Merlin in Rags

Lick the Tins - Blind Man on a Flying Horse (1991)

2009-11-25T11:32:00.003+01:00

Ronan Heenan, vocals, guitar;

Alison Marr, vocals, penny whistle;

Aiden McCroary, bass, keyboards;

Simon Ryan, drums

In 1986, a quartet from London scored their one and only hit with a clever cover version of a song associated with Elvis Presley, Can't Help Falling in Love. Presley's version sold a million and was a US top 3 hit in January 1962 and reached Number One in the UK. 24 years later, the exceptional cover version by Lick the Tins didn't do quite as well as that, although it spent two months in the UK singles chart, but then Lick the Tins were almost unknown before the single was released, and returned to anonymity not long afterwards.

Lick The Tins had two other minor singles, "Belle of Belfast City" and "In The Middle Of The Night" after which, Simon Ryan left the band, and was replaced by Martin Hughes, another Ulsterman. Lick The Tins played the college and club circuits for another year, before the band broke up.

http://lix.in/-684bb7

This album features (almost) their entire output.

Martyn Wyndham-Read - Ned Kelly and that Gang (1970)

2009-11-25T10:56:00.004+01:00

Martyn Wyndham-Read is an English folk singer, notable as a collector and singer of Australian folk songs. He lived and worked in Australia from 1960 to 1967 and has been a regular visitor to the country since then. He has produced over 30 albums and appeared at folk festivals in Australia, and around the world.

Martyn Wyndham-Read, vocals, acoustic guitar;

Dave Bland, banjo, concertina;

Tony Wynne, lagerphone;

Terry Potter, mouth organ, guitar

From “The Living Tradition”

“Martyn is one of our best known and respected singers, with a laid-back, hypnotic style which never fails to relax and enthrall his audiences; he is also an acknowledged expert on Australian song. Due to his grandfathers' involvement in bloodstock and horse racing Martyn went from a small farm in Sussex to work on a sheep station at Emu Springs in South Australia. "I went there as a jackaroo, a sort of trainee manager, learning all the different aspects of running a sheep station, but working as a station-hand." He went out there by boat in 1960, paying his own fare, not going as a 'ten pound pommie' on assisted passage, "If you went like that you had to stay a minimum of two years - they kept your passport!" Thirty-five days on the boat, landing in Australia with a small bag and a guitar as luggage, and eighteen years old! Tintinara, the nearest town to Emu Springs, was "a pub, a store, and a railway siding, you had to notify the conductor so he could tell the train-driver they needed to stop there!" But it made a big impression on the young Martyn Wyndham Read, "We got there at four in the morning and I got off the train, watched it disappear into the distance. It was a moonlit night and you could see the bush in the moonlight, and there was absolutely nothing else! Beautiful."

http://lix.in/-63b4d2

Here is his famous “Ned Kelly and that Gang”

Peter Bellamy - Merlin's Isle of Gramarye (1972)

2009-11-24T19:10:00.003+01:00

Peter Bellamy, vocals, guitar [7], flints [8], concertina [13];
Nic Jones, fiddle [1, 3, 6, 10, 12, 14], chorus vocals [8, 15];
Chris Birch, harmony vocals [2], bass harmony [9], violin [9];
Anthea Bellamy, harmony vocals [2];
Dik Cadbury, counter-tenor [5, 9];
Peter Hall, lute [5];
Dolly Collins, portative organ [5, 9];
Dave Arthur, bodhrán [7];
Mike Edmonds, Fred Woods, chorus vocals [8, 15];

Recorded at Decca Studios, London, June 1972 by Iain Churches;

All song lyrics by Rudyard Kipling from Puck of Pook’s Hill or Rewards and Fairies. All tunes Peter Bellamy, apart from those asterisked, which are traditional tunes arranged by Bellamy.

Peter Bellamy's second album of settings of Rudyard Kipling's verse, 1972's Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, is entirely based on Kipling's two children's books, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. These books are Kipling at his most playful, and Bellamy rises to the occasion with a puckish set of original tunes based on traditional British folk forms. Unlike the more spartan Oak, Ash and Thorn, Bellamy's first collection of Kipling settings, Merlin's Isle of Gramarye makes use of the talents of a wide variety of British folk luminaries, including Nic Jones, Dolly Collins, and Chris Birch, who add vocal and instrumental accompaniment to Bellamy's richly nuanced vocals. Among the highlights are the wry "Smugglers Song" and two of Kipling's portraits of military life, "The Queen's Men" and "Eddis Service," each given multi-layered performances that match the levels of irony in Kipling's verses.

Bellamy was one of the English folk revival's greatest voices. He was born in Norfolk in 1944. In the early days of 1965 he moved to London, where he met up with Royston Wood and Heather Wood, and the three got a regular gig at a club whose name they would eventually adopt -- The Young Tradition. In flamboyant costumes, with witty presentation, and with the startling power of Bellamy's voice backed by his companions, they entertained a lot of audiences, recorded a pair of albums, gained a reputation for excellence, and were still unable to make a living as performers. So, in 1969, they broke up. As Bellamy would later point out, they became important and influential, even legendary, after they had ceased to exist.

In 1970 the idea first struck Bellamy to set the poems of Kipling to music. This fascination with Kipling continued until Bellamy's death, resulting in no fewer than five albums of Kipling songs. Also in the '70s, Bellamy composed The Transports, a ballad opera in the mold of Ewan MacColl's work, and recruited such people as Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, A. L. Lloyd, and Cyril Tawney to record it. It was released as an album in 1977 and also had several stage runs in England. During the '70s and '80s, Bellamy was trying to find an audience wider than the traditional folk crowd, so he cut back on the traditional songs in his shows, turning them into multimedia historical presentations. But traditional singing was in Bellamy's blood, and the beginning of the '90s found him back to performing mostly a traditional repertoire once again, with the exuberant enthusiasm he has always been known for. Bellamy felt there was a lack of appreciation for the music to which he had devoted his life. More than once he has commented on how countless performers have ditched traditional music for other forms of "folk" music. Some, he felt, did it for money, something he no doubt understood but regretted. More often, though, he expressed regret that interest in traditional song was simply on the wane, not only with audiences, but with performers as well. He always acknowledged that his own unwillingness or perhaps his inability to compromise had led to the demise of The Young Tradition. Perhaps, some 22 years later, it helped lead to his own; in September 1991, Peter Bellamy took his own life.

http://lix.in/-5f09cf

The Young Tradition - Chicken on a Raft (EP 1967)

2009-11-23T18:22:00.003+01:00

The Young Tradition - Chicken on a Raft (EP 1967)
Transatlantic TRA EP 166 (EP, UK, 1967)

The Young Tradition were a British folk group of the 1960s, formed by Peter Bellamy, Royston Wood and Heather Wood (not related to each other !). They recorded three albums of mainly traditional British folk music sung in arrangements for their three mainly unaccompanied voices.

The Young Tradition apparently was formed by chance when Peter Bellamy and Royston Wood met when they were camping on a friend’s floor, and started making harmonies together. Heather Wood (no relation to Royston) ran into them at a folk club and just joined in from the audience. Their harmonies, owe much to the Copper Family, but also came from their other musical loves. For Royston, it was classical music. For Heather, it was the Everly Brothers and years of school and church choirs.

They released three LP’s and one EP : here is my EP

http://lix.in/-637abc

Donovan - The Summer Day Reflection Song / Donna Donna

2009-11-21T18:24:00.006+01:00

Here are two wonderful French EP’s from my hero Donovan

The first one – Summer day Reflection Song – has songs mostly from the “Fairytale” LP

This EP contains some great songs such as To Try For The Sun and the Ballad Of Geraldine (sung in the first person). Shawn Phillips plays guitar on some of the tracks.

