American Gothic.

It is Saturday evening. I have been indoors all day because of Storm Dennis. This is the second major storm in a week. We will have to get used to more extreme weather because of climate change. They didn’t give storms names until recently. Anyway, I haven't seen another living soul, but I have been quite happy, pottering about, reading and listening to music. I was pleased to see when I checked my emails that I have sold three books. They are The Trial by Franz Kafka, I Remain by Lew Welch and Cain’s Book by Alexander Trocchi. I’ll parcel them up tomorrow and post them on Monday. I listened to an album today that I haven’t played for a couple of years. American Gothic by David Ackles. I  enjoyed hearing it again. This is what I said about it when I bought it eight years ago...............

I wanted a rare gem from the past that I had missed first time round. I am always interested in artists who lived in obscurity and are only discovered decades later or had a brief flirtation with fame and disappeared. People like Anne Briggs, Jonathan Kelly, Vashti Bunyan or Karen Dalton. I vaguely remembered a friend years ago mentioning an album called American Gothic by David Ackles. Also, I had read that Elton John and Elvis Costello had hailed it as a masterpiece. It wasn't available in Britain, so I ordered a copy from Canada and two weeks later American Gothic hit my doormat.

I looked at the front cover and it was a man sitting in a boat and a woman sitting on the porch of a timber framed house. On the back cover she is wearing denim overalls and he is holding a garden fork which creates the feeling of a rural life in the olden days. I found it was based on a famous picture called American Gothic by Grant Wood that I never had heard of, so this is quite educational. I didn't know what to expect. I hoped it might be a bit like Astral Weeks or maybe a bit like a Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks collaboration. I was very surprised to find it was recorded in England and produced by Bernie Taupin. I also noted that most of the musicians were from the London Symphony Orchestra and there were three backing singers of Doris Troy, Madeleine Bell and Lesley Duncan who were the best female session singers in England at that time.

As the eponymous opening track started, I realised that this was something the likes of which I had never listened to before. The voice had nothing to do with rock music or folk. It sounded like musical theatre, a genre of music that I thought I didn’t like. As the album progressed, I saw that this music transcended the boundaries between styles. There were elements of classical, music hall and folk. The opening title track was about this couple called Molly and Horace Jenkins who couldn't stand the sight of each other but make the most of it, which a lot of people do. The second track I found initially the most accessible Love’s Enough which is a love song with the traditional song form that I was used to.

 I could hear that David Ackles was not a great singer, his forte was obviously as a songwriter and arranger, but the beauty is in the poignancy of the lyrics. Love’s Enough could have been a huge hit if recorded by somebody with a more distinctive voice. The same applies to One Night Stand, Another Friday Night is a great sad song. On first listen, I didn't like Midnight Carousel much but thought Waiting For The Moving Van was great, and Blues For Billie Whitehead. The tour de force on the whole album is Montana Song which is a ten-minute epic and worth the price of the whole album. It has shades of Van Dyke Parks It is all about discovering an abandoned farm and reading the gravestones of a pioneer family. This is classical music and if somebody put it on the stage I think the whole album would make a great musical. This classic needs to be re-discovered. The album flopped when it was released in 1972 and David Ackles was dropped by his record company, he made one more album and then disappeared. It is time his work got the recognition it deserves.

John 'Babbacombe' Lee, The Man They Couldn't Hang.

“Have you got the new album by The Lost Brothers?”, I asked the man in my local record shop yesterday. “No”, he replied, “It’s only available online”. “Ok, have you got a new album by Frazey Ford?”. He looked on his computer. “That doesn’t come out until April”. For god’s sake! I was trying to support my local record shop because it is a miracle that we still have one in this day and age. I was determined to buy something. I couldn’t hang about though because I had left S in the pub. In the folk section I noticed an album that I hadn’t heard for about 40 years. “That will do”, I thought, paid the man £9.99 and hurried across the road to Spoons.

The album is Babbacombe Lee by Fairport Convention. I originally bought it on  release in 1971. I was a student at Teacher Training College at the time. It is a concept album which relates the true story of John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee who became famous as ‘The man they couldn’t hang’. 

He was convicted in January 1885 of the murder of his employer Miss Emma Anne Keys at her home in Babbacombe near Torquay. The evidence against him was flimsy and circumstantial and he swore that he was innocent. I remember at college one night back in 71 my friends and I debated for hours whether he was guilty or not. The night before he was due to be executed on February 13^th, 1885 at Exeter Prison he had a prophetic dream that he would not hang. He was quite relaxed when led to the gallows.

