Singers and songs which stunned me .

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: MikeL2
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 02:47 PM

hi

Many of the songs and singers that moved me have been suggested above...so I will not dwell on them.

Like other members here I have been mostly moved by live performances more than recordings or TV.

Some "non-folk" renderings that have moved me were.....

1. Chet Baker singing My Funny Valentine - the man was a master of trumpet, cornet and flugal horn and I didn't know that he sang !!

2. Frank Sinatra - Nancy With The laughing Face - the master at work

3. Nana Miscouri singing Attic Toys - she stopped a noisy audience dead in their tracks and you could hear a pin drop.

4. Gordon Lightfoot singing Canadian Railroad Trilogy - more folky but when I watched him I was blown out....great

Many more I could add to this very interesting thread.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,CAPT
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:09 PM

The first folk song in the first folk club I went to in 1975(Applegate Folk Club) was by Stained Glass & called "Kiss the Day Goodbye" followed by there excallent version of "Lord Franklin" then I think it was another self penned "Winter Travelling Man" & the guest that night was (the late) Alex Atterson. As a 16 year old that didn't know what to expect as I had never been to a club or listened to anything like these songs before I was blow away. Since then I have been stunned by many artist including this last saturday night by Rich Wood of Elbow Jane sounding so like James Taylor. There are so many artists & songs to recall, but what lovely memories to have.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:37 PM

The Weavers - "Good Night Irene" - on the radio in 1951 or '52.
Merle Travis - "Dark as a Dungeon" - on the radio in 1954
Josh White & Sam Gary - "Gonna Raise a Ruckus Tonight" - 1958
The Chad Mitchell Trio - "Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos" - 1961
Nancy Quense - "Mary Hamilton" - 1962 in Tacoma, WA
The New Lost City Ramblers and Sam Hinton on stage at the Ash Grove, circa 1963.

Too many others to recall.

And for a small coda on all that, Tom Paxton and Mike Seeger at University of California San Diego - 2005 or so.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,Sam
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 11:10 AM

'The Wilson Family' - 'Close The Coal House Door'

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: melodeonboy
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:38 AM

Well, I always feel stunned every time I see Tone Deaf Leopard (and am sometimes unable to speak for some time afterwards), but I don't think that's quite what was meant in the thread title! :)

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,MadAuntieCat
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:22 AM

'The Easter Tree', at the Plume of Feathers Folk Festival last year (unsure of the singer but he had a Big Bushy Beard...like that narrows it down..)

'Coal Hole Cavalry' as sung by Jackie Phillips has me in tears without fail.

'Tom Of Bedlam', to the point that I've made it one of my signature tunes.

'Helas Outremer' (a lament), sung by Paescod.

'It was a Lover' and his Lass...my dad sung that to me from when I was ver' young.

'Ratcatcher's Daughter'- again the Paescod version. Energetic and fun and clever.

The last one I can only describe- by a group of Irish Re-enactors at an event somewhere in the south of England about 13 years ago...a girl with a voice like a ripe peach sung a haunting counterpoint to the rhythmic bass chanting of the men in her group . The men were repeating goddess names over and over like a dirge, and her voice...all rather like port and stilton...

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 08:30 AM

My earliest memories of being "stunned" by a song are:

- Who Knows Where The Time Goes - The Fairport/ Sandy Denny version with Richard Thompson's guitar providing a superb background.

- A guy at a singaround in either the Fox & Goose at Illston-on-the-Hill or a pub whose name I've forgotten in Shearsby (just can't remember which village it was...they had regular singarounds though) in around 1974. He sang "Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag" with such feeling that it made the hairs on my arms stand up!

- Coming right off folk, Velvet Underground/ Nico's "All Tomorrow's Parties" did the same when I first heard it.

