Saul Rose knows a thing or two about War Horse. He played Songman in the West End show for a year starting in 2011, which was the year it came out as a movie. But more than that... As a folk musician he's known and much loved as one-third of Faustus, for Whapweasel, as Eliza Carthy's musical foil in the Kings of Calicutt and now as James Delarre's other half, kind of.
For ages I thought he was in Bellowhead because the first time I saw them live he was depping for John Spiers.
"He was off being a daddy," nods Rose, referring to Spiers' paternity leave.
It's a Tube-stricken evening in Camden and Rose & Delarre are playing at The Green Note to a handful of delighted diehards who are blase about their chances of getting home. What I want to know is what Rose thinks about events at the National Theatre, whose management recently, somewhat thuggishly, sacked the entire band from War Horse?
"I think the problem ultimately was that they were musicians, rather than actors," said Rose. "They have the Musicians Union and their pay scale is different. When War Horse was originally commissioned it was only supposed to run for a short while. But then it went to the West End and is still running six or seven years later.
"The cast's deal was worked out on the basis that it was a three month run. But the same five musicians are still there after all that time later and their wages... It's why I'm a member of the Musicians' Union and not Equity."
When Rose was in War Horse he was a member of the cast who played music, rather than a member of the band. Do you have any idea how the musicians are, I ask?
"I should think they are feeling ever so slightly relieved," he said thoughtfully. "I'm just saying it's possible... because to play the same thing eight times a week for seven years takes some doing. I couldn't do it.
"What really appalls me, though, is that" whatever that judge said "those musicians are an integral part of the play. I sometimes worry about the idea of authenticity, but they had been in the show from the beginning and there was an authenticity to that. Audiences that see it with recorded music are being short changed and I think the play will suffer as a result...
"I'm not expecting to go back into War Horse," he grinned.
Probably just as well...
"I did a year and that's fine for me, that's plenty. It's not because I wouldn't do theatre again. I might. But I really had to put everything on hold as a musician for that year and it was hard.
"Maybe the audience numbers are dwindling now, finally?" he suggested
"It was amazing. One of the best years of my life. You know when you get a group of ten people there is always likely to be someone who is idiot?"
OK.
"Well, we had a cast of 35 and everyone was amazing. No idiots. They were all so generous to me, as someone who didn't really know anything about acting. I got to dress up as a colonel in one of the roles they had me play, and bark orders. And there was one scene"...
There may have been some ordnance going off like nostalgia at the back of Rose's mind...
"... where every time I did a back flip Malcolm, one of the other guys in the cast, would give me a fiver. I tell you what I missed though... There are certain parts of that show when the Songman is allowed to interact with the audience. And in that role you get to do it more than anyone else. But even so... it wasn't much. It was like there was a wall up between the actors and audience most of the time."
And I guess having recorded music can only exacerbate that. What about John Tams (who wrote the original music for War Horse)? I tried to get in touch with him about this business with the band and the union but he appears, uncharacteristically and despite his apparent political views, to have gone to ground on the subject. He didn't return my messages.
"Ah, Tams... Being the Songman in War Horse was a little bit like depping for him on a permanent basis. Ordinarily I like to mould a song to my way of speaking but Tams came in one day to the theatre and told me 'They've been through enough sieves already'."
There was a bit more chatter. Rose and Delarre's CD wasn't out in time for their tour, which is a shame though you can pre-order one here. As well as the Tube strike they were also in competition that evening with an album launch at Cecil Sharp House, although judging by the tide of people sweeping down Parkway at 9.25pm (the strike was due to start at 9.30) they weren't quite so blase about getting home. Rose and Delarre had the cooler audience. Just saying... The gig was fantastic. And apparently they haven't got much lined up festival-wise this summer, so are open to suggestions.
At the end of the evening Rose had had a good long time to think about the subject under discussion, and summed it up thus: "Firing the War Horse band was shit. They shouldn't have done it."
There is a Musicians Union petition here that you can sign if you agree with him, asking for the musicians to be reinstated. There are about 6,500 signatures so far.
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Saturday was one of the final outings for the Moulettes' Bears Revenge album, at a gig in Islington town hall that also had Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker on the bill. And it was an amazing night: I took two friends who hadn't seen Moulettes before and by the end they were both slightly dazed by the sheer volume and energy of the thing, which some might say defies description. However, I am characteristically undeterred...
It's got a folky vibe while consisting only of original songs, but with more energy on one stage than you'd normally get in an entire folk festival: something that Shepley got around nicely by booking them this year. Comparisons with Bellowhead and The Destroyers are apt because at one stage there were 15 of them playing - not even including Arthur Brown, who appeared in full make-up towards the end. But neither Bellowhead nor The Destroyers have a bassoonist in a dirndl, or the majority of their melody lines played by a cello and a fiddle. And it's all about the girls. When they really let rip they have a touch of the Indigo Girls about them, musically speaking, exploding with colour and romance: imagery piles on top of swooping, banging, melodies in such a way that you feel you're being taken on a magical journey to a place they found themselves. As it turns out,this is entirely what they had in mind.
