Giant Donut Discs ® – June 2014
30. 6. 2014 | Rubriky: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[by Ken Hunt, London] Bob Dylan, Bonnie Dobson, Pavla Milcová, Salamakannel, SANS, Kronos Quartet, Ray Fisher, Zakir Hussain with Adnan Sami, Jenna And Bethany Reid and the Incredible String Band.
Like A Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan
This performance is a portal to, or a portent of Dylan’s mutable identities to come. It is one of the most pivotal songs in his canon. No matter how frequently or infrequently I listen to this particular recording, it loiters menacingly in the shadows of my mind. Commentators talk about the impact of the first Beatles film – A Hard Day’s Night – in 1964. Other people clearly saw something that I didn’t. For me however, it is pretty much impossible to communicate the impact of Like A Rolling Stone at the time of release in 1965. I splashed out on a second-hand mono copy of the LP in a record shop in Wimbledon.
One reason spurring on revisiting this album was the sale of Dylan’s manuscript lyrics, handwritten at the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington D.C. – with sundry try-outs, rhyming prompts, ideas and doodles. It fetched USD 2.045 million in June 2014 at Sotheby’s. How many people were prompted to play this track as a consequence of the publicity?
Years ago this website’s co-host, Petr Dorůžka was in my former writing room and saw the LP sleeve propped up on a shelf it. He commented on its impact on him and we bonded anew in that moment. From Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia 512351 6, 2003)
Winter’s Going – Bonnie Dobson
Songs that spring surprises are always to be cherished. This song of Bonnie Dobson’s is a track from her come-back album (as it will inevitably be described). It is an album that continues to floor me. It is unsettling and that is intended as high praise. From one of my most favourite and most played albums of 2014. From Take Me For A Walk In The Morning Dew (Hornbeam Recordings HBR003, 2014)
Červené Jablíčko – Pavla Milcová
Červené Jablíčko – meaning ‘Little Red Apple’ – is an arrangement of a Czech folksong in a very different, folk-rock treatment. Pavla Milcová had a way with Czech and Moravian folksongs. This arrangement added strings and percussion in new ways to what was essentially the folk-rock process. Her voice was arresting. I apologise for not keeping up with what she did later. I’ll explain.
Life is littered with regrets. At one point I compiled a musical introduction to the music of the newly established Czech Republic. (Czechoslovakia split into the Czech and Slovak Republics in January 2003.) This track was part of it – Track 2. Foolishly I believed that the anthology had something going for it artistically and, given the popularity of Prague in particular as a tourist destination, commercially. Nothing I had ever encountered in the record shops made any attempt to capture the essence of the Czech music that had fired me up so much. It was to be my psaníčko (love-letter) to the other music of the Czech Republic that had spun my head.
If any record company is interested in the project, please get in contact. From Apollo 14 (BMG (Czech Republic) 82876539272, 2003)
Käin Minä Kaunista Kangasta Myöten – Salamakannel
This is spin-off listening from writing about another act – SANS – for an article in fRoots. It was part of my listening preparation for doing an interview with the four members of SANS. The Finnish ensemble Salamakannel was part of a huge blossoming of Finnish folk arts – or so it seemed to me from the distance of London. The same names appeared on different releases in varying contexts. It’s a great little sing-along with Jussei Ala-Kuha’s chunky mandolin chords. Andrew Cronshaw produced.
Recorded in February 1992, this sounds like the sort of number that should be revisited for concert performances. From Koivunrunkorakkautta (Amigo AMFCD 2005-2, undated [1992])
Omenankukka – SANS
In July 2011 four loosely connected musicians met to rehearse for Finland’s Kaustisen kansanmusiikkijuhlat – one of the nation’s premier music festivals. They were the UK-based Armenian ‘apricot pipe’ or duduk player Tigran Aleksanyan, the UK expat, Australia-based reedman, Ian Blake the UK-based string-and-wind multi-instrumentalist Andrew Cronshaw and the Finnish vocalist Sanna Kurki-Suonio (who sings on Käin Minä Kaunista Kangasta Myöten, the track above this).
