2015 Festivals - Cambridge Folk Festival

I probably mentioned that this is my "newbie" for 2015 - it is in fact the 51st year that Cambridge Folk Festival has been held, making it one of the world's longest continuously operating music festivals.  It took a certain recommendation, from one who is a pro, to persuade me to take the plunge however.  For me however it will be all new and I'm very much looking forward to it. I have two 'warm-up' festivals before it - Behind The Castle Festival and Truck Festival so come the weekend that spans the end of July and the start of August I should be well into the festival mentality. Now for some thoughts... one of which is that starting posts is often the hardest part. In a way this reminds me of the thing I most hated in school lessons - how to start a story. Another thing I disliked was revision - re-named research, in this case about the artists already announced for Cambridge Folk Festival, that seems way better.
I always liked making and keeping lists. I still do and so not long ago I was making a list of acts or artists that I would most like to see this summer. Pretty much at the top of it was this artist; about a week ago she was announced for Cambridge 2015.

I have been a big fan of Carolina Chocolate Drops since back when, but have never seen them play live. There will be clashes a-plenty, I can see that already, but she will be on my list of things to see.

Beyond that the question is simply where to start and only then beyond the astonishing trinity of Peggy Seeger, Joan Baez and Joan Armatrading. I have seen none of them live before.

The prolific Bella Hardy, whom I saw live at Frome Festival 2012, releases her latest album 'With The Dawn' this coming Monday and another that I would really like to catch live again. Cambridge Folk Festival is a world away from the Westway Cinema, Frome, although I mean no discredit to either venue.

This LP is almost entirely her own original songs rather than interpretations of traditional material.

If you think that that is an odd shift of emphasis then here is 'The Herring Girl', a Bella hardy original from the 2011 album 'Songs Lost & Stolen'.

Beyond that... well there is just so much I would like to see. I have seen The Unthanks four times before but that is not to say that I wouldn't wish to see them once again, not least because it has been a couple of years now and, never ones to rest on the laurels of past successes, they bring new album 'Mount The Air' into the equation. To state the obvious that isn't even the half of it. I can see The Willows at Behind The Castle but likely as not I will want to see them again less than two months later. The one certainty is that I won't be able, however determined I might be, to see everything that I want to see. That however is the mark of a really good festival, without the shadow of a doubt.
That decision to keep listening and beat the tiredness any way you can; I have caught forty winks somewhere or other in the arena between bands on many an occasion before. I don't see any reason to stop now.

Matty Groves, lyric, Alela Diane

To see the latest update on this thread follow the link below: http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/06/alela-alina-matty-groves-live.html


Thank you to whosoever searched today for the lyric to 'Matty Groves', as performed by Alela Diane. A definitive answer is difficult, as I heard it live at 'End Of The Road 2009' and it is not, as far as I know, an Alela Diane album track but it was in so far as I could tell from memory quite faithful to the 'In Real Time - 1987' Fairport Convention' rendition and this is the lyric for that:

Matty Groves
A holiday, a holiday, and the first one of the year
Lord Donald's wife came into the church, the gospel for to hear
And when the meeting it was done, she cast her eyes about
And there she saw little Matty Groves, walking in the crowd
"Come home with me, little Matty Groves, come home with me tonight
Come home with me, little Matty Groves, and sleep with me till light"
"Oh, I can't come home, I won't come home and sleep with you tonight
By the rings on your fingers I can tell you are my master's wife"
"But if I am Lord Donald's wife, Lord Donald's not at home
He is out in the far cornfields bringing the yearlings home"

And a servant who was standing by and hearing what was said
He swore Lord Donald he would know before the sun would set
And in his hurry to carry the news, he bent his breast and ran
And when he came to the broad millstream, he took off his shoes and he swam

Little Matty Groves, he lay down and took a little sleep
When he awoke, Lord Donald was standing at his feet
Saying "How do you like my feather bed and how do you like my sheets
How do you like my lady who lies in your arms asleep?"
"Oh, well I like your feather bed and well I like your sheets
But better I like your lady gay who lies in my arms asleep"
"Well, get up, get up," Lord Donald cried, "get up as quick as you can
It'll never be said in fair England that I slew a naked man"
"Oh, I can't get up, I won't get up, I can't get up for my life
For you have two long beaten swords and I not a pocket knife"
"Well it's true I have two beaten swords and they cost me deep in the purse
But you will have the better of them and I will have the worse
And you will strike the very first blow and strike it like a man
I will strike the very next blow and I'll kill you if I can"

So Matty struck the very first blow and he hurt Lord Donald sore
Lord Donald struck the very next blow and Matty struck no more
And then Lord Donald took his wife and he sat her on his knee
Saying "Who do you like the best of us, Matty Groves or me?"
And then up spoke his own dear wife, never heard to speak so free
"I'd rather a kiss from dead Matty's lips than you or your finery"

Lord Donald he jumped up and loudly he did bawl
He struck his wife right through the heart and pinned her against the wall
"A grave, a grave," Lord Donald cried, "to put these lovers in
But bury my lady at the top for she was of noble kin."

