Seems to me that the jump from Lion/Lamb to Leo is perfectly reasonable for our current theme, considering the derivation of the two.
Leo Kottke has always held me in awe since I first heard him back in the 70's.
There is something different about his style - a not necessarily visible "attack" to the strings of his guitar. An approach more felt than seen. Not quite as removed from a standard chord progression as John Fahey's way out there style, but still verging in the same dissociation from the expected. He hits notes unexpected, but they fit in in their own way.
Kottke has influenced no small number of musicians. It's hard to have heard him and not been affected by his style: the ring of the strings, the repetition ...
One of my favorites of Kottke's works is his interpretation of Bach's <Jesu Joy>.
I took a moment to go off on a tangent from this, remembering that Bach has various references to sheep in his work (You know .. Jesus as pastor of his flock. And in fact, there are Bach "lyrics" of that sort: ... while we like sheep ...
But I couldn't locate any Kottke video to back this up.
Curiously, this has almost the same title as the last song I wrote about in this theme, albeit in translation, confirming, if ever needed, that March is one wet mother. It is also my birthday month and my unreliable and unravelling neurones told me I had celebrated last year by attending one Michael Chapman in concert. O, so wrong, it was 5 months later, but it is raining today so that's as much link as I need.
Michael Chapman is a remarkable fella, and one who is experiencing a bit of a late bloom, courtesy some heavy duty patronage from americans half and less his age. The fact that his style of guitar play is back in vogue hinders no little, the likes of (the late) Jack Rose and William Tyler taking the template and twisting it both back and forward. OK, it was earlier visionaries like John Fahey who first feted this structure, the confusingly to me entitled American Primitive, but it took, IMHO, bluff yorkshireman Chapman to give it song. Literally.
He has been around and on the road forever. Like so many musicians from the 60s UK, he was a product of Art School, actually teaching for a while before the lure of a penurious existence on the fringes of popular culture became too strong. The story goes that he was too broke to pay the entrance fee into a Cornwall Folk Club, offering instead to play, staying then for the entire season. A record contract materialised and he came to the ear of the iconic John Peel, tastemaker DJ to decades of pale young men. His first records were produced by Elton John producer, Gus Dudgeon, with the exquisite orchestral arrangements, as here above, of Paul Buckmaster, who perhaps deserves a leftover himself.
Early records tended toward the pastoral, primarily acoustic guitar to the forefront, with his never more z sibilant style of singing s's, as here on his 'greatest hit', 1970s Postcards of Scarborough.
Like the electric guitar? Sort of familiar? It's Mick Ronson, prior to Bowie, with erstwhile Steeleye Span stalwart Rick Kemp on bass. Following this early taste of success, he later pursued a rockier road, albeit often revisiting his earlier material, like Wrecked Again. Less satisfactory to my ears than the earlier studio version, he was nonetheless popular on the college gig circuit until a massive heart attack in 1990 seemed to beckon the end of his career. Having continued to be a guitar tutor alongside his playing, it was to this he retreated. His catalogue contains a number of discs for the budding virtuoso to brush up their licks, but he was also slowly, very slowly, climbing back onto the performance ladder.
It was probably galling to have Sonic Youth turn up at one such low-key performance, especially as they credited him with having inspired their own ouevre of feedback frenzy. Millstone Grit, from 1971, particularly inspired Thurston Moore, with the middle and last sections of New York Ladies giving the clue, say from about 4.50 onward, and again, more powerfully, at 7.49. Here's an interview between the two of them.
Now, as an elder statesman of guitar music, connecting John Fahey, with whom he has played and Steve Gunn, who has played with him, he has had the accolade of all-star tribute album, featuring both old friends from his past like Kemp and Kemp's ex, Maddy Prior, to Lucinda Williams, by way of the aforementioned Moore and Tyler, and the mercurial talent of Hiss Golden Messenger. I commend it. But even more I commend 50, his last release. A mix of new and of re-interpretations, this is a staggering piece of work. And no, no link, you can find the songs yourself. But I will leave you with an instrumental version of March Rain from 2015's Fish, together with his own version of many of the events skimmed over above.
purchase [The New Possibilitiy] I'm not at all sure what constitutes a "Weird/Strange" holiday (holiday most likely = Xmas for this post). My sense of weird/strange, my understanding of holiday could likely be strange to you: I live in a Moslem-predominate environment, where Xmas means little, but the New Year is celebrated more or less the same (big turkey dinner ... gifts all around) We've also got all sorts of other holidays here, like the one where we slaughter sheep.