The hangman was John Berry who had perfected the new ‘long drop’ method which was thought to be more humane than previous ways of carrying out executions. The trapdoor failed to open on three attempts although it was tested after each failure and found to be in full working order. The doctor who had to be present by law was so shocked by what he was witnessing he refused to take any further part in the proceedings and Lee was returned to his cell. His sentence was eventually reduced to penal servitude for life. Babbacombe Lee was released in 1907 after serving twenty-two years. He emigrated to the USA where he died aged 80 in 1945. Lee's gravestone was located at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee in 2009.

The album came about when Dave Swarbrick of Fairport Convention was in a West Country antique shop and came across a bundle of yellowing newspaper cuttings that had been bound and signed by Lee. That inspired the band to create the first ever Folk-Rock opera which is Babbacombe Lee. The CD which I purchased yesterday contains a booklet telling the whole story in John Lee’s own words. There are also two bonus tracks that I hadn’t heard before and I’m pleased to say that the great Sandy Denny sings on one track called Breakfast In Mayfair. I don’t think it is one of Fairport’s greatest albums by any means, but I enjoyed hearing it again today.and it gave me something to write about on this dull and rainy Friday in February .

Beautiful Vision By Van Morrison.

This morning I have been listening to one of my favourite Van Morrison albums. I hadn't played it for ages. It inspired me to dust off a review I wrote a long time ago..........

1982 was a bad year for me in many ways but there was something to cheer me up. A new Van album called Beautiful Vision.  I liked the cover design so much I framed the record sleeve and put it on my wall. Wherever Van has lived is an influence on his music and for a short time in the early 80's Van lived with his northern muse Ulla Munch in the Vanlose district of Copenhagen. This inspired a number of tracks on Beautiful Vision such as Vanlose Stairway, Scandinavia, She Gives Me Religion and the title track. Celtic Ray the opening song is very Irish, with Van yearning for home. Van says in the song that he has been away too long. Lots of Irish people move away to places not greener, but meaner. They never move away spiritually, always thinking about returning someday. This theme is continued on Northern Muse, Solid Ground. The line 'If you see her say hello' is the title of a Dylan song from Blood on The Tracks.

Alice Bailey.

The words of Dweller On The Threshold and part of Aryan Mist were inspired by a book published in 1950 called Glamour, A World Problem by Alice Bailey and show Van’s interest in Theosophy at the time. He would mention theosophy again in his song Rave On John Donne. This is what I read in Wikipedia- Her book discusses the New Age ideas of "glamours" or "mental illusions", which formed a fog that covers the "spiritual warrior" and the "Aryan race" from the world. When the "dweller on the threshold" was covered with the light of the soul or "Angel of Presence" illumination came. In 1982 Morrison revealed in an interview: "I've read Glamour four or five times, and I get different things out of it each time. Alice Bailey's saying a lot of things. Its depth reading. You might read it on Wednesday and on Thursday you pick it up again and get an entirely different thing. I don't feel qualified to speak about what it's about - you really have to read it yourself ... because there's so much in there. Beautiful Vision and She Gives Me Religion are two love songs probably inspired by Ulla. I particularly like the imagery of church bells chiming on a Sunday afternoon and girls walking by dressed in the summer fashions.

What’s my line?' sings Van in the next song. What’s My Line was a popular panel show on the television when I was a kid. It was hosted by Eamon Andrews and the panelists had to guess what the contestants did for a living. Van tells us his line was Cleaning Windows. This is a song unlike anything else on the album and Mark Knopfler plays guitar on it. In the song Van talks about buying 5 Woodbines cigarettes and I did actually find a packet of 5 woodbines at work under some floorboards. Van the name dropper is in evidence here with Jimmy Rodgers, Jack Kerouac and Christmas Humphreys getting a mention among others.  Van likes to get his listeners into things he is into. 'Baby don't let it slide' sings Van at the end.  I think he was a bit worried about climbing up the ladder.

Vanlose Stairway is a song about the apartment where they lived in Copenhagen. It is in quite an ordinary looking building, but Van can make anything romantic, because this stairway reaches right up to the moon. Georgie Fame also does a great version of this song  on the Van Morrison Songbook album. Aryan Mist is another song inspired by Alice Bailey and her Tibetan friend. Apparently, the railway carriage charm is a reference to amphetamines.

Across The Bridge Where Angels Dwell is a very contemplative evocative song. It was co-written with the albums engineer Hugh Murphy who also co-wrote two other songs with Van. Hugh sadly died in 1998. which leads us in to the instrumental Scandinavia which features Van on piano. I remember him performing this track at my second ever Van concert in 1982.This technique of the quiet song leading into the instrumental is also used on  other Van albums in the early 80's.The idea is that the music leads the listener into a meditative state. Van would continue to explore spirituality in music throughout the 1980’s which I think was one of the most creative periods of his career.