Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 May 12 - 06:55 AM

Wasn't it 'O Sullivan's Nothing Rhymed that Carthy did?

I stand corrected - as always.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: matt milton
Date: 11 May 12 - 07:08 AM

"That's the revival for you - forever cementing its allegiances to MOR pop-schlock by way of 'reaching out'. I have my doubts..."

hmmm, i was thinking more of, well, the covers i mention... the teasing out of a hidden poignancy in a pop song that you wouldn't have given a second thought to otherwise. Maybe the radio songs of the 30s had to be a bit more lyrical than Gilbert O'Sullivan...

You know, I don't think I've ever heard a Gilbert O'Sullivan song. Sounds like I should count myself lucky. Though I'm aware that there's a Biz Markie track that samples him, and I'm a big fan of the Biz, so I guess I've heard some of O'Sullivan's artistry by the osmosis of old-school hip-hop.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 May 12 - 07:11 AM

You President of his fan club then Al ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 May 12 - 07:42 AM

No I'm not really aware of what Gilbert's up to these days. i was never a what you'd call a fan. Tobe honest, I hated him - particularly after that Clare record.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:05 AM

No I meant Sunjay.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:08 AM

the teasing out of a hidden poignancy in a pop song that you wouldn't have given a second thought to otherwise

This is the sort thing Jim Eldon does as a matter of course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2u1SMdJ9a8

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:41 AM

No not really. I feel very defensive about him though. Currently he's doing the definitive Roger Brooks songs - at least as good as Roger did them in his prime. I'd hate to see Sunjay's talent be sidelined like Roger's was.

Roger was to me, the best songwriter of our generation. I had thought his work would be lost for ever - Roger wasn't terribly interested in the recording process. like a lot of that generation.

Listen to Sunjay singing Wild Bird Flying through a Cold dark Night - the love song Roger wrote for Nikki Haan, when they were both young lovers in Paris. Tears my heart out every time.

Nikki sings some of roger's songs too. She runs an open mic. session on the quay in Poole at the Portsmouth Hoy, every Wednesday.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 May 12 - 08:39 PM

Review of the Seaton gig

First, it was an extraordinary night at Jurassic Folk at the Grove, Seaton, on May 2nd, with two major and highly contrasting performers entertaining a highly appreciative crowd. Starting off there was Big Al Whittle, who is big in every sense, with his individual and uproariously funny songs, such as "Buster, the Line Dancing Dog". One listener wrote afterwards " ..my first really good laugh in a while, Al. Thank you very much.." Big Al is a seasoned entertainer and is probably three times the age of the main guest of the evening, Sunjay Brayne, who's tender age of just 18 belies the maturity of his guitar playing and singing. His genre may largely fall within the "blues" category, with his powerful, resonant guitar accompanying songs with strong lyrics and evocative story lines, and if he is as good as this at 18 the mind boggles at what he might achieve as he develops. The weekend after appearing at Jurassic Folk he went on the win the Young Performers Award at the prestigious Wath Festival in South Yorkshire, and is clearly someone to watch for the future. For those of you who missed this night, you could have a glimpse of Big Al at http://youtu.be/m9Mo08whFlI and of Sunjay at http://youtu.be/XFLL2NuVVI8 and several other clips we've put up on YouTube. And Jolly's pics of the evening will be up on the gallery very shortly at http://eastdevonfolk.jalbum.net/

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 May 12 - 03:39 AM

You know, I have seen this somewhere before. Someone new , who I like = good. Everyone else = Bad, traditional, miserable, folk police. I can't think who though. Maybe a fan of yours Al? :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 12 May 12 - 03:56 AM

Looking through Sunjay Brayne's Youtube videos, he reminds me of the singer / guitar player John Smith. Both good singers, good guitar players, but neither in any way sounding like themselves, more indebt to the hundreds of others who've passed before. Not a bad thing in itself, we all do it to a certain extent. I'm sure they'll both find their voices, but right now, they're like interesting and talented mimics.

