Gene B sings Trad

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 07:23 PM

Just reinstated Away, Rio and Thousands or More. More to come in a week or so.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 06:30 PM

Yes - that Bert Jansch arrangement is a fantastic piece of work, but it's strictly Bert Jansch. It reminds me of the way he (and Pentangle) arranged The Snows on Solomon's Seal - all odd angles and sudden halts. I sense that if you just took the vocal line on its own it would sound pretty weird - so all credit to you for getting an unaccompanied version out of it!

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 04:13 PM

Hey, Joe- good of you to stop by. I know what you mean about the Bogle song; though I'd've said most of the borrowing was probably on his part...I don't think I altered the tune that much from McGuinn's version, just changed the timing around a bit.

I do think the verse which begins "Last night in my dreams..." is one of the most poignant and beautiful pieces of writing anywhere in the tradition that I'm aware of..., whereas one or two of the other verses in the DT look a little prosaic in comparison.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:58 PM

What do you think of Bert Jansch's version, Pip? I spent about six months driving myself insane trying to learn his version on guitar when I was about 19, and I never even got close. He plays a particularly spellbinding renditionHERE

I only really taught myself to sing like I do because I could never play guitar like that, if the truth be told...

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:52 PM

I really like the recordings, Gene. "Housewife's Lament" is a kick - the tune sounds like you stole it from Bogle's "No Man's Land" (often misnomered as "Green Fields of France" and "Willie McBride."
I like it.

The McGuinn version is closer to the song as I know it. My favorite version is by Anne Hills and Cindy Mangsen on their wonderful Never Grow Old CD.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:46 PM

Gene, you're a mindreader - when I made that comment about guitar getting in the way I was specifically thinking of Blackwater Side (more specifically Anne Briggs's version, which I find hypnotically beautiful but frustrating - you can hear that the song's been stretched over a 4:4 framework, you just can't hear what it would have sounded like before).

Yours, anyway, is a very nice rendering - maybe a bit careful and academic-sounding for my tastes, but I suspect some of that gets rubbed off when you're in front of an audience. I hope I get the chance to hear you some time.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: nutty
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:23 PM

Well Gene - you know what I think of your singing - I'm a real fan.

I feel that the recordings don't do you justice but that could just be that you present yourself in a different way in front of a live audience.

You have a unique voice (I wouldn't worry about sounding like Norma Waterson _ that's never going to happen) and a great stage presence and I look forward to seeing/hearing more from you in the future.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:05 PM

Gene... I see that McGuinn learned "Housewife's Lament" many years ago in Chicago. I'd be willing to bet that he altered the melody over time. I prefer to sing all the verses, as it makes a certain ironic point about 'life' and provides a nice coda to the story....but even if you don't, there is one other verse which he left out and which appears in the DT.

"With grease and with grime from corner to center
Forever at war and forever alert
No rest for a day lest the enemy enter
I spend my whole life in struggle with dirt"

(I have always heard that the poem was found in the diary of an old woman about the time of the American Civil War and later set to music...but I cannot confirm this.)

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 02:39 PM

Thanks for listening, Pip & Bruce (again!)

I've just had a shuffle round and put up another unaccompanied track up (Blackwater Side) along with a self-penned contemporary folk song (just thought I'd work that phrase in somewhere:^) called Place Called Liberty, if anyone fancies giving 'em a listen and/or offering any feedback. HERE , again.

Thanks again...

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 04:27 AM

Very nice. That's quite a voice you've got there.

Like Bill D, I think Thousands and Rio come over a bit too polite - as if you're recording them for schools radio. But Jones's Ale and Finola are beauties. It might be worth doing more unaccompanied stuff (an unaccompanied singer writes). The guitar can get in the way.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 09:57 PM

This belongs back up there.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 05:27 AM

Ah yes, Redditch; I was meaning to call Bryn this weekend and check where the venue's going to be next Sat.

I don't have any formal or operatic vocal training, just so people know...though it is something I seem to be asked quite a lot.

McGuinn's version of Housewife's Lament can be found HERE, by way of comparison...it's actually the only other version I've heard; I don't get the impression the song is widely sung here in the UK.

I had a stab at the Lone Pilgrim right at the end of yesterday's session, but I was just too tired by then and it sucked...will hopefully get it right at my next session in two weeks.

Thanks to everybody for keeping it so positive thus far...though I fully expect somebody to post a bastardised version of the words to All Fool's Day including a reference to penile boundaries any time soon. Maybe there's a song challenge there, actually...

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: GUEST,Amber
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 05:01 AM

Gene

I think that you have a really great voice and I really ejoy listening to your spots at the Black Diamond. I am looking forward to hearing more of you when you do your gig in Redditch on the 9th of August.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: tijuanatime
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 04:45 AM

I hope you'll be recording amd posting up 'The Lone Pilgrim' soon: what you have posted is excellent and closer to what we heard at Saddleworth than the contents of your most recent CD, very good though that is.

An observation rather than a criticism: the process of recording seems to make you sound more formal than you do live.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 04:11 AM

Not to be confused with the imaginative incentive scheme every time you vote for David Cameron's party.......

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 03:57 AM

catspaw49,it is my name.Dick Miles.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 09:57 PM

Lovely voice and very enjoyable presentation of "Jones's Ale"....I really like that treatment.

I do wonder where Roger McGuinn learned "Housewife's Lament" though... that plaintive, wandering melody is rather far from any way I've ever heard it done. It's not 'bad'...just different.

