Podcast appearances and mentions of Shirley Collins

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

George Collins is a handsome young man with his whole life ahead of him, so why does he die within a few short verses and leave a trail of devastation in his wake? Today's episode takes us back to supernatural legends from medieval Northern Europe, in which brave young men are easily seduced. We also travel across the Atlantic to meet a dying hobo who wandered into this song sometime in the late 19th Century.In the end, these legends are a legacy of the things we didn't properly understand. Nonetheless, if you do meet a beautiful maiden by the riverside it's best just to back away, jump on your horse and ride home as fast as you can.MusicVerses from two different versions of George Collins as recorded in the Folk Song Society Journey 1909: https://archive.org/details/sim_folk-song-society-journal_1909_3_13/page/300/mode/2up Traditional Breton TuneFaroese Folk Tune  –  Grímur á MiðjanesiIncidental music – Rosebud in JuneThe historic American recording, and many others, can be found here: https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/collins.htm Final song: This is the version sung by Shirley Collins on The Sweet Primroses, 1967. I've slowed it down and recorded it with a guitar accompaniment which is somewhat inspired by Dolly Collins' beautiful organ arrangement. ReferencesBluegrass Messengers - George Collins- Barbara M. Cra'ster 1910https://archive.org/details/englishscottishp22chilrich/page/278/mode/2up?view=theater https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/collins.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwerz_an_Aotrou_Nann https://balladspot.blogspot.com/2016/03/sir-olof-and-elves.html https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xlIJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA161&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://archive.org/details/sim_folk-song-society-journal_1909_3_13/page/300/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/folksongsofsouth00coxj/page/110/mode/2up 

This old English carol has undergone many changes. I've attempted to capture the melody as sung by Shirley Collins, an English folk singer of the 1950's.

This old English carol has undergone many changes. I've attempted to capture the melody as sung by Shirley Collins, an English folk singer of the 1950's.

Michael Berkeley shares festive music choices from Private Passions over the years. We'll hear how Handel can evoke memories of roast potatoes in the oven on Christmas day; we'll spend time by the fire in a remote Irish castle, take a seasonal trip to the ballet, and share heart-warming singing from a variety of traditions. His guests include Chris Addison, Nina Stibbe, Brian Moore, David Mitchell, Shirley Collins and Sue Black.

Many a feast (a solemnity even) feature in this coming week... or do they? Listen and find out. Here's the song list: 1. And can it be? (Charles Wesley) sung by Maddy Prior andthe Carnival Band 2. Iudica me Deus, introit from the 5th Sunday in Lent in the setting by Andrea Gabrieli, Conducted by Marco Gemmani with the ensembl I Cantori di San Marco 3. Misa Criolla - Kyrie sung by Katherine Jenkins 4. Unless a grain of wheat by Bernadette Farrell 5. Vexilla regis prodeunt with Peter Stevens and Martin Baker, Westminster Cathedral Choir 6. Vexila regis prodeunt (Kreuzeshymne) , S. 185 · Orchester Wiener Akademie with Martin Haselböck 7. Shirley Collins - "Wondrous Love", from 'Heart's Ease', out now on Domino 8. Ave Regina Caelorum · Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

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. 

This week on Celtic Songlines are selections from Solas' "Sunny Spells & Scattered Showers.".Also featured is Marla Fibish with Martin Hayes, along with Magpiety, Silly Wizard, The Tannahill Weavers, Drónan, Old Blind Dogs, Shirley Collins, the Prairie Druid - Patty Tutty, and the Battlefield Band. 

Monstrueuse. Il en faut du cran pour se présenter ainsi au monde. C'est pourtant ce titre que Solann, a choisi de donner à son premier EP sorti au mois de janvier. Sur la pochette, elle nous fixe, la moitié du visage dans l'ombre. Elle nous défie, si on l'ose, de rentrer dans son univers. On y trouve un ukulélé, la profonde mélancolie de la musique arménienne, des chants grégoriens, quelques symphonies. Et au milieu de tout cela, on découvre une chanteuse qui marche sur les traces de Pomme pour la discrétion gracile et pas loin de Zaho de Sagazan pour une puissance de feu insoupçonnable au départ. Car ne vous y trompez pas, l'orage gronde chez cette jeune artiste qui a déjà été styliste, mannequin, danseuse de cabaret, comédienne mais qui a aussi dû imposer son choix et s'affranchir pour tracer sa route, singulière, forcément. "L'art c'est d'abord la transmission des récits", raconte-t-elle. Et il est clair que des histoires elle en a plein à partager. Les mélodies de Solann s'enroulent dans nos oreilles aussi séduisantes que le chant des sirènes. Car Solann, c'est décidé, ne se laissera plus faire. Aujourd'hui sur Tsugi Radio, Solann est venue avec Lou son musicien pour 2 titres en session live rien que pour nous, alors qu'elle vient de remplir son premier café de la Danse sur son nom. En fin de parcours, Rémi Pierre nous embarque à bord de son sonar à soirées pour ne rien rater des bons plans du week-end. SOLANN "Petit corps" SOLANN "Monstrueuse" SHIRLEY COLLINS "Hares on the mountain" ANNE SYLVESTRE "La femme du vent" TAMINO "Persephone" [LIVE] SOLANN "Rome" + "Crash" THE BIG IDEA "Guess who's back" PETER PETER "20k de solitude"

Sintonía: "June Apple" - Shirley Collins"Texting Feist", "Song So Wrong", "Every Now And Then", "Bitter Suite", "Home Sweat Home" y "Done" - Giant Sand"Lincoln, NB" - John Vincent III; "Waves of Galveston" y "Last Of Your Rock ´n´ Roll Heroes" - Iron & Wine; "Stay High", "Fever" (feat. Branford Marsalis) y "Carried Away" - Krasno Moore Project; "Isak-Anders" y "Varruset" - Hoven DrovenEscuchar audio

Love har - med Patreon-donatorernas hjälp - tagit ett kliv uppåt i bostadskarriären och samtidigt blivit en ofri man. Vi inleder mycket akustiskt med Fureys, Peelers, Joanna Newsom (alias "Pernilla Wahlgren som Pippi på LSD") och Spirogyra (ej att förväxla med Spyro Gyra). Robert har gjort en mycket cursed mashup inspirerad av en felstavad progrock-mem. Cardiacs, Shirley Collins och Modrý Efekt fuckar alla med rytmer. I Roberts Last.fm-historik har vi kommit till de svåra åren 2015/2016 och går in mot mörkrets hjärta med Kayo Dot. Vi avslöjar vilken röstkonstnär som krattat manegen för såväl Diamanda Galás, Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono och Patty Waters som Klaus Nomi och Tim Buckley (åtminstone enligt Allmusic.com). Robert framför en bisarr DJ-mix som ger oss höjdpunkterna ur genren/affärskonceptet "song poems". Och så har Love gjort en extra lång och bra låt. Dessutom: Ben Folds, Tom Lehrer och irländska asfaltsläggare. Gör oss sällskap på Discord: ⁠https://discord.gg/Cywtq7vaqZ⁠ Gilla, kommentera och recensera på The Facebook: ⁠https://facebook.com/musikensmaktpodcast/⁠ Bidra till Loves fysiska överlevnad och få lite bonusmaterial: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/musikensmakt⁠

