In a double-header that might well have gone down in mid-Seventies LA as “One Of Those Nights” (to coin a phrase), a sold-out Borderline hosted a stunning show by Dawes and Jonathan Wilson.
On a steamy July night Dawes opened the show with their Seventies-influenced jams, evoking echoes of everyone from Little Feat to The Band, before being joined by Wilson, showcasing songs from similarly Seventies-influenced solo debut Gentle Spirit.
It was a night of tight rhythms and harmonies, loose guitar solos and keyboard improvisations. After two hours of spellbinding interplay, and in one of the worst kept secrets in town, up jumped Jackson Browne, who was doing this sort of thing before the guys onstage with him were born.
He gave the rapt crowd, including luminaries ranging from Roy Harper to Caitlin Rose, half an hour more including These Days and a tribute to Warrren Zevon before closing with – inevitably – a mass singalong of Take It Easy.
It was a magical night and it’s a tribute to the present-day keepers of the Laurel Canyon flame that both Dawes and Wilson held their own against the living legend alongside them.
Before that we caught up with Dawes backstage and persuaded them to tell us a little about themselves before playing an acoustic version of ‘How Far We’ve Come’ from their album ‘Nothing is Wrong’.
Come to the best tour of the Autumn* Danny & The Champions Of The World hit the UK (& Paris on the 17th). Also unlisted is a great all dayer in Winchester on the 18th at SXSC http://www.sxsc.org/
*Other tours are available (I can’t guarantee the same level of enjoyment for you at those though)
Famous musicians can become increasingly reclusive and recalcitrant as they progress through their careers. Few continue to make (good) records passed retirement age, and fewer still use their free bus pass to gig around town. Not our favourite local legend though: eighty-three year old Tom Paley, who is at his happiest hanging out with the folk crowd. A crowd inspired by his recordings with the New Lost City Rambler’s of forty and fifty years ago. You may actually find Tom hard to avoid if you fancy yourself as a bit of a folk musician – be it English, American or even Swedish folk you’re into. He’ll be there jamming with the best, and worst, at sessions across London. And if you ask nicely he’ll play some tunes at your birthday party (thanks again Tom).
I first encountered Tom at the Shakespeare’s Head in Angel where a Sunday night old-time session has been going on since longer than anyone cares to remember. Sitting in his favourite seat by the radiator, with the pub’s big tabby and white cat snaking around his ankles, Tom props up his fiddle on his shoulder, and occasionally uses its chin rest for a nap. He’s now a regular feature at the newest jam session in town at Gray’s Inn Road’s Blue Lion. Many casual spectators and newcomers to the scene are unaware of his associations back to folk royalty like Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Pete and Peggy Seeger. And Tom is not one to brag or be bothered by such facts. He’s just content to still be making music, and to pose for a photo now and then.
Tom with New York’s The Dust Busters at Willesden Folk Union, playing one of our favourite tunes, Little Rabbit
Q: Tom, are you first and foremost a guitarist? When did you first start playing guitar? And banjo?
A: I’d say I’m about equally a banjoist and a guitarist. I got my first guitar back in 1945, on January 19th (exactly 2 months before I turned 17.) I got my first banjo a few months later. I was a high school senior at the time. As a fiddler, I’m a relative newcomer, having begun in 1975, at age 47.
Q: How did you come to change career from college Maths tutor to New Lost City Rambler?
A: Throughout my subsequent academic career (undergraduate student, graduate student and math instructor at various colleges and universities) I was seriously involved in folk music. Even when we formed the New Lost City Ramblers, I didn’t drop out of teaching, but continued pursuing two simultaneous careers, with the musical career being only part-time.
Q: With such a vast canon of folk music to draw from, how did you choose your songs? How did you learn?
A: The canon of what’s called “folk music” wasn’t nearly as vast back then, as it has now become. The category of “singer-songwriters” hadn’t reached the gigantic size it now has in the folk music scene. There were singers who wrote some of their own songs, but they were mostly considered to be in the “popular-music” field. The exceptions, such as Woody Guthrie, mostly wrote left-wing political songs and used tunes drawn from or based on traditional tunes. I’d never really cared much for pop-music, which felt a bit phoney to me, but was drawn to the genuineness of folk music (and the largely political newer songs). In the “country music” field, there were also people writing new songs, which seemed to fall into two classes: pop songs with a country accent and songs based on the older, traditional-sounding songs. (The former, I didn’t like much and the latter I really DID like.) The end result was that I mostly concentrated on playing what we now call “old-time country music”. I’d had only limited contact with the folk music of a few other countries, like England, Scotland and Ireland.
