Smile are © Ken Hunt. The Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat in Paris photo is © Santosh Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

An afterthought

Humankind’s knowledge of the planet has been in a state of flux since time immoral. What the species is doing in the name of profit is nobody’s business. One of the discoveries of 2017 was Synalpheus pinkfloydi. Now the nominal band there never was one for me. However, a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute project collected this so-called Pink Floyd pistol shrimp in the vicinity of Las Perlas Archipelago in Panama Bay. Publishing its discovery Arthur Anker, Kristin M. Hultgren and Sammy De Grave explained of its range how the wee beastie is “unlikely to occur on the Dark Side of the Moon due to lack of suitable habitat…”

31. 12. 2017 | read more...

Best of 2016

[by Ken Hunt, London] 2016 proved to be, to soundbite Elvis Costello, a particularly good year for the roses. Well, the artistic ones at least. (Brexit notwithstanding, in England the garden roses and the garden as a whole suffered somewhat thanks to the English climate’s vagaries of rain and sunshine.) Nevertheless, it truly was a year to remember musically. That was assisted by chance musical encounters that made me stop and stare and listen. The busker playing chromatic harmonica down below at Waterloo underground station one day in September was utterly spellbinding. A party bash outside the National Theatre in Prague celebrating a Czech national holiday was uplifting. A few days later hanging out with Czech friends and my son in a pizza parlour in Malá Strana in Prague 1 I was listening to a slice of tramping (Czech and Slovak uses the same word as English) that I had fondly associated with Czechoslovakia’s communist-era (and before) outdoors movement. It was something I had only ever read about. It sounded like a singalong joy and was an unfettered hoot. And one dank, dismal day towards the end of 2016 there was a Roma accordion duo performing in Kingsland in London to brighten things up. They caused me to stop and stare. If ever you have a little money to spare, put some into a street musician’s collection box, hat or case.

In the year that included the deaths of David Bowie and George Michael amongst others, the illness and death of Dave Swarbrick aged 75 on 3 June 2016 in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion in Wales overshadowed the first half of the year. In Dave’s obituary in the autumn 2016 issue of Canada’s folk magazine of record, Penguin Eggs I wrote, “Arguably no single folk musician ever had a greater impact across Europe.” I meant it. I could have expanded massively with examples but that is the nature of word counts. In actual fact it was to be a year of losses. The German singer-songwriter and guitarist Werner Lämmerhirt died on 14 October, aged 67. Amongst others, he had worked with Wizz Jones, Tom Paxton and Hannes Wader. On 7 November Leonard Cohen died at the age of 82 with his troubling (in a good way) end-of-life You Want It Darker already on the year’s playlist. On 15 November musician-composer Mose Allison died at the age of 89, followed a week later by arguably the most influential male vocalist of the South Indian classical tradition in Dr Balamurali Krishna. He died on 22 November in Chennai aged 86 The US experimental composer, electronic music pioneer and wayward spirit Pauline Oliveros died on 25 November, aged 84. And Martin Stone of, amongst other bands, Mighty Baby and Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers died on 9 November 2016 on Versailles in France. Reading his anonymously written obituary in The Daily Telegraph introduced me to a part of his life about which I had had no idea: his book hunting and dealing exploits.

To two events in music that made me the happiest. The first was the re-emergence of Shirley Collins with her Lodestar album and, similarly important, her limited live performance before an audience for BBC Radio 4’s Mastertapes series at the end of the year. The other was Aruna Sairam receiving the Bharat Ratna Dr. M.S. Subbulakshmi Centenary Commemoration Special Award on 13 September 2016. It was conferred on her by the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha, Mumbai. (To clarify the Bharat Ratna at the front refers to M.S. Subbulakshmi as the recipient, not to Aruna Sairam receiving India’s highest civilian award.) I like positivity. Furthermore, three big anniversaries happened in 2016. In the Celtic realm Eire’s Tulla Céilí Band turned 70 and the Welsh folk group Ar Log turned 40. And fRoots produced its 400th issue with Lucy Farrell on the cover (she of various Emily Portman band permutations, including, see below, the Coracle Band, and the Furrow Collective). I must have written in most of those, even if many times my byline didn’t and doesn’t appear beside the contribution. My article about Aruna Sairam appears in its January/February 2017 issue.

