ON THE OUTSIDE

>>> She is no less open in her new book, My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend, which while principally a chronicle of the life of the Australian musician and activist Lindy Morrison, lays open Thorn’s own troubles (at home, at work), insecurities, and moments of anger and frustration through the past 40 years. However, rereading her correspondence with the Australian, whose prominence came in the hugely influential Brisbane band, The GoBetweens, and then going further to trawling Morrison’s diaries, letters and private confidences, is considerably bolder as a book concept for Thorn because she is excavating Morrison – still alive, still a public presence, still a friend. Did the impudence of this ever have her hesitating? “Yeah. As you say, I’ve done this about myself before, and exposing yourself is one thing, and is scary. But I felt a real sense of responsibility here that I’m now doing it about our friendship and I’m doing that level of, as you say, excavating about someone else,” says Thorn. “And as we know, Lindy is a great believer in openness and honesty and self-expression, so I knew if anyone was going to be able to live with this, she would be able to. But I also thought that until you’ve kind of seen it on the page, you don’t really know what it feels like.” Thorn didn’t show Morrison the book in progress. “I said right from the start, I can’t write this book by committee, and it’s not a jointauthored book. I am writing a book from my point of view over here and if you are happy to share the raw material with me, by diaries and letters, then it will be a richer, better book and I can tell your story better.” After the first draft there were a few things that were taken out at Morrison’s request: however, the bulk of it, and its explorations of the teenage Morrison as much as the adult one, were relatively unscathed. As uncomfortable as they might have made Morrison feel. “She said to me ‘no one is going to be interested in this, it’s so boring people reading this stuff about me talking about my glasses’. But I think it’s essential that bit. If I was going to try and convey to people that this two-dimensional version of Lindy – the ‘witch’ of the early days, or this brash force of nature - then I’ve got to be able to show that vulnerability. Then, okay, how might she have transformed into that person; what might be underpinning it? “To me, those letters that she wrote to herself - that she sent me - I just thought, this is gold. Again, it’s not me having to tell people, I can just literally show you: this is what she was like, this is what she wrote.” Morrison will not talk about the book now, refusing all requests for interviews. Not out of any dissatisfaction or resentment though - in fact she facilitated this interview with Thorn - but rather a reluctance to be at the centre of attention and the person who has to explain herself again. “Her point has always been ‘I’m the subject of the book, not the author’, and she feels that it’s not normal really for the subject of the book to be interviewed. And I think perhaps she wants to let it settle. It’s only been out a short while. Let it do its thing, be out there, be received by people, be, I don’t know, argued about by people.” It’s one thing to be asked about yourself and asked to explain yourself, it’s another thing to then talk about somebody else’s interpretation and explanation of you. “The quote at the front of [My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend], from Margaret Atwood, which says this is not the story she would write - you can’t write the book someone would write about themselves. All you can show is how they look from the outside.” In the context of this long friendship, and the openness of the book, it’s worth seeing the Atwood quote in full. “She will have her own version. I am not the centre of her story, because she herself is that. But I could give her something you can never have, except from another person: what you look like from outside. A reflection. This is part of herself I could give back to her.” While friendship is the book’s raison d’etre, looking beyond it, Thorn’s tale is also a story about two professional artists in an industry that is constructed to destroy you. An industry that for women is almost by design meant to take away all the things about you that are valuable. And then destroy you. Having emerged herself in the early ‘80s as part of The Marine Girls, in the wake of female-centric, politically and socially-driven bands like The Raincoats and The Slits – and the close example of Morrison who daily confronted the stubborn refusal of large sections of the music world to accept female musicians as equals - Thorn may surprise some readers by revealing that she and others then were working on the basis that they would be different within this male-centric industry, not with plans to change the industry itself. When did it become clear to her that she could reformat this business into something that might be more tolerable for artists like her? “I don’t know. Did I ever? People asked me a lot in these interviews at the moment, ‘you are writing about the music business the way it was, 30 years ago, do you think it’s changed?’