Edinburgh Folk Festival '63 & The Bogus Live

The way some people dream about sex, I dream about music. This might be a good place to keep my musical dream diary, if that’s not being too self-indulgent. Anyway, I can keep it fairly simple: Gladys Knight last night. 

I was playing LK 4546 and LK 4563 yesterday, that is (for those not discographical minded), Edinburgh Folk Festival Volumes 1 and 2, on Decca, and my thoughts turned to the bogus live album, that peculiar phenomenon that once flourished and is now, thankfully, as dead as a doornail. 

They  come in different varieties and there are several ways that the trained ear can spot them. 

Applause that starts before the song ends. This runs counter to nature but is a handy ploy to conceal the studio fade-out. A textbook example is ‘Marieke’ by Jacques Brel (Music for Millions, Philips 6395 216). If you only know the song as a Judy Collins lullaby, Brel’s vitality is exhilarating. Crescendo follows crescendo, until Brel is yelling enough to drown out the orchestra belting with full fortissimo (the presence of a full orchestra in modest club surroundings is another sign of the bogus live album). The applause enters at the peak of the tumult, which is unlikely, unless it was a spontaneous collective act designed to prevent Jacques from exploding the galaxy with incandescent energy. 

But even if they decently wait for the song to end, the applause on a bogus live album always enters too soon, because record producers, like broadcasters, can’t abide long pauses. 

Nina Simone’s Nuff Said (RCA, RD 7979) is a bona fide live album which inexpertly splices current studio-recorded hit ‘Ain’t Got No - I Got Life’ (1969) into the proceedings. The joins show, to say the least.   

Then there’s the bogus live album in which the artist is complicit in the deception. The classic example here is Charles Mingus pointedly telling a non-existent audience to be quiet (Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, Barnaby Records, BR 5012). Contrast with the genuine live album where the audience is so silent they may as well not be there. I would offer Tokyo Concert by the Maria Kalaniemi Trio (Amigo, AMCD 754), recorded in Japan so the polite silence might be culturally engrained. And there are numerous jazz albums where the audio is as perfect as a studio creation, and the sound of clapping always comes as a rude shock.

Presumably, live albums are more economic to make than studio albums: so why pretend to be live at all? To garner a few sales from those who attended the 1963 Edinburgh Folk Festival?

Live noises may be grafted onto studio recordings by way of musique concrete. I dimly recall the kerfuffle when David Bowie appropriated a Faces audience at the beginning of Diamond Dogs (RCA, APL 1-0576). 

Oddly enough, the audience noise on Edinburgh Folk Festival Vol. 1 and 2 is treated more as abstract sound than a means to hoax the listener, so is closer to David Bowie than Jacques Brel. And what about those albums made in the studio but with a small, handpicked audience to ensure a relaxed atmosphere? This category includes The Dubliners (Transatlantic, TRA 116) and Bright Phoebus by Lal and Mike Waterson (Trailer, LES 2076), with Anne Briggs in attendance.

But going back to Edinburgh Folk Festival Vol 1 and 2, in 1963 Anne Briggs was the incarnation of purity and beauty. ‘She Moved Thro’ the Fair’ comes from Vol. 1 and ‘Let No Man Steal Your Thyme’ from Vol. 2. Let’s get the chronology right. Briggs was discovered when the cultural bandwagon Centre 42 rolled into Nottingham in 1962. She made her record debut in ’63 on The Iron Muse (Topic, 12T86) (I shall have to return to her contributions, ‘The Recruited Collier’ and ‘The Doffing Mistress’, both sublime, and very different in spirit from anything else on The Iron Muse); an EP, The Hazards of Love, appeared the same year she played Edinburgh.  

Of the other participants: Clive Palmer and Robin Williamson’s appearance predates their christening as the Incredible String Band and finds them in embryonic jug-band state. Archie Fisher and Ray Fisher impress. Archie, like Derroll Adams, has one of those voices that exude warmth and assurance. Rugged, fierce Scottish pride spreads like wildfire across the two discs, especially when Hamish Imlach essays the old Jacobin song 'Johnny Cope'. 

