Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series. George Gently

Subject: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 10:31 AM

Anyone see last night's episode of Inspector George Gently on BBC1. Much of it was set in a 60s folk club, in which the victim of the crime had been a leading singer ~~ we saw and heard her in flashback giving, imo, delightful renderings of "Matty Groves" & "Silver Dagger", with fiddle accompaniment, in a Geordie accent. Naturally, the themes of the songs were integrated into the solution. This series is a somewhat offbeat savon policier, as I call them, and I enjoyed this episode, for obvious reasons, particularly. The actress/singer/fiddler was called Ebony Buckle; I thought her very gifted.

Anyone else see it? Have any comments?

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 10:42 AM

Yes, I enjoyed it. I thought the plot was a bit contrived but the script was good - especially the young sergeant's response to 'mi ladyship'; had us in stitches. Ebony Buckle's performance was excellent - pity she got bumped off at the start!

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Claire M
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 12:17 PM

Hiya,

I saw some of it but not all; going to try & find the ep now. Any idea what it was called?? I luv the series, ( luv cop shows anyway – I have to say GG doesn't quite top my beloved Life On Mars but it's pretty close)
The songs were just the icing on the cake. Why can't life still be like that??!!

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 12:22 PM

It certainly brought a lump of nostalgia to my throat, Claire.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 12:44 PM

It was called Gently With Class, Claire.
Like the first of the series last week, was a bit heavy on Beeb agitprop.
The music was lovely though, and woven cleverly into the plot.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 12:58 PM

Just called Inspector George Gently on i-player ~~ Yesterday, BBC1, 8.30 pm.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 03:46 PM

I've seen a few in that series played on PBS here in the US. Is it a program being made currently, or is it an older series that has finally made it across the pond?

SRS

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 05:10 PM

No, it's a new 4-episode series.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 05:13 PM

... but there have been 4 previous series.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: TheSnail
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 06:55 PM

Ebony Buckle

Loved the bit at the end where Anthony Baugh was practicing to be Tony Blair.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 03:51 AM

"Call me Tony"

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 04:14 AM

loved it all but can we find who the other musos were?

L in C#

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Betsy
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 05:53 AM

I wasn't interested in the programme , until " you lot " convinced me otherwise !!! I shall consult i player later. Ta .

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 08:04 AM

Where can we het ebony buckle recording of mattu grove

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Blowzabella
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 09:19 AM

Interesting to read that she is a classically trained singer and the same actress who appeared in the 'sweetener' advert, singing Truvia Scrumptious (to the tune of Truly Scrumptious, obviously) LINKY

Subject: George Gently
From: Silas
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 11:16 AM

Anyone see it this week? Great music - who was that singer?

Subject: RE: George Gently
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 11:19 AM

I already have a thread going on this: "60s folk club in tv cop show" ~~ scroll down a bit and you will find out that she is called Ebony Buckle, & all about her.

~M~

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Silas
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 11:36 AM

She appeared to actually be playing the fiddle - stunningly good voice. Wasted on the beeb, she should play the folk circuit!

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Blowzabella
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 11:53 AM

She teaches singing - http://www.londonmusicteachers.co.uk/viewteacherpage.php?key=1310 and plays violin to Grade 7 and piano to grade 4 http://www.nancyhudsonassociates.com/girls/buckle/buckle.pdf

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MikeL2
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 02:53 PM

hi Mike

I am a big fan of Gently. I have read all of his books some years ago.

The TV series have been very good but bear little comparisons to the books.

I saw Sunday's episode. I thought the music was excellent.

Ebony Buckle has a lovely voice and performed the songs well. Quite a bit of dramatic licence at times but very enjoyable none-the-less.

I was reminded at times of some of the political threads here on Mudcat !!!!! lol

I recorded the Episode as I was expecting to have been going out, but that fell through.

Regards

MikeL

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 04:44 PM

I wasn't too impressed by the episode as a whole - but Ebony Buckle was pretty good playing and singing. Didn't really matter she was bumped off at the beginning, because with flashbacks she was on screen for much of the episode. The folk club bit was about the only bit that had the authentic 60s feeling.