Trailer for a documentary on the New Lost City Ramblers with some old footage of Tom on guitar and banjo
Q: Would you mind sharing some recollections of the great and good?
A: I have to reckon among the “great and good” with whom I had some contact, people like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Clarence Ashley, Doc Watson, Reverend Gary Davis, Sam & Kirk McGee, Brownie McGhee and Ewan McColl. There were others whom I met only very briefly but admired a great deal, like Josh White, but I’ll limit myself, here, to people with whom I actually interacted to some degree.
Pete Seeger used to hold Wingdings (very informal music sessions) in his downstairs room and was very encouraging to those of us who were relatively inexperienced but were trying to develop our instrumental and singing skills. He was (and presumably still is) a very nice and generous-hearted person.
I met Woody Guthrie through a friend, Vic Traibush. After visiting him several times, I was delighted when he asked me if I’d like to do some gigs with him. I was a relative novice and Woody was one of the singers I most admired (not for his technical skills, but for his genuine, unpolished style and the sincerity of the opinions he expressed).
I was at a number of sessions at Leadbelly’s flat. What an amazing performer he was! He was also a very good host, but there was an odd quality to the way he received us, in that he was always elegantly dressed (his trousers with knife-edge creases, a matching waistcoat, a white shirt and a bow-tie) while we were a fairly scruffy lot. Also, when he did a song, he always did the entire presentation he would have used on stage. I believe this was because he was never fully comfortable with white people that he didn’t know very well (not surprising for a black man raised in the deep south, back when he was young). He probably wouldn’t have been so formal had it only been Woody who was visiting.
Reverend Davis (known as ‘Blind Gary’ on his early recordings) was one of the most phenomenal guitarists I ever heard. The only one who may have topped him was Blind Blake, whom I heard only on old recordings. I also had some old records of ‘Blind Gary’ but only met him at the Memorial Concert for Leadbelly (where I was playing together with Woody).
Among white guitarists, I reckon Sam McGee and Doc Watson as my very favourites. There have been plenty of other excellent ones, like Merle Travis, but those two really had something very special! I met Doc quite a few times . . . the first few times together with Clarence Ashley, the wonderful old singer and banjo-picker. (Not that he was technically superior to most other banjoists, but there was a special, intimate quality to his singing and picking style.)
I knew Sam McGee’s playing from his work with Uncle Dave Macon and from a few old solo recordings. I met him with his brother, Kirk, only once, at a Country-Music park near the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. They were there as part of Charlie Monroe’s band, but there was such a demand from the crowd for the McGees to do a set together that they were given an extra set. Later, I chatted with them backstage and even got to try playing Sam’s guitar. The action was set so high, though, that I couldn’t do much more than hold down a couple of simple chords in the first position. Sam agreed that it needed “adjustment”, but that didn’t stop him from doing fancy stuff on it. Luckily, I had my own guitar with me and was able to show that I could manage some pretty decent picking, too, but couldn’t imagine how he could do what he did on his guitar!
I met Brownie McGhee many times and always found him a very pleasant and friendly fellow, as well as a fine blues singer and guitarist. I once got to play banjo in a little band he put together for the Herald Tribune Forum (Brownie and his brother, ‘Sticks’ McGhee, Sonny Terry, ‘Washboard Jimmy’ Brazzle, ‘Tub-Bass Bob’ Harris and Me!) I was very flattered to be picked for that gig!
Ewan McColl was, of course, not American, but I originally met him when he was on tour, in the USA, together with Peggy Seeger, and I did a few gigs with them. (I had met Peggy previously.) I saw a great deal of Ewan and Peggy, years later, over here, and was always very impressed with their performances and with Ewan’s songwriting!
Tom Paley and Peggy Seeger
Q: What would you say your musical highlights have been?
A: I think that the previous question covers most of my musical highlights, but there were also some when the New Lost City Ramblers was very well received at various clubs and festivals, as well as a later one after I took up fiddling and, specifically, Swedish fiddling when I was awarded the Zorn Medal (Zornmärke) for my playing (only the bronze medal, not the silver), but I was delighted with that!
Q: And low points?
