Giant Donut Discs ® – June 2011
6. 6. 2011 | Rubriky: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[by Ken Hunt, London] More folk, blues and beyond dreams from Judy Collins, Jyotsna Srikanth, Carol Grimes, Ágnes Herczku, Szilvia Bognár and Ági Szalóki, Eliza Carthy, Kirsty MacColl, A. Kanyakumari, Odetta and Zoe & Idris Rahman. Stranded on the island, sometimes you pine for female company. And then this image of Peter Rowan swept in, not in drag, just showing his vulnerable side.
Pretty Polly – Judy Collins
This is a track from one of the finest folk-rock albums ever produced. It is not just a song. It is nasty narrative from one of the pivotal albums in the annals of folk-rock. Michael Sahl plays organ and Van Dyke Parks electric piano. Stephen Stills and James Burton play electric guitar. Buddy Emmons plays pedal steel and Chris Ethridge electric bass. She plays acoustic guitar and James Gordon drums. To hear this in 1968 was to fall in love with the form. The way she clipped ‘diggin’ your grave’ may well have been unintentional, but it worked. Of course, this concluding track from Who Knows Where The Time Goes should have been longer – rendered and delivered longer, that is – but such were the physical restrictions of the LP timewise. It’s still a wonderful track for unpicking its participants’ voices and the following May – 1969 – she was gracing the cover of Life magazine. From Wildflowers & Who Knows Where The Time Goes (Rhino 8122 73393-2, 2000)
Folk Dreams – Jyotsna Srikanth
Violin is so central to the South Indian (‘Carnatic’) musical firmament that it is hard to unpick this European introduction from the southern musical mindset. Violin lends itself well to art and fusion music. This ragam- and folk fusion-infused album can stand proud in the long line of varied slash Indo-jazz crossovers. This is such a good track and Jyotsna Srikanth is a solid and promising player in the Karnatic tradition. From Carnatic Jazz (Swathi Soft Solutions SA552, 2011)
Your Blues – Carol Grimes
I don’t care. Your Blues may be a list song. It may catalogue slash name-check – to re-shuffle without re-prioritising its order – Ray Charles, Kind of Blue, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Edif Piaf and Thelonius Monk. Carol Grimes has one of those voices that shoots up the spine, hitting the heart before lodging in the brain. Scary stuff in a very good sense. This unaccompanied track is from her betwixt and between 2000 portrait essaying a variety of musical styles. The track is quite different from its bed-fellows. Not better for that, just very different in the way it shows off her voice – one of Britain’s most supple voices. From Eyes Wide Open (Voiceprint LCVP120CD, 2000)
Sem eso – Tuzugrás – Ágnes Herczku, Szilvia Bognár and Ági Szalóki
Given the trio of Ágnes Herczku, Szilvia Bognár and Ági Szalóki’s heady accomplishments on Szájról szájra (‘From mouth to mouth’) – the album this comes from – it was plain that this ensemble was destined to do something really astonishing, something that would take traditional Hungarian folk music another step on. That is not exaggeration for effect. It is a dreadful old cliché but that won’t stop me using it: the world was their oyster and they were strewing pearls before cognoscenti. Indeed, one of the finest Hungarian music experiences of my life was seeing the trio perform live during the H’ART Festival at Centre of Contemporary Art on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow in November 2008. Then, Bad Hungarians, they buggered everything by disbanding, leaving only memories like this. One of the best ensembles I ever saw. From Szájról szájra (FolkEurópa Kiadó 2007)
War – Eliza Carthy
Next time you have to eat road miles in the driving seat, put Neptune on and revel in its sheer variety. Every track brings something different. Every track adds a piece to the jigsaw puzzle. And when you put them all together and have the complete image before you, you’ll just know that it’s a 3D deal and you haven’t yet grasped the whole picture. Neptune is a keeper and one of the revelations of 2011.
This is the album’s second track. It swaggers and twirls its cane in ways that Kirsty MacColl might be said to have presaged back in 2001. Meet da girls on the battlefront. It shifts tempo, eels most seductively and has claws out to kill. From the insouciant Neptune (Hem Hem HHR001CD, 2011)
In These Shoes? – Kirsty MacColl
Speaking of whom… And fashion parades… In memoriam of one of sauciest voices of our times but cross-linked with Warren Lamb, the Movement Pattern Analysis fellow. From Tropical Brainstorm (Instinct INS557-2, 2001)
Visweswara – A. Kanyakumari
This composition in a South Indian-styled Sindhubhairavi – as it is spelled on the album – has a delicious otherness to it. It is credited to Swathi Thirunal, Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813-46) in full, the Maharaja of the state of Travancore, to be fuller still. It is a composition full of twists and turns in Kanyakumari’s hands. Sumathi Rammohan Rao and Sukanya Ram accompany on mridangam (double-headed, hand-struck barrel drum) and ghatam (tuned clay pot) respectively. Visweswara is a gorgeous miniature at four minutes and thirty seconds in length. From Violin Trio (Nadham Music Media CDNMM 243, 2006)
Lass of the Low Country – Odetta
Odetta was one of the greatest voices of the US Folk Revival. This particular song, she describes in the album notes, was one she “originally thought came from Scotland, but later found that this version was by John Jacob Niles” – which as twists go is delightfully tangled on several levels. It’s a longing over the tracks song. Which as a metaphor works on far too levels works to even begin start thinking about. From her delivery, it’s hard to begin guessing where she thought the song derived from. It screams John Jacob Niles. And there is nothing wrong with that. From At The Gate of Horn (Tradition TCD 1063, 1997)
O Nodi Re – Zoe & Idris Rahman
How do you say that something exceeds expectations and has proved itself so beyond belief without getting gushy? This is the sound of the river flowing to the sea. Add your own subtitles as Zoe Rahman plays piano and her brother Idris adds clarinet. So good it was a must for inclusion on The Rough Guide to the music of India (2010). (Of which I am very proud.) The celebration of Rabindranath Tagore to which they contributed – ‘Flying Man: Poems for the 21st Century’ – at the Conference Centre, British Library in London with William Radice, Mukal Ahmed and Munira Parvin on 17 May 2011 was remarkable. Thank goodness for simulcast on the desert island. (Is that still a word?) From Where Rivers Meet (MANUCD004, 2008) and The Rough Guide to the music of India (World Music Network RGNET1231CD, 2010)
Break My Heart Again – Peter Rowan
Just happens to be one of the best songs on the planet on the subject of the damage that love can wreak on the human brain. As Maggie Holland once eyed me all wet-eyed: those chords! From Peter Rowan (Flying Fish FF 700071, 1989)
The copyright of all other images lies with the respective photographers, companies and image-makers.