Podcasts about Sandy Denny

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Erratum For about an hour this was uploaded with the wrong Elton John clip in place of “Saturday Sun”. This has now been fixed. Resources Because of the increasing problems with Mixcloud’s restrictions, I have decided to start sharing streaming playlists of the songs used in episodes instead of Mixcloud ones. This Tunemymusic link will let you listen to the playlist I created on your streaming platform of choice — however please note that not all the songs excerpted are currently available on streaming. The songs missing from the Tidal version are “Shanten Bells” by the Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” by A.L. Lloyd, two by Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, three by Elton John & Linda Peters, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow” by Sandy Denny and “You Never Know” by Charlie Drake, but the other fifty-nine are there. Other songs may be missing from other services. The main books I used on Fairport Convention as a whole were Patrick Humphries' Meet On The Ledge, Clinton Heylin's What We Did Instead of Holidays, and Kevan Furbank's Fairport Convention on Track. Rob Young's Electric Eden is the most important book on the British folk-rock movement. Information on Richard Thompson comes from Patrick Humphries' Richard Thompson: Strange Affair and Thompson's own autobiography Beeswing.  Information on Sandy Denny comes from Clinton Heylin's No More Sad Refrains and Mick Houghton's I've Always Kept a Unicorn. I also used Joe Boyd's autobiography White Bicycles and Chris Blackwell's The Islander.  And this three-CD set is the best introduction to Fairport's music currently in print. Transcript Before we begin, this episode contains reference to alcohol and cocaine abuse and medical neglect leading to death. It also starts with some discussion of the fatal car accident that ended last episode. There’s also some mention of child neglect and spousal violence. If that’s likely to upset you, you might want to skip this episode or read the transcript. One of the inspirations for this podcast when I started it back in 2018 was a project by Richard Thompson, which appears (like many things in Thompson’s life) to have started out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In 1999 Playboy magazine asked various people to list their “songs of the Millennium”, and most of them, understanding the brief, chose a handful of songs from the latter half of the twentieth century. But Thompson determined that he was going to list his favourite songs *of the millennium*. He didn’t quite manage that, but he did cover seven hundred and forty years, and when Playboy chose not to publish it, he decided to turn it into a touring show, in which he covered all his favourite songs from “Sumer Is Icumen In” from 1260: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Sumer is Icumen In”] Through numerous traditional folk songs, union songs like “Blackleg Miner”, pieces by early-modern composers, Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs, and songs by the Beatles, the Ink Spots, the Kinks, and the Who, all the way to “Oops! I Did It Again”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Oops! I Did it Again”] And to finish the show, and to show how all this music actually ties together, he would play what he described as a “medieval tune from Brittany”, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”] We have said many times in this podcast that there is no first anything, but there’s a reason that Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention’s third album of 1969, and the album other than Unhalfbricking on which their reputation largely rests, was advertised with the slogan “The first (literally) British folk rock album ever”. Folk-rock, as the term had come to be known, and as it is still usually used today, had very little to do with traditional folk music. Rather, the records of bands like The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel were essentially taking the sounds of British beat groups of the early sixties, particularly the Searchers, and applying those sounds to material by contemporary singer-songwriters. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had come up through folk clubs, and their songs were called folk music because of that, but they weren’t what folk music had meant up to that point — songs that had been collected after being handed down through the folk process, changed by each individual singer, with no single identifiable author. They were authored songs by very idiosyncratic writers. But over their last few albums, Fairport Convention had done one or two tracks per album that weren’t like that, that were instead recordings of traditional folk songs, but arranged with rock instrumentation. They were not necessarily the first band to try traditional folk music with electric instruments — around the same time that Fairport started experimenting with the idea, so did an Irish band named Sweeney’s Men, who brought in a young electric guitarist named Henry McCullough briefly. But they do seem to have been the first to have fully embraced the idea. They had done so to an extent with “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking, but now they were going to go much further: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves” (from about 4:30)] There had been some doubt as to whether Fairport Convention would even continue to exist — by the time Unhalfbricking, their second album of the year, was released, they had been through the terrible car accident that had killed Martin Lamble, the band’s drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend. Most of the rest of the band had been seriously injured, and they had made a conscious decision not to discuss the future of the band until they were all out of hospital. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised the longest, and Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, and Sandy Denny, the other three surviving members of the band, flew over to LA with their producer and manager, Joe Boyd, to recuperate there and get to know the American music scene. When they came back, the group all met up in the flat belonging to Denny’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas, and decided that they were going to continue the band. They made a few decisions then — they needed a new drummer, and as well as a drummer they wanted to get in Dave Swarbrick. Swarbrick had played violin on several tracks on Unhalfbricking as a session player, and they had all been thrilled to work with him. Swarbrick was one of the most experienced musicians on the British folk circuit. He had started out in the fifties playing guitar with Beryl Marriott’s Ceilidh Band before switching to fiddle, and in 1963, long before Fairport had formed, he had already appeared on TV with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, led by Ian Campbell, the father of Ali and Robin Campbell, later of UB40: [Excerpt: The Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Shanten Bells (medley on Hullaballoo!)”] He’d sung with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: [Excerpt: A.L. Lloyd, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” ] And he’d formed his hugely successful duo with Martin Carthy, releasing records like “Byker Hill” which are often considered among the best British folk music of all time: [Excerpt: Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, “Byker Hill”] By the time Fairport had invited him to play on Unhalfbricking, Swarbrick had already performed on twenty albums as a core band member, plus dozens more EPs, singles, and odd tracks on compilations. They had no reason to think they could actually get him to join their band. But they had three advantages. The first was that Swarbrick was sick of the traditional folk scene at the time, saying later “I didn’t like seven-eighths of the people involved in it, and it was extremely opportune to leave. I was suddenly presented with the possibilities of exploring the dramatic content of the songs to the full.” The second was that he was hugely excited to be playing with Richard Thompson, who was one of the most innovative guitarists of his generation, and Martin Carthy remembers him raving about Thompson after their initial sessions. (Carthy himself was and is no slouch on the guitar of course, and there was even talk of getting him to join the band at this point, though they decided against it — much to the relief of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol, who is a perfectly fine player himself but didn’t want to be outclassed by *two* of the best guitarists in Britain at the same time). And the third was that Joe Boyd told him that Fairport were doing so well — they had a single just about to hit the charts with “Si Tu Dois Partir” — that he would only have to play a dozen gigs with Fairport in order to retire. As it turned out, Swarbrick would play with the group for a decade, and would never retire — I saw him on his last tour in 2015, only eight months before he died. The drummer the group picked was also a far more experienced musician than any of the rest, though in a very different genre. Dave Mattacks had no knowledge at all of the kind of music they played, having previously been a player in dance bands. When asked by Hutchings if he wanted to join the band, Mattacks’ response was “I don’t know anything about the music. I don’t understand it… I can’t tell one tune from another, they all sound the same… but if you want me to join the group, fine, because I really like it. I’m enjoying myself musically.” Mattacks brought a new level of professionalism to the band, thanks to his different background. Nicol said of him later “He was dilligent, clean, used to taking three white shirts to a gig… The application he could bring to his playing was amazing. With us, you only played well when you were feeling well.” This distinction applied to his playing as well. Nicol would later describe the difference between Mattacks’ drumming and Lamble’s by saying “Martin’s strength was as an imaginative drummer. DM came in with a strongly developed sense of rhythm, through keeping a big band of drunken saxophone players in order. A great time-keeper.” With this new line-up and a new sense of purpose, the group did as many of their contemporaries were doing and “got their heads together in the country”. Joe Boyd rented the group a mansion, Farley House, in Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire, and they stayed there together for three months. At the start, the group seem to have thought that they were going to make another record like Unhalfbricking, with some originals, some songs by American songwriters, and a few traditional songs. Even after their stay in Farley Chamberlayne, in fact, they recorded a few of the American songs they’d rehearsed at the start of the process, Richard Farina’s “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” and Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Ballad of Easy Rider”] Indeed, the whole idea of “getting our heads together in the country” (as the cliche quickly became in the late sixties as half of the bands in Britain went through much the same kind of process as Fairport were doing — but usually for reasons more to do with drug burnout or trend following than recovering from serious life-changing trauma) seems to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and the Band getting together in Big Pink. But very quickly they decided to follow the lead of Ashley Hutchings, who had had something of a Damascene conversion to the cause of traditional English folk music. They were listening mostly to Music From Big Pink by the Band, and to the first album by Sweeney’s Men: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “The Handsome Cabin Boy”] And they decided that they were going to make something that was as English as those records were North American and Irish (though in the event there were also a few Scottish songs included on the record). Hutchings in particular was becoming something of a scholar of traditional music, regularly visiting Cecil Sharp House and having long conversations with A.L. Lloyd, discovering versions of different traditional songs he’d never encountered before. This was both amusing and bemusing Sandy Denny, who had joined a rock group in part to get away from traditional music; but she was comfortable singing the material, and knew a lot of it and could make a lot of suggestions herself. Swarbrick obviously knew the repertoire intimately, and Nicol was amenable, while Mattacks was utterly clueless about the folk tradition at this point but knew this was the music he wanted to make. Thompson knew very little about traditional music, and of all the band members except Denny he was the one who has shown the least interest in the genre in his subsequent career — but as we heard at the beginning, showing the least interest in the genre is a relative thing, and while Thompson was not hugely familiar with the genre, he *was* able to work with it, and was also more than capable of writing songs that fit in with the genre. Of the eleven songs on the album, which was titled Liege and Lief (which means, roughly, Lord and Loyalty), there were no cover versions of singer-songwriters. Eight were traditional songs, and three were originals, all written in the style of traditional songs. The album opened with “Come All Ye”, an introduction written by Denny and Hutchings (the only time the two would ever write together): [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye”] The other two originals were songs where Thompson had written new lyrics to traditional melodies. On “Crazy Man Michael”, Swarbrick had said to Thompson that the tune to which he had set his new words was weaker than the lyrics, to which Thompson had replied that if Swarbrick felt that way he should feel free to write a new melody. He did, and it became the first of the small number of Thompson/Swarbrick collaborations: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Crazy Man Michael”] Thompson and Swarbrick would become a brief songwriting team, but as much as anything else it was down to proximity — the two respected each other as musicians, but never got on very well. In 1981 Swarbrick would say “Richard and I never got on in the early days of FC… we thought we did, but we never did. We composed some bloody good songs together, but it was purely on a basis of “you write that and I’ll write this, and we’ll put it together.” But we never sat down and had real good chats.” The third original on the album, and by far the most affecting, is another song where Thompson put lyrics to a traditional tune. In this case he thought he was putting the lyrics to the tune of “Willie O'Winsbury”, but he was basing it on a recording by Sweeney’s Men. The problem was that Sweeney’s Men had accidentally sung the lyrics of “Willie O'Winsbury'” to the tune of a totally different song, “Fause Foodrage”: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “Willie O’Winsbury”] Thompson took that melody, and set to it lyrics about loss and separation. Thompson has never been one to discuss the meanings of his lyrics in any great detail, and in the case of this one has said “I really don't know what it means. This song came out of a dream, and I pretty much wrote it as I dreamt it (it was the sixties), and didn't spend very long analyzing it. So interpret as you wish – or replace with your own lines.” But in the context of the traffic accident that had killed his tailor girlfriend and a bandmate, and injured most of his other bandmates, the lyrics about lonely travellers, the winding road, bruised and beaten sons, saying goodbye, and never cutting cloth, seem fairly self-explanatory: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Farewell, Farewell”] The rest of the album, though, was taken up by traditional tunes. There was a long medley of four different fiddle reels; a version of “Reynardine” (a song about a seductive man — or is he a fox? Or perhaps both — which had been recorded by Swarbrick and Carthy on their most recent album); a 19th century song about a deserter saved from the firing squad by Prince Albert; and a long take on “Tam Lin”, one of the most famous pieces in the Scottish folk music canon, a song that has been adapted in different ways by everyone from the experimental noise band Current 93 to the dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah to the comics writer Grant Morrison: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Tam Lin”] And “Matty Groves”, a song about a man killing his cheating wife and her lover, which actually has a surprisingly similar story to that of “1921” from another great concept album from that year, the Who’s Tommy. “Matty Groves” became an excuse for long solos and shows of instrumental virtuosity: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves”] The album was recorded in September 1969, after their return from their break in the country and a triumphal performance at the Royal Festival Hall, headlining over fellow Witchseason artists John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake. It became a classic of the traditional folk genre — arguably *the* classic of the traditional folk genre. In 2007 BBC Radio 2’s Folk Music Awards gave it an award for most influential folk album of all time, and while such things are hard to measure, I doubt there’s anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of British folk and folk-rock music who would not at least consider that a reasonable claim. But once again, by the time the album came out in November, the band had changed lineups yet again. There was a fundamental split in the band – on one side were Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, whose stance was, roughly, that Liege and Lief was a great experiment and a fun thing to do once, but really the band had two first-rate songwriters in themselves, and that they should be concentrating on their own new material, not doing these old songs, good as they were. They wanted to take the form of the traditional songs and use that form for new material — they wanted to make British folk-rock, but with the emphasis on the rock side of things. Hutchings, on the other hand, was equally sure that he wanted to make traditional music and go further down the rabbit hole of antiquity. With the zeal of the convert he had gone in a couple of years from being the leader of a band who were labelled “the British Jefferson Airplane” to becoming a serious scholar of traditional folk music. Denny was tired of touring, as well — she wanted to spend more time at home with Trevor Lucas, who was sleeping with other women when she was away and making her insecure. When the time came for the group to go on a tour of Denmark, Denny decided she couldn’t make it, and Hutchings was jubilant — he decided he was going to get A.L. Lloyd into the band in her place and become a *real* folk group. Then Denny reconsidered, and Hutchings was crushed. He realised that while he had always been the leader, he wasn’t going to be able to lead the band any further in the traditionalist direction, and quit the group — but not before he was delegated by the other band members to fire Denny. Until the publication of Richard Thompson’s autobiography in 2022, every book on the group or its members said that Denny quit the band again, which was presumably a polite fiction that the band agreed, but according to Thompson “Before we flew home, we decided to fire Sandy. I don't remember who asked her to leave – it was probably Ashley, who usually did the dirty work. She was reportedly shocked that we would take that step. She may have been fragile beneath the confident facade, but she still knew her worth.” Thompson goes on to explain that the reasons for kicking her out were that “I suppose we felt that in her mind she had already left” and that “We were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, though there wasn't a name for it back then.” They had considered inviting Trevor Lucas to join the band to make Denny more comfortable, but came to the (probably correct) conclusion that while he was someone they got on well with personally, he would be another big ego in a band that already had several, and that being around Denny and Lucas’ volatile relationship would, in Thompson’s phrasing, “have not always given one a feeling of peace and stability.” Hutchings originally decided he was going to join Sweeney’s Men, but that group were falling apart, and their first rehearsal with Hutchings would also be