From Gardens Where We Feel Secure by Virginia Astley.

It is Friday afternoon and I am listening to my new album which finally arrived yesterday. It is a wonderful thing entitled From Gardens Where We Feel Secure by Virginia Astley. Originally released in 1983, this is the reissue CD from 2003. I was complaining recently that it was unavailable and the very next day I saw a copy for sale on eBay, so I snapped it up. It is the most expensive recording I have ever bought, but worth it.

The album opens in the morning.  With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming, has the natural sound of birdsong before Virginia joins in on piano. There is also woodwind on this album. I thought that might be her friend Kate St John, but there is no mention on the sleeve notes of any other musician. The album evokes the mood of a lazy summer day from dawn until dusk. There are no vocals apart from some wordless harmonising on one track called A Summer Long Since Past which also has the sound of church bells. This moves seamlessly into the title track From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. Some people might be confused with the title of the next track Hiding in The Ha Ha. Not me though because I know that a ha ha is a hidden ditch which, without obstructing  the view from the house often surrounds country houses to stop wild animals like deer getting onto the lawn, or eating the flowers. The flute sounds make me think it could almost have been written by Mozart, or perhaps I'm getting carried away with myself saying that.

Afternoon begins with Out On The Lawn I lie In Bed. The beginning of which seems to have the sound of a creaking rusty swinging gate. There are all kinds of natural sounds on the album, you can hear lambs bleating, owls, rowing boats and other sounds that I am not quite sure of. There is one repeated animal noise on track 6 Too Bright For Peacocks that slightly irritated me for a brief moment, but I soon got over it. Summer Of Their Dreams perfectly captures an afternoon long ago. The last two tracks are When The Fields Were On Fire and It’s Too Hot To Sleep.  The sound of a solitary owl brings the album to a close. I can see why composers like Delius have been mentioned in reviews of this music. I think as time goes by the reputation of this album will grow and grow. I still think it should be reissued, so that more people can enjoy this wonderful music.

ps, leftover words that I forgot to use, bucolic, pastoral, ambient, neo-classical. nostalgic.

Gymnopedies.

It has been a beautiful Wednesday morning. I have been sitting in the kitchen with the back door open. The sun is shining, my sunflowers sway occasionally in a gentle breeze and butterflies and bumble bees go about their business without a care. If you didn’t watch the news you would think everything was fine in the world. All that madness seems a long way away. I have been listening to my new CD which came today. It is a recording of works by Erik Satie.

I heard Gymnopedies by Satie on the radio on Sunday morning and decided to order it. I had heard it before, but didn't know what it was called. As well as that piece there are five works by Satie in all, played on piano by Reinbert De Leeuw. I love this minimalist music. There are times when I do not want to hear songs or complicated orchestrations. I just want to hear something that creates an ambiance and puts me in a good mood. This music is like silence in a nice frame. Although Satie composed this music over a century ago it sits nicely alongside other music I have such as Rainbow In Curved Air by Terry Riley, Music For Zen Meditation by Tony Scott, Keith Jarrett, or Virginia Astley who I have discovered recently. Satie was a close friend of Debussy and I can certainly see that connection as well.

There are sleeve notes to the album  which I found enlightening, because I confess I knew hardly anything about Satie before today. He was in the Rosicrucian order for five years and then set up his own religion called ‘The Metropolitan Church of Art and of Christ the Conductor. He was the only member of this church. He left Paris for a suburb called Arcueil and lived in one room which he called ‘Our Lady Of Lowliness’. He had an affair with a model called Suzanne Valadon who left him after six months. This had a huge impact on his life and he never had another relationship again. He died in 1925 from cirrhosis of the liver. No one else had ever entered the room where he lived until after his death. Amongst the squalor of the room many unpublished compositions were found. One score of a work called Jack In The Box was found behind a piano. Satie thought he had left it on a bus. Many of his works were published after his death. I am glad I have discovered Erik Satie and I have enjoyed listening to his music on this nice July day. Apparently Gymnopedies was a dance in ancient Greece which was performed naked. Jean Cocteau said, “Satie’s work goes forth quite naked”, and it certainly does.

Listening To Karen Dalton.

Bob Dylan, Karen Dalton, Fred Neil, Greenwich Village 1961.

It is Karen Dalton's birthday today. She was born on July 19th 1937. This is a piece I wrote about her ages ago which I just dusted off. ....................... 

I bought Bob Dylan's first book of autobiography called Chronicles and in the first few pages Bob relates his experiences of arriving at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. On page 12 he says,
"My favourite singer in the place was Karen Dalton, she was a tall white blues singer and guitar player, funky, lanky and sultry. I'd actually met her before, run across her the previous summer outside of Denver in a mountain pass town in a folk club. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it. I sang with her a couple of times".

When I read these words of Bob I just thought to myself that I had never heard of her and read on.
A few years went by until I was on Google one day looking for some information about Van Morrison and started to read an old article on the Guardian newspaper site about Youtube and it was saying how great Youtube was because you could see long forgotten footage such as a teenage Van the Man singing with Them at the NME Pollwinners Concert or legendary New York folkie Karen Dalton. Immediately Bob's  words came back to me.  The first clip I found was Karen singing a song called It Hurts Me Too.  I could see what Bob meant, her voice had an uncanny resemblance to Billie, not only in the sound but in the emotion, she didn't just sing the blues, she was the blues. I could also see the damage that life had done to her. As the camera closed in you could see the effects of hard living etched into her face. Despite the ravages of abuse she still had a nice beguiling smile. The sound of her 12 string guitar was really tasteful.
 I  chose an album at random. It was called 'In My Own Time' and was originally released in 1971. Karen was born in Enid, Oklahoma of Cherokee and Irish origins. In her bluesy, world-weary voice she sang blues, folk, country, pop, and Motown making over each song in her own style. She played the 12 string Gibson guitar and a long neck banjo. Karen's second album, In My Own Time was recorded at Bearsville Studio's and originally released by Just Sunshine Records. Its liner notes were written by Fred Neil and its cover photos were taken by Elliot Landy. Less well-known is Karen's first album It's So Hard To Tell Who Is Going To Love You The Best. Known as The folk singer's answer to Billie Holiday and Sweet Mother K.D She struggled with drugs and alcohol for many years. It has been widely reported that she died in 1993 destitute and forgotten.
The CD arrived  and I eagerly opened the package. On the invoice inside whoever had packed it had written "An Awesome Choice, Dig It!". This boded well and I played the CD. I haven't stopped playing it since. I love it. My favourite song is 'Katie Cruel', it has a strange  haunted quality. Something On Your Mind, the opening track is fabulous but I love all of them. You will know When A Man Loves A Woman & How Sweet It Is but Karen gives them a whole new treatment. What I can't understand is that it flopped on release and Karen disappeared into obscurity. I think this might be because she didn't like singing her own material, she just interpreted other people's songs. Also, apparently she hated recording and wasn't bothered about the trappings of fame and was probably too sensitive. This world was too cruel for the likes of Karen and she buried the pain under alcohol and drugs and slowly slid into a terminal decline.
The word about Karen Dalton is spreading. Nick Cave who wrote a song called The First Time I Came To Town inspired by Karen's Katie Cruel described her as his favourite Blues singer and wrote a piece for the re-release of  the album called 'An Understanding Of Sorrow'.  Nick says "I always play her a lot, and to the people I live with and they would say, 'Please take that fucking record off'. They just didn't get it,they didn't feel the same way, I've had that reaction to Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison or Bob Dylan. That to me denotes a great, very individual, idiosyncratic voice, an exciting voice".

Karen Dalton - It Hurts Me Too