What A Beautiful Place by Catherine Howe.

I had intended going for a long walk today but due to the inclement weather I remained indoors. The rain was quite fortuitous as it turned out because it gave me a chance to have a good listen to my new CD. It is called What A Beautiful Place by Catherine Howe. I discovered this album quite by chance during a conversation with a friend about great singers from the past who deserved more recognition than they received. He said I should check out this album, so I ordered it and I’m glad I did because this album should be celebrated as a lost treasure rediscovered.

Catherine was born in Halifax, Yorkshire in 1950. She moved to London and went to drama school and had TV roles in such programmes as Doctor Who and Z-Cars. The family moved to Swanage in Dorset where the beautiful coastline inspired many of her songs. She headed to London again with a bunch of her songs and landed a recording deal with the small Reflections Records label. They hired American producer Bobby Scott to work on the album. He is best remembered for writing He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother and also won a Grammy for A Taste Of Honey. No expense was spared, top session musicians were hired as well as The London Symphony Orchestra to play on Bobby Scott’s arrangements. I must say they all did a wonderful job.

I don’t think the album was originally conceived as a ‘concept’ album, but Bobby Scott persuaded Catherine to have a spoken word prologue, interlude and epilogue, speaking her own words. It does have the effect of binding the album together as a whole and she has a lovely speaking voice. After Prologue the first song is Up North which I guess is a homage to her hometown of Halifax. It is very evocative of the gritty grimy landscape of satanic mills and dirty rainy streets. It reminds me in a way of the song Life In A Northern Town by Dream Academy and Kate St John’s cor anglais. On A Misty Morning displays Catherine’s shimmering vocal to full effect. I was reminded momentarily of Linda Perhac’s album Parallelograms. Bobby Scott has to be commended for the lush sophisticated arrangements. Nothing More Than Strangers is one of my favourite songs on the album, a short, simple, sad, wistful reflective song and one of the folkier tracks (See video below). My Child is also an ethereal atmospheric song which seems to fit perfectly with a rainy dark day such as today.

After the spoken Interlude the next song is It’s Not Likely which has a very dramatic arrangement behind Catherine’s restrained singing. I like the woodwind instruments on this album. Words Through A Locked Door is as haunting and mysterious as a Bronte novel. It immediately reminded me of The Pond And The Stream by Fotheringay. Not because it sounds familiar but because of the emotion that it evokes. The title track What A Beautiful Place by contrast is much more vibrant, upbeat and jazzier. I looked on youtube for this song and found a nice video of Catherine singing it live quite recently and I must say she is still in great voice. The lyrics suggest that this song was inspired by her Dorset home.  The Innocence Of A Child has a timeless quality that all great music has. It has the feel of a jazz standard but is a Catherine Howe original. It Comes With The Breezes is another fabulous song in which the shimmering orchestral accompaniment brilliantly evokes the sea and the wind. It is incredible to think that this album was recorded nearly half a century ago because it sounds so fresh. The spoken Epilogue is next, followed by the bonus track In The Hot Summer which is just as wonderful as the rest of the album.

On it’s original release in 1971 the album was only available for a few short weeks because the record label went bankrupt. Catherine did make other albums, none of which sold in large numbers and she gradually retired from the music business. She raised a daughter and gained a first-class honours degree and has published books. I’m pleased to see that she still performs occasionally, sometimes with Ric Sanders who I have seen quite often in recent years with Fairport Convention. I highly recommend this album. I’m not surprised that The Guardian described her as ‘Kate Bush before her time’. I think if you like music by Nick Drake, Bridget St John, Sandy Denny and people like that then you will love this album.

Nothing more than strangers - Catherine Howe

Catherine Howe and Vo Fletcher - What a Beautiful Place

I Can't Let go - Evie Sands

Badfinger - Without You

The Saddest Song Of All Time.

The music industry can be a very cruel business. It can actually kill people. Even writing one song can have tragic consequences. A Facebook friend of mine yesterday shared a video of Nilsson singing Without You. Everybody knows that song, it sold millions of copies all over the world in 1971 and Mariah Carey repeated this success in 1994. The combined sales of these two versions make it one of the most successful songs ever written. I wonder though how many people know the sad story behind its creation? Hearing the song yesterday made me look on Youtube for the original version by Badfinger. When Nilsson first heard the original song he thought it was The Beatles singing it and I agree, it has a very Beatles sound and the singer Pete Ham in the video reminds me a bit of John Lennon’s son Julian. It is definitely my favourite version of the song. I have shared the video above if you want to hear it.

Badfinger were originally called The Iveys and were formed in Swansea, Wales in 1961. Eventually the line-up became Pete Ham, Tom Evans, Mike Gibbins & Joey Molland. They didn’t have a great deal of success as The Iveys, but in 1968 their fortunes changed when they were spotted by Mal Evans who worked for The Beatles and they became the first group to be signed to The Beatles new Apple label. Their name was changed, and they immediately had worldwide success with such hits as Come And Get It, No Matter What, Day After Day & Baby Blue. Their music also featured in the film The Magic Christian.