They're also extremely playful, something that got them into hot water in Liverpool, where they have a hard-earned reputation as sexually deviant pagans. But there was a disturbing rumour going around that Ruth Skipper - of the dirndl, the bassoon and, just recently, the Bride-of-Frankenstein-style hairdo - would be leaving the band at the end of this tour, due to commitments to her medical career: she is a qualified doctor.
"But I'm not going," she said.
Yay!
"We did loads of auditions, including several French people who couldn't understand our lyrics. So we were treated to their interpretations of our lyrics instead, which was, um, interesting."
But there was no bassoon-playing, dirndl-wearing Bride-of-Frankenstein-a-like among them?
"Not a one. But I'm not wearing the dirndls any more. Haven't you noticed?"
Sorry. I guess they left a pretty big impression.
"Well, I'm not wearing the dirndls any more because I'm trying to move away from the whole folky thing."
I see.
"But I've got 15 of them. So it's hard to imagine they're gone forever," she added. "We may actually have found a replacement for me of sorts, but she doesn't play the bassoon."
So in what sense is she a replacement?
"She sings."
Excellent. I'd wondered whether the pianist - Matt Gest? - who'd appeared that evening might be up to the job because he had the whole bass range going on. Not that a piano packs quite the same punch as a bassoon at full, buzzing volume.
"No... My replacement would have to be a girl," she grinned.
So the girl in the dirndl with the doom stick and the badger-flashes in her hair is completely irreplaceable: who'd've thunk it? But how she's going to combine touring the forthcoming new album with a full surgery rotation in Brighton next year is anyone's guess
In one other nice piece of news, it turns out that Hannah's mum has something in common with John Spier's dad, in the sense that both took up their offspring's instruments after hearing and appreciating the success that was being made of them. So there are, presumably, now two fabulous cellists in the Miller family.
* Stop press: I understand there are, in fact, three cellists in Hannah's family, as her sister Esther also plays.
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I'm afraid I haven't really considered the whys and wherefores of who gets the money from Spotify, though I understand it's not a very good deal for the musicians. However, in my defence I own CDs with nine out of ten of these songs on it - the exception being the theme from The Hobbit. And this is the case because I harbour an atavistic fear, probably born from growing up in the 1980s under the terror of imminent nuclear armageddon, that one day iTunes will simply change the terms and conditions for its online music (contained in one of those enormous legal documents that you never read before ticking the box at the bottom) and I'll lose everything I've ever bought from them.
Give me a CD every time. Though Spotify is good for hearing new stuff...
When my friends sit around in the Glamour Cave I play them whatever I'm excited about that week, hoping to elucidate a similar reaction. It's the musical equivalent of jumping up and down on a desert island waving and shouting "Hey! Are there any humans out there?" This is the same thing on a larger scale.
It's been fun to do. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I immediately put another one together, thinking that I might do one each month. So roll on December.
There should be ten on there, though for some reason ahab doesn't seem to have shown up on my preview (why?). Anyway, let me know what you think.
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Seeing the Keston Cobblers Club for the first time at The Lantern Societyaround a year agoI was struck by three things about them. Firstly, they had a homespun quality that I found a tiny bit twee. Second, they were nonetheless very good in a catchy way. And thirdly, there was something rather harder to define about them that made me want to see them again. A kind of knowing exactly what they were doing quality that was relaxing and exciting at the same time. The audience was safe in their hands, on a mystery tour.
The homespun-ness I eventually put my finger on as the fashion for retro, vintage, recycled and crafty handmade things which, on reflection, is a logical response to being young and relatively poor during a massive recession. For a better sense of what I'm on about, think also of the Moulettes with their handmade stage set, Mumford & Sons in their waistcoats with their old-fashioned name, bunting at gigs and those posters that say "Keep calm and carry on". Better, surely, to look to the past for an aesthetic, implicitly asking yourself what other people did under similarly difficult circumstances, instead of going "Woe is me" and disappearing up your own fundament. This fashion is a practical response, I think: making the best of a bad lot. A kind of regrouping.
However, it also speaks of a do-it-yourself attitude arising from knowing no one is going to invite you to be successful because these days so few are.
Since then several Keston Cobblers' Club videos flung themselves in my path and made me admire them, I've explored the rest of their oeuvre on YouTube and then I saw them play live on Monday night at Blacks in Soho at a gig organised by the wonderfully named Society of the Golden Slippers that also featured Blair Dunlop - yay! - and talked to them. Now I'm massively impressed and can't wait to see what happens to them next. It seems to me that they're teetering on the edge of something pretty big. Maybe you'll see what I mean...