And here's the clincher. On a bogus live album the audience behaves like a good child from Victorian days: you address it once and then it shuts up. Compare Edinburgh Folk Festival Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 with Folk Festival (Waverley, ZLP 2033; reissued on World Record Club, ST890), which is a real live recording of the 1963 Edinburgh Folk Festival - specifically, Usher Hall - with the same artists (Nadia Cattouse, Ray and Archie Fisher: the Dubliners appear on the Waverley and are absent from the Decca LPs, presumably for contractual reasons). There’s an inordinate amount of singalongs, and clap alongs, and verbose introductions on the Waverley: all the things that give live albums a bad name.  Whereas the Decca pair are more intimate and self-focussed, with audience interaction at a minimum (and no wonder: my contention is that they didn't exist). 

  

There might be a third category: the faux-bogus-live-album-from-Edinburgh. Fortuna from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 1976, proclaims the sleeve of Sweet Folk and Country, SFA 058, with the explanation: ‘Folk songs, poetry, music and humour from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 1976.’ But the title is deceptive. There is no attempt to conceal the fact that this is a studio date with Miriam Backhouse, Dave Goulder, Irvine Hunt and Brian Miller, collectively known as Fortuna, who perform singly more than as a group. The small is quite open: "Recorded at Mid Wales Sound Studios/ Producer: Joe Stead". This is another jewel from the Ian Chappell collection. Miriam Backhouse beguiles with ‘Fairy Tale’ (a John Martyn song new to me; is it from his first LP?), and as for Irvine Hunt; well, I was reminded of the time I saw the late avant garde sound poet Bob Cobbing in Birdyak, which is the last thing I was expecting from a gentle folk waxing. 

Wild! 

Kirsty Almeida/Manchester Weekender

Manchester Art Gallery, Thursday, Oct 11

Kirsty Almeida can write a catchy pop tune and do it well. Her Decca album, Pure Blue Green, was infectious to the point of medical guidance. But there is, it seems, a multiplicity of Kirstys. Music is only part of it: she is a dress-maker, an interior designer, and a creative catalyst for a thriving artistic community in Manchester. This free performance, opening a weekend of cultural events in the city and a series of Thursday late-night events at Manchester City Gallery, revealed the off-the-wall and out-of-the-ordinary Kirsty, and she was riveting. 

Inspired by the Gallery’s exhibition of astonishing works on paper, she sang a song suite inspired by the Life and Death of a Tree, inhabiting, shaman-like, the spirit of the tree itself. Typical of Kirsty, she cut holes into paper to form a word, which then decorated part of a paper dress (co-designed by the artist and Mrs Jones), with the word spelling out the theme of the song. The first was ‘SEED’, and she sang, as an eerie incantation, “I have the world inside my belly.” We were a long way from ‘Wrong Mr Right’. 

Next, ‘GROW’ concerned the search for sun and water. On ‘PROGRESS’ she hissed a scared ‘The humans are coming” as Ed Briggs’ electronics suggested the sound of a buzz-saw, and this inexplicably segued into a samba with wordless though joyful vocals. Now the emphasis shifted to the after-life of the tree, transmuted in various paper products. One was an official document, the brief of an executive (the  soul-destroying effects of the world of work were implied rather than stated): the other was a love letter: ”Dear love, when will I find you…” A wistful end to an inspired little performance.

And this to the accompaniment of all paper instruments (aided by subtle electronics) manipulated by the resourceful ed Briggs, who would, say, provide rhythm by cutting paper and feeding the amplified noise through his echo-box. As the paper strips got smaller, so the beats got shorter. Another time he played a rolled piece of paper as a wind instrument, using the mouthpiece of a recorder. 

Definitely, too eccentric, too creative for the bland mainstream, Kirsty Almeida proves that idiosyncrasy is not dead yet.   

