Tools

An intimate evening with Little Windows

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:18:42 -0500

Julee and Mark have found the gentle beauty that is at the very heart of traditional music. Their music simply transcends styles and definitions. This promises to be an evening to remember. Please join us for this special house concert.

February 16th $15
Winter Hill Section of Somerville Mass.
Plentiful free on-street parking
Easily accessible by bus from Lechmere (Green Line) or Davis Square (Red Line)
Dinner at 6 PM featuring an assortment of soups and fresh baked bread
Concert at 7:30
Sweets and Coffee or Tea served during intermission

For more information or reservations call 617-776-7666
or email concert@folktraks.com

Sketch: Boyle, Boyle & Bowie

Sat, 2 Feb 2008 14:30:58 -0500

text to come

Jackson C. Frank - Blues Run the Game

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 22:09:58 -0500

The Jackson C. Frank story is a tragic one. Of the proportions of Nick Drake or Tim Hardin. You can get an over view at Wikipedia. Amazingly, with a single a album (produced by Paul Simon who credits him as influence) or perhaps with a single song, he made a major mark on contemporary folk music on both sides of the Atlantic.

Robin & Barry Dransfield

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 15:03:28 -0500

Over the years I think I’ve played the two recordings that the Dransfield Brothers did for the Bill Leader more than any other. Both on the radio (back in the days before consultants sucked all the art out of it) and for my own enjoyment. Even 35 years later they live on my iPod and when I got a phone that played mp3s they ended up on that as well.

They are simple recordings, just two voices with fiddle and guitar. The recording is, by today’s standards primitive. Barry in one channel and Robin in the other. Though later issues have been remixed I still like the originals with one brother in each ear. The brothers eventually became a band called, can you guess, Dransfield. A contract with a major label came and went without any recording.

While still performing with his bother, Barry also appeared with the Albion Band and was the fiddler on the legendary Morris On. In 1972 he recorded a solo album for Polydor, which was so poorly distributed that, for a time, it was considered the rarest folk record in the world

In 1975 they got the band back together and that electrified unit issued on recording which, though much beloved by people who’s taste I value, I never really enjoyed. Following disappointing sales of the folk-rocking Fiddler’s Dream the brothers went separate ways.with Robin working for a time as a roadie for Dave & Toni Arthur.

1977 saw them reuniting for an album on the Free Reed label. (And let me just say bless you Neil Wayne for all you’ve done and still do.) Following that recording Barry started working extensively in movies and television. You might remember him as the blind fiddler, should you have had the misfortune to see the Mel Gibson version of The Bounty. He also recording an album for Topic before retiring from performing to restore violins in 1986.

While Barry was busy in front of the camera, Robin continued to perform and recorded a solo album in 1980.

Barry’s retirement to the workshop lasted until 1994 when he recorded the first of two cds for the Rihannon Label. His most recent is called Unruly issued on his own Violin Workshop label.

The two Trailer recordings are currently owned by one Dave Blumer, esq. and are unlikely to see reissue in this lifetime. All except one of the others have, at one time or another, been issued on compact disc and are well worth hunting down. Failing that I’d recommend Up to Now, Free-Reed’s two disc collection of Dransfield recordings. (Bless thee again Sir Neil.) There’s more information to be had here. This set includes many previously unissued performances and, Mr. Blumer, going against type, even allowed them to use two selections each from the Trailer recordings. As they are now in the early stages of reissuing everything on the Free Reed label on CD we can, at last, expect a reissue of Contrary to Popular Belief in the near future.

Steven Fromholz - Texas Trilogy

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 13:27:38 -0500

In 1969 Steven Fromholz with partner Dan McCrimmon recorded an album using the name Frummox. The recording, titled Here to There, went nowhere except the cutout bins and the duo knocked it on the head in 1971. McCrimmon ended up in Colorado, and recorded next for Biscut City Records (as did the very young Tim O’Brien.) His latest is called Coming West though it seems to be a little hard to come by.

Steven stayed in Texas eventually became that state’s poet laureate. Though he suffered a stroke several years ago he continues to perform, lead trail rides and guide river rafting trips! An occasional participant in the Texas Song Theatre with Eric Taylor, Denise Franke & David Olney, he is often heard as a part of the Texas Flatliners with Eric and Vince Bell who, following a major car accident, was, for a time, paralyzed and unable to speak much less sing.

The second side of the duo album opened with a three part song cycle titled Texas Trilogy which you can hear at left. I was totaled enamored of this song and played it on the radio so often I’m sure my regular listeners were ready to take hostages. Fast forward 30 years and Lyle Lovett recorded it as apart of his two CD tribute to his influences called Step Inside This House. Suddenly Steven is back in the game. Since then Texas Trilogy has been turned into a stage musical and this summer Esteban Press published a book of the same name based on Fromholz’s lyrics.

Though what I’ve posted is taken from an LP, the trilogy is available on a anthology of Steven’s work called Come On Down to Texas for Awhile. That album also reissues The Man with the Big Hat which you can sample below.