If you like that, listen also to this version, which is equally good in a different way.
Here's the basics: Jules, 28, with the blonde hair and her brother Matthew, 24, who sings and can learn to play a new instrument in a day, grew up in Bromley along with Tom, 25, and Harry, 24. "I'm an anomaly," said Bethan, who plays tuba, went to the Royal College of Music and is from the midlands. "When I found out she'd been to music school I snapped her up," said Jules.
There's a story about a cobbler that goes with the name.
And I had formed an impression before I met them that they'd had some sage advice on how to navigate their way through the mess that is the modern music industry. Several things had provoked this, including the fact that they had a Burberry deal...
Also I'd read on their website that they'd been snapped up by Quest music management - which manages Sir Paul McCartney and Arcade Fire. Then when I spoke to them, Jules said nonchalantly that they'd "supported Seth Lakeman and Bastille quite early on".
But how did that happen?
"Well," said Jules. "We pestered people and sent them things. Steve Lamacq at Radio 6: we sent him a CD in a wax sealed envelope... we also sent it to about 300 other people. But he picked us up."
But how did you know that was the way to approach it?
"I'm a graphic designer," she said simply - as is Harry - and she studied the subject at college, which I guess implies an immersion in all the soft skills that go into promotion and marketing. When you put this together with Bethan, who was in events management for classical music until quite recently, they have the pretty much the exact skill set - on top of making great music - that you would need in order to promote a band. This process is not, after all, magic.
In particular their videos are great. "Because of what I do for a living, I know that it's easier to listen to something if you're also watching something," Jules said. "We made them ourselves."
A couple of them play with the idea of age - For Words (above, it won an award) and Your Mother - using relatively elderly actors as their focus. What's that about? "Ha! That's my great aunt Audrey and uncle Charles. We're hoping to get a trilogy out of them," she laughed. "I think that a lot of people I know are really scared of getting old. But my mum had a bad accident about three years ago and ever since I've been a bit like "Yes! We're all still here! It's amazing!' And I find I get a bit annoyed with people who are scared of getting old."
So what's going on with Quest? (And this is the part that really gripped me: reading that they'd been taken on by Quest was a bit like reading that someone you know had been scooped up by King Kong...)
"Ah yes, Quest." Bethan and Jules looked at each other as if this were the part of the conversation they hadn't been looking forward to. "Well," said Jules. "We were signed with Quest and then on Friday we parted ways." This was on Monday and we were sitting in the corner at Blacks before their gig.
Oh dear. What happened?
"There was a three-month probationary period. But the person from the agency, she was a bit younger than we'd been hoping. It's a bit of a touchy subject but we thought it was important to say that it was our decision, so it didn't look like we were kicked off. Because we weren't."
But surely being attached to Quest would open all kinds of doors?
"You'd think so. But she was on their young management scheme. A manager can completely change the balance of a band, its whole direction and shape. She was a lovely, lovely girl but it didn't work and you've got to be quite fussy about management because they're part of the band. She had slightly different taste in music to us..."
Bethan took up the reins: "We do have quite high standards and we've got a specific idea about what our brand is, which is something that Jules has worked quite hard on. We have to aim high and this was only our first management experience."
Jules: "We don't want to piss off Quest because they're incredibly powerful in the industry. But they have a young management scheme for small bands. It's just that in our case it was a bit too small. We didn't get the Burberry thing as a result of Quest, we didn't get Glastonbury through them either. We need a manager who can do everything we can do and something else as well. If Quest would have us, we'd certainly be willing to try something else..."
In fact Bethan, Jules and Matthew have all recently given up their day jobs in order to go full time with the band, are getting a bus and are heading out on their first UK tour quite soon, supporting The Leisure Society. They're also about to make another video and are looking for volunteers to be in it, so if you think you might be interested keep an eye on their Facebook page. The Heights of Lola (first video on this post) was the result of the last shout out.
Other things you might like to know about the Keston Cobblers' Club include that Jules has a definite thing about Sam Beam from Iron and Wine, so much so that their next single is called Beam. "I'm hoping that one day we'll get to support him if we write about him enough," she said in a casting-her-bread-upon-the-water kind of a way.
Also, three out of the five band members play the trumpet to at least grade eight standard because they went to a school in Bromley that was a feeder for a brass band.
And, brilliantly, there is a spare tuba player called Dan hovering around somewhere and every outfit should have a spare tuba player. Their fat, brassy whump quite often reminds me of a colliery band: audible flashes of nostalgia. Like Bellowhead and Mumford & Sons they often play up tempo tunes that make you want to jump up and down with a stupid grin on your face: in fact, the more I think about it the more convinced I become that being up tempo is the secret to folky success because people like to be cheered up more than they like to be reflective. They can, after all, be reflective without leaving the house...