Here's John Smith - http://youtu.be/GupnKLhKT10 - but he has loads on Youtube.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: matt milton
Date: 12 May 12 - 05:47 AM

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about John Smith. Saw him live a few times a few years ago.

There's also John Drain, another young brit bluesy fingerpicker you'll find on youTube.
Tom Dale, in Cornwall, too (who I really like)

I might start a whole new thread on British fingerpickers who people ought to listen to.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:17 AM

yeh and i've heard it all before from your lot,Dave.

songs about me grandad's wellies in the first world war - great.

everything else - pseudo American rubbish

friends of yours, perhaps?

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:23 AM

Al - can things really be as bad as make out? I never see this side of open folk combat (save from the occasional spat on Mudcat) but we get all sorts in our club, from finger pickers to nose pickers and often both. Try Ross Campbell (who isn't a nose picker) whose flawless 12-string finger-style is the joy of many...

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Hendrix
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:25 AM

but the thing is Sunjay doesnt write his own material, whereas most of the others mentioned do

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:34 AM

Steve Hicks writes his own material

Martin Carthy writes his own material

Not what they're primarlly known for

Just cannot see what why you feel so negative about this young man - hardly more than a boy.

Perhaps because he points to people like Roger Brooks and Gerry Lockran - who you had no business excluding from English folk music in the first place. he points the way to the potency of this kind of music, and the way it excites and relates to English audiences in the way that 'the tradition' doesn't.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Hendrix
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:58 AM

take your point Al, but they do their own arrangements of songs. Basically all we are saying is that he's good now, but once he has found his own voice he'll be even better.
I think we should be encouraging him to write.
I think your comment about him being 'cheated and deprived of being the greatest living folk musician' hit a few nerves because of this. Performing very good and accurate renditions of Chris Smither and Roger Brook songs and their arrangements of other songs will only take him so far.
I'm not excluding Roger Brooks and Gerry Lockran from English Folk, for what its worth I consider the Artic Monkeys to be folk music.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 07:33 AM

Yeh it was just 1970's that damaged us all you had to be either Ewan MacColl or Fred Wedlock - anything in the middle got the bums rush.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 May 12 - 08:33 AM

Whereabouts were you in the '70s, Al - just out of curiosity?

I was in London until 1975 and the prevailing style in many of the "folk" venues at that time was stuff in the manner of Davy Graham, Renbourn, Jansch, McTell, Mike Chapman, etc., plus the Bristol-based blues contingent. The Cousins was still doing its typical thing, and I recall getting any number of gigs solo and a regular residency in Bayswater with a jug band in those years.

When I came down to Sussex in 1976, I fell into the Dark Side and started playing jazz with the guys in Brighton - but there was still a good, contemporary scene there as well, in venues like the Marlborough, the (former) Springfield, the pub now called Circus Circus at Preston Circus - and they co-existed alongside more traditional clubs in places like Lewes. I used to drop in the Brighton venues for a bit of blues and ragtime picking now and then, and then nip into the jazz pubs for a sit-in on rhythm guitar.

But perhaps London and Brighton were more cosmopolitan in those days than other areas. What I've never done is the singer-songwriter/contemporary self-penned stuff - I always left it to others of that persuasion.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 09:25 AM

I was in Brum most of the time.

Jasper and Malc Stent were going great guns over at The Boggery.

The Grey Cock on the rimgway wouldn't let me play there cos i said my main influence was ralph McTell.

Ian Campbell had replaced Swarbrick with a succession of musicians Colin Tomis, Aiden Foord, Andy Taylor, and the Jug of Punch was struggling on.

You could see Christy at Digbeth Hall for 50p but there were bombs going off - I didn't give nim my patronage - I didn't approve.

The drunks at the Broadway Folk Club kept booking Gerry Lockran, but they didn't pay him the coourtesy of shutting up.

Billy Connolly, Jasper, and then Mike Harding paid Alex Campbell and derek Brimstone the compliment of naming them as their main influence bu they were working for ten times their main influences fee.

