Pauline Boty, The Only Blonde In The World

I am really pleased to see that there is a programme on  BBC4 tonight called Pauline Boty, I am the 60s. I am glad that she is finally getting the recognition she deserves. To celebrate the occasion I thought I would  dust off this piece I wrote about  Pauline back in 2019..............................................................................A couple of days ago when I was researching a piece about Adrian Mitchell I read that he and his wife had adopted a child who was the daughter of their friends the artist Pauline Boty and Clive Goodwin. This aroused my curiosity because I hadn’t heard of Pauline Boty before, so I looked for info about her. What I found was quite fascinating for me because I have always been interested in people who had a brief flirtation with fame and then disappeared into obscurity, or made an important contribution to the arts and have been unfairly overlooked. Pauline was one of the founders of the British Pop Art movement along with the likes of David Hockney and Peter Blake who both went on to be world famous, but Pauline has been largely forgotten. Another thing I have noticed about Pauline is that she was extremely beautiful. This might have been to her detriment because she might have only been noticed for her looks and not for her work.

Pauline was born in 1938 and after attending art school in Wimbledon where her classmates called her ‘The Wimbledon Bardot’. She studied stained glass design at the Royal College Of Art. She wanted to study painting but couldn’t because admissions for women to that course were limited due to the institutionalised sexism of the times. That didn’t stop her painting in her spare time though. She was a bit of a polymath. As well as painting, Pauline also published poetry, acted, and also was a leading light in a group called the Anti-Uglies who protested against the brutalism of post-war British architecture. Pauline was one of the artists featured in a TV programme directed by Ken Russell in 1962 called Pop Goes The Easel. She acted at the Royal Court Theatre, appeared in Armchair Theatre on television, danced on Ready Steady Go and was one of Michael Caine’s girlfriends in the film Alfie. When Bob Dylan first visited Britain in 1963 it was Pauline who showed him around London.

Colour Her Gone.

It should be for her art that Pauline is remembered. I have looked at her work on the internet and am most impressed. Her paintings are bright and exuberant and sensual. There are two pictures featuring Marilyn Monroe called The Only Blonde In The World and Colour Her Gone which particularly caught my eye. There is another one as well called ironically, It’s A Man’s World which celebrates her femininity. I also liked a picture called 5 4 3 2 1 which took its title from a song by Manfred Mann. If there was an exhibition of her work near me I would certainly go along and see it.

Pauline’s life ended tragically young. After a whirlwind romance she married Clive Goodwin. In 1965 she became pregnant. During a pre-natal test it was discovered that she had leukaemia. She refused chemotherapy because it would harm her child and she died at the age of only 28 just a few months after the birth of her daughter.  Her daughter also died tragically from a heroin overdose in 1995.

After she died Pauline’s paintings were stored away in a barn on her brother’s farm where they remained, gathering dust for over thirty years. Pauline’s place in British art was largely forgotten until recent years. In 2013 a retrospective exhibition of her work was finally held in Wolverhampton and later Chichester. It is due to the sexism in British art that she has been overlooked for so long. The same applies to literature. The leading figures in British writing in the 50’s were called The Angry Young Men, what about the angry young women?. Also, the other day I looked in a poetry anthology I have called Children Of Albion published in 1969 which features 65 poets of the era. There are only five female poets in it, what a disgrace.

In the 1960’s, because of her looks everyone was in love with Pauline Boty. I read this by Sabine Durrant who said in 1993, “Even now, grown men with grey hair in dark houses in Notting Hill cry at the sound of Pauline Boty’s name.”

Postscript: Five years after I wrote this piece I am very pleased that Pauline is finally getting some recognition. This week I was watching the first episode of a new series on BBC by historian Simon Schama called The Story Of Us which looked at what shaped Britain since 1945 and Pauline's work featured quite heavily in the episode. I hope this might lead to a major exhibition of her work.

The Only Blonde In The World.

1972, Lindisfarne & Loon Pants.

I had a few little coincidences in the last week or so. One rainy afternoon I decided to pass the time by tidying up my bureau where I keep all my paperwork, bills etc. I came across some of Kim’s old photographs and among them I found this card on which she had written June 13^th 1972, Swindon, Lindisfarne. It was signed by two members of the band Lindisfarne who were Alan Hull who wrote most of their great songs and Ray Laidlaw who was the drummer. (See picture) This was about six years before I first met Kim who would have only been sixteen in 1972.