So the question is probably what the Keston Cobblers Club would like to happen next? Their response is practical.
"We're looking for someone to do bookings for us - and possibly a PR because it's getting to point at which we can't do everything ourselves time-wise. But the main thing is that we'd like a good manager: someone who knows the industry. We're looking for a head cobbler," said Jules.
Then they went off and did a really brilliant gig.
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I owe a lot to Mike Harding. I think of him as a friend because after I was made redundant he encouraged me to start this blog.
We'd met for lunch and he asked why I'd stopped writing about music? I said it had crossed my mind to start my own blog but that, low as I was, I wasn't sure I'd have anything to write about. "Come to the folk awards" he said. It was kind, I went along and it was the catalyst I needed. Writing this blog has cheered me up and reminded me of a lot of things I needed to remember but which had slipped away in the chaos of losing a job I'd loved.
Tomorrow - December 30th, 2012 - Mike is starting a new venture himself in a very similar situation. His new radio show will be kicking off online at 5pm at www.mikehardingfolkshow.com, I wish him the very best of luck and had a chat with him about it the other day.
"I've been messing about with databases and other admin stuff," he explained. "I'd had hundreds and hundreds of emails from people as a result of the Radio 2 show being axed and I thought: 'Do it on the web and finance it myself.'
"I've always had the studio - two in fact, there's also one in Ireland where I have a home - and I've just invested another £2,000 in new equipment and a PRS licence - a big one. I've also had to sort out a new server for the website. But I used to co-produce my own show when it was on the beeb so I know how it goes.
"It's going to be an hour plus, starting at 5pm - which is a good time on a Sunday for a lot of people - and it'll be free streaming, live. Then it will be turned into a podcast and added to an archive for downloading."
The BBC never got the hang of turning Mike's show into a podcast.
So how will the new show be different from the one on Radio 2? "There won't be any adverts for other people's shows - which used to really annoy me. But apart from that it will keep the overall ambience."
He added that the website will eventually allow him to do some things that the BBC wouldn't, like link to the websites of bands and other people's folk ventures.
"But I'm not looking for adverts. If someone approached me about advertising on the website or the programme it would be something I'd have to think about very carefully."
I wasn't sure whether this was a political standpoint, a hangover from working at the BBC or a bargaining position: all media - unless state supported and that comes with its own baggage - are somehow subject to market forces. But there's a good argument to be made that refusing to bend to advertising pressure strengthens the brand of a show - or any medium - rather than undermining it in the long run. Why advertise on something good if all you want to do is change it? So I hope that Mike finds a way for the show to pay its way without compromising anything that matters to him: if he can't make it work after the following he's built over 15 years then what hope is there for anyone else?
He said that he's forged a relationship with a new production company, Whistledown, which makes Feedback and The Reunion for Radio 4, and that they may be doing a little PR for the digital show while also being in discussion about some ideas for programmes and series that Mike's been working on.
"There's no way I could have stayed at Smooth Operations," he said. "They wouldn't make another folk show while also producing Mark Radcliffe for Radio 2. It was the portal through which I worked for Radio 2 but I also doubt any radio station will commission another folk show at this stage."
I think - hope - that Mike might be a bit more pessimistic about that than the situation strictly requires. Mumford and Sons are arguably the biggest band in the world at the moment. And folk has an audience of young people for whom "folk" simply means "a bit historical", which they seem to actively embrace judging by the fashion for all things vintage and moustachey. Plus the recession has made very many of us necessarily conservative (with a small c) about our personal habits. Admittedly the Mumfords have a euphoric, joyful quality not often found in folk. But that's easy enough to remedy... Bellowhead also do this very successfully. It's simply a question of finding a way to lift people's spirits, as that's what the present climate seems to require.
I wondered about the short gap between the end of the BBC show (Boxing Day) and the beginning of the digital show. While applauding Mike's enthusiasm, it also occurred to me that a holiday often helps with perspective after the shock of an upheaval. "I don't need a holiday," he responded. "My work is my pleasure - the thing I enjoy most."
He added that he's hoping to get Andy Kershaw on the show to talk about his new book very soon, which is called No Off Switch, and that seemed about right under the circumstances.
Best of luck, Mike. I want to see you make it work.
* The show can be found here. Mike says the website will be ready in time.
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Margo Timmins is, by her own admission, "a talker". Which is just as well really. Because if you're on the phone for an hour to someone who lives in Canada it's good to feel you're getting your money's worth.
I got to speak to her because the illustrious Cowboy Junkies will be touring the UK early next yearto Manchester, Glasgow, London and, er, Warwick Arts Centre, the last of which is evidently the town's karmic reward for running a great folk festival. Let's hope it stays calm down there.