. I say I’m partly a bit detached from the music industry now, but I read interviews with younger women now and they describe exactly the same things I was describing happening 30 something years ago,” Thorn says. “I don’t know if any of us have managed to actually change the shape of things. Young women now were more outspoken, speak out more immediately about things that we tolerated for longer, and then spoke out about after the event. In a way, progress is being made in that there is a kind of quicker reaction from younger women who will say ‘no, shit, I’m in my workplace, I don’t have to put up with this’.” As recent research in Australia - Tunesmiths and Toxicity: Workplace Harassment in the Contemporary Music Industries of Australia and New Zealand - by University of Technology Sydney academic, Dr Jeffrey Crabtree, confirms, the music business is a bottomless pit of exploitation and abuse, whether physical, financial or emotional. That doesn’t appear likely to change any time soon, not when some of the people ostensibly leading the industry are the worst abusers, and some of those monitoring the business are among the most blinkered or compromised. Maybe the best thing, and it’s no small thing, is that people like Thorn and Morrison had shifted the conversation enough so that the next lot through had a little more reason to say ‘hold on I don’t have to put up with this’, before the generation after them might cut it off at the start and say ‘I’m not gonna go quietly’. “That’s why it’s so important that the stories get told,” says Thorn. “We are back to another of my motivations, which became an even stronger motivation as I got going in the book: ‘why are you telling the story?’ Yes, the number one reason is Lindy is an amazing character, and like writing a novel you just want to tell stories about amazing characters. “But as I was writing I began to think of her more and more as a kind of representative: an amazing woman whose story has slipped. And I began to feel even more this kind of responsibility that every single one of those stories should be told really.” Was Morrison, a significant figure in many ways for Australian music, but even less known to the wider public than her band, The GoBetweens, the best vehicle for this? “In its own right it’s kind of a small story: The Go-Betweens were not massive; Lindy was, some people might say, only the drummer; and that’s what happens, nobody interviews the drummer,” Thorn says. “Well, yeah, I guess, but all these stories on their own are quite small and if they are all left out you read the history of rock and it’s just a history that is 80 per cent the achievements of men and 20 per cent the achievements of women, and it remains hard to change. And remains hard for young women to picture themselves joining this industry. “We have to tell these stories because every little retelling just shifts the conversation a bit.” Just as importantly, each time the stories are told, are exposed, it’s a teaching moment for people like me and other men who write about music, who spend their time immersed in the history and the great names, or the lost and revered names, but much of it in the same narrow range of mythology and truth. Reading My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend as a fan of The Go-Betweens since their early days, and as someone who has written about them since the mid ‘80s, I was forced to examine myself and my responses as a fan and critic. Did I ignore or slide by Morrison? Was I one of those seduced by the mythology of the sensitive genius upfront in my focus on singer/ songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan? I tell myself that I used to talk about Lindy’s drumming and its rhythmic presence in the appealing difference of the band - something else Thorn does effectively in her book, showing how Morrison’s musical presence reshaped what might otherwise have been a fairly conventional and simple form, and about how her worldliness dragged the others out of themselves. But I also know that I spent much more time explaining the meanings and shadings of “the boys”, chasing them for interviews, and working as if they were the band. It’s a good thing to be reminded how easily we just fall into those old tropes. “I have been interviewed by some other men who have said similar things, and that’s been fantastic because the worst thing when women speak up about anything is if men get really defensive. Because they can hear another man being even gently criticised, they kinda think ‘the criticism’s coming at me, it’s me’ and they leap up in defence and say ‘no, what you are saying here is not what’s happening’,” says Thorn. “And you kind of go ‘okay, okay’, but that doesn’t get us anywhere really. That gets us so stuck in this place where something happens, women try to speak up about this thing that happened, men get defensive and put their fists up, and everyone retreats to their respective camps of hostility.” How would this book circumvent that? “What I’ve tried to do is write this book in such a way that hopefully the things I’m saying can be heard. They are not just heard as this shitty bloke did this shitty thing,” she says. “I’m trying to write in a little more nuanced of a way: I’m talking about unconscious bias and blindspots that we all have, and that sometimes men have about music. And the way even people who think they are quite progressive in many ways can slip into traditional, stereotypical ways of behaving. “What you want is to move on from these things and I’m saying, look I haven’t written a book to tear down The Go-Betweens, I’m not trying to trash their memory; I’m trying to add to the story and say look I honestly think there’s a danger that you have actually diminished the story of The GoBetweens by turning them into this band but they don’t seem to me to be as interesting as the band they really were.”