This is Donovan at his very best, not the pale imitation of Bob Dylan, but Poetry set on Music.

I love it.

The second one is the famous Donna Donna EP

Enjoy this glimpse into the past

http://lix.in/-6939c4 and http://lix.in/-5e8b67

The Seekers (1965)

2009-11-21T18:17:00.001+01:00

The Seekers were a group of Australian folk-influenced musicians formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve significant chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States.

They were : Judith Durham: lead vocals, tambourine , Athol Guy: double bass, vocals , Keith Potger: twelve string guitar, banjo, vocals and Bruce Woodley: guitar, mandolin, banjo, vocals

They had nine hits in Britain and Australia in the 1960s: "I'll Never Find Another You", "A World of Our Own", "The Carnival Is Over" (which The Seekers have sung at various closing ceremonies in Australia, including the Paralympics), "Someday One Day", "Walk With Me", "Morningtown Ride", "Georgy Girl" (the title song of the film of the same name), "When Will the Good Apples Fall" and "Emerald City".

This is their EP from 1965

http://lix.in/-5b7de9

Alan Lomax and the Ramblers (1956)

2009-11-21T18:08:00.004+01:00

Alan Lomax, vocals, guitar;
Ewan MacColl, vocals;
Peggy Seeger, banjo, vocals;
Shirley Collins, backing vocals [3];
Sandy Brown, clarinet;
John Cole, harmonica;
Bryan Daley, guitar;
Jim Bray, bass;
Alan Sutton, washboard

Recorded August 2, 1956 in London :

Track 1 Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Lomax;
Track 2 Alan Lomax;
Track 3 Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger
Track 4 Ewan MacColl and the Ramblers

This is one of the most sought after EP’s of all time : Alan Lomax and the Ramblers, a group that didn’t even exist.
The Ramblers were none else than the soulmates of Alan Lomax who accompanied him on a field trip through Europe and the Southern States of the US.

Here is the EP http://lix.in/-662c0a

Ewan MacColl – The songs of Robert Burns (1959)

2009-11-19T14:19:00.002+01:00

Robert Burns was born at Alloway, near Ayr, on January 25, 1759. His father William was a gardener to the Provost of Ayr. Robert was educated briefly at John Murdoch's school in Alloway and later in Ayr.

Family financial worries forced Burns to work as a farm labourer, and it was while thus occupied that he met his first love, Nelly Kirkpatrick. She inspired him to try his hand at poetry, a song entitled "O, once I lov'd a bonnie lass", set to the tune of a traditional reel.

Burns worked at a succession of labouring jobs, including flax dressing, and began writing poetry regularly. When his father died in 1784, Burns and his brother Gilbert rented a farm near Mauchline.

Burns spread his affections freely, and the next decade saw 8 illegitimate children born to him through 5 different women. One of these, Jean Armour, became Mrs. Burns in 1788.

The first published work of poetry by Robert Burns was "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" which saw the light of day on 31 July 1786. This collection of verse contained many of Burn's best works, including "To a Mouse", and "The Holy Fair".

The success of "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" convinced Burns to abandon plans to emigrate to Jamaica. Buoyed by his burgeoning reputation as an unschooled "ploughman poet", Burns moved to Edinburgh and became part of the thriving cultural scene there.

He was unable to find a patron to support his writing, but publisher James Johnson gave him work editing a collection of Scottish folk songs. This work, titled "The Scots Musical Museum", was published in 5 volumes over sixteen years. Burns himself contributed over 150 songs, including "Auld Lang Syne", a reworking of an earlier folk song of unknown origin.

Burns and his wife Jean moved to Mauchline, where in 1790 he produced "Tam o' Shanter", which was first published merely as an accompaniment to an illustration of Alloway Kirk, in a volume of "Antiquities of Scotland". The growing Burns family moved again, this time to Dumfries.

Burns contributed 114 songs to "A Select Collection Of Scottish Airs" by George Thomson, but he received very little payment for his efforts. In 1795, Burns was inspired by the events of the French Revolution to write "For a' that and a' that", his cry for human equality.

One year later, on July 21, 1796, Burns was dead of rheumatic fever. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Michael's in Dumfries, even as his wife Jean was in childbirth with their ninth child.

Robert Burns gained more fame after his death than he ever did during his lifetime. Many of his songs and poems have become international favourites - even among those who find his use of Scottish lowland dialect difficult to decipher.

In 1959 Ewan MacColl recorded for Folkways a beautiful selection of “Rabbie” Burns songs.

http://lix.in/-5cb426

A tribute to the great Scott.

Pierre Bensusan – Près de Paris (1974)

2009-11-19T13:56:00.004+01:00

Pierre Bensusan (born October 30, 1957) is a French-Algerian guitarist. As a sephardic Jew, his family came from Spain, Spanish Morocco and French Algeria. The genre of his acoustic guitar music is often characterized as Celtic, Folk, World music, New Age, or Chamber jazz. He has also published three books of music and tablature

Born in 1957 in Oran, French Algeria, he moved to Paris with his family when he was four years old. He took up the piano at the age of seven and, at the age of eleven, began to teach himself guitar. He signed the contract for his first album, Près de Paris, when he was just seventeen; it was released one year later, winning him the Grand Prix du Disque at the Montreux Festival. His many influences include Larry Carlton, Django Reinhardt, Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, Ry Cooder, Big Bill Broonzy, Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Ralph Towner, Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny and Paco de Lucía.

Pierre Bensusan has a reputation as something of an innovator in the field of solo acoustic guitar, including his use of the DADGAD tuning system, and his experimentation with electronics such as delays, distortions and volume pedals, which have been largely abandoned on recent tours. Stylistically, his playing exhibits remarkable dynamics and tone control, usually to be found only in the playing of high-profile classical guitarists.

The sophisticated, highly syncopated bass lines incorporated into his counterpoint arrangements also set him apart from the main host of contemporary fingerstyle players.

His unique style of scat-singing more than makes up in warmth, inventiveness and charm what it lacks in technical ability and he has continued to work this semi-improvised style into his compositions, both pre-composed and improvised. He has collaborated extensively with saxophonist Didier Malherbe, but today his tours are largely solo. He also performed the song "ELM" for the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack Cowboy Bebop No Disc for Yoko Kanno.

In 2001 he released Intuite, his first new studio recording in eight years and his first totally acoustic one. It won him critical acclaim and was followed up with Altiplanos in 2005 (see below for full discography). He continues to write and tour, playing occasional gigs with French wind maestro Didier Malherbe, as well as holding guitar workshops and writing guitar books. Often referred to as the "Mozart of Guitar," Bensusan is considered a virtuoso player by other virtuosos, including Michael Hedges, who wrote a piece for Bensusan. After Hedges' death, Bensusan wrote and recorded the song "So Long Michael" in tribute to Hedges' own masterful work as a virtuoso player.

http://lix.in/-6454dd

Here is his first album : Près de Paris

Backwoods Blues (1926 - 1935)

2009-11-18T14:03:00.001+01:00

This album contains the complete recordings of Bo Weavil Jackson, which is reason enough to get this great album. Not much is known about Bo Weavil. In fact, we don't even know his real name. However, he produced some of the greatest acoustic country blues that I've ever heard. Eleven out of the thirteen of his complete recordings range from great to masterpiece. Only "...Kingdom Land" and "Why Do You Moan?" are average songs.

Bo Weavil Jackson was a shadowy figure whose name may have been Sam Butler or James Butler or was it James Jackson?. He was a street singer from Birmingham, AL who was discovered by local talent scout Harry Charles. Jackson cut six sides for Paramount circa August 1926 and six sides for Vocalion in September 1926 where he recorded as Sam Butler. His material was a mix of blues and gospel and he was one of the first slide players to record.