their last as a group, with only Hutchings and guitarist and mandolin player Terry Woods left in the band. They added Woods’ wife Gay, and another couple, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed a group called Steeleye Span, a name given them by Martin Carthy. That group, like Fairport, went to “get their heads together in the country” for three months and recorded an album of electric versions of traditional songs, Hark the Village Wait, on which Mattacks and another drummer, Gerry Conway, guested as Steeleye Span didn’t at the time have their own drummer: [Excerpt: Steeleye Span, “Blackleg Miner”] Steeleye Span would go on to have a moderately successful chart career in the seventies, but by that time most of the original lineup, including Hutchings, had left — Hutchings stayed with them for a few albums, then went on to form the first of a series of bands, all called the Albion Band or variations on that name, which continue to this day. And this is something that needs to be pointed out at this point — it is impossible to follow every single individual in this narrative as they move between bands. There is enough material in the history of the British folk-rock scene that someone could do a 500 Songs-style podcast just on that, and every time someone left Fairport, or Steeleye Span, or the Albion Band, or Matthews’ Southern Comfort, or any of the other bands we have mentioned or will mention, they would go off and form another band which would then fission, and some of its members would often join one of those other bands. There was a point in the mid-1970s where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport Convention while Fairport Convention had none. So just in order to keep the narrative anything like wieldy, I’m going to keep the narrative concentrated on the two figures from Fairport — Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson — whose work outside the group has had the most influence on the wider world of rock music more broadly, and only deal with the other members when, as they often did, their careers intersected with those two. That doesn’t mean the other members are not themselves hugely important musicians, just that their importance has been primarily to the folk side of the folk-rock genre, and so somewhat outside the scope of this podcast. While Hutchings decided to form a band that would allow him to go deeper and deeper into traditional folk music, Sandy Denny’s next venture was rather different. For a long time she had been writing far more songs than she had ever played for her bandmates, like “Nothing More”, a song that many have suggested is about Thompson: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Nothing More”] When Joe Boyd heard that Denny was leaving Fairport Convention, he was at first elated. Fairport’s records were being distributed by A&M in the US at that point, but Island Records was in the process of opening up a new US subsidiary which would then release all future Fairport product — *but*, as far as A&M were concerned, Sandy Denny *was* Fairport Convention. They were only interested in her. Boyd, on the other hand, loved Denny’s work intensely, but from his point of view *Richard Thompson* was Fairport Convention. If he could get Denny signed directly to A&M as a solo artist before Island started its US operations, Witchseason could get a huge advance on her first solo record, while Fairport could continue making records for Island — he’d have two lucrative acts, on different labels. Boyd went over and spoke to A&M and got an agreement in principle that they would give Denny a forty-thousand-dollar advance on her first solo album — twice what they were paying for Fairport albums. The problem was that Denny didn’t want to be a solo act. She wanted to be the lead singer of a band. She gave many reasons for this — the one she gave to many journalists was that she had seen a Judy Collins show and been impressed, but noticed that Collins’ band were definitely a “backing group”, and as she put it “But that's all they were – a backing group. I suddenly thought, If you're playing together on a stage you might as well be TOGETHER.” Most other people in her life, though, say that the main reason for her wanting to be in a band was her desire to be with her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas. Partly this was due to a genuine desire to spend more time with someone with whom she was very much in love, partly it was a fear that he would cheat on her if she was away from him for long periods of time, and part of it seems to have been Lucas’ dislike of being *too* overshadowed by his talented girlfriend — he didn’t mind acknowledging that she was a major talent, but he wanted to be thought of as at least a minor one. So instead of going solo, Denny formed Fotheringay, named after the song she had written for Fairport. This new band consisted at first of Denny on vocals and occasional piano, Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Lucas’ old Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway on drums. For a lead guitarist, they asked Richard Thompson who the best guitarist in Britain was, and he told them Albert Lee. Lee in turn brought in bass player Pat Donaldson, but this lineup of the band barely survived a fortnight. Lee *was* arguably the best guitarist in Britain, certainly a reasonable candidate if you could ever have a singular best (as indeed was Thompson himself), but he was the best *country* guitarist in Britain, and his style simply didn’t fit with Fotheringay’s folk-influenced songs. He was replaced by American guitarist Jerry Donahue, who was not anything like as proficient as Lee, but who was still very good, and fit the band’s style much better. The new group rehearsed together for a few weeks, did a quick tour, and then went into the recording studio to record their debut, self-titled, album. Joe Boyd produced the album, but admitted himself that he only paid attention to those songs he considered worthwhile — the album contained one song by Lucas, “The Ballad of Ned Kelly”, and two cover versions of American singer-songwriter material with Lucas singing lead. But everyone knew that the songs that actually *mattered* were Sandy Denny’s, and Boyd was far more interested in them, particularly the songs “The Sea” and “The Pond and the Stream”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “The Pond and the Stream”] Fotheringay almost immediately hit financial problems, though. While other Witchseason acts were used to touring on the cheap, all packed together in the back of a Transit van with inexpensive equipment, Trevor Lucas had ambitions of being a rock star and wanted to put together a touring production to match, with expensive transport and equipment, including a speaker system that got nicknamed “Stonehenge” — but at the same time, Denny was unhappy being on the road, and didn’t play many gigs. As well as the band itself, the Fotheringay album also featured backing vocals from a couple of other people, including Denny’s friend Linda Peters. Peters was another singer from the folk clubs, and a good one, though less well-known than Denny — at this point she had only released a couple of singles, and those singles seemed to have been as much as anything else released as a novelty. The first of those, a version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” had been released as by “Paul McNeill and Linda Peters”: [Excerpt: Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”] But their second single, a version of John D. Loudermilk’s “You’re Taking My Bag”, was released on the tiny Page One label, owned by Larry Page, and was released under the name “Paul and Linda”, clearly with the intent of confusing particularly gullible members of the record-buying public into thinking this was the McCartneys: [Excerpt: Paul and Linda, “You’re Taking My Bag”] Peters was though more financially successful than almost anyone else in this story, as she was making a great deal of money as a session singer. She actually did another session involving most of Fotheringay around this time. Witchseason had a number of excellent songwriters on its roster, and had had some success getting covers by people like Judy Collins, but Joe Boyd thought that they might possibly do better at getting cover versions if they were performed in less idiosyncratic arrangements. Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway went into the studio to record backing tracks, and vocals were added by Peters and another session singer, who according to some sources also provided piano. They cut songs by Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “You Get Brighter”] Ed Carter, formerly of The New Nadir but by this time firmly ensconced in the Beach Boys’ touring band where he would remain for the next quarter-century: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “I Don’t Mind”] John and Beverly Martyn, and Nick Drake: [Excerpt: Elton John, “Saturday Sun”] There are different lineups of musicians credited for those sessions in different sources, but I tend to believe that it’s mostly Fotheringay for the simple reason that Donahue says it was him, Donaldson and Conway who talked Lucas and Denny into the mistake that destroyed Fotheringay because of these sessions. Fotheringay were in financial trouble already, spending far more money than they were bringing in, but their album made the top twenty and they were getting respect both from critics and from the public — in September, Sandy Denny was voted best British female singer by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual poll, which led to shocked headlines in the tabloids about how this “unknown” could have beaten such big names as Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black. Only a couple of weeks after that, they were due to headline at the Albert Hall. It should have been a triumph. But Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway had asked that singing pianist to be their support act. As Donahue said later “That was a terrible miscast. It was our fault. He asked if [he] could do it. Actually Pat, Gerry and I had to talk Sandy and Trevor into [it]… We'd done these demos and the way he was playing – he was a wonderful piano player – he was sensitive enough. We knew very little about his stage-show. We thought he'd be a really good opener for us.” Unfortunately, Elton John was rather *too* good. As Donahue continued “we had no idea what he had in mind, that he was going to do the most incredible rock & roll show ever. He pretty much blew us off the stage before we even got on the stage.” To make matters worse, Fotheringay’s set, which was mostly comprised of new material, was underrehearsed and sloppy, and from that point on no matter what they did people were counting the hours until the band split up. They struggled along for a while though, and started working on a second record, with Boyd again producing, though as Boyd later said “I probably shouldn't have been producing the record. My lack of respect for the group was clear, and couldn't have helped the atmosphere. We'd put out a record that had sold disappointingly, A&M was unhappy. Sandy's tracks on the first record are among the best things she ever did – the rest of it, who cares? And the artwork, Trevor's sister, was terrible. It would have been one thing if I'd been unhappy with it and it sold, and the group was working all the time, making money, but that wasn't the case … I knew what Sandy was capable of, and it was very upsetting to me.” The record would not be released for thirty-eight years: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Wild Mountain Thyme”] Witchseason was going badly into debt. Given all the fissioning of bands that we’ve already been talking about, Boyd had been stretched thin — he produced sixteen albums in 1970, and almost all of them lost money for the company. And he was getting more and more disillusioned with the people he was producing. He loved Beverly Martyn’s work, but had little time for her abusive husband John, who was dominating her recording and life more and more and would soon become a solo artist while making her stay at home (and stealing her ideas without giving her songwriting credit). The Incredible String Band were great, but they had recently converted to Scientology, which Boyd found annoying, and while he was working with all sorts of exciting artists like Vashti Bunyan and Nico, he was finding himself less and less important to the artists he mentored. Fairport Convention were a good example of this. After Denny and Hutchings had left the group, they’d decided to carry on as an electric folk group, performing an equal mix of originals by the Swarbrick and Thompson songwriting team and arrangements of traditional songs. The group were now far enough away from the “British Jefferson Airplane” label that they decided they didn’t need a female vocalist — and more realistically, while they’d been able to replace Judy Dyble, nobody was going to replace Sandy Denny. Though it’s rather surprising when one considers Thompson’s subsequent career that nobody seems to have thought of bringing in Denny’s friend Linda Peters, who was dating Joe Boyd at the time (as Denny had been before she met Lucas) as Denny’s replacement. Instead, they decided that Swarbrick and Thompson were going to share the vocals between them. They did, though, need a bass player to replace Hutchings. Swarbrick wanted to bring in Dave Pegg, with whom he had played in the Ian Campbell Folk Group, but the other band members initially thought the idea was a bad one. At the time, while they respected Swarbrick as a musician, they didn’t think he fully understood rock and roll yet, and they thought the idea of getting in a folkie who had played double bass rather than an electric rock bassist ridiculous. But they auditioned him to mollify Swarbrick, and found that he was exactly what they needed. As Joe Boyd later said “All those bass lines were great, Ashley invented them all, but he never could play them that well. He thought of them, but he was technically not a terrific bass player. He was a very inventive, melodic, bass player, but not a very powerful one technically. But having had the part explained to him once, Pegg was playing it better than Ashley had ever played it… In some rock bands, I think, ultimately, the bands that sound great, you can generally trace it to the bass player… it was at that point they became a great band, when they had Pegg.” The new lineup of Fairport decided to move in together, and found a former pub called the Angel, into which all the band members moved, along with their partners and children (Thompson was the only one who was single at this point) and their roadies. The group lived together quite happily, and one gets the impression that this was the period when they were most comfortable with each other, even though by this point they were a disparate group with disparate tastes, in music as in everything else. Several people have said that the only music all the band members could agree they liked at this point was the first two albums by The Band. With the departure of Hutchings from the band, Swarbrick and Thompson, as the strongest personalities and soloists, became in effect the joint leaders of the group, and they became collaborators as songwriters, trying to write new songs that were inspired by traditional music. Thompson described the process as “let’s take one line of this reel and slow it down and move it up a minor third and see what that does to it; let’s take one line of this ballad and make a whole song out of it. Chopping up the tradition to find new things to do… like a collage.” Generally speaking, Swarbrick and Thompson would sit by the fire and Swarbrick would play a melody he’d been working on, the two would work on it for a while, and Thompson would then go away and write the lyrics. This is how the two came up with songs like the nine-minute “Sloth”, a highlight of the next album, Full House, and one that would remain in Fairport’s live set for much of their career: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth”] “Sloth” was titled that way because Thompson and Swarbrick were working on two tunes, a slow one and a fast one, and they jokingly named them “Sloth” and “Fasth”, but the latter got renamed to “Walk Awhile”, while “Sloth” kept its working title. But by this point, Boyd and Thompson were having a lot of conflict in the studio. Boyd was never the most technical of producers — he was one of those producers whose job is to gently guide the artists in the studio and create a space for the music to flourish, rather than the Joe Meek type with an intimate technical knowledge of the studio — and as the artists he was working with gained confidence in their own work they felt they had less and less need of him. During the making of the Full House album, Thompson and Boyd, according to Boyd, clashed on everything — every time Boyd thought Thompson had done a good solo, Thompson would say to erase it and let him have another go, while every time Boyd thought Thompson could do better, Thompson would say that was the take to keep. One of their biggest clashes was over Thompson’s song “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”, which was originally intended for release on the album, and is included in current reissues of it: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”] Thompson had written that song inspired by what he thought was the unjust treatment of Alex Bramham, the driver in Fairport’s fatal car crash, by the courts — Bramham had been given a prison sentence of a few months for dangerous driving, while the group members thought he had not been at fault. Boyd thought it was one of the best things recorded for the album, but Thompson wasn’t happy with his vocal — there was one note at the top of the melody that he couldn’t quite hit — and insisted it be kept off the record, even though that meant it would be a shorter album than normal. He did this at such a late stage that early copies of the album actually had the title printed on the sleeve, but then blacked out. He now says in his autobiography “I could have persevered, double-tracked the voice, warmed up for longer – anything. It was a good track, and the record was lacking without it. When the album was re-released, the track was restored with a more confident vocal, and it has stayed there ever since.” During the sessions for Full House the group also recorded one non-album single, Thompson and Swarbrick’s “Now Be Thankful”: [Excerpt, Fairport Convention, “Now Be Thankful”] The B-side to that was a medley of two traditional tunes plus a Swarbrick original, but was given the deliberately ridiculous title “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”] The B. McKenzie in the title was a reference to the comic-strip character Barry McKenzie, a stereotype drunk Australian created for Private Eye magazine by the comedian Barry Humphries (later to become better known for his Dame Edna Everage character) but the title was chosen for one reason only — to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the song with the longest title. Which they did, though they were later displaced by the industrial band Test Dept, and their song “Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes and Is Constantly Perfected Under the Immaculate Guidance of the Great, Honourable, Generous and Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is the Blue Sky in the Hearts of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage and Bow in Deep Respect and Gratitude to Her. The Milk of Human Kindness”. Full House got excellent reviews in the music press, with Rolling Stone saying “The music shows that England has finally gotten her own equivalent to The Band… By calling Fairport an English equivalent of the Band, I meant that they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they maintain their roots in rock.” Off the back of this, the group went on their first US tour, culminating in a series of shows at the Troubadour in LA, on the same bill as Rick Nelson, which were recorded and later released as a live album: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth (live)”] The Troubadour was one of the hippest venues at the time, and over their residency there the group got seen by many celebrities, some of whom joined them on stage. The first was Linda Ronstadt, who initially demurred, saying she didn’t know any of their songs. On being told they knew all of hers, she joined in with a rendition of “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”. Thompson was later asked to join Ronstadt’s backing band, who