Colours Are Fading Fast by Loren Auerbach & Bert Jansch

Another rainy day, but I am quite content to remain indoors. Luckily for me the post lady delivered a new triple CD today which has created a nice atmosphere in my wee house. I am now on my second listen. It is called Colours Are Fading Fast by Loren Auerbach with Bert Jansch. Because I haven’t been going out for the last three months I have saved so much money I thought I would treat myself to some new music. I wanted to get something that was completely new to me. I first heard of Loren Auerbach last year when I read a biography of Bert Jansch called Dazzling Stranger by Colin Harper. Loren became the last woman in Bert’s life when she married him in 1999. However, their friendship went back to the mid 1980's. This triptych of albums consists of two albums that Loren recorded in 1985 plus a third CD of various tracks recorded in 1988 but never previously released until this set came out in 2016.

The first album Loren recorded is called After The Long Night. It is a short album of only five tracks and only 29 minutes. Loren made it in collaboration with a singer-songwriter and guitarist called Richard Newman and Bert was called in to provide acoustic guitar. There is also violin and bass. I love the opening four tracks. When I heard the first track The Rainbow Man I immediately thought of Nick Drake. I know it is a cliche to say Nick Drake. Almost every folk musician you hear of these days seems to be compared to Nick Drake, but that is what I thought. I also loved the second song Frozen Beauty. That song instantly reminded me of Shelagh McDonald who I have written about before. I will put that song on this blog page so you can judge for yourself. I also liked Cristabel and So Lonely. I wasn’t so keen on the last track Journey Of The Moon Through Sorrow because it isn’t Loren on vocals. I assume it is Richard Newman.

One reason I ordered this set of Cd's was because the publicity blurb said this music will appeal to fans of Virginia Astley, Bridget St John & Vashti Bunyan. I have albums by Vashti and Bridget, and I have ordered an album by Virginia Astley which I will tell you about in a few days hopefully. Loren’s voice is very intimate, you almost feel she is in the same room. I had the same feeling when I first heard Sibylle Baier. The second album in this set is called Playing The Game which came out in October 1985. It has a richer, more produced sound than the first one and has ten songs. The opening track Carousel has some great electric guitar by Newman. Weeping Willow Blues contains parts of Corrina Corrina and slightly reminds me of Norma Waterson. I think Bert might have written some of the songs but I’m not sure which ones. Is It Real after two listens is the best song with Loren’s delicate vocals perfectly accompanied by wonderful guitar playing.

Loren was planning a third album in 1988 which never came to fruition. There were recording sessions in October & November of that year which make up the third CD in this set called In Moonlights Grace.  Only Loren. Bert and Richard Newman feature on these songs. They are interesting, but not great. What they do show is Bert’s exquisite guitar playing. There is a version of Tam Lin which Fairport Convention made a sublime version of on Liege & Lief and a version of Fleetwood Mac’s Man Of The World. Bert’s guitar on this is wonderful but sadly Loren’s vocals don’t rise to the occasion. It did not really matter that the album didn’t see the light of day at the time because Loren had other strings to her bow. She went off to college and got a degree. I think she became an expert on Norse Mythology and published books on the subject. Loren did not see Bert again for quite a few years, but they met again in 1994 and became more than friends and married in 1999. Sadly, they both succumbed to cancer. Bert died in October 2011 aged 67 and Loren passed away only a few weeks later aged only 48. I am pleased I bought this CD set. It is not one of the greatest recordings I have ever bought by any means but it created a nice atmosphere in my kitchen today and anything that lifts your spirits during these depressing times has to be a good thing.

Loren Auerbach and Bert Jansch - Frozen Beauty

Van Morrison At Glastonbury Festival.

Van Morrison has appeared on the famous Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury more times than any other artist. Seven times in total and I have seen every one of them. The first time was in 1982. It was only the second time I had ever seen Van, so it was exciting for me. He played in the afternoon after Roy Harper. It had been raining but a breeze began to blow and eventually the sun came out. The Tor emerged from the mist and the scene was set. There are power cables that run right across Worthy farm held up by a line of pylons stretching away into the distance towards the Tor. I remembered Van’s words which now seemed prophetic, 'Meet me down by the pylons'. The crowd in front of the stage got bigger and bigger as the afternoon wore on. As it approached 4 o'clock rivers of people could be seen walking down towards the stage through the tents. Eventually there must have been 20,000 people in front of the stage, and I elbowed my way right to the front. Van shuffled on stage and picked up a guitar. 