I don’t remember her ever mentioning to me that she once saw Lindisfarne and got their autographs. Looking at this card brought back some great memories for me because I was also a big fan of Lindisfarne in the early 1970’s. I had their first two albums Nicely Out Of Tune and Fog On The Tyne which were both classics of folk rock containing such songs as Lady Eleanor, Winter Song, Clear White Light, We Can Swing Together, and Meet Me On The Corner. I must admit though that I started to lose interest after the third album Dingly Dell. I saw them play live several times during those heady days of the early 70s. I was a few years older than Kim and at college when the Students Union organised a coach trip to Liverpool Locarno to see a double bill of Lindisfarne and Genesis. The two bands toured together because they were both on the Charisma Records label. 

The main thing I remember about that night is our friend Linda sat on some chewing gum which stuck to her loon pants, “Oh no, I’ve ruined my loons”, she exclaimed in her Yorkshire accent. It seems really funny now looking back on it. (If you don’t know what loon pants are, see picture) Also, Lindisfarne were on the bill at The Great Western Festival in 72 which was the first ever big music festival I went to. Another memorable event was in 1974 when The Who headlined at Charlton Athletic football stadium and Lindisfarne were one of the support acts. They were also there at Knebworth in 1980 headlined by The Beach Boys which was the last time all the original Beach Boys performed together on stage. 

Anyway to get back to my story, the very evening of the day I came across the card in the bureau, which I think was last Friday I was flipping through the channels on the telly to see if there was anything worth watching, and lo and behold, on BBC4 there was a documentary about none other than Alan Hull the genius songwriter of Lindisfarne. It seemed uncanny. This was followed by a concert from 1978 called Rock Goes To College featuring Lindisfarne (See video below). Then to my further astonishment I looked on the internet to see if Lindisfarne are still going, and they are, although there is only one original member Rod Clements still in the band. I was amazed to see that they are playing just down the road from here at the Wiltshire Music Centre in Bradford On Avon in October. 

It seemed fated that I should go, so I looked at the website. It is a tiny little theatre of only 300 capacity, although purpose built with splendid acoustics. There were only a handful of seats left but I managed to get one of them. I’ll tell you all about that in October. There are a lot of gigs, concerts and festivals before then though starting on 18^th March with Van Morrison, so lots to look forward to, have a nice weekend. Cheers.

Lindisfarne Lady Eleanor live 1978

R.I.P. Bill Fay.

Bill Fay in 1970.

I was very sorry today to hear that Bill Fay has died at the age of 81. As a small tribute to Bill I thought I'd republish this review that I wrote five years ago..................................................................... Today I have been listening to a CD that arrived a couple of days ago. It is simply called Bill Fay. It was first released in 1970 and it has taken me fifty years to discover it.  It was just over a week ago that somebody put a link on Facebook to an article in the New York Times. It was about an American songwriter called Joshua Henry who had set out in 2010 to find a long forgotten English singer who had made an album that he and his father loved. This singer was Bill Fay and nothing had been heard of him since 1971 when he had been dropped by his record label.  Ever since Joshua Henry tracked down Bill Fay and persuaded him to return to the recording studio he has made three albums. The latest called Countless Branches was only released in the last two weeks. Since his re-emergence from obscurity Bill Fay’s songs have been championed by such people as Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilko. Bill has even been persuaded to join Wilko on stage for a song and has made an appearance on BBC’s Later With Jools Holland. He has no intentions of touring to promote his latest work though. It seems that Bill didn’t mind the decades of obscurity because he was content to write songs and record them at home purely for the love of making music.

All this aroused my interest, because as you know I love finding long forgotten great music. I looked on YouTube and I liked the first song I heard called Be Not So Fearful which was included on his very first album. (I have shared that song to blogger if you want to hear it) I decided to see if this album was still available, looked on eBay and there it was. It had been re-released in 2008 on the Esoteric Label. Two days later it popped through my letterbox. Van Morrison fans might like to know that it was an ex-member of Van’s group Them Called Terry Noon who discovered Bill in the mid 60's. He had moved from being a musician to management, spotted Bill and brought him to Decca. One of Decca’s labels was Deram who had a subsidiary label for ‘progressive’ music called Nova and it was on this label that Bill Fay was released in 1970.