Love har - med Patreon-donatorernas hjälp - tagit ett kliv uppåt i bostadskarriären och samtidigt blivit en ofri man. Vi inleder mycket akustiskt med Fureys, Peelers, Joanna Newsom (alias "Pernilla Wahlgren som Pippi på LSD") och Spirogyra (ej att förväxla med Spyro Gyra). Robert har gjort en mycket cursed mashup inspirerad av en felstavad progrock-mem. Cardiacs, Shirley Collins och Modrý Efekt fuckar alla med rytmer. I Roberts Last.fm-historik har vi kommit till de svåra åren 2015/2016 och går in mot mörkrets hjärta med Kayo Dot. Vi avslöjar vilken röstkonstnär som krattat manegen för såväl Diamanda Galás, Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono och Patty Waters som Klaus Nomi och Tim Buckley (åtminstone enligt Allmusic.com). Robert framför en bisarr DJ-mix som ger oss höjdpunkterna ur genren/affärskonceptet "song poems". Och så har Love gjort en extra lång och bra låt. Dessutom: Ben Folds, Tom Lehrer och irländska asfaltsläggare.

In the Official Folk Albums Chart of the Year Show 2023, Matthew Bannister counts down the biggest selling and most streamed folk albums of the year. There are guest appearances by Sean Cooney of the Young'Uns, Kathryn Tickell, Shirley Collins and Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane, plus exclusive performances from James Yorkston and Nina Persson, Angeline Morrison and Katherine Priddy. Matthew also features highlights of the December chart, including an interview with Jim Moray and music from Spell Songs, Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden and Kate Rusby. --- We rely entirely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either... Become a patron and get great rewards: patreon.com/folkonfoot Or just buy us a coffee: ko-fi.com/folkonfoot Sign up for our newsletter at www.folkonfoot.com Follow us on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram: @folkonfoot --- Subscribe to the Folk Forecast to explore all the gigs and album news we ran through in the show: https://thefolkforecast.substack.com/

When a Christmas carol is also a folk ballad you know it's not going to be the usual angels/shepherds/kings extravaganza. This one doesn't disappoint, with a lovely garden, a jealous Joseph and a fruit-related miracle.But, as ever, all is not as it seems. Continuing the theme of weird Christianity from last month's episode, we get to explore medieval mystery plays and alternative gospels, and in 5th Century Syria we discover a scholarly and forthright Mary who doesn't need an angel to fight her battles for her. Have a wonderful Christmas!MusicVerse from Jean Richie's recording of The Cherry Tree Carol, Kentucky The Cherry Tree Carol, collected by Maud Karpeles and Patrick Shuldham-Shaw from John Partridge of Cinderford, Gloucestershire (Verse 1) Verse from a Jean Richie version, Kentucky, recorded by Joan Baez Instrumental: Version arranged by D Gilbert and W Sandys (19th Century) Benedicamus Domino (Plainsong, anon) The Cherry Tree Carol, version sung by Shirley Collins, 1959 Orthodox Chant and Ney (flute) from FreeSounds ReferencesRoyston, Pamela L (1982) "The Cherry-Tree Carol": Its sources and analogues https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/1762/15(1)%201-16.pdf?sequence=1 https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/post-biblical-period/the-origins-of-the-cherry-tree-carol/ https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-banns-proclamation https://www.academia.edu/29076122/The_Origins_of_The_Cherry_Tree_Carol_How_a_Christmas_carol_links_the_modern_Middle_East_and_medieval_England https://dokumen.pub/mary-and-joseph-and-other-dialogue-poems-on-mary-9781593338398-2011007425-1593338392.html https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/thecherrytreecarol.html https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Notes_On_Carols/cherry_tree_carol-notes.htm https://balladindex.org/Ballads/C054.html

Shirley Collins first enjoyed success as one of the leading figures in the British folk revival of the 1960s. She initially performed with her sister, Dolly Collins, and also collaborated with other folk luminaries to create some of the era's most beloved albums. In the past decade she has made an acclaimed return to the concert stage and the recording studio. Shirley was born in Sussex in 1935. She can still recall how her grandfather used to sing folk songs to comfort her while they were sheltering during German air raids in the early 1940s. Alongside her career as a singer, in the 1950s she travelled to the American South with Alan Lomax, where they made field recordings of blues and folk musicians, helping to create a significant archive. Later in her performing career, Shirley found that she could no longer sing, following a distressing betrayal in her private life. She stepped away from music and was silent for many years, taking on other work, including a stint in a job centre Then, in her 80s, she found her voice again. In 2016 she released her first new album after a gap of almost four decades, and she has since released two more albums. Shirley lives in Sussex, not far from her childhood home. DISC ONE: Chiling O Guiry - Concerto Caledonia DISC TWO: The Birds in the Spring - The Copper Family DISC THREE: Who Would True Valour See - Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band DISC FOUR: Dear Father, Pray Build Me a Boat - Sheila Smith DISC FIVE: 61 Highway Blues - Mississippi Fred McDowell DISC SIX: Poor Sally Sits a-weeping - Dolly Collins DISC SEVEN: A Heart Needs A Home - Richard & Linda Thompson DISC EIGHT: Going Home - Mark Knopfler BOOK CHOICE: A collection of Brodie detective novels by Kate Atkinson LUXURY ITEM: A solar powered fridge filled with Italian Ice cream and two lipsticks CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Poor Sally Sits a Weeping Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

It's all about the women of folk as JB has a special highlighting some of the best in the business, such as Kathryn Tickell, Isla Callister, Shirley Collins and Joni Mitchell

 On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got a couple of singers who've devoted themselves, in slightly different ways, to keeping traditional music alive: Shirley Collins and Radie Peat. Collins is 88, and she's had a pretty strange and incredible career. She started performing traditional songs in the mid-1950s, and she notably left England in 1959 to travel the United States with Alan Lomax, recording songs and singers in Appalachia and elsewhere that may otherwise have been lost to history. She recorded some incredibly influential records in the '60s and '70s with Davy Graham and, separately, with her sister Dolly Collins. And then Shirley left music entirely. It wasn't until the 2000s that unlikely underground musicians would coax her back to performing: British apocalyptic-folk-industrial band Current 93 were the first, strangely. It wasn't until 2014—38 years after her last album—that Collins made a new one, and it was gorgeous and well received. She's since released a couple more, all for the hip Domino label, fitting for someone who's been so quietly influential. Her latest is Archangel Hill; check out “Hares on the Mountain” right here. Radie Peat, singer for Lankum, is one of the many musicians who've been deeply influenced by Collins—and by the traditional songs that Collins helped to keep alive. But while Lankum is definitely part of the folk tradition, they modernize the sound in wildly interesting ways. Their fourth and latest album is called False Lankum, and I love this quote about it from Mojo Magazine: “If modern folk music needs its own OK Computer, its own The Dark Side of the Moon, or indeed its own F♯A♯∞, this may well be it.” (That last album referenced, in case you didn't recognize it, is the debut from Godspeed You Black Emperor.) If that all sounds intriguing, you'll probably love it. Oh, and the album was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize. Here's “Go Dig My Grave” from False Lankum. Peat describes this conversation as “fangirling,” though I'm not sure that's entirely fair. There's definitely some mutual admiration happening here—Collins still keeps up with music, and she loves Lankum as well. They talk about Collins' adventures in America with Alan Lomax, about other singers they admire, and how they share a pretty strong hatred for jazz. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Shirley Collins and Radie Peat for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