would go on to become the Eagles, but he said later of this offer “I would have hated it. I’d have hated being on the road with four or five miserable Americans — they always seem miserable. And if you see them now, they still look miserable on stage — like they don’t want to be there and they don’t like each other.” The group were also joined on stage at the Troubadour on one memorable night by some former bandmates of Pegg’s. Before joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Pegg had played around the Birmingham beat scene, and had been in bands with John Bonham and Robert Plant, who turned up to the Troubadour with their Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page (reports differ on whether the fourth member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, also came along). They all got up on stage together and jammed on songs like “Hey Joe”, “Louie Louie”, and various old Elvis tunes. The show was recorded, and the tapes are apparently still in the possession of Joe Boyd, who has said he refuses to release them in case he is murdered by the ghost of Peter Grant. According to Thompson, that night ended in a three-way drinking contest between Pegg, Bonham, and Janis Joplin, and it’s testament to how strong the drinking culture is around Fairport and the British folk scene in general that Pegg outdrank both of them. According to Thompson, Bonham was found naked by a swimming pool two days later, having missed two gigs. For all their hard rock image, Led Zeppelin were admirers of a lot of the British folk and folk-rock scene, and a few months later Sandy Denny would become the only outside vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin record when she duetted with Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” on the group’s fourth album: [Excerpt: Led Zeppelin, “The Battle of Evermore”] Denny would never actually get paid for her appearance on one of the best-selling albums of all time. That was, incidentally, not the only session that Denny was involved in around this time — she also sang on the soundtrack to a soft porn film titled Swedish Fly Girls, whose soundtrack was produced by Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow?”] Shortly after Fairport’s trip to America, Joe Boyd decided he was giving up on Witchseason. The company was now losing money, and he was finding himself having to produce work for more and more acts as the various bands fissioned. The only ones he really cared about were Richard Thompson, who he was finding it more and more difficult to work with, Nick Drake, who wanted to do his next album with just an acoustic guitar anyway, Sandy Denny, who he felt was wasting her talents in Fotheringay, and Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band, who was more distant since his conversion to Scientology. Boyd did make some attempts to keep the company going. On a trip to Sweden, he negotiated an agreement with the manager and publisher of a Swedish band whose songs he’d found intriguing, the Hep Stars. Boyd was going to publish their songs in the UK, and in return that publisher, Stig Anderson, would get the rights to Witchseason’s catalogue in Scandinavia — a straight swap, with no money changing hands. But before Boyd could get round to signing the paperwork, he got a better offer from Mo Ostin of Warners — Ostin wanted Boyd to come over to LA and head up Warners’ new film music department. Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to LA with his fiancee Linda Peters, spending the next few years working on music for films like Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange, as well as making his own documentary about Jimi Hendrix, and thus missed out on getting the UK publishing rights for ABBA, and all the income that would have brought him, for no money. And it was that decision that led to the breakup of Fotheringay. Just before Christmas 1970, Fotheringay were having a difficult session, recording the track “John the Gun”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “John the Gun”] Boyd got frustrated and kicked everyone out of the session, and went for a meal and several drinks with Denny. He kept insisting that she should dump the band and just go solo, and then something happened that the two of them would always describe differently. She asked him if he would continue to produce her records if she went solo, and he said he would. According to Boyd’s recollection of the events, he meant that he would fly back from California at some point to produce her records. According to Denny, he told her that if she went solo he would stay in Britain and not take the job in LA. This miscommunication was only discovered after Denny told the rest of Fotheringay after the Christmas break that she was splitting the band. Jerry Donahue has described that as the worst moment of his life, and Denny felt very guilty about breaking up a band with some of her closest friends in — and then when Boyd went over to the US anyway she felt a profound betrayal. Two days before Fotheringay’s final concert, in January 1971, Sandy Denny signed a solo deal with Island records, but her first solo album would not end up produced by Joe Boyd. Instead, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was co-produced by Denny, John Wood — the engineer who had worked with Boyd on pretty much everything he’d produced, and Richard Thompson, who had just quit Fairport Convention, though he continued living with them at the Angel, at least until a truck crashed into the building in February 1971, destroying its entire front wall and forcing them to relocate. The songs chosen for The North Star Grassman and the Ravens reflected the kind of choices Denny would make on her future albums, and her eclectic taste in music. There was, of course, the obligatory Dylan cover, and the traditional folk ballad “Blackwaterside”, but there was also a cover version of Brenda Lee’s “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”] Most of the album, though, was made up of originals about various people in Denny’s life, like “Next Time Around”, about her ex-boyfriend Jackson C Frank: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Next Time Around”] The album made the top forty in the UK — Denny’s only solo album to do so — and led to her once again winning the “best female singer” award in Melody Maker’s readers’ poll that year — the male singer award was won by Rod Stewart. Both Stewart and Denny appeared the next year on the London Symphony Orchestra’s all-star version of The Who’s Tommy, which had originally been intended as a vehicle for Stewart before Roger Daltrey got involved. Stewart’s role was reduced to a single song, “Pinball Wizard”, while Denny sang on “It’s a Boy”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “It’s a Boy”] While Fotheringay had split up, all the band members play on The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Guitarists Donahue and Lucas only play on a couple of the tracks, with Richard Thompson playing most of the guitar on the record. But Fotheringay’s rhythm section of Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway play on almost every track. Another musician on the album, Ian Whiteman, would possibly have a profound effect on the future direction of Richard Thompson’s career and life. Whiteman was the former keyboard player for the mod band The Action, having joined them just before they became the blues-rock band Mighty Baby. But Mighty Baby had split up when all of the band except the lead singer had converted to Islam. Richard Thompson was on his own spiritual journey at this point, and became a Sufi – the same branch of Islam as Whiteman – soon after the session, though Thompson has said that his conversion was independent of Whiteman’s. The two did become very close and work together a lot in the mid-seventies though. Thompson had supposedly left Fairport because he was writing material that wasn’t suited to the band, but he spent more than a year after quitting the group working on sessions rather than doing anything with his own material, and these sessions tended to involve the same core group of musicians. One of the more unusual was a folk-rock supergroup called The Bunch, put together by Trevor Lucas. Richard Branson had recently bought a recording studio, and wanted a band to test it out before opening it up for commercial customers, so with this free studio time Lucas decided to record a set of fifties rock and roll covers. He gathered together Thompson, Denny, Whiteman, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway, pianist Tony Cox, the horn section that would later form the core of the Average White Band, and Linda Peters, who had now split up with Joe Boyd and returned to the UK, and who had started dating Thompson. They recorded an album of covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Otis and others: [Excerpt: The Bunch, “Willie and the Hand Jive”] The early seventies was a hugely productive time for this group of musicians, as they all continued playing on each other’s projects. One notable album was No Roses by Shirley Collins, which featured Thompson, Mattacks, Whiteman, Simon Nicol, Lal and Mike Waterson, and Ashley Hutchings, who was at that point married to Collins, as well as some more unusual musicians like the free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill: [Excerpt: Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band, “Claudy Banks”] Collins was at the time the most respected female singer in British traditional music, and already had a substantial career including a series of important records made with her sister Dolly, work with guitarists like Davey Graham, and time spent in the 1950s collecting folk songs in the Southern US with her then partner Alan Lomax – according to Collins she did much of the actual work, but Lomax only mentioned her in a single sentence in his book on this work. Some of the same group of musicians went on to work on an album of traditional Morris dancing tunes, titled Morris On, credited to “Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield”, with Collins singing lead on two tracks: [Excerpt: Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield with Shirley Collins, “The Willow Tree”] Thompson thought that that album was the best of the various side projects he was involved in at the time, comparing it favourably to Rock On, which he thought was rather slight, saying later “Conceptually, Fairport, Ashley and myself and Sandy were developing a more fragile style of music that nobody else was particularly interested in, a British Folk Rock idea that had a logical development to it, although we all presented it our own way. Morris On was rather more true to what we were doing. Rock On was rather a retro step. I'm not sure it was lasting enough as a record but Sandy did sing really well on the Buddy Holly songs.” Hutchings used the musicians on No Roses and Morris On as the basis for his band the Albion Band, which continues to this day. Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks both quit Fairport to join the Albion Band, though Mattacks soon returned. Nicol would not return to Fairport for several years, though, and for a long period in the mid-seventies Fairport Convention had no original members. Unfortunately, while Collins was involved in the Albion Band early on, she and Hutchings ended up divorcing, and the stress from the divorce led to Collins developing spasmodic dysphonia, a stress-related illness which makes it impossible for the sufferer to sing. She did eventually regain her vocal ability, but between 1978 and 2016 she was unable to perform at all, and lost decades of her career. Richard Thompson occasionally performed with the Albion Band early on, but he was getting stretched a little thin with all these sessions. Linda Peters said later of him “When I came back from America, he was working in Sandy’s band, and doing sessions by the score. Always with Pat Donaldson and Dave Mattacks. Richard would turn up with his guitar, one day he went along to do a session with one of those folkie lady singers — and there were Pat and DM. They all cracked. Richard smashed his amp and said “Right! No more sessions!” In 1972 he got round to releasing his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, which featured guest appearances by Linda Peters and Sandy Denny among others: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away”] Unfortunately, while that album has later become regarded as one of the classics of its genre, at the time it was absolutely slated by the music press. The review in Melody Maker, for example, read in part “Some of Richard Thompson’s ideas sound great – which is really the saving grace of this album, because most of the music doesn’t. The tragedy is that Thompson’s “British rock music” is such an unconvincing concoction… Even the songs that do integrate rock and traditional styles of electric guitar rhythms and accordion and fiddle decoration – and also include explicit, meaningful lyrics are marred by bottle-up vocals, uninspiring guitar phrases and a general lack of conviction in performance.” Henry the Human Fly was released in the US by Warners, who had a reciprocal licensing deal with Island (and for whom Joe Boyd was working at the time, which may have had something to do with that) but according to Thompson it became the lowest-selling record that Warners ever put out (though I’ve also seen that claim made about Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, another album that has later been rediscovered). Thompson was hugely depressed by this reaction, and blamed his own singing. Happily, though, by this point he and Linda had become a couple — they would marry in 1972 — and they started playing folk clubs as a duo, or sometimes in a trio with Simon Nicol. Thompson was also playing with Sandy Denny’s backing band at this point, and played on every track on her second solo album, Sandy. This album was meant to be her big commercial breakthrough, with a glamorous cover photo by David Bailey, and with a more American sound, including steel guitar by Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers (whose overdubs were supervised in LA by Joe Boyd): [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Tomorrow is a Long Time”] The album was given a big marketing push by Island, and “Listen, Listen” was made single of the week on the Radio 1 Breakfast show: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Listen, Listen”] But it did even worse than the previous album, sending her into something of a depression. Linda Thompson (as the former Linda Peters now was) said of this period “After the Sandy album, it got her down that her popularity didn't suddenly increase in leaps and bounds, and that was the start of her really fretting about the way her career was going. Things only escalated after that. People like me or Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson would think, ‘What are you on about? This is folk music.'” After Sandy’s release, Denny realised she could no longer afford to tour with a band, and so went back to performing just acoustically or on piano. The only new music to be released by either of these ex-members of Fairport Convention in 1973 was, oddly, on an album by the band they were no longer members of. After Thompson had left Fairport, the group had managed to release two whole albums with the same lineup — Swarbrick, Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks. But then Nicol and Mattacks had both quit the band to join the Albion Band with their former bandmate Ashley Hutchings, leading to a situation where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport plus their longtime drummer while Fairport Convention itself had no original members and was down to just Swarbrick and Pegg. Needing to fulfil their contracts, they then recruited three former members of Fotheringay — Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donahue on lead guitar, and Conway on drums. Conway was only a session player at the time, and Mattacks soon returned to the band, but Lucas and Donahue became full-time members. This new lineup of Fairport Convention released two albums in 1973, widely regarded as the group’s most inconsistent records, and on the title track of the first, “Rosie”, Richard Thompson guested on guitar, with Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Rosie”] Neither Sandy Denny nor Richard Thompson released a record themselves in 1973, but in neither case was this through the artists’ choice. The record industry was changing in the early 1970s, as we’ll see in later episodes, and was less inclined to throw good money after bad in the pursuit of art. Island Records prided itself on being a home for great artists, but it was still a business, and needed to make money. We’ll talk about the OPEC oil crisis and its effect on the music industry much more when the podcast gets to 1973, but in brief, the production of oil by the US peaked in 1970 and started to decrease, leading to them importing more and more oil from the Middle East. As a result of this, oil prices rose slowly between 1971 and 1973, then very quickly towards the end of 1973 as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. As vinyl is made of oil, suddenly producing records became much more expensive, and in this period a lot of labels decided not to release already-completed albums, until what they hoped would be a brief period of shortages passed. Both Denny and Thompson recorded albums at this point that got put to one side by Island. In the case of Thompson, it was the first album by Richard and Linda as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Today, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and as one of the two masterpieces that bookended Richard and Linda’s career as a duo and their marriage. But when they recorded the album, full of Richard’s dark songs, it was the opposite of commercial. Even a song that’s more or less a boy-girl song, like “Has He Got a Friend for Me?” has lyrics like “He wouldn’t notice me passing by/I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree” [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Has He got a Friend For Me?”] While something like “The Calvary Cross” is oblique and haunted, and seems to cast a pall over the entire album: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “The Calvary Cross”] The album itself had been cheap to make — it had been recorded in only a week, with Thompson bringing in musicians he knew well and had worked with a lot previously to cut the tracks as-live in only a handful of takes — but Island didn’t think it was worth releasing. The record stayed on the shelf for nearly a year after recording, until Island got a new head of A&R, Richard Williams. Williams said of the album’s release “Muff Winwood had been doing A&R, but he was more interested in production… I had a conversation with Muff as soon as I got there, and he said there are a few hangovers, some outstanding problems. And one of them was Richard Thompson. He said there’s this album we gave him the money to make — which was I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight — and nobody’s very interested in it. Henry the Human Fly had been a bit of a commercial disappointment, and although Island was altruistic and independent and known for only recording good stuff, success was important… Either a record had to do well or somebody had to believe in it a lot. And it seemed as if neither of those things were true at that point of Richard.” Williams, though, was hugely impressed when he listened to the album. He compared Richard Thompson’s guitar playing to John Coltrane’s sax, and called Thompson “the folk poet of the rainy streets”, but also said “Linda brightened it, made it more commercial. and I thought that “Bright Lights” itself seemed a really commercial song.” The rest of the management at Island got caught up in Williams’ enthusiasm, and even decided to release the title track as a single: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Neither single nor album charted — indeed it would not be until 1991 that Richard Thompson would make a record that made the top forty in the UK — but the album got enough critical respect that Richard and Linda released two albums the year after. The first of these, Hokey Pokey, is a much more upbeat record than their previous one — Richard Thompson has called it “quite a music-hall influenced record” and cited the influence of George Formby and Harry Lauder. For once, the claim of music hall influence is audible in the music. Usually when a British musician is claimed to have a music ha

