An Evening of Political Song - Royal Festival Hall, June 17th

Bob-Dubery

Well I have two challenges here
1) talking about a concert whose main concern is taboo on GFSA
2) Working from one the world's slower, flakier ' net cafes

Actually three challenges - because I didn't get all the names of the participants down. Most notably a stellar guitar player who had to cover huge stylistic ground from Robert Burns to Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and did so with chops, panache and with parts that were always appropriate to the song.

I think (THINK) the rhythm section was Dennis Crouch and Jay Bellerose who did duty on the Robert Plant/ Allison Krous tour.

In no particular order....

Harry Shearer (voice of Principal Skinner and Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons) was MC and also did some of his own work. Very current and imaginative.

Norma Waterson... oh man! What a fabulous singer. She was one of the artists on the lineup that I was aware of but hadn't heard a lot of. Kind of like her husband Martin Carthy who I saw about 2 years ago and, similarly, at the time was very aware of him but hadn't heard anything that he'd actually played. Martin Carthy blew my socks off and so, last night, did his missus. Both of them have massive reputations and both live up to the hype. Norma Waterson is a scarily good singer and, like her husband, is totally unique. Superb control of pitch and breath. I was surprised by the almost total lack of vibrato in her singing - and that it took me a while to realise she wasn't using it. So good is her delivery and technique. Precise, but lots of emotion too.

Tom Robinson did 2 short spots. A highlight was Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy's "Language of Violence". This dispelled any notions that may have lingered in my mind that rap and hip-hop are just noiseless, mindless and wanton. This is a remarkable song, and Robinson, though white and in every way "wrong" for the song delivered a great performance. The backing band were outstanding on this with the guitar player setting up some heavily processed sound and then looping it to great effect. Yes... Tom still does "Glad To Be Gay" but I think there's been a rewright of the song because it sounds more nostalgic now and also more hopeful.

Scots folk singer Emily Smith won the "wide range" award for juxtaposing a song by Robert Burns with what must surely be the most current protest song that there is - taking aim at a recent cabinet decision by the Tory/Libdem coalition.

Martin Carthy... long time Loudon Wainwright sidelick Chaim Tannenbaum.... and he wasn't on the programme, but Richard Thompson (curator for this festival) popped up to open the 2nd half with two songs.

Joe Boyd was sitting in the audience, but I suspect all eyes and ears were directed to the stage. What a great show. Amazingly they delivered 3 hours of political song and social commentary with not one Bob Dylan song included. I was sort of hoping that something by the late Phil Ochs would get aired, but nothing doing. Yet apart from some ghastly 21st century "poetry" (the type that doesn't rhyme, has no metrical scheme, no simile, no metaphor and is about as subtle as a crowbar across the back of the head) I had not one complaint.

We also caught a performance by fab ... err .... "country/gospel" band Ollabelle who had peformed earlier that week as part of the festival and then offered to do some free shows in the foyer.

Just a fabulous night's music. Great playing, intelligence, wit, passion, humour - this show had the lot.

singemonkey

Awesome. Looks like your musical holiday is paying off big time.

Bob-Dubery

I must put in an honorable (very) mention for Camille O'Sullivan. I hadn't heard of her two weeks ago. The definition of "political" was quite broad for this show (3 hours, 15 minutes and they didn't find it necessary to do anything by Dylan or Phil Ochs). This fab singer did a Jacques Brel song entitled "Next" and nearly bought the house down.

So much of good things.

Saturday night we got a double-header of Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson. I hadn't seen Wainwright in concert before, and I was not dissappointed. He mixed tenderness with wicked humour - sometimes in the same song. Not a great player, but his engaging personality and the humanity contained in his songs get the job done nicely.

We're now in Hampshire. It took us a large chunk of the day to get here through a combination of flakey car hire company, Wimbledon traffic and Google Maps not knowing Hampshire very well.

Tomorrow night we are off to see Martin Simpson, and then that is the musical phase of the holiday done and dusted. So far we're doing very nicely on that front.

SM: Tell your RT-adoring friends that he did "Sweetheart On The Barricade" for the political show. That's a rare live outing for that song. Also he did two unreleased songs on the Saturday night - they both sounded pretty nasty and I'm not sure I like them. Finally he did several duets with Wainwright that suggested an alternate career path for him - as a really, really, really good C&W player.

vic

While there, do visit Wunjo guitars in Denmark Street (close to the Tottenham Court Rd Tube station). They stock a great range of acoustics...Lowden, Larrivee, Martin, etc. etc..
Enjoy your trip...!

Bob-Dubery

vic wrote: While there, do visit Wunjo guitars in Denmark Street (close to the Tottenham Court Rd Tube station). They stock a great range of acoustics...Lowden, Larrivee, Martin, etc. etc..
Enjoy your trip...!

I didn't. I've been there before, but gave it a miss this time time.

Lowdens are very hard to come by in London. I don't think there's a dealer in the capital, though you might get a 2nd hand example - at London prices ?

The missus is not actually against the idea of me getting a good 2nd hand Lowden after we saw Martin Simpson last night. He plays Stefan Sobell guitars, and they apparently go for about £8500 a pop ? You can pick up a good 2nd hand Lowden for about £1000 to 1700 depending on the model.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote: Actually three challenges - because I didn't get all the names of the participants down. Most notably a stellar guitar player who had to cover huge stylistic ground from Robert Burns to Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and did so with chops, panache and with parts that were always appropriate to the song.

Some googling has led me down the path of near certainty that the guitar player in question is one Neill MacColl.

So an unexpected nod here to another great of political song, Ewan MacColl, Neill's dad. But wait! there's more. Neill's mother was Peggy Seeger, so there's a lot of political songsters in his family tree.

I don't think anything associated with Pete or Peggy Seeger was performed on the night, but there was definitely an Ewan MacColl song. I think called the "Moving On Song". I hadn't heard it before, but having heard Norma Waterson lead this star-studded lineup on this song I find it hard to forget now.

singemonkey

X-rated Bob wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: Actually three challenges - because I didn't get all the names of the participants down. Most notably a stellar guitar player who had to cover huge stylistic ground from Robert Burns to Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and did so with chops, panache and with parts that were always appropriate to the song.
Some googling has led me down the path of near certainty that the guitar player in question is one Neill MacColl.

So an unexpected nod here to another great of political song, Ewan MacColl, Neill's dad. But wait! there's more. Neill's mother was Peggy Seeger, so there's a lot of political songsters in his family tree.

Tell's you something about what was going on in those wholesome folk clubs. ?

*disclaimer - does not advocate any political position - description only*

So funny. I've been trying to work out a good arrangement of "Shoals of Herring" by Ewan MacColl. I've even been thinking of putting together a little set of communist songs. I'm not a communist myself, but my girlfriend's parents are communists who left fighting Indira Gandhi's state of emergency (sound familiar?) to help out the Menghistu regime in Ethiopia (disillusioning, no doubt) as teachers. They now teach in Umtata while many of their old comrades have become bigwigs in Kerala's Marxist government.

Getting off the point. But the greatest communist folk singer in Britain was undoubtedly Luke Kelly - who did this incredibly moving version of Shoals of Herring (which is not a directly political song, moderators):

This one knocks me sideways every time.