The guest on this month's Official Folk Albums Chart Show is the inimitable Shirley Collins. She'll be explaining how she managed to include memories of her sister Dolly, her Uncle Fred and her father in her acclaimed new album “Archangel Hill”. Host Matthew Bannister will be talking about his Big Walk in aid of the charity Help Musicians – 180 miles in 2 weeks in August – and there is music from Siobhan Miller, Roseanne Reid, Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage, Magpie Arc, Jim Ghedi and Toby Hay and This Is The Kit. --- We rely entirely on support from our listeners to keep this show on the road. If you like what we do please either... Donate to the Folk on Foot Big Walk 2023: folkonfoot.com/bigwalk Become a patron and get great rewards: patreon.com/folkonfoot Or just buy us a coffee: ko-fi.com/folkonfoot Sign up for our newsletter at www.folkonfoot.com Follow us on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram: @folkonfoot --- Subscribe to the Folk Forecast to explore all the gigs and album news we ran through in the show: https://thefolkforecast.substack.com/

Nuovo Podcast di Awella Mixtape Mixed Edition. Tra i brani in scaletta i Godflesh da Purge, terzo capitolo dalla reunion del 2009, Sam Blasucci dei Mapache al debutto solista (con tanto di brani in italiano), Weyes Blood alle prese con un noto standard jazz, il folk vellutato dei Maya Ongaku, la sempiterna Shirley Collins, Joe Meek con i Blue men dalle sessioni inedite del classico I Hear A New World, il Greg Foat Group che coverizza Jackson C. Frank (dalla nuova compilation BBE assemblata da Paul Hillery), e tanto altro ancora!

One of England's best loved folk singers, Shirley Collins talks to Don't Assume host, Zakia Sewell (a life-long Shirley Collins fan) about her 60 year career in folk music. Recorded from her front room in Lewes, the conversation covers everything from Shirley's legendary trip around the American South with folklorist Alan Lomax in the 1950s to her unique take on the notion of ‘Englishness'. Hear about Shirley's experience working with the likes of Davey Graham and Current 93, as well as her thoughts on the future of folk music. Presenter - Zakia Sewell, Producer - Lizzy King, Sound Recording & Editing - Sam Stone, Mastering - Josh Farmer, Composer - Jennifer Walton, Talent & Outreach - Samuel Strang. This is an NTS Podcast, discover more at www.nts.live. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 633: May 28, 2023 playlist: Soft Kill, "Veil of Pain feat. N8NOFACE" (Metta World Peace) 2023 Cercle Social thisquietarmy, "Hiatus II" (Hiatus) 2023 self-released Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek, "Yes!" (New Future City Radio) 2023 International Anthem Don and Francoiz, "Daemon Lover" (Cover Songs In Inferno) 2023 Prohibited Philip Jeck and Chris Watson, "Burn" (Oxmardyke) 2023 Touch Shirley Collins, "Hares on the Mountain" (Archangel Hill) 2023 Domino x or size, "Time Was a River, Too" (Aether Ore) 2023 Good Morning Tapes Bonnie Prince Billy, "Bananas" (Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You) 2023 Drag City David Toop and Lawrence English, "Whistling In The Dark" (The Shell That Speaks The Sea) 2023 Room40 Bobby Lee, "Reds For A Blue Planet" (Endless Skyways) 2023 Tompkins Square Jozef Dumoulin, "Social Disdance" (This Body, This Life) 2023 Carton William Ryan Fritch, "Our Bed is Made" (Cohesion) 2023 Lost Tribe Sound Email podcast at brainwashed dot com to say who you are; what you like; what you want to hear; share pictures for the podcast of where you're from, your computer or MP3 player with or without the Brainwashed Podcast Playing; and win free music! We have no tracking information, no idea who's listening to these things so the more feedback that comes in, the more frequent podcasts will come. You will not be put on any spam list and your information will remain completely private and not farmed out to a third party. Thanks for your attention and thanks for listening.

This week's show, after a 1992 Sugar trill: brand new Damned, Eyelids, Tubs, Live Skull, Reds, Pinks & Purples, Tombstones in Their Eyes, Pia Fraus, and Shirley Collins; plus Bo Diddley, Paul McCartney, Sam & Dave, Jeannie Seeley, Jacob Miller, Marilyn...

Music by many of the performers just announced for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival at Jericho Beach Park July 14-16. So good that the festival will actually happen this year, after its demise seemed imminent a few months ago. Kudos to interim AD Fiona Black for assembling such a stellar lineup at short notice! Also a mini-feature on Irish singer Clare Sands, and a bunch of new releases from Eilen Jewell, Leftover Salmon, Tinariwen, Denmark's Vesselil and Hielosa, as well as Natalie Merchant, Bruce Cockburn, Karan Casey, Imar, Shirley Collins etc. Also a few Gordon Lightfoot songs from the man himself and from Tony Rice. Plus a few more favourite artists from the past 38 years hosting this radio show - which could be broadcast again from Jericho Park in July! Yay!!

Eclecticism goes hand-in-hand with the Independent Music Podcast, this week it's featuring everything from experimental electronica to traditional folk music via tropicalia and ferocious punk. Anthony brings a lot of lush instrumentation to a fairly chilled episode, with the dreamy Hydromedusae, legendary Shirley Collins, and fabulous Scottish trad folk from Brìghde Chaimbeul. Gareth brings a bit more abrasion, including the supreme collaboration between Scotch Rolex and Shackleton. You can listen to the first six tracks for free. To listen to the full episode, get a huge back catalogue of music, and access to our live shows and Discord group, please join our Patreon: patreon.com/independentmusicpodcast. The podcast only survives with Patron support. TracklistingHydromedusae – Little One (Trome Records, UK)Alex Figueira – Lávate la Boca (Music With Soul, Netherlands)Piotr Kurek – The Art of Swapping Hearts (Mondoj, Poland)Scotch Rolex & Shackleton – Deliver the Soul (Silver Triplet, Germany)Lasso – Animal Insignificante (Static Shock Records, UK)MLDVA & Çınar Timur – Ölüm Allah'ın Emri (Shapes of Rhythm, UK)Shirley Collins – High and Away (Domino Recording Co., UK)Erwan Sene – Echo When Talking (PAN, Germany)Brìghde Chaimbeul – Pìobaireachd Nan Eun (Glitterbeat Records, Germany)Ralfe Band – Pale Fire (Talitres, France) This week's episode is sponsored by The state51 Conspiracy, a creative hub for music. Head to state51.com to find releases by JK Flesh vs Gnod, Steve Jansen, MrUnderwSood, Wire, Ghost Box, Lo Recordings, Subtext Records and many more Produced and edited by Nick McCorriston.

