Salut! History

From wax cylinders to folk rock: Vaughan Williams, 150 years on

This is a hugely welcome piece, published in some haste as I am preparing for my annual return from France to the UK, a 1,400km slog that may be tricky given some tiresome problems at petrol pumps (I reckon I've... Read more →


Bert Jansch: thoughts on a departed giant of acoustic music

July 2022: no pressing reason to update what I wrote in 2011. No looming anniversary I'm aware of, no hitherto unknown detail. It's just that every so often, I think about Bert Jansch, the exceptional music he made and the... Read more →


Leon Rosselson: me, Brassens and the Last Chance, touching on Brel, Sylvestre and (always last) Ferré

June 2022 update: while browsing the Salut! Live archives, I came across this tremendous piece of writing by Leon Rosselson, a singer-songwriter-author I've always admired and was even allowed by The Daily Telegraph - despite a leftwing outlook that paper... Read more →


The Grehan Sisters: a short rediscovery

June 2022 update: 13, nearly 14 years on from when this item originally appeared, I have finally got round to adding the song I most easily associate with the Grehan Sisters, Cricklewood. There was something irresistable about the Grehan Sisters,... Read more →


Windsor some, lose some. Did I see Cream there in 1967?

A few days before the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, we took our 13-year-old granddaughter, Maya, to Windsor. In truth, the castle, flags, bunting and stately emblems left her cold until we chanced on a Reuters broadcast crew interviewing a suitably costumed... Read more →