When you leave a concert hall where spectators have been dressed as if for the opera, many of the women dripping with jewellery and perched atop high heels, it is easy to forget you were there for a spot of folk music. The sense of incongruity sharpens on crossing the road to see that the shops in this part of town have Rolls-Royces and Bentleys for their window displays.
The remarkable phenomenon that is Joan Baez, touring at 70 with the energy of a woman half her age, had reached Monaco.
Continue reading "Joan Baez: from Marseille to Monaco, jour et nuit" »
When listening to Ragged Kingdom (Topic) for the first time, I was in a moderately bad mood, up against a deadline and having to get to and from the airport before even beginning to try to meet it.
So I decided it was not a patch on Freedom and Rain, a breathtaking album from 1990 that deepened my admiration for June Tabor and gave me the severe shaking I needed to reverse an inexplicable failure to appreciate Oysterband.
Continue reading "June Tabor and Oysterband: Ragged Kingdom ... glories past and present" »
June Tabor Ashore (Topic)
How often have you played a June Tabor album, given it the attention it needed and reached the conclusion that you have been listening to a wonderful work of art from start to end?
It has certainly happened to me, and I am glad to say that with Ashore, a collection songs reflecting was Tabor describes as "wariness, respect and admiration" for the sea, it has happened again.
Continue reading "June Tabor: the power and consuming passion of the sea" »
The "I Love Folk Music" group at Facebook had 2,098 members last time I looked and that is a figure that exceeds Salut! Live's readership by a country mile. they've been running a "favourite artists/writers etc" thread of late, and I am not sure that Loudon Wainwright III has figured yet. Let Pete Sixsmith set things right ...
It’s a Monday night at The Sage, Gateshead; first day back at work for the 50 somethings who are thronging in the foyer, waiting for an evening with the man once described as “the next Bob Dylan”.
While Dylan can sell out the Arena on the dark side of the river and various halls in The People's Republic of China, Loudon is satisfied with a 50 per cent capacity at Norman Foster’s Great Green Condom. I’ve seen Dylan at the Arena and Loudon at The Sage and I know which one I prefer.
Continue reading "Loudon Wainwright III: beats Dylan any time" »
You will get the distinct impression, as you read on, that Pete Sixsmith rather likes Eddi Reader. I have to say I agree: I remember few gigs that have given more pleasure than hers at the Union Chapel in London some years ago ...
In my younger days, when the high spot of folk music on the radio was Burl Ives singing The Bluetail Fly or Steve Benbow giving us a sanitised version of The Irish Rover, Good Friday was a day of unsuppressed misery.
Shops did not open, pubs kept to Sunday hours and, apart from a Rugby League match at Headingley, there was absolutely nothing to do as theatres and cinemas remained locked and shuttered.
Contrast that with Good Friday 2011 style: shops and pubs open all day, lots of football and Rugby League to watch, the theatres open.
Continue reading "Eddi Reader: making Good Friday great with bawdy - and romantic - Burns" »
The headline is borrowed from a tabloid sub-editor handling a long-ago rugby story, but sums up Pete Sixsmith's night of wonder at the magic of Rachel and Becky (plus friends) ...
See also: the Salut! Live big interview with Rachel Unthank, from 2008. It starts here
When I last saw The Unthanks, four years ago at Darlington Arts Centre, the line-up was in the processs of fracturing. They were touring The Bairns album and it was a real mixed bag of a night - at times inspiring, at other times rather twee.
Continue reading "Unthanks: agog on the Tyne" »
Image: Candy Schwartz
In sore need of being cheered up, Pete Sixsmith found a musical remedy: English folk's compelling little and large show ...
Folk music is littered with great duos – Swarbrick and Carthy, Shirley and Dolly Collins, Foster and Allen, - and Spiers and Boden can take their place in the Pantheon of Performing Pairs after a rousing show at The Sage, Gateshead on Sunday night.
As a gloomy and disgruntled Sunderland supporter, I was desperately in need of a pick-me-up and the pair certainly gave me that, with their indie take on traditional music. One tall and thin, the other short and a little tubby, and both dressed in dark colours they make a great combination that melds Jon Boden’s very distinct voice with the melodic box playing of John Spiers.
Continue reading "Spiers and Boden: man-eating boars, man-eaters from Essex" »
Image: Pirlouiiiit Source: Concertandco.com
For anyone who has followed the link from Salut! Sunderland, I did wonder aloud whether the recent spat between Steve Bruce and our temperamental Argentinian defender justified changing the name of the song to Farewell Angeleri. Otherwise, this is for lovers of good music, whatever the genre ...
"I want your life!" said my young Canadian colleague, out in Abu Dhabi, in reply to a reminder of why I would not be available to work yesterday. "Or at least your concert tickets. In my mind, all the best music was written before 1979. And she was one of the best."
She? A trim, handsome but slightly hobbling woman of 70, in leggings, white top and red rust scarf. She has been singing with beauty and conviction for a lifetime and my pass-out from gainful employment coincided with her show at the Dôme theatre in Marseille, where the photo was taken, between concerts in Toulouse the night before and, after a day's break, Grenoble. Joan Baez on tour.
Continue reading "Joan Baez in Marseille: no Farewell yet from this Angelina" »
A belated happy new year to all - both? - Salut! Live readers. Kate Rusby's thoroughly enjoyable new album will be reviewed here soon, but first let us hear from Pete Sixsmith, who caught Richard Thompson live on the banks of the Tyne ...
The Sage, Gateshead. Jan 26 2011
A Richard Thompson show is something to look forward to – particularly if you are sat in a traffic snarl up at the Gateshead side of the Redheugh Bridge, trying to get to the Sage, while 6,000 others were struggling to get to the vast airport hangar called the Metro Arena (on the dark side of the Tyne) to see the boyband JLS.
Continue reading "Richard Thompson live: dark but peerless" »
Welcome to all those coming here via the Expecting Rain site - your visits are an unexpected pleasure
Jef Aérosol 2006
I owe no favours to Island or Universal. The publicist dealing with press inquiries on the new 19-CD collection tracing Sandy Denny's extraordinary career told me that even he hadn't been provided with a box set of his own.
Critics are now invited to listen to tracks online. It is apparently becoming the way of the world with record reviews, even for conventional one-disc releases; how things have changed. I know what my response would be if employed as an editor;
fRoots
carried a long feature about this set and I sincerely hope its editor, Ian Anderson, made this conditional on receipt of a review copy. So no favours, but also no grudges. This is my review, published by The National, Abu Dhabi on Dec 8 ...
Sandy Denny Sandy Denny: Limited Edition 19CD Box set (Universal)
Rating: *****
In a short lifetime that established her as an outstandingly gifted singer and songwriter, Sandy Denny made several albums on her own and with Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, the Strawbs and others.
Continue reading "Sandy Denny: a grudge-free, five-star indulgence" »
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