"We had to cancel a tour to Madrid and Barcelona last month," she said. "There was a lot of rioting going on because of the economy and on the day of our Madrid show they had scheduled one of their demonstrations. We just figured that no one would be coming to the show, that they wouldn't want to come through the town."
So, it was macroeconomics in action. No confidence, no concert?
"Yeah. Well, we don't make a lot of money when we come to Europe and anything that goes wrong could really set us back. We could lose our shirts. The way we tour is that we get a date that will be a paying gig and a strong paying gig and then maybe get some more in the same country that will pay a little less. Spain was going to be four days but Madrid was the paying gig so economically it made more sense not to go at all."
I've loved the Cowboy Junkies more than salt since The Trinity Session, their phenomenally successful second album, which came out the year I left school. Mellow without being melancholic, they were an introduction to the idea that sexy music didn't have to jump up and down in tight trousers. Coolly intelligent and quietly confident, they spoke and played in a language that murmured of big skies, trailer parks, prairies and long, long roads.
When they toured their third album The Caution Horses in the early 90s, they hit those roads with a legendary hell-raiser called Townes Van Zandt, something that has fascinated a lot of people, since at first glance it would appear to have been like mixing oil and water. How did that come about and what was he like?
"We were going to be playing large concert halls, nice venues. And when we were putting together the tour the record company kept making suggestions about who should open for us. But we thought about it and it dawned on us 'Why don't we ask someone we actually want to hear?' And the person we wanted to hear was Townes.
"We'd seen him play in Atlanta in this tiny little club and because of his reputation the record company didn't really like the idea. But we said we didn't really care. It was us who had to listen to him every night.
"So we went to him, almost apologising, and asked him. And, being Townes, he said 'I don't care who opens for who'. His only request was that he got to travel in our bus. And he was fantastic. At that point in his life he was on the wagon, by his own standards. He wasn't drinking all the time. He did still drink but not constantly.
"And when he did go off and get drunk he was very, very polite with me and would avoid being in my presence. He could get kind of nasty. The boys would like to hang out with him. But if he was drunk he would go to the back of the bus. He was very giving with his music, though. We would ask him questions like 'What's Flying Shoes about?' and he'd explain.
"I don't mind drinking. But I don't like it when people get really drunk and mean. It's not what I want to do in life and the boys don't either. I know a lot of bands do, but we don't fight. Townes understood that - he knew he was with a bunch of people who didn't brawl - and he was respectful of that. We would get happy drunk sometimes and that would be fun. But when he got to his demons he would leave. And the demons eventually won. I mean, that's what his songs are about. He knew not to be around me."
This is especially poignant if you watch Van Zandt's rambling explanation (above) of what he thought Flying Shoes was about. And here's Lyle Lovett making superb sense of the same song.
Three out of the four original band members - Margo, Pete and Michael - are siblings, so she was pretty safe on that bus, in case you were worried.
The Cowboy Junkies have been around since before the internet was big. How has that particular upheaval been for them? "I remember when someone explained the internet to me for the first time and it was like someone explaining the automobile to my great-grandfather. We were in New York City and David Bowie had a site up. And we were looking at it and I was wondering 'Who would go to this?' and why would anybody go there? Because at the time not many people did.
"So I said 'Let's put one together'. It was very rudimentary but as our website grew so did we. We knew we had to have a way of reaching people but that's the part of music that's hard. You always think that if more people could hear it, they would love it. But how do they get to hear it?
"Now you have to be constantly reinventing yourself on the web and reaching out with something new to keep the audience coming back. You have to always be creative: it's not just about the music, it's about the music and the video and the book. The whole package.
"But the ability to download music for free has been a terrible thing. Anyone who steals it doesn't really love music and that makes me sad. I hope that as time goes on people might come to understand better. I mean, when you're young you don't always use your brain and think 'This isn't good for an industry that has given me so much. And this band - I'm taking money straight out of their bank accounts really.'
"We used to have a four man crew when we toured, now we have two. And we don't travel as well as we used to. A lot of it is because of that but it's also because of our times: in my own personal home we're downsizing. So what we hope is that even if people do download the music illegally, that they also come to the show or buy a T-shirt. Like I say, you always think that if more people could hear it, they would love it."
Bands these days are not just in competition with each other for sales and downloads, they're in competition with every musician who's ever recorded. 21st-century kids don't just have new bands on their MP3 players, they have things from their parents and grandparents' eras. It's a musical survival of the fittest. Also known as the folk process.
So where do The Cowboy Junkies stand in relation to folk music?
"When I was growing up in Canada we didn't really have country music, we had folk. And to me that term is about your own culture and where you come from. In Canada we have people from all over the world - that's what our country was started on. And they bring their music and they talk about their homeland with their sounds and their instruments.
