Shirley Collins and Within Sound (1)
11. 4. 2011 | Categories: Articles,CD reviews
[by Ken Hunt, London] Folksong, English, Czech, Hungarian or any other, is all human life in a nutshell distilled, confined or liberated through song. The Sussex singer Shirley Collins’ achievement is unmatched in the annals of twentieth-century folk music anywhere. Blessed with a voice a natural as breathing, she succeeded in bottling and freeing the essence of the songs she sang. When Shirley Collins’ Within Sound appeared in 2002, the boxed retrospective treatment is a relatively new development in folk music.
[Ken Hunt, London] It can be really beastly to be separated from kith and kin on the treasured island. But then one casts one’s eye around and one realises that those waterside plants aren’t all hemlock water dropwort, mugworts, figworts etc. There are the mangoes, for example. And the flamingos don’t always get away with raiding the mango orchard, though barbecued flamingo can grow fair tiresome. Instead one dons the fiesta clobber and dances like a demented chap to the music of Aruna Sairam, Robb Johnson, Tommy McCarthy, Dresch Quartet, Lily Allen, Bhimsen Joshi, Rendhagyó Prímástalálkozó, Françoise Hardy, Traffic and Robb Johnson again. It keeps the flaming, raiding flamingos out the orchard if nothing else.
[by Ken Hunt, London] The Giant Donut Discs® column in Swing 51 brought together a wide range of talent and one of the finest was Dagmar Krause. The bumper double issue 13/14 included a lengthy interview with her, but also her current list of Donuts. In the spirit of her choices back then, this “patchy list” as she called it (“Seems fine to us,” was appended in 1989), had next to no additional information; in that spirit there are no subsequent annotations. That feels right because hers is a no-nonsense approach to music.
[by Ken Hunt, London] Journey’s Edge is a stepping-stone, a betwixt and between work. It captures Robin Williamson poised in midair or mid-dream or -fantasy skipping from the fading psychedelic sepia of The Incredible String Band and yet to land sure-footedly on the other shore. Though nobody knew that on Journey’s Edge‘s unveiling in 1977. That only became apparent with the Merry Band of American Stonehenge later that year and A Glint At The Kindling in 1978. Journey’s Edge was Williamson’s début solo release after the splintering of the ISB in late 1974.
[by Ken Hunt, London] British folk music found a top drawer brass player, arranger and composer in Howard Evans, says Ken Hunt. He had an utterly pragmatic, utterly professional attitude to music making and the musician’s life and from 1997, when he joined the Musicians Union’s London headquarters, as assistant general secretary for media he revealed that over and over again. He was totally pragmatic about his art and the first to drolly prick any bubbles of pretension about making music. He brought a wider knowledge and a greater diversity of musical experiences to bear on making music than any professional musician I ever met but he never got the slightest tan from the musical limelight.
[by Ken Hunt, London] Life is rarely dull on the treasured island. More travellers’ tales, aka GDDs, from the faraway island – about love and deception, wading birds, coming on and vamoosing, work, tall trees in Kashmir, church bells and science fiction-inspired escapes. Bert Jansch, Lo Cor De La Plana, Carolina Chocolate Drops/Luminescent Orchestrii, Paul Kantner, Drewo, Gayathri Rajapur, Fairport and Shivkumar Sharma remain more than temporary island dwellers.
[by Ken Hunt, London] Terry Melcher, who died of cancer on 19 November 2004, was a man of many parts and, as Doris Day’s son, doors opened for him. Her only son, he was born Terry Jorden on 8 February 1942. Taking the surname of his mother’s third husband, Martin Melcher (who legally adopted him), he helped shape a generation’s musical consciousness and define the West Coast folk-rock sound. Before that he wrote songs, for instance, with Bobby Darin and Randy Newman, for his mother and for Paul Revere and the Raiders (for whom he penned Him Or Me (What’s It Gonna Be).
by Ken Hunt, London] Planning a trip to England, Scotland and/or Wales? Hoping your visit coincides with some musical adventures? The highly recommended Spiral Earth guide is the ideal place to start planning your time and trip.
[by Ken Hunt, London] East German rock music, nowadays known as Ost-Rock (Ost means east), has never had a champion outside the old East. Sure, Julian Cope got wiggy and witty with Krautrock in all its Can, Kraftwerk and Ohr-ishness. But aside from, say, coverage in the Hamburg-based Sounds in the 1980s and Tamara Danz (1952-1996) – and Silly’s lead singer’s fleeting appearance in the last edition of The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music – Ost-Rock got short shrift outside its place of origin, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Götz Hintze’s Rocklexikon der DDR (2000)…
[by Ken Hunt, London] More travellers’ tales, aka GDDs, from the faraway island – this time from Bryan MacLean, June Tabor, The Everly Brothers, June Tabor, The United States of America, Eddie Reader, The McPeake Family, Clara Rockmore, Shujaat Khan, Artie Shaw and Christy Moore with Declan Sinnott. The strangest thing happened this month. Just like the S.S. Politician going down off Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in 1941 and the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore, all these bottles of single malt whisky washed ashore in time for Burns’ Night. Nobody was more surprised than me…