While we're in between series of Midnight Chats, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite episodes from another podcast we made called Sweet 16, which until now has only been available to subscribers of Loud And Quiet. These are brief recordings, all in the words of the artists, who recall what they were up to when they were 16 years old. We recorded – well – 16 episodes in total, which you can fully access by subscribing to Loud And Quiet at loudandquiet.com. But in the meantime, here, at least, is what folk legend Shirley Collins had to say about her year as a 16-year-old when we spoke to her in May 2021. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/midnightchats. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comment enfin découvrir son dernier film, «Armageddon Time », présenté l'an dernier en compétition à Cannes ? Est-ce que le 4ème extrait du nouvel album de Peter Gabriel va lui permettre de remplir le SportPaleis ? Alexis Michalik, roi du théâtre avec « Edmond », renouera-t-il avec le succès avec « Une histoire d'amour » ? Vincent Niclo défend-il vraiment le folklore celtique, ou vaut-il mieux redécouvrir la doyenne Shirley Collins ? « Transmission impossible » est le titre inattendu d'un formidable album live… Mais de quel groupe ? Quel invité de marque s'apprête à accueillir le BIFFF ? Et quelles savoureuses parodies musicales nous offre le Palmashow ? Pour le savoir, une solution : écouter « La semaine des 5 heures » de ce mardi 11 avril

All Songs Considered's Bob Boilen and NPR Music's Lars Gotrich share their favorite new music of the week, including the African psych-rock group Orchestra Gold, shoegaze from Zoon and more.Featured Artists And Songs:1. Jeremy Kiran Fernandes: "Sun and Rain," from Inside the Harmonic Prism2. Orchestra Gold: "Segou Heat," from Medicine3. Pry: "Chasing Ambulance," from The Party's Over4. Shirley Collins: "High and Away," from Archangel Hill5. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru: "Jerusalem," from Jerusalem6. Zoon: "Gaagige," from Bekka Ma'iingan

ELUSIVE GODDESSMary Hopkin possesses one of the most achingly beautiful voices in creation. You wouldn't be blamed, though, for only remembering her for the Paul McCartney produced debut single, “Those Were the Days” from 1968. That song was ubiquitous and sold a million and a half copies in the US alone. She and the cute Beatle followed it up with “Goodbye”, which also hit big. Then, this, her second album, produced by future husband Tony Visconti, was recorded. After, that… relative silence, until 18 years later with the release of 1989's “Spirit”. She is quoted as saying that Earth Song Ocean Song was the album that she wanted to make, and so she refrained from scratching the Show Business itch, dedicating herself instead to raising her children. She made some appearances, and even starred in a BBC 1 TV series, but, mostly she took charge of her own choices, as opposed to being formed and manipulated by others. This is indeed a definitive folk music showcase, lovingly produced by Visconti, with covers by Cat Stevens, Ralph McTell (Streets of London), and string arrangements by the majestic Richard Hewson (of Beatles' and Nick Drake fame). It is an obscure gem by one of England's finest folk muses. Mary Hopkin was victimized by her massive early success. “Those were the Days” was an anomalous monster pop hit for the 18 year old, unrepeatable and out of sync with its own times. Mary's hope of establishing a respected recording career after that was akin to Henry Winkler's struggles to escape the popular effect of being The Fonz. He did it eventually, with Bill Hader's BARRY, but it took over 40 years of trying. Put the Welsh goddess Mary Hopkin on the roster of the greatest British female folk vocalists like Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee, Shirley Collins, Anne Briggs, June Tabor, and Maddy Prior. Discover and enjoy.

Put on your Sunday best, we're going to the fair!A handsome young man, a  moonlight tryst and a young woman is left to bear the consequences. It's an age old tale, but why did it become so popular in the early 19th Century? We might have the answer. We're also looking more widely at English fairs through the ages; the fun, strange and sometimes scandalous things that happen there, and the songs people sing about them.This episode features bit of mild swearing thanks to our cheeky friend Samuel Pepys.MusicBrimbledon Fair is from Folk Songs From Somerset by Cecil SharpSelby Fair words are from the Bodleian Library Ballad Index, but I made the tune upThe Ewan MacColl version of Bartholomew Fair can be found hereThe full words of Jockey to the Fair can be found at the Bodleian Library hereThe tune behind the Thomas Hardy extract is Brigg FairThe full version of Ramble Away is the one I learned from Shirley Collins' recorded versionYou can find the full lyrics of Answer to Young Ramble Away (if you really want to!) here and the tune is a Derrydown Fair variant that I found on  Mudcat.ReferencesThere are some great discussions about Ramble Away on the Mudcat Cafe, and the Mainly Norfolk website has a very informative summary about the song.The episode features extracts from A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain 1724-1727 by Daniel Defoe (which also features on the Mainly Norfolk website), from the Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy and the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Vic Gammon (1982) Song, Sex and Society in England 1600-1850 Folk Music Journal 4 (3) 208-245 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4522105

British folk icon Shirley Collins welcomes Jude to her home in the Sussex countryside to talk about Alan Lomax's book The Land Where the Blues Began. A book that, as you'll discover, she feels very conflicted about.From men taking all the credit to going to dinner at David Attenborough's house, witnessing the horrific racism of the Deep South in the 1950s to what luxuries she would take to a Desert Island, this is an epic journey of an episode.Jude and Shirley go back a long way, and the warmth, humour and range of their chat provides an amazing insight into a true legend. For Shirley fans and newcomers alike.Books mentioned in the podcast:https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/collections/author-shirley-collins-pid-240068/products/america-over-the-waterhttps://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-land-where-blues-began/9781565847392http://www.thecopperfamily.com/the-books.htmlhttps://uk.bookshop.org/books/1605843623_english-folk-songs-from-the-southern-appalachians-vol-1/9781935243175https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-new-penguin-book-of-english-folk-songs/9780141194622You can buy Jude's book The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-sound-of-being-human-how-music-shapes-our-lives/9781474622929Finally White Rabbit's Spotify Playlist of 'booksongs' - songs inspired by books loved by our guests - is here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7chuHOeTs9jpyKpmgXV6uo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Service is joined by Dan Grimley for a walk in the Surrey Hills where Vaughan Williams grew up to explore the ways in which the community, sound and landscape of this area shaped his music and his thinking. They also visit Dorking town centre where Vaughan Williams played a central role in the community, especially during World War Two and in the local music scene as conductor of the Leith Hill Musical Festival for almost 50 years. Tom visits folk singer Shirley Collins at her home in East Sussex to talk about the folk songs Vaughan Williams collected and how his legacy continues today. Violinist Midori Komachi talks about taking Vaughan Williams's music to Japanese audiences and a new dual language release featuring his works for violin and piano, including his tortured Violin Sonata from the 1950s; conductor Vasily Petrenko delves into what makes his music distinctly British; and writer Rob Young discusses the composer's patriotism, socialism and the lens through which we see him today.

