Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?

Subject: Vashti Bunyan
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:27 AM

I wondered how other mudcatters viewed her singing.
she seems to me to have a similiar style to Kate Rusby.
Vashti Bunyan,predates Kate Rusby.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:56 AM

Without checking it out right now, I'd say Vashti Bunyan predates Kate Rusby by 30 or 40 years, lol. I have seen them both on stage and would never have thought to make a connection. Maybe if I compared the voices in isolation from the people, I might see some very faint similarity.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:06 AM

How odd. I was just thinking about Vashti Bunyan when I looked at the board. Both are marvels but Kate Bush is a bona fide genius and should have grade 1 listing status as a cherished national monument.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:07 AM

Vashti Bunyan,predates Kate Rusby.

By several centuries, or so it seems... Of course VB doesn't think of her work as being Folk, being more aware of the pop sensibilities that defined her work in the first place. Maybe that was Boyd's gloss on things, despite the subject matter of JADD which to many is folk by default. Whatever personal meaning JADD holds for me, I actually prefer Vashti's earlier pop stuff such as Love Song which is possessed of a substance more akin to the thoroughly wonderful Saint Etienne than the entirely vapid Kate Rusby, which is the point I kiss goodbye to folk... But hey, each to their own, eh?

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:10 AM

Ooops!

Vashti Bunyan Love Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtmItgF8g8s

Is that Claire Deniz on cello I wonder? Certainly sounds like her...

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:11 AM

Oh bloody hell - that is weird. I've just logged on to post on the Defiant Dislikes thread a message that includes Vashti Bunyan and the first thing I see is this!

What I said is that her CD never made it past first playing. Personally, Dick, I find it hard to find much similarity between her tweety-tweet little girl voice and the robust but dulcet northern tones of the Barnsley Nightingale.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:15 AM

Damn this word blindness. No Kate Bush, nothing to see here folks, step away from those letters sir...
IMO the only thing wrong with Kate Rusby is the people who like her, the types who go to dinner dances in backless dresses and expect silver service and are always too warm or too cold and have a second home in Spain. KR does come across as a trainee grandmother/seaside postcard figure in interviews I'd have to concede but a fine songwriter.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:15 AM

...er, yes I can. Mrsleveller can't stand either of them!

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:20 AM

Oh come on, you'd have to have a heart of stone! Sentimental, mawkish but a real lip biter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AjblYI9KEY

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:21 AM

Kate Bush's brother Paddy is a very fine mandolin player and Toni Arthur credits their father, a GP, with saving her life when she was extremely ill. This vaguely relevant information distances us nicely from whatever the point of this thread is, which I'd really rather not go into.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:25 AM

Diane ,I have not expressed an opinion,just curious to see how popular she is,surely nothing wrong with that is there.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:28 AM

Nothing at all, Dick. And I'm giving out interesting facts about the Bush family cos someone mentioned Kate. That's all. Nothing to writhe on the carpet over.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: mattkeen
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:28 AM

I think shes twee hippy nonsence

So you can take it from that that I don't like her.

Kate Bush is not my cup of tea either but I do think she is a strong individual woman who has real talent.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:31 AM

Oh sod, I read that as Kate Rusby. . the glaucoma's getting worse. Kate Bush....hmmm, see what you mean.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:32 AM

Oh dear, my lunacy is catching. Kate Bush came into this entirely by accident. Don't get me started on why she's a national treasure, a much underrated figure in the pantheon. E'en so, Kate Rusby is the Kate in question. Now that's clear please feel free to discuss both - and Ms Bunyan.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:36 AM

It's me age. I do get so confused - but people are very kind....

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:37 AM

Just like to contribute usefully to this discussion by disliking both Vashti and Kate. Just doesn't work for me. Though Kate's got an excellent voice, she leaves me cold.

St. Etienne however...
And as we're on the trail of pretty girly pop vocals, what about the wonderfully effete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlMqK1vzvBc

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:38 AM

Linkee no workee Sister.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:38 AM

Oops make that: Stereolab
I hope...