Pete Ham & Tom Evans.

Without You was written by Pete Ham & Tom Evans as a track on their album No Dice in 1971. One fateful night Pete Ham had arranged to go out with his wife Bev but Tom Evans said he had an idea for a song. Bev said that was ok, she would go on her own and he should go to the studio, but he could tell she was disappointed. In the song this became ‘Well, I can't forget this evening, and your face when you were leaving, But I guess that's just the way the story goes, You always smile, but in your eyes your sorrow shows’. Tom Evans was also having problems with his relationship with his future wife Marianne. He confided to a friend that he was worried that she would leave him and said he couldn’t live without her. This statement evolved into the chorus of the song. Neither of the writers realised the potential of the song to become a power ballad when recorded by Nilsson & Carey and dozens of other singers.

Pete Ham.

Pete Ham tragically took his own life in 1975 after suffering with depression. This was largely caused by the band being scammed by their manager called Stan Polley who disappeared with all the bands money and left them penniless. Pete had just bought a large house that he now couldn’t pay for and his wife was pregnant. In the suicide note he wrote ‘Stan Polley is a soulless bastard’. You hear people like Van Morrison complaining about the big-time operators in the music business, but I don’t think any band could have been ripped off as badly as Badfinger. Tom Evans never got over the death of his friend and he too committed suicide in 1983 possibly caused by a long running dispute with other band members over royalties for Without You. The song had become a curse. Neither of the two writers of the song lived to hear the multi-million selling version by Mariah Carey. They could have been still alive today having a happy retirement living off the royalties of just that one song, but it never happened. That is why Without You must be a contender for being the saddest song ever written.

Heart Food by Judee Sill.

After the hot weather of the past few days the sky is now grey and rainy. Not to worry, the rain will be good for the garden. I am staying in this afternoon and listening to music. I haven’t written a blog since last Thursday, so I thought I’d tell you what I have been doing. On Friday I had a visitor who called at mid-day, I opened a bottle of wine and then the day descended into an alcoholic haze which is quite rare for me these days.  I resolved to stay off the booze for a few days after that. Sunday was a really nice day apart from hearing on the news about the atrocities in Sri Lanka. I sat outside in my chair all day and read The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I had been meaning to read it for ages and I’m glad that I finally did because it is brilliant. It is about the unrequited love between a butler called Stevens and a house-keeper called Miss Kenton. The author uses the fact that the protagonist is a butler as a metaphor for looking at the whole of society because we are all butlers in a way, when you think about it. Ken Kesey used a similar device when he set One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in a mental hospital in order to show that the powers that be in society do not like an individual thinking for himself in case he rebels. Anyway, there is a lot of humour in the book as well as pathos and I urge you to read it if you haven’t already done so.

I didn’t go out on Monday either, I didn’t see another living soul all day which suited me fine. I pottered around in the garden with just my robin and blackbird for company and planted a few things such as impatiens, fuchsias, lupins, and osteospurmum (That sounds like a disease, but it is a plant). I watched the final of University Challenge on the telly and retired early on Monday night. Tuesday, I went into Bath again. I bought myself some nice new boots in Clarks on Milsom Street. I will need them for Glastonbury which is only about 70 days away now. Then I had another look in Topping & Company and treated myself to a signed first edition by John Cooper Clarke called The Luckiest Guy Alive. Johnnie Clarke is more than a poet, he is a comedian as well. I met him once, it was at Glastonbury 1982, it’s great that he seems to have had a renaissance in popularity in recent years. I think that might be due to a lot of the younger generation discovering him when he was added to the GCSE syllabus in schools. I started to read the book on the train on the way home and chortled quietly to myself all the way to Westbury.

Today, the postman knocked on my door and handed me a package. It contained a cd called Heart Food by Judee Sill. I am on my first listen at the moment. It is a Japanese import which I didn’t realise when I ordered it, so the booklet of sleeve notes is mainly in Japanese. I remember seeing Judee Sill on The Old Grey Whistle Test in the 1970’s and thinking that she wasn’t a very nice person. She was complaining about being sick of being the support act to rock bands. You shouldn’t judge a person by one statement though. When I ordered the album I thought I would add a review to my never-ending list of obscure female singers. What I have heard so far I like, it sounds quite sophisticated and will probably take a few listens to get into. It was released in 1973 on the Asylum label. I like the opening track There’s A Rugged Road. On some tracks such as The Vigilante there are some touches that remind me a little of The Byrds in the Gram Parsons era. As I say though I haven’t heard it enough to give a valid judgement. I think it turned out to be her last album and she sadly died in 1979. I have put a video of one track called The Pearl below if you want to hear it. It’s stopped raining now. I can’t think of anything else to say. See you later.

Judee Sill.

Haiku by John Cooper Clarke.