In another twelve months for new sounds Dónal charts the year in tunes. The stated criterion is that it's new names only but some diversions are taken to include essential releases from familiar artists like Shirley Collins, Dean Blunt and Oneohtrix Point Never. Otherwise it's a voyage of discovery all the way from the frozen north in Norway to the beating heart of Niger.    Support the music-makers on Bandcamp:   Lighight - https://lighghtmusic.bandcamp.com/album/holy-endings Dylan Henner - https://dylanhenner.bandcamp.com/album/the-invention-of-the-human Shirley Collins - https://www.dominomusic.com/releases/shirley-collins/crowlink/download Onehotrix Point Never - https://oneohtrixpointnever.bandcamp.com/ The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid - https://sethgraham.bandcamp.com/album/the-heart-pumps-kool-aid Sam Gendel - https://samgendel.bandcamp.com/album/fresh-bread Gabriels - https://gabriels.bandcamp.com/album/love-and-hate-in-a-different-time Georgia Anne Muldrow - https://georgiaannemuldrow.bandcamp.com/album/vweto-iii Gotts Street Park - https://gottsstreetpark.ochre.store/ Utheo Goerer - https://www.lyskestrekk.com/product/utheo-choerer-forste-gir-stiv-kuling-7/ Black Country, New Road - https://blackcountrynewroad.bandcamp.com/album/for-the-first-time Falle Nioke & Ghost Culture - https://fallenioke.bandcamp.com/album/badiare-ep Mdou Moctar - https://mdoumoctar.bandcamp.com/album/afrique-victime Space Afrika - https://space-afrika.bandcamp.com/album/honest-labour Aya - https://aya-yco.bandcamp.com/ Loraine James - https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/reflection Joy Orbison - https://tossportal.bandcamp.com/album/still-slipping-vol-1 Marco Shuttle - https://marcoshuttle.bandcamp.com/album/cobalt-desert-oasis Tomaga - https://tomaga.bandcamp.com/album/intimate-immensity Yu Su - https://yusu.bandcamp.com/album/yellow-river-blue Audiobooks - https://audiobookshq.bandcamp.com/album/astro-tough-2 Ross From Friends - https://rossfromfriends.bandcamp.com/album/tread Overmono - https://overmono.bandcamp.com/album/bmw-track-so-u-kno Jehnova - https://jehnova.bandcamp.com/ Dean Blunt - https://roughtraderecords.bandcamp.com/album/black-metal-2 Leo Bhanji - https://www.amazon.com/Birth-Videos-Explicit-Leo-Bhanji/dp/B08NZFFJBT Celestial - https://celestialecstatic.bandcamp.com/album/i-had-too-much-to-dream-last-night     ///

Originally published as episode 59 on December 21, 2019, this popular episode is being rerun in a slightly improved version. This is a love letter to the great English Christmas carols, from “There Is No Rose” to “The Boar's Head”. Did you know that not just any Christmas song is a carol? The true carol, in all its earthy splendor, is a distinctive product of the Catholic middle ages. Yet our forefathers didn't limit caroling to Christmas: they wrote carols for every season of the year covering the entire story of our Redemption, not to mention secular topics at times. This episode explores the origin of carols in England, their cultural meaning, and how they were suppressed by the Puritans and were revived in modern times. And of course, you'll hear a lot of great music throughout, ranging from historically informed performance to modern arrangements! Links Erik Routley, The English Carol https://www.amazon.com/English-Carol-Erik-Routley/dp/0837169895 Andrew Gant, The Carols of Christmas https://www.amazon.com/Carols-Christmas-Celebration-Surprising-Favorite/dp/0718031520 All music in this episode used with permission from the recording artist and/or label. Agincourt Carol, Alamire https://www.amazon.com/Deo-Gracias-Anglia-Alamire/dp/B008L1GZUO Nowell sing we both all and some, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2 Gabriel From Heaven's King, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2 A Virgin Most Pure, Stairwell Carolers https://www.stairwellcarollers.com/en/o-magnum-mysterium/ Coventry Carol, Harry Christophers and the Sixteen, available on the CORO record label at https://thesixteenshop.com/ Bedfordshire May Carol, Shirley Collins https://mainlynorfolk.info/shirley.collins/records/withinsound.html Remember O Thou Man, The King's Singers https://www.amazon.com/Remember-O-Thou-Man/dp/B073JZN754 Wassail (Gloucestershire Wassail, arr. Vaughan Williams), Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland4 Green Growth the Holly, Early Music New York—Frederick Renz, Director https://www.earlymusicny.org/a-renaissance-christmas My Dancing Day, Robert Shaw Chorale https://www.amazon.com/Songs-Angels-Christmas-Hymns-Carols/dp/B000003D0G Drive the Cold Winter Away, Owain Phyfe and the New World Renaissance Band https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/nwrb In the Bleak Midwinter, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2 Lullay My Liking (Holst), HSVPA Madrigal Singers (Houston, TX) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw81DCQ3HhI A Hymn to the Virgin (Britten), VOCES8 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077GC4QVT/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp There is no rose, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2 Thanks to all, but especially to Ross W. Duffin for his generosity with Quire Cleveland's back catalogue! Also recommended: A Waverly Consort Christmas: From East Anglia to Appalachia https://www.amazon.com/Waverly-Consort-Christmas-Anglia-Appalachia/dp/B000002SRK Other non-famous carols mentioned: Seven Virgins (The Leaves of Life); This Endris Night; Tempus adest floridum (Good King Wenceslas); Kingsfold (I heard the voice of Jesus say); The Cherry Tree Carol; Masters In This Hall; The Golden Carol; Snow in the Street; New Prince, New Pomp This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

a cura di Alessandro Achilli. Musiche: Barney Bush - Tony Hymas, Shirley Collins - The Albion Country Band, Keith Tippett - Matthew Bourne, Akiko Yano, Cory Smythe, Palladian, Donna Regina, Alex Ward, Simone Faraci

