English folk music for sonhouse

NoEarthlyReason View Profile

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10 Oct '14 21:45

NoEarthlyReason
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10 Oct '14 21:45
Hi sonhouse,

You shared some of your music with me a while ago. I promised to listen to it all: I'm afraid I didn't but I enjoyed most of what I did hear. Anyway, I just came across this musician, Si Brady, on a radio show. He sings English folk-tunes and plays a mean guitar. For all I know you may already know of him but he's definitely worth a listen if not.

https://soundcloud.com/barronbrady
sonhouse
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12 Oct '14 11:295 edits
Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
Hi sonhouse,

You shared some of your music with me a while ago. I promised to listen to it all: I'm afraid I didn't but I enjoyed most of what I did hear. Anyway, I just came across this musician, Si Brady, on a radio show. He sings English folk-tunes and plays a mean guitar. For all I know you may already know of him but he's definitely worth a listen if not.

https://soundcloud.com/barronbrady
Isn't that Simon Barron? He is a great singer for sure, great intonation of his vocals. He comes out of the Martin Carthy era I think, take a listen to this Martin Carthy version of The flower of serving man:

YouTube

I think Simon is playing in DADGAD tuning, a very useful tuning for this style. Another guitarist famous for that tuning is Pierre Bensusan.

It says on the youtube channel he is half of SimonBrady, is the other guy Paul Brady? That would make sense, Brady is a great guitarist in his own right.

Here is another guy who deserves a listen, a Norwegian by the name of Bernt Solval:

YouTube

That is his son playing backup.

Sally Anne:

YouTube

And a bunch of him here!:

BTW, he plays more american style fingerpicking but is very good at it!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bernt+solvoll+

I get the feeling he was raised in the US and moved to Norway but not sure.
He sings in Norwegian also so could be either way.
NoEarthlyReason
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17 Oct '14 19:14
Originally posted by sonhouse
Isn't that Simon Barron? He is a great singer for sure, great intonation of his vocals. He comes out of the Martin Carthy era I think, take a listen to this Martin Carthy version of The flower of serving man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_00g-asQvVk

I think Simon is playing in DADGAD tuning, a very useful tuning for this style. Another guitarist fam ...[text shortened]... in the US and moved to Norway but not sure.
He sings in Norwegian also so could be either way.
Yes, I realise now that it is Simon Barron – I think the radio announcer may have given his name wrongly, or I wasn't paying attention. The Norwegian's videos are interesting: there's a slightly unsettling style to them, visually, that seems to starkly contrast with the freewheeling music.

It's interesting how uniquely spacious 'country music' does sound – I can't think of anything else I've heard like it. Which traditions did it grow from, and how has it changed over the years?
sonhouse
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18 Oct '14 01:382 edits
Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
Yes, I realise now that it is Simon Barron – I think the radio announcer may have given his name wrongly, or I wasn't paying attention. The Norwegian's videos are interesting: there's a slightly unsettling style to them, visually, that seems to starkly contrast with the freewheeling music.

It's interesting how uniquely spacious 'country music' do ...[text shortened]... se I've heard like it. Which traditions did it grow from, and how has it changed over the years?
Country music, American Country music, has a tradition going only a couple hundred years from the 1800's, there was the traveling minstrel show, some of them black facing themselves to cater to white audiences but at the same time there was the beginnings of black country blues and real advances in guitar playing technique. Before that time, the guitar was a thing to strum chords while singing but that advanced a whole lot when the black country musicians started figuring out fingerpicking techniques and rhythmic patterns never heard before in folk music.

White folks started picking up on that and by the 1920's there were some advanced (for the day) guitar pickers like Sam and Kirk Mcgee, here is a clip from the brothers in 1967:

YouTube

I met Sam Mcgee in Franklin Tenn. when my gf and I went through Nashville where I thought about maybe becoming a guitar player there.
That didn't last but about 5 minutes when I walked into a recording company...

So I looked up Sam in the phone book, found him on his farm, asked if I could see him, SURE, come on over! So I did and showed him some of the tunes he played in the 1920's and I saw all his awards and gold records and such, that was a great night! He said, you really love the guitar don't you!

