TRIO: SHOW of HANDS

I'm just back from a Folk Festival. As many of my posts might reveal, I am quite a fan of trad.arr. and enjoy an occasional immerse in it. Towersey is a small village in Oxfordshire that has been having such a shindig for over 40 years, this being the 45th. I hadn't been since the 25th or thereabouts, since which time it has moved a little down the road, to an agricultural show ground near Thame, named, I guess, after the river. Like many things, the definition of folk is a an increasingly broad church; the economics of these events require bigger names than any purist folkie might want to expect, which is fine by me, so this weekend included Big Country, Beth Orton and the Proclaimers, who filled the big tents, whilst the more hard core material filled in the gaps at smaller stages. (For the record, of those three names, Big Country were dire, arguably unsurprisingly as their lead singer and songwriter took his own life over a decade ago, I gave the Proclaimers a wide berth, if not far enough to avoid the massed du-de-du-dus bleeding into my beer, across the other side of the site, and Beth Orton was charming, a gauche elfinesque figure with an acoustic guitar and an intense electric guitarist to her side, revelling in his effects pedals.) There was also a fine set by the Richard Thompson Electric Trio, which could have been my theme today but, sorry, it isn't.

Which is all a very long preamble to what is, a celebration of possibly the biggest band on the folk circuit proper. Who weren't even playing. And aren't a trio. Or weren't.

Show of Hands have ascended, modestly, to folk royalty during their 31 year career, starting off as a showpiece for Steve Knightley's songs, aided and abetted by ex-Albion Band alumnus, Phil Beer, on anything with strings and second vocal. However, knowing they needed to get in on the folk club circuit, they added enough traditional songs to get their foot in the door. Avowing a deliberate punk DIY ethos, they started as they meant to go on, turning up with their own P.A. and  lighting, avoiding agents and booking fees, arranging their own gigs for a take of the door. A model that has since become far more widespread, giving both control and consistency, with the next step being ownership of their own publishing and, in turn, their own label. Starting off with cassettes and an honesty box, a loyal following has seen these acorns grow, if not overnight, certainly surely and steadily, until now having sold out the fabled Royal Albert Hall on at least 5 occasions, and with 25 albums behind them, ranging from new songs to old songs, instrumentals, covers and collaborations, they can, literally, call their own tune. Adding Miranda Sykes, on double bass and 3rd vocal, in 2004, she has added both a top and bottom end to their sound,  and they now tour and play more often as three than two.

You'll be wanting some music, I suppose. It is difficult to choose, so wide and varied their output. I have seen them play perhaps a dozen times, impressed always by Knightley's strong vocals and his ability to pen a keenly political take on country matters, whether the c be in capitals or otherwise. More than once his espousal of rural concerns, such as the pricing out of locals from living in their own villages, have led to front page controversy. Phil Beer just leaves me gobsmacked, such is his mastery on fiddle, guitar or mandolin, often all in the same song. (And, fact fans, as well as his sterling work as Ashley Hutching's aide de camp in the 80s Albion Band, it is also he who plays fiddle and mandolin on the Rolling Stones' "Blinded by Love". ) I confess I didn't at first see why Hart was needed until my most recent sighting of the band, earlier this year at another festival, the rather more and decidedly grungy Bearded Theory, where they went down an absolute belter with the audience of grizzled ex-punks and crusties. Hart gave a sufficient and robust solid anchor to allow Knightley and Beer to individually, vocally and instrumentally, soar. Here are 4 songs, from various stages of their existence, 3 originals, 1 cover, it being their masterful transplantation of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" from the west coast to the west country.

"Galway Farmer" was actually written by Steve Knightley, but, so ubiquitous has it become on the folk club circuit, it has made it's way into a songbook of "traditional" irish ballads!

"Country Life" gained the band a fair amount of notoriety for the no holds barred lyric, but little compared to that of the song below, "Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed." Can you guess what it is about?

Though not, I believe in the above clip, when playing this song live, the second verse mention of a 'Deadhead sticker' is often switched for a 'Bellowhead sticker', Bellowhead for a while being the biggest buzz in the UK folk scene. SoH have outlasted them.

If you like what you see and hear here, here is a bigger clip, a live streamed recording from 2016's Shrewsbury Folk Festival, where Knightley is also a patron.

And if you want more, go here or here.