A: The two main low points were 1: the unpleasantness when a fellow, Harvey Matusow, who used to do volunteer work at the People’s Songs office, turned out to be a damned stoolpigeon for the FBI and began naming everybody even vaguely associated with the organization as Communist Party members. My name was one of the ones he gave (though I never was a member of the Communist Party). And 2: the break-up of the original New Lost City Ramblers and the unpleasant wrangling that went with it. *By the way, some years later, after all the money Matusow had earned as a stoolpigeon had run out, he wrote a book, “False Witness” about how he had lied and been paid so much for each name he gave. He went to jail, not for having lied, but for writing the book and discrediting the FBI! Actually one of the reasons for the break-up of the New Lost City Ramblers was that when I refused to testify for the FBI and answer the charge of being a Communist (on the grounds that my political views and membership was none of their business) we were blacklisted on TV. Mike (Seeger) and John (Cohen) said that I was making them suffer for my principles.
Tom Paley – Sue Cow
Q: You’ve mentioned to me before that you thought about moving to Russia at some point?
A: No, it wasn’t that I ever thought about moving to Russia. It was my parents’ idea, due to the level of anti-semitism that was so prevalent in the US in the 1930s and 1940s.
Q: When is the new album coming out? What can we expect?
A: The new album should, probably, come out in the spring of 2012, but that’s only likely, not certain. There should be a combination of solo numbers and some with me and one or more of these others: Ben Paley, bassist Johnny Bridgewood, Peggy Seeger, Robin Gillan & Rhys Jenkins.
Jason McNiff has been busy labouring over his new album ‘April Cruel’ for the past few years. ‘This is the album I’ve been learning to make since I started in 2000’. It’s certainly one we’re looking forward to hearing.
April Cruel is due for release September 2011 on Fledgling Records, with an album launch on 12th Sept | St Pancras Old Church | 191 St Pancras Way . Check Jason’s website for more details.
We’ll be catching up with Jason again nearer the release date for a more in depth feature, but for now, here’s an exclusive preview of one of the tracks: Students of Love, set to film.
We were on set on a baking hot day in June at Hugo’s Speaker Palace to film the making of Danny & The Champs’ new video for their single You Don’t Know Me (My Heart is in the Right Place). We took Danny Wilson aside at the end of the day to ask him some questions about the new album Hearts & Arrows.
Here’s our very own companion piece for some behind the scenes action from the day.
You can stream the album here until Monday 18th July and you can watch the actual music video here.
We stumbled across Sean Dunne after seeing his short film Stray Dawg featuring Jonny Corndawg (who will be playing a series of UK shows in the coming week and soon to be featured on here). One of his first documentaries, The Archive, was selected for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and he has gone on to direct several noteworthy documentaries. We love what he’s doing and got in touch for an interview and to get him to share some favourite tunes with us. Check out some of his short films below, we’re pretty sure you’ll love them as much as we do. The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.
How long have you been making films? And what got you started?
I have been making films since around 2007. When I graduated High School the film schools I wanted to go to wouldn’t have me. I guess I didn’t have enough experience or show any potential whatsoever, so they told me to fuck off. Instead I went to Purchase College, a small state-run school just north of New York City. There I studied cinema history and criticism. Nothing hands on. When I graduated college the jobs I wanted wouldn’t have me. I guess I didn’t have enough experience or show any potential whatsoever, so they told me to fuck off. I worked in a goddamn deli for a year after college, gaining no experience in film.
Finally I caught a break and was given a chance to be a postproduction assistant on Pepsi corporate videos. I got to see all aspects of postproductions. Eventually I worked my way up the ranks and was given a chance to do some writing for them. I guess I was pretty good at that because it led to an opportunity to write and produce for the History Channel. Once I was over there I was exposed to other creatives and given a chance to have my ideas heard and see them through from concept to completion. Basically that became my film school. I was lucky enough to be able to learn on the job and discover what I liked and didn’t like and develop an aesthetic. I gravitated towards documentary because I really liked talking to people and hearing their stories and I thought I was pretty good at developing a rapport with my subjects and telling their stories in a unique way.
In June 2008 History Channel sent me to Pittsburgh, PA to direct some commercials for an upcoming show they had. On our way out of town I convinced my Director of Photography (DP), Ed David to stop off and shoot a little piece about Paul Mawhinney, the owner of the world’s largest record collection. We spent 6 hours with Paul and the result was The Archive, my first short documentary.