It's weird to think were about as period as Downham Abbey now...

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 04:45 PM

I wasn't too impressed by the episode as a whole - but Ebony Buckle was pretty good playing and singing. Didn't really matter she was bumped off at the beginning, because with flashbacks she was on screen for much of the episode. The folk club bit was about the only bit that had the authentic 60s feeling.

It's weird to think we're about as period as Downham Abbey now...

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 05:06 PM

Here's a youtube clip with her singing. OK

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: GUEST,wyrdolafr
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 05:22 PM

Ebony Buckle has some 'acoustic singer-songwriter' stuff on sound cloud here:

http://soundcloud.com/ebony-rose-buckle

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 11:02 PM

I'm a fan of the George Gently books, too. Whenever I go into a used-book store, I look for them. Too bad I never find them.

I thought I'd go to the Amazon page where Mudcat gets a cut and order the books. They sell for very little, but the shipping is out of line. $32 shipping for 6aperbacks, all from the same dealer? Supposedly a dealer in my country, not across the pond?

Into each life some rain must fall...

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Claire M
Date: 09 Sep 12 - 11:33 AM

Hiya,

I obviously don't know whether the 60s portrayal was accurate or not. I'm told my life would be a lot harder then than now. I like all cop shows, but i'll pick Retro over modern any day.

I'm not sure about starting the GG books, because a lot of times the book's not as good as the TV version or vice versa. I say I watched some but not all; I was watching when I was on a Respite stay (the very last one)

When I'm excited I tend to stiffen up & when I heard the songs I nearly drove my wheelchair through the TV screen. Perhaps I was hoping to get to the folk club that way ??!! (would make a good idea for a series)

Since I was very young, certain songs have completely annihilated me in a way real life doesn't seem to. I had tears pouring out of my eyes & my mates, who surprisingly didn't know of my luv of trad. song, were all saying "it's all right, they're [the carers] are coming".

Then it happened again with 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue'.
EB is brilliant.

Subject: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 09 Sep 12 - 05:33 PM

Just watched tonight's episode - nice background music - Sandy's solo version of Who Knows Where The Time Goes.

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: selby
Date: 09 Sep 12 - 05:46 PM

Thats 2 weeks of folk music in the series, cant wait for next week after the plot line was announced
Keith

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: fat B****rd
Date: 10 Sep 12 - 02:35 AM

And, it's Fairport night on BBC 4 this Friday !

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 10 Sep 12 - 02:51 AM

Fairport BBC 4 here

Should be good

L in C#

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:40 AM

Anyone know who it was singing 'Waters of Tyne' in that episode of George Gently?

K/van

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 12:05 PM

I took it that the two excellent young actresses, Holly Lucas and Faye Castelow, were doing their own singing. Waters Of Tyne was presented as being sung to the baby just by the mother and her friend, without any suggestion of trained or professional singers being involved.

~M~

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 12:21 PM

Could have been Lorna Campbell

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 01:02 PM

There were two voices. It wasn't background like the Sandy Denny song, but sung on screen. Why shouldn't the actresses have been doing their own singing?

~M~

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 01:49 PM

OK didn't see it, just a suggestion as I know Lorna recorded it. I don't watch much TV

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: John Routledge
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 07:01 PM

Sounded like the actresses themselves.Very real !!

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: Kampervan
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 12:40 AM

And very good.

Subject: RE: Inspector George Gently (BBC1)
From: stallion
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 06:11 AM

my missus joined in, you have no idea what a tremor was sent through our household "Mam singing folk songs, unbelievable!"

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 07:12 AM

We're way behind on our PVR having gone completely Paralympics-crazy, and so only got around to watching this last night.

Enjoyed it a lot, Emily Buckle is a class act isn't she.

