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 →
March 2021 update: My tribute to Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, a great song by an even greater departed heroine of folk and folk-rock, Sandy Denny, first appeared when I was living in Abu Dhabi in 2008. It was... Read more →
In my first job, I laboured with tedious clerical duties in the offices of the railway wagon works in my home town of Shildon, County Durham. After starting in a small office deep into the yards, in the “new construction”... Read more →
As we approach the 60th edition of Cover Story, here's something of a novelty for the series, a song that was among the first I found seductive as I become interested in folk music but for which I recently struggled... Read more →
Jan 2021 update: as regular readers will know, I have been updating and re-promoting older items. Maybe this is of benefit to those who are new to the site, like some of what they find but haven't the time to... Read more →
Kissed her once again at Wapping After that there was no stopping Those lines, which delight some listeners and strike others as embarrassing, were not to be found in the original lyrics of Sweet Thames, Flow Softly. Arguably one of... Read more →
More than 16 years after his death, Ray Charles, another of those artists Rolling Stone magazine excluded from its list of the 100 greatest songwriters of all time, is still adored by many across the world. The French in particular,... Read more →
