Today Has Been Ok. Emilíana Torrini

Till April Is Dead by Lisa Knapp.

Sorry I haven’t written anything on my blog page for a while. The weather has been a lot better for the last week or so, and I have been busy sorting out my little garden, generally tidying up, staining the fence, putting in a few plants, and that sort of thing. I have enjoyed being outside and getting active. I need to get a bit lively and fitter because Glastonbury is only two months away now. Anyway, the sky is dull, rainy  and overcast today, and it is a bit chillier, so I thought I’d tell you about an album I have been listening to recently. It was released in 2017 and called Till April Is Dead by Lisa Knapp. I first heard of Lisa about two years ago on BBC 6 Music and liked her immediately. Then when I heard her version of The Rowan Tree on the soundtrack of the film Living I decided to buy one of her albums, which I finally got around to this month. 

I wasn’t sure which one to buy, so opted for Till April Is Dead because that’s the month we are in. Also, it contains a song called May Garland which is the first song I ever heard by her. When the CD popped through my letter box and I read the sleeve notes I realised that all the songs are about the merrie month of May. Therefore, I wasn’t going to tell you about this album until April was out, but I won’t be here on May Day, so I might as well tell you about it now, and it passes the time on a rainy day. It is perfect music for listening to on a Spring morning. The opening track The Night Before May Day features the voice of a folklorist called Steve Roud talking about bringing in the May. This is a reference to the May flower which was made into garlands to wear. (American readers note Mayflower!) The sound of lambs bleating adds to the Springtime magic of the song. 

The title song Till April Is Dead / Hal-An-Tow is spoken by Lisa who noticed how in other countries such as Spain, France, Germany and Ireland they have similar colloquial expressions about Springtime as in Britain where we say things like “Never cast a clout until May is out”. Hal-An-Tow is a song performed on Flora Day in Helston, Cornwall. Places in Cornwall such as Padstow seem to have preserved these ancient folk pagan traditions more than other places in Britain. However, the third track Searching for Lambs is from Somerset. Lisa learned it from Shirley Collins. It features the guitar and vocals of Graham Coxon who you will know from the band Blur. The words of Staines Morris were first printed as The Maypole Song in 1656 and put to music in 1859. It features the voice of David Tibet and percussion by Pete Flood. I should mention that this album is produced and mixed by Lisa’s husband Gerry Diver. You may recall I reviewed Gerry’s album Speech Project a few months ago. He does an equally great job here. The production and sound effects are first class. 

This is especially true on May Garland with the winding of music boxes, bees buzzing, and birds singing. Lisa learned Lily White Hand from a musical Romany family called Brazil. It is a simple song with just viola and dulcimer accompaniment but tells of someone coming to an unfortunate end. Lisa’s daughter Bonnie is featured on Lark In The Morning in which wooden spoons are played like castanets. Lisa is joined by Mary Hampton on Bedfordshire May Day Carol and Gerry plays banjo while Dave East joins in on concertina. 

One of my favourite songs is Don’t You Go A Rushing. The great collector of folk songs Cecil Sharp was given this song by Mrs Eliza Ware from Over Stowey, Somerset in 1907. It is simple but effective with just Lisa plucking a viola and singing. (See video below) Where’s Troy? Is a little epigram from 1800 which only lasts 37 seconds. The penultimate song is a bucolic frolic called Pleasant Month Of May which Lisa learned from the famous Copper family of Rottingdean, Sussex. Padstow Obby Oss May Song brings this excellent seasonal charming album to a close. It features live recording of the May Day parade in Padstow, Cornwall in which Lisa took part. I have enjoyed listening to this album again today and will certainly play it during May. Lisa is a great singer. I can see why some people have described her as a British Bjork, she is quite quirky, but I see her as being part of a heritage that is helping to keep traditional music and customs alive in the crazy modern world. I would love to see her play live, preferably at a festival when the weather is nice. We shall see.

Don't You Go A Rushing - Lisa Knapp

Listening To Little Willie John.

‘Take a picture of this. The fields are empty, abandoned '59 Chevy. Laying in the back seat listening to Little Willie John. Yeah, that's when time stood still’. 