My first paid gig was to Nic Jones . he pissed the floor singers off by staying downstairs and not listening to them.

The organiser at The Old crown in Digbeth confided - he could get Carthy forsixty quid (about what I was earning as ateacher per month) cos Martin was a mate.

Vin Garbutt was the new kid on the block Very funny and a good whistle player, but the music plodded, the Ballad of lesley seemed interminable.

Alex made an album called Goodbye Booze. But he still sang the last Thing on my Mind twice and didn't seem to notice.

And the hits keep coming.....

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 May 12 - 03:53 PM

yeh and i've heard it all before from your lot,Dave.

songs about me grandad's wellies in the first world war - great.

everything else - pseudo American rubbish

friends of yours, perhaps?

I find that particularly Ironic, Al. Seeing as I gave your CD a good review and offered you a gig at our club. Maybe if you continue along the same path you may just get noticed as a clever writer rather than a whinging wassock :-) BTW - My favourite band of all time is Jethro Tull. Funny you should mention Ian Anderson as being one of the few who sings entirely in a non-American accent. There are in fact loads more but as a ridiculously phoney American accent seems to feature hevily in some repertoires closer to home I guess you just didn't notice them?

How come you never took me up on the offer of a gig BTW? I am still happy to put you on at our club. Any Friday that isn't booked. You dictate the fee and format and keep the whole of the door takings. At least 2 traditional and 1 contemprary acts from the 'cat have done the same.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 May 12 - 04:13 PM

Oh, and just to make sure that don't get hold of the wrong impression about our club, as you have obviously got the wrong impression about me and a lot of other people I will set another challenge.

Look at our YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/swintonfolkclub then come back and tell me what proportion of singer/songwriter to trad material you find. I could give you the answer right away and it amazed me. But I would rather you work it out for yourself.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 May 12 - 04:15 PM

and the way it excites and relates to English audiences in the way that 'the tradition' doesn't.

But not half as much as Elton John or Cliff Richard or The X-Factor or Barry Manilow, eh? Still, in your regime of hierarchical absolutes, Al I suppose it's all a matter of scale - and knowing ones place in the conspiracy. And there I was thinking it was all a matter of taste. How wrong I was...

My favourite band of all time is Jethro Tull.

Just bought the Isle of Wight DVD (Nothing is Easy) the other week - absolute classic. I lose interest after Thick as a Brick, but this is always worth a look for Wyrdish Vibes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-wT6fkDg8k

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 04:41 PM

I'm grateful very gratefuk for the offer of a gig. Thankyou. However thanks to thefact that no one would give me tumble in my younger days - I have no national profile - I couldn't fill a telephone box in Manchester! But thanks. Also my health is quite precarious - I have a heart condition, due to something I was born with, but has got serious with the advancing years. I find travel very tiring.

But seriously thankyou.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 04:52 PM

Difficult to explain Sweeney - its not what you think.

What its to do with is this. For long years i was the guy who set his gear up in front of the dart board in the pub, or I was in the group that no one had heard of down the WMC.

And in that time, because I kept my ears open I learned about English people. What they responded to/ What they sang along tp. What made them laugh. What made them get up and dance.

And you know - much as I loved most traditional music in the folk clubs. Much of it, and its performance was confrontational to what it was English people loved in music.

And to be honest I grew quite dismayed when traditionalists started opening clubs where populist music was discouraged, running university courses encouraging young people to spend their time on the shelves of the library in Cecil sharp House and other museums looking for songs that no one sang and dances that no one danced.

All i'm saying is that Sunjay Brayne's music has got some of the other stuff. Life - rather than the memory of it.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 May 12 - 05:59 PM

Sorry to hear of your poor health, Al. Offer is there if ever you find yourself in this neck of the woods.

