May/Might: She May Call You Up Tonight

The Left Banke: She May Call You Up Tonight 
[purchase]

When you think of the Left Banke, if you do, you probably think about “Walk Away Renee,” or maybe “Pretty Ballerina.” And maybe, just maybe, you think about “She May Call You Up Tonight.” After that, though, I bet you are drawing a blank. Certainly, those are three great songs that helped to define a style referred to as “baroque rock,” but after that, the Left Banke’s musical output is pretty much unknown.

I’m in the camp of people who know about those three songs, and basically nothing else about the Left Banke. Luckily, though, I have access to the Interwebs. Turns out, the band has one of those stories that is all too familiar. Early success, internal bickering, revolving door membership, even competing versions of the band, and various reunions over the years, with varying lineups. There are even some brushes with future fame—versions of the band included, at times, Michael McKean, better known as an actor, including as David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap, and Bert Sommer, who played Woof in the original Broadway production of Hair in 1969-70 (and whose actual hair was immortalized on the Playbill). A young Steven Tyler sang background vocals on the band’s little-heard second album. But you cannot deny that the Left Banke’s sound was influential well beyond the band’s output or commercial success. You can hear their influence in early Linda Ronstadt, in Eric Carmen, and Belle & Sebastian, among many others.

I’m pretty sure, though, that while I may have heard the original version of “She May Call You Up Tonight” at some point, I really paid attention to it when I heard Richard Thompson do it live, with son Teddy, at the Tarrytown Music Hall. I remember thinking that it sounded familiar, but was totally unable to place it. There’s a recording of it, with Teddy, on 1998’s live album Celtschmerz. There’s also another version on Thompson’s Chrono Show album, featuring performances from his 2004 tour. The Wikipedia article for that album says that Thompson had been doing the song live since the 1970s, and it must have been something that the Fairport Convention crowd was into (Thompson has been quoted about his love for the Left Banke’s debut album)—The Albion Country Band, led by former Fairport member Ashley Hutchings, played it live in 1972 (with a gender change), with Richard and Linda Thompson guesting, Ian Matthews (who left Fairport in 1969) did a cover of it in 1980, and Linda Thompson did the gender-changed version of it on her solo album in 1985, after breaking up with Richard.

MAY/MIGHT: JUST AS THE TIDE WAS A'FLOWING

Disclaimer: This post might well contain folk music.

May, both the day and the month, is big in british folk, with any number of songs relating to happenings in the the days thereof, many more specifically to actual individual days. Why not so April or June? I don't know, and there probably are examples in and of each, but I suspect it has to do with the whole pagan shebang of Mayday, a date long important before any international workers apprehended the date. Walpurgisnacht and Beltane vie with the Floralia for the earliest affectations, each being, broadly, celebrations of spring into summer.  Thus, and unsurprisingly, many of the songs set in May are based around sex and fertility, with, often, the snatched deflowering of maidens fair, overtly or in allegory.

This is one of my favourites, the initial amalgam of Shirley Collins, linnet voiced doyenne of the early 60s folk movement, and Ashley Hutchings, soon to be her husband, and the guv'nor of the whole  english electric folk-rock movement a near decade later, founding, in turn, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and the various incarnations of the Albion (Country and/or Dance) Bands.

This first iteration of the Albion b(r)and was a remarkable mix, melding many of his chums from Fairport/Steeleye alongside such mavericks as Lol Coxhill, free jazz sax maven, and some of the champions of the unaccompanied choral song tradition, the Watersons.  (Shirley had earlier included the song on a recording with her sister, Dolly, in which the genesis of the version below is ever more apparent.)

