response 157 of 157:

May 25 20:43 UTC 2005

A track from the new Ashley Hutchings project just became this week's
ear-worm.   The lyrics have some problems, but the tune is pretty good
and the arrangement is first rate.  Hutchings' new project is 
a band called The Rainbow Chasers, which is Hutchings, two young women
and one young guy; everybody sings, and the women play violin and viola
so there is sort of a poppy string-quartet thing going on.

Hutchings was the guest on this week's Mike Harding show (which I just
missed, sigh, but I have the replay available) so most likely more
tracks from the new album are on that show.

Ashley Hutchings, for those who don't know, is *the* most important
figure from the 1960's & 1970's British folk-rock scene -- as an 
intellectual influence and organizer, rather than as a pure musician.
Hutchings was a founding member of Fairport Convention and he was 
the one who pushed the band into working more extensively with 
traditional music.
He quit Fairport and organized Steeleye Span to focus even more on 
traditional music, and then he quit Steeleye Span and started 
The Albion Band to focus even more on English music (meaning less
of the Irish and Scottish songs).  Probably half or more of the 
classic British folk-rock albums from that period either have
Ashley playing on them, or are by bands that Ashley started. 

(And his output since 1990 has been mostly turgid, MOR pop crap --
I have bought hardly any of his voluminous output in the last decade.)