And "Rio" and "Thousands or More" are also quite well sung...it's just that they 'feel' like they are being done by a trained opera singer trying to cope with 'folk' music. Some songs need an 'edge' to them to evoke the right mood.

I guess on the whole, you impress me as having almost TOO good a voice and too 'formal' a presentation......but I sure wish *I* had the talent you have a a young man.

Keep at it, and play around with various styles....

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 08:04 PM

Everybody copies the phrasing of other singers. If you find yourself doing it - its nothing to worry about. And with the intricate rhythms of traditional based music - its quite inevitable.

At some point we think about these songs and we find out what the mean to us personally - and its at that point they start to cease to be a technical exercise. because we can relate to the song - the audience picks up on that.

Really its that personal insight that you will offer eventually that makes it a folksong rather than the song's ancestry. It is quite distinct from any other kind of music - jazz, opera, light music - all of which have their own virtues and intricacies and satisfactions.

That's quite an achievement for one days recording. well done.

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 07:22 PM

Thanks ever so much, Mick, Bruce, Kat, Al, Richey, Dick and, er, Spaw for the positive input thus far. Should've said, I only actually recorded these tracks today (sorry, make that yesterday-what on earth am I doing vegging out on Mudcat after midnight?), and I'll be poring over them for the next couple of weeks before I decide for sure what works and what doesn't & what's going to make the cut. I have been meaning to sniff out the Copper's version of thousands or more, actually; as I understand it's meant to be definitive...but maybe not until after I've released my own version 'cos there's always the danger of letting the "standard" version become the template for one's own version of a song (I can't seem to sing "My Flower My Companion and Me", for instance, without aping Norma Waterson, which is why I stopped singing it-shame because I love the song).

Anyway, more tracks will follow in a couple of weeks, so...watch out :>)

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 07:02 PM

Well I gave it a listen and I was impressed. I think I was extremely pleased in listening to the parts where you didn't sing at all and perhaps the places where you neither sang nor played were the very best of that ilk I have ever heard, or not as the case may be.

Actually, you're very good and you have received some excellent advice from people who know. Big Mick is a grand fellow, completely tone deaf of course, but what he lacks in pitch he makes up for in volume. You can turn him up to 11 and let him wail on a few drunken Irish tunes and he'll sterilize frogs in a 4 & 1/2 mile radius.......Which reminds me.................

If you get to be good friends with Captain Birdseye, could you ask him why he ends each post with "Dick Miles?" I am familiar with Highway Miles, Measured Miles, Metric Miles, Miles Per Hour, Miles To Go Before I Sleep, and Nautical Miles, but I don't think I am sure I know what a Dick Mile is and to to be truthful, the concept just scares the hell out of me.

Keep singing!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:21 PM

yes.
you have a lot of potential and   you sing very well.your diction is very good you are very tuneful and you sing with expression.
I would direct you to the Copper family,for Jones ale and Thousands or more.
I am going to be hypercritical now,when you sing sorrows away,[THOUSANDS OR MORE]you sound as if you sing sorrows a hway.IMO this phrase sounds a little bit too classical.But that is my only criticism,you do sing very well.
when I look back at some of my early recordings and mannerisms I cringe.
you might find as I have done myself that singing without a guitar [for some songs],allows you more freedom rhythymwise,you will also find it allows you to use more ornamentation in your vocal delivery.
when one is singing unaccompanied ,because one cant fall back on chords or harmony,the singer instinctively starts to decorate and use more ornamentation.
you are brave to come and ask for advice,and you are making a good job of the traditional songs,well done,Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 05:34 PM

Hell, he's just a young one, folks. I think his voice and style will serve him well as time goes on. I think Big Al's (weelittledrummer) is right on the mark. Avail yourself of recordings of the greats (it is apparent you have done some of this already) and listen. But don't be them, incorporate the methods to create your own voice.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 04:50 PM

Well - I like it, and I like it a LOT more than when you first burst upon us. That, of course may not be what you want to hear, at least from me. Grin!

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 04:27 PM

I like All Fool's Day best of all. Very strong and sweet voice and beautiful guitar. I agree a little bending might make it a warmer performance. Great job, all in all, though! Congrats!

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 04:09 PM

Interesting. I think the sound needs to swing and unbend a little - otherwise the result is very formal sounding. And that's okay - the JJ Niles comparison was very well observed. Not too many people sing in that fashion nowadays as you will have difficulty incorporating the grace notes that are generally reckoned to be an integral part of the song - according to most modern theorists.

Of course I'm no expert, but if I were you I'd take listen to how someone like Martin Wyndham Reed tackles Jones's Ale. If you can find recordings of how Roy Harris used to phrase shanties.

That said the voice is clear and in tune as is the guitar. Well done!

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Peace
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 03:57 PM

Gene, I agree with Mick. You have a beautiful voice and your 'expression' is great. You said "Thanks for your time." Allow me to thank you for your music. (Damned tenors with voices and lyrics that bring tears to my eyes."

Subject: RE: Gene B sings Trad
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 03:48 PM

You indicate that some folks think you have an unusual voice. I listened to several of your tracks and I would describe your voice as wonderful, your delivery as expressive, and I wish you well on this project. Your voice needs to be heard.

Now I am off to give another listen and catch the rest of the cuts you have put up.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: Gene B sings Trad
From: Gene Burton
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 03:41 PM

Hi all.

Here's what a bit of what I've been doing lately.

Thanks for your time...