News from Nowhere

Sunday began with fireworks, but fizzled out into a damp squib. Oh, but with a cherry on the top!

( Fireworks before breakfast )

( Tax anticlimax )

In the evening we tuned in to a LiveToYourLivingRoom event with Sandra Kerr and family talking about Bagpuss: for which I may have been somewhat spoiled when I saw it in Hartlepool. Still fun, if not quite as magical.

We spent last Sunday evening livestreaming a celebration of the songs of Leon Rosselson, hosted by the estimable People's Music Network. We didn't log in to the Zoomed concert, because - well, was it Noel Coward who said television was for being on, not for watching? That's how I feel about Zoom. But whether there really is something live about a live stream, or whether it's just an illusion, it felt as much like 'being there' as can be achieved from the comfort of my own sofa. Only now it is saved for posterity, and we can all be there again, any time we choose:



( A detour down memory lane )

The relevance of all this is that the high points of the concert for me were precisely what you'd expect. I enjoyed - well, I enjoyed the whole thing, but an honourable mention for a couple of comedy numbers: Elijah Wald's virtuoso rendition of We Sell Everything and Charlie King's Whoever Invented the Fish Finger. Martin Carthy, who I think had intended to sing History Lesson, had to cancel (a combination of scheduling class and technical problems, so he was neither there in person nor represented by a video). I thought Leon Rosselson's own My Father's Jewish World an interesting story, and The World Turned Upside Down the perfect choice to close with (and Billy Bragg - given that the medium does not permit ense,ble singing - the perfect person to sing it, though I wished his sound was better; don't know what went wrong there...).

But the highlight performers for me were the usual suspects. Martin Simpson - a recorded video, alas - sang Palaces of Gold, as he has every time I've seen him since the Grenfell Tower fire. Nancy Kerr sang Harry's Gone Fishing, which I begin to think of as an old friend (it has certainly taken residence in my ears) though I only know it from her lockdown project. Hooray, then, yet again, for Robb Johnson who demonstrated that I can still like something I haven't heard beforee, with On Her Silver Jubilee. You might think that would be a little out of date by now, but since it opens with Rosselson's memories of the Coronation, and the gist of the song is What, is she still here?, it is even more to the point than it was when written: you don't have to take my word for this.

( Too much information about dentistry: cut to protect the very squeamish but not actually all that bad, without bloodshed or extraction of teeth )

Which is why our emergence into society on Monday evening was even more low-key than we had planned, because I wasn't drinking. It was very pleasant, regardless, to visit S. in her house and in the company of G., and to sit across the wide expanse of S.'s dining table and gossip, and eat food that I had not only not prepared myself, I hadn't even had to plan.

The BBC seems to have decided that the responsibility for celebrating Bob Dylan's 80th birthday (on Monday) falls to Radio 4, so the programming has been unexpectedly talk-based. durham_rambler and I listened together to a series of short talks by Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa. It was not explained why the University of Tulsa has an Institute for Bob Dylan Studies (but can you call yourself a university if you don't have an Institute for Bob Dylan Studies?). It also has the Bob Dylan Archive, which is just down the road from the Woody Guthrie Archive, and that, at least, makes sense. We listened to each day's episode over a cup of tea, and heckled quite a lot. Compressing 60 years of creative life into five short programmes requires simplification and selection, and I wasn't entirely convinced by the result; but I came away prepared to try again to get to know some of the later material.

Yesterday evening's tribute to Dylan came with a bonus - because of course if Dylan is 80, then so is Martin Carthy, and yesterday was his birthday. He turned up on Front Row to talk about the early days, and they asked him about the piano and the samurai sword: yes, he said, it's true, and told the story - which is what he does best, telling stories. It was a joy to hear him sounding so fresh and alive, after that Zoom concert at which he had seemed so rusty: getting back to work seems to be good for him.