And more recerntly, Flossie Malavialle's rendition of "John Condon" rocked me right back in my seat...SO much more powerful and emotional than the Mary Dillon version I'd heard previously. So much so that it inspired me to sing it myself...my first ever unaccompanied public rendition of anything. Nowhere near as good as Flossie, but the fact that *anything* could inspire me enough to sing unaccompanied is something I would never have credited a few months ago.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 07:46 PM

Dave Goulder singing 'January Man'. Or anything else, come to think.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: ollaimh
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 07:26 PM

i was at the may celebrations at the cecil sharpe house this year and saw mathew ord, everything he sand and played i the best guitar playing i've heard in years was stunning, i bought his cd ad every track is equally stunning.

he's a real traditional gem

of course in the past i had many such moments.

first hearing omar blondel sing canadian folk songs as a child, the the clancy brothers sing the songs of revolution and rebellion, and then doc watson's album with the "cat came back"

i was given these three as my forst albums by some one i can't remember and they were all so different and so fiecely true to themselves i was stunned.

we heard local nova scotia folk but it was put down and made fun of back then, these albums made me realize that there was a world of traditionally bases music , and that we might actually be part of it and not just country bumpkins.

then of course, john allan cameron, figgy duff and stan roigers

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Judy Dyble
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 03:40 PM

we all have those Betsy... what was I saying? :-)

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 03:30 PM

I stand corrected Judy - I think it's called a Senior moment .
Cheers
Betsy

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 09:19 AM

Lots of good stuff here - One that grabbed me was Alex Campbell singing Band Played Waltzing Matilda in High Wycombe - I found a VERY bad cassette of J T singing it and learnt it straight away .
George Papavgeris doing Flowers and the Guns had a similar effect eight years ago .

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: gnu
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 09:13 AM

Could ya hum a few bars, T?

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: mauvepink
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 09:01 AM

"My wonderful friend mauvepink(on this forum) singing Reg Meuross's Until I Hold You Once Again, especially the time when I looked round and there were several people crying."

Apologies: My singing can be TERRIBLE some nights! ;-)

The first time I ever saw Johnny Cash sing "Hurt" and the video that accompanied it ripped me apart. It still can if my mood is low. Tragic :-(

So many songs touch me deeply that it would take a small book to put them all in. Suffice it to say that since I was introduced to folk music my tear ducts get regular exercise. I would not have it any other way.

mp

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Judy Dyble
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 08:10 AM

Ummm do you mean Gay Woods? Original member of Steeleye Span with her husband Terry Woods, Ashley Hutchings, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 05 Jun 10 - 08:25 PM

Hiya Lighter, whether they're Traditional songs /singers or not matters very little , it was just a thread so people could remember (almost) life-changing songs and singers.
The listing is in one's own head and ones own time - it's probably endless . Apart from what has been and I know as I type that Gale Woods singing of Dark Eyed Sailor was a great inspiration to a well known Irish singer and I think it stunned him to sort of extent.
My daughter around 12 years old (18 years ago) was moved to tears by June Tabor singing the Unicorn.
Different strokes for different folks - it's only a talk shop after all.
"mg" I cannot fault your comments re:- Luke Kelly - fabulous distictive singer and performer , sadly missed .
Cheers Betsy

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: mike gouthro
Date: 05 Jun 10 - 08:00 PM

The whole Dylan Freewheelin' album when I first heard it in Apr 64.

But the real signature stun moment for me was in Montreal in Dec 1964 at the then waning Fifth Amendment, Gary Eisenkraft's first venue. The moment consisted of Bruce Murdoch teaching me and a friend the rudiments of Travis picking (Dylan picking) which he had acquired on his first trip to NYC in late 1964.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 05 Jun 10 - 07:40 PM

Another one who had IT was Bob Kotta..often mentioned at mudcat. He is on our tugboat CD singing with Mariide...and people just kept coming up to me at folklife and saying how great it was to hear him again (because he died a number of years ago). Now, if you hear him on the CD and didn't know him, I don't know if this will come across or not..you will hear a very good singer of course, and a great jaunty song..but there was just so much more..sheer delight in singing is one factor. I don't know what the others are...mg

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: mg
Date: 05 Jun 10 - 06:06 PM