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:44 AM

As this thread has gone free-form let's have some dis

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:45 AM

Or even dis:nico

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:55 AM

"let's have some dis "

Discussion?
Disagreement?
Dislocated limbs?
Disfunctional rantings?
Disdain?

Sounds like business as usual!

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:03 AM

We were heading down a sweet and saccharine thing - even if undeserved, so I thought I'd change the points down to smack slapper sidings where the industrial diesel of Reverand Awdry's locomorphs 'Nico' lives, though she prefers the mainline as the clip suggests.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:20 AM

Nico was amazing. I put her alongside Grace Slick and Patti Smith.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: GUEST,johnogrimsby
Date: 21 May 09 - 11:31 AM

I had the good fortune to buy her first album when it was released. I never much liked it, but somebody else liked it enough to give me several hundred pounds for it in eBay.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 May 09 - 01:45 PM

I find her [1st] LP to be pleasant very late night
after the mrs has finally calmed down and gone to bed
'headphones and a bottle of good malt' relaxing easy listening music..

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: TonyA
Date: 21 May 09 - 11:41 PM

I love Vashti Bunyan's singing. And I also love Kate Rusby's singing. I've never thought of them as sounding similar, but I guess they both sound little-girlish. They tend to use a different tempo and a different sort of energy and projection, but the cute little-girlish sound may be part of what I like about both of them. When I introduced a friend to Kate Rusby, he said, "She sounds like an angel!" Maybe you could also describe Vashti Bunyan's singing as angelic.

Another of my favorite singers, who also seems to me to have a little-girl voice, is April Verch. She doesn't sing usually, just plays the fiddle, but I love it when she does sing. And maybe there's some of that same quality in some of my other favorite singers, such as Iris Dement.

On the other hand, I also love Kate Wolf's singing (someone mentioned her), and I don't think there's anything little-girlish about her voice. The same goes for Gillian Welch, Rosalie Sorrels, Emmylou Harris, and certainly Nic Jones, John Gorka, Tom Russell, and Stan Rogers.

I followed that link to find out who Saint Etienne is. Yuck. How did that come up in a forum on folk music?

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 09 - 04:02 AM

I followed that link to find out who Saint Etienne is. Yuck. How did that come up in a forum on folk music?

Sarah Cracknell not little-girlish enough for you I suppose? Well, the thread is about Vashti Bunyan (her real name apparently) who is, most resolutely, not a folk singer, despite the rather folkish gloss put on her JADD album by producer Joe Boyd. Vashti was very much a 60's pop singer - check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUV80YV_ZE - which is just the sort of delightful thing that informs the musical sensibilities of the very wonderful Saint Etienne, who, like Vashti, don't do folk music either.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Shalini
Date: 22 May 09 - 04:21 AM

I can't see much similarity, and what strikes me the most is how strong Kate Rusby's voice is in contrast to Vashti Bunyan's!

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:11 AM

Vashti Bunyan totally rejected the label of folk singer in an interview I heard. She's related to John 'Pilgrim's Progress' Bunyan for them as don't know. IIRC Mark Radcliffe's folk club novel 'Northern Lights' makes repeated reference to her as a cult icon which is maybe where the folk link was made. More a tuned in, turned on, dropped out flower child than a traditionalist to these old ears but pleasant enough.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:20 AM

For anyone who may not know how Kate Bush sounds ( horsemen of the Steppe, Christmas islanders, americans) this is she - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ
Talent still flowers in Albion, but only every ten years at the current rate.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: glueman
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:22 AM

Bluddy...linkin...bluddy...soddin...bugga. Again...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 09 - 07:23 AM

My wife's a big Kate Bush fan (she's been known to sing Army Dreamers in singarounds) so I was in on Aerial right from the day of its release which was played non-stop for months in the car, though I don't believe I've ever heard it without the engine noise! An amazing & mature piece of work...

Somehow from KB we get to the equally idiosyncratic ISSA (the artist formerly known as Jane Siberry), who isn't folk either, but writes some amazing songs. Here she is with In my Dream, as yet unrecorded, but we saw her do it twice on her last UK tour a few years back. The second time (in Edinburgh) I wept like a baby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LFHgbVk-WE

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 May 09 - 09:57 AM

oh.. btw.. for those that might want to know..

there are at least 2 flac post 'come-back' bootleg concert recordings circulating round the internet atm....

