Farewell to Music

I would have told you that the last time I saw Dave Swarbrick was with Martin Carthy at a Musicians' Benevolent Fund benefit at Cecil Sharp House, which LJ tells me was in 2012 - or maybe at his solo gig at the Waiting Room in Eaglescliff. But no, in fact it was just over a year ago, in concert at the Sage, once again with Carthy. But then, for over twenty years every time you saw Swarb could have been the last time.

There's a very good obituary in The Telegraph ("Well, they've had practice," says durham_rambler).

I was looking for some suitably solemn or melancholy piece to embed here - O'Carolan's Farewell to Music, say - and was tempted by Fairport's Farewell, farewell, which is thematically apt, but not really a showcase for the man's talent. But I couldn't resist this (and not just because I've been listening to Dorten Yonder rehearsing their own 'Chickens!' set:

Watch on YouTube

And, just for durham_rambler, a bonus track from the archives:

Watch on YouTube

A week in London

This post has been a Work in Progress for the last week, and meanwhile stuff keeps happening. Nonetheless, here it is at last. We were in London for a week, for reasons I explained on our way south. It was a busy week, and now it is over and we are returned to our regular programming, whatever that may be. Here's the compressed version of the last week: ( Further compressed by the cut! )

And then we came home. But that's another story.