   

GREAT LPs THAT YOU CAN FIND FOR A SONG ON eBAY

Well, Love Lilt and Laughter by JEAN REDPATH didn’t attract a single bid, no matter that it’s in better condition than most half-centurions - nearly, released in 1966 on Elektra/Bounty/Clan (yes, it has the unique distinction of being released on three labels nearly simultaneously: I expect Joe Boyd will be able to clear that one up) - or that Redpath possess one of the most wondrously pure voices since the phonograph was invented. How did the quote go? “To call Jean Redpath a Scottish folk singer is a bit like calling Michelangelo an Italian interior decorator”. How true, but no-one seems to appreciate the fact. 

This made me think of other LPs that can be had for next to nothing on eBay. Here is a random selection: 

Jesse Winchester, Third Down, 110 To Go, Bearsville. The Black Night hadn’t yet overwhelmed the Glorious Day on the eponymous LP (with the same striking gaunt portrait replicated four times on the gatefold cover), and this, its successor from 1972. Or perhaps the albums are brilliant just because of the balance of dark and light. Both are commonly found with a Buy It Now tag of £4.  

King Kong, on Decca, from 1961. The township musical responsible for the first wave of South African musical expats when it played in Princess Theatre, London, in 1961. I picked up the Original African Cast to go with my London Production Cast a few years back and had change from £5. 

The Oldham Tinkers, For Old Time’s Sake (Topic, 1975). And here’s one I got just last week for a measly 99p. It arrived wrapped in nothing but a Tesco’s carrier bag and sticky tape, mind. Caveat Emptor.  

WHO WAS/IS IAN CHAPPELL?

To recap, a priceless collection of folk LPs came up for auction in June this year, representing the estate of the late Ian Chappell, and I came away with 11 job lots, representing about 1,100 LP, which are currently dominating my listening and establishing my reputation as an eBay trader. But who was Ian Chappell, who died before he knew he was my benefactor? 

                                         From the Ian Chappell Collection: the incredibly strange Huvva! by Merit      

                                         Hemmingson conflates groovy Hammond organ and scraping Swede folk fiddle

Well, according to a label on one of the LPs, Chappell lived at 8 Waterloo Close, Waterlooville, Hants, PO8 8QJ. With no family and no children, all his leisure hours seem to have been devoted to cultivating the record collection. 

A Google trawl further reveals that his full name was John Ian Chappell, and reveals that he was born in 1949 and was director of the Hampshire-based South Eastern Museums Service. 

The multiple copies of certain LPs in mint condition would suggest he owned a record concession somewhere. Surely he was well-known in Hampshire folk circles? I joined the Mudcat online forum to find out more. (Do you know Mudcat? A fantastic resource. Google any enquiry on a folk music theme and all trails inevitably lead to Mudcat.) Who was Ian Chappell? I asked. It elicited a single reply. "Wasn't he a cricketer?" 

A Salutary story for vinyl junkies everywhere.

Mike Gets His Mojo Back/The Ian Chappell Collection

Apologies to all loyal readers for the enduring dormancy of this blog. What was it Sly Stone said? “Heard you missed me, well I’m back.” (Look what happened to him.)  

I shall strive to be a more regular correspondent from now on. Besides, I have a subject, renewed motivation and a new source of income since the music journalism dried up. I am now an eBay trader! 

I have my friend Cliff Lee to thanks. It was Cliff who sent me a link about an upcoming auction at Omega Auctions, in Stockport. There were some heavyweight items: oh, the usual suspects - Vashti Bunyan, Another Diamond Day; Led Zeppelin I with novel coloured lettering; Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left; Christy Moore, Paddy on the Road. And Lot 129 comprised two C.O.B. LPs, Spirit of Love and Moyshe McStiff, which attracted Cliff because band-member John Bidwell is a pal of his. I seem to remember that C.O.B. was a vehicle for Incredible String Band founder Clive Palmer. Indeed, the acronym stands for Clive's Original Band. 

My own interest centred on Lots 268-298, boxes labelled Miscellaneous Folk. The auction was scheduled for Saturday, 30th June, 2012. 

To make a hard story easy: the individual items mentioned above lay outside my price range (Lot 129 fetched £600), but - thanks to the consortium I’d managed to get in place - I came away with 11 boxes containing roughly 100 LPs each. 