..one of 'em don't sound too bad....

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: TonyA
Date: 22 May 09 - 04:22 PM

quote: Sarah Cracknell not little-girlish enough for you I suppose?

Actually, Sarah Cracknell does sound little-girlish, and I made clear in the post you skimmed through that I don't require that in a singer.

The little-girl quality is the only thing she has in common with Vashti Bunyan. Saint-Etienne sounds more like the Monkees than like Vashti Bunyan, and, unlike her, they're heard in folk music circles about as rarely as the Monkees are. But if you like them, that's fine. My sister was a Monkees fan.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 May 09 - 04:31 PM

When did anyone ever hear Vashti Bunyan in folk music circles?

I've lived in or near Edinburgh (which is where she lives) since 1976, never heard of her till the re-release of her stuff a few years ago, and have never seen her in person at any event I've been to.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:09 PM

My sister was a Monkees fan.

Respect. I still love The Monkees dearly & regard Mike Nesmith as one of the finest guitarists ever, as does Deke Leonard, who wrote the masterpiece that is 7171551 in homage to Papa Nes.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:30 PM

Personally I can't be doing with Vashti Bunyan or Kate Bush or Sarah Cracknell, or whosis out of Black Box Recorder. I don't mind Laetitia Sadier - I left that one playing - although her intonation is a bit bland. I think Kate Rusby's a better singer than any of them (apart from Kate Bush). Girly tonality isn't what I dislike - I worship Shirley Collins - so much as affectedness; I find Sarah C.'s cool very affected (ditto whatserface out of BBR).

the only thing wrong with Kate Rusby is the people who like her

The company she keeps, eh?

"Well, you know the kind of people who put creases in their old Levis,
The kind who use expressions like 'tongue in cheek'?"

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 May 09 - 06:03 PM

It's kinda appropriate that a thread about Vashti Bunyan turns into a discussion of just about every singer we can think of except Vashti Bunyan. Her singing does that to my attention span too.

Anyone for Nina Hagen? (A German friend introduced me to her stuff back in the 1980s - I introduced her to Meredith Monk in return).

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan
From: TonyA
Date: 22 May 09 - 09:34 PM

quote: When did anyone ever hear Vashti Bunyan in folk music circles?
She's a staple of some folk music radio shows, and it's folkies who buy her albums. Some people refer to her style as "freak folk." Personally, I don't think she's freaky at all, any more than Bob Dylan was when he was a folk singer.

quote: I've lived in or near Edinburgh (which is where she lives) since 1976, never heard of her till the re-release of her stuff a few years ago, and have never seen her in person at any event I've been to.
Wikipedia says she disappeared from the music industry from 1970 till the early 2000's. And it sounds like she hasn't been doing a lot of live shows since reappearing.

quote: ...VB doesn't think of her work as being Folk...
quote: Vashti Bunyan totally rejected the label of folk singer in an interview I heard.
But she sounds like a folk singer. She sings melodic ballads in a traditional style, with natural acoustic guitar acompaniment. That's why folk music aficionados like her, and discos don't play her and interviewers don't ask her whether she thinks of herself as a scat singer.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 23 May 09 - 04:14 AM

It didn't just mean she didn't do shows - she didn't go to anybody else's either. No contact with the folk scene at all - and given how energetic the Edinburgh folk scene is (from Scottish trad to Americana), surely she'd have had some involvement in it if she was the least bit interested?

She sounds like a pop singer of her generation, and not a very good one. (I brought Nina Hagen because she was somebody with a basically similar voice but with more training and a lot more grit).

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: glueman
Date: 23 May 09 - 04:39 AM

Kate Bush and Vashti Bunyan appear to share a complete disregard for the music 'industry' and to that extent they're folk. Kate Bush only makes a record when it pleases her, which these days is many years apart, writes and produces them herself, never plays live and clearly has her home/work priorities bang in order.
VB didn't put her head above the parapet for 30 years and existed only in record completists fantasies before being bumped into public consciousness by becoming the soundtrack to a TV ad. She can hardly be said to having milked her new-found popularity since.

