British Folk (and Revival)

i fell out of respect with J Cocker a long time ago and am kinda sad that he has any presence in this thing amongst some of my fave writers and performers so i'm afraid i'm out

nose/face

he's not on stage for most of it and you will miss out on astonishing harmonies from Eliza, Marry and Kima, pshaw

Looks like my copy of Bright Phoebus came out on a label called Trailer sometime around 2000. Seemed to be an official release a t the time but the company was pretty small so was doing cdrs instead of actual cds. I think that was somewhat common at the time among labels doing small pressings, is it still? Don't think there was as much digital d/ld presence at the time, or if there was it seemed to be strictly mp3.

Got the lp lined up to play next after a '75 Rahsaan Roland Kirk live set.

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/music/bright-phoebus-revisited-barbican--music-review-8878576.html

"Jarvis Cocker of novelty band Pulp" ??

LOL

Went and saw the Bright Phoebus thing last night, have never seen any of the Waterson/Carthy tribe live before so it was great to see those people. Eliza Carthy especially did a great job, I think maybe the whole performance would have struggled without her - definitely the person who seemed to be having the most fun on stage and her voice is terrific. Norma too actually, but obviously she's getting on so was a bit less active. No Jarvis here, so it was a slightly creepy young guy called John Smith who sang The Scarecrow, but he did exactly the same gruff voice in the first and last verses that Zora described, gave it a slight Playaway/Worzel Gummidge let's-pretend-to-be-scarecrows vibe. Kind of a shame, it's my favourite song on the album - lyrically it's a pretty heavy meditation on mortality and generational succession, but it's also the difference in delivery between that and the likes of Rubber Band and Magical Man that make it hit so hard, like a raw winter wind tearing through to your bones. Richard Hawley turned Danny Rose into a bit of a Ringo number, but also told a good story - he was wondering about the mystical side of some of Lal's songs, so over a cup of tea one day he asked Norma whether Lal had ever taken any magic mushrooms. The reply was 'no, but she did eat a lot of pickled onions'. Also bloody hell, aside from her dad's red hair does Kamila Thompson (Dickie & Linda's daughter) look like her mother or what?

worth checking out if you're into this stuff! http://landless.bandcamp.com/

...and likewise, the new Lutine album is great. Quite sparse sounding but very soft and delicate. Love this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9bhdCftGNA

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11705184.Sussex_Folk_legend_commemorated_in_with_ale_created_by_Harveys_Brewery_in_his_name/

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10922837_888522107846526_7811329269237289520_n.jpg?oh=5d74d3e4dbdff0b1cf9b90385eae8fe4&oe=552F1DA3&__gda__=1433372187_74fb11aebbd6d053600006f528577da3

some great names in that lineup. didn't know oak had reformed!

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/25/ten-thousand-times-adieu-review-bob-copper-cecil-sharp-house-folk

a shirley collins/linda thompson duet of a blind willie johnson song?!

blimey

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/shirleyamplinda.jpg

more info on the shirley collins movie facebook page btw, which was where that photo is from

From Rolling Reissues 2015:

Bridget St John has a 4cd set of her 3 Dandelion lps & some BBC sessions released in February. I know there were individual releases of the lps about a decade back. I'm not sure if these are those masters or not. The set is listed on the Cherry Red site at £13.95 and may be cheaper elsewhere.
Her voice has been likened to Nico and she mined a similar individualistic semiacoustic quasi-folk area to people like Nick Drake, John Martyn, Duncan Browne, Shelagh McDonald etc.

― Stevolende, Sunday, January 25, 2015 3:10 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

only know the 1st st. john album which i seem to recall features john martyn's slide playing on a couple of tracks (long time since i last played it)

xpost: nice photo and according to the facebook page, that's the very excellent john kirkpatrick way at the end there!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mfqc8

Maddy Prior has been the lead singer of Steeleye Span since they first began in 1969. Since then the band has had dozens of members, some have left for good, some have left and re-joined, Maddy herself, who is still with Steeleye, describes it as a 'bus' with people jumping on and off.

In the first of two programmes Maddy and her daughter Rose Kemp discuss how music has taken them in different directions.

Whereas Maddy is at the very heart of the folk and traditional music establishment, Rose is a major artist in the doom and drone metal scene, the slower heavier take on heavy metal. Together Maddy and Rose discuss their music and how it was they have followed such different musical paths.

As part of this two part series Rose and Maddy have composed and recorded brand new, original songs alongside artists, especially selected by the other.

Rose has linked up with Bellowhead front man John Boden to record a song she has written to explore the difficult subject of rape in marriage while Maddy has been paired with Dylan Carlson, part of the Seattle music scene and head of the metal band Earth. Long standing fans of Maddy's and Steeleye will definitely be surprised at the way she uses her famous voice to fit the guitars of Carlson's arrangement.

Along the way, Rose and Maddy come together to discuss the world of folk and metal music, feminism and misogyny in the folk world, spirituality, and how they view the world and their relationship through their entirely different musical styles.

this sounds really cool although whoever wrote ^that up has either never heard Earth or Rose Kemp's music, or is wilfully exaggerating the degree of contrast to make it seem more striking

Interesting, Maddy is my favourite UK female folk singer (and, yes, that includes Sandy Denny and Shirley Collins).

whoa that is really cool, although yeah, they're all folk artists really, even ol' dylan

thought rose kemp had retired! her final album was flat-out incredible

Anybody hear that show? Was it good?

