Listening to Bonnie Dobson.

At the moment I am listening to an album that is simply called Bonnie Dobson. It was originally released in 1969 and re-issued in 2006. I bought it last summer because I liked one song called Morning Dew. It is Bonnie’s most famous song which she wrote in 1961 when everyone was paranoid about the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear holocaust. I think it was seeing the film On The Beach based on the book by Nevil Shute that inspired Bonnie to write this song about a dystopian post-apocalyptic future. (I thought we had got over all that, but Trump & Putin seem to be doing their best to bring it back) Anyway, after hearing the album a few times I have grown to like a lot more of the other songs as well. I’m Your Woman and Winter’s Going both written by Bonnie are also great, as is her version of Jackson C. Frank’s song called You Never Wanted Me, Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’ and Let’s Get Together written by Dino Valente but I first heard it on an early Jefferson Airplane album.

Bonnie isn’t very well known, even in Canada. She was born in Toronto in 1940 and I was surprised that a Canadian friend of mine hadn’t heard of her. I think the reason might be that she moved to London in the late 60’s and gradually retired from the music scene. It was Jarvis Cocker who persuaded her to return to performing a few years ago when he was curator of London’s Meltdown festival at the Southbank. Bonnie took part in a concert called something like ‘The Lost Women Of Music’. She also appeared at a tribute concert to Bert Jansch who I have been listening to and writing about a lot recently. The concert was at the Royal Albert Hall and she sang Morning Dew with Robert Plant who I have also seen and written about in the last couple of weeks. I have put the video below. In the video you might spot Johnny Marr on guitar who I mentioned in my piece on Morrissey last week. Also, you can spot Danny Thompson on bass who was in Pentangle with Bert Jansch. This proves to me that everything is connected. Anyway, since then Bonnie has returned to recording and her legend continues to grow. It would be great if they put her on the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury this year. I’d love to see that.

Me proving everything is connected. At Yorkshire Sculpture Park.