There are thirteen songs plus two bonus tracks from an earlier single release. I won’t go through the whole album song by song, because I won’t be able to think of anything to say about some of them. The opening track is called Garden Song and is like an ode to the joys of gardening with such lines as ‘I’ll wait for the rain to anoint my face’. It starts quietly but builds to a crescendo of instruments. It sounds like a whole orchestra was used on this recording. The Sun Is Bored also has huge swirls of orchestration which was quite the fashion of that era. At times I was reminded of an album called A Salty Dog by Procol Harum or McArthur Park or Scott Walker. Sing Us One Of Your Songs May has a military style drum beat intro before a deadpan spoken delivery of a melancholic anti-war song. Gentle Willie is also a song with a pacifist sentiment. Methane River is a great song, but the vocals are almost drowned out in places by a cacophony of trumpets. It’s a shame because there are some nice woodwind sounds during the quieter passages. The Room, Goodnight Stan, Cannons Plain and Down to The Bridge are all excellent songs. One of the bonus tracks Screams In The Ears is an account of going to a horrible party. Some Good Advice had echoes possibly of Nick Drake.

Bill Fay now.

I enjoyed the album very much indeed. My only complaint is that I think it is over-produced on some songs. Less is more.  Bill and just his piano would have been sufficient for some of the tracks. I think if it was recorded these days it would have a more stripped-back sound. Apparently, it was the follow-up album called Time Of The Last Persecution that led Joshua Henry to track down Bill Fay. Maybe that’s the album I should have ordered. There is no doubt though that Bill Fay is a very talented singer-songwriter and I am pleased that at the age of 76 he is finally getting the recognition he deserves.

Be Not So Fearful by Bill Fay.

A World Of Peace Must Come by Stephen Kalinich & Brian Wilson.

Brian Wilson was my first music hero. When all the other kids at my school were either Stones fans or Beatles fans, I was different and knew that The Beach Boys were the best group in the world. Although my music taste expanded as I got older, I still followed the ups and downs, trials and tribulations of Brian’s career with interest through the decades. I thought I was a bit of an expert on Brian’s life and music. Recently however I read about a recording Brian made in 1969 that I knew nothing about. I discovered that he had produced and played on a spoken word album by a poet called Stephen John Kalinich. The recording was completed in one day on August 22^nd, 1969, at Brian’s house in Bel Air California. It was Called A World Of Peace Must Come. I recognised the name Stephen Kalinich because he co-wrote three songs with Dennis Wilson, Be Still and Little Bird on the Beach Boys 1968 album Friends, and All I Want To Do on 20/20. Stephen and Brian couldn’t get a record company to release the album, and it was lost for decades until being rediscovered and finally released by Light In The Attic Records in 2008. 

I read more about Stephen on Wikipedia which told me that he was born in New York in 1942 and moved to California in the mid-60s where he became known as a poet and peace activist, appearing at such venues as The Troubadour in Los Angeles. He made a recording called Leaves Of Grass, but no radio station would play it, mistakenly thinking it was about marijuana, but it did bring him to the attention of Brian and Dennis Wilson. I decided I needed to hear this album, and the CD arrived here a few days ago. The album contains twelve tracks recorded at Brian’s house plus Leaves Of Grass as a bonus track. All the lyrics are written by Stephen. It begins with a few seconds of unmistakeable Brian Wilson harmony intro before Stephen recites the first poem Candy Face Lane. The album contains a very useful booklet with all the words, so you can read the poems while listening. 

I won’t comment on every poem, but I think they stand up very well against the Beat poets I know from this era such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti who are probably the only other American poets I can think of from the 60s. The themes are of spirituality, peace and nature.  Some tracks such as The Deer, The Elk, The Raven are performed as songs with some music accompaniment. On that track a dog can be heard barking in the background, which was probably accidental, but reminded me of Pet Sounds. On The Magic Hand there is a nice touch where Brian’s wife Marilyn Wilson sings a small section of Tears On My Pillow. My favourite track is Be Still which is based on the song which appeared on the Friends album. A critic described it as a ‘Unitarian hymn’ and interpreted the lyrics to be a description of the ‘sacred essence of life and the human potential to interact with God’. 

