Across the Pond # 8 - May 2000
Tue 16th Guy Davis
http://www.fortissimo.org/artists/davis/
(Borderline)
A musician, composer, actor, director, and writer. Throughout
his career, he has dedicated himself to reviving the traditions
of
acoustic blues and bringing them to as many ears as possible
through the material of the great blues masters. "Davis'
chameleon
voice, his harmonica and fingers on guitar filled the room in
one
of those performances where one is at awe at the talent on stage,
and where one feels the words like a warm evening wind."
[Blues Magazine]. His latest album is 'Butt Naked Free'
(Red House) is doing particularly well in the UK folk charts at
the moment.
Tue 16th Sam Shaber
http://www.samshaber.com
(12 Bar Club)
A NYC-based female folk singer with two CDs,
'In the Bunker' and more recently, 'perfecT', a live
album recorded over the course of 4 shows at The
Bitter End, CB's Gallery, and the Fast Folk Café.
Thur 18th Tom Paley
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/paley.htm
(Islington
Folk Club)
Ex-New Yorker, now living in London, Tom has been
playing guitar and banjo since the 1940s. He was a
founder-member of both 'The New Lost City Ramblers'
with Mike Seeger and John Cohen in 1958 and 'The New
Deal String Band' with Joe Locker in 1966. In recent years,
Tom has also taken up the fiddle and added traditional
Scandinavian music to his repertoire. His latest release, with
his son Ben, is 'Svenska Låtar - Swedish Fiddle-Tunes'
(Wildwood).
Thur 18th The Dubliners
http://come.to/thedubliners
(Wimbledon
Theatre)
Now one of the best known bands in the world, they started
off in O'Donoghue's pub in Dublin in 1962 under the name of
"the Ronnie Drew Folk Group". Described at the time
as looking
"like they'd just been dragged out of a seedy bar via a hedge
(backwards) and dropped on London from a very great height",
they took the UK charts by storm in 1967 with their song 'Seven
Drunken Nights'. A major influence for bands like The Pogues
and The Popes.
Fri 19th Warren Zevon
http://www.warrenzevon.com/
(Shepherds
Bush Empire)
see UK tour dates below
Described by the London Times as "One of the most
intelligent, sharp and witty songwriters on this planet."
Touring the UK promoting his latest album 'Life'll Kill
Ya', a sparse album, produced mainly just with Zevon's
voice, piano and guitar, augmented with tastefully minimalist
use of bass and drums. With songs so densely populated
by vivid characters, visions, jibes and insights, any more
additional instrumentation would have been superfluous.
Jorge Calderon, along with drummer Winston Watson,
are the main musicians. "At some point I insisted on
keeping the production down to a level to where I could
faithfully recreate the album alone in saloons in Korea
when my career goes down the toilet," Zevon explains.
Fri 19th Stackridge
http://www.stackridge.co
(The Borderline)
In 1970, a disparate group of quirky individuals with a
tremendous shared sense of fun and no dress sense set
off from Bristol in Bessie the Van to conquer England,
armed with a guitar or two and a few good songs. 1,000
gigs later, they had opened the first Glastonbury Festival,
taken Reading Festival by storm and in 1973 attracted
the attention of Beatles producer George Martin, who
produced their "Man In A Bowler Hat" album. The West
Country's answer to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band,
Stackridge enjoyed a reputation for eccentric behaviour
and an eclectic musical style. Reforming in '98, they
released the well-received CD, 'Something For The
Weekend', making a successful return to headline on the
Acoustic Stage at the1999 Glastonbury Festival. Their
new CD 'The Original Mr Mick' (Dap Records) will be
released this month and once again they will be appearing
at Glastonbury in June.
Sat 20th Dick Gaughan
http://www.dickalba.demon.co.uk/main.htm
(Cellar Upstairs)
"When you're dealing with Dick Gaughan one encounters
one of the most coveted and revered voices of recent times.
A man whose vocal style is unique, both stirring and spine
chilling ... a lethal experience."
[John O'Regan, Rock 'n' Reel]
Sat 20th The Neal Casal Band
http://www.morebarn.com/nealcasal/
(Borderline)
Described by The Washington Post as "One of the best
new songwriters of the year", Neal's '99 UK solo acoustic
tour was a great success, with his album, 'Basement Dreams'
being named as "Album Of The Week" by The Sunday
Times. Now on a European band tour promoting his new
album, 'Anytime Tomorrow' (from Glitterhouse
Records
in the UK/Europe or from http://www.milesofmusic.com
or his site in the US).