Bobby Grant's "Nappy Head Blues" is an essential piece of pre-war blues music. His two recorded sides are excellent, if only slightly less tantalizing than Jackson's best work.

King Solomon Hill manages to be the most bizarre entry on this disc, with his two versions of "Whoopee Blues" sounding like two completely different singers sang them. In fact he, one in high and eerie falsetto, sang them both. His other recordings are also strong, though "Whoopee Blues" is probably his most distinct.

Lane Hardin has a nice and clear voice, and some pretty guitar work. King Solomon Hill's second take of his "Whoopee Blues" is quite awesome.

http://lix.in/-65b63a

George "Little Hat" Jones (1899 - 1981)

2009-11-15T11:40:00.004+01:00

George "Little Hat" Jones was born October 5, 1899, in Bowie County, TX.
He was a well-known street singer in San Antonio in the mid-'20s, and made his first recordings there on June 15, 1929, when he cut "New Two Sixteen Blues" and "Two String Blues" for OKeh Records.

At the same session he sat in on guitar for an additional nine tracks by Texas Alexander. OKeh brought Jones back six days later to record four more tunes, which included "Rolled from Side to Side Blues," "Hurry Blues," "Little Hat Blues," and "Corpus Blues," and again a year later, on June 14, 1930, when he tracked "Kentucky Blues" (a wonderfully re-imagined version of "Lost John"), "Bye Bye Baby Blues," "Cross the Water Blues," and "Cherry Street Blues."
For whatever reason, Jones never recorded again, leaving behind a legacy of ten songs, plus nine more as a sideman for Texas Alexander.

He died in Naples, TX, in 1981. Little Hat Jones' trademark style of starting songs uptempo on guitar, only to slow down when he began singing, was oddly endearing, and he managed, either by accident or design, to turn what would be a distinct handicap for most musicians into a signature and an asset. One of his best songs, "Bye Bye Baby Blues," featured prominently in the soundtrack to the movie Ghost World in 2001.

What we know about Jones stems from the 1960’s when Thomas Craig interviewed Jones in 1962 and subsequently wrote a short article about him for the Texas Monitor for whom he worked as a reporter. Craig interviewed Jones later that year with the tape eventually ending up in the possession of Roy Book Binder. The contents of which were never transcribed or published. Knowledge of its existence came to light during a conversation between Robert Tilling and Book Binder in the 1970’s.

In 1998 Tilling wrote an article about Jones titled Long Gone And Got Away Lucky in the British Blues & Rhythm magazine. The following is gleaned from Tilling’s article.

Little Hat was born in Bowie County, Texas in 1899. He earned his nickname while working construction in Garland, Texas. He states that he had a hat that he wore to work that had about half the brim cut off and the boss man started calling him “Little Hat”, even making out his pay checks to “Little Hat” Jones. In addition to his documented sessions Jones also claims Okeh Records called him to New York, but there is no record of further recordings. During the interview, he states that he played with T. Texas Tyler and with Jimmie Rodgers. On the interview tape Jones plays a version of Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train.” He also stated that he played in New Orleans, Galveston, Austin, and on one occasion went down to Mexico to play. By 1937 Jones was settled in Naples, married to Janie Traylor, his second wife. Of his work, he stated “I farmed a little bit, worked in the State Department some, railroads, sawmills, big chicken ranch, from that to janitor, working at old folks homes.” His obituary states that he worked for many years at Red River Army Depot. Jones died in March 1981 at the Linden Municipal Hospital, and is buried in the Morning Star cemetery in Naples.

I owe a lot of thanks to sundayblues.org (Big Road Blues) Thanks a lot for this enthralling time travel your offer us day after day.

Here are the ten sides he recorded as a solo artist
1 Bye Bye Baby Blues
2 Cherry Street Blues
3 Corpus Blues
4 Cross The Water Blues
5 Hurry Blues
6 Kentucky Blues
7 Little Hat Blues
8 New Two Sixteen Blues
9 Rolled From Side To Side Blues
10 Two String Blues

http://lix.in/-5f0598

Music from the Lost Provinces

2009-11-10T11:43:00.008+01:00

Old-Time String Bands from Ashe County North Carolina, 1927 - 31

Here’s an outstanding collection of 22 songs and tunes first recorded between 1927-1931 by string bands from Ashe County, North Carolina, a mountainous area in the northwest corner of the state once known as “The Lost Provinces” because of its extreme isolation.

The music includes traditional fiddle tunes, folk songs, Anglo-Irish ballads, comic songs, topical numbers and original compositions, all from the time period often called the “golden era” of old-time string music.

The anthology brings together for the first time the complete recordings of Frank Blevins & His Tar Heel Rattlers, the Carolina Night Hawks, the North Carolina Ridge Runners, and many more.

For whatever reason, the so-called "Lost Provinces" of North Carolina--Ashe, Watauga, and Alleghany Counties--were a breeding ground for fantastic string bands in the late '20s. Maybe it was the isolated and tough nature of the region that inspired folks to turn to music. Or perhaps all those enterprising record companies were eager to sign old-time musicians.

During the 1920s, phonograph companies began to develop markets for country music, and no region was deemed too remote for talent scouts. Between 1927 and 1931, musicians from the Lost Provinces were recruited to make records at various locations in the South where record companies had established provisional studios. Many of these musicians were of the younger generation, some still teenagers, and eager to try out the new medium. Even so, much of their music possessed an introspective, brooding quality that lingered from the years of isolation that had long characterized the Lost Provinces. It was a time when the old and the new combined to produce a unique sound, and today we are fortunate that this music was captured on disc.

Whatever the case, the talent on this anthology of vintage 78 records is astounding and, at times, surprising. Is it possible, for instance, to listen to the Woodie Brothers sing "Likes Likker Better Than Me"--a woman's lament for her alcoholic love interest--with a straight face? Probably not. And why the heck did Jack Reedy & His Walker Mountain String Band use a Hawaiian guitar for the intro to "Chinese Breakdown"? Don't worry, there's also plenty of straightforward and memorable string band music here from the likes of Grayson & Whitter, Frank Blevins, the Smyth County Ramblers, and more. Throughout, you'll hear incredible old-time guitar, fiddle, and (thanks to Jack Reedy) banjo playing on a thoroughly engaging collection of laments, traditional tunes, and at least one presidential campaign number ("Governor Al Smith For President").

http://lix.in/-5af24e

Harry Cox (1885 - 1971)

2009-11-10T11:25:00.005+01:00

Harry Cox is, simply, the most important and the finest among the great English traditional singers.

Harry Cox was a lifelong farm laborer and folk singer from a small village in North Norfolk. Born in 1885, he achieved regional fame as a performer early in his life, after being discovered by the English composer E.J. Moeran in the '20s, but it was not until after World War II that his recordings would bring him broader recognition.

The boom in documentation of folk music that was inspired by Alan Lomax and his ilk in the '50s brought about a new appreciation of the traditional music of the British Isles, and Cox won respect as one of the best preservers of that tradition. Blessed with a rich, deep singing voice and a love for music, he would make several recordings and exert a great influence the next wave of British folk musicians -- '60s bands like the Fairport Convention. His death in 1971 brought about the end of a career that spanned more than 50 years.

The rustic English idiom is a long way from Ireland, but with its wavering notes and a meandering rhythm which coils and uncoils without the restraint of percussion, I find in Harry Cox's singing style some justification for a more melismatic approach to English folk singing.

