Giant Donut Discs ® – August 2013
31. 8. 2013 | Rubriky: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[by Ken Hunt, London] This month’s selection is the product of one of most intense periods in career terms for several years . There was so much that could have reflected this month’s listening but for many reasons this is what, let’s say, is going to emerge. John Reilly, Robb Johnson, Leyla McCalla, The Home Service, Sam Lee, William Kimber, David Crosby & Graham Nash, John Coltrane and the Chumbas are, let’s call them, the chosen ones…
The Well Below The Valley – John Reilly
The Well Below The Valley tells a tale of deception, incest and infanticide. This particular performance – and a most remarkable one it is at that – was collected from the Irish Traveller John Reilly by the Irish folklorist Tom Munnelly. It originally appeared The Bonny Green Tree (Topic 12T359, 1977). One of the most intense songs ever to run through my little head. From O’er His Grave the Grass Grew Green – Tragic Ballads (Topic TSCD653, 1998)
Ken Hunt’s now-anonymised obituary entitled ‘Tom Munnelly: Irish folk music and folklore collector, singer and social historian’ published in The Scotsman is at http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/tom-munnelly-1-918632
Be Reasonable – Robb Johnson
This is the opening track on this double CD. A commission came in about writing an article about political song in Britain and the album’s yellow spine sat winking at me like a little monkey. It is a full-tilt version of one of Robb Johnson’s most popular, rabble-rousingest songs. It has a catchiness, a singability that doesn’t take long for newcomers to the song to grasp and a message. In the album notes, Johnson adds some detail about the song: “Based on a good old Situationist slogan from Mai 68. I just translated ‘réaliste’ as the more English ‘reasonable’.” The idiom works marvellously.
Joining in on the anti-capitalist fun are Jim Woodland, Leon Rosselson, Frankie Armstrong, Ian Saville, Roy Bailey, and Reem Kelani. From Celebrating Subversion – The Anti-Capitalist Roadshow (Fuse Records CFCD 099, 2012)
Too Blue – Leyla McCalla
Leyla McCalla first came to my attention as the cellist of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (with whose vocalist Rhianon Giddens she did a UK tour in early October which, alas I was unable to get to see because of the pressure of deadlines and life’s cookie jar – or as the British call it the biscuit tin – of conspiracies. To my mind, Vari-colored Songs is remarkable. McCalla mixes the poetry of Langston Hughes, Haitian folksongs (such as the Haitian Creole Kamèn Sa Fè? gleaned from Alan Lomax In Haiti 1936-1937 and the recording Ago Fixè’s Bal Band) and her own material. She creates music that is wholly hers and out there. Out there? Well, I don’t remember anything like this. This is way beyond The Secret Life of Bees (2008) in terms of cello – at the risk of sounding silly.
On this particular track she sings and plays tenor banjo. Luke Winslow-King accompanies on guitar and Cassidy Holden bass. From Vari-colored Songs – A tribute to Langston Hughes (Dixie Frog DFGCD 8752, 2013)
A Lincolnshire Posy – The Home Service
I lived through the recording of this album, the Home Service’s masterpiece. This is their take on Percy Grainger’s suite of songs that he gleaned from folksong collecting in Lincolnshire the the first decade of the Twentieth Century. A phenomenal piece of music. Cannot listen to it without thinking of their wind man Howard Evens ever. From Alright Jack (Fledg’ling FLED 3015, 1997)
The Ballad of George Collins – Sam Lee
People can swagger, they can puff out their chests to outpoppingjay, er, poppingjays but if there is one thing to ground them, a good old-fashioned dose of something contagious is likely to do it. Life is a yet another sexually transmitted disease and traditional folksong got there well before the soundbites, as Sam Lee reminds with this song. (With apologies to William Kimber who follows…) From Ground of its Own (The Nest Collective Records TNCR001CD, 2012)
Country Gardens – William Kimber
This is a piece of music made famous by Percy Grainger. Generations of eager young musicians have played his setting of this morris tune, perhaps without even realising that it is morris tune, let alone a handkerchief dance, and a tune made for dancing and dancing to.
William Kimber (1872-1961) is one of the father figures of the first English Folk Revival. It was on account of Cecil Sharp seeing him play with the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers on Boxing Day 1899 that Sharp had his epiphany about England’s folk music and dance. This particular recording of Country Gardens was cut by the concertina player on 1 June 1948. HMV released it in August 1948, according to the excellent notes. From Absolutely Classic: The Music of William Kimber EFDSS CD 03, 1999)
Laughing – Crosby-Nash
Bill Halverson made this recording in October 1971 at the Dorothy Chandler Music Center in Los Angeles. Stephen Barncard revisited the tapes in March 1997. This song was first released in 1971 on Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name…. Crosby’s voice here is full of vigour and Nash adds some off-the-wall and/or plaintive harmonies. I reviewed the album this comes from in Mojo 1998 / 53, so the internet tells me. From Another Stoney Evening (Grateful Dead Records GBCD 4057, 1998)
Karuna Sevai – Sudha Ragunathan
Pāpanāsam Sivan (1890-1973) is one of the finest of Hindu hymnodists, renowned for his lyrics set to rāgam. This particular kriti – a form of Hindu hymn – is set in Hamsaddhwani. Sudha Ragunathan’s interpretation sails even if you have no notion of even which language she is singing in. From Pāpanāsam Sivan Kritis (Amutham Music Private Limited WS 014, 1999)
Ken Hunt’s The review for Pulse’s Winter 2013 issue of Sudha Ragunathan’s Darbar festival performance ‘Iconic Sitar to Mesmerising Carnatic Ragas’ is at http://www.pulseconnects.com/content/DarbarIconicSitarMesmerisingCarnaticRagas
Part 1 – Acknowledgement – John Coltrane
Some music just arrives in your life and remains there embedded but slides into your life and cranium in a way that leaves no trace. When and how A Love Supreme arrived is lost. Actually it should be the flow of the three parts that make up A Love Supreme. From A Love Supreme – Deluxe Edition (Impulse! 314 589945-2, 2002)
Introduction → So Long, So Long – Chumbawamba
Oh, go on, go on, go on, lest we forget Margaret Thatcher’s death… From In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher (no label, 2013)
The copyright of all images lies with the respective photographers, companies and image-makers. The photographs of Sam Lee are © Santosh Sidhu/Swing 51 Archives