The words have a zen-like simplicity, but very profound. Although this recording was made 55 years ago, I think it is very relevant to today’s world. In 1969 America was going through a very dark time with the Vietnam war, political assassinations, and race riots. Today America and the world is facing equally dark times, but as in the 60s there is also a growing spiritual consciousness that opposes the darkness. Another track I really like is America I Know You (I urge you to watch video below) which points out that despite all the problems America is still a great country. Americans don’t need some jumped up real estate speculator telling them they need to make America great again. It is great already. They gave us the best music for a start. As in all countries there are big problems to solve, but the people have to solve them together and not be divided by hate.

I better stop now before I get too political. I am pleased I discovered this rare recording. I know it won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I think it is a very interesting piece of the Brian Wilson legend. This is what Stephen said about Brian on his birthday which I agree with..

‘Brian Wilson puts so much good into the universe. It could fill all space the positive impact of his melodies, harmonies, thoughts, and contributions to the consciousness of humanity is beyond what any scholar or critic could capture in words. The music speaks for itself, it produces joy and tears just by listening to it, it opens up the senses when you’re really down, it’s cathartic, it can help toward healing you. Brian Wilson has been a great friend to me and I’m so grateful for him and he touched so many other lives. God bless him on his birthday and the goodness he puts out into the universe regardless of all the struggles he has gone through himself. This is astonishing, not only touches me deeply, but it touches humanity and I’m so grateful that he was born and may he always be blessed’. Stevie Kalinich

Stephen John Kalinich - Brian Wilson - America, I Know You.

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, The Komedia Bath, 12/02/2025

It was a cold and dark Tuesday February evening as I boarded the train for the short journey to Bath. I arrived an hour early as usual because I don’t trust the trains to be on time. I passed the time in this place called Eat a Pitta enjoying some middle eastern type spicy food. Then crossed the road when I saw the doors open at The Komedia. I have never been to a gig previously at this venue. It used to be a cinema. The last time I remember setting foot in this building was 1988 when me and Kim saw A Fish Called Wanda here. They have removed the seating downstairs leaving just the balcony as a seated area. I don’t like it as a music venue as much as my favourite Bath venue The Forum which has a beautiful interior and much more spacious, but I suppose it’s not fair to compare the two.

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets came on stage promptly at 8.00. I’ve seen Nick quite a few times before, but only once with this band which was Glastonbury 2019. I love their retro twangy guitar sound which reminds me of the guitar groups of the early 60s like The Shadows or The Ventures. They play cheap guitars that I think are made in Korea, but they sound wonderful. They are just bass, two guitars and drums. Nick jokingly called the extrovert drummer Gringo Starr. Their gimmick is that they all wear these bizarre Mexican wrestling masks, so you never know what they look like. All Nick’s songs tend to be quite short, and they fairly ripped through them. The first song was So It Goes from Nick’s 1978 album Jesus Of Cool. This was followed by two songs from his excellent recent release Indoor Safari which were I Went To A Party and Raincoat In The River. Then Nick performed Lately I’ve Let Things Slide from 2001, and I Live On A Battlefield written by Paul Carrack. This song is from Nick’s The Impossible Bird album of 1994 which was when I realised how great Nick is. A neighbour Dave gave me a copy of that album and I loved every track. This was followed by three more songs from Indoor Safari which were Love Starvation, Jet Pac Boomerang, and Tokyo Bay.

Nick then left the stage, and we were treated to an Interlude with Los Straitjackets who played five tunes, but the only one I recognised was the theme to the Magnificent Seven. Nick returned and the evening got better and better. Trombone was followed by the poignant House For Sale, then Ragin’ Eyes from 1983s Abominable Showman, Without Love from 1979s Labour Of Lust album, and 12 Step Programme (To Quit You Baby). I thought one of the highlights of the evening was the recent Blue On Blue which he sang very emotionally. I filmed three songs, but they didn’t come out very well, Cruel To Be Kind was the best of them, but still a bit blurry, (See video below) Half A Boy And Half A Man was followed by my favourite Nick Lowe song (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love And Understanding? which is a message the whole world should hear, especially in these dark insane times. Most of Nick’s songs are upbeat rock and roll, or sad ballads about good love gone bad, but this song has a universal message.

