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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 157 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 113 of 157:
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Oct 15 07:44 UTC 2003 |
There's a decent article in on-line magazine "Slate" this week about
Richard Thompson and his "1000 Years of Popular Music" project.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089459/
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anderyn
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response 114 of 157:
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Oct 15 12:39 UTC 2003 |
The clips are pretty cool.
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krj
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response 115 of 157:
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Oct 16 18:54 UTC 2003 |
Thanks, Mike! I need to get to the slate piece. I've finally started
digging into "1000 Years." Meanwhile, Richard T. has his *third* self-
released album of the year out; "Ducknapped" is a live tour album from
spring 2003.
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dbratman
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response 116 of 157:
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Oct 16 22:01 UTC 2003 |
I loved the article's description of RT's singing voice as "a
phlegmatic bellow that often sounds at once both jumpy and arthritic."
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mcnally
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response 117 of 157:
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Oct 17 00:02 UTC 2003 |
I always liked and remembered the review that described his voice
as "goatlike", perhaps even "goatlike bleating."
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dbratman
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response 118 of 157:
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Oct 20 22:15 UTC 2003 |
You realize that anybody reading this who's never heard RT is certainly
not going to be encouraged to give him a try on the basis of this
conversation.
However, I recently played parts of "1000 Years of Popular Music" to a
friend to whom RT was hardly more than a name, and he immediately
bookmarked RT's website so that he could order it for himself.
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krj
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response 119 of 157:
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Oct 22 20:46 UTC 2003 |
I've made my occasional stop-in at the site of Peter Knight, Steeleye Span's
fiddler, where he graciously answers questions from fans.
Two news items of note. He says that it is most likely that Bob Johnson,
Steeleye's longtime electric guitarist, is permanently retired from
music. Bob came back to the band for the "Present" 2-CD set which appeared
at the end of 2002, but then he developed health problems which forced
him to step down from the subsequent tour. His spot was taken by
Ken Nicol, who is going to continue as a member of the band.
Steeleye Span plans a US tour in fall 2004. Current plans are for
the East Coast only. I don't know if Ann Arbor counts as "East Coast"
from the British perspective.
http://www.peterknight.net
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dbratman
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response 120 of 157:
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Oct 24 06:55 UTC 2003 |
Thanks, Ken. Your summaries are a lot more coherent than the way Peter
updates his site, that's for sure.
I'll certainly miss Bob Johnson, but new people can be good too. I'm
relieved to see that Maddy Prior is staying with the band this time: it
was NOT the same without her. I'm just glad that it doesn't seem to be
returning to that gruesome point of a few years ago when everybody quit
at once and Steeleye consisted of nothing but Peter Knight answering
the phone.
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krj
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response 121 of 157:
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Oct 31 05:43 UTC 2003 |
Martin Carthy, the Ark, October 20:
A solo show for this tour.
Martin is getting older, as is the audience, but he still puts on a
heck of an enthusiastic show, with marvelously intricate guitar finger
picking. I'd forgotten how important his guitar playing was, and how
much his guitar and singing sound is woven into parts of my personal
history. He played about three or four instrumentals, including the
morris dance tune "Cuckoo's Nest," and some of the great ballads he
sang were "Sir Patrick Spens" (a different version than the darkly
humorous one Fairport uses); "The Wanton Brown," about a bit of horse
thievery; "John Barleycorn;" and two big epics, "The Famous Flower of
Serving Men" and "Prince Heathen." The latter he did on request as
an encore; he said he rarely would do both of those lengthy ballads in
one evening, and I think he was tiring a bit at the end of "Heathen."
(Anybody want to spell out "The Famous Flower of Serving Men" for me?
I lost the thread of the story about midway through.)
To add to the nostalgia factor my wife & I were sitting with one of my
old college housemates, who drives from Battle Creek for the best
British folk concerts.
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anderyn
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response 122 of 157:
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Oct 31 15:02 UTC 2003 |
Fair Elinor's mother hates her, so sends her "men" to kill her knight and her
baby. Fair Elinor buries the dead, all alone, cuts her hair, and changes her
name to "Sweet William" and goes off to serve the king. Becomes his
chamberlain and is left at the court one day while the king goes hunting. The
king sees this marvellous deer, follows it through the woods to the grave and
watches as it turns into a dove which tells him about the killing and that
his chamberlain is really a girl. (The implication is that the dove is her
husband's ghost, as was the white deer he followed.) The king rides pell-mell
back to the court, where he swoops down on his chamberlain and kisses him,
actually her, and the whole court is agog until they find out it's a girl.