How about the other challenge though? About looking at what goes on at our club. You have accused me of liking nothing but songs about me grandad's wellies in the first world war . For around 30 years now I have laboured on keeping Swinton Folk Club going. It has cost me dearly in pocket, credibilty and mental health. Yet you quite happily seem to dismiss me and all the other club organisers who put their heart, soul, health and bank accounts into keeping their clubs going as some sort of souless monsters who like nothing better than putting down new talent. I'll tell you what. You don't even have to look at our clubs channel. Out of all the somgs on there over 90% are contemporary.

This blinkered view you have that that folk clubs only book 'traddie' acts is utter nonsense. I have been in clubs, ancient and modern, all over the country and have never had anything but a warm welcome. even before anyone knows what I sing or do. Apart from at an open-mike night just outside Newcastle where I was told that 'traditional and unaccompanied crap' was not welcome. I left after the forty seventh verse of a 17 year old lad telling me, in nearly C major, that no-one understood him...

Come on, you are intelligent. I know you are, not only by your postings here but by your songs. Can you not see that setting someone up as the best thing since sliced bread will always engender some negativity. On here it has been surprisingly low yet you still get your knickers in a twist! I am sure that Sunjay is brilliant and destined for marvelous things yet you are doing hime no favours by suggesting that this mythical folk police, that only you and possibly 2 other peopel have heard of, will stop him doing anything at all.

Get with the times man! (Just to prove how trad I am...)

DtG

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:16 PM

I just watched a Youtube of John Drain, mentioned above. Very funny, like that guy from Level 42 playing slap bass blues. It seemed the ultimate in style over content - extremely quick, extremely showy, but ultimately rather pointless. It got me thinking about impressionists. Mere vocal impressionists - your Rory Bremner and such - they're seen as being just that - impressionists. But stick a guitar in their hands, all of a sudden they expect to be taken seriously as a unique creation, or at least, their own thing, something new. But they're just impressionists. Pretending to be John Martyn or Robert Johnson or whoever. And often they are taken very seriously, as we all know. Rory Bremnar's never been asked to form a government though, has he? Maybe he should pick up a guitar.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 07:53 PM

Dear Dave

I am a person of monumental inconsequence.

My opinions are my opinions and I can't help having them. They are possibly totally mistaken, and founded on profound misunderstandings.

Small things, but my own. My opinions and the expression of them. A right that my father fought for, against the nazi hoards.

best wishes

al

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 May 12 - 04:22 AM

I hear what you're saying, Al - and in class terms this has always been my beef with The Revival anyway which manifests in all sorts of way. In a recent interview of one of the new VOTP releases I pointed out the hallowed & sanctified upper middle-class academic air of such things is entirely at odds with the very ordinariness of the working class women & men who made & sang these songs, much less the earthy subject matter of the songs themselves (read it yourselves in the next issue of Stirrings...)

But this is Revival Ville - and the people who sing such songs now are very different to the people who were singing them 200 years ago, and the reasons why they sing them are different as well. I even had to point out to someone the other night that they weren't a Traditional Singer, but a singer of Traditional Songs. They accused me of dabbling in semantics, but I had to insist that it was a difference that any lover of traditional song had to be aware of; like the difference between real trains and 00-scale replicas that I dare say even the most ardently deranged model railway enthusiast would never question.

Yesterday in MCR, we listened to a street musician with a guitar essaying contemporary popular songs to a generally appreciative audience. It was, in truth, a timeless scene that could have been any time in the last 700 years and longer - that of a gifted singer knowing exactly which buttons to press in his punters to get the readies. As Harker points out in Fakesong the revival quickly switched from descrition to prescription pretty early on (i.e. the 1954 Definition which still excites the orthodoxy today) but the reality is that the context and experience of Real Popular (i.e. Folk) Music has little to do with the so-called Tradition.

Once I had the honour of MC-ing a Saturday gig at the Steamer in Fleetwood during the Fylde Festival (I am the world's worst MC - I never did it again). That gig is one of the hardest in the world, packed as it is not with Folkies, but with locals. When Bruce Mathiske took the stage something amazing happened. I don't know what it was - a meeting of hearts, souls, minds... God knows what; but the audience wouldn't let him go - they loved him with a passion & the contact was deep, immediate and pure. I don't know if that's the sort of thing you're on about, or if Bruce Mathiske is one of your sort of guitarists, but that night, I believe to this day, I witnessed the essence of Folk Music as a living, breathing thing.