"I don't think we're a folk band but I think we're very heavily influenced by folk and in particular by the singer songwriter tradition, so Neil Young and John Prine. And we've got the mandolin and the harmonica. But we're also a very modern band. We have very strong punk roots. In the 70s and 80s we spent our time in New York in the punk clubs."
This tickles me as I can't think of a band that's less aggressive than The Cowboy Junkies. They're like the anti punks.
"You're right. There's no aggression in The Cowboy Junkies - it's one of the reasons we're still around after all these years with same four members. But what we learnt from punk was not so much about the aggression - we didn't need it. Those kids they had nothing and nothing to look forward to and we've never lived through that. We're Canadian."
Ha!
"Yeah. Life's been pretty good to us. What we took from punk was the idea that anyone could do it: just pick up a guitar and form a band. And this feeling has never stopped for us. If it doesn't make money, who cares? We sell the furniture and make a record..."
I hear you worked with the producer John Leckie on an album called Miles From Our Home back in 1998? (I explained that he's just done a couple of albums with Bellowhead. Then I explained who Bellowhead are.)
"Yes. We always produced our own records so it was difficult to hand over the responsibility to someone else. But it reached a point where we couldn't go any further without a teacher. We interviewed a lot of people. Whoever it was had to teach us as we were doing it, so we couldn't have someone with a big ego. John was humble and open. He offered ideas and he was very gentle natured so there was no craziness in the studio.
"He took us to Abbey Road. We didn't need to go there but John wanted to because he knew the studio and thought he could do his best work there. And we were with Geffen at the time and knew we would probably never have such a big budget again. So that was our rock and roll fantasy..."
I've never understood your song Black Eyed Man. What's that about?
"Black Eyed Man is about being deceived. It's a about a woman who tricks the black eyed man and blames him for something in order to get other people to blame him too - the poisoning of the well, though that's not a literal thing. This woman is not a very nice woman and by the end of the song she's starting up doing the same thing all over again with someone else."
Thanks. People are very sentimental about musicians: I'm pretty sentimental about The Cowboy Junkies. Am I right to be?
"No. It's just music is a very intimate art form. You literally go into people's houses. With painting you have to go to a museum, where it's hard to have that intimacy. But we whisper into people's ears through their headphones: I see my son putting on his headphones at night when he goes to bed and I want to know who he's listening to. People connect themselves to a song or an artist because it's gotten them through hard times or changed their lives. We have to be responsible and not break these people. We have a bit of power and we have to be respectful of that power."
At this point something happened at the other end, all the way over the water in Ontario. Timmins's door bell went and then her neighbour came in, asking whether there was any wine. She sounded very elderly and a bit confused. I was slightly grateful for the interlude, though, because earlier I'd had to break off to get a cake out of the oven, which I'd been embarrassed about.
I could hear kind tones at the other end. When Timmins came back she said that her neighbour was Greek and made the most delicious spinach filo pastry dish in the world but that she was becoming quite frail.
So The Cowboy Junkies sound pretty much the same as they always did. Was that a conscious decision? Lots of bands talk about the need to grow and develop and this often seems to involve "departures" of some kind. I haven't detected much of that kind of thinking here.
"Well, what the thing is, is who we are. Our formula, if we have one, is that we've always been honest about who we are and what we do. People have asked us to change. Record companies asked us to become more aggressive and one of them even asked if I would have a nose job. But it's a bit like asking me - us - to change our personality."
A nose job?!
"There was a time when there was a lot of attention on me because I was the only woman in the band.
"I've never been very comfortable having my picture taken and don't really care much about all of that. I have two very beautiful sisters, one who is an actress and another who loves fashion and that's really their thing."
* You can book tickets to hear the Cowboy Junkies doing theirs here.
* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter@emma1hartley
I love Twitter. I looked at my phone one day to discover that I was being followed on there by someone who looked slightly familiar and had a dramatic looking profile pic.
David Oakes described himself on his blurb as an "actor who likes folk music". Turned out (a) the reason why he looked familiar was because he'd been in Trinity, a pretty weird and addictive TV show I borrowed from Love Film for reasons that elude me now. And (b) Oakes was starring in something big budget with Jeremy Irons called The Borgiasthat's been showing on Sky Atlantic and is now available on DVD.
That's him, as Juan Borgia.
My thinking was that there's a similarity of intention between folk music and costume drama, so if you like folk there's a strong chance you'll also enjoy a good historical swashbuckling shagathon like The Borgias - and vice versa? - and may be interested to hear there's a folky who's acting in one.
So, I asked Oakes, 29, whether he'd be interested in doing a kind of online Desert Island Discs? He agreed and this is the result. He wrote it, I edited it. And then I discovered that he'd thoughtfully put the songs up on YouTube where I - and you - could find them easily.