Pianist Igor Levit talks to Tom Service about his latest epic recording project – three and a half hours of music by Dmitri Shostakovich and the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson. No stranger to large-scale works he live-streamed Erik Satie's Vexations during lockdown playing 840 repetitions over 16 hours as part of his online House Concerts. He discusses the huge challenges on every page of Stevenson's Passacaglia and the contradictions of his life as a pianist and his political beliefs. Folk singer Martin Carthy and former High Court judge and part-time song collector Stephen Sedley join Tom to talk about their new book, ‘Who Killed Cock Robin: British Folk Songs of Crime and Punishment', which explores the legal and moral basis of some of the most moving songs in the folk traditions of the country. We hear recordings by Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins, Rachel Newton and a 1953 archive recording of Ewan MacColl singing ‘McCaffery', provided by the School of Scottish Studies Archives. As Russians go to the polls, we look at what the recent decline in freedoms means for artists and musicians in and out of the country. Tom speaks to Masha Alekhina, co-founder of the musical and protest collective Pussy Riot, who has just been sentenced to a year of ‘restricted freedom' for promoting protests in support of the jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. We're also joined by the BBC's Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford who was recently expelled from Russia after more than 20 years of reporting from Moscow, and pianist Katya Apekisheva who, alongside hundreds of other classical musicians, signed a letter to Vladimir Putin in February calling for the release of Alexei Navalny. And composer Joseph Horovitz shares stories from his life in music. Having fled Vienna as a child in 1938, he began his musical career in Britain as a music lecturer for the army before working as a ballet conductor and finally a composer. His music draws on a huge range of styles, especially jazz, as can be heard in his Jazz Harpsichord Concerto which was performed by Mahan Esfahani and the Manchester Collective at this year's Proms. He talks to Tom about how his deeply personal fifth string quartet reflects his experiences of escaping Vienna, and how he finds new inspiration every day from the music around him.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation. Playlist 0′00″ Pantzikuini by Xochimoki on Temple Of The New Sun (Phantom Limb) 2′07″ Reservoir by Mikael Lind on Geographies (Dronarivm) 5′50″ Roll (Zoe Polanski Remix) by Kumi Takahara on See-through Remixes (Flau) 10′35″ Frozen in Time by Haco on Nova Naturo (Room40) 14′12″ Palace by Hugh Small & Brian Allen Simon on The Side I Never See (Melody As Truth) 15′55″ Life Goes On by Synergetic Voice Orchestra on Mios (Métron Records) 18′20″ Across Sandy Plains by Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis on June Sounds - EP (Brawl Records) 21′10″ Take It Easy by Deux Filles on Shadow Farming (Glass Modern) 24′00″ The Heart of the Wave by Kele on The Waves Pt. 1 (Kola) 26′40″ CHU / 處 by LI YILEI on 之 / OF (Métron Records) 28′28″ New Flow by Circle Moon on Spaciousness 2 (Lo Recordings) 31′35″ Goloka by Mazzo on Morning Dew (Natural Positions) 37′25″ Not One Not Two by Liila on Soundness of Mind (Not Not Fun) 41′40″ Let It Rain by Salamanda on Let It Rain - Single (2783040 Records DK) 47′30″ Bmv I by Pram of Dogs on Bmv I & II - Single (Phantom Limb) 49′10″ Into Silence by Irena And Vojtech Havlovi on Melodies In The Sand (Melody As Truth) 51′50″ When I Was a Boy by X.Y.R. on Waves Tapes (Constellation Tatsu) 57′40″ Nostalgia (Vague Imaginaires Remix) by Kumi Takahara on See-Through Remixes (flau) 66′35″ Rehearsing Heat (feat. Galina Juritz & Kevin Cahill) by Richard Greenan on Rehearsing Heat (Kit Records) 69′42″ Medium Rare by Mndsgn on Rare Pleasure (Stones Throw Records) 75′00″ -・ --- ・・・ - ・ ・--・ --- -・ ・-- ・・ -・ --・ by ・ ・-・ ・- ・・・ ・ -・・ on Erased Tapes 20・・---0 (Erased Tapes Records Ltd.) 79′33″ Yoisura Bushi by Ikue Asazaki on Yoisura Bushi - Single (Studio Mule) 86′17″ Intimacy by SAH on Intimacy (Reel Long Overdub) 89′50″ Marigolds & Tulsi by Rachika Nayar on Our Hands Against the Dusk (NNA Tapes) 91′53″ Farewell by Eulalie on Hazy Visions (FORGOT IMPRINT INC.) 94′15″ Richer Than Blood by Arushi Jain on Under the Lilac Sky (Leaving Records) 97′20″ Grey Eye by Patrick Belaga & jazmin romero on Blutt (PAN) 101′28″ FI3AC2151090 by Aleksi Perälä on PHANTASIA II (AP Musik) 108′00″ Spring Walks In the Bird Park by metra.vestlud on ∞ (Kofla Tapes) 112′50″ At Break of Day by Shirley Collins on Crowlink - EP (Domino Recording Co Ltd) 117′00″ Unfolding (feat. Goldmund) by Hollie Kenniff on The Quiet Drift (Western Vinyl) Check out the full archives on the website.

Shirley Collins grew up in a folk music-loving family in Sussex, England, during World War Two, and announced her intention to become a folk singer when she was still just a teenager. Her career would lead her to record music with her sister Dolly; to record folk songs in America with legendary song collector Alan Lomax, and to become a key figure in the 'folk revival' of the 1960s and 1970s. But the trauma of a painful break-up cost Shirley her singing voice - "sometimes I would open my mouth and nothing would come out", she remembers - and led to a heartbreaking decision: "I walked away from music for years. I felt I had no option." Shirley did all sorts of jobs to support her children, and avoided even listening to music sometimes - it made her too sad. Then one day, the musician David Tibet, a huge fan, got in touch and begged Shirley to try to sing again. Shirley tells Emily Webb the story of a voice lost and found again. Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Laura Thomas Picture: Shirley Collins circa 1963 Credit: Brian Shuel/Redferns via Getty

WOW. Shirley Collins has led a wild full life! The British Folk singer, who helped bring about the 60's folk revival in Great Britain, is on Basic Folk talking about her new album Heart's Ease and her entire extraordinary career. Shirley also talks about her childhood, which occurred during World War II and started her love and connection with traditional folk songs. Her grandparents would sing to her and her sister Dolly during air raids to try and keep the girls calm. This watershed moment would define her love of sharing these songs and how it feels for Shirley to sing. She talks about her late sister Dolly, a brilliant musical arranger and frequent collaborator, and how her compositions matched up perfectly with Shirley's singing. Shirley was a part of the historical Alan Lomax Southern Journey recordings, where she assisted the folklorist in collecting recordings of traditional folk songs in the American South. A lot of those songs were familiar to Shirley as they came over to America from England hundreds of years ago. She talks about the musicians she met along the way including Mississippi Fred McDowell. After she returned, she sang and recorded music from about 1955 - 1979 and then stopped when she went through a terribly traumatic event and developed dysphonia. Recently, Shirley has returned to making albums, starting in 2016 with Lodestar and now with her latest just released. She is generous with her answers and is good natured about my ridiculous questions. Also, a very fun lightning round! I can't wait to have Shirley on again.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

