For my second look at the Music of the West Country, I have chosen a blend of youth and experience from Devon and Somerset. Folk has its ghosts, too, prominent figures no longer with us, and I shall also mention... Read more →
Crossing England diagonally as far as can be travelled on land from the North East takes us to the West Country, the setting for my second series on regional folk and related music. Music from North Eastern England - see... Read more →
March 2021 update. Colin Randall writes: in a recent post about the Steeleye Span album Sails of Silver, which has been known to divide opinion among fans of the band, I reminisced about my first meeting with the lead singer,... Read more →
Choirs can work wonders with songs created for other settings. In St Bride's, just off Fleet Street in London and commonly known as the journalists' church, I have attended several moving memorial services for former colleagues. And I remember in... Read more →
A former colleague, Bill Stock, once wrote this at Facebook, prompting me to trawl through Salut! Live archives and reproduce, from 2007, the little piece that follows. It was originally published just ahead of a John Mayall gig in the... Read more →
News has dominated my working life in the half century since I escaped the humdrum of clerical employment in railway construction, doomed livestock and diesel engines in County Durham. Music has dominated Christy Moore's life since he escaped the humdrum... Read more →
Friday's stats for visits to Salut! Live carried a sharp message. There had been exactly 100 in 24 hours. Every one of them is appreciated (I'm told I should even be grateful for the 'Google bots' among them though I... Read more →
Maddy Prior entered my life in the downstairs snug of the Golden Cock pub in Darlington, County Durham. The earth may not have moved but it was a brief pleasure and its memory, if doubtless long forgotten by her, remains... Read more →