We’ve got 10 discounted tickets available for Notes for Mount Pleasant readers which gets you entry for 6 pounds (instead of 8), that means an extra beer at the bar. First 10 to email us go on the NfMP discount list on the door.
We also have a signed screen print of their poster, designed by the fantastic Scarlett Rickard, from an original photo by Tommy Sheehan. Get your hands on one by answering the following question:
In Danny & the Champs new song “Every Beat of my Heart”, what animal is “always the one bopping around”. Answers by email please with *Champs Poster* as the subject. Good luck!
And here’s something to whet your appetite that we filmed in Cheltnam back in April on record store day.
If you’ve not yet stumbled upon Josh T Pearson’s new album, Last of the Country Gentlemen, then read this excellent review by Alaistair Mackay in Uncut and see if it sways you.
It won’t be to everyone’s taste. It is at times uncomfortable listening. You’re right in there with him, as he whispers and croons poetic but raw, unashamed and often cruel confessions of his unravelling relationship. As someone at NfMP said after full submersion in the album: I feel like I know him more intimately than I know my closest friend. It’s not always pretty, but it’s always beautiful. After listening to the album on repeat for a week I took to self-medicating with Onda Vaga. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pleasure to lose yourself in there, but nice to be able to bring yourself back.
Three weeks after playing to a sold out Slaughtered Lamb (~150 capacity), Josh was back in London playing to a sold out Union Chapel (~800). Pianist and composer Dustin O’Halloran opened the show, delivering a note-perfect performance of cinematic arrangements. The ideal support for Pearson; creating a meditative and reflective space for what was to come. Dustin toured with JTP’s previous band ‘Lift to Experience’ and later in the show Josh credited him as being one of his heroes.
JTP wandered onto the stage, deliberating with the audience: “Jacket on or off?” Jacket off. He’d requested little or no light on him during the sound check. Once the sun had set he asked: “Can you see me? I wasn’t sure about the lights cause it was daytime when we set it up. S’alright? Cause I’m reaaally good looking” (said with a smile). “It’s true! I totally forgot to shave this morning”. Some more jokes followed, about how he’d planned to play from the pulpit and rise up from behind it just as Dustin finished his support. He’s naturally funny and endearing, but you sense his sharpness, he’s no fool.
“The King is Dead” he bellowed and he passed his hand over his face saying, “serious face, serious chords” and with that silence fell, as he launched straight into ‘I Ain’t Your Saviour or Your Christ’, which lasted over twelve minutes and managed to make you feel like it’s just you and him in the chapel in the dark. It felt almost dangerous. There was total silence apart from the irritating click from photographers who buzzed around the front of the stage. Not appropriate on this occasion – even though they were doing “the Lord’s work”, as JTP said. Though they did get some good shots. Union Chapel staff said they have never seen an audience so entranced… and silent.
He played most of his set unaccompanied, but for a couple of songs (‘Country Dumb’ and ‘Woman When I’ve Raised Hell’) he was joined by strings (not his idea, but because someone thought it needed to be grander for the Union Chapel) and Dustin on piano. He admits, and it seems, they were slightly unrehearsed.
In between songs he told more jokes: “What do you call a musician that just split up with his girlfriend? Homeless.”
“Mickey Mouse is on a charge for killing Minnie. The judge says – ok Mickey, so after all these years of love and devotion, you’re telling me you killed Minnie cause she was crazy? And Mickey says: I didn’t say she was crazy, I said she was f*cking Goofy!” And so on. Throughout the night he continues to pepper his dialogue with “the King is Dead“.
Here’s his second song: ‘Woman When I Raise Hell You’re Going to Know It’:
And third: ‘Sorry with a Song’, that has a distinctly Buckley-esque (Jeff) feel. Though as another friend put it; he makes ‘Grace’ look like Justin Bieber.
By the end of his encore we were wrecked (but exhilarated)… and understandably, he was too – exhausted from touring these songs. They’re not easy to listen to and, one imagines, even harder to perform. He invited the crowd along to the after-show drinks at the Buffalo Bar. “Password?” he says – “The King is Dead”.
The password did actually work.
Josh T Pearson returns to London 26th November to play the Barbican. We suggest you get your tickets now before they sell out.
We went along to see Michele Stodart (Magic Numbers) at the Slaughtered Lamb on 8th May 2011, playing from her upcoming solo album, with her new band. We caught her doing this beautiful new song: Too Much, Too Late which is featured on a limited edition Ep ‘From Me to You’ available exclusively for the tour she is currently on, supporting Villagers around the UK.