An English woman and an American man drive through the American south in 1959. Their mission is to record folk songs for the Library of Congress, but they also record what peoples' lives are like at that time. How did this bode for the future?Welcome to See Hear podcast episode 78.The man was ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, and the woman was folk singer Shirley Collins. Their travels came on the cusp of the civil rights movement, and Alan had returned to America after an extended time away avoiding HUAC. The journey should have just been a study in peoples' living conditions and preserving a wealth of songs previously passed down from generation to generation. The fact that Lomax had been responsible for recording music from Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger meant that anything he did was considered a political act – not a safe thing in 1950s America.Bernie and Maurice had the pleasure of speaking with English film director Rob Curry about two of his films – 2017's The Ballad of Shirley Collins and 2020's Southern Journey (Revisited). The two films are intertwined with each other, so it made sense to discuss both. The Ballad of Shirley Collins reveals its subject in the 21st century living her life in Sussex. She hadn't been able to sing for over 30 years, something she struggled with as singing was at the core of her being. Southern Journey has Rob and his co-director Tim Plester taking the same journey in 2018 that Lomax and Collins did in 1959. They meet up with many people in the same regions – some are actual descendants of the people recorded in 1959, others are part of the spiritual lineage. In 2018, this may be just as political, but presents a very different picture to those on our news programs.Like Lomax and Collins, Rob and Tim were also travelling in a politically charged time. We speak to Rob about both films, the differences between the roles of folk music and commercially popular song, southern hospitality, the ties of community,.....and Morris dancing. We also discover that a popular rap artist of the early 90s lifted his biggest hit from a traditional drum-and-fife tune. Who was it???? You'll have to tune in and find out.Unfortunately, Tim Merrill was unavailable this month, but Bernie and I are hugely grateful to Rob for taking the time to speak with us. We recommend both of these magnificent films for your viewing pleasure. The Ballad of Shirley Collins is available at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/shirleycollinsmovie. Southern Journey (Revisited) is currently on limited cinema release, but will hopefully be available to stream in 2021.If you've been enjoying the show, please give us a favourable review on iTunes and let your friends know that our show exists.Proudly part of the Pantheon Network of music podcasts. Check out all the other wonderful shows at http://pantheonpodcasts.comSend us feedback via email at seehearpodcast@gmail.comJoin the Facebook group at http://facebook.com/groups/seehearpodcastCheck out the Instagram page at www.instagram.com/seehearpodcast/?hl=enYou can download the show by searching for See Hear podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher…..or whatever podcast app you favour.

An English woman and an American man drive through the American south in 1959. Their mission is to record folk songs for the Library of Congress, but they also record what peoples' lives are like at that time. How did this bode for the future?Welcome to See Hear podcast episode 78.The man was ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, and the woman was folk singer Shirley Collins. Their travels came on the cusp of the civil rights movement, and Alan had returned to America after an extended time away avoiding HUAC. The journey should have just been a study in peoples' living conditions and preserving a wealth of songs previously passed down from generation to generation. The fact that Lomax had been responsible for recording music from Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger meant that anything he did was considered a political act – not a safe thing in 1950s America.Bernie and Maurice had the pleasure of speaking with English film director Rob Curry about two of his films – 2017's The Ballad of Shirley Collins and 2020's Southern Journey (Revisited). The two films are intertwined with each other, so it made sense to discuss both. The Ballad of Shirley Collins reveals its subject in the 21st century living her life in Sussex. She hadn't been able to sing for over 30 years, something she struggled with as singing was at the core of her being. Southern Journey has Rob and his co-director Tim Plester taking the same journey in 2018 that Lomax and Collins did in 1959. They meet up with many people in the same regions – some are actual descendants of the people recorded in 1959, others are part of the spiritual lineage. In 2018, this may be just as political, but presents a very different picture to those on our news programs.Like Lomax and Collins, Rob and Tim were also travelling in a politically charged time. We speak to Rob about both films, the differences between the roles of folk music and commercially popular song, southern hospitality, the ties of community,.....and Morris dancing. We also discover that a popular rap artist of the early 90s lifted his biggest hit from a traditional drum-and-fife tune. Who was it???? You'll have to tune in and find out.Unfortunately, Tim Merrill was unavailable this month, but Bernie and I are hugely grateful to Rob for taking the time to speak with us. We recommend both of these magnificent films for your viewing pleasure. The Ballad of Shirley Collins is available at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/shirleycollinsmovie. Southern Journey (Revisited) is currently on limited cinema release, but will hopefully be available to stream in 2021.If you've been enjoying the show, please give us a favourable review on iTunes and let your friends know that our show exists.Proudly part of the Pantheon Network of music podcasts. Check out all the other wonderful shows at http://pantheonpodcasts.comSend us feedback via email at seehearpodcast@gmail.comJoin the Facebook group at http://facebook.com/groups/seehearpodcastCheck out the Instagram page at www.instagram.com/seehearpodcast/?hl=enYou can download the show by searching for See Hear podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher…..or whatever podcast app you favour.

Shirley Collins' decade-spanning career has cemented her position as a cornerstone of English folk music. Monocle 24's Augustin Macellari learns more about the relevance of ancient music on her new album, ‘Heart's Ease'. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Resounding the ancient preserved Đông Sơn drum and the comeback of 85 year old English folk singer Shirly Collins. And Brian Ritchie's Shout Out to Kakadu's Black Rock Band

Hvaða áhrif hefur og mun Covid 19 hafa á stjórnmál í Evrópu og í heiminum? Þetta er ein þeirra spurninga sem hefur verið áberandi í því óvissuástandi sem ríkir í heiminum. Er yfir höfuð hægt að spá fyrir um það? Baldur Þórhallsson prófessor í stjórnmálafræði ræddi þetta á Morgunvaktinni. Baldur segir að stjórnvöld víða um heiminn hafi verið treg til að hefta ferðafrelsi fólks og hvað þá setja lög sem banna fólki að fara út úr húsi. Það bendi til þess að lýðræðið hafi skotið föstum rótum víða, það sé í undantekningartilvikum sem stjórnvöld hafi nýtt ástandið til að hefta mannréttindi. Hjólreiðar eru vinsæll ferðamáti á sumrin, en færri treysta sér til að hjóla milli staða árið um kring. Þó er mikil gerjun í samgöngum öðrum en bílum þessi misserin - rafhjól og rafskutlur eru orðin áberandi í borginni að minnsta kosti. Hjólafærni á Íslandi er fræðasetur um samgönguhjólreiðar, sjálfstæð félagasamtök sem hlúa með margvíslegum hætti að efldri reiðhjólamenningu á Íslandi. Sesselja Traustadóttir framkvæmdastýra Hjólafærni sagði okkur frá hjólamenningu, en hún segir framtíðina vera í rafmagnshjólum af ýmsu tagi. Nú á miðju sumri er allur gróður í mestum blóma, okkur öllum til mikils yndisauka. Sumar tegundir eru þó óvinsælli eða aðrar og oft til vandræða - jafnan kallaðar ágengar tegundir. Mörg sveitarfélög eiga í harðri baráttu við kerfil, lúpínu, risahvönn og fleiri tegundir og eyða milljónum í að halda þessum gróðri í skefjum. Starri Heiðmarsson, fléttufræðingur hjá Náttúrufræðistofnun, er fróður um þessar óvinsælu tegundir og Ágúst Ólafsson fréttamaður á Akureyri ræddi við hann. Tónlist: Shirley Collins & Davy Graham - Hares on the Mountain, Shirley Collins - Sweet Greens and Blues, Sharhabil Ahmed - Zulum aldunya