Send us a textKick back in the rock room for a full album listen. In this episode we set sea, using the North Star and Sandy Denny's siren wail as our guide. We drop the needle on Denny's 1971 LP, The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens. Expect the usual pithy banter and super rarities for your listening pleasure.Support the show

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-seven-minute bonus episode available, on “Baby It’s You” by Smith. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ (more…)

What's better than one unique voice? Do you have to ask? Here in Top Ten Unique Voices That Sound Great Together, our good friend and returning champion Gabe Scalone lays out his vision for an obvious but awesome topic. Here it is in a nutshell - 2 singers that have unmistakable flair and originality, combining forces like the finest chocolate and some amazing peanut butter to create a taste sensation. Two great tastes that taste great together, as Madison Avenue used to say. Picks 10-6 are revealed here in Part 1.We've lowered our prices, but not our standards over at the ATTT Patreon! Those who are kindly contributing $2 a month are receiving an exclusive monthly Emergency Pod episode featuring our favorite guests and utilizing our patent-pending improv format in which we miraculously pull a playlist out of thin air. The Old Boy Himself Ryan Blake joined for May's bonus episode.Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/c/alltimetoptenWe're having a blast chatting it up about music over on the ATTT Facebook Group. Join us and start a conversation!https://www.facebook.com/groups/940749894391295

Start Artist Song Time Album Year 0:01:25 Sandy Denny & The Strawbs Tell Me What You See In Me 3:33 All Our Own Work 1967 0:04:58 Sandy Denny & The Strawbs Two Weeks Last Summer (Bonus) 2:00 All Our Own Work 1967 0:07:34 Fotheringay Gypsy Davey 3:40 Fotheringay 2 1972 0:11:14 Sandy Denny Listen, Listen […]

This year's folk festival runs July 18th to 20th in Jericho Beach Park, and they announced the line-up on Thursday. I hope to broadcast LIVE from the park once again. Meanwhile tracks 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17, 22, 24, 27, 28, 33, 34, 37, 39, 49, 50, and 55 are by artists performing this year. Some new Putumayo releases were also featured on today's show, as well as many new releases from around the planet, local concert previews.too, and a finale from Sandy Denny who passed away at the tender age of 31exactly 47 years ago this week

Songs for Mother Earth and The Easter Bunny, plus memories of Sandy Denny (who died April 21st 1978) and NL accordionist Frank Maher, who died last week. Plus more new releases and concert previews than you can shake a stick at. Spot the 420 hints, if you can...

The new programme by Mestizo Sounds focuses on folk music, mainly sixties and seventies. The idea for this programme is due to the new feature film “A Complete Unknown” about Bob Dylan's early days until he abandons the folk structures. The Folk scene was the catalyst for the most brilliant composers in the music revolution of the sixties. I hope the listener appreciates the selected music and agrees that Folk Music Matters! Soon, a new programme featuring more contemporary folk music will follow. Info  Website - www.jazzmattersuk.com For all social media links and more visit my Linkhub. https://www.jazzmattersuk.com/linkhub Jazz Matters Info - https://www.jazzmattersuk.com/about Email - jazzmattersuk@mail.com #OnDemand #FreeToStream https://pod.co/nudirections PLAYLIST 1- Ligh Flight - PENTANGLE (Great Britain) 2- April Rain - KAREN BETH (United States) 3- På Tredje Dagen Uppståndna - TURID (Sweden) 4- Who Knows Where the Time goes - Sandy Denny & The Strawbs (Great Britain) 5- The Dolphins - FRED NEIL (United States) 6- Something on your mind - KAREN DALTON (United States) 7- What are you going to do about me? - RICHIE HAVENS (United States) 8- Way before the times - HOYT AXTON (United States) 9- Northern Sky - NICK DRAKE (Great Britain) 10- La Canción- SILVIO RODRIGUEZ (Cuba) 11- Hummingbird - DAVY GRAHAM 12- Scarborough Fair - MARTIN CARTHY (Great Britain) 13- The Circle Game - JONI MITCHELL (United States) 14- Viola Fora de Moda - EDU LOBO (Brazil) 15- God Loves a Drunk - NORMA WATERSON (Great Britain) 16- Raggle Taggle Gypsy (Tabhair Dom Do Lamh) - PLANXTY (Ireland) 17- Seven Curses - BOB DYLAN (United States) 18- Love Will Tears Apart - JUNE TABOR & OYSTERBAND (Great Britain)

References JBC 2018. 1293: 2422-2437. Nat Metab. 2023 Aug 23;5(8):1275–1289 Page/Plant. 1971. 'Battle of Evermore" LZ IV. lp. w/Sandy Denny. https://open.spotify.com/track/6KCjY5kHvgWaWcAV6BBzxO?si=6f532f5bed624491

We begin every year with a programme of Sandy's music, near the time of her birthday

Holidays were hard for Roger Samples in 1975.He was living alone, just him and Josephine the Cat rattling around on Mount Union Road where he was house-sitting for Susan and David Peyton. (As reported earlier, the Peyton family had left town for six months in Lafayette, Louisiana, where Dave was researching Cajun culture for his Alicia Paterson Foundation fellowship project.)Nonetheless, that autumn was a fertile one for Roger and the fledgling Flood. That's because every few days, Joe Dobbs would come by to jam with Rog; when he didn't, Charlie Bowen did. In those waning days of the year, life-long friendships were formed.Holiday AdoptionAs the holidays rolled in, though, the pickings got slim. Busy with Dobbs family affairs, Joe couldn't drop by as frequently. As a result, Roger starting spending many of his evenings at the Bowen house with Charlie and Pamela.“Y'all take in strays?” Roger asked the first night he appeared on their doorstep.“Come on in, buddy! Pull up a chair.”A new routine developed. Getting home from a day of teaching at Mason County's Hannah High School in Apple Grove, Rog would have supper with Charlie and Pamela, then he and Charlie broke out the guitars.That year Roger was even there to help decorate the Bowens' Christmas tree, stringing lights and hanging tinsel while they listened to the new albums by Jackson Browne and David Bromberg, Steve Goodman and John Prine.Pamela usually was the only audience for the tunes Roger and Charlie worked out in those last weeks of 1975, songs like this one, which she recorded in the Bowen living room on Nov. 28, the night after Thanksgiving.About the SongOne of the first things Charlie and Roger learned about each other was their shared love for Bob Dylan songs. For nearly a decade by then, both had been listening to Dylan discs and working up their own versions of his songs.Quickly they found they each had a rendition of “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” which they had heard a few years earlier on the 1971 release of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II.Dylan wrote the song in 1962, including it as a demo for M. Witmark & Son, which became his publishing company at the time. (That particular track, incidentally, has long been available as a bootleg; so has an outtake from the June 1970 studio sessions for Bob's New Morning album.)Over the years, “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” has been covered by many Dylan friends and admirers. Most notably, Elvis Presley recorded it in the spring of 1966, appearing as a bonus track on his Spinout album.Elvis and OthersPresley was taken with the song after learning it from West Virginia's legendary harmonica player Charlie McCoy, who played it the previous year on Odetta's album Odetta Sings Dylan. Dylan has said Presley's cover of the song is "the one recording I treasure the most.”Besides Elvis and Odetta, others who have recorded the song include Joan Baez and Ian and Sylvia (1963), Judy Collins (1965), the Pozo-Seco Singers (1966), The Kingston Trio (1969), We Five and Glenn Yarbrough (1970), Rod Stewart (1971), Sandy Denny (1972).Stay TunedMeanwhile, if you enjoyed today's trek in the time machine, hang around. More of that late ‘75 vibe will be featured in a Flood Watch report next week, including a trio of Roger-and-Charlie originals and some vintage solos by fiddlin' Joe Dobbs. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

På opfordring kommer mit andet program om Duetter. Det kan enten være der bliver sunget skiftevis, eller en synger vers og den anden synger omkvædet eller to mænd eller to kvinder. Jeg giver mit bud på nogle lidt anderledes numre inden for genren den næste times tid. Lyt med til: Led Zeppelin & Sandy Denny, … Læs videre "Duetter 2"

Joe Boyd has had many job descriptions over the course of his nearly sixty-year career in music, and there was simply no way to cover everything in this conversation. That said, Paul and Joe focus on Boyd's important new book, And The Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music, and themes of cultural cross-pollination in music, the birth of hip hop and ska, the reason Hitler spared the life of virtuoso Roma guitarist Django Reinhardt, what happened with Nick Drake, and Boyd's phenomenal earlier book, the memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s.  As a music producer, Boyd has delivered records by Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Taj Mahal, Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson, Sandy Denny. He tour-managed European dates for Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and was a production manager at the 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, before flying off to open Elektra Records' UK office in London where he and John Hopkins opened the UFO club, giving a psychedelic home to Pink Floyd and others.  In 1971 he moved to Los Angeles to work for Warner Brothers Films (Deliverance, A Clockwork Orange, and the documentary Jimi Hendrix). In 1979, he worked for Lorne Michaels' film company, Broadway Pictures, and the following year, launched his own label, Hannibal Records, releasing works by John Cale, Richard Thompson and more, while bringing global artists such as ¡Cubanismo!, Toumani Diabaté, Ali Farka Touré, Trio Bulgarka, and Songhai, to western audiences. The Record Store Day Podcast is a weekly music chat show written, produced, engineered and hosted by Paul Myers, who also composed the theme music and selected interstitial music.  Executive Producers (for Record Store Day) Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton. For the most up-to-date news about all things RSD, visit RecordStoreDay.com)   Sponsored by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (dogfish.com), Tito's Handmade Vodka (titosvodka.com), RSDMRKT.com, and Furnace Record Pressing, the official vinyl pressing plant of Record Store Day.   Please consider subscribing to our podcast wherever you get podcasts, and tell your friends, we're here every week and we love making new friends.   Rest in Peace, Phil Lesh: "A box of rain will ease the pain / And love will see you through" 

Iain Matthews was an early member of the pioneering British folk-rock band Fairport Convention, singing on its first two albums and leaving during the recording of the third one, Unhalfbricking. Since then this singer-songwriter has formed other bands — Matthews Southern Comfort, Plainsong — and released much solo work, including the just-released How Much Is Enough. He has scored some hits — Southern Comfort's cover of Joni Mitchell's “Woodstock,” his 1979 solo song “Shake It”—and says he has recorded about 70 albums total, all projects included. So he has many tales to tell —about the Fairport years with Richard Thompson, Judy Dyble and Sandy Denny and his break from the group; the many places he has lived and whether they had an impact on his music; his years as an A&R rep; and that vocal arrangement of his that the Eagles borrowed without credit. (Photo by Lisa Margolis.)

This is a re-release of our original episode #311 on 9/4/23: Connecting with David Cousins of The Strawbs for this episode was a different experience for both of the Imbalanced Brothers. Ray was a fan of the band from the 1970s, when Markus was still a younger kid! So they each approached this interview, and the new album, differently. The result is a very exciting take on a classic band making their way back up the UK charts with The Magic Of It All, how they got there, as well as how South Africa now, and then, became central to the project. Dave shares some incredible stuff for guitar and banjo players regarding tunings, tells tales of Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman, and capped the visit by revealing that a collaboration with members of Wu-Tang Clan is in motion. Find out more about The Strawbs, their new album, and more on their web site! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a re-release of our original episode #311 on 9/4/23: Connecting with David Cousins of The Strawbs for this episode was a different experience for both of the Imbalanced Brothers. Ray was a fan of the band from the 1970s, when Markus was still a younger kid! So they each approached this interview, and the new album, differently. The result is a very exciting take on a classic band making their way back up the UK charts with The Magic Of It All, how they got there, as well as how South Africa now, and then, became central to the project. Dave shares some incredible stuff for guitar and banjo players regarding tunings, tells tales of Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman, and capped the visit by revealing that a collaboration with members of Wu-Tang Clan is in motion. Find out more about The Strawbs, their new album, and more on their web site! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He's 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of the performance. He misses those days, when albums were organic and the labels had less control, and talks here about … … “the age when sound had perspective and seemed three-dimensional”. … Nick Drake's confidence and his guiding lights - eg the Beach Boys and Randy Newman (“who I'd never heard of”). And his final nighttime sessions. … the way Fairport recorded – “We're only going to do it once” – and why they could make three albums a year. …managing the girls in the Incredible String Band, “especially when Licorice played drums”. … John Cale in “maniac mode” and his sudden and unexpected friendship with Nick Drake. … Cale and Nico at the Chelsea Hotel. … and why ‘Geoff Muldaur Is Having A Wonderful Time' was the job he remembers the fondest. Also mentioned: the Downliners Sect, Judy Collins, The Marmalade, Graham Gouldman and Squeeze. John's got nothing to plug and just wanted to talk to us. Thanks, John, and bless your cotton socks.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He's 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of the performance. He misses those days, when albums were organic and the labels had less control, and talks here about … … “the age when sound had perspective and seemed three-dimensional”. … Nick Drake's confidence and his guiding lights - eg the Beach Boys and Randy Newman (“who I'd never heard of”). And his final nighttime sessions. … the way Fairport recorded – “We're only going to do it once” – and why they could make three albums a year. …managing the girls in the Incredible String Band, “especially when Licorice played drums”. … John Cale in “maniac mode” and his sudden and unexpected friendship with Nick Drake. … Cale and Nico at the Chelsea Hotel. … and why ‘Geoff Muldaur Is Having A Wonderful Time' was the job he remembers the fondest. Also mentioned: the Downliners Sect, Judy Collins, The Marmalade, Graham Gouldman and Squeeze. John's got nothing to plug and just wanted to talk to us. Thanks, John, and bless your cotton socks.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He's 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of the performance. He misses those days, when albums were organic and the labels had less control, and talks here about … … “the age when sound had perspective and seemed three-dimensional”. … Nick Drake's confidence and his guiding lights - eg the Beach Boys and Randy Newman (“who I'd never heard of”). And his final nighttime sessions. … the way Fairport recorded – “We're only going to do it once” – and why they could make three albums a year. …managing the girls in the Incredible String Band, “especially when Licorice played drums”. … John Cale in “maniac mode” and his sudden and unexpected friendship with Nick Drake. … Cale and Nico at the Chelsea Hotel. … and why ‘Geoff Muldaur Is Having A Wonderful Time' was the job he remembers the fondest. Also mentioned: the Downliners Sect, Judy Collins, The Marmalade, Graham Gouldman and Squeeze. John's got nothing to plug and just wanted to talk to us. Thanks, John, and bless your cotton socks.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Transmissions, we're sitting down with a genuine legend: Joe Boyd, author of And The Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music, out September 24 from ZE Books. On the front cover of the book Brian Eno—a venerated saint in the Aquarium Drunkard canon—declares: “I doubt I'll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one.”  Joe Boyd's career is the stuff of myth. As a producer, he's worked with a murder's row of collaborators, including Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, R.E.M., Richard and Linda Thompson, Incredible String Band, Vashti Bunyan, 10,00 Maniacs, and many more. In 2006, Boyd released a memoir, White Bicycles – Making Music in the 1960s, which documented his time in the studio during that decade, but And the Roots of Rhythm Remain casts an even wider net, exploring the overlap of musical cultures and the complicated, human negotiations that undergird creative synthesis.  As you'll hear in the early part of our talk, Joe played a pivotal role Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury's music writing journey. In 2008, Woodbury reviewed a Nick Drake box set for the sorely missed Tiny Mix Tapes. The piece also included an email interview with Boyd, whose responses were insightful and in-depth—an experience that inspired Woodbury to chase after interviews. So this conversation picks up the thread some decade and a half later, detailing not only Boyd's new book, but also his experiences with Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, Vashti Bunyan, and many more adventures. Aquarium Drunkard is supported by our subscribers. Head over and peruse our site, where you'll find nearly 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/aquariumdrunkard