Regardless of the holiday, there are some givens: we hope to be together with the family (as best as possible); there are often gifts- and at this time of year we aim for green, red and white lights on a tree... Most anything that goes against these given traditions probably constitutes strange or weird. It was on <The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites> that I first heard the man and his guitar. The year would have been about '73, although the album by then was close to a decade old. It being the 70s, it must have been the droning, repetitious curiously off-note style that captured me. I confess it has been several decades since I though much about the man and his music, but a pre-holiday post I ran across the other day noted a Christmas album called <The New Possibility> that he did way back in 1968. It is filled with your classic Xmas tunes - in the Fahey style. As the reviewer/primary source I came across notes: you can almost hum along to his versions. They are certainly recognizable, even if they arent quite right. There's always a note or beat that shouldnt be there, but works just fine all the same. In the Fahey style.
Revenant Records was the brainchild of the late great guitar experimentalist John Fahey. Its output was far from huge (only 17 releases in total), but it´s the quality that counts right? And Fahey and co set the standard pretty high. For example, they released the wonderful 4th volume of Harry Smith´s Anthology of American Folk Music, 2 exemplary compilations of old gospel and blues marvels called American Primitive, and definitive collections of both Charley Patton and Dock Boggs. And then there´s the amazing Charlie Feathers anthology Get With It, Essential Recordings 1954-69 of course. If wild rockabilly and hillbilly country are your thing, make sure to hunt this one down.
Go back for a moment to Susan‘s excellent post on Carol of the Bells, read it again, and you’ll find the phrase, “ancient pagan Ukranian New Year’s chant”. If you have read any of my posts on British folk songs, you will know that this was a temptation I could not resist. That is why I am posting a song about a swallow, that has no bells, and is a song of spring. Let me explain.
As Susan mentioned, Carol of the Bells is indeed derived from an ancient song from what is now the Ukraine. The original song is called “Shchedryk”. The lyrics are completely different: they tell of a swallow who flies to a farmer’s house to bless him and his family with abundance for the new year. In the pagan tradition of the Ukraine, the year was believed to begin at the first sign of spring, which was the return of the swallows. “Shchedryk” would have been used as a ritual chant to note the occasion.
When the Christians arrived in this part of the world, they imposed their calendar on the people they converted. This was the Julian Calendar, which reckons the beginning of the year as what we now call January 13. And to this day, they still observe New Years on this day, and that is when they sing “Shchendryk”, still with its original lyrics. That poor swallow must be freezing!
So, after learning all of this, the next step for me was to find a version of the song in the original Ukrainian. When I saw the name Peter Ostroushko, I knew my search was over. Ostroushko is a fine mandolin player who frequently appeared on The Prairie Home Companion from its earliest days on. His “Shchendryk” starts with a lovely a capella rendition, followed by a restatement of the theme on the mandolin. From there, we’re off on a wild ride which even makes a brief stop in Christmastown, before returning to the Ukraine by January 13.
Bonus tracks:
This is all very well, but where are the bells? Well, Susan did invite me to present more versions of Carol of the Bells, so why not?
When I want a straight reading of a Christmas song, I like a spare arrangement for a single instrument. Acoustic guitar will do nicely. But because of the rhythmic complexity of Carol of the Bells, it takes a master such as John Fahey to pull this off.
Sylvia Woods has been playing the harp for thirty years. She has appeared on the Prairie Home Companion, and played with the Chieftains, so why isn’t she better known? It’s hard to make a living as a harpist, so Woods also writes harp books, gives lessons, and operates a retail and mail-order harp business. I would imagine that all of this limits her ability to tour. Here, she solves the problem of rhythmic complexity by arranging Carol of the Bells for a harp trio.
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