Tracey Thorn’s My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend is published by Allen & Unwin

Hi Fi

By John Cornell

RICHTER:

The Great Australian Loudspeaker Speaker Story

The Richter story started in 1986 with talented speaker designer and founder Ralph Waters and still continues to this day with the current owner Brian Rogers. It is a wonderful Aussie success story. Ralph started the company with 3 homemade pairs of speakers made in his garage, a lot of enthusiasm and $2,250.00 in the bank. He was initially met with ridicule and amusement by the then Australian Hi Fi industry cognoscenti dominated by Speakers imported from overseas, mainly from the USA and UK. Undeterred, Ralph battled on and started to get recognition for his Bookshelf model that he named the Merlin which had been taken on by a couple of progressive Sydney retailers. The break for the company came in 1988 with the release of the Richter Wizard, a twin 6” Slim line Floor Standing model. A very revolutionary design for its time, the Wizard went on to become the largest selling Australian Loudspeaker of all time and was awarded ‘one of the ultimate products of the last 30 years’ by Sound And Image Magazine in 2017. The Richter Wizard is universally acknowledged as the product that single-handedly legitimized the entire Australian Loudspeaker Manufacturing industry, offering as it did some very serious competition to the imported products and embarrassing many highly regarded brands from overseas. Ralph sold Richter in 1997 and from this time on the senior designer has been Dr Martin Gosnell. Martin has been responsible for the design of all Richter products up to and including the latest series 6 range. Over the last 35 years the company have won no less than 30 industry awards for their products with the latest being:

Richter Harlequin series 6 Floor Standing Speaker RRP $1699.00

“Sound and Image Magazine Floor Standing Speaker of the Year under $2000 “ (2021)

Richter Merlin Series 6 Bookshelf Speaker RRP $1,100.00

“Sound and Image Magazine Bookshelf Speaker of the Year $500 - $1000 ” (2020 )

Richter Thor 10.6 Subwoofer RRP $1699.00

“Sound and Image Magazine Subwoofer of the Year below $5000 “ (2019 ) One of my favourites in the current line up is the combination of the Merlin Bookshelf Speaker and Thor 10.6 Subwoofer in a Sub Sat Combo. The Sub Sat Combo is quite often overlooked when shopping for a new set of speakers but it can offer quite a bit of flexibility for both large and small rooms. A well paired Subwoofer and Book Shelf Speaker combination can offer some unique benefits. One of these benefits is that when you start bumping up the volume you can play music louder without distortion. The woofers on most bookshelf speakers have a lot of difficulty keeping up with the mid speakers and tweeters when the volume is increased and this introduces distortion. Having the addition of an amplified sub will take away this stress and allow you to play music effortlessly loud and distortion free. Another benefit is revealing the low-end notes of instruments such as Organ, Cello, Kick Drum, Bass and so on. Most bookshelf speakers start dropping off at about 50hz which means you are missing the full depth of the low-end bass tones “the emotional bits“. A good subwoofer will reach down to at least 20hz bringing more feeling and excitement to bear. Pairing a set of MERLIN S6 Bookshelf Speakers with the THOR 10.6 Subwoofer is a dream bundle because they were designed to work together. In the design stage of the THOR 10.6, Dr Gosnell created a Merlin Mode DSP setting which sees the SUB roll off around 70hz allowing it, at the flick of a switch (located on the rear of the Thor) to blend perfectly with the Merlin’s tight bass response, delivering a seamless bass extension of another 1.5 octaves. This combination offers some serious competition to much more expensive floor standing speakers, and at a RRP of $2799.00 this combination packs a lot of punch for your money to those who like it loud or soft.