Harry was born in Barton Turf near Great Yarmouth and was a veritable juke box of old songs including broadside ballads like 'The Female Drummer', 'Two Jolly Butchers' and 'Betsy the Serving Maid, Child ballads like 'Bold Archer' and 'Georgie' ('Geordie'), and comical ditties like 'I had an old Hoss' and 'A Happy Family'.

The popular 'Irish' folk song, 'The Black Velvet Band' was also a Harry Cox first, and Steve Roud's notes tell us that the earliest versions of this song were not set in Belfast at all, but in Barking in Essex, England. Roud also dispels the Gnostic Christian claims made by Lucy Broadwood for the 'Bold Fisherman'.

The survival of these beautiful modal tunes in a general musical environment so wholly dominated by the modern musical scales, is quite surprising. But Harry was not only one of the last links with the tradition of oral transmission but with pre-industrial England and its culture.

http://lix.in/-629337 and http://lix.in/-5c78bd

FOLQUE (1974)

2009-11-08T18:58:00.003+01:00

Pioneered by British groups such as Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Steeleye Span, the folk-rock movement was blooming in the early seventies. Not surprisingly, this also inspired musicians in the rest of Europe to examine their own heritage of traditional folk music. The most important contributors to this genre in Norway were a group appropriately named Folque.

They formed in Oslo in 1972 with the aim of making a Norwegian form of folk-rock, using guitars and banjos instead of the traditional treatment with Hardanger fiddle or solo vocals. Their first album, ‘Folque’ (1974), also included adaptations of two Scottish folk songs (among them "Allison Gross" in a similar arrangement to the 1973 Steeleye Span version, although with Norwegian lyrics), but for the future they stuck to Scandinavian material. For this reason, ‘Kjempene På Dovrefjell’ (1975) and ‘Vardøger’ (1977) are usually considered their best albums, offering great insight into Norwegian folklore, i.e. medieval ballads, old Norse poems set to music, fiddle instrumentals and traditional dance music. Their musical ability is impeccable, highlighting fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer and electric guitars. The arrangements always function well, meaning that the bass and drums do not disturb the original rhythm and rhymes. On top of this, Lisa Helljesen had a clear and strong voice (a bit similar to Maddy Prior in Steeleye Span and Mandy Morton in The Spriguns), perfectly suitable to the music. There is no better starting place than ‘Vardøger’, where their own blend of folk-rock was fully developed.

After some personnel changes, Folque signed to the political left-wing label Mai after their Philips contract expired. Jørn Jensen and Trond Villa were later involved in Kong Lavring and the group Folk & Rackare (along with Swedish musicians). ‘Dans, Dans Olav Liljekrans’ (1978) revealed the new line-up to be as musically competent as the previous one, but the new female vocalist Jenn E. Mortensen had a rougher voice (and a strong North-Norwegian regional accent) that might be disturbing to those who dislike her more aggressive attitude (less suitable to Folque's music, in my opinion). ‘Fredløs’ was a transitional record with a wider musical span than their previous records. Their last two original albums contained increasing numbers of self-penned compositions, ‘Sort Messe’ (1982) being dominated by the competent songwriting of Morten Bing.Folque were undoubtedly the most influential Norwegian folk-rock band and among the best in Europe, on a par with Malicorne in France or Ougenweide in Germany.
Highly recommended to fans of MALICORNE, The POGUES, KEBNEKAISE and GRYPHON as well as those heavily into Nordic and Irish folk.

This is their first album (1974)

http://lix.in/-5aaf6e

Said Chraibi - La Clef de Grenade (The Key to Grenada)

2009-11-08T10:18:00.004+01:00

Said Chraibi was born in Marrakech in Morocco. He began playing the oud at the age of 13, and later studied with Farid el-Atrache. He is renowned as an accompanyist of Arab singers, as well as a solo artist in his own right.

This is a series of compositions and improvisations influenced by the music of Andalusia, although the paticular maqamat chosen for these pieces are of both Arabic and Turkish origin. Chraibi is accompanied by Jamal Rioui on percussion for this recording.

1. Andaloussiyyat 13:02
a) Khayalat fi Qalbi (Silhouettes in my Heart) maqam raml el maya
b) The Key to Granada maqam hijaz kabir
c) Arab-Andalusian Lute maqam hijaz kabir
2. Al-'Ashiq (The Lover) maqam ushaq 6:23
3. Musical Embroidery maqam tarz nawin 11:30
4. Fadela maqam tarz nawin 11:22
5. Tribute to my Master maqam nahawand 4:42
6. Chaama maqam nahawand 4:25
7. Longa Hajar maqam choukfaza 9:16

There is not much to say about pure beauty, just sit back and…… breathe.

http://lix.in/-66d4c2

Shirley Collins - Heroes in Love (1963)

2009-11-08T09:50:00.001+01:00

Recorded by Bill Leader in London, 1963
Shirley Collins, vocals, 5-string banjo [1, 4], mountain dulcimer [2], guitar [3]

Shirley Collins was a pivotal figure in the English folk revival movement. Collins' pure voice lent itself to interpret old English songs in a mesmerizing tone, as proven by her early albums Sweet England (Argo, 1959) and False True Lovers (Folkways, 1960), and countless EPs.

Her third full-length album, Folk Roots New Routes (Decca, 1964), a collaboration with guitarist Davy Graham, marked a bold departure for the folk movement, as Collins embraced jazz. Accompanied by sister Dolly on piano (as opposed to the guitar, the instrument of choice at the time), Shirley Collins returned to traditional material on The Sweet Primeroses (Topic, 1967), trying to capitalize on the boom of the folk revival.

However, her creative peak was reached with The Power Of The True Love Knot (Polydor, 1968), that featured Mike Heron and Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band, and with the concept album Anthems In Eden (Harvest, 1969). The latter was arranged in an almost orchestral fashion, but using ancient instruments.

After Love Death & The Lady (Harvest, 1970), whose songs sound like classical leaders, Collins put together the Albion Country Band by assembling 25 of the most respected folk-rock musicians of the time, and released No Roses (Pegasus, 1971). That experience was continued on the vastly inferior The Prospect Before Us (1977), credited to the Albion Dance Band.
Shirley Collins closed her career with the relatively conventional collections of A Favourite Garland (Deram, 1974), Adieu To Old England (Topic, 1975), Amaranth (Harvest, 1976).

Here is her third EP for TOPIC in 1963

http://lix.in/-5a9efc

RY COODER (1970)

2009-11-04T16:29:00.003+01:00

I have nearly all of Ry Cooder's 30 or so albums, and this one is still my favourite. Ry was already a musician’s star before he made this first album under his own name.

Ry Cooder delivers a great album that shows that not only is he a far better guitarist than Eric Clapton, his taste and knowledge in music is much better and mature than Clapton's.

It's a living museum of very old blues songs, with a few more modern ones thrown in. I found myself learning all the lyrics, and playing these wonderful tunes.

Although Ry Cooder refers to Randy Newman about "My Old Kentucky Home" I also included the possible oldest recording of that song.

Here are the original tunes to that record.

The only original by Ry Cooder is the wonderful instrumental ‘Available Space” . To be complete, I included this tune.

Enjoy this wonderful glimpse into the past.