We moved seamlessly from the radio to an online folk club gig by Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, which promised more Carthy-related pleasures: it is allegedly possible to listen to James Fagan's community radio programme Thank Goodness It's Folk, yesterday's installment of which featured Martin Carthy and his own selection of records - and I will go and do that thing as soon as I have finished this. The gig was excellent, of course: highlights included a Leon Rossellson version of 'The Grasshopper and the Ant' which I didn't know (with a promise of more Rossellson to come soon), Robb Johnson's Herald of Free Enterprise, some Northumbrian pipe tunes and Nancy's own Queen of Waters.

From the sublime to the ridiculous: tonight is Eurovision. How will I get through it without a glass in my hand?

We haven't been avoiding the Festival of the North which is happening at the moment; but neither have we been seeking it out. Nonetheless, last Saturday (yes, Saturday a week ago - this post has been long in the writing) we did two things which come under its capacious umbrella - and one that didn't. We went to two concerts at the Sage, and spent the time between them exploring the 'Winged Tales of the North' trail in the Ouseburn.

( Alistair Anderson presents... )

( Where your wings were, and other stories )

( A concert of two halves )

Barnard Castle's Butter Market, like every on-trend public building, is currently wearing scaffolding. The green net overskirt is a distinctive touch, and particularly otherworldly after dark, floodlit under an almost-full moon.

We were in Barnard Castle last night for a concert at the Witham. But first, a pre-concert dinner with friends: baked risotto and all the gossip, what could be nicer?

The Melrose Quartet are Nancy Kerr and James Fagin, whom we have seen a number of times in different permutations of personnel, plus Richard and Jess Arrowsmith, whom we have never seen before. I'd heard enough of the Quartet on record and radio to know I would enjoy the live performance, but not enough to know what shape the evening would take. Some of this and some of that, it turns out: some songs and some instrumentals; some traditional material, some they had written themselves and some by other people; a good balance altogether. Nancy Kerr is an outstanding songwriter, and I was delighted to hear her song Santa Georgia, which I had half heard once on the radio and been unable to identify:



One unscheduled treat: after the first song, there was a problem with the amplification - possibly the instruments weren't being picked up properly? - and while the sound engineer was doing technical heroics, the band stepped in front of the microphones and sang The Seeds of Love. It was wonderful. The hall is a decent size but not enormous, the acoustics are good, the quartet are a bunch of serious and accomplished singers who know what they are doing, it sounded great, and it felt so much more direct. Which may be entirely subjective, but I think the band felt it too, because when it came to the encore they stepped forward again and sang Come and I will sing you as they do here:



Is there something that makes some songs more suited to this treatment than others? I don't know. But more like this, please.

We have just had a brief visit from durham_rambler's university friend S. (not the person usually referred to in this journal by that initial): we'd chosen from the dates she was available those which would allow her to join us at Thursday evening's concert, part of the annual Folkworks summer school, called Women of Rebellion: Songs of Protest and Revolution, and so that we could then visit the Magna Carta exhibition in the former University Library. Too much to cover in full, so this is the condensed version.

Concert line-up: Karine Polwart, Nancy Kerr, Bella Hardy & Bryony Griffith and Gina Le Faux. I knew nothing about Gina Le Faux, but the internet is full of Dave Swarbrick praising her fiddle playing: on Thursday she sang and played mandolin, so we missed that. Bryony Griffith used to be a Witch of Elswick; she sings traditional songs in a fine bold voice, with a mannered delivery which I find off-putting. Bella Hardy was charming and had a sweet voice, but the only song she did that I found at all memorable was Jolly Good Luck to the Girl That Loves a Soldier, based on a Vesta Tilley song and written for a First World War centenary project: any song which namechecks Maria Bochkareva and her Women's Battalion of Death is liable to linger in the memory.

Worst thing about the concert: held in Elvet Methodist church, which I like as a venue, but it doesn't have a raised stage, and five seated perfomers are liable to be invisible to much of the audience. Build them a plinth to sit on, or find them higher chairs, or just ask them to stand up.

Best thing about the concert: Nancy Kerr, inevitably. She sang new songs from the Sweet Liberties project, which I look forward to hearing again (and at least one of which cried out for the Simpson, Kerr and Cutting treatment)...