If there are subtle differences then and with luck this will at least help you with the greater part of the remainder. It is a traditional song so bear in mind that there are probably many versions of both the lyric and its accompaniment in existence and, in particular, I think Joan Baez may have recorded one that is notably different.

Added October 15, 2009:
Well here's something interesting that reinforces the point about alternate versions, even ones by the same artist.
The lyric above may actually be that to an idealized or a recorded version. I've just listened to 'Matty Groves' from 'In Real Time - 1987' Fairport Convention' very carefully indeed and they are are some subtle differences:
Some are totally trivial and are common in any canon but one, which struck me as being rather more significant, is that in the live version the servant who relays the tale of adultery is now female (consistently so, therefore I don't think I have misheard it) and the wronged party is Lord Arnold (not Lord Donald). It answers another issue that struck me as slightly strange yesterday evening:
Why would yearlings (sheep, cattle or any other kind) be in cornfields? It seemed rather strange agricultural practise to me, but then what do I know? Listen carefully and it is this:

He is out in the far country bringing the yearlings home.

That makes much more sense and 'the far country' is a well known, if somewhat archaic, term for the distant parts on one's estates, if one were lucky enough to have so much as the ground beneath one's feet to call ones own! The Lord Donald/Lord Arnold dichotomy may be merely a regional variation, each using the name of a local dignitary or a play on it, as much traditional music was carefully veiled sedition in any case.

Much later, still to this day indeed, there are regional variations even though the locations may not be far apart at all. The song 'Stanley Market' (Co. Durham), dating from the 19th century I suspect, is 'Bedlington Market' when just across the Tyne in Northumberland. It is recognizably the same song but, as above, the lyrics vary somewhat.

New albums I want ...

Like some fictional character - in this case Piglet - I'm minded to shout "Help, help and rescue!" My problem is however a very enviable one and it is simply too much new music (that I want to listen to) appearing too fast.
I'll do my best and continuing the female singer/songwriter theme of recent posts here is another one who, to be honest, could keep a modestly ambitious label in albums all on her own. Her last studio album was Harpo's Ghost back in 2006 - which for her, if not for Portishead, is an age between albums!

Liejacker will be released on 19th May and is her eighth studio album in ten years, which is particularly impressive for someone who is still just twenty-eight. I haven't heard the new album yet but I strongly suspect that the title gives something away; if it is not political, pugnacious and possibly rather stripped back to basics I shall be both wrong and disappointed. It does, I believe, have the occasional guest contribution and most notable amongst them is Joan Baez.

Another under-appreciated star of the UK female singer-songwriter world releases an album this Monday (12th May). She is Isobel Campbell and this is her second collaboration with Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Gutter Twins, &c.).

That's finally fixed! You can find lyrics for some of the tracks here and I've kept the linked sites transparent:
http://www.lyred.com/lyrics/Isobel+Campbell/Sunday+at+Devil+Dirt/
http://www.songs-lyrics.net/al-Isobel-Campbell-lyrics-Sunday-at-Devil-Dirt-lyrics-lmoolra.html

The 12" has all the lyrics on the back cover so, if you want them, please just ask (using comment or e-mail).

If it is anywhere near as good as Ballad Of The Broken Seas (2006) it won't be in my CD player forever --- but that is simply because 'V2 Records' have made it available on vinyl. It is true that Campbell now has a higher profile than when, in 2002, she left Belle and Sebastian but that is not to deny that this remains an album that should be better known. So should the earlier ones and this is the first...

Belle & Sebastian "Tigermilk" (1996).

Post-2002 she released two albums as 'Gentle Waves' and then, simply as Isobel, the remarkable Amorino. There are others too, not least three more B&S albums recorded before she left the band, and so here we have another creative powerhouse.

Listening today... not new and without lyrics.

I'm liking two albums very much at the moment. Neither is new, but to me they are as I've only got them this week. They are both largely without vocals but, aside from that, they are really very different indeed.

Re-released in 2007, and made by the Type Records supremo himself, it is just awesome. That said it is also important to realise that this is total electronica.

Rather different is this live CD, recorded and produced in Chicago by Steve Albini, released by sort-of-Brighton-based Electrelane. Absolutely revolutionary it may not be* but it is a fine release and only makes me want to see them play live even more than I already do!

Electrelane - Axes

* In both cases I've meddled vicariously with the album art-work a little (in part because neither album had the title or artist on the cover) but, while on the subject of altering things, The Partisan (Track 10 on Axes) is actually a rather remarkable cover of a cover! It started life not as French Resistance anthem Chant de Partisans but as an earlier (White Russian) one by Anna Marly, who had later adopted France as her homeland. It was then translated into French, but in England in 1943, and used as propaganda on BBC radio. Later still was an English translation (origin currently unknown to me) and it was made notable by Leonard Cohen (1969) and Joan Baez (1972), only to reappear here interpreted in a yet another different way! This one does have vocals but, as is very often the Electrelane way, those of Verity Susman are not prominent in the mix. It is certainly true here, and perhaps the exact intention is that they are almost indecipherable?
I'm delighted to say that, for the curious like me, versions of the lyric, in Russian, French, English and also Persian can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chant_des_Partisans