She’ll be playing Wood festival on Friday 20th May, doing two shows that day and also Truck festival on the 24th July. The debut album ‘Wide-Eyed Crossing’ is set to be released later in the year. There are plans to do more festivals this summer, with a headline tour later in the year around the release of the new album. Head over to her official Facebook page for full tour date listings
Sting described BJ Cole as the best pedal steel player in the world. You might think – what does Sting know? Well, you can read BJ’s CV for a start. In a career stretching back to the mid-Sixties, his recording credits read like a Who’s Who of rock music, to name a few: Elton John, Marc Bolan, REM, Bjork, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Verve, Depeche Mode, Beck, Elvis Costello, David Gilmour, Groove Armada, Emmylou Harris, Jools Holland, KD Lang, Moody Blues, Pet Shop Boys, Robert Plant, Scott Walker. He’s had an incredibly diverse career, playing on albums ranging in style from rock to ambient, jazz, country, folk, dance and classical. We caught up with him recently in his north London home for a chat and a glass of wine…
NFMP: Most people hear ‘pedal steel’ and they immediately think country music. But reading your CV, it seems to be an incredibly versatile instrument. Of all the musical genres you’ve worked in, which do you think was the most unlikely?
BJ: Classical music is the most demanding, because it’s got to be pretty convincing to make it work. You’ve got to raise your game to a level where playing pedal steel has got to come across properly, not like a novelty. Over the years I’ve raised my game to that point and it obviously spins off into everything else to make it better. If you’re learning Debussy and Satie and Purcell then playing country is something you can do in your sleep.
But I wasn’t a country fan to start with. When I discovered the pedal steel I was so blown away with the musical possibilities of it and the sound of it, that I didn’t really bother thinking that the instrument might be limited in people’s minds to country music or Hawaiian music. When I heard it in country records I thought, that’s interesting, they’re amazing players. But I discovered country music through the steel guitar, not the other way around. So when people say, it’s sounds country when I play Debussy then I get very narked cause I think, hang on a minute, you’ve got it round the wrong way and it’s your stereotype or your preconditioning that makes you say that. That’s always been the challenge of the instrument. I don’t hear any connotations in the instrument at all.
NFMP: So did you start off playing piano?
BJ: No, I played guitar to start with, mainly listening to Hank Marvin, like a lot of other people. When I discovered the steel guitar, not pedal steel to start with, I thought it was fluid and melodic, it was much better than the guitar at doing the aspect of the guitar that I liked. It was lyrical; I was always into the lyrical, melodic stuff. Hank Marvin, is a lyrical player, but then I discovered that he’d been listening to steel guitar players.
NFMP: Did you teach yourself the technique?
BJ: Pretty much; I went to a Hawaiian teacher for a little bit for about a year, but that was before pedal steel, just because I wanted to. It was someone who advertised in a magazine called BMG – Banjo Mandolin and Guitar – it was around in the 50s and 60s and very old school, very old fashioned looking and published by Clifford Essex Music who were based in Earlham Street, now long gone.
NFMP: How would you say you have adapted the instrument, and your technique, over the years?
BJ: I think when it comes down to it, it’s not the country thing that limits the pedal steel – it’s America. If it isn’t used in country music it’s used in country rock, or some sort of American music of a roots kind. It’s not been internationalised. And I want to try and internationalise it. If you listen to the sound of the way that pedal steel is played in America, it’s got an American accent. I try and play it with an English accent and that’s the difference between what I sound like and what one of the great players from the States sounds like. It’s the same with singers over here, if they’re singing country music or blues, they sing with an American affectation. I think there’s a parallel in instrumental sounds as well.
NFMP: Tell us a bit about Cochise – your first band – the first English country rock band?
BJ: This was between ‘69 and ‘72, it was three years but it felt more like thirty, it was pretty intense. Well – that era was pretty intense. We did a lot of gigs, mainly with Hawkwind because we were managed by the same people, which meant we were playing lots of psychedelic establishments with lots of liquid light shows and lots of marijuana, touring round the UK. There were lots of places to play; a lot more than there are now.
NFMP: Many people will have heard you play on Tiny Dancer, the Elton John song featured on Cameron Crowe’s film Almost Famous (2000). How did you come to work with Elton?