I know that the minutiae of historical accuracy always goes out the window on things like this in favour of dramatic framing, and I hasten to add it didn't spoil the programme for me at all: but how realistic was it that they'd all have been singing and playing into mics and a PA down at the local Northumberland folk club in 1968?

And, for that matter, how well known was that particular tune/words version of Matty Groves likely to have been in 1968, the year before Fairport immortalised it on Leige and Lief?

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 12:33 PM

I think Fairport's was based mainly on Joan Baez's version, recorded 1962; so too presumably the one featured in the Gently episode?

~M~

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 01:47 PM

On the topic of the books/tv:-

I took the trouble to get a copy of the first of the Gently novels, Gently Does It [1955]. Rather disappointed ~~ found it a bit mechanical and formulaic; no Bacchus; set in thinly-disguised Norwich, where the author ran a bookshop at the time, but little sense of locale or atmosphere. No particular characterisation, either of Gently or of the suspects &c. Compared with the classic detective novels of e.g. Sayers, it all appeared to me a bit lifeless, as if happening in a sort of social vacuum.

It was however the first of many and I expect some of the later would be more to my taste. Has any reader any particular recommendation[s]?

~M~

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 05:21 AM

Anyone?

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MikeL2
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 11:07 AM

Hi Mike

Yours is a fair appraisal of Alan Hunter's George Gently Does it.
Most of his works are very similar in content and I found them OK for very light reading and bedtime reading.

There are a reasonably long range ranging from -:

Gently in The Sun
Gently Down the Stream
Landed Gently etc etc.

The TV series are much better than the books. I usually find this the other way round.

I find them similar in the lack of literary content as the Wycliffe series. Although in this case the TV series is not a lot better than the books. Again good light reading if you like that kind of thing.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 01:02 PM

Thanks, MikeL. I gather, then, that I shall probably do better to go on watching than trying to read more of them, as the tv adaptor seems to have done a good job of livening up what seems to be a not greatly inspired series. Is that a fair assessment?

~M~

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Arkie
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 08:37 PM

Is this youtube video from the television broadcast?

Ebony

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: fat B****rd
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 05:45 AM

Yes.

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 07:28 AM

Looking back with nostalgia to a time when there was a folk club on every high street. I used to go to a folk club near London's Petticoat lane in the sixties ; there was another club located just around the corner competing wih it on the same evening – and they were both usually quite full from what I remember .
Is folk becoming a folk memory ? I hope not, but doubt whether they will be making a series set in a 2012 folk club fifty years from now .

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MikeL2
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 10:04 AM

Hi Mike

Yes the TV series are much better than the books. The have a new dimension that is missing in the written word. ....and Gently isn't forever munching chocolate peppermints on the TV !!!

I don't know how you feel about Midsommer Murders? I find that Carolyn Grahame who wrote the original stories gives one a really good read. Very much more deep into characterization and lots of delicious humour.
She did write many books about 8 I think but as you will know the TV series manage to squeeze out getting on for 100 now. IMHO Still good TV but I prefer the books.

On the same theme Reginald Hill who wrote the Dalziel (De'el) and Pascoe is also a hugely humorous writer. The TV series sticks much closer to the original stories than the other two authors. Hill for me is a great descriptive writer with great characters and a wicked eye for poking fun at people.

Unfortunately Reginald died earlier this year so we will (presumably) not be having any more of D & P.



Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 10:18 AM

Hi Mike: I got fed up with the Midsomer series fairly early on; & have also rather gone off D&P lately. We enjoy Lewis [more than we used to Morse]; and I Frost, along with Gently, is the one I like best. Quite enjoy Wycliffe also ~~ and not just because Jack Shepherd once, when I was reviewing a 70s production production of John Osborne's Inadmissable Evidence at the Arts, Cambridge, in which he was playing the lead, missed his train home to London so came and spent the night on our futon in the Cambridge flat that Valerie & I lived in back then. Ah nostalgia...

~M~

Subject: RE: Folk club in 60s-set tv cop series.
From: Bob the shantyman
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 10:31 AM

Isaw it too - will the real Ebony Buckle please stand up!