Check out this amazing Australian company @ www.richter.com.au

By Martin Jones

THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND & FRIENDS

WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN

United Artists

The O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack was a revelation to my generation. It introduced many of us to the traditional music behind American folk and country; and for many of us it was an introduction to T Bone Walker and Gillian Welch, two of the most influential figures in contemporary American roots music. Nearly thirty years prior to O Brother, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band set out to do exactly the same thing – introduce audiences to those seminal folk and country music artists and songs. However, they did so by actually involving as many of those original artists as they could. The resulting triple album, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, was successful beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. It not only involved legends like Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Roy Acuff, and Mother Maybelle Carter with a new generation of musicians and listeners, it did so with utmost integrity and respect. It was also commercially successful and crucial to the careers of many of the artists involved. Though undertaken in the early ‘70s, the recordings on Will The Circle sound much older. Jon McEuen and his brother Bill, who produced the album, were determined to make the recordings as authentic and reverential to the original artists as possible. Recordings were made live to two track tape with minimal takes. Studio dialogue was also recorded to tape. Of course, this flew against the trend of more elaborate multi-track recording taking flight in the ‘70s and is still how artists like David Rawlings and Gillian Welch record. Which is relevant because Will The Circle was recorded at the Woodland studios, 1011 Woodland Street East Nashville, the very site now owned by Welch and Rawlings. The way Nitty Gritty Dirt Band approached the project proved how genuinely reverential they were towards the music and this helped attract contributors. Nitty Gritty banjo and mandolin player John McEuen approached Earl Scruggs about a possible collaboration in 1971. Scruggs turned out to be a fan of McEuen’s playing (Nitty Gritty had recorded Scruggs’ ‘Randy Lynn Ragg’), and his approval not only got the project started, but certainly helped to attract more of his peers and once the likes of Doc Watson and Maybelle Carter were on board, its credibility was assured. Although Bill Monroe reportedly refused to take part and Roy Acuff, who infamously labelled the band, “a bunch of long-haired West Coast boys,” took some convincing. McEuen recalled that when Acuff did turn up he was sceptical and asked to listen to what had already been recorded before giving his approval. Acuff ended up recording lead vocals to four of the album’s central songs: ‘The Precious Jewel’, ‘Wreck On The Highway’, ‘Pins and Needles In My Heart’, and Hank Williams’ ‘I Saw The Light’. Alongside Acuff, Watson, Carter and Scruggs, Jimmy “King Of Bluegrass” Martin is everywhere on Will The Circle.. The originator of the “high lonesome” sound is in clear voice on bluegrass blueprints like ‘Sunny Side Of The Mountain’ and ‘Losin’ You Might Be The Best Thing Yet’. Both of these recordings feature exquisite fiddle playing from Vassar Clements. Both Martin and Clements kick-started their careers with Bill Monroe but Clements struggled throughout the ‘60s and Will The Circle was instrumental in his renaissance, leading to work with the Grateful Dead, Jimmy Buffett and the recording of his first solo album. Martin’s ‘You Don’t Know My Mind’ is an album highlight, the only track to feature the full Nitty Gritty Dirt Band rhythm section whilst still managing to sound entirely traditional. Indeed, despite the elite company, the Dirt Band players never sound out of their depth in either technique or style. Will The Circle is also significant for Doc Watson and Merle Travis (after whom Watson had named his son) meeting for the first time, a classic moment of mutual admiration caught on tape. Watson praises Travis’s “coalmining” record as a masterpiece and here Travis’s ‘Dark As A Dungeon’ is deep and spooky and ‘I Am A Pilgrim” reaches back into eternity. Two later sequels to Will The Circle Be Unbroken were produced, earning Grammy Awards. But really, it’s all here on the original… the songs, the playing, the recording, and the bridging of two generations. By the time O Brother was recorded, nearly all the original protagonists captured on Will The Circle had passed away.