Anyway a guitarist names Les Paul came along in the 1940's and was able to see the German tape recorders taken from a German radio station after WW2, and he figured out how to make multiple recordings and got some number one hits with his wife at the time, Mary Ford where she doubled up on her own voice and he did multiple parts on guitar and such. He is the guy who invented the electric guitar pickup around 1929 or 1930, hooking it up to an amplifier and country players took to that like a cat to milk! Then electric guitar players added styles like 'chicken pickin', here is a link to that, a chicken pickin lesson:

YouTube

Here is one of the tunes I played for Sam on his farm: Buckdancers Choice

YouTube&list=PLID9lkPcWPClE7TFr3CEZ1M_mU0DptVSL&index=6

And to show how folk guitar technique has advanced in the last 100 years, here is Phil Keaggy playing his own tune, Country Down:

YouTube
sonhouse
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18 Oct '14 02:551 edit
Originally posted by sonhouse
[b]Country music, American Country music, has a tradition going only a couple hundred years from the 1800's, there was the traveling minstrel show, some of them black facing themselves to cater to white audiences but at the same time there was the beginnings of black country blues and real advances in guitar playing technique. Before that time, the guitar was ...[text shortened]... mmer rain:

http://asgn.tv/?channel=asgn14summer&videofile=mp4:asgntv/asgn-summer-2014/sasgn14-001
sonhouse
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18 Oct '14 03:211 edit
I messed up that post, it is Muriel Andersen playing her AMAZING guitar:

Summer Rain, the first one on the list. Listen to both of her pieces, the second one, Bakers dozen:

http://asgn.tv/?channel=asgn14summer&videofile=mp4:asgntv/asgn-summer-2014/sasgn14-001

Turn the bass WAY up! incredible sound
NoEarthlyReason
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21 Oct '14 19:133 edits
Originally posted by sonhouse
I messed up that post, it is Muriel Andersen playing her AMAZING guitar:

Summer Rain, the first one on the list. Listen to both of her pieces, the second one, Bakers dozen:

http://asgn.tv/?channel=asgn14summer&videofile=mp4:asgntv/asgn-summer-2014/sasgn14-001

Turn the bass WAY up! incredible sound
I really enjoyed the McGees, especially the first link. Perhaps it's just my habitual nostalgic mode of thinking for times before I was born, but I tend to strongly prefer older recordings of this sort of music. They seem to me to possess more charm than modern recordings, harking back to a bygone world before punk rock, heavy metal, rap, bubblegum pop and boy bands. I liked the almost-jazzy chord structure in parts of the first video, as well. It must have been great to meet one of the brothers.

The guitar lesson was most interesting! I used to mess around with an electric guitar and can remember trying to perfect the muting-with-the-heel-of-the-hand trick... Sixths are nice intervals in general, I think. I like to play around with them sometimes on my piano.

Muriel Andersen's guitar is an astonishing-looking instrument, I agree*. Both with that and the Phil Keaggy videos, though, I found them not to be to my taste: I prefer the greater expressivity of the piano (my opinion) for broad-brush improvisations/"jamming" type music, and I often feel music is a bit characterless without what I would call a proper tune. But both pieces were very skilfully played.

* For an extraordinarily imaginative description of an outlandish instrument (the "undecagonstring" ) and its owner's inner monologue regarding her semi-religious quest to perfect the performance of a particular piece, have a look at The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks (I think the description occurs, at least initially, in chapter 2, so if you want to skip straight there you can).

Edit: just watched the second Muriel Andersen piece, which was pretty good, actually. Nice to see a musician taking influences from other cultures.
sonhouse
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22 Oct '14 10:358 edits
Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
I really enjoyed the McGees, especially the first link. Perhaps it's just my habitual nostalgic mode of thinking for times before I was born, but I tend to strongly prefer older recordings of this sort of music. They seem to me to possess more charm than modern recordings, harking back to a bygone world before punk rock, heavy metal, rap, bubblegum p ...[text shortened]... , which was pretty good, actually. Nice to see a musician taking influences from other cultures.
I would love to play her harp guitar! Have you heard of Martin Simpson or Richard Thompson? They are guitarists guitarists! Listen to them: Martin doing Raglan Road:

YouTube

And Richard's signature song, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

YouTube

This song could be a James Dean movie!