Here's David...
"I grew up in Fordingbridge in the New Forest and went to a primary school there that had mandatory country dancing classes. There were only 14 of us in my year and more boys than girls, so there were some much-dreaded weeks when I had to wear a red bib instead of a green one, denoting that I was dancing the ladies' part... This set me up nicely for a career of wearing tights and also instilled a love of music that was accompanied by the musky smell of hay bales and barbecue smoke. Fordingbridge, by the way, is not all that far from the Larmer Tree Gardens, home of the festival. But I heard my first choice of folk tune for this blog in Salisbury.
* Huckleberries Island by The Huckleberries from the album Jigweed
God knows whether they do this for a living but it seemed for several years as if every time I walked around any city in the west of England - Bath, Salisbury, you name it - I'd stumble across this lot. In front of them there'd be toddlers jumping up and down and pensioners swinging each other around. I loved them for their bluegrassy liveliness: there's nothing stoic or dour about them. And they're a perfect accompaniment for drinking farmhouse scrumpy.
* Prickle-eye Bush by Bellowhead from their first EP EPonymous
Driving back into Salisbury one day following an indigestion-inducing pick-your-own raspberry experience, a friend of mine put on a CD of a band she'd just heard at a festival. It was my first taste of Bellowhead - an experience bettered only by seeing them live for the first time. I'd come across Spiers and Boden before but it was their new, big band that really caught my fancy. You see, my mother plays the French horn and as a kid my attempts at television-watching often took second place to her and her friends from the Salisbury Brass Ensemble, who'd proceed to blast through their repertoire in the front room with no small pomp. I've loved brass ever since: a folk group with a brass section could have been designed for me. Prickle-eye Bush plays out in my head across the Wiltshire fields we were driving through on the day I first heard the song. It makes me think of Hardy - Tess or Jude put in imaginary cameo appearances. I also really loved Jon Boden's Folk Song a Day podcasts - they're littered with gems. Outstanding.
* My Young Man by Kate Rusby from Little Lights
More brass. This is one of those perfect songs. I love Kate’s voice, it's so expressive. And the purity of the accompaniment by such a tight knit brass ensemble makes it a beautiful modern folk tale that brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it. Listening today, there's also a sorrow within the sound of colliery brass that speaks of the pain of the mine closures under Thatcher. I think that Kate’s tale of a woman and her love for a changed man links the personal to the political and also reminds me of my time at university in Manchester. I studied English there and became entranced by the music that came from the industrial heart of our country.
* Kit's Tune / When a Knight Won His War by Martin Simpson from Prodigal Son
A few years back, I went to a folk concert hosted by the BBC as part of the proms at the Royal Albert Hall. It was the first time I'd heard either Bella Hardy or Martin Simpson but I came to love both as a result. It proved to me that the tradition will not die - people will always sing great stories. Martin did When a Knight Won His Spurs that evening and thoughI knew the melody from singing it in church - my father is a C of E canon - in Martin’s hands it came vividly back to life. Now I listen to the song regularly; the themes of valour, honour and duty are something I often have to deal in the roles I play and, to be honest, I don’t think audiences really understand these themes anymore. The constancy of Catholic faith throughout Europe during the time of the Borgias, or the hardship of a peasant’s life, which was central to Pillars of the Earth. We far too readily modernise what we see and water down what we imagine to be the truth. Drama can be grittier and much more fun if we present these alien historical landscapes as they really were. It’s hard enough filming in some 'period' locations - God knows how people managed to live in them. One day on Pillars of the Earth there was a huge rainstorm and we were wading through mud up to our knees!
* Uncle Lung by Sheelanagig from the album Uncle Lung
During my second and final year at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School we had the privilege of being the last to perform in the Bristol Old Vic theatre before it went dark for a refurbishment. One of the many excellent things about working there was the pub next door: The Old Duke had live music every night and it was here that I first heard, danced to, and sweated profusely alongside Sheelanagig. It was like discovering the Huckleberries again - but this time I was old enough legally to drink a pint of ale. We were doing an adaption of Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield and I only had one line. But I went on stage as a woman, a yokel, a beer seller, a morris dancer and a bailiff (and probably a few more that I’ve forgotten now). There were only 12 in a year at this drama school and only three women, so it was a return to my country dancing days. But I'll always have Sheelanagig. We poured out of the stage-door and into the Old Duke one particular evening, following the sound of one hell of a party kicking off: a little dancing can lift the soul. I also used their song Skotchne in a video we made at the time.
* She Moved Through the Fair by Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet from The Juliet Letters (You may need to download Spotify to listen to that, if you don't already have it.)