My purpose was threefold: 

1. To boost my record collection and, to a lesser extent, those of my backers (thank you Ant, Al and Eva). 

2. To furnish material for my proposed book on a folkie theme. 

3. To establish my little eBay trading post, which I christened one-for-every-fair-and-rainy-day. This was appropriately folksy sounding and it announced my modus operandi: to list one record a day, thus guaranteeing a steady stream of income but without foul commerce taking my life.

I shall tell you how I got on tomorrow.  

Levon Helm

Dead drummers 1: Levon Helm 

The unique chemistry of The Band can be broadly sketched thus: Garth Hudson, the phantom of the opera; Robbie Robertson, the guitarist who channelled Hubert Sumlin; Rick Danko, a driven bassist and intense singer; Richard Manuel the tormented romantic; and then there was Levon Helm, who, of them all, offered uncomplicated pleasure. He was a Southerner in a group of Northerners, and not only served as a matchless drummer - and mandolin-player, because he was a gifted multi-instrumentalist - he was Robbie’s muse. Robertson was quick to follow Dylan’s lead of re-invention: Levon didn’t need to re-invent himself - he was the real deal. 

He stood out when The Band was a true collective - “One voice for all”, remember - before Robbie took the role of leader upon himself and started to monopolise the writing credits. Ah, but Levon made better solo records and was a better actor. 

It was faintly disturbing to see him as the frail old timer wanting to die in The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada. This, because the carnal whoop of 'Up On Cripple Creek' is still fresh, preserved forever in the amber of The Band, truly the Rock of Ages. Both as musician and actor the role he played went deep into the American grain.

He was the Cracker who quit Dylan’s ’66 world tour because it upset him to be booed, which is understandable. But he came back to Big Pink when he was needed. 

And Levon was the only Band member who wasn’t over-dubbed for The Last Waltz , and he held out against a guest slot for Neil Diamond, showing immaculate taste. 

He was the heartbeat of The Band. 

The Sun Ra Arkestra - Band on the Wall, Manchester, 10.12.11

Every ghost from Charles Mingus to Glenn Miller faces the same problem. Can it ever be the same when you’re dead and gone? If the Sun Ra Arkestra fare better than most ghost bands, it’s because creative, exploratory music was part of the brief, and musical director Marshall Allen is Ra’s ideal representative on earth, having faithfully served in the Arkestra since 1958. 

Practically, every foray into outer space - where dissonance and freeform structures are permitted, even encouraged - or a genuine mind-stretcher, like the Allen original Care Free II, was followed by an eccentric version of a jazz standard (The Stars Fell on Alabama) or a romping blues of reassuring stability. The bitter pill of advanced music was sweetened by flamboyant showmanship, and esoteric philosophy was sneaked through the door as pop culture. Sun Ra’s modus operandi  was honoured to the letter. 

Leader Marshall Allen’s form is frail but his intensity is undimmed. His way of channelling energy into concentrated staccato outbursts on alto saxophone is possibly unique. And this generation of free jazzers - like alto saxophonist Knoel Scott (who joined the Arkestra in 1979) and tenor saxophonist Charles Davis (an alumni from the class of 1955) are heroes of the age. But what process makes veteran radicals revert to the hot swing of their youth? A wild Dreams Come True did strange things to the course of jazz history; a rollicking treatment, balanced midway between satire and affection, the avant-garde turned into new traditionalism in front of our eyes. 

There was charisma aplenty from toastmaster Michael Ray (a youngblood when he joined in 1978), who sparred energetically with fellow trumpeter Cecil Brooks, and new pianist Farid Barron is a true virtuoso who whips Afro-American forms into a focused vortex of sound. 

The Arkestra score high on entertainment and innovation. They kindle an ecstasy that must find release in the massed chant, “Space is the Place”. Both sets culminated in a parade through the audience; a time-honoured ritual perhaps, but an unfailing delight. In short, they’re everything a Sun Ra ghost band ought to be, but no more. This is the cruel limitation of the best ghost bands.