That said, my ideal gig is doing experimental electro-drone Jew's harp & pocket trumpet improvisations to an audience of 6 upstairs in The Red Deer at Sheffield. There, in that rarified air, where the audience would frown if I dared talk to them, am I happiest...

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 May 12 - 04:27 AM

PS - Here's Bruce essaying my favourite tune of all time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B2z9KC5x44

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 May 12 - 05:10 AM

wow! what a beautiful resonant guitar sound. I quite liked the gig at The Steamer - with all the people who came for the market! Pete Skinner is a great mate and of course - him and John are kings of the place.

When i did the steamer I was still struggling with getting a sound with the variax, which is just the ace guitar for that sort of pub gig.

I'm pretty sorted now. The new lightweight Fender acoustasonic amp (150 watt) is a big improvement on the 30watt thing that I tried to do the Steamer with - I was using the line out to the PA -which always sounds like shit.

Id love to be at Fylde this year - my favourite folk festival by a mile! But Denise has got a date in June for a shoulder replacememnt op - so my services as gofer will be in much demand.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 May 12 - 05:35 AM

Excellent clip, SA - thanks for the link - just the right notes and feel for the tune, and played immaculately.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 May 12 - 06:39 AM

The Steamer's under new management after a year or so of caretaker-lull following the glory days of Cliff and Shirley, but it seems to be thriving again - lots of events, bands, singers, open mics, although, sadly, the Folk Club no longer meets there (not that the Sinclair Room was ideal, but it had a certain soul). The Steamer's just at the end of our street but (shamefully) I only pop in if I want to find my old mukka 'Sailor' Ron Baxter, who does his art in there in his downtime. Good to see it springing into life again & the new landlord seems a jovial cove (a fellow ex-pat Geordie, ha!) so hopefully it'll see good use in the festival this year, just as long as they don't ask me to MC the Saturday night... They say you can fit the entire population of the world on the Isle of Wight if they all stood very close together - that's what The Steamer feels like on the Saturday of the Fylde.

Actually, writing this, I'm tempted to pop down just now for a toastie & pint of Bombadier by way of a quick lunch. Maybe I'll suggest to the new guy starting up an experimental music & free-improvisation club in The Sinclair Room...

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 May 12 - 08:48 AM

Ahhhh - OK! I am a Nazi now? better than folk police I suppose. At least we can now invoke Goodwins law and stop this nonsense. I just wonder though if your father and your father passed each other. maybe when my Dad was trying to escape Mazi oppression in Poland. then again maybe it was when he was shipped to a labour camp by the communists when they regained Bialystok? Or just maybe when he joined the 8th Army and was wounded at Monte Casino. Maybe after the war when he became treasurer of the trade union? No wonder I am such a left wing pinko nazi.

:D tG

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 May 12 - 11:14 AM

I did not call you a Nazi.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: stallion
Date: 13 May 12 - 12:07 PM

My Dad was at monte casino, he had a polish mate he called Bob Skop, any relation

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 May 12 - 12:08 PM

Dave, take a breath. Take two. :)

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 May 12 - 05:56 PM

Aye, you are right SRS - As usual- I have now had at least 220 and a couple of glasses of Chardonay :-)

I know you didn't, Al. But the implication was there.

Small things, but my own. My opinions and the expression of them. A right that my father fought for, against the nazi hoards.