In other artistic, non-musical news, after years of being thwarting I finally got to see Alfons Mucha’s cycle of monumental paintings fittingly called the Slovanská epopej (Slav Epic). When I first started cooking up plans to view it, it was on exhibition in Moravský Krumlov in southern Moravia. Iva Bittová and I even discussed finding time to visit when we were both in Moravia but it never happened. Then in 2012 amid some very strange goings-on the 20 canvasses were shipped to Prague. Even then temporary closures and annoyingly non-updated web information thwarted me when I was in the city. Veletržní palác was where I finally tracked it down. It is one of the galleries forming the so-called National Gallery in Prague (Národní galerie v Praze) over multiple sites. (I mention this merely to save readers future aggravation because the National Gallery is not only in one place.) The sheer scale of the paintings bowled me over. Having my son, Tom with me, ramped up the experience. And, thanks to Bożena Szota, working at the Ethno Port Poznań Festival in Poland set me on several paths. Dr Wojciech Mania of the Poznań Tourist Organisation’s guided tour of the city fed my head with ideas and planted thoughts about how two kindred Slav cultures – the Polish and the Czech – have assimilated their pre-Christian pasts. In the Czech Republic – and Mucha’s Slav Epic – the pagan deities appear. For example, bottles of Radegast beer carry an image of its eponymous Slav deity. In Poland and talking to Polish friends in Britain, it seems as if the country’s pre-Christian past was not taught beyond alluding to conversion and Christianisation.

And to conclude on a Banksy note (incidentally name-checked in the first episode of that marvellous television drama, The Young Pope), the Banksy near Hounslow railway station gets defaced periodically. What happened to it in 2015 is another of this year’s images. Banksy’s gal got hijabed. That got cleaned off. Came a clean, came a new bunch of idiots, came a new bunch of spray tags and halfwit defacings.

Sorry to be garrulous.

New releases

Leonard Cohen / You Want It Darker / Columbia
Furrow Collective / Wild Hog / Hudson Records
Home Service / A New Ground / Dotted Line
Karl Jenkins / Cantata memoria – For the Children/Er mwyny plant / Deutsche Grammophon
Kayhan Kalhor, Aynur, Salman Gambarov & Cemîl Qoçgirî / Hawniyaz / Harmonia Mundi
Alana & Leigh Cline / Alana & Leigh Cline / Scimitar Records
Kitty Macfarlane / Tide & Time / TCR Music
Leyla McCalla / A Day For The Hunter, A Day For The Prey / Jazz Village
Amira Medunjanin / Damar / World Village
Christy Moore / Lily / Columbia
Polkaholix / Sex & Drugs & Sauerkraut / Monopol Records
Anoushka Shankar / Land of Gold / Deutsche Grammophon
Mr Martin Simpson & Mr Don Flemons / Proudly Present A Selection of Ever Popular Favourites / Fledg’ling
Strom & Wasser / Reykjavík / Traumton Records
Simon Thacker & Justyna Jablonska / Karmana / Slap The Moon Records
Three Cane Whale / Live At The Old Barn, Kelston Roundhill / Kelson Records
Trio Dhoore / Momentum / Appel Records
Värttinä / Viena / Westpark
Bob Weir / Blue Mountain / Columbia Legacy
Jason Wilson / Perennials / Wheel Records

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

Anne Briggs / Four Songs / Fledg’ling [forgive the plug: this vinyl EP release includes my liner notes in the style of Bert Lloyd’s Hazards of Love Topic EP notes]
Grateful Dead / Dave’s Picks Volume 19 / Grateful Dead/Rhino
Pentangle / Finale / Topic
Pete Seeger / In England / Lake Records
Various / Indus Raag 2 / Tehzeeb
Various / laut yodeln / Trikont
Various / Magic Flute / NoEthno
Various / Refugees For Refugees / Muziekpublique
Various / Rudolstadt Festival 2016 / heideck

Events of 2016
In some cases a stronger performance ousted another by the same act

Oysters3 / The Stables, Milton Keynes / 22 January 2016
Imagining Ireland / Royal Festival Hall / 29 April 2016
Kronos Quartet / Barbican Hall, London / 9 May 2016
Zakir Hussain’s tabla concerto Peshkarwith the BBC Concert Orchestra / Alchemy Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London / 20 May 2016
Eliza Carthy’s Generations / The Sage, Gateshead / 4 June 2016
Vardan Hovanissian & Emre Gültekin Adana / Great Hall, Ethno Port Poznań Festival / 17 June 2016
Karolina Cicha & Shafqat Ali Khan / Castle Courtyard, Ethno Port Poznań Festival / 17 June 2016
Debashish Bhattacharya and Sanju Sahai / Castle Courtyard, Ethno Port Poznań Festival / 18 June 2016
Lo Còr de la Plana / Castle Courtyard, Ethno Port Poznań Festival / 18 June 2016
Moh! Kouyaté / Scene on the grass, Ethno Port Poznań Festival / 19 June 2016
MeNaiset / Neumarkt, Rudolstadt Festival / 8 July 2016
Anoushka Shankar, Land of Gold / Größe Bühne, Heinepark, Rudolstadt Festival / 9 July 2016
MeNaiset, Gottesdienst (church service), Stadtkirche St Andreas, Rudolstadt Festival / 10 July 2016
Emily Portman & The Coracle Band / Heidecksburg, Rudolstadt Festival, / 10 July 2016
Gangstagrass / Markt, Rudolstadt Festival / 10 July 2016
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt & Desert Slide / Union Chapel, London / 29 July 2016
Peggy Seeger and Sam Greaves / Cecil Sharp House, London / 16 September 2016
Aruna Sairam & Jayanthi Kumaresh / Darbar Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London, 17 September 2016
Parissa + the Meshk Ensemble / Royal Festival Hall, London / 1 October 2016
Anoushka Shankar, Land of Gold / Royal Festival Hall, London / 13 October 2016
Furrow Collective / Cecil Sharp House, London / 1 November 2016
Ar Log / Community Hall, Dinas Mawddwy / 4 November 2016
Shirley Collins with Ian Kearey, Dave Arthur and Pete Cooper / Mastertapes radio recording session about Love, Death & the Lady / BBC Maida Vale, London / 26 November 2016
Iva Bittová and Abraham Brody / Vortex Jazz Club, London / 6 December 2016