The enigmatic, multi-talented, and all round good guy Stewart Lee is this episode's very special guest. As he is currently touring his show Content Provider throughout the UK, it is a great privilege to welcome him to the show. Hands down the most critically acclaimed British comedian of his generation, Stewart Lee is also a BAFTA award winner, and part owner of four Laurence Olivier awards for his work with Jerry Springer – The Opera. He has written innumerable music reviews of - mostly obscure artists, recently performed on a tribute record for Shirley Collins, and has seen his collaboration with Capri-Batterie recently released. Stewart talks with authority on his creative processes, passionately about his relationship with music, and speaks his mind about how artistic output is valued in the digital age. His experience, and views on the future of the creative arts is both eye-opening and frightening as he explains the almost Orwellian control of the big companies and their controlled for-profit evolution and monetization: ‘…Nowadays, if you've not sold your soul to these big conglomerates, you're not going to reach anyone. I mean, seems like the internet was supposed to set us free, but actually it's enslaving us on behalf of three or four big global corporations who are controlling the way our ideas are disseminated…' This episode was recorded 48 hours before the passing of Mark E. Smith of The Fall, and Stewart spoke fondly about their influence on his work - ‘When he finally doesn't do it anymore- I don't know what it'll take to stop him – when it finally isn't happening it'll be, for a normal person, like if Manchester United were to suddenly not exist anymore.... I would have had a very different life without them' @thestageleftpod facebook.com/thestageleftpodcast www.thestageleftpodcast.com www.stewartlee.co.uk

Over the past few weeks The Quietus has been lucky enough to see Liars play live three times, at the Visions Festival, Green Man and last night at Rough Trade East, where Angus Andrew and his new bandmates managed to conjure a special energy that transported us somewhere weird of their own making - it was as if we weren't in a shop. After 15 years of operation the new Liars album TFCF is the first Andrew has made on his own, and it stands out as one of the finest in a remarkable set that few of their peers have come close to. On this week's Quietus Hour, Angus Andrew speaks to Luke Turner about 10 tracks that shaped the record, and gives insights into its creation out in a remote part of the Australian bush. He discusses how the sound of nature made it into every track on TFCF, the move from LA to his homeland, the separation from Aaron Hemphill... and why he's taken to wearing a wedding dress onstage. Subscribe to The Quietus Hour podcast here for all our past episodes including specials with the likes of Thurston Moore, Shirley Collins, Cosey Fanni Tutti, John Lydon, Gary Numan and more. Liars return to the UK this autumn including a date at Heaven in London on October 27th and Newcastle's Boiler Shop on October 29th.

With John and Luke both preoccupied with their radio show, it once again befell staff writer Paddy Clarke to take up the Quietus Hour mantel for our coverage of this year's Green Man Festival. Our resident festival-goer reports from a wet but glorious weekend in the Brecon Beacons, spent in the finest of company. There's also a perfect plethora of music from the weekend's best performers, including Shirley Collins, PJ Harvey, Grumbling Fur, British Sea Power, Madonnatron, Richard Dawson, Liars and more. Diolch yn fawr gwyrdd!

We've got Tim Burgess along for a Quietus Hour Special this week, The Charlatans frontman heading in to a very warm tQHQ to discuss his band's new album Different Days and play some of his current favourite music. Tune in for chat about the new Charlatans record, what Tim thinks of the new Twin Peaks, why Sleaford Mods are ace and his love of the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Beaver & Krause, Factory Floor, Frank Ocean and The Fall. And if you've ever wondered who makes the best cup of tea out of Johnny Marr and Paul Weller, then wonder no more. Remember that for all The Quietus Hour specials, featuring the likes of Shirley Collins, John Lydon, Regis, Stewart Lee and Warren Ellis all you need to do is subscribe to our iTunes podcast. Special thanks as ever to producer Seb White and Kathryn De La Rosa.

Last week Quietus co-editor Luke Turner had the great pleasure of travelling down to the ancient town of Lewes, East Sussex to speak to the great Shirley Collins for a Quietus Hour Special. We visited Shirley's cottage to have a brew (she makes an excellent brew) and discuss and listen to nine songs of her choosing. In her front room, recently used to record 2016-highlight album Lodestar, we talked about that record and her return to song, why Morris dancing and the English folk tradition are derided and neglected at our peril, her friendship with Lodestar-collaborators Cyclobe and some of the musicians she's picked, the racism she encountered in the American south while collecting music with Alan Lomax and her fears for the future. We also talked about the wonderful landscape of the Sussex Downs and the uncanny presence that lurks within its folds, the great Sussex folk hero Bob Copper, and why songs are always good when sung by a handsome man.

In this edition of our radio programme we've got a Middle Eastern stormer from Kalbata to open up before great tracks by Solange, Membranes remixed by the Manics, Shirley Collins, Betty Harris, Mutado Pintado, Zsa Zsa Sapien and Admirals Hard interspersed with John and Luke making themselves look preposterously out of touch and old as they chat about their younger years wearing ladies' blouses, how awful the Home Counties were in the 1990s, the joy of Southend, the awful idiocy of #properindieforthelads and Liam Gallagher, Simon Cowell flashing his tiny todger but the far bigger and better ones we've seen in rock PLUS exclusives from Bon Iver and the aforementioned Liam G. AND! Will we play someone a track of their dreams for THE PERSUADER?!

This week The Quietus is celebrating its eighth birthday as a fully independent music and culture website…. Cheers! Luke will have a pint of flat, room temperature Thadeus Marsh-Hermit's Brain Cleaver porter in a pewter tankard poured by a gender fluid bar person naked bar for a roll of clingfilm and John would gladly take a well-mashed mug of rooibos and barrel-aged goat sweat tea poured straight from the hollowed out skull of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There hasn't been any time for celebrating for anyone who works at tQHQ however as we're all preparing for the big changes which are afoot here… but more on that before the end of the year. In the meantime we're very happy to be launching a new podcast for The Quietus Hour, with the first special bonus episode featuring the one and only Stewart Lee. When the comedian and writer visited tQHQ recently we only gave him one instruction: ‘Pick nine songs - no theme, no rationale, doesn't matter how obscure, how popular or how radio unfriendly, the choice is entirely yours.' Between the clutch of tracks that he chose - which range from a 1950s field recording of a Roma child singing about boats to a live recording of The Fall playing heavier and more frenziedly than The Stooges - Lee talks at length to tQ editor John Doran. The pair discuss his new prose anthology for Faber Content Provider, getting spiked with acid at a mid-80s Cornish rock festival, his relationship with Shirley Collins, what it feels like to have your writing critiqued by operatives for Communist regimes, his new Brexit-inspired stand up show, what the meaning of vitriol of under the line commentary really signifies, destroying Simple Minds LPs with power tools, releasing Edward Lear-inspired drone poetry on vinyl and how free jazz makes his children cry. If you want to listen to the show with full versions of the songs intact, you can do via Mixcloud. Thanks as always to producer Seb White.