JULY: JULY, JULY/The DECEMBERISTS

Can it really only be 16 years since the Decemberists first peered around the corner into existence? Strangely, and I speak as a fan, it seems so much longer. Not, it is true, to the taste of all, the vocals of bandleader Colin Meloy being possibly the main hurdle to mass approval, together with their unworldly appearance,  the senior common room at a Cahoots/The Band theme night, and their downright odd arrangements, a quirky mix of the archaic with the unexpected, conspire to a niche version of world famous. Which is just fine in my book. And 'July, July' is perhaps the standout track on debut LP 'Castaways and Cutouts'.

Colin Meloy reminds me of Richard Thompson in a strange way, a catalyst of tradition and electricity. But maybe not so strangely. (Yes, I am going to talk about Meloy mainly, rather than the band, regardless of how tremendous are his cohorts, instrumentally, and they are, without him as prime singer and songwriter, they are meaningless. His band and he calls the tunes.) Constantly ploughing his own singular furrow, undoubtedly indebted to the british folk revival of the 60s and 70s, yet ears attuned to influences elsewhere. He has produced a series of solo albums, EPs really, devoted to such disparate bedfellows as Shirley Collins, Sam Cooke, Morrissey and the Kinks. But are they so very different? In Meloy's hands, often just his guitar and marmite voice, sometimes with spectral backing vocals, the similarities become immense.

See what I mean? OK, so 'Summertime' is hardly unique to Cooke, but what a version this is, drawing into focus what a great song it is, a steamy Tennessee Williams 3 acts in a few simple verses. And so too the songs of Stephen M. and of Ray Davies, let alone the trad. arr. seamed by Collins. I have to question, mind, quite what Meloy now has to say about the increasingly bizarre rants of the erstwhile Smiths frontman, whose image he has allegedly inked on his skin.

The Decemberists, of course, plough similar, albeit augmented by the trappings of electric rock music, chucking in accordion and stand up bass where necessary, and now, in 2018, the introduction of synthesisers and similar new-fangled. And now, instead of ancient mariners, they sing about village idiots.

Having caught them live in Birmingham (UK!) on their 'King is Dead' tour, I found myself initially uplifted, ahead of finding their cerebrality perhaps fits better with the recorded than the live. And there is then a strange dichotomy between the earnest lyrical scene-setting and Meloy gradually morphing into a demented ringmaster, corralling the crowd into choral participation. (I should add I am the frowning geezer in the crowd who never sings along, when asked to, or claps or waves a lighter. I can't abide all that stuff.) However, when they recently revisited the canon of 60s/70s folk in the guise of 'Offa Rex', their collaboration with folkish gamine, Olivia Chaney, this I wanted to see, so wanted to see. Still do. Interestingly they are keeping mighty quiet as to who the support on their forthcoming UK tour might be, my hope and money on Chaney..........

A final thought, for those who have ploughed through the vids above, and can't quite get it. This helpful instruction manual might help.

Still with me? Probably the best place to buy.

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.)

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.