I have no problem with Kate Rusby who appears to be a sweet natured person with a decent voice and a nice line in lyrics. Some fans have elevated her to Yorkshire Goddess, often ladies of a certain age as far as one can tell and they are the ones who ensure her tours sell out. If she were still bashing her guitar on the minor league festival circuit more folkies would like her it's safe to say.

Kate Bush is distinct in having changed her musical concerns and styles to keep pace with her maturing as a human being while dancing to nobody's tune but her own. It's not even necessary to like much of her output to appreciate what an important musical figure she is and a model for other recording artists.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 May 09 - 07:55 AM

I can't say that link of Vashti Bunyan does anything for me.

I quite liked Nico at the time, but I find her a bit passee now.

The Krusby song would sound really good done by June Tabor. I find Krusby over-fey at times. I can't say she does anything strikingly enough greatly to affect me.

Kate Bush remains at or near the top of my all-time dislikes as the decades go by. As for "musical", you surely jest.

Patti Smith was (except in her own inflated opionion) not a patch on Grace Slick.

Some bits of Janis Joplin were very good (and some weren't).

Mahalia Jackson is brilliant, Jo-Ann Kelly was brilliant. Mary Wells was great. Pink, believe it or not, is an excellent singer. Dusty Springfield wasn't bad.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:20 AM

Drippy hippy air fairy nonsense.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: glueman
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:21 AM

Kate Bush fits in an English visionary tradition that reaches through William Blake, John Piper, Barbara Jones writers like Arthur Machen, Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair and filmmakers such as Powell and Pressburger and Derek Jarman and performers inc. Robert Wyatt, Syd Barratt and Throbbing Gristle. The vein of exoticism that is as profoundly English as all your keeping-it-real bods and their earthy polemics.

She is a fundamental presence in that (largely untold) backstory of the nation and as such A Very Important Person.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: TonyA
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:22 PM

quote: It didn't just mean she didn't do shows - she didn't go to anybody else's either.
No contact with the folk scene at all - and given how energetic the Edinburgh folk scene is (from Scottish trad to Americana), surely she'd have had some involvement in it if she was the least bit interested?

Jack, your failure to meet Vashti Bunyan has nothing to do with the question of whether she sounds like a folk singer and whether her fan base consists primarily of people who think of themselves as folk music enthusiasts.

No one has suggested that she's "interested," as you said, i.e. that she wants to be thought of as a folk singer, or that she particularly likes Scottish traditional or Americana music or various other styles that can be included under the folk umbrella, or that she has any other reason to want to rub elbows with the local folk fans.

The Wikipedia article says that in her early career she felt closely connected to Dylan and Donovan, who were then thought of as folk singers at least here in the U.S., but that may have changed, and that type of "folk" music may be nothing like the folk music heard in the energetic Edinburgh folk scene. And there may be other reasons to stay away from local concerts and festivals even if one likes the type of music they offer.

In my local area there's an energetic folk scene, but a "folk festival" here usually means loud, distorted P.A. systems pumping out bluegrass music by what I presume is the same band returning to the stage over and over in different costumes, interrupted only by the occasional Neil Young impersonator. And lots of little tents barbecuing greasy meats and deep-frying lumps of batter. I do think of myself as a folk singer but I have no interest in any of that.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:34 PM

Or, to put it another way, what she does is pretentious.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: michaelr
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:50 PM

St Etienne entirely wonderful and Kate Rusby entirely vapid?? My, have you got it backwards.

I am quite tired of the little-girl whispery soprano voices as evidenced by Ms Bunyan, Cara Dillon et al. Which I said recently to the brilliant Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh - now there's a voice.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: glueman
Date: 23 May 09 - 02:56 PM

"what she does is pretentious."

No, lurid. An outsider. The other England.

Subject: RE: Vashti Bunyan - your opinion of her singing?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 May 09 - 03:57 PM

Ah, the conoscenti. Ipse Dixit.