BJ: There were connections between Cochise and Dick James Music (DJM) because Mick Grabham’s (Cochise’s guitarist) music publisher was DJM and they had a demo studio. The studio was in New Oxford Street at the time, above the bank, neither of which are there anymore. Elton was on DJM as well so he did his demos in that studio. It was very much the centre of what was going on at that time; we’re talking 1969/1970. He happened to be one of the budding songwriters to be coming through the office and I got to know him incidentally because we used the same studios, he was just a mate really. It was bizarre the way he took off. He wasn’t Elton John then, most people called him Reg. I’d already known him a few years indirectly when they called me up to go and do that session. I think it was a last minute idea to have the steel guitar on it because they called me late in the afternoon and said – can you come in this evening. So we worked through the night on that and we all just sat there and worked it out, it was all done at the same time – apart from the strings and the voices which were added – the rest of it was all done in one go. We finished about six in the morning, came out of Trident Studios which is still there, not in its same form. But I wouldn’t have said at the time that this was so special that it was going to be the cornerstone of my career, cause at the time, it’s just another thing you do, in a studio full of a bunch of people you know.
NFMP: Looking back, what kind of impact did it have?
BJ: I think it’s crucial, now. I wouldn’t have had the objectivity to see it that way at the time, but when that record came out my phone started ringing. I was already doing sessions, but it wasn’t to the same level. That record really established me as a sound that people wanted to use. And it wasn’t because they wanted a country influence. It was the fact that an English songwriter had incorporated the steel guitar into his sound. On that level, other songwriters wanted a part of that. That really is what gave me my career. Singer songwriters started to see the steel guitar as one of the sounds in their arsenal. I worked on Gerry Rafferty’s City to City album, I didn’t play on Baker Street but I played on quite a lot of other tracks on that album and it wasn’t a country thing. He just wanted to use it as another sound in the production.
NFMP: Can we move on to another legend, John Cale – you toured a lot with him in the 90s, which was your longest spell on the road with an artist. He has a reputation for being a difficult man to work with, how was your working relationship?
BJ: My Transparent Music album was signed to Joe Boyd’s Hannibal Records, and that was how I met John Cale because he and Joe were talking at the time. John tends to fall out with everybody eventually. He’s a very unusual person. He’s quite a character, larger than life, egotistical as hell. But our working relationship was very good. I met him because he had written this piece called the Falkland Suite in the early 90’s, which he’d written as a full orchestral suite featuring Dylan Thomas poems, and Cale being Welsh, it was something very close to his heart. He had a piano part on it for him and a pedal steel part, don’t know quite why.
Here’s a clip from the US show Night Music of John Cale and BJ Cole performing Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night from the Falkland Suite:
And then there were other gigs; we played at a 60th anniversary of Elvis’ birth, organised by Don Was, the producer. He was a fan of John Cale so he got him down to this place called the Pyramid in Memphis which was a convention centre on the banks of the Mississippi and it was a 3 day musical blast, the most extraordinary gig I’ve ever done. We played Heartbreak Hotel – John does a version of it in a minor key, which is very bizarre. It’s not exactly Southern Rock – playing that to a Southern Rock audience, it went down a little mutedly. He was in his element; he likes it when he freaks an audience out. (You can see a version of it here from 1981 on Musical Express)
He has seen it all Cale. He’s been in at the beginning with all of the avant-garde of the Rock, Punk and classical scenes in the fifties and early sixties; it’s amazing, extraordinary he’s been there and back again. He’s now living in Los Angeles writing film music. I really enjoyed working with him. He’s not a person you like, necessarily, some people are too full of themselves. I’ve been lucky to work with a lot of people like that. I’ve worked with a lot of great singers too. Steve Marriott, back in the 70s, he was amazing. And working with Terry Reid now.
NFMP: One of your more surprising musical excursions has been into dance music (Drum and Bass) – your albums with Luke Vibert have been incredibly successful and exposed the pedal steel to a whole new legion of fans. How did your collaboration with Luke come about?
BJ: I knew David Toop (the writer and musician). In about 97/98 I told him I was interested in working with a DJ and he turned me on to “Intelligent Drum & Bass”, people like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. I got deeply into it; I became convinced that it was very musical. A lot of musicians were deriding it and saying they were not musicians and that they were taking their work. This is not true, these guys were real craftsmen, with great musical heads and I’m not worthy of understanding their talents.