A huge cheer greeted him, but he did not seem aware that there was an audience there at all. He was totally focused on the music. He mainly did material from Beautiful Vision, but the highlight was Summertime In England. He seemed to be singing about the very ground we were standing on. It was a truly mystical experience to be there. Pee Wee Ellis was on great form. I later found a photo of Pee Wee backstage chatting to Jackson Browne. Years later I met Pee Wee in Bradford On Avon and gave him a copy of the photo. He had never seen it before and was really pleased and signed another copy for me which was nice of him. After 80 minutes Van was gone after a rousing version of Gloria followed by Scandinavia which I have never heard performed live since. It was to be five long years before I saw Van at Glastonbury again.

Musically the highlight for me of 1987 was Van on the Sunday evening. It was only the third time I had seen him perform and the first time since 1982. To say his performance was a bit special is a huge understatement. I would put it in the top five performances by anybody in all the 41 years I have been going to Glastonbury. 

Luckily for all the Van Morrison fans around the world it was recorded by the BBC and broadcast on the Johnnie Walker Show. This has become a must have bootleg for the hardcore Van fans and most agree that it is one of his finest shows ever. Van was certainly on the top of his game back in 1987. Shortly afterwards I managed to get my first ever Van bootleg recording which was this show and I must have listened to it hundreds of times. It is impossible to pick a highlight because every song was a highlight. Just look, Northern Muse, Vanlose Stairway, It's All in the Game, Foreign Window, Dweller on the Threshold, Cleaning Windows, A Sense of Wonder, And the Healing Has Begun, Celtic Ray, In the Garden, Summertime in England, Full Force Gale / Bright Side of the Road, Rave On, John Donne / Rave On Part Two / Did Ye Get Healed?                                                                                             

There was no festival in 88, but we were back there In 89 and saw Van for the third time in seven years at Glastonbury when he played on the Saturday afternoon. It was a really hot day and Van played a superb set.  I think Van liked playing at Glastonbury because it is in the Vale Of Avalon which was his spiritual home during the 80's & 90’s and an inspiration for his work. Van lived in the area and recorded 14 albums at his nearby Wool Hall studio. Although It was hot Van kept his jacket on throughout his performance, he must have been sweating buckets. In a review in the music papers it was described as ‘The day the music fried’. During Van’s set an air-ambulance helicopter landed to the left of the stage to take someone to hospital. It kicked up a huge cloud of dust, but Van did not appear to notice. He just played on regardless. One thing I remember was he finished with a novelty song called Max Wall which I have not heard of since. I think it was also the first time I saw Georgie Fame play with Van.

Van returned in 1992 and it was another hot year.  By Sunday afternoon there is always a chilled-out atmosphere at Glasto which is just perfect for Van. Kim and I got right to the front. The security on the other side of the barrier were spraying the crowd with water to cool them down and handing out cups of water. A lot of those got thrown up in the air which was quite amusing. Teena Lyle was in the band and Kate St John. It was another great performance. Highlights included Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, On Hyndford Street / Baby, Please Don't Go, I'm Not Feeling It Anymore, Why Must I Always Explain?, Haunts of Ancient Peace, Cleaning Windows / Be-Bop-A-Lula, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, Help Me, Enlightenment, See Me Through / Soldier of Fortune, It's All in the Game / Make It Real One More Time & In the Garden / Daring Night. Tom Jones was on after Van, but we did not bother watching Tom.

In 1993 my memory of it all is very hazy. Van Morrison did his usual Sunday afternoon slot and one thing I do remember about that was Kate St John doing the G-L-O-R-I-A elocution lessons during Gloria. I think Van finished his usual brilliant set with All In The Game, In The Garden and Daring Night. I always had the feeling that musically the festival was over for me once I had seen  Van. I wasn't bothered who I saw after that. Nothing could top Van.

Van returned in 1997, but the weather was not kind this year. It was a mudfest. Van was on great form though and in a good mood. The Healing Game album came out that year and the first song was Rough God Goes Riding. The lyrics refer to ‘mud splattered victims’ which seemed quite apt for the occasion. 

He also performed It’s A Man’s Man’s World and asked the audience, “Who is the godfather of soul?”. Me and about 1,000 others shouted out, “James Brown!” He changed the words of one song to Whenever Sir Cliff Shines His Light On Me and in his song Summertime In England he referenced the surrounding towns such as Shepton Mallet. At the end of his last song which was a slowed down version of Burning Ground Van walked around the stage holding the microphone stand above his head before slamming it down on the stage and walking off in triumph. What a great performance.