Next best thing about the concert: Karine Polwart. I associate her with winning awards for writing songs which I find 'inspirational' in a country music sort of way, which I suppose means cloying. She opened the concert, leading the singing on The Jute Mill Song, which I have known forever, and told us what I had not known, that its author Mary Brookbank became the first woman to be quoted on the Canongate Wall on the Scottish Parliament building when a verse from the song was added to the wall in 2009. I'd go and see her again.

The Magna Carta exhibition, on the other hand: well, it was interesting, but...

Best thing about the exhibition: you enter the exhibition space, and are greeted by a quotation from Gerrard Winstanley (probably, if I remember rightly, this one: "For freedom is the man that will turn the world upside down, therefore no wonder he hath enemies"). Turn left, and there's a case containing Durham' own copy of Magna Carta, the only surviving copy of the 1216 Charter issued by William the Marshall on behalf of the young king Henry. That's pretty cool. Opposite, another case contains two more charters issued by King John and bearing his seal (one of the given to Finchale Priory...).

Worst thing about the exhibition: it peaks too soon. After that strong opening, it's downhill all the way. We enjoyed the huge enlarged image, with a key passage highlighted, and with the help of the translation alongside, we were able to read it. But thereafter, individual interesting things (Wars of the Roses cap badges, Jacobite drinking glasses) but nowhere near enough revolt.

Alternative worst thing about the exhibition: it is mis-named. Lots of historical information, starting from the point that the Charter is not actually about the liberty of the individual, it is part of the struggle to limit the rights of the king, and looking at successive conflicts of king and people, mostly people who were powerful to start with. Not entirely: there was a bit about the Peasants' Revolt, and those Jacobite glasses (arguing that alongside visible Jacobite revolt, you had all the quiet toasts to 'the king over the water', the silent dissent). But no more about the Diggers, just the Wars of the Roses and the Glorious Revolution - anyway, I was disappointed less because of any fault with what I saw than because I had expected something else.

Guest now delivered to her train, in the hope that her next host will meet her as (almost but not quite) arranged...

Last night's gig was Nancy Kerr and the Sweet Visitor band - that is, the band put together to play material from her album of songs she had written herself. We had booked on the basis that I had enjoyed her contribution to the 'Full English' project (including a song of her own composing), and anyway we hadn't been getting to many gigs lately.

In other words, I had no particular expectations - but I wasn't expecting the full folk-rock experience, the drums, the bass, the words lost in the music. We were sitting near the front, and the lights shining down onto the front of the stage dazzled my eyes, and that probably increased my grouchiness. At the intermission, durham_rambler talked to the sound-and-lights people at the back of the hall, and they very kindly killed the light that was causing the problem: I wonder whether anyone noticed that the lighting was more moody in the second half? I liked it better, quite apart from the fact that it didn't hurt my eyes. But I 'watched' much of the first half with my eyes closed, which can't have helped. A fragment of conversation expresses the problem:

durham_rambler: I could hardly hear the banjo on that one.
Me: I didn't realise she [Rowan Rheinghans] was playing banjo until I opened my eyes...

About three songs in, though, I was reminded what had brought me here:



Apollo on the Docks was written for a 'Radio Ballad' about the Olympics; later we also heard a second piece from the same commission, The Bunting and the Crown. I loved that, asked to write a song taking a positive view of the Olympic legacy, the best Nancy Kerr could come up with was 'won't it be lovely when it's over!'

There's a surprising absence of video of the band. We were at the last concert of their tour, but all I can find is tracks from the album accompanied by a cover shot. This doesn't come close to capturing the atmosphere of the live performance, even if the sound balance is very much more to my taste.

The other stand-out song for me was (I think) Broadside, which opened the second half. This was the number on which James Fagan got in touch with his inner rock god - and, as he explained later, this is why:



The music was written and originally performed by Martin Simpson and John Smith. His only option was to play it completely differently. (And I'd like a round of applause, please, for managing to search out a piee of folk music called 'Broadside' from among all the many broadsides).

The short version: not everything about the evening worked for me, but one ot two things I liked very much.