I am really starting to be stunned by Luke Kelly...to me he doesn't have the best voice in the world, although many people would disagree...and he seemed to sing and record the same songs over and over, but if you really go through You Tube you will find that is not exactly so. But there is SOMETHING about him when you not just listen to him but watch him on you tube...some sort of spirit that framed him almost..especially in the very latest videos or recordings of him shortly before he died..Song for Ireland and Night Visitors Song. I can't think of too many people who have that indefinable quality...mg

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Art Thieme
Date: 04 Jun 10 - 10:00 PM

REFISH

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: raredance
Date: 24 May 09 - 01:46 AM

1950s
Wings Over Jordan Choir singing "Rock My Soul In the Bosom of Abraham"
Pete Seeger recording of "Mary Don't You Weep"

1960s
Judy Collins and whales recording of "Farewell to Tarwaithe"
Phil Ochs recording "Crucifixion"
John Denver doing "Bells of Rhymney" live at a Mitchell Trio concert
original version of "Sounds of Silence"

1970s
Doc Watson live in concert
Stan Rogers in general and "Northwest Passage" in particular

1990s
Tamarack recording of "Frobisher Bay"
Garnet Rogers doing "Night Drive" solo in concert

2000s
Tom Russell's recording of "Blood Oranges" I was stunned in the sense that it gave me the shivers and totally creeped me out.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 24 May 09 - 01:20 AM

Guest, I remember Jon Adams--I learned "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" from him, along with
"Moonshiner." A fine singer and guitarist...anyone know what happened to him? I think he came to the Bay Area from Fresno, either just before I went into the Peace Corps in 1963 or just after I came home in "65.

Charles

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Padre
Date: 24 May 09 - 12:46 AM

Helen Schneyer singing "Sheath and Knife"

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Max
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:14 PM

I am writing this now as Joel Mabus is getting a standing ovation. Great show.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 11:09 AM

Apologies to the webmaster - I hit the "send" key inadvertently. The immediately preceding message was mine.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 11:08 AM

Ronan Tynan performing "The Town I Loved So Well"
Arlo Guthrie - "City of New Orleans"
Willie Nelson, et al - "Pancho & Lefty"

While none are likely considered folk songs, each has a haunting, evocative quality that I happen to like and lyrics and imagery that play on your mind.

I recall the first time I ever heard "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye," done by a local singer named Jon Adams in a coffee house in Fresno, CA in around 1959-60. You could have heard a pin drop.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 11:01 AM

There are SO many it's hard to chose.

Lady P sing Bold Sir Rilus (sp)
Micca's song Theipval (sp)
Morticia singing St James Imfirmary.

Sorry about the spelling.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 10:31 AM

FWIW, rather more than half of the titles mentioned in this thread were composed within the last generation by known authors, and the lyrics rarely vary.

In other words, more than half are "singer-songwriter" compositions rather than "traditional" songs.

I'm not criticizing. I just think it's interesting and maybe surprising.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,Murphy
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 08:02 AM

So how did Susan Boyle stun the world? BEAUTY. The inner beauty of this woman exploded like a supernova and obliterated the sham of a million "superstars" cloned from a size zero clingfilm bag with no soul.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Skipper Jack
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 07:14 AM

"Can We Go Home Now" The title track of the 1995 album produced and performed by The Roches.

I played it on my folk programme on local radio and was amazed by the feedback from my listeners.

One particular, who was a district nurse, said she had to stop the car and pull into a layby to listen to the track.

Needless to say all those "fans" wanted full details of the album.

It is certainly one of my favourites.

Dave R. Swansea.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,Maggie Holland
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 03:30 AM

"...Maggie Holland, singing The Death Of Blair Peach...." is mentioned above.

The title of the song is 'The Water of Dreams' and it was written by Ralph McTell - I learned it from an album of the same name he recorded in the early eighties.