Sorry, but you cannot get away with statements like that. The imnpliation is plain for all to see. Anyone who disagrees with your opinions or expresion of them is a nazi. If that was not what you meant, pray tell why you chose to bring it up in that way? It is as dictatorial as anything old Adolph came out with. BTW, did you know he really did only have one ball?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 13 May 12 - 06:33 PM

Gentlemen please. You'll give yourselves nose bleeds.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: stallion
Date: 13 May 12 - 08:28 PM

I have just deleted a whole diatribe trying to explain how it is but somehow it seems f**king futile. So, son, (I assume you are reading this) You have a talent, stick at it, work at it, and you might make it. There is no substitute for hard work, always remember that you are only as good as your last gig. I wish you luck and a successful career. nuff said

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 May 12 - 09:33 PM

There was no implication. One of the few things I've got to be proud of is a father who put his life on the line to fight in WW2.

There was insult intended to your good self.

Millions of people disagree with me. Often with good reason, as I am wrong about lots of things.

Apologies for any offence caused - completely unintentional

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 May 12 - 01:22 AM

Why would anyone want to write "essaying popular songs"?

Why would anyone refuse to see that there is a difference of type, not style, between a folk art and a contemporary one?

Why have people forgotten that a folk singer is not the same thing as a folksong singer who in turn is not the same as a singer-songwriter?

Al, you are a great creator - but I fail to understand your hostility towards folk song.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 May 12 - 04:06 AM

Dave

That should have read

THERE WAS NO INSULT INTENDED TO YOUR GOOD SELF>

Richard

I'm not sure I have a hostility. I suppose I first heard a song like Geordie done by Joan Baez and I think most people can dig it that way.

Then you hear Carthy's version (is it Karpeles, he reckons to have got it from) and the approach seems obscurantist Calculated to throw the average listener off the scent of a good folksong experience.

Similarly Baez's version on of Henry martin seems like a rattling good song. By the time its become Lofty Tall Ships (from sam Larner I believe) - its like a lyrical fragment - rather than awhole song. I don't know if you've ever seen a complete works of Shelley - but its as though, someone has said bollocks to prometheus Unbound and the Mask of Anarchy - the real poetry is all these twatty little fragments.

Of course Carthy redeems himself a million times over by being possibly the greatest guiar player of our generation. But add some cack handed sod trying to duplicate his work or singing the words from a loose leaf folder, unaccompanied and in and out of key like a fiddlers elbow - and you've got a complete hit job on folk music.

Some of my problem could stem from being an ex remedial teacher. Make things as simple as you can. Simplify them. Don't change yur mind halfway through the lesson.

I rather envy these blokes who can make a living from being complex subtle and all the rest of it! Pure jealousy really!

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 14 May 12 - 05:10 AM

Why would anyone want to write "essaying popular songs"?

Because that's exactly what I saw, Richard - same as I see many Folksong Singers essaying Traditional Songs, or Bruce Mathiske essaying Caravan. Allow me to explain. Essaying would ordinarily (I suppose) be a matter of attempting something, or having a go. Here it's similar, but it's more a matter of acknowledging traditional continuance and the sort of aesthetic / cultural assumptions any non-traditional artist might make when approaching / covering a particular piece of traditional music to somehow make it their own, which of course it never is. I have somewhere my Caravan Collection which takes in everyone from The Mills Brothers to Martin Denny, but it sits squarely on the Tizol / Ellington original, the evolution of which was considerable between the initial recording of May 14th 1937*, and that which Ellington would record some 25 years later in a trio with Max Roach and Charles Mingus (Tizol's own versions notwithstanding). As musically accomplished as Bruce Mathiske's cover is, it is not part of the music / cultural lineage (tradition) that gave rise to the song**, thus I say essaying, because it ain't real in the way that the others are. Similarly, Buskers essay popular songs and Folksong Singers essay traditional ones - no matter how good they might be, they are not part of the original musical / cultural / traditional lineage as any Busker / Folksong Singer or Jazz Guitarist will be all too aware. One hopes.

* Sources differ as to when extactly this seminal session was, or who was leading - Ellington or Bigard.

