HERE'S MIKE'S OCTOBER REVIEW

    It's not the end of summer until I say it is. I'm still wearing shorts and sandals and I intend to do so until the first snow. It's just mind over matter. How was your summer? Did you miss me? I've been recording these last few months and what a humbling experience that is. Well, at least I can better identify with the artists who send me their CDs for review. When mine is ready for release, I hope I find a reviewer as sensitive and generous as I am. Here are a few examples of my largesse.   
    Bill Dempsey (He is the former Absecon, NJ surfer who deserted us for the big waves off San Clemente) has a new CD, "The Waves We Left Behind". It features Bill and his partner, dulcimer maven, Connie Allen, in a delightful program of trad (real) and trad (manufactured). Bill's banjo is sprightlier than ever and his voice range has deepened about a tone and a half. The highlight, for me, was Connie's hilarious composition, "Sailor Jack". I will be performing that one at my school shows this year. They have a website, www.billandconniemusic.com.
    My mailbox at the PFS office was a crowded one all summer. I received CD's from so many gifted musicians that I will be months covering the best of the best. But determining a favorite was a piece of cake once I got Cyril Tawney's newest re-releases. Cyril is a folklorist, an author, a collector and the best writer of "folk" songs I have ever heard. In his youth, he served as a line officer in the Royal Navy. While in service, he discovered a love for sea chanteys and focs'l ballads. This passion for naval songs enabled him to create such classics as "Sally, Free and Easy", "Chicken on a Raft" and "Grey Funnel Line", songs that are so singable, they have become standards in the folk music field. The CD entitled "NAVY CUTS" has all of Cyril's best known numbers including "Five Foot Flirt" and the song we all sang around the campfire at the old Beers Festival, "Sammy's Bar". (Singing harmony on the chorus of "Sammy's Bar" is good for the soul).
    Cyril's other new releases, "Nautical Tawney" is an all traditional grouping of well known sailors' ballads in an authentic, PG rated, setting. All the old favorites are here, "New York Girls", "The Female Cabin Boy" and "The Fireship". Cyril handles the material with the confidence of authenticity.   He is not just a fine folksinger. He is an important figure in the Folk Revival. His compositions are as real and correct, as if person, or persons, unknown had written them. His language and attitude are dead on. Has there ever been a more vivid cry of the British working stiff than these lines from "Monday Morning"?   "If, only, the birds could booze, If, only, the sun was a party giver, If I could just trade someone else my liver, On a Monday mornin'". Cyril Tawney is Ewen Macoll with a voice. He's Tom Paxton with a dose of reality. He is well worth the price of his CD's. They are more available in Great Britain than here, but ADA records has a website, www.adamailorder.co.uk.
    I may have, over the years, "cracked wise" about the recordings that have passed through my sink side boom box. I have exercised the inherent smugness of criticism toward those CD's that failed to meet my standards of inclusion. I couldn't help it. It's in the job description. Nevertheless, I stand before you today, a penitent pundit. I have been to the mountain. I have seen the light. God help me, I am making a CD. The process is not unlike those outpatient medical procedures that are visited upon men in their fifties. One frightening lesson I have learned is that, on a recording, imperfections pop up like pimples at a sock hop.   

Mike Miller
   TUNE UP
   Philadelphia Folksong Society