A1Tommy Tucker - Alimony
A2 Joe Callicot - France Chance
A3 Josh White - One Meat Ball
A4 Woody Guthrie - Do-Re-Mi
A5 Edward Favor - - My Old Kentucky Home ( 1897)
A5 Randy Newman - Old Kentucky Home
A6 Blind Alfred Reed - How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Hard Times And Live
B1 Ry Cooder - Available Space
B2 Leadbelly - Pigmeat
B3 Blind Blake - Police Dog Blues
B4 Sleepy John Estes - The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair
B5 Blind Willie Johnson - Dark was the night, cold was the ground

http://lix.in/-64aeb7

Les Troubadours - Le vent et la Jeunesse (1967)

2009-11-03T12:58:00.007+01:00

Les Troubadours were a French-Canadian-Italian group with singer Franca di Rienzo. (She represented Switzerland in the Eurovision Contest 1961

Christian Chevallier, who wrote “Le vent et la Jeunessse” was a French bandleader, arranger and piano player; film composer in the first place

“La Chaine” is Albert Hammonds “I’m a Train”

Written late 1966 by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood. First however recorded by Les Troubadours as “La Chaine” with French lyrics by Pierre Alain Dousset, almost a full year ahead of the first English version by Colours of Love

Albert Hammond : “I’m a Train I think was written in 1956 or 66, something like that, and we lived in England and caught trains all the time you know, so we wrote a song about a train. I remember the record well, I still have a vinyl copy of it, I remember being excited to hear one of my songs, maybe the first recorded in French and in those days I thought they did a good job, I still think its a good record”

“Le vent et la Jeunesse” was recorded for « le prix de la rose de France », a songcontest where this song was number one.

Les Troubadours were a really good group at that time. They lasted for about three years and then disintegrated.

Don Burke, the Canadian of the group, continued as a singer songwriter folkie.

I loved this group very much. They made four LP’s and a number of EP’s. None of these survived in the digital world.

A True Shame.

http://lix.in/-59df12

Here’s my EP from 1967.

June Tabor – Airs and Graces (1976)

2009-11-03T10:44:00.005+01:00

June Tabor – Airs and Graces (1976)

June Tabor: vocals

Nic Jones: acoustic guitar, fiddle

Tony Hall: melodeon

Jon Gillespie: piano, organ, roxichord, bassoon, sopranino

How could I NOT speak of June Tabor ?

June Tabor (born 31 December 1947 in Warwick, England) was inspired to sing by hearing Anne Briggs' EP Hazards of Love in 1965.

"I went and locked myself in the bathroom for a fortnight and drove my mother mad. I learned the songs on that EP note for note, twiddle for twiddle. That's how I started singing. If I hadn't heard her I'd have probably done something entirely different."

Remarking on how she developed her now-characteristic style in an interview in 2008, she added,

"I have no musical education whatsoever...I just learned the songs and copied the phrasing by playing those records ad nauseam, trying out both [Anne Briggs and Belle Stewart] singers' styles. Then I tried putting the two together, and missing a few bits out - and that's approximately what I've been doing ever since. It's also why I don't do singing workshops, because that's about as much as I can tell anyone."

Her earliest public performances were at the Heart of England Folk Club, in the Fox and Vivian pub in Leamington Spa in the mid 1960s.

She attended St Hugh's College, Oxford University and appeared on University Challenge in 1968, as captain of the college team. She joined the Heritage Society at Oxford University and sang with a group called Mistral. One of her earliest recordings was in 1972 on an anthology called Stagfolk Live. Her breakthrough occurred in 1976 when she recorded the album Silly Sisters with Maddy Prior. Shortly thereafter in the same year, she recorded her solo debut, Airs and Graces.

Here is June Tabor's debut album and in many ways, hard to top. She's defined her style here: lush vocalization with ascetic arrangements.

June Tabor has been an admirably adventurous interpreter of songs traditional, and otherwise, for three decades. Looking back over her career "Airs and Graces" remains its high water mark. Nowhere did her sumptuous dark tone feel more moving and less monotonous than on this collection. She performs a number of familiar and less familiar traditional tunes with, on this disc, not only her trademark sense of purposeful gravity but a lightening grace of effort.

Her interpretive surety here even manages to breathe new drama in an old chestnut like "Waltzing Matilda." One track that remains, listen after listen, transcendent for me is "Pull Down Lads."

In a deceptively simple reading of a tale that is ostensibly about the dismantling of a country carnival, Tabor manages to transmit a haunting and profound meditation on death, love and leave-taking.

http://lix.in/-6612b2

Shirley Collins - “False True Lovers” (1959)

2009-11-03T10:06:00.008+01:00

Recorded by Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy in Peter Kennedy's house in Belsize Park, London, in 1958 in a two-day session;

Shirley Collins, vocals, 5-string banjo;John Hasted, 5-string banjo;Ralph Rinzler, guitar;Guy Carawan, guitar

One of the key voices in British folk “False True Lovers” was Shirley Collins debut album. Recorded in 1958 for Smithsonian Folkways when Collins (who had just spent time collecting field recordings with the legendary Alan Lomax all around the American South) was just 23.

This album, a collection of a cappella British and Irish folk songs helped paved the way for the British folk revival of the 1960s, when Collins - by this time married to Ashley Hutchings - helped introduce bands like Pentangle, Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span to more traditional fare.

A true masterpiece !

From the Original sleevenotes by Alan Lomax:

"1 I Drew My Ship Trad arr J Stokoe & S Collins

I Drew My Ship was collected by John Stokoe in ‘Songs & Ballads of Northern England’ with no source mentioned. Though it is similar in form and content to many other aubades or dawn serenades, we have not been able to find another song to which this is precisely akin. The listener who cares to compare the recorded version with that published by Stokoe will see how Miss Collins has breathed life back into the print and made something lovely and alive out of an unimpressive folk fragment.

2 The Irish Boy Trad arr S Collins

Though we have found nothing quite like it in print, this song is clearly a fragment of one of the many ballads of Irish immigration so common in the 19th century. The tune resembles Margaret Barry’s Mantle So Green’, but the song is a folk creation by Shirley Collins.

3 The Spermwhale Fishery Trad arr A L Lloyd

The Spermwhale Fishery is a variant of the widely-sung broadside ballad, ‘The Lowlands of Holland’, which was published in 1776 in Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs’ as well as in the Roxburghe broadside collection. A L Lloyd printed this Lancashire variant in The Singing Englishman’ and it is surely one of the most beautiful of the love songs of the sea.

4 Dennis O’Reilly Trad arr E Waters & S Collins

Dennis O’Reilly is an instance of the speed with which folk songs are travelling nowadays. It began its life as one of the many songs of the Irish immigrants to Australia. Mister Goodwin of Leichhardt, New South Wales, picked it up on the Nambucca River of NSW and, when he was 73 sang it for Cecil English and John Meredith. From them it passed into the repertoire of Edgar Waters, the Australian ballad collector, who brought it to England and taught it to Shirley Collins. My guess is that from her record it will pass into the repertoire of the young folk singers on this continent.

5 My Bonny Miner Lad Cosgrove-Lloyd

Anyone who knows the books and records of Ewan MacColl and A L Lloyd realises that folk-song making did not cease with the advent of the industrial revolution in Great Britain. The country people, reworked their traditional songs or composed new pieces to tell of their struggles and to celebrate their grimy-handed heroes. Some of those industrial ballads have been in circulation for more than a century, have been varied in the traditional folk manner, and rank with the best of the British song tradition. The oldest and most productive of these industrial folk traditions is that of the miners, of which A L Lloyd has made a superlative collection. One of his informants was the Scots miner’s wife, daughter of several generations of miners, Mrs Cosgrove of Keltingrove in the Lowlands of Scotland. I had the pleasure on one occasion of hearing Mrs Cosgrove singing in her own house, as she fixed a midnight snack for her men-folks who were going down on the night shift, and told stories of mining disasters and strikes. I can testify that her style and her point of view are those of a true folk singer. This song has been collected in another form among the coal miners of Nova Scotia.