Tom Gilfellon on Kicking Mule

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:44:26 -0400

Tom was the guitarist with The High Level Ranters during their glory days and later with The Champion String Band. In addition to being a world class guitar and cittern player, Tom was, and I assume still is, a great singer. Tom has been less than actively performming over the last couple of decades, I assume he returned to teaching. He has done the occasional gig over the last few years and the picture below dates from an appearance at the Grove Folk Club, Leeds in 2004. I was lucky enough to do an extensive interview with him in the mid 70s. It’s high on my list of tapes to digitize. Someday...

In the mid 70s Kicking Mule was THE guitar label. Founded by Stephan Grossman and ED Denson, the label had some sort of agreement with Sonet for releases in Europe. They also had a fabulous catalog of pickers. Every one from Davy Graham and Dave Leibman to Duck Baker and Ton Van Bergeyk. The most popular releases on the label were the colections which featured big names like David Bromberg alongside lesser knowns like former Spark Gap Wonder Boy Dick Fegy who at the time had just left Cambridge to tour with the Bromberg Band. Tom Gilfellon contributed to two of these collections. All the tracks can be heard here.

Randy Burns on ESP-Disk

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:04:27 -0400

Randy Burns on Randy Burns:
"My story began in the folk scene of New Haven. Then, like anyone with the dreams of a vagabond, I set out on the road for Greenwich Village. From one open mike night to another, I slept on the subways and park benches, flophouses when I had the money. I went on through the folk era into folk rock/ rock. A few years later I had albums released on major labels, Mercury and Polydor Records. "Randy Burns and the Skydog Band," that was the show. I wrote the songs and sang lead. We played all the biggest clubs in the country at one time, shining reviews in Rolling Stone, LA Times, Hollywood Reporter, New York Times Sunday Arts and Leisure Section. Came to the very brink of success, then the fourteen year slide back down the pole. That slide was no ordinary slide. It was a great slide. I hit the road again as a folksinger, just after I quit the Music Business. Along with my harmony singer, I sang across Ireland twice, played Block Island every summer, and LA, Texas, Chicago, New York, DC, and so on. It was a long road and it was hard at times, but once you learned how to survive on it, the world is your oyster, your friend, your energy. That road doesn't exist anymore for anyone. Owning nothing, bag over my shoulder and a guitar in my hand, I walked, played, and lived, where legends had for so many years before me, back in a period when small eras made legends out of time."

Alan Stivell at Harvard 1975

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:21:27 -0400

Thinking back to 1975 last night reminded me of Alan Stivell making his first North American tour.

First a little background. Brittany, in the north east part of what is now France is culturally different from the rest of that country. The native language is Breton, a gaelic language. Part of the southern language group along with Welsh and Cornish. Like the other gaelic languages, it was suppressed by the government along with any other expression of Breton culture. The “national” instrument is the bombarde, a small, keyless, double reed woodwind that sounds to me like a high pitched and very angry oboe. A bombarde band in full cry is quite terrifying. Makes one wonder why they lost. Though the harp tradition was as moribund in Brittany as it was in other gaelic speaking countries, Stivell’s father set about building, as best as he could research, Breton harps and Alan took up the instrument along with several others. He learned songs from the reaming Breton speaking singers like Les Sours Goddec. He also created a band similar to Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span that mixed ancient music and modern sounds. And, in Brittany, he was so popular that, had the independence movement succeeded, he would have been elected king or something. Then in 1975 he started touring the world and came to North America.

For reasons that I don’t remember, his Cambridge concert was held in an auditorium in the Science Center at Harvard University. I was the guest of Alan’s manager, a strikingly beautiful woman who spoke little English. The crowd was sparse but the band was amazing. The keyboard, bass and drums were on risers. I don’t remember who the rhythm sections was but noted French composer and arranger Pascal Stive was at the keys. The fiddle player was Rene Werner and amazingly enough Gabriel Yacoub (of Malicorne) and Dan Ar Bras (who later played in Fairport) were on guitars.

The show started with the band just grinding it out, building the anticipation for the arrival of the man just like the Famous Flames working the crowd up before James Brown took the stage. And then it was “Star Time.” Stivell marched out already playing the Scottish War pipes and by the time he hit center stage the roof just about came off. (You get some idea of the affect listening to Ian Morrison’s Reel at top left.) Before the screaming died down he was at the harp and oh baby were we his. Mid way through the set, his manager dragged me into the aisle to start the dancing. (I do not dance but I would have followed this woman anywhere.) Before that tune was over literally everyone in the audience ended up in a giant circle around the Auditorium linked pinky to pinky. No one remained seated. (The second tune at left will give you some idea of the affect....just try not dancing.)

During the show, Stivell had played bagpipes, harp, bombarde, and whistle. During the encore he danced about the stage soloing first on Dan Ar Braz’s guitar and then taking a turn at the keyboard and finally on the drums. And then Stivell was gone. (And, sadly for me, so was his beautiful manager.)

Of course a band filled with superstars can’t last long and this one didn’t. Pascal Stive went on to compose and arrange in the French Pop mainstream. Gabriel Yacoub continued his work with his band Malicorne mixed with some solo work and duo recordings with then wife Marie. Dan Ar Braz, as mentioned, briefly joined Fairport Convention before starting a very successful solo career. Lately he has been touring with a massive stage show called The Heritage of the Celts. There is a DVD of this show that I highly recommend. Rene Werner, sadly, appears to have dropped off the map so I’ve included at left a sample of his work with the group Ys.

Though some of Stivell’s later recordings are a bit pretentious, his earlier work stands as some of the best folk-rock ever and remains as a prime example of traditionally based music leading a cultural revival.

Bragg, Bloom, Bush and Blair*

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:48:52 -0400

Just finished not watching Bush’s speech tonight. I feel compelled to share these songs. Both artists have been distributing them free on line. For a change, I’m including lyrics. Don’t get used to it, this is a special occasion.

De Danann and the Bothy Band

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:21:18 -0400

One afternoon in 1975 while visiting the Rounder Records Warehouse, then in Ball Square, Somerville. A package from Ireland arrived. The gang in the warehouse was excited because it was expected to contain the debut album by the band De Danann and it did. Not only did it feature teen aged fiddle phenom Frankie Gavin but the band also had vocals by Dolores Keane, niece of the well known source singers Sarah and Rita Keane.

Digging deeper in the box we found the debut album by The Bothy Band. I was excited because it featured Planxty founder Donel Lunny, enigmatic fiddler Tommy Peoples and Paddy Keenan who was already becoming know as the Jimmy Hendrix of the Irish pipes. In addition I recognized names I’d seen on recordings by Spud, Munroe, Skara Brea and the album Celtic Folkweave.

I was quickly given a copy of each and whatever else I had planned that day went by the wayside.

I have to say that 32 years later they remain two of my favorite recordings. So much so that I used the first track from the Bothy Band album as the theme music for the Folktracks radio program from 1975 until it was canceled in 25 years later.

Boys of the Lough The early days

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:38:58 -0400

The Boys of the Lough have been an important band since the early seventies. There were also one of the first “tradie” bands from the British Isles to tour here in that era and, quite frankly, blew our heads off. Now as you might expect, with a nearly forty year history there have been many personnel changes and dozens of amazingly talented players have passed through. I’m not going to bore you with a complete history of the comings and goings but I thought it might be fun to look at time leading up to the first record and slightly after.

Irish Descendants Misty Morning shore

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:55:55 -0400

Great Big Sea to one side, The Irish Descendants are about the most popular band out of Newfoundland. Founded in 1990 the shadowy man behind the founding and early success of the band was songwriter and producer Gerry O’Driscoll. This is not to denigrate the talents of the boys in the band in any way because they are a telented bunch. Built around the powerfully voiced D’arcy Broderick, a master fiddler and tenor banjo player and the equally big voiced Con O’Brien they were an impressive array when I say them at their Newfound and Labrador Folk Festival debut in 1991. While some of the repertoire consisted of Irish Bar Band standards I was as impressed by the original songs as I was by the massive wall of sound that they presented.

The songs in question were written by O’Driscoll who produced the bands debut album Misty Morning Shore. He also produced a video companion to the album which mixed performances with Newfoundland scenes and vintage footage of events portrayed in the songs. Gerry split with the bond shortly after these releases and has gone on to other projects. The album and the video have frankly disappeared. Simply cannot be found anywhere leading me to think that the split was not amiable.

After several albums, tours and great success another split occurred. If rumors are true this one was less than amicable too as it involved a fist fight back stage at a New Year’s Eve show. D’arcy left to found The Fables with one of the former members of the Wonderful Grand Band of Newfoundland. I’ve included a track from them as well.

Carolanne Pegg

Wed, 5 Sep 2007 21:50:48 -0400

I had been planning on doing a survey of bands with horns from The Electric Flag to Bellowhead but it got late early today somehow. I’ll save that for another day and instead offer this witchy little number by Carolanne Pegg. She was the fiddle player with Mr. Fox which also featured her then husband Bob.

Bob Pegg deserves an entry of his own but I couldn’t help but include a piece of neotraditionalism done on what is sadly a long out of print album by Bob and Carol (sic) that is languishing with so many in the Bulmer Vaults. (And don’t get me started on that subject.... it’ll happen soon enough...)

Ray Davies and Billy Bragg

Tue, 4 Sep 2007 22:32:07 -0400

They are arguably the best English songwriters of their respective generations.

Ale Moller Band Bodjal

Tue, 4 Sep 2007 21:13:13 -0400

I’ve always had a problem with the term “World Music.” I mean, as opposed to what? I probably shouldn’t be so bothered by it, after all it is just a marketing ploy like “Celtic” music.

If there is such a thing as World Music then this is probably it. Ale is a Swedish musician who learned to play music in Greece. His choice of instrument was the bouzouki, a Greek stringed instrument that had a major impact on Irish music via Johnny Moynihan and Sweeny’s Men.

Known for his work with the group Frifot, he also records and tours with Shetland fiddle master Ali Bain. Over the years he has participated in projects mixing things like Hardanger fiddle with Jazz Sax. For Bodjal he brought together musicians from Sweden, Greece, Senegal, Norway, Canada, Mexico, Bengal, and Uyghuristan. World Music indeed!