Then it switches to the taking and death of Fair Elinor's mother by burning
at the stake. In some of the stories it's very clear that the king married
Fair Elinor after that, but not in the song as Martin sings it.
And, yes, it IS one of my favorite ballads. Why do you ask?
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micklpkl
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response 123 of 157:
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Oct 31 16:05 UTC 2003 |
oh, bonnie sang the morning thrush
where he sat in yonder bush,
But louder did her mother cry
In the bonfire where she burned close-by
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anderyn
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response 124 of 157:
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Oct 31 16:22 UTC 2003 |
<smiley, since I can't actually give you one>
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mcnally
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response 125 of 157:
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Oct 31 17:19 UTC 2003 |
Geez, there's so much violence in song lyrics these days..
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dbratman
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response 126 of 157:
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Nov 8 06:15 UTC 2003 |
My all-time favorite folk music concert was a Martin Carthy solo
concert about 20 years ago, highlighted by a riveting performance of
the long ballad "King Willy." Which has certain thematic resemblances
to "Famous Flower."
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krj
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response 127 of 157:
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Feb 3 21:54 UTC 2004 |
The "Celtic Heartbeat" show on BBC Radio Wales just mentioned the
Steeleye Span 35th Anniversary Tour, with an accompanying new CD.
Park Records' website confirms this bare-bones information and
lists some UK dates in the spring. Supposedly there will be USA
dates later in the year.
The lineup is to be Maddy Prior, Rick Kemp, Peter Knight,
Liam Gennocky and Ken Nicol (guitar). I guess Bob Johnson
is really retired from the band this time.
Steeleye fiddler Peter Knight says that he's going to close the
Q&A section of his web site for a while, because Steeleye is
taking up more time.
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gelinas
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response 128 of 157:
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Feb 5 00:54 UTC 2004 |
Sounds like fun, Ken. :)
|
eeyore
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response 129 of 157:
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Feb 15 01:26 UTC 2004 |
For those who seem to be Richard Thompson fans, he was Emmy Lou Harris'
"backup band" at the Folk Fest a couple of weeks ago. Was kind of cool :)
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mcnally
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response 130 of 157:
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Feb 15 04:49 UTC 2004 |
D'oh! An Emmylou Harris / Richard Thompson team-up? I'd've really
have loved to have seen that.
I wonder what the resulting work would sound like if Thompson started
recording with Emmylou's recent producers, Danile Lanois and/or Malcolm
Burn. In my opinion Thompson's only recently starting to recover from
the appalling influence of Mitchell Froom..
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anderyn
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response 131 of 157:
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Feb 15 15:48 UTC 2004 |
Damn -- that I missed.
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krj
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response 132 of 157:
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Feb 15 22:08 UTC 2004 |
Yeah, if only the Emmylou / Thompson thing hadn't been one of those
Folk Festival Surprises... Thompson wasn't on the bill at all, to
the best of my recollection.
What did you think of the last Thompson studio album, Mike?
(THE OLD KIT BAG)
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eeyore
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response 133 of 157:
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Feb 16 01:12 UTC 2004 |
No, he wasn't. We were pretty surprised. Happy, though. :)
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krj
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response 134 of 157:
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Feb 18 20:06 UTC 2004 |
Well, here's a disappointing bombshell. Dave Pegg and his wife Chris are
splitting. Dave Pegg has been the bass player for Fairport Convention
since 1969, and Dave and Chris together have been the business team behind
Fairport's label and studio Woodworm Records, and the annual Cropredy folk
music festival which is one of the largest in Europe. Woodworm Studio is
being sold; as part of the divorce settlement Dave's instrument collection
is also being liquidated.
It looks like the 2004 Cropredy Festival will be the final one. Chris'
quote from the Telegraph article: "I have been running Cropredy for 23
years. We do not have a big organization behind it and it is a huge
task. I think Dave will be going to live abroad with his new partner
and I do not think I can continue."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F02%2F12%2Fn
fairp12.xml
"Marriage Split Costs Fairport Star His Guitars"
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anderyn
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response 135 of 157:
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Feb 18 20:15 UTC 2004 |
Well, I am glad I saw them at the Ark last year, then. I was kind of hoping
to try Cropredy some year, but ....
Wow.
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krj
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response 136 of 157:
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Feb 18 21:20 UTC 2004 |
Fairport the band is expected to continue.
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mcnally
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response 137 of 157:
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Feb 18 21:48 UTC 2004 |
It might be a small part of the misfortune of the divorce, but how sad
to have to break up the instrument collection.
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