And another signature song of his sung by Bonnie Raitt and Richard:

Dimming of the day, a gem of a song and her version is the best I ever heard:

YouTube

BTW, you can see a lot more of all of them in the sidebars.

I was also thinking of Mavis Staple, a really great singer who also puts everything she has into her songs, and one of my favorites from her:

Hard Times Come again no more, by Steven foster:

YouTube

This song is in a studio surrounded by a lot of people obviously enjoying the shyte out of this production and there is a great guitar solo in the middle I suspect is Jerry Douglas but not sure. Ever hear him? One of the best Dobro players on the planet, snagged by allison Krauss in her band Union Station, one of the best bluegrass bands ever! She is a great singer and a great fiddler and she surrounded herself with acoustic virtuoso's like jerry.

Did you see the movie Brother where Art Thou? Her singing was used throughout that movie, the one with George Clooney? Dan Tyminsky sang that song I am a man of constant sorrow:

YouTube

Dan Tyminsky is one of the members of Union Station.

And Allison singing When you say nothing at all.

This is the fusion of country music and bluegrass. Best of both.

YouTube
NoEarthlyReason
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23 Oct '14 03:061 edit
Originally posted by sonhouse
I would love to play her harp guitar! Have you heard of Martin Simpson or Richard Thompson? They are guitarists guitarists! Listen to them: Martin doing Raglan Road:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9qh3QSAt3g

And Richard's signature song, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0kJdrfzjAg

This song could be a James Dean ...[text shortened]... ion of country music and bluegrass. Best of both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SCOimBo5tg
I haven't heard of many folk musicians at all. I have a few June Tabor songs (Waltzing Matilda is absolutely stunning) and used to have a copy of Solid Air by John Martyn, but played it to death and probably couldn't bear to listen to it again.

I just looked at my recommendations in the iTunes Store and Penguin Eggs by Nic Jones came up. Another one I'd never heard of, but that's gone on my wishlist, perhaps for Christmas. I have very vague and distant memories of being taken, as a child, to pubs in coastal towns and villages in England where people would sing those types of songs -- everyone seemed to know all these great songs back then. It seems like a pleasant dream now -- I probably would have been half asleep through the lateness of the hour.

Not that long ago I 'discovered' Julian Bream by watching a guitar workshop the BBC had put online. I'd occasionally listened to his double CD with John Williams, 'Together', but I hadn't appreciated his amazing musicality until I watched the programme -- and he was incredibly skilled at guiding the other guitarists in their playing, both technically and for emotional expression.

Here's a full John Bream concert from Old Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, 1978:

YouTube

Have only listened to your first link so far but will try and find some more time tomorrow evening.
sonhouse
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23 Oct '14 10:177 edits
Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
I haven't heard of many folk musicians at all. I have a few June Tabor songs (Waltzing Matilda is absolutely stunning) and used to have a copy of Solid Air by John Martyn, but played it to death and probably couldn't bear to listen to it again.

I just looked at my recommendations in the iTunes Store and Penguin Eggs by Nic Jones came up. Another o ...[text shortened]... e only listened to your first link so far but will try and find some more time tomorrow evening.
There are few guitarists with the emotional range of Julian Bream. Have been listening to him for decades. You mentioned the Julian and John album, great album! But did you know it was homage to and earlier duo? That duo, Ida Presti and Alexander LaGoya, an incredible duo from the 1940's and 50's, husband and wife team. I listened to them when I was in the air force in the 60's and found it impossible to imagine which track was her and which was him, their emotional sweeping music rose and fell as if they were one person controlling two bodies, just incredible. And Julian and John both knew about them from their recordings and tried to duplicate that incredible interaction.

They came close but nobody could duplicate the rise and fall of the artistry of Ida and Alexandria. It was said of Ida that she NEVER made a mistake on the guitar. In the 1930's they say there were two guitarists: Ida and Andre. She was that good.