In The Heart Of The City was the B-Side of Nick’s first single So It Goes on Stiff Records in 1976. This was followed by the brilliant classic I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock And Roll). Nick and the band then left the stage, but we knew they would be back. The first encore was Los Straitjackets performing a song which included parts of Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow which I recognised from the Beach Boys Party album but was originally by The Rivingtons. Nick then joined them for the Dave Edmunds & Rockpile song When I Write The Book. 

The second encore was just Nick on his own performing a very moving song you will know from Elvis Costello which was Alison. That brought a most enjoyable evening to a close. I was back on the pavement by 9.45 and in plenty of time to catch the 10.03 train back to Westbury. Thank you very much indeed to Los Straitjackets and the legend that is Nick Lowe.

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets. Cruel To Be Kind, Komedia Bath 2025.

Nick Lowe - What's So Funny About Peace, Love And Understanding

Bob Dylan - With God on Our Side (Live on BBC, 1964)

Greenwich Village In The '60s

It is Friday afternoon, and my boot heels don’t want to go a wanderin’ today, so I thought I’d write a few words about Bob Dylan inspired by a 2CD compilation I’m listening to at this very moment. It is called Greenwich Village In The '60s. It was seeing the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown recently that reminded me to give it another listen. As you may know I have long been interested in the music of this place and time and have written pieces previously about many of the musicians who lived and played in Greenwich Village during this era. People like Dave Van Ronk, Eric Anderson, Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, Phil Ochs, Karen Dalton, and Judy Collins who all contribute to this album.                                                    However, It was a song on the album by somebody I hadn’t heard of previously that got me thinking, and wondering about Bob Dylan and what motivated him during this time. The song is called Go ‘Way From My Window by John Jacob Niles. The lyrics Go 'way from my window, Go 'way from my door, Go 'way, way way from my bedside, And bother me no more, are so similar to Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe, Go away from my window, Leave at your own chosen speed, I'm not the one you want, babe, I'm not the one you need'. There can be no doubt where Bob got the idea for his song from.

The Clancy Brothers from Ireland also have two songs on the album. They had emigrated to New York and Bob saw them perform frequently in such places as the Gaslight Poetry Café, Gerdes Folk City, and the Café Wha. When Bob heard their song The Patriot Game which was written by Dominic Behan, he soon appropriated the traditional melody and altered Dominic’s words to create With God On Our Side and claimed it as a Bob Dylan original. Dominic criticised Bob publicly for claiming the song and called into question the provenance of Dylan's entire body of work.

I have read that during a tour of the UK by Bob, Dominic rang him at his hotel room with an angry tirade. When Bob Dylan suggested that "My lawyers can speak with your lawyers", Dominic replied, "I've got two lawyers, and they're on the end of my wrists” I can believe that story because it reminded me of a scene in the documentary Don’t Look Back where during an after show party in a hotel room Bob asked if there were any poets in Britain like Allen Ginsberg, and somebody suggested Dominic Behan, Bob replied, “I don’t wanna hear any Dominic Behan”, which suggests that there might have been a bit of bad feeling between them. I expect it was also the Clancy’s version of The Parting Glass that Bob heard in Greenwich Village that he soon changed to Restless Farewell. I’m not sure whose version of the traditional song Lord Randall Bob heard first, but it provided him with A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall in 1962, introducing each verse with variants of the first lines to each verse of Lord Randall. People often think Bob wrote it as a reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis, but in fact he first publicly performed the song a month before the crisis began.

Bob realised that one of the great things about traditional songs was the fact that they didn’t have any copyright on them, which meant you could help yourself to the melody, then change the words and voila! a brand-new song by Bob Dylan. While the likes of Joan Baez and Pete Seeger were quite content to keep the traditional ballads unchanged in their repertoires, Bob saw an opportunity to become the most famous songwriter of the 1960s. As Bob is quoted as saying, ‘Anyone who wants to be a songwriter should listen to as much folk music as they can, study the form and structure of stuff that has been around for 100 years. Opportunities may come along for you to convert something—something that exists into something that didn’t yet.” He carried on with this philosophy on his first visit to England where he heard many trad songs around the folk clubs. Hearing Martin Carthy perform Scarborough Fair provided him with Girl From The North Country and Boots Of Spanish Leather. Paul Simon also cashed in with that same song a short time later.