6 Just As The Tide Was Flowing Trad arr S Collins

A fragment of a folky ballad, almost certainly of literary origin, found in various parts of England by Sharp, Kidson and Collinson, learned by Miss Collins from her mother’s sister, Grace Winborn of Hastings in Sussex.

7 Bobby Shaftoe Trad arr S Collins

One of the best known British folk songs, is here sung with vigour and snap as it was when John Stokoe found it in Northern England. In the North the tune has been played for country dancing. What one usually hears is a sentimentalised, slowed-down reworking of the song.from which all the Northern dialect has been deleted, along with the child which the girl friend is carrying against Bobby Shaftoe’s return.

8 Richie Story (or The Earl of Weymss) Trad arr MacColl

Richie Story is a rare ballad published by Child as No. 232 of his collection ‘English and Scottish Popular Ballads’. According to his note, the ballad is based in history. Lillias Fleming, daughter of John, third Earl of Wigton, ran away with and married one of her father”s servants, Richard Storry, and in 1673 she resigned her portion of the family land. In all but one of the Child versions, Lillias seems satisfied with the choice she has made, but in that one Richard turns out to be an Earl in disguise. The present variant comes from Ewan MacColl, who learned it from his Scots father and from Hughie Graham of Newton Stuart, Galloway, and added supplementary text from a variant in Gavin Greig’s collection. Here, where romanticism has a field day, we discover that Richard is really the King of England!

9 The Unquiet Grave Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs’. This is one of the classic pieces of English folk song literature. From one point of view it is a feminine fantasy or a wish, perhaps for the death of a lover, perhaps for a way of arranging a night visit by the lover, perhaps for a way of showing how strong her love is, perhaps of a feeling of guilt. Certainly, it is a ghost story designed to delight the imagination of young women. Finally, it shows the survival of ancient and widely distributed primitive beliefs about the treatment of the dead. The rowdy Irish wake is the only one example of the common folk custom of a gathering in which ceremonial banqueting and games were indulged in to show honour to the dead person. The shade was given a great send-off to the other world. Sometimes guns were fired to send him skittering away in fear. Sometimes a special door was cut in the side of the wall so that the coffin could be taken out by that route; and then this hole was walled up so that the ghost could not find his way back into the house again.
In Scotland and Ireland it was believed that excessive grief prevented the dead from resting; that the tears shed by the mourners pierced holes in the corpse. In Persia they held that the tears shed by humanity for their dead flowed into a river in which the souls floated and drowned. Similar beliefs were held by the Greeks and Romans, and from mediaeval times throughout Germany and Scandinavia.
Sharp says that in England a belief was current that if a girl was betrothed to a man, she was pledged to him if he died, and was bound to follow him to the spirit world unless she solved certain riddles, or performed certain tasks, such as fetching water from a desert, blood from a stone, milk from the breast of a virgin…

1O The Swapping Song Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs for Schools’, is common in England and in America as well.

11 Poor Old Horse Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘Folk Songs of England’, is a landlubber relative of the familiar sea shanty: Say, old man, your horse will die, And I say so and I hope so, And if he dies I’ll sell his skin, Poor old horse.
There can be no doubt that the land-variant, which Sharp found as a part of the hobby-horse drama in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, is older by far. The hobby horse, an important actor in British springtime ceremonies, is a fantastic and sometimes terrifying mask which covers the entire body of the dancer. The horse-dancer goes the round of the community, often on May Day, alternately dying and being revived by his companions, symbolising the death of the old year, and of the fertility of the earth. These spring-time antics of the hobby-horse, which still amuse tourists in certain remote districts of western England, are a genuine survival of ancient pagan fertility rites. That a horse-mask dances in Britain on May Day is one more evidence of the importance of the horse-cult, widespread in all Europe thousands of years ago. Therefore, this charming little comic fragment, which Sharp had taught to all the school children in Britain, is a gentle breath of a pagan fertility rite that once upon a time was a compound of magic, religion, comedy and sex.

12 The False True Love Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, volume II’. The False True Love is one of hundreds of examples showing that the British folk song tradition has grown steadily more lyrical in the past two or three hundred years. As the role of the ballad singer lost its importance, the narrative pieces were broken down into fragmentary lyric songs. This process has been especially marked and rapid in the Southern Appalachian area, from which this song comes.
The original piece is a tragic ballad, called ‘Young Hunting’ (Child 68), probably Scots in origin, but widespread throughout Britain and North America. It tells of a young man who rides by to visit an old sweetheart. When she bids him to light down and spend the night, he says that he prefers his new light of love. Whereupon the jealous girl stabs him, throws his corpse into the well and curses him. The remainder of the ballad consists of a dialogue between the murderess and her little parrot, the sole witness, who insists he will tell all and will not be bribed or threatened into silence.
All that is left of this story in the Tennessee lyric form is the opening bit of dialogue. Moreover, the situation has been so generalised that either part may be taken by a man or a woman, and there is no hint of violence. The song dwells upon the faithlessness of lovers, and the tragic position of the betrayed one, twin themes which are paramount in American erotic folk poetry. In the view of an academic critic such as Louise Pound the shortening of the ballad into the lyric song represents merely a decay in the folk tradition. Perhaps she would not hold to this opinion if she could hear the song as it is actually sung. One can say no more than this; at one time there was a fine ballad and later it gave rise to an equally beautiful lyric piece.

13 The Foggy Dew Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, volume II’, is one of the few of the frankly erotic songs so common in Southern England to survive more or less uncensored in American tradition. Its centre of dispersal seems to have been the Suffolk-Norfolk area, where it still can be heard being roared out in remote country pubs…
And ev-er-y time she cocks her leg,I thinks of the fo–o—ggy de-ew.
This ribald variant has been frequently broadcast over the BBC, which in spite of its occasional stodginess, makes our American radio and television networks seem old-maidish. However, Miss Collins prefers the version that Sharp found in Calloway, Virginia. I quote her : I think that this is the most beautiful version of the song to be found anywhere. To me, it’s the only version that doesn’t have a sneer behind it; it’s truly tender and loving. But James Reeves, the author of ‘The Idiom of the People’, says, “it has a rough coherence, but surely none of the subtlety or the emotional and psychological interest of English versions.” - and “it is an example of the hopeless confusion resulting from evident misunderstanding of traditional symbolism.” However, I’m sure for girls everywhere, the Virginian variant wins hands down…

14 Mowing The Barley Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs’, often called ‘Lawyer Lee’, may be a lyricised variant of ‘The Baffled Knight’, in which a clever girl outwits her would-be seducer and keeps her maidenhead. In this southern English variant, however, the virgin seems to have wearied in the chase. Miss Collins learned the song from her mother, and is not sure whether it derives from Sharp or not.

15 Scarborough Fair Trad arr S Collins

Derived by MacColl from Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs’. Scarborough Fair is a fragment of an extremely ancient ballad (Child No. 2 ‘The Elfin Knight’), common in all areas of Britain and North America. In the original song a girl hears the far-off blast of the elfin’s knight horn and wishes he were in her bedroom. He straightaway appears, but will not consent to be her lover until she answers a series of riddles. This trait of test-by-riddle is a heritage from remote antiquity. The survival of this ancient piece of folklore is assured by the fact that all the couplets in this song contain gentle, but evocative erotic symbols.

16 The Cruel Mother Trad arr E MacColl

Known throughout Great Britain and North America, ‘The Cruel Mother’ reminds us of one of the commonest crimes traditional in our culture - infanticide. In the older forms found in Child (no. 20) the girl kills her three illegitimate babes because she is planning to marry and wishes to appear at her wedding as a virgin. However, one of the children remains alive and begs a passer-by to take him to the wedding, where he denounces his mother. Thereupon, she is carried off to hell.
The present version comes from Ewan MacColl, who learned the tune from his mother, Betsy Miller, completing it from the Greig collection. In common with the women who have treasured this song over the centuries, Miss Collins says, “While I feel very sorry for the murdered babes, my deep sympathy lies with the poor mother.”