My love for Elvis Costello was planted in 2007 when I was preparing for the Sam Wanamaker festival at the Globe. I was half of a duologue from Twelfth Night and had to walk out on to the most awe-inspiring stage in the UK singing Come Away Death, which is in the play. Trying to find an appropriate melody, I discovered Elvis’s collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet and that it had included a rendition of the song. That said, we didn’t use their arrangement. And when I walked out I was so stunned by the sight of 1,700 people staring back at me that I sang it completely out of tune. But my performance that day, despite the bum beginning, began my professional career. I was asked to join Shakespeare’s Globe company that summer for Love’s Labours Lost and a new play, We the People. The soundtrack to my six weeks' rehearsals was The Juliet Letters.
* Imporsa by Lau vs. Adem from their EP Ghosts
At the moment I'm in Bruges shooting The White Queen for the BBC and those who follow me on Twitter may have noticed a rise in jazz recommendations. In London folk's a good antidote to the modernity that's all around. But Bruges is like a museum and arguably a little frustrating for it, so jazz balances out the tourist-centred cadences of the medieval city. It hosts a rather stunning annual jazz festival and I've found two good jazz clubs so far. In fact, my only folky experience here has been the musical taste of the proprietor of Books & Brunch on Garenmarkt. So Lau and The Imagined Village have stepped in. They've been vying for my Bruges airtime with Wynton Marsalis and John Coltrane.
I think that Lau's Race the Loser is a perfect modern folk album that respects the technology available on a laptop as greatly as it does a fiddle. It'll be a classic, I reckon.
*The Washing Song by The Imagined Village from Bending the Dark
If I was allowed a ninth track on my desert island, it’d be Caw The Yows by Maz O’Connor from On Leaves or on Sand. Now I’m off to listen to someJustice - a French Electro Duo that have bog-all to do with folk music...
Thanks for reading this.
* Follow David Oakes on Twitter @David_Oakes * If you enjoyed this you may also be interested in this about actor and folky Stephen Mangan. * If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like*its Facebook pageand then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter@emma1hartley
After a perusal of the folk awards nominations pages on the BBC website it's a treat to discover that the corporation has done exactly what it said it was going to do when Fergus Dudley contacted me - and named the panel of judges who will be deciding two of the awards.
I look forward to hearing what manner of expensive inducements Genevieve Tudor and the rest will be (wo)manfully resisting in the name of impartiality. In fact, after all the curmudgeonly talk of how naming the judges will corrupt the process I'd be disappointed if their usually level heads haven't been completely turned by February.
Here's a scene I may have imagined.
ME: (At the folk awards in Glasgow, waving one arm in the air while trying to bat Seth Lakeman away with the other using a programme): "Genevieve! You look well! You're all aglow. Have you been away?"
GENEVIEVE TUDOR (looking around, slightly panicked, for an escape route but seeing only half-pissed folkies in Show of Hands jerkins blocking her way at every turn) "Darling! How lovely to see you! (She's faking) Yes. Er. I've been away."
ME: "Wow. Where've you been? That's a pretty tan."
GENEVIEVE: "Oh, you know. Around...."
Pause.
GENEVIEVE: (Crumpling visibly) "Oh god. I can't bear it. The shame of the thing, I mean." (Tugging at her flaming tresses distractedly.) I thought I'd be OK but... I'm sorry.
ME: (Concerned) Oh dear. What is it? Are you OK?
G: It's those devils from Proper.
ME: (Sharp intake of breath)
G: (Determined to get it out now) I told them I didn't care about any of it but they wouldn't listen... It started simply enough with the limited edition of Broadside, hand-pressed by Rachael McShane and her groupies during the same ouija board session that produced the album. (Genevieve's biting her fist.) Judging from the shimmer I think they made it using polycarbonate scraps left over from from Paul Sartin's wardrobe of Barbarella onesies. But I didn't *mind* that. I don't even mind the music. But then they started in with the unsolicited gifts. First it was an entire Welsh dresser full of diamond-dusted mead tankards and the barrels of oak-aged Hobgoblin from Chris Wood's subterranean vaults on the Riviera. And then...
ME: (Appalled) What? What happened next?
G: (Desolate now) Before I knew it they'd whisked me off to Alan Bearman's faux renaissance castle in Antigua staffed mainly by superannuated members of The Mediaeval Baebes. And I was lying by his infinity pool - you know, the one with the tiny little fishes to nibble off the hard skin on your feet, like at Bristol last year - and being fed these teeny tiny cornish pasties by Sam Lee and an entire phallanx of young men dressed as bare-chested angels.
ME: (Caught between horror and sympathy) Oh God, no!
G: And then I knew...
ME: (Caught up) What? What did you know?
G: It's going to have to be a lifetime achievement award for Roy Harper this year.
ME: Oh Genevieve! How could you?
(Wailing, fade to blackout)
Let's hope they name all of the judges next time, not just a small panel of five.
* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter@emma1hartley