John Mayall1933 - 2024 Contact Us23. Toranzo Cannon / I Hate Love24. Robert Cray Band / The Forecast Calls for Pain 25. BB King / You Put It On Me 26. Johnny Adams / Love for Sale 27. Alex Harris / Something Gotta Change  28. Eddie Fontaine / Nothing Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Tree) 29. Aretha Franklin / Dr. Feelgood 30. Bobby Harden / One Night of the Week 31. Aynsley Lister / Made Up Mind 32. Albert Cummings / I Got You Covered33. John Mayall & the Blues Breakers / Parchman Farm 34. Sandy Denny & Fairport Convention / Who Knows Where the Time Goes 35. Joe Bonamassa & Train / Hang On Loosely (38 Special) 36. Orianthi / Ghost 37. Gary Moore / Separate Ways 38. Robin Trower / Find Me 

Sorry for this episode being a little late….I'd meant to get it out earlier, but who knows where the time goes????? If you've not deserted me…..Welcome to episode 177 of Love That Album. Carrying on with the Fairport Convention connection of episode 176, I welcome three wonderful guests to the podcast this time around – all connected to the great Sandy Denny. Firstly, there's a return visit from John Penhallow, the first manager of Fairport. He's done a lot of archival work in relation to Sandy's music over the years, and we discuss that. Then, there's Sandy's daughter, Georgia Rose Lucas and musician / composer Carla Fuchs. The two of them are behind an album released in 2023 called Songbird. Carla composed new music to lyrics written by Sandy in her journals that were never previously recorded. The two of them collaborated to make this project come to existence. Not on the show, but huge thanks as well go to Elizabeth Hurtt, wife of the late Trevor Lucas, who took the time to tell me about the journey of these lyrics in Sandy's journals. There had been a plan many years ago for many artists to utilise her words for new songs….that didn't happen, but we explain what DID in the show's discussion. Huge thanks to Elizabeth for filling me in. My gratitude to all these wonderful folk for taking the time to talk about the Songbird project, the Attic Tracks songs put out on cassette and then CD by John on Raven Records years ago, Redgum, and Sandy's life and music. If you wish to search out a copy of Carla's album, it's available on Bandcamp at: https://talkingelephantrecords.bandcamp.com/album/songbird Download this episode of LTA from your podcast app of choice (not Spotify). The wider back catalogue of episodes can also be found at https://lovethatalbumpodcast.blogspot.com Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to https://pantheonpodcasts.com to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum Proudly Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sorry for this episode being a little late….I'd meant to get it out earlier, but who knows where the time goes????? If you've not deserted me…..Welcome to episode 177 of Love That Album. Carrying on with the Fairport Convention connection of episode 176, I welcome three wonderful guests to the podcast this time around – all connected to the great Sandy Denny. Firstly, there's a return visit from John Penhallow, the first manager of Fairport. He's done a lot of archival work in relation to Sandy's music over the years, and we discuss that. Then, there's Sandy's daughter, Georgia Rose Lucas and musician / composer Carla Fuchs. The two of them are behind an album released in 2023 called Songbird. Carla composed new music to lyrics written by Sandy in her journals that were never previously recorded. The two of them collaborated to make this project come to existence. Not on the show, but huge thanks as well go to Elizabeth Hurtt, wife of the late Trevor Lucas, who took the time to tell me about the journey of these lyrics in Sandy's journals. There had been a plan many years ago for many artists to utilise her words for new songs….that didn't happen, but we explain what DID in the show's discussion. Huge thanks to Elizabeth for filling me in. My gratitude to all these wonderful folk for taking the time to talk about the Songbird project, the Attic Tracks songs put out on cassette and then CD by John on Raven Records years ago, Redgum, and Sandy's life and music. If you wish to search out a copy of Carla's album, it's available on Bandcamp at: https://talkingelephantrecords.bandcamp.com/album/songbird Download this episode of LTA from your podcast app of choice (not Spotify). The wider back catalogue of episodes can also be found at https://lovethatalbumpodcast.blogspot.com Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to https://pantheonpodcasts.com to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum Proudly Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's show, after a 1951 Frankie Laine freakout: brand new Linda Lindas, +/-, Seablite, Mercury Rev, Beachwood Sparks, Ducks Ltd., and Susanna, plus Culture, Ringo Starr, Sandy Denny, Hollies, Orioles, Marvin Gaye, and Tony Bennett; and R.I.P. Th...

Richard Thompson began his career as a guitarist and a songwriter when he was still a teenager – and six decades on, his passion for making and sharing music is as strong as ever. In the late 1960s he co-founded the pioneering folk-rock band Fairport Convention. In 1969 alone, they released three albums. All featured the voice of Sandy Denny, and one - Liege and Lief - was later acclaimed as the most influential folk album of all time. In the early 1970s, Richard left the band to form a decade-long musical partnership with his then wife Linda. He's now spent over 30 years as a solo artist, winning an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, a Lifetime Achievement Award from BBC Radio 2 and countless plaudits for his guitar playing. Richard's music choices include Beethoven, Purcell, Britten and Manuel de Falla.

Indie art-pop outfit The Pull of Autumn presents their new offering 'Lost Time'. Featuring San Francisco singer-songwriter Julius Manning, this echoes the hushed intimacy of Nick Drake, only with heightened dream-energy, A highlight of their fifth album 'Memory Tree', a vibrant yet reflective collection of poignant indie folk songs released by the Boston indie imprint RBM Records. Led by Rhode Island native Daniel Darrow of 80s post-punk group Johanna's House of Glamour, The Pull of Autumn is a dynamic collective - like a revolving door of collaborators whose other core members are Bruce MacLeod, Matthew Darrow, Luke Skyscraper James (I.R.S. recording artist Fashion), who also created the video for this new Julius Manning-led single. Each release involves notable and emerging artists, drawn from the local scene and further abroad. Julius Manning is a long-time Pull of Autumn collaborator, who earlier appeared on the 'Small Colors' and 'Beautiful Broken World' albums. A veteran of the Southern California music scene, Julius' music recalls the sixty's British folk music of Nick Drake, together with Sandy Denny's dreamy sound. Described as "a melancholy remembrance of moments in time and life", the 'Memory Tree' album features numerous outstanding artists, including Philip Parfitt (The Perfect Disaster), Ricky Humphrey (This Twisted Wreckage), San Francisco-based artist Leigh Gregory, Berkeley singer-songwriter Sophia Campbell, and Rhode Island Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame inductee Paul Everett.

Guitarist's guitarist and UK folk/rock legend Richard Thompson joins Paul to discuss his brand new album Ship to Shore (out now from New West Records), but also his early work with Sandy Denny in Fairport Convention, the great duo records with Linda Thompson, and his 90s solo work with Mitchell Froom. He also expounds on his memoir, the importance of Joe Boyd, and what Nick Drake was really like. The Record Store Day Podcast is a weekly music chat show written, produced, engineered and hosted by Paul Myers, who also composed the theme music and selected interstitial music.  Executive Producers (for Record Store Day) Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton. For the most up-to-date news about all things RSD, visit RecordStoreDay.com) Sponsored by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (dogfish.com), Tito's Handmade Vodka (titosvodka.com), RSDMRKT.com, and Furnace Record Pressing, the official vinyl pressing plant of Record Store Day. Please consider subscribing to our podcast wherever you get podcasts, and tell your friends, we're here every week and we love making new friends.

"Don't seem right, I've been strung out here all nightI've been waiting for the taste you said you'd bring to meBiscayne Bay, where the Cuban Gentlemen sleep all dayAre you with me Doctor WuAre you really just a shadowOf the man that I once knewCan you hear me Doctor"Please join me and Doctor Wu on the Sunday Edition of Whole "Nuther Thing. Joining us are Nick Drake, The Byrds, Joan Baez, Sandy Denny, John Waite, Fleetwood Mac, Toto, Iain Matthews, Bob Dylan, Flo & Edie, Graham Nash, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Peter Paul & Mary, The Wallflowers, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, John Mellencamp, Lovin' Spoonful, Barry McGuire, Bob Seger, Dire Straits, John Denver, Chris Isaak, Gregg Allman, Crosby Stills & Nash, We Five, The Turtles, Jaynetts, Tim Hardin, Mamas & Papas and Steely Dan.

Send us a Text Message.Musicians love to collaborate. We thought we'd have a look at some that are just great, some that are weird, and some that are simply awful! As usual, you'll know some, and some you won't.  This month, we farewell Graham Webb, an Australian pioneer of music videos – and Blind Date!  We also say goodbye to Ignatius Jones, of Jimmy and the Boys, along with a series of more conventional roles, and Steve Albini, producer of The Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. Vale! Our “Album You Must Hear Before You Die” is Pet Sounds, by The Beach Boys (1966). Long revered by musicians including The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, this album is a masterpiece of production and innovation.   How do we fit it all into an hour?  References:  Brian Wilson, Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, Capitol Records, Billboard, Sgt Pepper, Rubber Soul, LSD, “Good Vibrations”, Led Zeppelin, Sandy Denny, The Battle of Evermore, Aerosmith/Run-DMC, Walk This Way, Rick Rubin, Confessions of Dr Dream and other stories, Kevin Ayers, Nico, “Irreversible Neural Damage”, “With a Little Help From my Friends”, Joe Cocker, Jimmy Page, Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, Bing Crosby, David Bowie, “Little Drummer Boy”, Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, “Where The Wild Roses Grow”, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, “Raising Sand”, “Raise the Roof”, “Sentimental Hygiene”, Warren Zevon, Neil Young, The Party Boys, Peter Gabriel, “Don't give Up”, Kate Bush, “So”, Melt, “Games without Frontiers”, “Screaming Jets”, Johnny Warman, The Sex Pistols, Ronnie Biggs, “No One Is Innocent”, The Great Rock'N'Roll Swindle, Pink Floyd, Roy Harper, “Have A Cigar”, Wish You Were Here, Nick Cave & Shane McGowan, “What a Wonderful World”, Freddie Mercury, Montserrat Caballe, “Barcelona", U2, Brian Eno, The Joshua Tree, “Miss Sarajevo”, “Passengers”, Johnny Cash, “Under Pressure”, Queen, Vanilla Ice, “Dancing in the Street”, Mick Jagger, Mike Garson, Aladdin Sane, Pete Townshend, “Because You're Young”, Ann & Nancy Wilson (Heart) & Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons, REM, “End of the World”, Sesame Street, “Shiny Happy People”, Ozzy Osbourne & Miss Piggy, “Born to Be Wild”  Playlist - You'll really enjoy this one!!