A baker’s dozen of past music projects, released in 2015 or earlier. Either they were newly introduced journeys of exploration or ones which returned to inspire over the course of writing in 2016

Ar Log / Goreuon Ar Log/The Best Of Ar Log / Sain Records, 2007
Lautari / vol. 67 – live 2014 / Wodzirej, 2015
MeNaiset / Kelu / Aania, 2010
Fairport Convention / Live At The BBC / Island/Universal, 1996
Peter Graham / Wabi / Rosa s.r.o., 2014
Muzykanci / a na onej górze… / Wydawnictwo Jana Słowińskiego, 2002
Nawa / Ancient Sufi Invocations & Forgotten Songs from Aleppo, Sacred Voices of Syria, Vol. 1 / Lost Origin Sound Series/Electric Cowbell Records, undated [2014]
Pauline Oliveros / Accordion & Voice / Lovely Music, 1982
Projekt.Kolberg / In Fidelis / Karrot, 2014 https://pl-pl.facebook.com/projekt.kolberg/
Paul Robeson / Freedom Train and the Welsh Transatlantic Concert / Folk Era Records, 1998
Aruna Sairam, Noureddine Tahiri and Dominique Vellard / Trialogue / Glossa, 2012
Dave Swarbrick / raison d’être / Shirty, 2010
Swarb’s Lazarus / Live & Kicking / Squiggle, 2006

From top to bottom the images are Iva Bittová and Abraham Brody; street musicians in Kingsland; in the year of Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the image of previous Nobel Literature winner Rabindranath Tagore used to advertise Kājal-Kāli ink from a 1945 Indian almanac (© lost in the mists of time); the Furrow Collective’s Alasdair Roberts; Anne Briggs (© Al Atkinson/Fledg’ling Records); Ar Log’s Dafydd Roberts playing telyn deires, the Welsh triple harp; and the Furrow Collective’s Emily Portman. Concluding, the Banksy with a burqa. Unless otherwise stated, images are © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives.

A biography of the author is regularly updated here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-hunt-261b7bb

31. 12. 2016 | read more...

Best of 2015

[by Ken Hunt, London] As years go, 2015 was one of the finest. Over and over again it plucked some remarkable rabbits out the magician’s hat. It’s stuff like that that keeps me keeping on.

A note on the process when it comes to these decisions. Part of it is to do with whittling. Some ‘holding entries’ logged were gone by the end of the year. Some albums remain here because even though they did not necessarily overwhelm, in the long run they stayed on the play list. An example might be Los Lobos’ Gates of Gold. In their canon it may be a “a fair to middling album” (according to my fRoots review) but I played it so much without making that special connection with the majority of its tracks.

The festival season brought further discoveries, consolidations and winnowings. It is no coincidence that live performances outnumber all the other entries combined. A special year for music.

2015 also brought a number of deaths in music circles that affected me. To name but a significant few, these included J P Bean (author of Singing From The Floor: A History Of British Folk Clubs), Bill Keith, Sabri Khan, John Renbourn, Bruce Rowland, Christof Stählin and Andy M. Stewart. Thankfully it was the year in which the fewest really close musician friends died in several years. Lemmy’s death reminded me of interviewing Steve Reich slightly confused by being in the same hotel as a whole lotta Motörhead fans.