Maggie

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 07:05 AM

Last Wednesday, Dave Bishop, I live not where I love. One of those performances that make you fall in love with traditional song all over again.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Betsy
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:55 AM

I am in total agreement with Diane's last sentence above it is almost criminal that these recordings are being held in this way.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Bainbo
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:44 AM

A comparatively recent "takes-your-breath-away" moment was hearing Mary Gauthier sing I Drink, on the Theme Time Radio Hour CD.

As a result, I went to see her at the Little Theatre, in Gateshead - and every song was pretty much as good as that one.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 04:36 AM

I do so wish this upstart Zimmerperson (surely he - must be a HE - knows the name is taken?) would leave the room. It's boring having to overhear him make an arse of himself.

Ed: So you too were at the YT gig for Clive Woolf and at the Howff just down the road for that memorable Sandy Denny night. I wish I still had all those Leader/Trailer LPs from 5 North Villas just a bit further down the road. My dubbed tapes have disintegrated. Or, better still, that they should be released from the clutches of their current keeper and reissued on CD with the artists getting their dues.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 04:19 AM

Joseph Taylor "Brigg Fair" on the Leader album
Billy Pigg "Biddleston Hornpipe" on another Leader album
Richard Thompson "Neasden Hornpipe" live 36 years ago
Young Tradition I think at Clive Woolf's benefit
Pete Bellamy debuting some of the songs from "The Transports"
Mr Gladstone's Bag (Oh my Gawd!)
Sandy Denny performing "Solo" at the Howff
June Tabor performing "and The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" at the Enterprise
Bob Dylan performing "It's All Right Ma I'm Only Bleeding" on the BBC
Fairport performing "The Deserter" on "Liege and Lief" purchased Dec 1969, drove my Dad and Mum mad right through Christmas!
Sorry can't think of recent ones, right hemisphere of brain shut down because of triple leaving party last night......

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 12:35 AM

Strathclyde University Folk Club in the late sixties was run by Brian Miller and friends. Usually took place in the Glasgow Folk Club premises, a top-floor tenement flat across George Street from the old Anderson College buildings. Guests I remember - Davy Stewart, Barbara Dickson, Alan Tall, Rab Noakes.

This night for some reason we were in a big, bare classroom in the newer part of the University. Guests were Glasgow group the Clutha, who were managing to overcome the unhelpful atmosphere of the room with some great traditional music and song. There must have been other floor-singers there that evening, but one stands out in my mind. Even for those days, his appearance was bizarre. His bear-like size was augmented by a huge great-coat. That and his bushy beard and hair gave the impression of a survivor from Napoleon's Russian campaign. When he stood up to sing, he had everybody's attention.

The song he sang was "Cam' Ye O'er fae France", which I thought I knew fairly well. But the venom that he put into his delivery made me see it in a different light. It was as though he knew all the characters in the song personally, and as if their actions were personal insults which he had kept bottled up right to the point when he began to sing.

It's that sort of passion, a complete dedication to the song, that has kept me involved with this music for more than forty years. It's not always there, but it crops up often enough to keep things interesting.

Ross

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: gnu
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 09:23 PM

I could agree with many above... and add many.

For me, it would be what I witnessed live that stunned me...

Tops.... Tommy Makem singing "Four Green Fields" thirty feet away from me and making my chest reverberate... his voice was SO powerful.

Second... Joey Kitson (Rawlins Cross) singin "Long Night" and hitting that note that he held forever and beyond.

Third... when I was about six months old... my old man singing my Come'all'ye.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Zimmerman
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 09:10 PM

Diane muttering darkly again

See, there you go again - starting a fight in an empty room, with your idiocies and your benighted.

Chill out - spring is here, Obama's in town, things can only get better.

My theory is that you and L*zz** C*rn*sh, with your asterisks and parentheses, (blimey it's contagious) just ought to pour yourselves a cup of tea and calm yourselves down and think what you're going to say before you start bashing your keyboard in that inchoate way of yours.

OK, you and her have slightly different agendas, but the effect is similar.

See what I did there with that slightly?