Billy Pinnell SPECTRUM SPECTRUM PART ONE

Aztec

Des Cowley’s excellent review in March/April’s Rhythms of Craig Horne’s book I’ll Be Gone: Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation inspired me to share with you my thoughts on Spectrum’s first album. Formed in 1969 by New Zealand born Mike Rudd, Spectrum earned an awesome reputation among fans and fellow musicians on the strength of their remarkable debut Spectrum Part One. Rudd’s growth as a songwriter/arranger/musician began to blossom when, after the break-up of his band The Chants who called it a day six months after crossing the Tasman to try their luck in the big smoke, he was hired in 1967 to play bass in Ross Wilson’s post Pink Finks band The Party Machine and in the experimental The Sons Of The Vegetal Mother in which he reverted to his more familiar rhythm guitar. Wilson’s influence would become apparent on more than one occasion during the recording of Spectrum Part One. When Wilson left for London midway through 1969 to work with Procession, Rudd hand-picked the disparate musicians who would become Spectrum. Bill Putt a guitarist from local R&B band The Lost Souls was hired to play bass, organist Lee Neale arrived via pop band Nineteen 87, 17-year-old newcomer Mark Kennedy who had trained in classical piano for six years was the drummer with Rudd contributing guitar, harmonica, recorder and lead vocals. After road testing their repertoire for more than a year the four musicians were ready to record. Recording live in the studio each musician provided vital contributions to material that was so unusual it could easily have become rambling and incoherent in lesser hands. The results, achieved within seven days, provided not only a landmark Australian album of its time but a work of such originality and imagination as to render it timeless. Consisting of only five songs built around extended musical passages, the album, on first listen, didn’t appear to have much commercial appeal, but on further investigation the innovative, challenging and ultimately satisfying combination of Rudd’s surreal lyrics and adventurous arrangements fleshed out by the peerless musicianship of the band resulted in a top five album. Interestingly, Rudd chose not to include the nation’s number one single ‘I’ll Be Gone’ on the album based on what he considered to be its incompatibility with the remaining material. Side one of Spectrum Part One consisted of only two songs, ‘Make Your Stash’, written by Wilson during his London sojourn would be recorded a year later by Daddy Cool for inclusion on their second album Sex, Dope, Rock ‘n’ Roll: Teenage Heaven. The Spectrum arrangement slows the song down allowing Rudd to take centre stage. A distinctive vocalist, his succinct delivery of Wilson’s clever, contemporary lyric is spot on while his guitar playing, heavy chording over Neale’s swirling organ intro, single notes played on the bass strings emphasising the melody, a raunchy solo as the tempo picks up mid song hit the bullseye every time. The other track on side one is the epic ‘Fiddling Fool’ clocking in at 12 and a half minutes. An atmospheric piece, its gentle introduction featuring melodic bass from Putt, Neale’s hushed organ (he favoured the Hammond M model over the more popular Hammond B3) and Kennedy’s busy drum fills lead to a glorious Rudd guitar solo, his finger style technique creating an ambience and feel that was unique to Spectrum. The mostly instrumental track is further sustained by a hypnotic organ excursion and exhilarating flourishes from the prodigious Kennedy. Rather than follow such a long track with a shorter more accessible song, Rudd began side two with the nine minute classically influenced ‘Superbody’. Its hymn- like quality was inspired by Rudd’s teenage experience as a choir boy in New Zealand though it’s not clear if the song’s out of body lyric had anything to do with the church. The song’s mid-tempo opening leaves plenty of room for Kennedy to once again enhance his reputation as the most gifted drummer of his time,skitting, caressing, tapping, whacking in breathtaking flurries over the rhythm players’ incessant riffing. Just when it seems like a guitar break is beckoning, Rudd pulls a rabbit out of his hat with a recorder solo. Remembering a tin whistle played by Wilson in a Party Machine song, Rudd found that instrument difficult to master so he learned how to play a recorder instead. His solos on that instrument (the album’s only overdubs,) added to the incomparable Spectrum sound. The remaining two tracks ‘Drifting’ written in the studio by Rudd and featuring Crosby, Stills & Nash- like vocal harmonies and ‘Mumbles I Wonder Why’ - a combination of two older songs, one written with Ross Hannaford during Rudd’s Party Machine days - complete the album on an up-beat vibe. After four subsequent albums Rudd knocked Spectrum on the head in December 1973. Craig Horne’s book will bring you up to date with Rudd’s sustained career that thankfully includes live performances with the current Spectrum line-up.

MARSHALL CHAPMAN ME, I’M FEELIN’ FREE

EPIC 34422 released 1977

In the 60’s/70’s/80’s major record labels worldwide maintained a massive album release schedule. Only a comparatively few artists scored a hit, others became ‘cult’ classics. Beyond that exists an underbelly of almost totally ignored work, (much never reissued) that time has been kind to. This is a page for the crate diggers.