New releases

The Casey Sisters / Sibling Rivalry / Old Bridge Music
Eviyan / Nayive / Animal Music
Archie Fisher / A Silent Song Greentrax
Ghazalaw / Ghazalaw / Marvels of the Universe
Rhiannon Giddens / Tomorrow Is My Turn / Nonesuch
Jahnavi Harrison / Like A River To The Sea / Mantrology

Zakir Hussain / Distant Kin / Moment
Los Lobos / Gates of Gold / Proper
Mahsa Vahdat / Traces of An Old Vineyard / Kirkelig Kulturverksted
Plainsong [Iain Matthews • Andy Roberts • Mark Griffiths] Reinventing Richard / Fledg’ling
Emily Portman / Coracle / Furrow
Tom Russell / The Rose of Roscrae – A Ballad of the West / Proper
Buffy Sainte Marie / Power In The Blood / True North Records
Simpson • Cutting • Kerr / Murmurs / Topic
Jyotsna Srikanth / Bangalore Dreams / Theme Music
Stick In The Wheel / From Here / From Here
Richard Thompson / Still / Proper
Steve Tilston / Truth To Tell / Hubris
Trembling Bells / The Sovereign Self / Tin Angel Records
Tritonus / urbanus / Zytglogge
Marry Waterson and David A. Jaycock / Two Wolves / One Little Indian

Historic releases, reissues and anthologies

Bob and Ron Copper / Traditional Songs from Rottingdean / Fledg’ling
Bonnie Dobson / She’s Like A Swallow and Other Folk Songs / Big Beat
Incredible String Band / Wee Tam & The Big Huge / BGO
Kronos Quartet / One Earth, One People, One Love – Kronos Plays Terry Riley / Nonesuch
Lead Belly / The Smithsonian Folkways Collection / Smithsonian Folkways
John Renbourn / The Attic Tapes / Riverboat
Buffy Sainte Marie / Many A Mile / Ace/Vanguard Masters
Various / Don’t Panic! We’re from Poland (promotional CD) / dontpanic.culture.pl
Various / Rudolstadt 2015 / heideck

Events of 2015

Martin Simpson / Kings Place, London, 20 February 2015
Ashok Pathak • Ravikiran & Shashank (Shashank Subramanyam) • Nishat Khan Journée Inde – Fête de Holi (‘India Journey – Festival of Holi’) / Théâtre de la Ville, Paris / 22 March 2015
Iva Bittová / Fiddles on Fire, The Sage, Gateshead / 3 May 2015
Peggy Seeger with Calum MacColl & Neill MacColl / The Stables, Waverdon, Milton Keynes / 10 June 2015
Emily Portman Trio / Riverhouse Arts Centre, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey / 21 June 2015
Simpson, Cutting & Kerr / The Stables, Wavendon, Milton Keynes / 23 June 2015
9Bach / TFF Rudolstadt, Heidecksburg / 3 July 2015
Rojda Şenses / TFF Rudolstadt, Heidecksburg / 3 July 2015

Rhiannon Giddens / TFF Rudolstadt, Große Bühne, Heinepark / 3 July 2015
Trollmusikken (Silje Hegg, Geir Egil Larsen, Ingvild Lie and Tom Willy Rustad) / TFF Rudolstadt, Neumarkt / 5 July 2015
Peppe Voltarelli Band / Jazz Dock, Prague / 6 July 2015
Bahauddin Dagar – Morning Bliss / Darbar Festival, The Front Row at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London / 20 September 2015
Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick / Folk at the Foundling, The Foundling Museum, London / 9 October 2015
Emily Portman Sextet / Folk at the Foundling, The Foundling Museum, London / 6 November 2015
Blood & Roses: The Songs of Ewan MacColl / Barbican, London / 9 November 2015
David Dorůžka Trio / Jazz Dock, Prague / 16 November 2015
Iva Bittová a PKP [Iva Bittová and the Prague Philharmonia] / Forum Karlín, Prague / 17 November 2015
Marry Waterson and David A. Jaycock / Green Note, London / 26 November 2015
Come Together with Barb Jungr & John McDaniel / Studio, St. James Theatre, London / 27 November 2015
Herzberg60 – André Herzberg, Pankow and others / Kesselhaus, Berlin / 28 December 2015

Past music projects that returned to haunt

Ornette Coleman / Dancing In Your Head Verve/A&M
k d lang and the BBC Concert Orchestra / Live In London / Universal
Kronos Quartet with Asha Bhosle / You’ve Stolen My Heart / Nonesuch
Kronos Quartet and Terry Riley / Requiem For Adam / Nonesuch
Scotty Stoneman with the Kentucky Colonels / Live in L.A. / Sierra/Rural Rhythm Records
Grateful Dead / Workingman’s Dead / Warner Brothers

The image at top of 9Bach at TFF Rudolstadt is © Santosh Hunt/Swing 51 Archives. The images of Iva Bittová rehearsing before Fiddles on Fire and Carthy, Swarbrick & Handel coming down after their Foundling gig are © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives. Otherwise the images are © their image-makers, photographers and designers.

In memory of Fred McCormick (18 November 1946-15 November 2015)

31. 12. 2015 | read more...