Anyway, to stay on topic, you took the words out of my mouth with your evocation of those songs by Dick Gaughan, Leon Rosselson and Billy Bragg. Next time there's another positive thread like this one I'm going to try and stay ahead of you.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Betsy
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 07:18 PM

Although I adore anything that Maddy Prior sings I and another nameless person were knocked out by Dark Eyed Sailor - by Steeleye Span which I believe was sang by Gail (spelling? perhaps Gale ) Woods

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Amos
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 02:57 PM

OF late, Kendall Morse's rendition of "Palace So Grand", "Haying Time", and "Rolling Home to Old New England".

Earlier, Gordon Boks "Schooners" album, most everything in it.

Bruce Murdoch's "Jericho".

Kate Wolfe's "Nobody Lives Here Anymore".

Christine Lavin's "The Kind Of Love You Never Recover From".

Jed Marum's "Sweet Wyoming Home".

Mick Lane's "Parting Glass".

Rick Fielding's "Patrick Spencer".

Much earlier, the Almanac Singers, the Weavers, Frank and Huddie and Bobbie and Sonny and Brownie and others each in their moment.

A

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: alanabit
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 02:22 PM

Downes and Beer singing Leon Rosselson's "Across The Hills" in the seventies and Steve Ashley's "The Rough With the Smooth" in about 1980. Bill Boazman singing "Bless These Children" sometime in the seventies. Cyril Tawney singing "Diesel and Shale" and "The Grey Funnel Line" in a small club in Stoke on Trent in the early eighties. Paul Emery and Anni McCann singing John Martyn's "Head and Heart" in Amsterdam's Last Waterhole in 1981.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,jim mac farland
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 12:01 PM

Paddy Tunney singing "THE MOUNTAIN STREAMS" in a pub in Buncrana Co. Donegal

Corney McDaid singing "FALSE LOVER JOHN" back in the late sixties

and further back

my grandmother when we were kids singing to us "MAGGIE PICKINS" as she bounced us on her knee.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: DebC
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 11:50 AM

Steeleye Span's "King Henry" first heard when I was about 14 years old.

Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 11:23 AM

At a long defunct coffee house called "The End," on South Tacoma Way in Tacoma, Washington in 1962 - Nancy Quense singing "A la Claire Fontaine." For some reason, that memory lingers even now.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 11:14 AM

no dark wintry mutterings

I know lots of dark wintry songs and tunes.
And I will mutter (or even shout) misanthropically at idiocies uttered or perpetrated against the art forms I love.

In this thread I have mostly commented on what others have said and filled in gaps.
Not a lot of scope for anyone to find anything "inexplicably" incomprehensible.
But you never know.
Or perhaps said sunshine has let a little clarity into some benighted heads.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 10:45 AM

Back in the late 80's I was enthralled by a concert given by Joel Mabus. There was not a song out of place. There was not a bad song in the bunch. I was floating. Around that same time I saw the trio of Anne Hills, Cindy Mangsen, and Phyllis Herdman. Wonderfully simple arrangements of great songs with three wonderful voices shining.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: GUEST,OldNicKilby
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 08:55 AM

Cathy Cowan singing "If from the deep deep floor of ocean"
Geoff Halford Maid of Australia
Brian Dawson Horkstow Grange and almost anything else
Jeff Wesley just singing
Will Noble for his consumate mastery of the art
Vic Simpson for singing Kens Song variously known as Borneo
Steve Thomason for singing Child Ballads
These are my kind of singers

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Zimmerman
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 07:13 AM

The Songwainers, circa 1963, with the Copper Family's version of Spencer The Rover. It was the first time I'd heard a capella harmony singing and changed my musical tastes forever.

PS And what a pleasant surprise to log on this sunny spring morning and fine Diane Easby's contributions matching the weather - no dark wintry mutterings, just a rare glimpse of her love of the music which she all too often champions with an inexplicable misanthropy.

Subject: RE: Singers and songs which stunned me .
From: Betsy
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 07:09 AM

Hi Cap'n - Dick's a great songwriter an' all !!!