In 2005 Van came on stage at 3.45 to a huge Glastonbury welcome. This was easily the biggest audience he has played to in Britain. The festival had changed a lot in the 8 years since his previous appearance. There must have been 100,000 people in front of the stage. The audience were in party mood and most were waiting for Brian Wilson who played later. Van looked quite relaxed and dapper in a new suit and seemed to be enjoying himself. The audience seemed to enjoy what was served up, a gang of mud people near us danced in a big circle. I must say though that I was personally disappointed with Van's choice of songs. 

There was only one song from the new album Magic Time and the rest were greatest hits type fare. He gave this audience what they wanted which was upbeat songs which they knew. It was filmed because we were watching the big screens as well as the stage and the mud men from Monaghan told me they had seen us on the screens. I found out later that Van refused to allow his performance on the television. I did not understand it. With a huge television audience, he could have sold thousands of albums. I estimate his performance lasted 75 minutes or so and he left the stage to huge applause, but it could have been so much better. 

He didn't do Summertime In England or any other reference to Avalon. For me personally it was the least enjoyable of all his performances at Glastonbury and I did not think the Pyramid Stage suited him anymore. If he ever does Glasto again I think one of the smaller stages might suit him better. Van has not appeared at Glastonbury Festival since 2005 but he has played at Glastonbury Abbey four times since. Michael Eavis has said that Van told him he prefers the Abbey to the festival. Perhaps he cannot stand all the flag waving and singing along. Anyway, some of my best memories of Glastonbury Festival will always be seeing Van the man on a Sunday afternoon down by Avalon. It ain’t why, it just is.

The Ballad Of Greystone Chapel.

I was watching a documentary series recently about American Country Music. One episode featured Johnny Cash. In the late 1960’s Johnny Cash was rebuilding his life and career after years of drug abuse. June Carter refused to marry him unless he got clean. When he had sorted himself out Johnny wanted to give something back and began playing concerts in prisons because he felt lucky not to have been jailed himself. On January 13^th, 1968 he was due to play in Folsom Prison. Johnny was visited the night before the concert by Floyd Gressett, a clergyman who had been visiting Folsom to see one of his former parishioners called Earl Green who was serving a life sentence for killing someone with a baseball bat. Green had given Gressett a tape recording of a song by an inmate friend called Glen Sherley who was serving five to life for armed robbery. The song was called Greystone Chapel. It is the name of the chapel within the walls of Folsom Prison.

Johnny Cash listened to the song and instantly loved it and spent the entire evening learning and rehearsing it. The following night he closed the show with Greystone Chapel and arranged for Glen Sherley to be sitting in the front row. After the show Glen was taken backstage to meet Johnny who promised to send him a royalties contract to sign. The song appeared on the album Johnny Cash, Live At Folsom Prison which was a huge success. Johnny also began petitioning the Governor of California Ronald Reagan to release Glen Sherley.

Watching the documentary made me curious about Glen Sherley. I wanted to find out more about him and what became of him. I looked on eBay and found he had made an album in 1971 Live At Vacaville, California. He had been transferred there from Folsom and performed to 800 of his fellow inmates. I ordered the CD album which arrived a few days ago. It contains a nice booklet with a biography of Glen Sherley. He was born in 1936 and drifted into petty crime from a young age. He had arrived at Folsom after robbing an ice cream company of $28 using a toy gun. In prison his mentor was a former Western Swing star by the name of Spade Cooley. He was a nasty piece of work from all accounts. Cooley had battered his wife to death in front of his daughter, but apparently Cooley was known to be a positive influence on Sherley and helped him develop his music. Glen wrote a song called Portrait Of My Woman which became the title song of an album by Eddy Arnold. Glen’s record company wanted him released at the same time as his album. With the help of Billy Graham and Johnny & June he was finally paroled on March 7^th, 1971 and flew to Nashville with the Cash family.

Things went well at first. Glen played support slots with Cash and even did another prison date with Linda Ronstadt. However, members of Johnny Cash’s band and entourage soon began to be concerned about Glen’s pathological behaviour and casual threats of violence. He could not handle life outside prison and did not know how to behave after being institutionalised. Johnny regretfully had to dismiss him from the tour. Unable to handle fame, Glen quickly faded into obscurity. His drinking and drug abuse got out of hand and he was estranged from his wife and children. In May 1978 while high on drugs he shot a man and went into hiding. Unable to face going back to prison Glen Sherley took his own life at the young age of 42. Johnny Cash paid for the funeral.

I enjoyed listening to his album. Greystone Chapel is my favourite track. I looked on YouTube to see if there was any footage of Glen singing the song, and there was. I was shocked at his appearance though. He was only 33 but looked decades older. The years of prison were written all over his face. You can see that video on this blog page if you want. Other songs I liked are Looking Back In Anger, If This Prison Yard Could Talk and Measure Of A Man. There is humour as well in Pick A Bouquet. It is a shame he had such a tragic life and could not adjust to freedom. I remember when Johnny Cash played the part of a murderer in the TV show Colombo. When Colombo finally arrested him, he said to Johnny Cash, “Anyone who can sing like you can’t be all bad”. I think the same thing applies to Glen Sherley.