I first heard those words on a 1987 song by Robbie Robertson called Somewhere Down That Crazy River. I had never heard of Little Willie John before, probably because he didn’t have hit records or air-play in the UK, and also I was so young at the time. However, that song was so atmospheric, intriguing, and mysterious I had to find out about him, but it was only when I started listening to Youtube about 18 years that I heard a song called Talk To Me, Talk To Me which I really enjoyed. Wikipedia also provided me with all the info I needed about Little Willie John.

He was born in 1937 and lived in Detroit from the age of four and had his first hit record in 1955 at the age of eighteen with All Around the World which was later covered by other singers as Grits Ain’t Groceries. This was followed up the same year with Need Your Love So Bad, a song I got to know when Fleetwood Mac had a UK hit with it in 1968. Fever was another huge hit in the USA, but again I only knew the song from the equally successful version by Peggy Lee. Even The Beatles covered a Little Willie John song when they recorded Leave My Kitten Alone in 1964, although their version wasn’t released until 1995. Little Willie John had fifteen US top 100 hits in total. Sadly, he had a very short career. Known for his short temper and alcohol abuse he was arrested multiple times for charges that include narcotics, swindling, and grand larceny and was dropped by his record label. 

In 1965, he was convicted of manslaughter for the 1964 stabbing of Kendall Roundtree in Seattle and was sent to Washington State Penitentiary. John appealed the conviction and was released on probation while the case was reconsidered. During which time he recorded what was intended to be his comeback album, but due to contractual disputes it was not released until 2008. He died at Washington State Penitentiary on May 26, 1968. The cause of death stated on his death certificate was a heart attack. He was only 30 years of age.

I finally got around to ordering a Little Willie John album about a week ago. This morning I was doing some gardening when it started raining, so I had to abandon that idea. I had just come into the kitchen when there was a knock on the front door. It was the post lady who handed me a package which contained a CD called Little Willie John, All 15 of his Chart Hits, 1953- 1962. After that I didn’t care about the gardening. I sat in the kitchen and enjoyed listening to one of the greatest R&B singers. I enjoyed every track, although Talk To Me, Talk To Me is still my favourite. Like another great singer Sam Cooke, it just seems to be a shame that his great talent didn’t reach its full potential. We will never know what he might have achieved, but we are left with some great music, so I’m grateful that Robbie Robertson mentioned him in that song and led to me discovering the great Little Willie John.

Need Your Love So Bad - Little Willie John

Searching For Mary Anning.

I must admit that I didn’t know anything about Mary Anning until eleven days ago. I was scrolling through Wikipedia to see what events occurred on March 9^th in history and saw, ‘Died 1847 – Mary Anning, English palaeontologist (b. 1799)’. I clicked on her name and began reading her story. I found it fascinating, especially as she lived in Lyme Regis which is only 67 miles away from here. Her story is quite tragic in parts. She was one of ten children born to Richard and Molly Anning. Only Mary and her brother Joseph survived to adulthood. There had been a previous Mary who had died aged four when her clothes caught alight while putting wood shavings on the fire, so Mary was named after her late sister. The family lived so close to the sea that the house was often flooded during storms. When Mary was only fifteen months old she was fortunate to survive another tragic incident. She had been left in the care of three local women. They were watching an outdoor circus performance when a thunderstorm began. They were sheltering under a tree which was hit by lightning and the three women were killed instantly, but Mary miraculously survived. The incident according to local lore changed her from being a sickly child to being bright, lively, and full of curiosity.

Mary Anning & Me.

Her father died in 1810 aged only 44 which left the family in dire straits. They supplemented their meagre income by collecting fossils from the nearby cliffs and selling them to visitors to the popular seaside town as ‘curios’. This was such things as ammonites, belemnites, and vertebrae. In 1811 Mary’s brother Joseph dug up the skull of an ichthyosaur and later Mary found the rest of the skeleton. One of the family’s best customers was Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch, a wealthy collector from Lincolnshire who arranged an auction of their fossils which raised £400, a large sum of money in those days. 