Bright Phoebus reissue on the way:

http://www.dominorecordco.com/uk/news/31-05-17/bright-phoebus-euro--songs-by-lal-and-mike-waterson-remastered-and-reissued-by-domino/

damnnnn, excited for that. such an amazing record (and so hard to come by!). glad it is finally getting the treatment it deserves.

My copy of Bright Phoebus arrived today. Haven't had a chance to listen yet, looks good, but that's pretty early, right? I thought it was supposed to be early August...

i'm enjoying the newest album from this Sharron Kraus project https://rusalnaia.bandcamp.com/album/time-takes-away

xp yeah, been seeing that people are getting that Phoebus reissue! jealous ... going off to order it now.

Strange stuff. Eliza Carthy just tweeted that the Bright Phoebus copyright holders (who haven't been paying any royalties, as I understand it) took Domino to court over the reissue and won, the Domino reissue being essentially unauthorised. The album has now disappeared from the Domino website.

Not good from Domino.

Jeepers, I actually know the copyright holder IRL, we drink in the same bars. He's inherited the rights from his late dad. I knew he was massively pissed off about the Domino reissue, but the release that his dad was flogging was a vinyl rip to CD - he never had the master tape, whereas Domino did get hold of it. I also remember Martin Carthy advising me to download a bootleg copy from an MP3 blog instead of buying the vinyl rip CD, as none of the musicians got royalties from it.

Damn that super sucks. Such a great album and I’d never even heard of it til this year.

so weird! domino did an amazing job w/ the reissue — totally definitive ... wonder how they would've gone along that far w/o actually getting the rights. i assume they were paying royalties to the performers?

Glad I saw this bump, just ordered a copy of the vinyl

I got a copy of the version from about 2010. So had it on the backburner.
wasn't sure how much better the new version was.

dammit, I've had the Domino reissue in my Amazon cart since it came out but never got it, what was the rush? hahaha

argh fuck i've been meaning to buy this for ages too

I bought the 2CD Domino set because it came with an extra disc of demos/outtakes etc, which again seemed to point to the legitimacy of the package. This brilliant record seems to be a bit cursed :-(

Reminds me of similar problems with records on CD Presents or SST where the label legally owns the records but don't pay royalties or allow anyone to reissue them

Fantastic record and the demos disc is/ was excellent. Crazy that it was all unauthorized!

if the musicians involved weren't getting paid anyway I don't feel too bad about buying the Domino reissue which I, uh, just did

But isn't the story that the Domino reissue was done with the master tapes - how did they get them?

Oliver Knight is a sound engineer and Lal Waterson's son... perhaps he had them?

This article on the proceeding doesn't do much clarify the dispute ("Domino was found to have no prospect of a defence, and the matter was summarily decided":

https://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/whats-on/harrogate-record-label-wins-fight-against-famous-company-1-9471219

Confusingly, Financial Times at the time of the reissue last year:

Just 2,000 copies were manufactured in 1972, half of them unplayable because the hole was pressed off-centre. With lukewarm support from fans, the album went out of print. Financial problems forced Leader to sell his record labels. The new owner, Highway, sold the rights to a third company, Celtic Music, which focused on Leader’s recordings of Irish traditional music. Bright Phoebus remained unreleased.

But its reputation grew. In 2013 the Bright Phoebus Revisited Tour, featuring a band that included Marry, Carthy and Hawley with Jarvis Cocker, along with a BBC Radio 4 documentary, provided clear evidence of strong interest in the album. “It was ahead of its time,” says Marry. With demand for its release from a growing number of fervent fans unswayed by arcane arguments about folk music purity, Domino Records has bought the rights and remastered it. “It feels bloody great,” says Marry.

Eliza Carthy is retweeting folks encouraging people to buy the Domino release and calling it a "tragedy in performing art." It seems possible that ownership of the copyright was disputed between Celtic Music (the prevailing party here) and the Watersons' heirs (who Domino "bought the rights from," got the masters and were paying royalties to?).

In any case, a lovely record. Sad to have the copyright holder, with no connection to the artists, or even the original label, keep it from listeners (or keep a crap version in circ).

Yeah Domino don't seem like the bad guys here

I'm not sure I believe that only 2000 copies were ever printed story because, when I lived in Glasgow, I had a copy and at least two other people I knew also had copies - and it didn't cost an arm and a leg either.

... pressed, not feckin' printed!

original pressing was 2k with 1k viable, it did have at least two other vinyl pressings according to Discogs

i went to see one of the bright phoebus revisited concerts - eliza carthy, martin carthy, norma waterson, marry waterson (lal's daughter) plus richard hawley and some other people. really good, though martin c. was the only person there who actually played on the original record iirc

original pressing was 2k with 1k viable, it did have at least two other vinyl pressings according to Discogs

That explains it! I wondered why it was so cheap!

... other than the fact that no-one was interested it in those days.