The Stories Of Breece D'J Pancake.

I read a magazine article recently in which Tom Waits was asked to name his favourite ten books. There were the usual choices that you would expect Tom to make such as Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and William Burroughs, but the book Tom put at number one was The Stories Of Breece D’J Pancake. I respect what Tom has to say, but I had never heard of this person. I thought it was some kind of a joke. What writer would really have a name like Pancake? When I looked him up on Wikipedia, I found he really existed. I ordered the book and it arrived a few days ago.

Firstly, to get the name Pancake out of the way. It is of German origin and must be quite a well-known name in West Virginia because Wikipedia lists three famous Pancakes from that state. The D’J part of his name came about from a typo error when Atlantic Monthly published a short story by him and Breece found that amusing and decided to leave it as it was. The book I received consists of twelve short stories with a foreword and an afterword. It is the only book by Breece D’J Pancake and was published after his death. He committed suicide in 1979 at the age of only 26. The reasons for his suicide are unclear because he was on the brink of a great career and his work was admired by many great authors such as Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates and Kurt Vonnegut. The stories were compared to Hemingway, Faulkner, and Dubliners by James Joyce.

I found the stories fascinating. They are all set in West Virginia and he vividly brings to life people who are poor and downtrodden and leading empty sad lonely lives. There are farms about to be sold, coal mining, fighting, casual killing of wildlife, abuse of women, car crashes, cheap hotels, drunkenness, death and coal dust. The characters have names like Colly, Corey, Reva and Skeevy. They are described so vividly that you think they are real people.  If you like animals there are dogs, deer, turtles, snakes, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, bobcats and hogs in abundance. Most of them come to a grim end.  The stories do not explain themselves. What the narrator does not say is as important as what he does say. The reader must interpret the stories for themselves. I found one story called Time And Again particularly disturbing. It concerns a snow plough driver. As the story develops you begin to realise that he is a serial killer. When you begin to wonder what he did with his victims, it is even more harrowing. I can see why Tom Waits would find these stories inspirational. The characters are like nighthawks at the diner. The alienation of the people reminds you of paintings by Edward Hopper. A Room Forever perfectly portrays the despair and emptiness of the two protagonists, a mate on a river boat and a teenage prostitute. I do not think there is an element of autobiography in these stories, but just to have the vivid imagination to think up these stories and create the characters gives a hint of the inner turmoil that might have been going on in the authors psyche to lead to his suicide. You sense that the author was not a happy person. There doesn't seem to be much hope of redemption for the people in his stories. Maybe that's how he himself viewed life.

Breece D'J Pancake.

One thing I like about Tom Waits is that there is humour in his work. Tom would not have found much humour here. It makes grim reading at times, but I enjoyed reading these twelve stories. You are left with a feeling of regret that the author died so young. Even so, I think his reputation will continue to grow as more readers discover the work of Breece D’J Pancake.

Jennings Follows A Clue

The rain hadn't abated all day. I was trapped indoors and didn’t know what to do with myself. “I ought to write a blog to pass the time”, I thought to myself. I didn’t know what to write about though. Looking on my bookshelves for inspiration my eyes alighted on Jennings Follows A Clue by Anthony Buckeridge. It is a first edition complete with dust jacket and published in 1951. One of my favourite books. Why is it so special? Well, my sister Margaret gave it to me as a birthday present on my 50^th birthday in 2001. It was published the year I was born in 1951 and Margaret knew that when I was a kid I was addicted to the Jennings books. A few weeks ago some Facebook friends were nominating each other to name their favourite books. I was itching to be nominated so that I could show off my book knowledge, but nobody nominated me, much to my chagrin. I would certainly have included a Jennings book along with Black Beauty, The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island as my favourite childhood books.

Jennings Follows A Clue was the second in the series of Jennings books. The first was Jennings Goes To School published in 1950. The books follow the adventures of Jennings and his short-sighted friend Darbishire at Linbury Court School. All the characters are only known by their surnames, as was the custom at British boy’s schools. There was a whole supporting cast of minor characters such as Temple, Venables, Binns, Blotwell, Atkinson and Bromwich (Major). The teachers were gruff Mr Wilkins, kindly Mr Carter and the headmaster known as the ‘Arch Beako’. Then there was Matron and many other characters. Flicking through the book this afternoon all the schoolboy slang terms came back to me. For example, if you made a mistake it was a ‘bish’, anything unpleasant was ‘ozard’. If Mr Wilkins was angry he was ozard, if he was really angry he was ‘ozard squared’ and if he was absolutely furious he was ‘ozard cubed’. Jennings was always getting Darbishire into all sorts of scrapes, such as when they found an old wheel with 2000BC written on it. Thinking they had found an ancient artefact they pushed it back to school only to find that BC stood for Borough Council.

