16 August 2018

Email from: Craig Nickerson; to: Anekdoten

Subject: An Anekdoten listening party with me, myself and I--and a wish...

Dear friends,

I've been spending a delightful day revisiting your six albums and marveling at their consistency over 25 years. My only disappointment is hearing only a single lead vocal by Anna Sofi (for reasons you too well know).

"From my lips to God's ear", as they say, but there is a song that I yearn to hear her sing as the final track on a future album. The song is entitled "After The Snow" and was written in March of 1964 (if I remember correctly) by Stephen Scotti (1935-2013)--a locally renowned Cape Ann musician, composer, and tuner and restorer of pianos--on the eve of the birth of his first son, Raim Paul Scotti, who has since inherited his father's piano repair business. The song was recorded by Stephen's then-wife, folk singer Dayle Stanley (b. 1939), as the title song of her second album on the Squire label; both albums are out-of-print collectors' items. The couple divorced some years after the arrival of their second son Christopher. Now long-since retired from the music scene, Dayle is remarried and lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts under her married name, Ramona Murray (Dayle is her middle name). I cannot boast of having met any of them, but I did see Dayle perform live at Tufts University in 1966. While a student living on campus, one evening some weeks before the concert, I had my radio tuned to Jefferson Kaye's 'Hootenanny' show on WBZ AM when he played "Child Of Hollow Times"--and I was so blown away by Dayle's voice that I rushed right out to buy the album. Soon after, I found her second album and heard "After The Snow" for the first time. Both songs have haunted my memory ever since, but especially "After The Snow" which, IMHO, ranks with Elton John's "Your Song", Ewan McColl's "The First Time (Ever I Saw Your Face)" and David Crosby's "Everybody's Been Burned" among the greatest love songs ever written! And yet, sadly, it is remembered by almost no one.

The best arrangement, I think, would be Anna Sofi accompanying herself on acoustic guitar--preferably a 12-string for a more ethereal quality--Nicklas on Mellotron or Chamberlin, and Jan Erik, Peter and Marty on "admirable restraint" (as Bob Fripp might put it).

Attached are MP3's of Dayle's original recording and a later cover by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson; plus a PDF of the lyrics, as accurately as I can pin them down from various sources.

Hoping you will take this suggestion under advisement, I am

Your devoted fan,
/Craig