I hope I still have the vinyl of them as a duo. I googled them and found an incredibly bad recording of her from somewhere in the 1930's but audio and video so bad you could not really hear her virtuosity which was a shame, she was very young at that time, would loved to have heard her from that distant perspective.

I just googled her again and found some newer great cuts from the 30's:

Andaluza:

YouTube

I only previously had seen images of her in her 50's and 60's but the picture of her on this track is stunning! I want a time machine🙂

My god, she was 14 years old at the time of this recording! She was said to be the best guitarist of the 20th century and 'maybe, of all time'!

Another set of gems from her from the same time:

YouTube

Here is her bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Presti

I was wrong about her being in her 50's, she died at the age of 42. The world lost a real musical genius.

Here is a great article by one of her students from 1966 just before she died:

http://www.tar.gr/en/content/content.php?id=552
NoEarthlyReason
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01 Nov '14 23:24
Originally posted by sonhouse
There are few guitarists with the emotional range of Julian Bream. Have been listening to him for decades. You mentioned the Julian and John album, great album! But did you know it was homage to and earlier duo? That duo, Ida Presti and Alexander LaGoya, an incredible duo from the 1940's and 50's, husband and wife team. I listened to them when I was in the ...[text shortened]... her students from 1966 just before she died:

http://www.tar.gr/en/content/content.php?id=552
What a superb musician! And, yes, she was very beautiful too. If you click the Ida Presti mix that appears at the top of the YouTube page, one of the videos is just that – a video of her playing live. I admit I hadn't heard of her at all, so thank you so much for introducing her music to me. Very sad that she died so young; I haven't read the bios but I'll keep an ear out for her music on the radio (I'm sure the announcers will read out a bio when they play it). Come to think of it, I don't hear very much classical guitar music on BBC Radio 3. They do play it, but they seem to focus on orchestral and vocal music much more (and often very 'difficult' modern music). At the moment I'm listening to a Bach organ piece from a CD box set - Bach: The Complete Works. It's perfect atmosphere for the dark nights that are drawing in now, and surprisingly relaxing (I usually find organ music sets me on edge a little bit).

By the way, talking of female classical guitarists, I found this girl, Tatyana Ryzhkova, on YouTube a couple of months ago. She's Austrian (or German, can't remember which) but of Russian origin or at least family, I think. I'd like to hear what you think of her playing:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_Ut6g7BfnztzBXtCZ9-dA
sonhouse
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02 Nov '14 12:53
Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
What a superb musician! And, yes, she was very beautiful too. If you click the Ida Presti mix that appears at the top of the YouTube page, one of the videos is just that – a video of her playing live. I admit I hadn't heard of her at all, so thank you so much for introducing her music to me. Very sad that she died so young; I haven't read the bios bu ...[text shortened]... hear what you think of her playing:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_Ut6g7BfnztzBXtCZ9-dA
I saw her on youtube and put up some of her video's here a few months ago. She is enchanting for sure! I see some negative comments about her as histrionics but you see such in players like Ling Ling and others. I would much rather listen to her than Ling!
Amaurote
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15 Nov '14 22:301 edit
Don't forget Vin Garbutt: YouTube?t=1m30s

YouTube
sonhouse
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16 Nov '14 13:11
Originally posted by Amaurote
Don't forget Vin Garbutt: http://youtu.be/Ug6vANoFEz4?t=1m30s

http://youtu.be/9UEM9bMEVCk
Thanks for bringing him here, a new one for me. One of the joys of folk music is finding new talented people, new to me anyway! He reminds me of my buddy George Winston.
NoEarthlyReason
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16 Nov '14 17:15
Originally posted by sonhouse
Thanks for bringing him here, a new one for me. One of the joys of folk music is finding new talented people, new to me anyway! He reminds me of my buddy George Winston.
sonhouse, do you listen to much radio? Now that Internet radio has well-and-truly arrived, I sometimes listen to US stations as well as others around the world — I bookmark the ones I like in TuneIn. Are there any stations you'd particularly recommend?

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English folk music for sonhouse