Anthony Buckeridge died in 2004 aged 92, but his books were enjoyed by thousands of children and he educated them at the same time. I found out one very interesting fact today. When I looked on Wikipedia for info about Jennings I discovered that the Jennings books were serialised on Children’s Hour on BBC radio in 1958. Jennings was played by a child actor called John Mitchell who became famous in the 60’s as Mitch Mitchell drummer of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. You learn something new every day!

Mitch Mitchell as Jennings.

The Mystery Of The House Without Windows.

I have always been interested in stories about people who disappeared without trace. Five years ago, I wrote a piece about Connie Converse who is regarded as the first ever female singer-songwriter of the modern era. In 1974 she packed her belongings into her Volkswagen car and drove away, never to be seen again. I called that story How Sad, How Lovely after the title of her album. You can read that story below if you want.

Recently I stumbled across the story of another talented person who also disappeared in mysterious circumstances, the writer Barbara Newhall Follett. She was born in 1914 in New Hampshire USA. Her father was Wilson Follett who was a noted writer and teacher. Her mother was a writer of children’s stories. She was a precocious child who started writing poetry at the age of four and even invented her own language which she called Farksoo. She also had a huge interest in nature and the outdoors. At age eight she began work on her first novel which became The House Without Windows. The first manuscript which she presented to her mother was destroyed in a house fire. She painstakingly rewrote it and expanded it and with the help of her father the book was published in 1927 when she was only 12 years old. She was hailed as a child genius and the book received rave reviews from people such as Eleanor Farjeon who wrote the song Morning Has Broken. She was interviewed on the radio and asked to review other books. Her future seemed assured.

Barbara also had a great interest in the sea and sailing. In order to write about it she wanted to experience it for herself. Her parents allowed her to join the crew of a schooner as a ‘cabin boy’ on a voyage to Nova Scotia. She was only thirteen years of age. Her book based on that voyage The Voyage Of The Norman D was published in 1928 also to critical acclaim. Sadly, that year her life turned upside down. Her father abandoned his wife and children and went off with another woman. She found that experience quite devastating. The great depression began, and she was reduced to doing secretarial work to help support her mother and siblings. She did write other manuscripts, but they remained unpublished during her lifetime.

In 1931 she met a man called Nickerson Rogers. The following year they walked along the Appalachian Trail and then sailed to Spain and spent time walking through Europe. I think if she had been born 30 years later then she would have been described as having a hippy existence. They returned to USA and settled in Brookline Massachusetts and married in 1934. Sadly, it was not a happy marriage. Barbara became depressed and convinced that her husband was being unfaithful to her. According to her husband Barbara left the house on December 7^th, 1939. She had $30 in her pocket which was about $500 in today's money. At only 25 years old she was never seen again. Her husband did not inform the police for two weeks. Four months later he requested that a missing persons bulletin be issued. It was in the name Barbara Rogers, so nobody knew it was the famous writer who had disappeared until 1966. Her mother became suspicious when she discovered what little effort Nickerson had made to find his wife and accused him of having something to hide. Sadly, she went to her grave never knowing what fate had befallen her daughter. No body was ever found nor any evidence suggesting foul play.

I decided that I ought to see if I could find a rare book by Barbara Newhall Follett, So I googled ‘Barbara Newhall Follett Signed Copy’. I didn’t find a book signed by her, but I was amazed to find that a new illustrated edition of The House Without Windows had been published in the UK only last year 2019 and copies were  available signed by the illustrator Jackie Morris. My copy arrived last Saturday. It is a very attractive book and there is an introduction by Jackie Morris. Unfortunately for me, unlike the album by Connie Converse which I really enjoyed listening to, this book is not my thing at all. It is like a children’s fairy tale. It is about this girl called Eepersip who runs away from home to live in in the woods and eventually turns into a wood nymph. It is a children’s book meant for children. I expect I will resell it when I get back into my book dealing again. Nevertheless, I found the story of Barbara Newhall Follett quite fascinating. It is a shame that her disappearance wasn’t investigated more thoroughly at the time. In this modern age with all the advances with DNA I wonder if the mystery could still be solved when some shallow grave is found and reveals its dark secrets.