There are many other examples of Bob Dylan taking traditional songs he heard from other singers and making them his own, and other people have sometimes criticised him for this, but it was the words that Dylan wrote that marked him out as one of the greatest poets since Keats or Shelley. Once Bob had exhausted the rich mine of traditional folk music he found in Greenwich Village he was ready to enter his greatest era and create masterpieces such as Mr Tambourine Man, Visions Of Johanna, Desolation Row, and dozens of other inspirational songs that nobody could accuse him of stealing. I believe in centuries to come it will be as a poet that Dylan is remembered. This is why he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and nobody has deserved it more.

R.I.P Marianne Faithfull

The Words In Between by Dave Evans.

On this rainy January day I thought I’d tell you about a CD which arrived here recently called The Words In Between by Dave Evans. No, I hadn’t heard of Dave Evans either, until recently when I stumbled across a video of him playing on BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test in the 1970s, (See video below) I liked what I heard, particularly his acoustic guitar playing, and because I’m always interested in discovering musicians who I missed first time around I ordered his first album from 1971. It was quite expensive because I think it has been out of print for a while, but well worth it because I love this album. The copy I received is a reissue from 2001 which also contains five songs from Dave’s second album Elephantasia from 1972. The album was originally released on the Village Thing label, named after Clifton Village in Bristol, and Greenwich Village in New York. The Village Thing label was the brainchild of Ian A Anderson (No, not the singer in Jethro Tull) and John Turner. 

The recording was made at Ian’s house in Royal York Crescent, Bristol on a Revox tape recorder. It is just Dave on guitar and vocals, a second guitarist Pete Airey, and occasional harmonica and some backing vocals. Simplicity itself, but beautiful. As soon as I listened to the words and music it evoked memories of the early 70s, college rooms and bedsitter images. Al Stewart came into my head and Clifton In The Rain, but all that idea was probably accidentally planted in my head subliminally from the sleeve notes. Dave was originally from Bangor in North Wales. He went to college in Loughborough in the 60s where he ran the Folk Club and was friends with Steve Tilston. Eventually he moved to Honiton in Devon and worked in a pottery. It was after seeing Michael Chapman perform at Exeter University that Dave decided to take his music seriously. He was invited to play on Steve Tilston’s debut album which led to Dave moving to Bristol and becoming a regular performer at The Troubadour folk club in Clifton where he was soon spotted by Ian A Anderson and persuaded to record for Village Thing. 

I should mention that Dave was multi-talented and even made his own guitar. I won’t discuss every song on the album, but most of them seem to be personal observations of places and people that Dave encountered. Some songs such as Circular Line, Grey Lady Morning, and Now Is The Time were inspired by Barbara his love of those days. Rosie was his outrageous landlady who won a kissing contest at the local disco called The Pit Club by kissing a soldier nonstop for 44 minutes. City Road and St Agnes Park are named after places near his Bristol home and feature some of the characters he knew such as a man called Yorkie who had a wooden leg. Beauty Queen is about a lady of the night called Nancy who paraded up and down City Road after dark. Doorway is a poignant song about an old lady who lived in Albert Park Place and would stand for ages in her doorway staring at her overgrown garden. Some of the last five tracks from his Elephantasia album feature some excellent piano playing by Steve Swindells. There is a song called Lady Portia which was the name of Steve Tilston’s cat.

I like all of Dave’s songs, but it his fingerpicking guitar playing that is his forte. I have never played a guitar in my life, but to my ears he is playing in the same league as Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, Nick Drake or any other great British guitar player you care to mention. I don’t think Dave was all that concerned about the trappings of fame or fortune and eventually moved to Belgium with his girlfriend and earned a living repairing and restoring musical instruments. I think it is a shame that he isn’t more recognised. I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia entry for him. I did find out that Dave died peacefully three years ago aged 80. I suppose if he had died young in his 20s, he would be a cult hero now, but I’m sure he was satisfied to have had a long happy life. I hope his reputation as a great guitarist and singer-songwriter continues to grow, and I also hope this album is reissued soon. PS, The song Dave sings in the video below isn’t actually on this album, but it gives you a good idea of his singing and playing.