SANS’ Live was recorded on their December 2013 tour of Flanders. Its second track begins with a statement of the Southern English folksong Searching for Lambs as an instrumental overture to the Finnish lament Omenonkukka (Apple Blossom). Listening to Omenonkukka, while its notes and its melodic sequences may well be fixed, that leaves plenty of room for expansion and expression. They are not traditional or hereditary musicians. They are doing something that is totally engaging and ear opening. From SANS’ Live (Cloud Valley Music CV2014, 2014)
Tusen Tankar – Kronos Quartet
This elegiac piece opens A Thousand Thoughts and the translation of its title is where the album title comes from. Kronos had it from the Swedish folk group Triakel and they had Tusen Tankar from the Swedish traditional singer, Thyra Karlsson of Östersund, Jämtland.
For me, the album it comes from is the ensemble’s Kronos Caravan for another decade. Incidentally, Kronos Caravan (2000), for which I wrote the booklet notes, is reissued in its entirety as part of Kronos Explorer Series (Nonesuch 536951-2, 2014)
From A Thousand Thoughts (Nonesuch 7559795573, 2014)
When Fortune Turns the Wheel – Ray Fisher
Ray Fisher was one of the folksingers whose musicianship transformed my appreciation of Scottish folksong. Her singing was a giant leap-forward for my consciousness. So much more fell into place through talking to her. She was a gracious and generous provider and dispenser of knowledge and skills.
I had been writing about her – and Bert Jansch – for the January 2015 tranche of new entries for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. But barely a day goes by when her voice doesn’t sound in my inner ear. One of my greatest influences. This piece of music first appeared in 1982, in my opinion her finest album. From Willie’s Lady (Folk-Legacy Records CD-91, 2006)
Durga – Zakir Hussain with Adnan Sami
Adnan Sami went on to far greater things financially speaking. Encountering his playing by chance on a television programme – I have a dim memory that he was still at school at the time – prompted me to write about him for the El Cerrito-based magazine Keyboard in which I had a long-running London news column. This album was the first time I tracked him down on record. It has the tabla maestro Zakir Hussain as the headliner yet the show is Adnan Sami’s and Hussain is his gracious, supportive self. Durga is one of my all-time favourite ragas, a bonfire of the vanities of a rāg to which I continually return for illumination. The duo’s live recording of Durga is delightful and of unstated provenance.
It would have been impossible to tell what direction Adnan Sami’s career would take. This parcel of joy, licensed from EMI Pakistan, largely slipped through the cracks. From The One And Only Zakir Hussain With Adnan Sami (Serengeti Sirocco SIR CD 054, 1990)
Marching – Jenna And Bethany Reid
Escape is song suite about Jan Baalsrud and the Shetland Bus. To quote from the album information: “The Shetland Bus was the name given to a secret operation between Shetland and German-occupied Norway between 1941-45 (sic). These missions did not go over land, but also the North Sea. With no lights and at constant risk of discovery by German aircraft and patrol boats, crossings were made during winter under coverage of darkness.” Phil Goodlad’s narration (words by Martyn McLaughlin) binds the narrative.
Bethany and Jenna Reid play fiddle and their playing is a continual source of inspiration. The dynamic of the piece explodes with contributions from James Lindsay (double-bass), Iain Sandilands (percussion) and James Thomson (flute and pipes). It’s erratic or churlish to pluck out a plum from this pie. The suite is a masterpiece ever heard hundreds of miles from its Norwegian and Shetlander home turf. From Escape Lofoten Records LOFCCD001, 2010)
A Very Cellular Song – The Incredible String Band
This is one of those songs that educated my teenage listening years. It is a pinnacle of Mike Heron’s songcraft and cultural thievery. I mean the latter in a wholly positive way. One time around the time of Elektra’s release of The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter in March 1968 I was in Collet’s record shop in New Oxford Street in London. It was a place where a good part of my musical education occurred. I was hungry for new musical experiences. Hans Fried who worked behind the counter insouciantly played me The Real Bahamas. It changed my life and future.
One non-musical thing about Hangman’s also struck me. That was the blue of the sky in the cover image (of the UK edition). A similar blue is in the backdrop of a photograph of single hollyhock flower and Japanese maple from our garden. From The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (Fledg’ling FLED 3078, 2010)
The copyright of all images lies with the respective photographers, companies and image-makers. The photograph of the common hollyhock Alcea rosea © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives