Squeeze sticking it to the man on the Andrew Marr show. Marvellous! Isn’t it? mmm?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35276200
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Squeeze sticking it to the man on the Andrew Marr show. Marvellous! Isn’t it? mmm?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35276200
I just received an email update from Band On The Wall in that there Manchester which reveals that Ryley Walker is doing a duo tour of the UK in Feb with the legendary Danny Thompson. It seems an ideal fit in that Ryley’s music is very reminiscent of Bart Jansch, Nick Drake, John Martyn all of whom played with Danny who at 76 is 50 years older than Ryley
Mostly small gigs, the tour runs 17-28th Feb with no gig on the 22nd. The route is Bristol, Oxford, Birmingham, London, Barton, Stockton, Jimmy Clitheroe, Liverpool, Leeds, Farndale, and the aforementioned BotW in Manchester
A letter in last weeks Radio Times alerted me to this Prom, performed on August 11th and televised on BBC4 on the 28th. I watched it last night on that there player and when I got home tonight I watched it all again. It’s great! There are 2 bands (Guy Barker & Winston Rollins) mirrored on stage, sometimes playing together. Barker did the arrangements for both bands and does most of the conducting. Some cracking playing by both bands, and what really comes across is how much they enjoy doing it. The programme repertoire ranges from the scholarly to the flat-out, and incorporates both smooth and raucous as appropriate. Splendid singing from Clare Teal, and a nice turn from Jamie Davis and the Promunards doing Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo. I particularly enjoyed his first half rendition of Marie with the Winston Rollins brass section chanting nonsense lyrics behind his smooth delivery. Also features that sly old motherfunster Lester Freamon from The Wire, aka Clarke Peters enjoying himself performing Minnie the Moocher to a big crowd. Hi-de-ho!
Available for another 12 days. Niiiiiiice!
Venue:
Sage, Gateshead
Date: 18/07/2015
I saw Rosanne for the first time last year at the Barbican where she and her husband John Leventhal performed her latest album The River & the Thread in its entirety. It was the only gig on the tour where they were accompanied by a band as they normally tour these days as a duo. It was great and John was a delight to hear on lead electric guitar. But I have to say I enjoyed this duo gig even more, promoted as part of the excellent annual Summertyne Americana Festival held at The Sage. Rosanne sang beautifully throughout but the revelation for me was Leventhal on acoustic guitar. He was fantastic in all respects, whether finger picking or playing plectrum leads to her rhythm guitar. Lots of blues, an occasional burst of jazz, plenty of country picking and some ragtime. Altogether a splendid performance by a duo who are completely at ease with each other. They did a load off River & Thread, 4 from The List, plus perennial faves Ode to Billy Joe and her Dad’s Tennessee Flat Top Box. Opener Anderson East wasn’t bad either. Think Foy Vance with an Alabama » Continue Reading.
My heart leaps as I see the line-up for this years Summertyne American Festival; Choice of Rodneylou, Penn & Oldham, and Felice Bros on Friday night, Roseanne Cash on Saturday night, plus free outdoor gigs on Fri, Sat & Sun. The last of which features the fabulous Della Mae and also The Lost Brothers. What’s not to like there?
I hope this means the Dellas are playing a UK tour rather than just the one date they played last year at the Borderline, attended by your humble correspondent and reviewed on this very website. To me they just keep getting better and better particularly with the growing songwriting influence of flat picking starlet Courtney Hartman. There is a nice set of stopover videos on their Facebook page recorded at the homes of people who have put them up during their latest tour. The one of Courtney and lead singer Celia Boyd performing Lucinda Williams’ Jackson is just lovely and the one of Courtney flat picking with fiddler Kimber Ludiker is top notch, not least because of the none-more-bluegrass title of Possum up a Gum Stump
Did any one see this, shown a few weeks back on BBC4? I’d vaguely heard or Rory McEwen but hadn’t realised he had such an interesting life. I’ve just checked, it’s still there with 14 days left to run. One of his daughters married Jools Holland after her father’s death. So Jools never met his father-in-law but does a nice job in presenting this fascinating 30 minute documentary
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05270hv/secret-knowledge-13-in-search-of-rory-mcewen
In short, he had a Scottish aristocratic upbringing, got into US folk-blues very early, did a Leadbelly-inspred road trip with his brother, appeared with said brother on the Ed Sullivan show way before the Beatles, came home to get his own folk show on British TV. Gave all that up to become a world class botanical artist. Hung about with groovy artistic types, died tragically early
Apart from Rory’s achievements the bit that surprised me most was the clip of Cliff Michelmore who I remember as being seen as a bit of a breath of fresh air at the time; a more man-of-the-people approach to BBC presenting. The bit where he says “one of these young people is now beck in this country” makes me wonder what it must » Continue Reading.
Lovely to see this set back up. Huge respect to those amongst us who made that possible