Folk singer and teacher, Anna Tabbush joins Alexa to share insights into the world of folk music, its historical context, lyrical content, vocal techniques, and teaching methods. The pair discuss the origins of folk music, its storytelling function, and the distinction between folk and pop music. Anna also explores vocal qualities, rhythmic elements, and the influence of folk music on other genres. She provides valuable advice for singers and teachers, emphasising the importance of authentic storytelling and vocal health.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Anna describes folk music as a universal phenomenon present in every culture, serving to communicate stories, feelings, and celebrations, and to encourage dancing. It often includes work songs, like sea shanties. In England and the British Isles, folk music has a rich storytelling history. Anna notes that folk songs frequently address timeless, relatable themes, such as a mother's frustration in "Bonnie at Mourn." Folk songs differ from pop songs based on structure, rhythm, melody, instrumentation, vocal quality, lyrical content, and rhythmic flexibility. Folk songs typically have simpler forms and focus on storytelling with vocals that can be sung a cappella. They use treble-heavy instruments like fiddles and accordions. Pop songs have more complex structures, catchier melodies, broader instrumentation, and grounded rhythms. Folk music emphasises natural speech patterns and deep narratives. Anna advises singers to approach folk music authentically by focusing on key aspects: Relaxation and Authenticity, where singers relax the body and find their unique voice by letting go of tension; Connection to the Story, immersing in the song's narrative to convey it effectively; Vocal Health and Technique, understanding vocal health for safe, comfortable singing; Community and Practice, joining choirs or open mics to build confidence and explore styles; Exploration and Imitation, learning from other singers for inspiration; Dynamic Range and Expression, choosing songs that suit one's voice and using dynamics to maintain interest; and Movement and Expression, using gestures and movement to stay relaxed and tell the story.   BEST MOMENTS "Folk music is rooted in storytelling and serves as a means of communication, celebration, and social change." "Authentic folk singing involves relaxed vocal techniques, storytelling through song delivery, and a focus on the song rather than the singer." "Teaching folk music requires an understanding of vocal health, relaxation, and the importance of finding one's authentic voice."   EPISODE RESOURCES Guest Website: annatabbush.com singfest.org.uk guildfordvox.org.uk horsellsings.org.uk   Social Media: @anna_tabbush   Relevant Links & Mentions: Artists/songs/shows mentioned: Ben & Dom; Jackie Oates; Carolyn Robson; Sandy Denny; Phoebe Bridgers; Joni Mitchell; Bob Dylan; Taylor Swift; Sea shanties; What Should We Do With a Drunken Sailor; Bonny at Morn; Harbour; Hadestown; Once the Musical Singing for Musicals by Millie Taylor Chris Johnson Vocal Coach: Chris Johnson Vocal Coach Teach Voice: Teach Voice     BAST Book A Call   ABOUT THE GUEST   Anna Tabbush is a composer, choir conductor, singer, and multi-instrumentalist based in West Sussex, renowned for her socially conscious songwriting. Her 2020 song "Harbour" supports refugees and has been sung worldwide. Active on the folk scene for over twenty years, Anna performs as a singer-songwriter and with the a cappella quartet Oaken. She teaches singing techniques that relax the body and highlight individual voices, empowering everyone to sing to their full potential.   ABOUT THE PODCAST   BAST Training is here to help singers gain the knowledge, skills and understanding required to be a great singing teacher. We can help you whether you are getting started or just have some knowledge gaps to fill through our courses and educational events. basttraining.com Updates from BAST Training

"Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ?We sit here stranded, though we're all doing our best to deny it  And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy itLights flicker from the opposite loftIn this room the heat pipes just coughThe country music station plays softBut there's nothing really nothing to turn offJust Louise and her lover so entwinedAnd these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind."Please join me and perhaps a glimpse of Johanna on the Saturday Edition of Whole 'Nuther Thing live from Laguna Beach California.Joining us are Renaissance, Sandy Denny, Bruce Springsteen, Procol Harum, Joan Osborne, Ian Matthews, Elton John, Coldplay, Moody Blues, Mountain, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Ben Folds, Justin Hayward, Porcupine Tree, King Crimson and Bob Dylan.

Vocalist and songwriter Lizz Wright is usually referred to as a jazz or gospel singer, and she certainly does sing both of those styles. But she's also comfortable with blues and R&B and the Great American Songbook. Her latest album is called Shadow, and it features striking versions of songs by Cole Porter, Sandy Denny, and others. The record also includes a number of Lizz Wright's own songs, which draw inspiration from her Southern upbringing in Georgia, and wander freely among the many styles of American music. “Shadow” happens to be Wright's studio debut under her label, Blues & Greens Records, a new step in her artistic freedom, and without the genre constraints imposed by record labels. Lizz Wright and her band perform some of these acoustic songs, in-studio.  Set list: 1. Sparrow 2. Circling 3. Your Love

Dulcet-toned vocalist Lizz Wright celebrates 20 years as a recording artist with a new career-defining album, Shadow. Wright drafts five new songs to showcase alongside some of the great classic songwriters, including Cole Porter, Sandy Denny, and Candi Staton, and enlists friends like Angelique Kidjo and, on Today's Top Tune, Meshell Ndegeocello on bass and Brandee Younger on harp for “Your Love.” 

"Can you imagine us years from todaySharing a park bench quietly?How terribly strange to be seventyOld friends, memory brushes the same yearsSilently sharing the same fearTime it wasAnd what a time it wasIt was . . ."Please join me as we share a virtual Park Bench on this week's Red Eye Edition of Whole 'Nuther Thing. Joining us are Leonard Cohen, Minnie Ripperton, Richie Havens, Dire Straits, Lizz Wright, Steely Dan, Buffalo Springfield, Jimi Hendrix Eperience, Genesis, Laurence Juber, Fleetwood Mac, Gerry Rafferty, Neil Diamond, Phoebe Snow, Bob Dylan, Roxy Music, Sandy Denny, Bruce Springsteen, Renaissance, Procol Harum, Traffic, U2, Paul Simon, Circus Maximus and Simon & Garfunkel.

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins' practise notebooks, pianist Stephen Hough's account of tackling Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, the voice of Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny in the words of Scottish poet Don Paterson, and E. M. Forster's evocation of Beethoven's 5th Symphony in Howard's End: just some of the texts we'll hear on tonight's celebration of writing about music.Ian's joined by four Radio 3 presenters to discuss the challenges of all sorts of music writing, from concert reviews to programme notes, memoirs, poetry, fiction, and scripts for radio. His guests are Essential Classics Georgia Mann who pored over Oasis reviews in the N.M.E. in her teens, Hannah French from The Early Music Show who once read a biography of Pablo Casals in a day, Composer of the Week's Kate Molleson who started out writing concert reviews at University in Montreal, and Corey Mwamba who presents Freeness and immersed himself in jazz books at Southampton library whilst doing his A-Levels. Producer: Ruth Thomson

There was a crippling blizzard in Iowa in April of 1973. Over a foot of snow fell, coupled with 50-70 mph winds. But, inside my dormitory at U of I, I was warmed by the eternal sunshine of Pentangle's evocation of the 12th century. The plangent voice of Jacqui McShee, accompanied by John Renbourn and Bert Jansch's jazz infused “baroque folk” sustained me throughout that challenging season. Not usually one to subscribe to any woo-woo, New Ageist practices, I nonetheless became convinced that I had lived before as a medieval troubadour - a sensation that recently resurfaced when I was introduced to the Witcher saga, because I strongly identified with Dandelion, that narrative's ironic balladeer. Ms. McShee was my gateway drug to the time-traveling vocal intoxications of Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, Sandy Denny, Kate Rusby, and others. A.L. Lloyd and Richard Thompson became my “spirit guides” through the library of Child ballads; a path which eventually led me back home to the USA via Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger. Song research became my professional passion and mission. Willy O Winsbury (Child 100), a traditional Scottish ballad, has many variations and possible derivations, one of which originates in the recounting of James V's courtship and marriage to Madeleine de Valois of France. In Pentangle's deft retelling, Willy and Janet's love triumphs over shame and death. You cannot ask for more than that. 

On this week's show, Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe and Sam Sanders, host of Vibe Check fill in for Dana Stevens and Julia Turner. The hosts begin with a subversively brilliant Oscar contender, American Fiction, which is Cord Jefferson's adaptation of Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure. The filmmaker's debut racked up five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonius “Monk” Ellis, a frustrated writer, in this heartfelt family melodrama encased in biting satire. (Catch Sam's conversation with Cord Jefferson here.) Then, the three tread into familiar territory and dissect In the Know, Mike Judge's (Beavis and Butthead, Silicon Valley, King of the Hill) latest show on Peacock which satirizes the world of public radio, specifically NPR, through the stop-motion animated lens of its third most-popular host, Lauren Caspian (voiced by Zach Woods). Finally, Oscar season is officially upon us, and with Oscar nominations, comes invariably, Oscar snubs. The panel explores this year's nominees, and who may or may not have gotten the short end of the stick.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel discusses a fun interactive from The New York Times, “The Menu Trends That Define Dining Right Now.”  Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Outro music: “Bloody Hunter” by Paisley Pink Endorsements: Sam: An album he loves and owns on vinyl, Chameleon (1976) by the American singing trio Labelle. It's pure R&B funk dazzle.  Nadira: A threefold music endorsement: Midnight Dancer (1979) by the Philly soul group Silk, Spotify's “create radio” function, and a compilation of Barbara Ackland's greatest hits.  Steve: A gorgeous, lofi home recording of Sandy Denny singing her classic, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.”  Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Kat Hong.  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows. You'll also be supporting the work we do here on the Culture Gabfest. Sign up now at Slate.com/cultureplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's show, Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe and Sam Sanders, host of Vibe Check fill in for Dana Stevens and Julia Turner. The hosts begin with a subversively brilliant Oscar contender, American Fiction, which is Cord Jefferson's adaptation of Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure. The filmmaker's debut racked up five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonius “Monk” Ellis, a frustrated writer, in this heartfelt family melodrama encased in biting satire. (Catch Sam's conversation with Cord Jefferson here.) Then, the three tread into familiar territory and dissect In the Know, Mike Judge's (Beavis and Butthead, Silicon Valley, King of the Hill) latest show on Peacock which satirizes the world of public radio, specifically NPR, through the stop-motion animated lens of its third most-popular host, Lauren Caspian (voiced by Zach Woods). Finally, Oscar season is officially upon us, and with Oscar nominations, comes invariably, Oscar snubs. The panel explores this year's nominees, and who may or may not have gotten the short end of the stick.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel discusses a fun interactive from The New York Times, “The Menu Trends That Define Dining Right Now.”  Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Outro music: “Bloody Hunter” by Paisley Pink Endorsements: Sam: An album he loves and owns on vinyl, Chameleon (1976) by the American singing trio Labelle. It's pure R&B funk dazzle.  Nadira: A threefold music endorsement: Midnight Dancer (1979) by the Philly soul group Silk, Spotify's “create radio” function, and a compilation of Barbara Ackland's greatest hits.  Steve: A gorgeous, lofi home recording of Sandy Denny singing her classic, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.”  Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Kat Hong.  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows. You'll also be supporting the work we do here on the Culture Gabfest. Sign up now at Slate.com/cultureplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

'De vrijheid om niet alleen een soort te zijn, maar ook een individu, is toch het allerleukst' schrijft Josephine Rombouts in haar boek Opmerkelijke vrouwen. In Schotland stuitte ze op de vraag wat vrouwen met ambities de afgelopen eeuwen hebben moeten doorstaan om te kunnen doen waar ze goed in zijn. Bij Wat blijft spreekt Lara Billie Rense met Rombouts over de levens van drie verschillende vrouwen. Alledrie hebben ze op hun eigen manier door muren van vooroordelen en belemmeringen moeten vechten. Verder in Wat blijft: Dichter Sytse Jansma over zijn bundel Rozige maanvissen, en leven en werk van muzikant Sandy Denny. In het tweede uur en de podcastaflevering van Wat blijft aandacht voor het leven van Pierre Kartner: Pierre Kartner, alias Vader Abraham, was altijd op zoek naar de volgende hit. Het kleine café aan de haven en Het Smurfenlied brachten hem wereldfaam. Veel minder mensen weten dat hij aan het begin van zijn carrière schunnige nummers maakte als onderdeel van het duo Venus en Penis. Kartner had twee kanten: de serieuze songwriter én de carnavaleske artiest. Ondanks zijn succes bleef hij een leven lang zoeken naar erkenning. Annette van Soest volgt zijn spoor terug met muziekjournalist Jan Vollaard, met zanger Jacques Herb, voor wie Kartner de hit Manuela schreef, en met Corry Konings, die op haar zestiende door hem werd ontdekt.  -------- Redactie radio: Laura Iwuchukwu, Nina Ramkisoen, Geerte Verduijn, Nienke Spaan. Eindredactie: Bram Vollaers

We begin another fab year of folk in the usual way, remembering the all-too-short career of Sandy Denny