** Song is used here in its Jazz sense, where all sorts of musical pieces and ideas are referred to as songs whether they involve words or not (and a Chorus in Jazz is very difference to a Chorus in folk). Although there are words to Caravan, and several iconic performances (Ella not least) the piece is more often than not essayed instrumentally, even by The Mills Brothers, who used their voices (in this instance) to imitate an instrumental ensemble with trombone and wow-trumpet solos complete with cheeky sycopations, but the only real instrument is the guitar backing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJOs8roE94E

*

Why would anyone refuse to see that there is a difference of type, not style, between a folk art and a contemporary one?

Because not all of us are suckered into the prescriptive fantasies of the Folksong Revival. The very notion of Folk Art is so much patronising paternalistic hokum - it exists to suppress & disempower the very essence of working-class creativity that gave rise to the old songs & ballads in the first place.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 14 May 12 - 05:25 AM

Here's a different take; no adds for a start and a mouth-clarinet in the mix as well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW4UoxhhoH8&feature=related

Perfect music for a bleary Monday morning...

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: matt milton
Date: 14 May 12 - 06:03 AM

"Why would anyone refuse to see that there is a difference of type, not style, between a folk art and a contemporary one?

Because not all of us are suckered into the prescriptive fantasies of the Folksong Revival. The very notion of Folk Art is so much patronising paternalistic hokum - it exists to suppress & disempower the very essence of working-class creativity that gave rise to the old songs & ballads in the first place."

Well I think you're both getting too hung up on the urge to categorize and capitalize. It implies things are a lot more homogenous than they actually are: I prefer my Folk Revival uncapitalised, thanks, because Shirley Collins is not Bert Jansch, and Bert Jansch was not Ewan MacColl.

Similarly, while you can have arguments about whether something is "a difference of type, not style" in the abstract and in general, those kind of distinctions start to unravel in practice - when you start to think about specific musicians and what they do.

There are plenty of folk-scene musicians who play proper trad folk material, but do so in a way undistinguishable from singer-songwriter pop idioms. Change the words and they'd be David Gray or Coldplay or Ed Sheeran. Now is that a difference of "type" or "style? I don't know, and I think it's irrelevant: style is to type as quantity is to quality (as water is to steam).

Likewise, I think Sedayne gets equally hung up on speculating on what singers might *think* they are doing, rather than what they actually are doing. I've yet to encounter anyone on the folk scene who does in fact genuinely believe they are a 19th century farm labourer, or even merely the reincarnation of one.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 May 12 - 06:42 AM

I dunno about that - there was Peter Bellamy who reckoned he wanted to sound like an 18th century agricultural worker who had suffered a nervous breakdown on account of his land being enclosed. Thus the tremor in his his voice.

And AL Lloyd says says something similar in Folksong in England.

Both big hitters in the way of things.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: matt milton
Date: 14 May 12 - 07:09 AM

"I dunno about that - there was Peter Bellamy who reckoned he wanted to sound like an 18th century agricultural worker who had suffered a nervous breakdown on account of his land being enclosed. Thus the tremor in his his voice."

Not the same thing though. The salient words highlighted:

"I've yet to encounter anyone on the folk scene who does in fact GENUINELY BELIEVE they ARE a 19th century farm labourer, or even merely the reincarnation of one."

But the main point is that while it's interesting, it is ultimately irrelevant what was going through Bellamy's head - what he thought he was doing, whether he thought his art was more or less authentic than anyone else's. He may well have wanted to sound like that.

For all I know, that's what Lady GaGa wants to sound like too. It has little bearing on what they actually sound like. What's important is whether he succeeded in making convincing, potent, good art.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 May 12 - 07:26 AM

I'm sure he did.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 May 12 - 07:29 AM

But having said that, my mum and dad in law went to see him, and they couldn't make nor tail of it - just ordinary English.. Its all very well Carthy saying - just because you're English it doesn't mean you get this stuff.

I think ordinary folk should have SOME idea of what's going on.

Subject: RE: Sunjay Brayne in Poole free gig
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 14 May 12 - 07:32 AM

I rather like the idea that in her own head Lady Gaga sounds like Peter Bellamy...