HARVEST/FALL: HOPPING DOWN IN KENT (ALBION DANCE BAND)

Somehow, following on from the John Barleycorn post, and maintaining a similarly bucolic theme, this was the only and obvious choice. Surely a song about the mythological origins of ale has to be followed by the practicality of how large(r) scale production of one of the essential ingredients took place, at least until last century. Hopping here means the gathering in of hops, I am afraid, perhaps rather than the image the band's name might offer, that of a one-legged dance, not least as the consumption of hop based beverages might lead toward that and thence to entirely legless dancing. (Yes, oh my sides too.....) Here is an excellent website devoted to the yearly migration of an itinerant workforce down to the Kentish hopfields, Kent being the county at the far south-eastern tip of England.

As to the song itself, it belongs to the long and broad canon of that well known author, trad.arr., and has a lineage stretching back over the centuries, and has some history. I was a complete convert to ye olde english folk-rock back in my teens and onward, so anything residually Fairport Convention related was always going to be right up my street, and Ashley Hutching's various Albion (Dance/Country) Bands were certainly that. Hutchings, estwhile bassist for Fairport Convention, has an illustrious history, often cited as the Guv'nor or as the Godfather of Folk-Rock, given his seminal founding roles within both Fairport and with early Steeleye Span, ahead even of the ever changing and evolving Albion Bands. (Time and space neither allow much discussion, not least as I have covered similar territory at least once before.) However, I am today more interested in his sometime wife, Shirley Collins, as it is she who sings on the version above.

If Hutchings is the Guv'nor, then Collins is surely the Grande Dame, not only or even necessarily of folk-rock, but of the entire english living folk idiom, despite, to all intents and purposes, having given up performance some decades ago, itself a fallout of their acrimonious break-up. When Hutchings left her for a younger model, an actress actually, she developed the condition hysterical aphonia, putting an untimely end to her recording career and to live performance. This odd condition, whilst felt to be of psychological origin, is nonetheless completely ruinous and debilitating to anyone reliant upon their voice, as, curiously, was also the cause of Linda Thompson losing her voice under the similar circumstance of being deserted by her folk-rock ex, Richard (Thompson). (I have no record as to the fates of any other ex-spouses of current or previous Fairport members, but hope that current drummer, Gerry Conway, sticks with his squeeze, Jacqui McShee.) Collins' career began long before that of her onetime husband, unsurprisingly, being 10 years older. Steeped in the tradition from birth, her first appearance on record was in 1955, a year following her hooking up with celebrated US collector and cataloguer of american folk songs, Alan Lomax, director of the Archive of American Folk Song, with whom she later accompanied on his post-McCarthy witch-hunt return to the states. (This was the 1959 excursion that had led to the discovery of Mississippi Fred McDowell!) Returning, alone, to the UK, she reconnected her recording career, notably on the iconic jazz-folk fusion of "Folk Roots, New Routes", alongside the acoustic guitar wizardry of Davy Graham, in 1964. A track follows below:

Her next move was to enter into duet recordings with elder sister, Dolly, accompanying her on the intriguingly named portative organ, as well as, on her milestone release, "Anthems in Eden", the participation of David Munrow's Early Music Consort. Crumhorns afrenzy alert. Arguably this is what will have drawn her to the attention of Ashley Hutchings.

Fresh from his exit from Steeleye Span, Hutchings and Collins married in 1971, and he was responsible for the production of her next, nominally, solo album, "No Roses", albeit  entitled as "and the Albion Country Band", a vast collective of disparate musicians from many fields. This included many of Hutchings' folk-rock compatriots, singers from Collins' more traditional diaspora and even Lol Coxhill, eccentric free-jazz saxophonist. I would say this recording is up there with "Liege and Lief" as being the most important of modern day folk records. Hell, in contemporary/modern music full stop. Especially this track below, up to anything ever produced in this style of music:

This was followed by a brief period of calm, as the married couple settled into acoustic folkie mode as half of the brief-lived Etchingham Steam Band.

Thereafter it seemed that the Albion brand became revived and moved on and away from her, more now her husband's baby than hers, in incarnations as "Dance" and "Country" versions, before ditching either description and sometimes even the "the" as well, sometimes again bringing one or other title back. In both acoustic and electric line-ups, at one time 2 simultaneous different line-ups, bar the omnipresent Ashley. True, Collins popped up occasionally, as in the title song of this piece, and in other Hutchings projects, notably "Morris On", until he popped off. She has since sung nary a note, but has toured with spoken word pieces. However, in February 2014 an audience were probably shocked and delighted to hear and see her perform 2 songs, having been coerced by and with the accompaniment by Ian Kearey, ex-Oyster Band.