Dave Evans - Keep Me From The Cold

How Sad, How Lovely by Connie Converse.

On BBC Radio 4 this afternoon I listened to an excellent programme presented by poet Emily Berry called Dreaming Of Connie Converse. I was pleased that Connie is getting some long overdue recognition. It inspired me to dust off and update this story I wrote several years ago......... 

The story of Connie Converse is one of the saddest in the history of music. Over 50 years after she disappeared music fans around the world are beginning to realize her importance in the history of modern music. In the summer of 1974 she wrote farewell letters to family and friends saying that she was leaving to start a new life. She waited for the news that Nixon was finally resigning as President and then packed her belongings in her Volkswagen Beetle and drove away, never to be seen again. So who was Connie Converse and why is she so important?. She is important because she was years or decades ahead of her time. Connie Converse was one of the first ever female singer-songwriters and she left a small but brilliant legacy of music behind.

I had never heard of Connie until recently. I discovered her music purely by chance on Youtube while looking for a song by Anne Briggs. I stumbled across Connie and listened to one song which aroused my interest and I ordered a CD called How Sad, How Lovely which is the title of one of her songs. I must say it is a most attractively designed album as well. It contains a nice booklet which includes contributions from her brother and also the man who first recorded her songs.

I'll just tell you briefly what I know about Connie. She was born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in 1924 in  New Hampshire into a strict Baptist family. At School she was quite brilliant and won a scholarship to Mount Holyoake College, but dropped out after two years and moved to New York City where she lived in Greenwich Village which was the centre of the bohemian world in 1950's America. It was here that she acquired the nick-name Connie because she came from Concord.  It was at this time that Connie first began to write poems and songs and accompanying herself on guitar. She came to the attention of Gene Deitch a famous animator who recorded Connie's songs at his home in the mid-50's. She failed to attract any commercial interest apart from one appearance on a TV Show presented by Walter Cronkite. 

In 1961 the year that Bob Dylan arrived in New York she left Greenwich Village and moved to Ann Arbor Michigan. I think that was a shame because a year later the whole world was following the Folk Scene in New York and she could have been part of it and got the attention her music deserved. Over a decade after she dropped out of college Connie returned to academic life and worked her way up to being Managing Editor of 'The Journal Of Conflict Resolution'. Her only music interest was playing for family & friends. By the early 1970's she was suffering with depression and her employer and friends pooled together to send her on a six month sabbatical to England. Connie described this trip as one of the only times in her life she was allowed to have 'unproductive fun'. I wonder where she went in this country and who she met?. Finally in 1974 she made her decision to disappear.

 After I had read the booklet I played the CD and I must say now after listening to it twice I am very impressed indeed. Nine of the eighteen tracks are the recordings she made with Gene Deitch and you can hear little snippets of conversation between the songs. Connie sings in a very formal style. This is the 1950's you must remember, before singers started slurring the words and calling everyone Babe. It is the subject matter of hanging around in bars, playing poker, and being taken home by strangers that makes the songs ahead of their time. White middle-class women didn't sing about these subjects before. Although a lot of the songs sound quite jolly you can sense an underlying sadness below. There is no other singer like Connie Converse. Just on a couple of songs I could hear vague echoes of Dory Previn, another great singer who came along a lot later who I really like as well. A lot of the songs began life as poems and you can hear that in the very poetic imagery of a lot of the songs.

 There is some sort of a happy ending to the story because in 2004 Gene Deitch who had recorded Connie 50 years before was invited onto a radio show, and he played one of her songs. Two listeners of the show Dan Dzula and David Herman were inspired to track down her recordings. Gene Deitch was happy to collaborate. Also, they found a filing cabinet at Connie's brother's house containing further treasures which Connie had left with him, all neatly filed and labelled as if she meant them to be found. The album which I received was finally released. The legend of Connie Converse is finally beginning to grow.