It was dangerous work digging along the cliff face. Mary was again lucky to escape sudden death when a cliff fall killed her faithful pet dog called Tray. Her reputation continued to grow however, and in 1823 she discovered a complete Plesiosaurus. Later, in 1828 she found the first British example of a pterosaur. Mary’s only education had been learning to read at Sunday school, but despite this she became an expert in her field and wrote about and drew detailed drawings of her discoveries. It was a big local event in 1826 when she opened a shop in Lyme Regis displaying her finds. Even King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony visited her shop in 1844 and purchased an ichthyosaur skeleton.

The real tragedy is that because Mary was a woman she was shunned by the scientific community. She was not allowed to join the Geological Society. When her discoveries were described in journals and scientific papers she wasn’t even credited as the person who found them. It was she who suggested to one of the leading geologists William Buckland that the conical objects known as bezoar stones were really the fossilised faeces of ichthyosaurs or plesiosaurs. Buckland later named the objects coprolites. A celebrated geologist called Henry De la Beche produced a famous painting called Duria Antiquior, based on Mary’s finds, and sales of a lithograph print of this picture helped Mary financially. Finally William Buckland persuaded the government to award Mary an annual pension of £25. She died in 1847 from breast cancer aged only 47 and was buried alongside her brother Joseph and other siblings in the local churchyard.

Duria Antiquior,

I was pleased that I had finally learned about her because for the last couple of years I have enjoyed getting out and about locally and visiting the graves of famous people. Previously I had visited George Orwell, Lawrence of Arabia, Thomas Hardy, Laurie Lee, Siegfried Sassoon, and several others. I had been wondering who to visit this year and along came Mary. When a friend of mine said she was going to Lyme Regis on Sunday I knew I had to go. 

On The Cobb.

It was a beautiful sunny morning when we set off before 9.00. It only took about 85 minutes to drive down to Lyme Regis, and we parked just by the famous seawall known as The Cobb. The first thing we did was to go for a bracing walk along the top of The Cobb. This place became world famous when it featured in the film The French Lieutenants Woman with Meryl Streep. John Fowles who wrote the original book lived in Lyme Regis. Jane Austen was also a frequent visitor to this area and the town is mentioned in her book Persuasion which I must admit I haven’t read. After that, I left my friend and set off in pursuit of Mary Anning.

The first thing I found was a statue of Mary and Tray looking out towards the cliffs where she made many of her discoveries. It was unveiled only last year by archaeologist Alice Roberts and a schoolgirl called Evie Swire who along with her mother led the campaign for a statue. I asked a passer by to take my photo with the statue and then headed to nearby St Margaret’s Churchyard to find Mary’s grave. I thought it might be difficult to locate, but it was easy because I was amused to find that somebody, probably children had left little plastic dinosaurs by her headstone. My next stop was the museum. This has been built on the actual site of Mary’s family home. 

The pavement outside is inlaid with ammonites. I spent about an hour looking at Mary’s astonishing discoveries. (See pictures) I think one of them is on loan from the British Museum, back in Lyme Regis after nearly 200 years. As well as the fossils, there are many other things of interest including the clothes worn by Kate Winslet in a recent film about Mary called Ammonite. The final thing I wanted to do was walk in Mary’s footsteps along the cliff face and see if I could find any fossils myself. 

Fossil Hunting.

As I walked along the beach by the cliff the pebbles got larger and larger until they became boulders. I realised how dangerous it was, stepping from rock to rock you could easily lose your footing, slip, and break a leg, especially at my age. I didn’t find any actual ammonites, but I could see where they had once lay and made an impression on the rocks. I took some photos of these. (See photos) There were plenty of other fossil hunters along the beach. There must be thousands of visitors here every year with the same idea. As I hopped from rock to rock and looked out at the sea a famous quote by Sir Isaac Newton came into my head, “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Eventually I re-joined my friend further along the beach and sat in the pleasant Spring sunshine. About 3.30 we headed home and were back in Westbury by 5.00 after an enjoyable few hours by the sea. I was pleased that I had made the effort to learn about Mary Anning. It is great that she is finally getting the recognition that she deserves, and children are learning about her work in making some of the most important discoveries of the 19^th century.

Mary Anning 1799-1847.

Review: Workin' On A World by Iris DeMent.