Finally, and, as a final and hopefully happy coda, at the age of 81, she brings out her first album of new material in over 3 decades, "Lodestar". I for one cannot wait. Due out next month, this is fairly hot on the heels of this, a 3 disc tribute from artists as disparate as Bonnie "Prince" Billy (Will Oldham) and ex-Blur guitarist, Graham Coxon.

Buy? Too much choice, way too much choice, but here is her amazon page as a starter, which doesn't even include the titular track of this page. (Which is here)

P.S. Shirley Collins actually did go hopping down in Kent as a schoolgirl, picking hops for the Guinness brewers, her family making an annual tradition of this.

LEFTOVERS (DISASTERS): THE GRESFORD DISASTER

Albion Band: Gresford Disaster

Purchase link

No, I am not evoking "Disasters" to equate with my sausage-fingered ramblings, that's your job*, but as a sign of my gratitude to Uberdude Darius for pointing out I could sift through the leavings of years other than this. Clearly I remain somewhat of a newbie in these parts, so the choice offered thereby is immense, with all the posts I wished I could have done, before sneaking up the gangplank, now available. Indeed I may multi-post this fortnight. Be warned.

(*This is as good a time as any to hitch some link to the asterisk, pointing your eyes to the upper right of this page. If you are sick of the same old, same old, jump in and jump on. Could do better? Do it then. Can't be that hard, eh?)

OK, then, disasters...... I love a good disaster, me. No, not really, I am not taking pleasure from the world of natural, but the songsmithery, particularly in days gone by, can really hold the mind and have you there.Bear in mind, before newsprint was ubiquitous, and before video feeding killed it, the broadsheet ballad was how the news was transmitted. None of your tweets and sky news e-mail updates, if it was the top of the moment action you needed to hear about, it was down to the tavern and listen to the troubadour de jour.

Now it is true I am a bit of an unreconstructed folkie. I'm keen on ye olde folke rocke. (You've noticed?) Yeah, yeah, not everybodys cup of tea, and I try to be a little varied. But on this one I can't. This is my favourite long and drawn out dirge ever. The Albion Band were the warhorse of ex-Fairport and ex-Steeleye "Godfather" Ashley Hutchings, a varied compendium of styles and strummers over at least a couple of decades, being sometimes a bijou accoustic quartet, and at others a rumbustuous 11 piece electric storm of modern and medieval mixed. "Rise Up Like the Sun" was, for me, their tour de force, and was produced in 1978. I was also lucky enough to see this incarnation on a couple of occasions, in a London slowly coming to terms with punk rock. 2 drummers, 2 guitarists, keyboards, a horn section (including crumhorns), girlie singers and electric fiddle for starters. And the Albion Morris Men to dance onstage. Perhaps the switch to a smaller and less eclectic line-up was inevitable. The album had numerous guest vocalists,as amply demonstrated within this song, despite already having, in John Tams, one of the soundest traditional and warming voices in the genre. It is him in the later verses, with Martin Carthy, the harshly angular doyen of the male folk vocal style, in the openers. The fiddle is by Ric Sanders, long, long ahead of his part in Fairport Convention. In these days he was contemporaneously in Soft Machine. (Yes, I said Soft Machine) Guitars are Simon Nicol, never that far away from any of his old Fairport cohorts, and Graeme Taylor, late of odd chamber folk outfit, Gryphon. Also tucked into the mix is a certain Phil Pickett, on ancient reeds and brass, the afrementioned crumhorn, curtals and shawms, daylighting from his other job as leader of the New London Consort, a respected orchestra of renaissance musics on original instrumentation. Drums were Michael Gregory and the best drummer in the world, in my humble, the estimable Dave Mattacks. Yes, another deportee from Fairport, but whose session history, from Mary Chapin Carpenter, through Elton John, to Paul McCartney, makes stellar reading. Go see

I implore you to take the time and listen to the whole of the song, even if you find the bare harmonium a bit hymnal, and the vocals a bit too, um, specialist. It builds from this relatively simple beginning, through a Coltrane inspired wah-wah fiddle frenzy, thence into some guitar pyrotechnic, before returning to the baseline (bassline?) melody. I love it. You may not, but give it a try. Surprise yourself. It won't be a disaster. (I should add that, because it is a "long track", the good folk at A***** won't supply it outside the whole LP. Dare you???)