Ha sido un año en el que los cambios se han reflejado con claridad en las propuestas de nuestros artistas favoritos, siendo en cierta forma el espejo de una sociedad como la norteamericana, con cambios constantes y una polarización evidente en la que los compositores y los músicos toman partido como nunca antes había ocurrido dando cuenta de todo aquello que ocurre cotidianamente a su alrededor, como ocurría en los comienzos de la historia de la música tradicional. Es un regreso a las raíces en toda regla. En este último podcast del año queremos compartir una docena de canciones que significan a la perfección el espíritu de RADIO CON BOTAS y que han tomado el pulso a la Americana a lo largo de este 2023 que se acaba. 01-ISRAEL NASH “Ozarker” (Nash) Soundly Israel Nash es un músico capaz de que el término “cinematográfico” sirva para describir a la perfección buena parte de sus canciones y de su forma de interpretarlas. Nacido y criado en Missouri, pasó por Nueva York y en 2011 se mudó a Texas, construyendo un estudio de grabación en Dripping Springs. Pero para construir las canciones de este nuevo trabajo se trasladó a un pueblo cercano donde realizó las primeras maquetas con una guitarra, un viejo teclado Casio y una grabadora de cuatro pistas. En 10 días lo modeló en su estudio y viajó a Los Angeles para completarlo. Como indica su título, Ozarker, el décimo segundo de su recorrido, Israel Nash rinde homenaje a sus raíces en Ozark, una ciudad del estado de Missouri de poco más de 20.000 habitantes cuyo nombre tiene que ver con las Ozark mountains, en las que encuentra refugio para compartir historias impregnadas de los íntimos sentimientos de sus paisanos y de sus familiares más cercanos, lo que supone un cierto regreso a casa. Así lo hace en su tema central, contando la historia de su bisabuelo, un trabajador migrante que se enamoró de la hija del dueño de un huerto en el que trabajaba. Cumplió su promesa de regresar para casarse con ella y le estaba esperando sentada allí, en las escaleras de la entrada, con un vestido que guardo en la maleta para irse. Todo ello con una fuerte influencia de los modos de Springsteen para envolver sus historias. De hecho, en esta colección de diez canciones muy personales, Israel Nash hace evidentes guiños al Boss, Bob Seger y Tom Petty, sin olvidar a su siempre reverenciado Neil Young. El resultado es una especie de homenaje a las melodías que hemos escuchado en grandes himnos del rock, que podremos escuchar en la segunda mitad de febrero en su gira por seis ciudades españolas. 02-CHRIS STAPLETON “The Bottom” (Stapleton) Mercury Nashville La edad y la experiencia suelen proporcionar sabiduría y en el caso de Chris Stapleton es mucho más que evidente. Hace ocho años editó su álbum de debut álbum titulado Traveller, después de recorrer distintos caminos, desde ser escritor de canciones en Nashville durante décadas, formar parte de un grupo fundamental dentro del bluegrass como los Steeldrivers y, por fin, aventurarse a iniciar una carrera en solitario. En la actualidad nadie duda que el músico de Kentucky ha hecho que la country music esté recuperando carácter y, sobre todo, alma. Esa que había perdido por culpa de la industria afincada en Nashville. Además, lo ha conseguido desde dentro, ganando ocho Grammys y una tonelada de premios, entre los que destacan los de la Country Music Association y la Academy of Country Music. Su carrera tiene mucho de redención para un género construido desde la tradición y las raíces, y desnortado por las manos que mandan en Music Row. Su omnipresencia en muy diversos proyectos en los últimos años daba muestras de estar en gran forma, pero iba creciendo la casi necesidad de un nuevo álbum que diera continuación al contundente Starting Over de 2020. Cuando recibimos los primeros anticipos entendimos que Chris Stapleton sigue siendo un artista imprescindible, con una capacidad narrativa impecable. Chris Stapleton acaba de lanzar su nuevo álbum, Higher, un profundo disco de country soul que ha producido junto a su mujer Morgane y Dave Cobb, con la exquisitez de la que siempre han hecho gala. Está hecho a mano, con el cuidado y la entrega necesaria para que la espera haya merecido, y mucho, la pena. La característica fundamental de este trabajo es reafirmarse, por si alguien pudiera tener alguna duda, de la importancia que Morgane tiene en su vida. Hay quien ha dicho que son los Johnny & June del presente y no parece que se haya equivocado. Comparten un amor inquebrantable, una tranquila confianza y seguridad además de una admiración mutua que se manifiesta en una poderosa energía creativa. Stapleton ha querido ir más alla del estereotipo que relaciona el country y el alcohol en las zonas rurales de Estados Unidos y de forma muy especial tras una ruptura amorosa llegando a la angustia que destila, nunca mejor dicho, “The Bottom”. 03-TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS “Chipping Mill” (Edwards/Roark) Bossier City En mayo de 2019 Turnpike Troubadours se habían tomado una pausa mientras Evan Felker, su líder, se recuperaba de su adicción al alcohol y a otros problemas personales. La banda de Oklahoma nos había dejados huérfanos de un sonido esplendoroso desde que el álbum A Long Way From Your Heart, se lanzó en el 17. Producido por el legendario Shooter Jennings en los míticos estudios FAME de Muscle Shoals y rematado en Los Ángeles, A Cat in the Rain, apareció también el pasado verano con una colección de diez canciones nuevas y dos versiones inesperadas que nos reencontraba con el mejor sonido de la Red Dirt Music. “Chipping Mill”, que compusieron R.C. Edwards, bajista y socio fundador de los Troubadours, y Lance Roark, colaborador habitual del grupo, es uno de los momentos magistrales en los que se hace notar el protagonismo del fiddle de Kyle Nix respaldando esa voz siempre reconocible de Evan Felker. Es el recuerdo de una relación rota que deja para la interpretación el cómo y el por qué, con el sentimiento mantenido de que “Siempre guardé lo mejor para ti". 04-OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW feat. WILLIE WATSON “Miles Away” (Secor/Tuttle) ATO Si te encuentras con algún amigo o amante perdido Y solo ves restos de reticencia Agarra el cuerno de la silla de montar y estira tu cuerpo No dejes que el pasado tome las riendas Aprovecha la oportunidad de decir te quiero Incluso si sientes que es algo tarde. Porque antes de que te des cuenta, justo al final, el camino girará a millas de distancia Old Crow Medicine Show publicaron en el verano un nuevo trabajo, Jubilee, donde mantienen su sonido tradicional para contar el presente del mundo en que vivimos, con sus problemas, sus enfrentamientos y su cariño por las tierras del Sur. En él pudieron contar con colaboraciones tan sobresalientes como las de Mavis Staples, Sierra Hull y Willie Watson. La canción que destacó desde su primera escucha fue “Miles Away”, que Ketch Secor creó junto a la siempre brillante Molly Tuttle y en la que ha contado con la voz de Willie Watson, que fuera cofundador de los Crow allá por 1998. Es una mirada por el retrovisor donde, como dice el texto que suele figurar en él, todo está más cerca de lo que parece. Ha pasado un cuarto de siglo desde que Old Crow Medicine Show se creó en Nashville como una banda de cuerda que hacía old-time, folk y un country alternativo con cierta estética punk. Y para mirar atrás era preciso recuperar a Willie Watson más de 10 años después de su marcha. 05-TYLER CHILDERS “In Your Love” (Seale/Childers) Hickman Holler/RCA Desde la publicación de Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?, un disco triple con diferentes remixes de ocho canciones de góspel, estábamos esperando nuevas noticias de Tyler Childers, un tipo de Lawrence County, en Kentucky, que siempre sorprende. A primeros de septiembre llegó Rustin' In The Rain, grabado con los Food Stamos en el estudio casero del guitarrista de este sexteto de apoyo, James Barker. Son principalmente canciones de amor entre las que hay algunas versiones, algún tema co-escrito y una sensación de libertad y disfrute con las actividades habituales de su granja. En una canción del nivel de “In Your Love”, que debería ser un éxito radiofónico en un mundo perfecto, está acompañado por un espléndido vídeo protagonizado por los actores Colton Haynes y James Scully en los papeles de dos mineros del carbón de los años 50 que se enamoran. Hay que recordar que Tyler Childers escribe frecuentemente sobre las minas del carbón, que fue la ocupación de su padre. Y que, disco a disco, consolida su reputación como una de las voces más importantes de estos tiempos. 06-ZACH BRYAN “Pain, Sweet, Pain” (Bryan) Belting Bronco/Warner Artistas como Zach Bryan están poniendo un enorme signo de interrogación a la industria musical que se refugia en el bunker monolítico de una escena obsoleta, casi siempre asentada en Nashville, con las mismas lentejuelas que criticaba Johnny Cash hace décadas. Los datos son irrefutables: Este chaval de 27 años nacido en Oklahoma ha metido las 16 canciones de su último álbum, de título homónimo, entre las primeras 50 de las listas. Su musical preseva las raíces, oscilando entre el country, el folk y el rock con una naturalidad apabullante. No desdeña invitar a The War and Treaty, Sierra Ferrell, los Lumineers o Kacey Musgraves a sus grabaciones, ni lanzar un simple EP de cinco canciones menos de un mes después de publicar su último álbum que ha llamdo Boys of Faith y que es el resultado de encerrarse durante una semana en el estudio, componer y compartir el tiempo con las gentes y los paisajes que tiene una significación especial en su vida. En dos de los temas ha contado con Bon Iver y Noah Kahan. Es como una mirada nostálgica al pasado representada a la perfección con eñ tema de cierre, que llevaba mucho tiempo interpretado en sus conciertos pero que no había llegado a grabar. Se trata de “Pain, Sweet Pain”. 07-MOLLY TUTTLE & GOLDEN HIGHWAY “El Dorado” (Tuttle/Secor) Nonesuch Hace siete años que asistimos al debut de Molly Tuttle y su progresión ha corroborado las expectativas desde que escuchamos su primer EP, gracias al cual la International Bluegrass Music Association la premió como Guitarrista del Año, siendo la primera mujer en conseguirlo y repitiendo al año siguiente, cuando editaba el primero de los cuatro álbumes que la han llevado a ampliar horizontes. El último de esos registros, City of Gold, lo acaba de editar junto a Golden Highway y es la continuación de Crooked Tree, por el que se llevó un Grammy al mejor disco de bluegrass. Molly Tuttle tiene el género de Kentucky impreso en la piel gracias a ser hija de Jack Tuttle, con cuya banda tocó con tan solo 15 años. Sin embargo, ella es californiana y Molly Tuttle en esta nueva entrega ha vuelto a dejarse atrapar por esas influencias de la Costa Oeste que abarcan de la psicodelia al folk pasando por los contadores de historias. El tema de apertura, compuesto con Ketch Secor de Old Crow Medicine Show, es “El Dorado”, inspirado en la fiebre del oro, que ella establece como un sentimiento parecido al de la música que la sedujo desde niña. La producción de Jerry Douglas vuelve a resaltar la emotividad de cada nota. 08-MARGO CILKER “Mother Told Her Mother Told Me” (Cilker) Fluff and Gravy Uno de los mejores ejemplos de la resiliencia de las mujeres es el de Margo Cilker, a quien conocimos por su visita a Euskadi en 2016 y de quien hablamos hace un par de años cuendo editó su álbum Pohorylle (POJORIL), convertido en uno de nuestros favoritos de entonces. Su continuación es Valley of Heart's Delight, que tiene que ver con que ella es la quinta generación familiar nacida en ese Valle de Santa Clara, en California, que todos conocemos como Sillicon Valley. Son once canciones con la familia y la naturaleza como protagonistas de historias personales que unen buena parte de los paisajes que su alma viajera ha recorrido y que son casi siempre la inspiración de sus composiciones y el contar con su mentora, la productora, baterista, compositora y veterana de la escena indie Sera Cahoone, como apoyo inigualable. La variedad emocional es una de las características más evidentes de esta nueva propuesta, hablando de lo común y cotidiano. Así ocurre en "Lowland Trail" donde mantiene un arrope sonoro bastante austero, aunque todo suena con una brillantez natural que recuerda el ambiente de los patios traseros de los hogares. "Lowland Trail", es un tema que parece bañado por el sol y tiene que ver con las labores en un rancho de ganado, donde nos encontramos a Margo Cilker rodeada de los paisajes del noroeste, meditando sobre su propio sentido de pertenencia y transportándonos a una época anterior al boom tecnológico. 09-MARGO PRICE “Unoriginal Sin” (Price/Campbell) Loma Vista/Concord Strays, el más completo y sugerente álbum de la carrera de Margo Price, es una fusión de country, rock, folk y música americana que la artista de Aledo, en Illinois, decidió entregar en dos tomas y, además dividir a su vez la segunda en tres. El segundo capítulo de la segunda parte de este proyecto, Act II: Mind Travel, nos dejo algunos momentos sublimes como es el caso de “Unoriginal Sin”, donde se acompaña por la guitarra de texturas “harrisonianas” de Mike Campbell, que ha compuesto la canción con ella. Producida por Jonathan Wilson, es una pieza que inspirada también en las experiencias con los hongos, sigue escarbando en los rincones oscuros del tiempo y el espacio a modo de viaje psicodélico, con la musicalidad de la vieja escuela. Margo decidió hace tiempo que quiere que la gente la tome en serio como compositora y sabe que siendo mujer tiene que trabajar mucho más duro para demostrar una valía innegable. 10-KASSI VALAZZA “Room In The City” (Valazza/Sigler) Fluff And Gravy Kassi Valazza es nativa de Chino Valley, la que fuera primera capital territorial de Arizona, y la música del desierto tiene una lenta tonalidad propia de los indios que aún perduran en aquellos parajes. Aunque ella se haya trasladado hasta Portland, en Oregon, mantiene viva la naturalidad de ese mundo, combinada con un sonido que toma prestado del folk inglés de Sandy Denny y el country and western, al que añade toques de psicodelia en sus márgenes. Manteniendo esa sensación de quietud en la envoltura de las canciones de su segundo álbum, Knows Nothing, que da continuación a su debut de 2019 Dear Dead Days, las letras sí que parecen ir ahora a una velocidad casi endiablada. Los versos dan la impresión de haber sido escritos a mano por su inmediatez y franqueza, poniendo en primer plano las realidades de las relaciones sentimentales, a veces tan contradictorias como difíciles de describir y más aún de compartir. Kassy Valazza grabó todo este nuevo disco en vivo, con el respaldo de TK and The Holy Know-Nothings, un quinteto liderado por Taylor Kingman con sede en Portland que no deberías dejar pasar. La banda escuchó las canciones por primera vez en el estudio y eso permitió que apareciera la magia y sucediera lo inesperado, como ocurre en como enfrentarse a las emociones del final de una relación en “Room In The City”, una delicia que nos animó a soñar con una posible visita, que se hizo realidad el pasado mes de noviembre y que no podremos olvidar. 11-DYLAN LEBLANC “Coyote” (LeBlanc) ATO Barre mis cenizas No soy del tipo que envejece Me voy a una nueva tierra Voy a robar el oro de un hombre rico. Voy a tomar lo que es mío Que la Santa Muerte se lleve mi alma. Así es “Coyote”, el tema central del último álbum de Dylan LeBlanc, que supuso un nuevo paso en el ascenso de un músico de amplios horizontes y profundas convicciones sonoras y personales. Con una tonalidad vocal que siempre nos recuerda a un juvenil Neil Young, Dylan LeBlanc nos regalará a finales de octubre un disco conceptual con tintes autobiográficos que narra la crónica de un hombre que vive siempre al límite. El músico de Shreveport (shriport), Louisiana, visitó ocho ciudades españolas en noviembre siendo el protagonista de los mejores conciertos en pequeño formato de este 2023, donde estuvo acompañado por su padre, James LeBlanc, de quien ha tomado buena parte de sus enseñanzas. Dylan tomó el camino del romanticismo a la hora de estrenarse en este mundillo y su espíritu nómada y vagabundo es lo que parece haberle relacionado ahora con la figura del coyote, confiado a su instinto para sobrevivir. El álbum se enfrenta a la naturaleza humana y al materialismo con el arrepentimiento de una vida desperdiciada, más interesado en representar lo que existe que en juzgarlo. En él se manifiesta que LeBlanc comprende, por experiencia propia, lo que significa vivir en el mundo de hoy. 12-JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT “Cast Iron Skilett” (Isbell) Southeastern/Thirty Tigers Si Crazy Horse o los Heartbreakers han sido imprescindibles para Neil Young o Tom Petty, 400 Unit lo es para Jason Isbell, uno de los más revelantes compositores de la Americana en cualquiera de sus sentidos. Acompañado por ellos, el músico de Green Hill, en Alabama, ha tomado el papel de contador de historias en la forma más clásica del término y cuenta, por ejemplo, que si romantizamos el pasado no podremos aprender de él. Esa es una buena parte de la filosofía que envuelve su último álbum, Weathervanes, con una docena de composiones grabadas en el Blackbird Studio de Nashville, que interiorizan el tiempo vivido y el aprendizaje, procurando superar lo peor del Sur, incluyendo sus mitos y leyendas, e intentando construir algo nuevo y mejor . En "Cast Iron Skillet", uno de los momentos más destacados del mismo, realata como fue su aprendizaje de la vida mientras creció en la zona rural de Alabama. Jason Isbell ha hecho a l largo de este año su debut como actor en Killers of the Flower Moon de Martin Scorsese, protagonizada por Leonardo Dicaprio y Robert De Niro y absolutamente recomendable. SIERRA FERRELL “The Garden” (Ferrell/ Craven) Geffen La hemos escuchado abarcar casi todas las propuestas de la Americana y colaborar con algunos de sus grandes nombres, como Margo Price, Brooks Forsyth o Zach Bryan. Es Sierra Ferrell, un prodigio a la hora de ensamblar las distintas propuestas de la tradición sonora y de la que esperamos un nuevo álbum en el inminente 2024. El violín y la guitarra son sus aliados naturales para envolver una voz de altísimas prestaciones y dejar canciones de la talla de “The Garden”, que forma parte de la banda sonora de la precuela de Los Juegos del Hambre. Se trata de un tema que viene interpretando desde hace tiempo y que, a diferencia de los demás incluidos en la película, ha sido producido por Eddie Spear y Gary Paczosa.

