Salut! Live

Welcome ..

Lots of people are stopping by here for some reason, and I apologise that everything you find is already quite long in the tooth.

Even poorer show - but the record is about to change

Yes, I know what I promised. The excuses are jostling for position: my possessions at sea between the Middle East and Marseille, a frantic start to my resumed freelance career, flood damge at my home in France ...

The list could go on.

But here is the firmest commitment I can make: Salut! Live will be properly live again within the next few days. Unless I'm a Dutchman or a Mag.

Poor show. Will do better

Salut! Live has not evaporated. Its editor, publisher and general dogsbody has not, to the best of his knowledge, died. He hasn't even lost interest.

Long distance information

Some people are altogether too clever. Others just paid attention at school.

Those paying attention at Salut! Live will have seen my reference to the delicious Sandy Denny/Fotheringay anecdote from the Manchester gig where, in response to repeated demands Banks of the Nile, the band appeared to relent - only to bash out Memphis Tennessee.

As I departed Abu Dhabi for a holiday on the Nile, a Salut! Live reader writing as Private Beach added this comment:

I wonder if Sandy remembered that Memphis Tennessee takes its name from Memphis in Egypt - which is indeed on the banks of the Nile?

I will not say it was the highlight of an enthralling holiday. But to Memphis, ancient capital of Egypt, I duly went. There was not a great deal to explore - most of what remains of the old city is at the museum where the main picture was taken - but it had to be seen.

Private Beach's theory seemed so compelling that I abandoned my assumption that the band intended no more than a gag. Of course, I told myself, one or more of them must have known precisely what they were doing.

I promised to check, and this I have done. With this surprising - to me - response from Jerry Donahue, the Fotheringay guitarist behind the project to salvage, complete and issue the band's second album 38 years after work first started on it:

We have always loved a rocker and I do remember doing Memphis Tennessee at times but never knew
that the origin of the city name was from Egypt! If Sandy knew she didn't mention it in my presence and
I suspect that it is just a coincidence. However I will run that one by Pat and Gerry to see what they may
know.

Keep watching this space. If Jerry's own inquiries shed more light, it will be reflected here....

Banks of the Nile

One of my favourite entries in the Sandy Denny/Fotheringay competition told of the night in Manchester when, having endured a million cries for Banks of the Nile, Sandy called out, as encores were demanded, something like: "So you want Banks of the Nile?"

And then launched into Memphis Tennessee.

I am off to the Banks of the Nile, on holiday, without calling into Memphis or passing Go. There is lots to read here if you wish. You can even say something, by way of a Comment, on any posting that appears here.

Back early December, with pieces on Bellowhead, year-end critics' polls (I'll declare my choices) and more. Oh yes, and much more on Fotheringay........à bientôt.

Baby blogging blues

The picture has nothing to do with music. It just helps to explain why new postings have been absent from Salut! Live since the healthy burst of interest generated by the Eliza Carthy competiton and YouTube indulgences.

Reviews of Chris Foster's CD, and Maddy Prior's, and an even more belated look at Sharon Shannon's most recent compilation, plus whatever else has been building up in the intray, will appear in due course.

But I have been back in the UK, becoming a grandfather, watching football, seeing friends and so on. Which rather gets in the way of the upkeep of every corner of Salut!'s website world.

If you have strayed here expecting any of the above, or at least something new, please bear with me. Updates will occur within the next 10 days. If you are here for the first time, all I can say is that there really is a great deal of material to be catching up on.

Use the links in the sidebars. Navigate the site by using the search function or delving into the archives. If you like or dislike anything you find, or have suggestions that might make the site better, you can even leave a comment. That, however, might be one step too far for Salut! Live to hope for!

Rachel unthanked in the end

I had to admit to someone who entered the Eliza Carthy competition that I had heard of, but not from, Laura Marling, the "other" folk inclusion in the Mercury music award nominations.

As I wrote here when the shortlist was announced, there was never really a snowball's chance in hell that Rachel Unthank and the Winterset would actually win. With no disrespect to Elbow - to whom I offer Salut! Live's hearty congratulations - the role of the novelty folk act is just that: to provide novelty and a sense that good music is good whatever its genre.