This next version, an unashamed tribute to the first, to the extent of later royalties having to cross hands for the appropriation of the arrangement, was my first exposure to the wonderful and still extant 10,000 Maniacs. Short and simple, carried by the ghostly vocal of Natalie Merchant and the swell of keyboard in the instrumental middle eight, this was enough for me to give up my then immersion in only folk to explore the rest of their catalogue, as it appeared, in turn leading me on to the delights of the then not unassociated act, R.E.M. (Natalie and Michael Stipe were factionalised, or not, by their respective publicity machines into being a couple, 10k M often appearing as support to the more famous group, and Natalie sharing a vocal on 'Photograph', for a charity recording.) Whilst some of the sparkle may have dropped since Natalie left to plough her own furrow, 10k M forge on, with a thoroughly decent 2015 offering, 'Twice Told Tales', containing only songs culled from the trad.arr folk tradition, give or take a lyric by W.B. Yeats.

Sort of full circle, I guess, in the never more incestuous canon of the UK folk scene, Eliza Carthy, daughter of Martin, who appears on 'No Roses', as do her uncle and auntie, Mike and Lal Waterson. (Carthy is married to Norma, the 4th and final member of the celebrated Watersons.) Here she slows the song right down, and imbues it with a drama missing from the two earlier and jauntier versions, her voice retaining, however, the same degree of melancholia. 'Anglicana' was, arguably, her breakthrough solo recording, but she remains a powerful force on the circuit, with her Wayward Band.
As a footnote, the Watersons themselves were no stranger to May songs, with, strangely enough, this also turning up on 'No Roses.'

Keep it simple, get this, this and this. (Yep, all of 'em.)

The Accordion: John Kirkpatrick

Who? Shame on you, Kirkpatrick is the king of the English squeezebox, I would say single-handedly bringing back this instrument, or instruments, into the modern folk (rock) pantheon. You don't maybe know the name, but please accept you have heard him. Let me take you back, hell, over 40 years. Witness the boy (me!), awkward and lumpen, picking slowly up on the UK folk tradition, by way of Fairport Convention and this song. It's back to my beloved Top of the Pops, and a sadly currentlyunavailableonyoutube footage of this seminal band, performing a Dylan song a la Francais. Amidst all the striped jumpers and onions was one John Kirkpatrick, squeezing away for his very life.

Move forward a year or 2 and it was 'Morris On' that captured me, folk-rock interpretations of Morris tunes, leading me to years of dancing with hankies, eventually spending 10 years as a fully fledged, if flat footed, member of a side, spending my weekends dancing the dance and, it's true, drinking the drink. In the album sleeve above, Kirkpatrick is the chimney sweep, singing and playing this song. Incidentally, should the anathema of electric Morris prove too alarming, he was the prime culprit in an eminently recommendable album, 'Plain Capers', all acoustic and straight from the village green.

But he wasn't entirely tied to tradition, something Richard Thompson, erstwhile Fairport alumnus, and the green woodsman in the album cover above, was able to exploit in his initial run of duet records, with then wife Linda, and later solo records, someone much missed from his current output IMHO. Here is an astonishing live song, with quintessential Kirkpatrick holding it all together.

For reasons never acknowledged or admitted, despite an ongoing willingness expressed from Kirkpatrick, Thompson seemed to drop him after a while, with Kirkpatrick retreating back to the folk clubs from whence he had sprung, give or take a short caretaker role in Fairport "rivals" Steeleye Span and with his own band. Before, after and during this, he has continued, solely or, in earlier days, with ex-wife Sue Harris, to play alone or as a duo. Here is his tour de force, apologies if it is too raw for your refined ears.

Of course he is intricately linked in with the incestuous family tree of UK folk, plus or minus rock, via the various Albion Bands, Country and or Dance versions, and brass-folk pioneers Brass Monkey. Perhaps to and in my mind and ear, his seminal piece of work, in cahoots with another ex-Fairporter, Ashley Hutchings, the 'Godfather of Folk-Rock', is 'The Compleat Dancing Master'. Sorry, no clips....

Without this man I honestly believe there would be lesser an english folk tradition, vibrant and alive, with very much less a likelihood of an ongoing squeezebox legacy, through John Jones/Oyster Band,  Simon Care/Edward II or Gareth Morris/Little Johnny England.

Buy at his page, astonishingly he has one, albeit entangled with others, but 'Morris On', 'Plain Capers' and a lot more are there......