For men the maverick singer/songwriter movement in Nashville started to build up speed in the early ‘70s, most notably with Kris Kristofferson but really too many others to list here. The ‘ladies’ had to wait another half decade for the chance of a comparative iconic game changer and here she is. Unfortunately, the game remained much the same but that hasn’t stopped Marshall Chapman - she remains a force to be reckoned with to this day. She finally hit financial pay dirt in the late 80’s with a ditty called Betty’s Bein’ Bad, a big hit for the otherwise fairly forgettable Sawyer Brown. The song is of course about her. For years she rocked where others rolled but could also turn stone country whenever it took her fancy. This first album sets it all out, playing the game to some extent but most likely sounding even better today with hindsight of what was and what could have been. As Cowboy Jack Clement, Waylon Jennings, Tompall Glaser and others - even Canadian folkie/Cowpoke Ian Tyson note on the back cover here was a woman truly worthy of being a Highwayperson. There’s something about Marshall’s vocals and song themes akin to Bobby Gentry - Southern Gothic in work such as Somewhere South Of Macon/Five O’Clock In The Morning/ Between Carolina And Texas. Chapman penned (or co-wrote) all but one of the songs on the album; Allen Reynolds Ready For The Times To Get Better – clearly producer Ben Tallent was hedging bets with a near sure thing ring-in and sure enough the song became a number one hit a year later, alas not for Chapman but Crystal Gayle - whom Reynolds was producing at the time. From this future viewpoint it is easy to dismiss Chapman’s chances of mainstream acceptance as being a tad less than zero but give thanks for the process that captured a maverick wild child let loose into the heart of ‘the system’ and listen to her bask in the glory of such wonderful musicians as Reggie Young, Pig Robbins, Norbert Putnam and Jerry Carrigan playing her songs the most concise/ultimate way they could have been at the time, most likely forever. The feminine vocal chorus (some future stars involved) are no slouches either – most played on many hits and even more misses but are here sounding like they gave it all to a sister. It was all on Marshall to carry on from this artistically auspicious beginning and in a fashion she has, flirting with other labels and finally establishing her own ‘Tall Girl’ – often donning an electric guitar, writing and performing largely her own material to audiences large and small, releasing 14 albums and mainly just being herself. With a lack of false airs/graces, just the nitty-gritty no nonsense soul of a ‘true’ badour (just made that one up)! She’s been a lot of places - but she ain’t goin’ nowhere, just where she belongs, out kickin’ ass. There is truly no one to compare her to; she’s a true freak of nature and this album is where it started. I invite you to dive into her catalogue and unlike many of her ilk (if she has any), it’s mostly all out there and mostly all good! Revisionism often paints a low sales performance first album as tentative or tepid. The artist herself has mentioned lack of control over her major label work as a factor/ failure to ignite a chart-topping career. I beg to differ on this one. Show me another Nashville based female artist exploring this Blues/Soul/ roots connection as efficiently as Chapman did in the mid-‘70s – there just isn’t one. Her debut remains vibrant because it stayed outside the mainstream – the hat Chapman dons on the cover isn’t being thrown ‘in the ring’ – she was the real deal forging a new way forward. Perhaps the missing link between Patsy Cline/ Loretta Lynn and Shania Twain! Hey, go find you some M.C you’ll be glad you did!

BY KEITH GLASS

MICKY DOLENZ DOLENZ SINGS NESMITH

Fell in love with The Monkees thanks to Saturday morning TV re-runs in the ’80s. Loved Nesmith’s beanie and adored Micky ever since I saw him strap on roller-skates and lead a bunch of kids like the Pied Piper in The Monkees on Tour (Season 1, Episode 32). He looks other-worldly, rake thin with ironed hair, with a face so angular it’s like it’s been drawn in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon style. Cut to now and this is basically a modern Monkees record and a continuation of The Monkees renaissance since the deaths of Davy Jones and Peter Tork. Micky singing Mike. Produced by the Nez’s son, Christian. Even the record company has a Monkees reference, 7A. One nod elsewhere - the concept and the artwork are inspired by the 1970 album, Nilsson Sings Newman. In an impressive move, the arrangements all try for something different to the more famous versions of these tracks. For instance, ‘Propinquity (I’ve Just Begun to Care)’ is more power-pop than country rock while ‘Different Drum’ is a rave-up compared to its original incarnation. The album goes heavier than you’d imagine – ‘Little Red Rider’ gets a Lenny Kravitz style workout, and ‘Circle Sky’ is in the vein of a Page-Plant eastern epic. The most successful takes include ‘Don’t Wait For Me’, a neglected Monkees number from Instant Replay; ‘Only Bound’, an early70s gem which shows off Micky’s voice at its best and ‘Marie’s Theme’, from Nesmith’s

1974 high concept album, The Prison.