It is thirty years now since I first heard Iris DeMent sing Our Town which led me to buying her debut album Infamous Angel, and I have been a fan ever since. Workin' On A World is only her seventh album in all that time, and the first since The Trackless Woods in 2015. I must say it has been worth the wait. One thing that annoys me about the present music scene is that musicians aren’t protesting about the horrors of what is going on in the world. In the 1960s we had protest songs and singers who really did bring awareness to the wrongs of the world and helped to bring about change. These days you get singer-songwriters selling millions of albums which are basically about nothing. Iris DeMent is an exception, Working On A World contains some of her most courageously political songs since songs like Wasteland Of The Free in the mid-1990s.

The title track opens the album and is a tribute to all the people of the past who worked to create a better world even though they didn’t live to see the results. Iris has come a long way from her early Country sound. This song is soulful, upbeat and funky, with a brass section of saxophones, trombones and trumpets to the fore. (See video below). Going Down To Texas is a scathing protest about gun laws, police brutality, right-wing evangelists, George W Bush, Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos. Iris praises the courage of The Chicks (Formerly The Dixie Chicks) and the women in the squad (Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts) who were victims of Trump's hateful racist tweets. She mentions how men in cowboy hats like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard can take a stand on issues, but women who protest are vilified. Iris is fearless though. She is determined to sing her songs, even in places where anyone can carry a gun.

Say A Good Word by contrast is a much gentler appeal for magnanimity in a divided world. Iris’s voice has never sounded better than here where she sings harmonies to herself. On first listen my favourite song was The Sacred Now. It is very catchy, and I like the sentiment of the song. It ties in nicely with reading The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, although I don’t know if Iris has read that book. It is one of two songs co-written with Pieta Brown who is the daughter of Iris’s husband Greg Brown. They also co-wrote I Won’t Ask You Why a moving ballad with Iris playing piano. It might possibly be inspired by her mother, but I’m not sure. Warriors Of Love returns to the political themes, and praises John Lewis who along with many others was beaten by the police in 1965 in Alabama on the Pettus Bridge. It is also a tribute to the activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed under an armoured bulldozer in Palestine in 2003. Greg Brown wrote the words to Let Me Be Your Jesus which ridicules the hypocrisy of so-called Christians who offer a promised land where everyone is white and global warming is fake news. To my ears Iris’s voice sounds almost like Kate Bush or Tori Amos on this unusual track which also has very atmospheric percussion and flugelhorn.

The Cherry Orchard is inspired by Anton Chekhov’s play of the same name. Iris gets a lot of inspiration from Russian literature. Her previous album The Trackless Woods was an adaption of poems by the Ukrainian/ Russian writer Anna Akhmatova. She and Greg Brown also adopted a Russian daughter. Nothing For The Dead returns to the brassy sound of earlier. In this song Iris defiantly says, “I’m not holding back nothin’ anymore, And I’m done with being afraid of being bled. Use me up while I’m living lord. Let’s not leave nothin’ for the dead”. Mahalia is a tribute to Mahalia Jackson whose voice Iris must have heard coming through the ether as a child with her Pentecostal upbringing. The lyrics mention a song by Mahalia called ‘How I Got Over’ which I didn’t know, but just listened to on Youtube. Mahalia was a favourite singer of Martin Luther King which leads in nicely to the next track How Long which quotes the Rev Dr Martin Luther King. He was once asked, how long do you stay the course and dream the dream?. He replied, “Till justice rolls down like water, and righteousness flows like a mighty stream”.

Walking Daddy is another bluesy song written by Greg Brown that features Marty Stuart on mandolin. It mentions the Jacks Fork river in Missouri which must be where Greg Brown comes from. The final song is Waycross Georgia which was written by Rev Samuel E Mann 111. He is a white pastor who was fired from his church because he worked for forty years fighting racism in his community. I looked up Waycross Georgia on Wikipedia and discovered that Gram Parsons used to live there. It is a fine song to end this album which I have enjoyed listening to for the last two days. It is great to have Iris releasing new meaningful music which the world certainly needs at this time. I have never seen Iris perform live, but I’d certainly try and get a ticket if she visits the UK in the future.