"A winter's day in a deep and dark December,  I am aloneGazing from my window to the streets belowOn a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snowI am a rock, I am an islandAnd a rock feels no painAnd an island never cries"Here in SoCal it doesn't feel like Winter and I'm not an Island or a Rock so we can all enjoy the music together. Joining us are Graham Parker, Lonnie Mack, Linda Ronstadt, Sandy Denny, Dave Mason, Dire Straits, Seals & Crofts, Frank Sinatra, Booker T & The MG's, Steve Miller Band, Elvis Presley, John Coltrane, Jackson Browne w Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Billy Stewart, Billie Holiday, George Benson, The Four Tops, Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, Chuck Berry, The McCoys, Joe Jackson, Herbie Mann, The Supremes, Everly Bothers and Simon & Garfunkel...

Del raises the red flag over an invasion of "Canadian "Super Pigs" who have somehow gotten across the border with passports forged by AI. Canadians fear this will crash the export market for Canadian bacon.Bucks and co-host Judith discuss their Thanksgiving holidays. Tell us about yours.Judith and Del discuss seeing US presidents Kennedy and Carter but Dave has not yet had a sighting.   Listeners tell us where they were on November 22, 1963.A discussion of the Anne Lamott piece Dave read last week leads to Judith and Dave fessing up to senior moments. Del can't remember if he had any.Sports Illustrated gets caught using AI to write stories.  Next week we talk to Stan Gordon, UFO researcher for over fifty years.  Bonus track today is Sandy Denny singing Who Knows Where the Time GoesGive us your thoughts: BUCKSTWOOLD@GMAIL.COM Find us on Twitter: @twooldbucks1Leave a Voice message - click HERE

Esta semana, en Islas de Robinson, nos movemos entre 1967 y 1970. Suenan: GENE CLARK - "THE SAME ONE" ("GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS, 1967) / HEARTS & FLOWERS - "SECOND-HAND SUNDOWN QUEEN" ("OF HORSES, KIDS AND FORGOTTEN WOMEN", 1968) / THORINSHIELD - "THE BEST OF IT" ("THORINSHIELD", 1967) / GALE GARNETT & THE GENTLE REIGN - "YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ANYONE" (AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING OF WANDS", 1968) / JERRY JEFF WALKER - "LITTLE BIRD" ("MR. BOJANGLES", 1968) / DIANE HILDEBRAND - "EARLY MORNING BLUES & GREENS" ("EARLY MORNING BLUES & GREENS", 1968)/ SANDY DENNY & THE STRAWBS - "STAY AWHILE" ("ALL OUR OWN WORK", 1968/73) / BILLY NICHOLLS - "COME AGAIN" ("WOULD YOU BELIEVE", 1968) / EUPHORIA - "LADY BEDFORD" ("A GIFT FROM EUPHORIA", 1969) / APPALOOSA - "YESTERDAY'S ROADS" ("APPALOOSA", 1969) / RON ELLIOTT - "DEEP RIVER RUNS BLUE" ("THE CANDLESTICKMAKER", 1969) / AMORY KANE - "THE INBETWEEN MAN" ("JUST TO BE THERE", 1970) / KAREN BETH - "NOTHING LASTS" ("THE JOYS OF LIFE", 1969) / LINDISFARNE - "WINTER SONG" ("NICELY OUT OF TUNE", 1970) / Escuchar audio

Abrimos número 45.2023 con el descubrimiento del progresivo de los suecos Agusa, de los que escuchamos su nuevo álbum, Prima Materia, publicado este 2023. Después escuchamos la inclasificable música de Yang, a través de su último trabajo hasta la fecha, de 2022, Designed for Disaster. Volvimos a escuchar a los norteamericanos Fatso Jetson, esta vez con su séptimo álbum de estudio, Flames For All, publicado en 1999. Nuestra primera pincelada de rock clásico vino de la mano de la gran Sandy Denny y sus Fotheringay, proyecto cuasi en paralelo a Fairport Convention, que debutaron en 1970 con su estupendo álbum homónimo. Continue reading La Ruleta Rusa 45.2023. Agusa. Yang. Fatso Jetson. Fotheringay. Birthday Ass. Friends of Dean Martinez. Lynyrd Synyrd. at La Ruleta Rusa Radio Rock.

Connecting with David Cousins of The Strawbs for this episode was a different experience for both of the Imbalanced Brothers. Ray was a fan of the band from the 1970s, when Markus was still a younger kid! So they each approached this interview, and the new album, differently. The result is a very exciting take on a classic band making their way back up the UK charts with The Magic Of It All, how they got there, as well as how South Africa now, and then, became central to the project. Dave shares some incredible stuff for guitar and banjo players regarding tunings, tells tales of Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman, and capped the visit by revealing that a collaboration with members of Wu-Tang Clan is in motion. Find out more about The Strawbs, their new album, and more on their web site! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Connecting with David Cousins of The Strawbs for this episode was a different experience for both of the Imbalanced Brothers. Ray was a fan of the band from the 1970s, when Markus was still a younger kid! So they each approached this interview, and the new album, differently. The result is a very exciting take on a classic band making their way back up the UK charts with The Magic Of It All, how they got there, as well as how South Africa now, and then, became central to the project. Dave shares some incredible stuff for guitar and banjo players regarding tunings, tells tales of Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman, and capped the visit by revealing that a collaboration with members of Wu-Tang Clan is in motion. Find out more about The Strawbs, their new album, and more on their web site! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's been a long time since Bill and Tony have rock and rolled.  After episodes on Christmas music and Taylor Swift, let us get it back, let us get it back to where we come from as we return to classic rock with Led Zeppelin IV.  Join us as we battle over  "The Battle of Evermore".  We have so many somethings you might not know, the leavee's goin' to break. But not to worry -  we're buying a stairway to classic rock and getting the Led out! Song Draft Poll: click here Email Us:  bill@bntexcellent.com tony@bntexcellent.com Social Media: Instagram: billandtonypod Twitter: @billandtonypod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bntexcellent Interesting Links How Led Zeppelin Won Over Critics: click here How Led Zeppelin IV Was Made: click here How Robert Plant Nearly Joined The Who: click here Why Led Zeppelin Brought in Sandy Denny: click here Album Links Apple Music: click here Spotify: click here Amazon Music: click here

EPISODE 81: Sonja Kristina is a singer, actress and songwriter known has a member of the original cast of the musical "Hair" and as the lead singer for the progressive rock group, Curved Air. Kristina was born in Brentwood, England as Sonja Christina Shaw, daughter of a criminologist and granddaughter of Swedish actress Gerda Lundequist. Kristina first appeared on stage at the Swan Folk Club in Romford at the age of thirteen. Her first professional gig was at a Folk Festival in Southgate, London a year or so later. By 1968, while studying at the New College of Speech and Drama, Kristina was helping to run, and performing at, the Wednesday evening sessions at London's Troubadour Folk Club. She was generally known on the folk scene as "Sonja" having previously appeared several times on the British children's TV show Song and Story under that name. Her first manager was Roy Guest of Folk Directions. In 1968, Kristina auditioned for and won the part of "Crissy" in the London stage production of the stage musical Hair. She features on the original cast album singing the song "Frank Mills", also released as a single. She also briefly sang with The Strawbs, following the departure of Sandy Denny. sonjakristina.comContact us: makingsoundpodcast.comFollow on Instagram: @makingsoundpodcastFollow on Twitter: @JannKloseBandJoin our Facebook GroupPlease support the show with a donation, thank you for listening!

This episode is part of Pledge Week 2022. Every day this week, I'll be posting old Patreon bonus episodes of the podcast which will have this short intro. These are short, ten- to twenty-minute bonus podcasts which get posted to Patreon for my paying backers every time I post a new main episode -- there are well over a hundred of these in the archive now. If you like the sound of these episodes, then go to patreon.com/andrewhickey and subscribe for as little as a dollar a month or ten dollars a year to get access to all those bonus episodes, plus new ones as they appear. Click below for the transcript Transcript Before I start, a warning. Even though this episode is short it deals with many, many, upsetting subjects. If you're likely to be upset by a story dealing with the death and disfigurement of small children, disability, mental illness, gun violence and eye injuries, you're probably best off skipping this episode altogether, as it deals with these subjects right from after the first excerpt of music until the end. It's not a happy story. In this week's main episode we talk briefly about a record that Paul Simon produced while he was in Britain, before "The Sound of Silence" became a big hit. The performer whose record he produced only released that one album in his lifetime, but it's a record that had an outsized influence on the British folk-music scene. So today, we're going to have a look at the tragic life of Jackson C Frank, and at "Blues Run the Game": [Excerpt: Jackson C Frank, "Blues Run the Game"] Jackson C Frank's life started to go badly, irrevocably, wrong, when he was just eleven years old. His family lived in Buffalo, New York, where the winters are long and cold, and Jackson was a Baby Boomer. Because of the tremendous number of new children going through the school system, the brick schoolhouse at the school he attended had been augmented with an annexe, made out of wood, and he was in that annexe, in a music lesson, when the boiler exploded and set fire to it. Jackson was one of the lucky ones. That fire took the life of fifteen of his classmates, and spurred a national movement towards banning timber buildings for schools and the institution of fire drills, which up to that point had not been a thing. Jackson got thrown out of a window by a teacher, and the snow put out the flames on his back, meaning he "only" suffered burns over sixty percent of his body, scarring him for life. He had to spend a year in hospital, have a tracheotomy, and have a metal plate put in his head. He developed thyroid problems, got calcium deposits that built up over the years and frequently left him in agony, and always walked with a limp and only had limited movement in his arms. Many celebrities did things to comfort the children, who became nationally known. Kirk Douglas came to the hospital to visit them, and later in his childhood Jackson was able to go and meet Elvis, who became a big inspiration for the young man. He spent his teenage years going around the local music scene, including spending a long time with a friend who later became known as John Kay of Steppenwolf, but then when he turned twenty-one he got a massive insurance payout that had been held in trust for him. I've seen different numbers for this -- it was either fifty or a hundred thousand dollars, and in modern terms that would be about ten times that much. Being a young man, he didn't want to invest it, he wanted to buy expensive cars. He wanted an Aston Martin and a Bentley, and Britain was where they made Aston Martins and Bentleys, so he caught a boat to England, and on the trip over started writing songs, including the one that would become his best known: [Excerpt: Jackson C Frank, "Blues Run the Game"] Once he was in the UK, Frank moved into Judith Piepe's flat, where he started a relationship with an eighteen-year-old nurse, who was also trying to be a singer. Frank encouraged her to follow her dreams and become a professional, and Sandy Denny would later record some of his songs, and wrote the song "Next Time Around" about him: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, "Next Time Around"] While he was in London, he became well known on the folk circuit, regularly playing Les Cousins, and as Ralph McTell put it, "EVERYONE" sang 'Blues Run the Game'". Over the years, the song has been performed by everyone from Bert Jansch: [Excerpt: Bert Jansch, "Blues Run the Game"] to Counting Crows: [Excerpt: Counting Crows, "Blues Run the Game"] Frank's own version of the song was recorded on his one and only album,  which was produced by Paul Simon, as we heard in the main episode. That album also included songs like "Carnival", which has now possibly become the song of Frank's that has been heard by most people, as it was featured both on the soundtrack and in the dialogue of the 2019 film Joker: [Excerpt: Jackson C Frank, "Carnival"] The album didn't sell, and Frank returned to the US, after marrying Elaine Sedgwick, the cousin of Edie Sedgwick. He was missed when he left, and Roy Harper, another folk musician who played the same circuit, wrote "My Friend" about his departure: [Excerpt: Roy Harper, "My Friend"] When he came back in 1968 to do a couple of shows, though, his depression, which had always been bad since the fire, had worsened. Al Stewart said "He proceeded to fall apart before our very eyes. His style that everyone loved was melancholy, very tuneful things. He started doing things that were completely impenetrable. They were basically about psychological angst, played at full volume with lots of thrashing. I don't remember a single word of them – it just did not work. There was one review that said he belonged on a psychologist's couch." He was withdrawn, and wouldn't speak to people, and he had writer's block. To make matters worse, his home life was also going awfully. His insurance money had all run out, but Paul Simon had given him a loan of three thousand dollars, with Simon taking Frank's publishing as surety, so he could start a business, but the business failed and Simon kept the publishing. In 1971, when Art Garfunkel was recording his first solo album, he asked Frank if he had a song that might be suitable. Frank had actually written a new song, "Juliette": [Excerpt: Jackson C Frank, "Juliette"] Unfortunately, when he turned up to see Garfunkel, he brought along a few hippy friends, who all made fun of Garfunkel for being a sell-out, and so Garfunkel didn't record the song, though he did give Frank a new guitar. By the early seventies, Frank was in a very bad way. He and his wife had had two children, but one had died of cystic fibrosis, and the marriage had ended. He spent periods of time in psychiatric hospitals, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, though he always said himself that he wasn't schizophrenic, he was suffering from depression because of the loss of his son. He was living off handouts from friends, even as his songs were inspiring new artists like Nick Drake, who recorded four of his songs: [Excerpt: Nick Drake, "Here Comes the Blues"] In the early eighties he was living with his parents, but then in 1984 while his mother was in hospital he got an idea -- he could go to New York and find his old friend Paul, and ask him for his publishing back, or maybe just for some money. He didn't leave a note, and his parents had no idea where he'd gone. He did go to New York, but he couldn't find his friend, and he ended up homeless, living on the streets, and in and out of psychiatric institutions. In the early nineties, a fan tracked him down and helped sort out some accommodation for him in Woodstock, where he'd lived in his twenties. By this time he was in an awful physical and mental state, and the fan described him as looking like the Elephant man because of the bloating from his thyroid problems and his joint issues affecting his posture (though I have to say that from the couple of photos I've seen of him at this time, that's quite an exaggeration). But just to rub salt in the wound, after the accommodation had been arranged, but before he'd had a chance to move, he was sat on a park bench in Queens, and some kids, shooting randomly with a pellet gun, hit him in his left eye, permanently blinding him in that eye. His rediscovery got a bit of publicity, and led to his album being reissued on CD. He also started writing again, and recorded some demos on a cheap cassette recorder in 1997, many of which have since been released on various compilations: [Excerpt: Jackson C Frank, "(Tumble) in the Wind"] But 1997 was also the year that Frank moved into a care home, and he wouldn't record any more after that. In 1998, Paul Simon finally returned his publishing to him, presumably having given up on ever getting his three thousand dollars back. And on March the third, 1999, one day after his fifty-sixth birthday, Jackson C Frank died of pneumonia. His game had finally run to its end.