17 The Bonny Cuckoo Trad arr S Collins

Published in ‘The Clarendon Song Book’, Oxford University Press, and learnt by the Misses Collins in their school choir in Hastings. ‘The Bonny Cuckoo’ is perhaps the most charming of the many songs which celebrate the cuckoo, the harbinger of Spring and the natural symbol of cuckolds.

18 The Queen Of May Trad arr S Collins

From Cecil Sharp’s ‘English Folk Songs’, tells the second part of the story introduced by ‘My Bonny Cuckoo’. When the cry of the cuckoo echoed through the meadows on the eve of the first of May, the young men and women went out together to gather May blossoms and to make love among the springtime blossoms. So deep-rooted was this pagan fertility practice that Protestant ministers were still unsuccessfully trying to eradicate it late in the 19th century. The feeling still lingers in rural England, especially in the lyric songs. It was a misfortune that prudery was at its height. At the time Cecil Sharp was collecting and publishing, fifty years ago. In order to be able to introduce his folk-song finds into the school system, he was forced to bowderlerize the texts and transform many innocently erotic but extremely beautiful songs into the pallid, sentimental pieces which finally turned many Britons against folk music. This, I feel sure, is one of the songs Sharp had to censor. What really happened that May Day morning under the oak tree was probably not legalised in the original folk version that Sharp collected. Of course, it is not possible for an American to cast stones in regard to censorship, for today American school text book editors behave far more prudishly than did Sharp, and poor Baring-Gould in the worst years of the mauve decade.

19 Died For Love Trad arr S Collins

From ‘Traditional Tunes’ by Frank Kidson. ‘Died For Love’ is perhaps the most beautiful of the many variants of the important British folk song, most familiar to us as ‘The Butcher’s Boy’ or ‘There is a Tavern in the Town’, or in Woody Guthrie’s ‘Hard, Ain’t It Hard’. This Northern English variant points to one of the most important differences between British and American love-songs. Typically in the English love song there is an amorous encounter between a young man and the young woman, and though the girl is often betrayed, she expresses in her song a trace of the real pleasure that she experienced. Even more importantly, she has a baby; and, through her melancholy, there lingers note of procreative joy.
Very frequently in these songs the boy returns to marry her when he discovers that she is about to bear him a child. American singers were more prudish; they censored out the pregnancy theme; and the betrayed girl was left to brood over the transiency of love and sigh for death to heal her heartbreak."

Notes by Alan Lomax, 1959

http://lix.in/-6304f8

Listen and Learn

Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959)

2009-10-29T09:33:00.003+01:00

Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs is an album released by Marty Robbins on the Columbia Records label in September 1959, peaking at #6 on the U.S. pop albums chart. It was recorded on April 7, 1959

It is perhaps best known for Robbins' most successful single, "El Paso", a major hit on both the country and pop music charts. It reached #1 in both charts at the start of 1960 and won the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording that same year.

A lonely Westerner in Nashville, Marty Robbins salved his soul by cutting an album (in one afternoon) of mostly self-composed cowboy ballads. One of them was a four-and-a-half-minute epic, "El Paso," that broke every rule of Top 40 programming to become a No. 1 pop and country hit in 1960. Robbins was arguably the most surefooted and accomplished singer in all country music, and that was never more obvious than on these Western ballads performed to often breathtaking perfection with a very small group and a vocal trio.

This still has to be one of the best country albums ever released. "Big Iron" is a campfire story you'll hear more than once with a guitar accompanying, and one you'll find yourself singing along with, while the love ballad "They're Hanging Me Tonight" will have you sitting down and tears as you feel every word sung. Of course, "Billy The Kid," will have you daydreaming and imagining life in the Old West as Marty Robbins's storytelling voice clearly depicts the legend of Billy the Kid.

"The Strawberry Roan," "Running Gun," and "In The Valley" will all have you singing along as Marty's smooth voice and kind-hearted guitar trickle through your body and warm you up from the inside out. But, don't pass up on "El Paso," both the single and the full-length version. The love ballad will have you falling in love with the music, Marty Robbins, and the characters that are portrayed in the song all over again (or for the first time). Bonus cuts "The Hanging Tree" and "Saddle Tramp," not to mention "El Paso (full-length version)," offer up something not found on the original, making this re-release that much more treasure-able.

Country music has gone down the tubes as of late. It isn't soulful, it isn't blue collar, and it isn't pure. It's corporate pop music with a Nashville feel that is passed off as country. But, if everyone owned this album and listened to it daily, reminding themselves why country music was original loved in the first place, then they could never get away with it.

Here is country music like it was meant to be.

http://lix.in/-5f4ae6

Ed Bell (1905 – 1966)

2009-10-28T09:54:00.004+01:00

Ed Bell, a singer/guitarist from Atlanta, lived until 1966 but made all of his recordings during 1927 and 1929-1930. One of his best sessions was cut one day in September 1927, a solo date resulting in four memorable lowdown blues.

Ed Bell grew up in Greenville, Alabama, where he learned from an older cousin. As well as sides under his own name, Bell also cut sides using the name Barefoot Bill and Sluefoot Joe. He cut sessions in 1927, 1929 and 1930 for Paramount, Columbia and the QRS label. He reportedly gave up the blues to become a Baptist minister in Montgomery, Alabama. Pillie Bolling was a Greenville associate of Ed Bell who cut two duets with Bell in 1930 and two solo sides.

He also recorded as ‘Barefoot Bill' and ‘Sluefoot Joe' between 1927 and 1930.

Exactly how Bell came to be recorded is unknown. Fact is that he made his first recordings for Paramount in 1927 where he recorded four titles of the finest country blues ever recorded.

Bell stands as the most influential Alabama artist in pre-war blues recordings. With well over three-quarters of his material issued, Bell's ‘Mamlish Blues' and ‘Hambone Blues' were to define the style of the region and his contemporaries. His influences could still be detected in the 70's recordings of fellow Alabamian, John Lee. The circumstances of Bell's death are shrouded in mystery but it is thought he died in the 60's during a civil right's march.

http://lix.in/-5d9533

MERLIN’S ORIGINALS Part 2

2009-10-26T11:51:00.020+01:00

Here is the second part of the originals I gathered. Again from way back when life was a lot harder but in another way a lot easier

Enjoy these voices from the past

16. Bo Carter - Corrina Corrina (1928)

Bo Carter with his older brother Lonnie Chatmon on violin and Charlie McCoy on mandoline. Bo's real name: Armenter Chatmon , brother of Sam Chatmon. Wrote only the words; the melody is older.
Barbecue Bob used this same tune in his How Long Pretty Mama ('27).

17. G.B. Grayson & Henry Whitter - Tom Dooley

Grayson's uncle Colonel James Grayson led the posse that caught the real Tom Dooley (Dula) in Doe Valley, California.

Old mountain murder ballad from North Carolina. Written in the 19th century, when murder ballads substituted for sex: At least the female subjects of the song had contact with a man, be it through a knife stabbing her; better than nothing! Tom Dooley's storyline stands out (see note), but most of the other murder ballads follow identical scripts; you hardly make out one from the other.

18 . The Shelton Brothers - Aura Lee

Originally a Civil War era folk ballad (1861).
Sometimes referred to as Aura Lea. In 1865 it was adopted as class song by West Point graduates as Army Blue. Was also used in James Dean film East Of Eden ('54), again pre Elvis.

