George Frayne aka Commander Cody – Art Music & Life
14. 10. 2010 | Categories: Articles,Book reviews
[by Ken Hunt, London] "The painting is from a 1984 album I did for Line Records in Germany called "Lose It Tonight". A song I performed - the first and only time I ever lip-synched a TV show - on Germany's #1 Pop music program of the 80's called "MusicLaden". It was great I met Pat Boone and showed him the way out." - George Frayne's lateral thoughts emanating from the Lose It Tonight cover.
Long before he grew pianistic wings with Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, George Frayne had what looked like a promising life ahead of him as a painter including, like Alton Kelley, a sideline in car art, sculptor and, heavens forbloodyfend (tmesis rears not only its ugly head but shows off its potty mouth), even a Teaching Fellow in Fine Art at the University of Michigan (1966-68)
[by Ken Hunt, London] As summer slides into mellow fruitfulness, what better batch of lifesavers on a desert island could one wish for than these? Let's start with Dusty Springfield and her wicked way with telling a delicious tale about forbidden love. You'll have to look for taboo subjects amongst the choices by Ahmad Sham Sufi Qawwali Group, Little Feat, Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, Ralph McTell, Los Lobos, Joe Ely, Jerry Garcia, Bonnie Dobson and Dave Swarbrick. You might well find one or two sins hidden here.
Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield (1939-1999) had established herself as one of the quintessential voices of British popular music by the time her Dusty In Memphis (1969), on which this track appeared, came out
[by Ken Hunt, London] People's appreciation of American folk music did not commence with the folk scare of the 1960s and the likes of the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Odetta, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bob Dylan. A generation before them another folk revival, that similarly had no truck with segregation along racial lines, had been under way. Its crop of performers included progressives such as Josh White, Woody Guthrie, Huddie 'Leadbelly' Ledbetter and Pete Seeger. Like the next generation, the earlier one wrote new songs in various folk idioms, frequently darts with left-leaning barbs, dosed with class consciousness and social awareness
[by Ken Hunt, London] This month a raft laden with new provisions landed. It would have been rude not to, as they say, that is, not to have included some. In no particular order, ladies and gentlemen, here's the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Flora Purim, Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin, Laurie Anderson, Alastair Hulett and Dave Swarbrick, Jenna and Bethany Reid, Bill Kirchen, Wargaren, Annette Pinto and Diva Reka. It's not entirely new stuff because, as ever, it reflects other work going on during the month.
Jailer Jailer - Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band
Peter Rowan has a body of great songs behind him and a cadre of collaborators that really takes some beating
[by Ken Hunt, London] The Scots Gaelic song tradition had a relatively hard time of it during the twentieth century what with a diminishing mother-tongue population, a massive decline in Gaelic literacy and the steady encroachment of Scots and English. Seonag NicCoinnich, that is, Joan MacKenzie in the English, was one of four daughters born into a community where Gaelic was the first language - in Point on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles on 2 September 1929.
The spoken and sung language was strong and it was here that she developed her taste and love for Gaelic song. She and her sisters studied in Stornoway where she made her public singing debut as a schoolgirl. She went off to Glasgow to study to become a primary school teacher
[by Ken Hunt, London] In January 1963 Bob Dylan was in Europe, flitting between London and Rome, bankrolled by an appearance as a folksinger in the BBC television drama, Madhouse on Castle Street. In London he fell into the company of, amongst others, the British folksingers Martin Carthy, Bob Davenport and Rory McEwen - like Eric von Schmidt, another exceptional painter, notably in McEwen's case of botanical subjects - and was reunited with some compatriots, the songwriter and novelist Richard Fariña, Ethan Signer of the Charles Valley River Boys, and the musician and illustrator Eric von Schmidt.
[by Ken Hunt, London] More boffo music from the rain-soaked rock, as ever reflecting work streams and passions. Lisa Knapp, John B. Spencer, Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer, Ökrös with Ági Szalóki, Element of Crime, Toots and the Maytals, Miles Davis, Pentangle, Asha Bhosle and R.D. Burman, and the Kronos Quartet with Alim & Fargana Qasimov are the month's turn-ons.
Blacksmith - Lisa Knapp
Lisa Knapp is a singer whose passion and gift are astonishing. The Blacksmith is a traditional song that seems to have been with me my entire journey into traditional English music. It has a wondrous melody and it tells a story to wonder at and weep over. Its lyrics capture the bewilderment of love found and love lost better than nearly any other song in the folk or popular canon.
Kn
[by Ken Hunt, London] "When I met him," says Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band of Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, "he was working at the School of Oriental and African Studies, I think. He was teaching there. How I came across him was that [Elektra record producer] Joe Boyd introduced us to odd songs and things and Robin [Williamson] suggested we might have a sitar player on Mad Hatter's Song. He actually played on Mad Hatter's Song credited as 'Soma' because he asked not to have his name used, I don't really know why. He probably had some contractual thing going. It says sitar by Soma but it's actually him."
N.A. Jairazbhoy's nom de sitar - Soma - on the Incredibles' 5000 Spirits or The Layers of the Onion (1967) derives from a Hindu holy drink and a Hindu lunar deity
[by Ken Hunt, London] Swing 51's Giant Donut Discs® column gathered musical snapshots from all manner of people. These were Julian Dawson's GDDs as published in Swing 51 issue 13/14 with annotations and updates. This is one in our series of Donuts from the vaults. For information about Julian's musical activities, visit his official website at the bottom of his Donuts. (And how frequently does a writer get to write that?) In April 2010 the German-language edition of his biography of the pianist Nicky Hopkins appeared.