JUDY COLLINS WHITE BIRD: ANTHOLOGY OF FAVOURITES

Cleopatra

My first girlfriend’s mother looked just like Judy Collins off her 1963 album, Judy Collins 3. Same haircut and piercing blue eyes (always asking hard questions). It meant I felt a strange kinship with Judy, which wasn’t hard. She always had an incredible voice and

72

By Christopher Hollow

great taste – one of the first to recognise the songwriting talents of giants like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny. She also wrote great songs, too, like ‘Song for Judith (Open the Door)’ and ‘Since You Asked’. Here the now 82-year-old Grand Dame of Folk revisits/re-records some of her back pages including the Richard Fariña number, ‘Pack Up Your Sorrows’ (better than Judy’s 1964 original) and Joni’s ‘Chelsea Morning’ (not better than Judy’s 1969 original). She also performs an engaging duet with Joan Baez on Joan’s infamous Bob Dylan tryst, ‘Diamonds and Rust’. But the highlight of the set is a ballad that Collins should’ve had a crack at in her prime, ‘White Bird’, originally done by San Francisco’s folkpsych band, It’s a Beautiful Day.

As Judy Collins has done many times throughout her career, she sings like it was written especially for her. The opening stanza: ‘White bird in a golden cage/On a winter’s day/In the rain’ reminds me of the great Ernest Hemingway joke: ‘Why did the chicken cross the road? To die. In the rain.’

THE BUILDING INDIANOLA PIZZA DOUGH

Peppermint

warranted a detailed cheat sheet to read along as the music plays, it’s Indianola Pizza Dough. Stepping back a moment, the band is The Building, which is basically a vehicle for talented Ohio multi-instrumentalist, Anthony LaMarca, who has spent the best part of the last decade as part of The War on Drugs collective. So why do we need a map here? Well, Indianola Pizza Dough is a concept record centred around a farrago of found sound, polkas and waltzes mixed with snatches of chat, dazzling indie pop creations and deep-held memories. It’s all bound by the idea of a pizza shop, Margie’s Place, owned and run by LaMarca’s family in Youngstown, Ohio (in the heart the Rust Belt in the heart of America). Without context, the nostalgic dialogue, and the song choices like ‘Beautiful Ohio’ (based on Stephen Foster’s ‘Beautiful Dreamer’), old-time waltzes like ‘Adio Amico’ and the peppy two-step ‘Happy Times Polka’ come out of nowhere. But mixed with hyperemotional tunes like ‘Trying, Tired’ and ‘The Ballad of Indianola Ave’, it fires the imagination. Tied together, it’s a very good record. It would be a brilliant novel too.

WIDOWSPEAK HONEYCHURCH

Captured Tracks

This Honeychurch EP is of great interest to me. It feels like therapy. A couple bands covered on here, Dire Straits and R.E.M., are two that I haven’t made my peace with from my youth. I still definitely have unresolved issues. Dire Straits, even now I feel I’m trapped in my folks Holden Commodore on a very long drive and the dog’s just been sick in the back after finding and eating leftover roadside quiche. R.E.M.? I haven’t even begun to get to the bottom of my feelings there. Anyway, New York’s Widowspeak have covered Dire Straits (‘Romeo & Juliet’) and R.E.M. (‘The One I Love’) - two of the biggest songs of their respective eras/ careers. And it doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe I’m maturing. Maybe I’m ready to accept my younger self.

WILLIE NELSON

TEXAS WILLIE Sunset Blvd Records/Planet

The sprightly 88yo still churns out records of variable quality on a regular basis, but none of his recent releases scream out “essential” like this fabulous 2-disc package does. The 40 songs bring together obscurities and demos from the late 1950’s, before Willie signed up to future fame and fortune with Liberty and RCA, and their significance cannot be understated. His youthful voice is country purity, and the songs are a three-chord gateway into one of the great songwriting careers. The thing is, after listening to these early demos of ‘Man With The Blues’, ‘The Storm Has Just Begun’, and many more, it’s patently obvious he was always going to become a legend.