What actually happened to her? I find it hard to believe that she took her own life. If that was true why did she pack her car so meticulously?. I have wondered if she returned to England where she had previously spent a happy six months. We shall probably never know but I am really pleased that her music is finally after 50 years getting the recognition that it deserves.

A Complete Unknown. (My Review)

American audiences have been able to view A Complete Unknown the new biographical film about Bob Dylan for three weeks now, and yesterday it was finally released in Britain. I went to see it last night at the Odeon in Trowbridge, so I thought I would give you my thoughts. The film begins in 1961 with Bob arriving in New York in search of his hero Woody Guthrie. It catches the bohemian atmosphere perfectly with such little details as when Bob reached Greenwich Village there is a poet ranting from a soapbox on a street corner which presumably  would be Allen Ginsberg. Bob tracks down Woody to Greystones Hospital where he also has a fortuitous encounter with Pete Seeger who introduces Bob into the New York folk music scene. I thought Edward Norton who played Pete Seeger was outstanding, especially when I found out that he sang and played the banjo himself. Shortly after his arrival Bob meets Sylvia Russo played by Elle Fanning. Now, I have read that Bob co-operated in the making of the film and approved of Timothee Chalamet playing him, but requested that the name of his real-life girlfriend of the time which was Suze Rotolo not to be used, hence we get Sylvia Russo. It seems a bit strange because all the other major characters keep their real names. 

Many of the famous faces from Greenwich Village are featured, such as Joan Baez, Dave Van Ronk, and Maria Muldaur. I was hoping that Karen Dalton would be mentioned, but she wasn’t, also Dylan knew the Clancy Brothers in Greenwich Village who were a big influence, but they didn’t appear. The mood of the times was captured vividly, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy’s assassination and the Civil Rights movement being portrayed. Dylan used all these dramatic events to his advantage by writing songs which tapped into the collective consciousness of the times, but he himself was apolitical. 

He also used Joan Baez as a stepping stone to fame and fortune, she was the girl on the half-shell, already famous when Bob arrived and gave her the little boy lost act. In all fairness she used him as well and got her hands on his songs. I thought Dan Fogler gave a fine performance as Bob’s manager Albert Grossman. Anyone who has seen the documentary Don’t Look Back will know what Albert was like in real life, shrewd and hard as nails, but quite comical. He gets one of the best lines in the film where Pete Seeger is almost pleading with Bob not to do an electric set at Newport. Albert says to Pete something like, “You wanna give them candles, but Bob’s selling lightbulbs”. 

Another performance I thought was very comical was Muddy Waters son Big Bill Morganfield as blues singer Jesse Moffette who meets Bob on Pete Seeger's TV show and they share a bottle of whiskey. I think Jesse is a fictitious character. I have never heard of him, but it was a very funny scene. Johnny Cash played by Boyd Holbrook also deserves a mention. Although Dylan approved of Timothee Chalamet’s performance Bob himself doesn’t come over as a very nice person in the film, often appearing to be supercilious and insulting to other people. The songs speak for themselves however, nobody in popular music has written words as poetic as Dylan. It can be hard to be humble sometimes when you know you’re the best. Also, you have to have sympathy with Dylan because when he had mined the folk scene for all it was worth he wanted to move on, experiment, and shake up rock music. The traditionalists like Joan Baez & Pete Seeger wanted him to serve up more of the same. He felt pressurised and irritated by this. 

I think Chalamet deserves an Oscar for his performance, not just for the acting, but also for the hard work he must have put in practicing the singing and guitar and harmonica playing. Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez was also excellent. I don’t think I learned anything new from seeing this film, except I didn’t know that Joe Boyd was the sound man at the Newport Folk Festival when Pete thought about putting an axe to the cables. Joe Boyd later moved to the UK and produced some of the greatest albums in British folk-rock. Speaking about Newport I was slightly irritated when someone in the audience shouted out, “Judas”, at Dylan, and Dylan replied, “I don’t believe you, you’re a liar, play it loud”. Any Dylan fan worth their salt knows that this happened at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

It would be churlish though to complain about little historical inaccuracies, because I thoroughly enjoyed this film portrait of one of the greatest figures of the last 100 years. I can’t stop wondering though if Bob Dylan really was the voice of a generation, how come people like Trump become President. It doesn’t make sense.