Richard Bell (1946-2007)
[by Ken Hunt, London] The Grateful Dead turned Kris Kristofferson's Me And Bobby McGee into a road movie. With the Full Tilt Boogie Band, her finest ever band behind her, Janis Joplin turned the song into an increasingly urgent love song. Beginning with Joplin's acoustic strumming and voice, the song built, propelled by Clark Pierson's drums and Ken Pearson's Hammond organ. Then nearly three minutes into the song, Richard Bell's piano slides in unobtrusively. From there on in, the ensemble interpretation steadily steps up its frenzied energy. Together, the whole band delivers one of the Pearl album's - and Joplin's - defining statements. Pearl (1971) was Joplin's farewell kiss and her finest studio album, a posthumous one as it turned out. When she OD'd in October 1970, she left behind [...]Dan Bárta & Illustratosphere – a jazz panorama
25. 6. 2007 | Categories: Articles,Live reviews
Pulse Festival of Central and Eastern European Music/Coin Street Festival
South Bank, London 16 June 2007
[by Ken Hunt, London] Now in its third year, the Pulse Festival proved hitherto to be something of an expatriate affair. Its focus on acts from countries from the former Soviet bloc meant that audiences from the acts' homelands filled the venues in droves. It felt like patriotic solidarity or whatever you want to call it sucked people in. Mind you, that could equally be said of, say, Iranian, Kurdish or German expat audiences in London. Holding a day of free concerts on and near the National Theatre's riverside terrace was an inspired idea. As was combining it with the Coin Street Festival. The free concerts included the Czech-Roma hip-hop ensemble Gipsy.cz, the UK-based hip-hop [...]
Forest of No Return
25. 6. 2007 | Categories: Articles,Live reviews
Meltdown Festival Royal Festival Hall, London 17 June 2007 [by Ken Hunt, London] As much as the films, Disney songs are the stuff of English speakers' dreams (and nightmares if Fantasia's demon king counts), the common ground, the warp and weft of Anglophone culture. Hal Willner's 1988 Stay Awake project was a fresh, ripe look at the Disney Songbook. Its cast included Los Lobos, Ken Nordine, Sinead O'Connor, Sun Ra, Bonnie Raitt, Syd Straw and Suzanne Vega. But one Stay Awake interpretation re-set the bar height beyond Sinatra's wildest imagination. Tom Waits' metallically clink-clunking, Orwellian deconstruction of Heigh Ho presented Snow White's Seven Dwarfs off the happy pills and on a cocktail of truth serum, downers and sleep deprivation. Like the Archangel of Mis-Disneyfication, [...]The Lord of the Rings
15. 6. 2007 | Categories: Articles,Live reviews
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
7 June 2007
[by Ken Hunt, London] There's a good chance that you've read or maybe attempted to read The Lord of the Rings either in Tolkien's idiosyncratic and often highly time-warped English or in translation. It's much translated. It's gone into many other languages and Peter Jackson successfully translated it into visual language in his masterful film trilogy (2001-2003). Turning the trilogy into a vehicle for the London stage has produced a lavish affair of a very different kind. Reportedly pumped into the production - and here I confess to the sin of repetition and coming over all faint - is the astronomical figure of GBP 12.5 million. Still, costs tend to sky-rocket when the stakes and potential for profit are high.
The Lord of the Rings [...]
The Unpublished Joe Boyd Interview
9. 6. 2007 | Categories: Articles,Interviews
[by Kate Hickson, UK] Joe Boyd, the author of White Bicycles (subtitled "Making music in the 1960s") did a great deal when it came to acting a midwife to the soundtrack to many people's lives during the 1960s. He produced era-defining music by the likes of Eric Clapton & The Powerhouse, Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, The Purple Gang, Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band, Nick Drake and Brotherhood of Breath. Then he went on to do it again, overseeing recordings by the likes of Richard & Linda Thompson, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Maria Muldaur, Dagmar Krause and 10,000 Maniacs. With his Hannibal hat on, he brought Hungary's Márta Sebestyén and Muzsikás and Bulgaria's Bulgarka Vocal Trio to our attention.
He has shaped our musical perceptions, maybe third-hand as when Kate Bush turned [...]
BBC Awards and Gypsy music at Barbican
9. 6. 2007 | Categories: Articles,Live reviews
BBC World Music Awards
The 1000 year Journey
Barbican
London, May-June 2007
The Barbican centre, well known for its flexible and multi genre programming, hosted this year's BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music ceremony. The nearly 5 hour long show with 2 intervals was opened by the winner in Asia Pacific category, the Indian classical musician Debashish Bhattacharya, switching between 3 different instruments, all based on the lap steel guitar.
Unfortunately, three of the total of 10 winners didn't appear on the bill. Gogol Bordello (Americas category) rejected the invitation due to other commitments, the French singer Camille (Europe) and Somalian rapper K'Naan (Newcomer) sent a last-minute cancellation. Consequently, the Paris-Argentinian Gotan Project (Club Global) played a long set, [...]
Oysterband – go acoustic
9. 6. 2007 | Categories: Articles,Live reviews
Pizza On The Park, London 23 April 2007
"A cause for national rejoicing," exclaims the Oysterband's front man John Jones whilst setting the scene for a rare Oysterband acoustic event. It's St. George's Day. What could be more celebratory than an (a) to (d) where
(a) is toasting England's patron saint;
(b) is England's national bard, Wm. Shakespeare's birthday;
(c) is Boris Yeltsin's exit from the Russian stage; and
(d) is an Oysterband unplugged bash at an upmarket pizza parlour on the wrong side of a Royal Park?
Over the course of their set, the Oysters conjure a little token religion, some socialism, the spirit of New Jerusalem and a buzz-saw cross-cut of culture, ancient of modern. Over the course of the evening, they really hit the parts that needing hitting.
For me, over 25 years, [...]