Seth Lakeman, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy can testify to that (though look at the fascinating revelation which has appeared in Comments since this article was posted: Rachel's band came a very close second, and some judges wanted to announce as much but were overruled)

In any event, the chivalrous knight in me - not that it's there very much - hopes all those people who have devoted so much of 2008 to hectoring and harrumphing about the Unthanks & Winterset will now graciously concede that she/they richly deserved their moments of mainstream exposure.

The interview clip shows what delightfully natural lasses, all the more because they are burdened with a desperately sad football allegiance, Rachel and Becky happen to be.

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset: this year's Mercurial folk

Time of year for a spot of excitement as the list of 10 finalists in the Mercury Music Prize awards is released.

Token folkies? There on merit, irrespective of genre? Snowball in hell's chance of winning?

Never mind the answers (Probably, Yes and No in Salut! Live's honest judgement). Just offer congratulations to Rachel Unthank and the Winterset for making it on to the 2008 shortlist if, like me, you feel The Bairns was an excellent album.

Tom Paxton rambles

Every so often, the indispensable Mudcat folk chat forum produces a discussion that stirs the memory and warms the soul. And sometimes it does it twice.

Eight years ago, someone called Wesley S started a threat about Tom Paxton, the prolific American singer/songwriter whose songs seem to capture all human emotions and whose performances leave everyone feeling he was singing just for them.

Some Mudcat threads disappear from immediate view very quickly, others linger for weeks, pushed occasionally to the top by some new contribution.

After a week or so, In Praise of Tom Paxton descended gently into the Mudcat archives as the conversation petered out.

Then, a few weeks ago, Wesley S revisited the site and used the release of a new Paxton CD* as an excuse to re-start the thread, inspiring a fresh stream of messages recounting meetings with, concerts by and memories of this giant of the folk movement.

If you have not already been there, go now before the exchanges dry up once more. The thread is for you if you have ever been moved to laughter or tears, or both, by a Paxton show, sung his songs to children, partners or paying audiences of your own (I have done all of those things, albeit badly) or just want to know why a fuss is being made about a man approaching his 71st birthday.

Nowt so queer as getting folk in the paper (3)

Never mind casualties or war. What about casualties of work?

That thing that pays the rent (a very high rent if you live in Abu Dhabi) is constantly delaying postings, and Salut! Live is one of the first corners of my cyberlife to suffer.

But I have had such a heartening response to my recent article in The National, and the discussions to which its contents have subsequently contributed that I really must make time to share some of it.

The first message I received was from a colleague, Philippa Kennedy, whom I knew to be Irish but not to be a fellow folkie, more specifically one who even remembers, as I do, the Johnstons (thanks to another colleague, Lauren Lancaster, for doing the photographic honours with my old admission ticket, and to YouTube folk for the rest).

First, this is what she wrote (I quote verbatim because the names are all so resonant):

Loved your folk club piece. Actually you are not alone. I spent most of my four years at Trinity College Dublin in dingy cellars around the city where the folk scene was vibrant. I still love it - mostly Irish - but I fully intend that the last voice I hear on this earth will Dolores Keane singing Never be the Sun. (not too soon I hope)
One of my best mates in those days was Mick Moloney, one of the world's most brilliant mandolin players and now professor of Celtic Music at Philadelphia university. He was in a group you'd never have heard of called The Johnson's (had a hit with the Curragh of Kildare). The Furies were just 'oul tinkers that came in from the cold to earn a few bob (most of which they drank) and I once sat on the knee of Luke Kelly of The Dubliners who sang Rocky Road to Dublin to me on a car journey from the city to Bray. Died young, poor soul.
I used to sing a bit too. Still do. I've expanded my very traditional Irish tastes these days to embrace Blue Grass, probably because one daughter loves it. Gillian Welch, Old Crow etc.
We'd get the odd English singer over in Dublin in those days. Sorry I never made it to your club.

To which I replied:

That is a lovely message, and brings back memories of almost all the people mentioned. Had the Johnstons at each of two clubs I ran (40 pounds plus petrol/beer money from memory; they stayed at our (co-organisers') homes. Lucy had left by the time of the second visit. And I recall that Adrienne died v young. Interviewed Luke once, at a grim night club in spennymoor , co durham and he was desperately hard work, but I adored his voice.