DAVID OLNEY & ANANA KAYE

WHISPERS AND SIGHS Schoolkids Records/Planet

Within hours of completing the final mix of this fine record, the world lost David Olney. The sense of loss permeates the fabric of each song on this collaboration between the grizzled Americana songwriter and the Nashville based Georgian songbird. Kaye’s Eastern European folk leanings seamlessly mesh with the Olney’s wizened Americana fuelled observations on friendship, love, and mortality. Whilst David Olney’s star may have finally dimmed, on Whispers And Sighs he has introduced a smoky-voiced singer whose star is surely on the rise.

By Trevor J. Leeden

PEGGY SEEGER

FIRST FAREWELL Red Grape/Planet

Should the 24th solo album by the revered octogenarian indeed be her farewell to recording, then it must be said that her parting shot is a triumph. Still blessed with the crystalline voice that has mesmerised legions of folkies on both sides of the Atlantic for seven decades, Seeger’s three children not only provide mellifluous accompaniment but share the writing on a batch of typically uncompromising songs that address womanhood, the social media scourge, depression, and suicide. Peggy Seeger’s music has never shied away from confronting society’s woes, she deserves to be held in similar esteem as her siblings Pete and Mike, and husband Ewan MacColl.

TEYR

ESTREN Sleight Of Hand

The new breed of British folk and acoustic music purveyors bring a sense of heightened energy and dexterity to their recordings, and this fabulous trio (TEYR is Cornish for “three”) are no exception. An astonishing fusion of accordian, fiddle, uillean pipes, whistles and guitar, Estren is an explosion of jigs and reels, of lilting ballads and instrumental exhortations that breathtakingly intertwines contemporary and traditional themes. A song cycle that explores migration, travel and movement, it is hard to imagine there will be a better folk album this year.

SARAH JAROSZ

WORLD ON THE GROUND Rounder/Planet

Whilst Jarosz has drawn rave reviews as a member of the all-female trio I’m With Her, it’s the multi-instrumentalist’s solo albums that are the real jewels in her musical crown. Her latest is terrific, rich in melody and storytelling of the highest order. The highlights are the three character observations, ‘Eve’, ‘Johnny’ and the wonderful ‘Maggie’, a poignant reflection on a woman yearning wanderlust (“drive across the desert in a blue Ford Escape, hopefully this car will live up to its name”). This is an evocative, folk-tinged delight.

BRIAN BROMBERG

A LITTLE DRIVING MUSIC Artistry/Planet

Set the cruise control to the legal limit and enjoy the ride. This is no pyrotechnic pedal to the metal road trip from the ace of bass, instead Bromberg and his stellar cast of guests – all recorded in lockdown isolation from one another – push the radio pre-set for a dose of cool running “jazz/ blues/funk”. Propelled by Bromberg’s trademark rubber bass lines, the brass section steers each tune through an ever-changing soundscape that finds Bromberg’s bass predominantly playing second fiddle to a phalanx of high-profile saxophonists; a very enjoyable ride indeed.

TONY JOE WHITE

SMOKE FROM THE CHIMNEY Easy Eye Sound/Planet

The music world was poorer when the Swamp Fox passed, but thankfully his son Jody and uber fan Dan Auerbach have taken these unheard voice and guitar demos and produced a fitting career postscript. White was a singular talent who steadfastly followed his own star, and these nine songs beautifully encapsulate the funky, country/soul groove he was renowned for. A project undertaken for all the right reasons, Smoke From The Chimney is a timely footnote that only serves to enhance White’s legacy.

ROBERT FINLEY

SHARECROPPER’S SON Easy Eye Sound/Planet

He may have waited until his mid-sixties before becoming an overnight sensation in his native Louisiana, but the blind blues/ soul journeyman is making up for lost time. Finley’s autobiographical third album is tinged in gospel, informed by New Orleans R&B, all adding gravitas to his hard luck stories on the road to ultimate redemption. Like other latecomers such as Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones, it’s Finley’s gritty vocals, channelling Al Green and Curtis Mayfield, that carry the day on an outstanding record.