Sun 21st Bulgarian Voices - Angelite
http://www.imnworld.com/bwc.html
(Union Chapel)
Bulgarian Women's Choir featuring 20 singers from all
different parts of Bulgaria who have been trained in
traditional Bulgarian music as well as in Western art
music. They are able to merge the tone color and vocal
techniques of the Bulgarian traditional music with the
complex musical structures of new composition. Thus
it is often difficult to determine whether Angelite is a
classical or a folk choir. Concert tours have taken the
choir around the world to the USA, Mexico, Japan,
India, and practically all Western and Eastern Europe.
Mon 22nd The Chieftains
http://www.escape.ca/~skinner/chieftains/chief.html
(Royal Festival Hall)
Pioneers, innovators, collaborators, multiple Grammy
winners, and one of the most enduring and successful
bands to ever come out of Ireland. The band's latest
album, 'Water from the Well' (RCA) is a 'back to their
roots' collection of tunes drawn together from the length
and breadth of Ireland.
Sun 28th Show of Hands
http://www.showofhands.co.uk
(Cecil Sharp House)
Their new album 'Covers' has just been released and
contains 13 cover versions, from Radiohead to the Kinks.
Sun 28th Bap Kennedy
http://www.country.com/gen/music/artist/bap-kennedy.html
(Half Moon, Putney 0208
780 9383)
see UK tour dates below
"Barroom philosophy with dobros" is how former 'Energy
Orchard' front man Kennedy described his last album
'Domestic Blues', recorded in Nashville, with Steve Earle
and longstanding partner Ray Kennedy (a.k.a. the twangtrust)
co-producing, and with the participation of such esteemed
American players as Jerry Douglas, Peter Rowan, Nancy
Blake, the late Roy Huskey Jr. and guest vocalist Nanci
Griffith. His 3rd self-produced album "Lonely Street"
is out
in the UK on May 8th on his own Lonely Street Discs.
Sun 28th Boo Hewerdine
http://www.compassrecords.com/booh.htm
(Ronnie Scott's)
Sun 28th Helena
http://www.birdsoft.demon.co.uk/helena/index.htm
(The Hop Poles, Acton)
Mon 29th Nanci Griffith & The Blue Moon Orchestra
http://nanci-griffith.com
+ The London Symphony Orchestra
http://www.lso.co.uk/
(Royal Albert Hall)
In the liner notes to her new album, 'The Dust Bowl
Symphony', Nanci writes, "Contemplation of recording
this album with The London Symphony was like being
that small child atop the caprock looking out at the vastness
of the dust bowl. It is a retrospective of twenty-odd years
of my songwriting and shaping those songs with the colors
I had always wanted to hear in them and the opportunity
to work with the finest musicians of the London Symphony
Orchestra and their conductor, Andrew Jackman." On her
current UK tour with regular band, The Blue Moon Orchestra,
she also has dates with the Liverpool and Belfast Symphony
and the Scottish Opera Orchestra in Glasgow.
Mon 29th Nitin Sawhney
http://www.nitinsawhney.com/
(Astoria)
Tue 30th Slaid Cleaves
http://www.slaid.com
(The Borderline)
"He's got a melodic sense to match his narrative skills
and
he draws as much from Rockabilly and Hank Williams as
he does from vintage Bob Dylan.... his sharp perspectives
and sharper hooks distinguish him almost as much as his
name." [Chicago Reader]. Over from Austin Texas to
promote his latest release 'Broke Down' (Rounder)
Tue 30th Judy Cook
http://ceimd.com/folksing.htm
(Sharps Folk Club)
A powerful voice, a great-unaccompanied style and a huge
repertoire of (mostly) American songs and ballads. "Judy
Cook is one of the finest exponents of ballad singing that
the current American folk music revival has produced. Her
depth of understanding and story-telling ability in ballad
form is rivaled only by her dedication to the music and her
willingness to do her research. But all that aside - I'd go
and listen to her anytime and anywhere." [Lou Killen]
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Contact Paul Castle: pdcmusic@freeuk.com
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