Contents:
UK News & Feature
- Summer Festivals
- David Crosby feature
London Gigs
Best of the Rest of the UK
UK Festivals
With a busy summer in prospect, and after nearly two years compiling this monthly column, I've decided to take a break - for now, at least. I hope readers have found it a useful introduction to the UK folk scene. But, before I disappear into the summer sunset......
Summer Festivals
Probably the UK's best known summer folk festivals are at Cambridge in July each year, and Sidmouth in early August. The Cambridge Folk Festival remains one of the premier music events in Europe and one of the longest running and most famous folk festivals in the world. Held in the grounds of the beautiful Cherry Hinton Hall, just within the boundary of the historic City of Cambridge, it has become a hugely popular and a regular sell out, attracting ten thousand people, many of whom return year after year. This year's festival, the 37th, which has already been sold out for many weeks, will feature the return of Suzanne Vega, her first appearance for 10 years, along with other North American visitors including John Prine, North Mississippi Allstars, Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, Slàinte Mhath, The Campbell Brothers, Slaid Cleaves, Buddy Mondlock and Jeb Loy Nichols.
The 47th Sidmouth International Festival of music, dance and song (from 3rd-10th August), with more than 600 events over 8 days in this beautiful Devon seaside town, will be headlined this year by Tom Robinson, The Incredible String Band, Lonnie Donegan, and Sharon Shannon & The Woodchoppers performing at the Knowle Arena Theatre, a natural amphitheatre with a 5000 crowd capacity, whilst Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson, Slàinte Mhath (Canada), Dick Gaughan & Brian McNeill, Roy Bailey, Danú, Chris Smither (USA), Dave Swarbrick, Walt Michael & Company (USA), Ta Perivolia (Crete) and Blowzabella headline the BBC Radio 2 Concert Marquee. For a FREE Festival guide contact the Festival Office, PO Box 296, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP19 9TL. Box Office:01296 433669 e-mail: sidmouth@mrscasey.co.uk.
See details of other UK July festivals below, and check out the new BBC Radio 2 Folk Website for details of forthcoming live webcasts.
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Across the Pond Feature : David Crosby
This month sees the first visit to the UK by 'CPR' - a trio formed when David Crosby, in hospital recovering from a liver transplant in 1995, was tracked down by his adopted son, James Raymond, who had recently discovered the identity of his father. 35 year old James was already an established keyboard player and composer on the LA film/TV scene. Quickly discovering that they enjoyed playing and creating the same music, they began writing together and, teaming up with renowned guitarist, Jeff Pevar (who Crosby describes as "one of the best guitarists out there and my personal favorite"), went on to record and perform together as 'CPR'. This month they are touring Europe promoting their new (second) album 'Just Like Gravity'.
A native Californian and son of an Academy Award-winning cinematographer, David Crosby, who'll be 60 in August, first developed an interest in folk music in his late teens, spending two years on the road, playing guitar and singing folk music in small clubs and coffehouses throughout the country, before joining the Kingston Trio-like band 'Les Baxter Balladeers' for a while in the early sixties. In 1964 Jim (later changed to Roger) McGuinn and Gene Clark were harmonising together at the Los Angeles 'Troubador' folk club when David walked up and, uninvited, began improvising a third harmony part. Legend has it that the next words out of Crosby's mouth were "Can I join 'our' band." The three originally teamed up as 'The Jet Set', but with the arrival of bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke, soon changed their name to The Byrds. Blending folk music with British pop and electric amplification, they became the leading folk-rock group of the day when their version of Bob Dylan's song "Mr Tambourine Man" became the summer hit of 1965 all over the world.
However, following differences with the band whilst recording their sixth album in 1967, David moved to Florida, where one night he walked into a local folk club, 'The Gaslight South', to be "completely smitten" by the performer on stage, Joni Mitchell. Describing the experience, in a discussion with the late Wally Breese, he says, "She was standing there singing all those songs ... "Michael from Mountains", "Both Sides Now," and I was just floored. I couldn't believe that there was anybody that good." Returning to Los Angeles in late 1967, Joni came along and moved into his Hollywood house where he enthusiastically presented her to his musician friends, and to influential people in the music business, before producing her first album. "In a hundred years when they look back and say, "Who was the best?" - it's going to be her", he says.
Not long after, David began a casual collaboration with Stephen Stills, who at the time was playing with Neil Young in 'Buffalo Springfield'. In 1968 their friend, Mama Cass from The Mamas And The Papas, brought The Hollies, an English pop group featuring vocalist Graham Nash, to play at LA's Whisky A-Go-Go, attended by Crosby and Stills. Regarding him "the best damn harmony singer around", they took him home. Interviewed in a recent UK TV documentary 'Walk on By', David recalled their first jam session. "We played him a new song, "You Don't Have to Cry". At the end Graham just asked us to play it again - and then again - and that was it. That was the sound as recorded on our first album." The rest is not only 'history' - but continues today, as Crosby Stills & Nash set off on another tour of the States in August and later this year a major new biography 'Crosby Stills Nash......and Sometimes Young' is due to be published.
In addition to his work with 'CPR' and a reunion tour of the States last year with CSN&Y following the release of their latest album 'Looking Forward', David has also been involved in a major book/TV documentary series recently - 'Stand and be Counted', which according to this Denver Post review, "recounts the role musicians have played in advancing human rights while raising social awareness through the last half- century. Crosby and co-author David Bender document the memories and conversations of more than 40 artists who put themselves on the line for causes they believed in." Discussing the project David says, "I've always loved people having the courage to stand up against oppression, injustice, racism, war, every kind of divisiveness. I realized that nobody had ever written about how the whole thing came out of Woody Guthrie's songs and Pete Seeger's doings and the union movement, up into the songs that provided the sound track to civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam war moratoriums of the '60s....There is an ethic that goes out on its own and just bubbles up in people: 'Oh, that's not right. I just can't let that go on'. "
'CPR' play London's Jazz Cafe on 24th and 25th July.
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| [Photo: Kate Rusby is joined by Eddi Reader (right) and Andy Cutting on accordion, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London (June 24th 2001) to sing Richard Thompson's 'Withered and Died' from Kate's latest album, 'Little Lights', which is currently # 1 on the Virgin UK Roots chart]. |
Please check out the UK Gig previews below - North American visitors this month include Bob Dylan, Suzanne Vega, Country Joe McDonald, CPR, Ron Sexsmith, Eh, La-Bas!, Slàinte Mhath, Slaid Cleaves, Carol Elizabeth Jones & James Leva, and others.
Wherever you're bound this summer, have a great time.
Paul pdcmusic@freeuk.com
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