This came from a Howard Hawks/William Wyler film Come And Get It, where it was sung by Frances Farmer (thus being the original version)

19. James 'Iron Head' Baker - Black betty

Not about a woman but a whip. Black Betty came down on chainganger's backs soon as their nine pound hammers came down off key. Others claim it was the name of the truck bringing convicts to their work place. Recorded in the Sugarland prison farm in Texas. Iron Head of course had a real black woman in mind to make his day. "Black Betty had a blue eyed baby"... As if a white janitor was the father of that child.

Covered by Leadbelly.

20. Jim Jackson - Old Dog Blue

Part of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Medicine show performer (1890-1937) from Hernando, MS, who also played with Gus Cannon, Will Shade and Furry Lewis.
A minor hit for the Byrds

21. Blind Boy Baker - Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out

Originally by Jimmie Cox, Alias 'the Black Charlie Chaplin'. Was part of his vaudeville act. Died in '25 before he could cut it. Not related to Ida Cox.
The version by Blind Boy Baker is mostly regarded as THE inspiration for later versions.

22. Ma Rainey - See See Rider Blues - 1924 Paramount

Credited to Ma Rainey because she was the first to record it, with Louis Armstrong (cornet) and Fletcher Henderson (piano). See See or C.C. Rider was the black denomination for a country circuit preacher (C.C.), an errand entertainer and outlaw at the same time.

23. Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - When the sun goes down 1935
23. Robert Johnson - Love In Vain 1937

Leroy Carr on piano and Blackwell on guitar. Already popular in Jackson, MS in the late twenties.
This was a precursor for Robert Johnson’s’ “Love in vain blues” and the Rolling Stones Cover.

24. Peerless Quartet - Way down yonder in New Orleans

From 1922.
Vocal: Henry Burr; from Strut Miss Lizzie/Spice Of 1922.
Later – much mater- a big hit for Freddy Cannon

25. The State Street Boys - Don't Tear My Clothes

From 1935.
With Big Bill Broonzy and Jazz Gillum. Reissued on Document cd Big Bill Broonzy Complete Recorded Works Vol 3. Broonzy sings: "You can pull me, you can push me, all night long, but pretty mama, don't you tear my clothes". We find a similar concern twenty years later with blue suede shoes fetishist Carl Perkins and his likeminded material generation of rock 'n roll boys & girls.

Covered by Blind Boy Fuller (1936) [as Mama Let Me Lay It On You; learned it from Rev. Gary Davis].

26. Cannon's Jug Stompers - Walk Right In

From 1929
Banjo player and jugband pioneer born in 1883; also cut it with coauthor Hosea Woods under the moniker Cannon & Woods, The Beale Street Boys (for Brunswick in Chicago). Gus was the son of an ex slave with nine children. Built his first banjo out of a steelpan and racoon skin. Rambled along Mississippi Delta plantations and levee camps as a late 19th century entertainer. Rumoured to be recorded on Edison cylinder. Had his own jugband as from 1908 on, following the Medicine Shows.

27. Whistler and His Jug Band 1924- Jail House Blues

From 1924
Real name: Buford Threlkeld. Neither Robert Wilkins' Jail House Blues, nor Sleepy John Estes' or Bessie Smith's. This is the Jail House Blues Jimmie Rodgers cut as In The Jailhouse Now.

Covered by almost everyone

28. Frank Hutchison with Kelly Harrell - My Horses Ain't Hungry

Frank Hutchison (1897–1945) was a blues musician and coal miner. He is also considered to be the first white man to record the blues, as he did on several tracks for Okeh records. He worked as a coal miner in Logan County, West Virginia, United States, both before and after his career as a recording artist. Hutchison participated in medicine shows in the 1920's and recorded for a stretch of only 3 years starting in 1926. These few years however were quite productive with Frank recording over 30 songs, many released on 78rpm by the Okeh record company. Hutchison is considered one of the finest performers of the "white country blues" genre of early folk music.

29. Blind Lemon Jefferson - See that my grave is kept clean

The great Blind Lemon Jefferson must have felt the end coming when he wrote and cut it one year before he actually died. That grave is in Wortham, Texas, unmarked until some blues buffs financed a marker in 1997, a stone with the logical inscription: "Lord it's one kind favor I'll ask of you, See that my grave is kept clean".

http://lix.in/-58c3d4

Jack Elliott - Jack takes the Floor (1958)

2009-10-21T13:34:00.004+02:00

This album was like a mini-documentary. Jack, guitar pickin', lazily and humorously introducing each song with a wry setup before easing into some of the most beautiful, raw documentations of the songs of the deep heart of America.

Jack never claimed to be a blues singer or have much knowledge of the blues. Listen to Ol' Riley and Dink's Song and Black Baby and know that he is fibbing.

He IS a blues singer. For me, it's the sweetest, blackest blues I ever heard a white man do. And he picked it up from the source, hearing the songs played in the parts of America they were made, while travelling with Woody Guthrie.

Bob Dylan, years later, hung with Jack and learned what Jack had to offer. Bob Dylan called him his "long lost father".

And once you've heard this, the deep source of the mellow humour in Arlo's Alice's Restaurant starts to come into view.

The warm smokiness of setting up a tale with a bit of guitar-pickin'... no rush, take your time and let it flow. 1958 recording in London, later reissued as Muleskinner. This is a pivotal record that most of the subsequent heroes of the 60s (particularly in Britain) cut their teeth on.

http://lix.in/-6454ae

Mary Travers - Mary (1971)

2009-10-21T13:26:00.003+02:00

Mary Allin Travers (November 9, 1936 – September 16, 2009) was a member of Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. Unlike most folk musicians who were a part of the early 1960s Greenwich Village music scene, Travers actually grew up in that New York neighborhood.

She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Robert Travers and Virginia Coigney, both of whom were journalists and were active organizers for The Newspaper Guild. In 1938, the family moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. She attended the Little Red School House there, but left in the eleventh grade to pursue her singing career.

While in high school, she joined The Song Swappers, which sang backup for Pete Seeger when Folkways Records reissued a union song collection, Talking Union, in 1955. The Song Swappers recorded a total of four albums for Folkways in 1955, all with Seeger. Travers regarded her singing as a hobby and was shy about it, but was encouraged by fellow musicians. Travers also was in the cast of the Broadway-theatre show, The Next President.

The group Peter, Paul and Mary was formed in 1961, and they were an immediate success. They shared a manager, Albert Grossman, with Bob Dylan. Their success with Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" helped propel Dylan's Freewheelin' album into the Top 30 four months after its release.

“The group's first album, Peter, Paul and Mary came out in 1962 and immediately scored hits with their versions of "If I Had a Hammer" and "Lemon Tree". The former won them Grammys for best folk recording and best performance by a vocal group.Their next album, Moving, included the hit tale of innocence lost, "Puff (The Magic Dragon)", which reached No. 2 on the charts and generated since-discounted reports that it was an ode to marijuana.The trio's third album, In the Wind, featured three songs by the 22-year-old Bob Dylan. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "Blowin' in the Wind" reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies during one two-week period....at one point in 1963, three of their albums were in the top six Billboard best-selling LPs as they became the biggest stars of the folk revival movement.

Their version of "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem for racial equality, as did Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", which they performed at the August 1963 March on Washington. "Puff, the Magic Dragon" is so well-known that it has entered American and British pop culture.

The group broke up in 1970, and Travers subsequently pursued a solo career and recorded five albums: Mary (1971), Morning Glory (1972), All My Choices (1973), Circles (1974) and It's in Everyone of Us (1978). The group re-formed in 1978, toured extensively and issued many new albums.

Mary died of Leukemia, she was 72.

Here is her first solo album from 1971

http://lix.in/-5e3a20