I was first turned onto Luke Vibert by his album ‘Drum and Bass for Papa’. I went out and heard him DJ and was just completely blown away. Those guys, back in the late 90’s, they used vinyl, and their sense of knowing how to play with tempo, and knowing how to play with the audience and judge how to get the vibe going and how to keep it going, it was something I really respect. At the same time I thought that that sort of music needed a musician to play over the top of it, something that was organic and improvised, and interacted as a person, on top of midi-constructed music. I loved that record and said to David Toop, I’d really like to meet this guy, not expecting to – but he knew someone who hooked us up in Stamford Hill.
NFMP: How did you work together, a DJ and a musician?
BJ: I turned him on to my record collection and he turned me onto his record collection. We started off making steel guitar records, or exotica records. All the guys at that time were deeply into exotica. And exotica obviously features steel guitar, a lot of steel guitar and Hawaiian music. So I just provided him with a limitless supply of samples that he didn’t have to pay for. Later on he started to give me tracks that he didn’t know quite what to do with. Because he’s so prolific, he’s at home turning tracks out whether they’re going to get released or not, great stuff. He just gave me various things that were unfinished and he didn’t know how to complete them, so he gave them to me and I would find a way to complete them. We developed quite a close and playful way of working with each other. He’s great, we really got on.
NFMP: You clearly have an unusually open mind when it comes to music. Where does this come from? A lot of people feel uncomfortable with things that are challenging or different, whereas you seem to be able to embrace all of it.
BJ: I’ve never had a component in my head for conforming or for stereotypes. I hate them with a vengeance and I think they should all be got rid of. I think we’d all be a lot more intelligent and better people if we didn’t have them. Unfortunately things like the fashion industry and the media industry depend on them to exist. Music is a voyage of discovery, and I’m open to be inspired. There are certain things I cannot handle for various reasons, like opera. The sound of it bothers me, I find the voices forced and over-coached, and unnatural. They were developed when there was no PA system. I’d much rather hear Scott Walker or Freddy Mercury singing opera than an opera singer.
When I was working in Cochise in that psychedelic period the climate was such that people were actively trying to find musical areas that hadn’t been invented. It was almost encouraged. You were looking for something that had never been done before. That was a good climate to come up through. There was much more of a willingness in the public and in the audience to hear something they’d never heard before. Whereas now it’s becoming harder and harder to find truly original things, or put it this way: the music industry has less and less ability to market things that don’t fit into certain categories. There are people out there doing innovative things, but there are less and less channels for it to find an audience.
NFMP: You’ve got such a diverse musical background. How have you not become pigeon holed?
BJ: When I first started, what music impressed on me was its diversity and that there was always something new, just when you thought it was stale to you, something would come round the corner that blew you away again. Which is why I can never understand why people get partisan to one kind of music, really. There are great things in every sort of music. Each one informs the other and makes you more passionate about any one. The difference between good music and bad music usually comes from the attitude of the people performing it.
NFMP: Don’t you think it’s the nature of the music business to try and keep artists in one lane?
BJ: Don’t get me started on the music business. I can see that it makes things easier; they don’t have to be as imaginative if they’re given a narrow area to market because they formulate their marketing strategy to one market or another and they don’t have to think about it anymore. It wasn’t really that way in the early 60’s and 70’s when I started, people in the industry were more music fans, the A&R men and the producers were more people that were passionate about the artists they were working with. Obviously the economics of it were much more manageable: there were less overheads, it didn’t cost so much to record people, so they could afford to run with developing an artist. It was run by music fans who knew what they were passionate about and had the time to develop an artist or a genre.
BJ Cole will be featured on BBC1’s ‘The One Show’ at 7.00 PM (17th May 2011), playing and talking about his role in the making of Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’, and how it helped establish his session career. You can watch it here on i-Player
If you’d like to see the passionate and diverse BJ Cole in action, you can see him playing at the Jazz Café on 21st May with the legendary Terry Reid and full band, tickets here; or at Glastonbury with Terry Reid, and also with one of his current collaborators, cellist Emily Burridge, 4pm on the ’71 stage, Saturday 25th June /. For more dates visit his events page.
Selected BJ Cole discography below, (for more click here – BJ says this is the most comprehensive he himself has found!):
• Swallow Tales: Cochise (1971)
• New Hovering Dog: BJ Cole (1972)
• Transparent Music: BJ Cole (1988)
• Stop the Panic: Luke Vibert and BJ Cole (Cooking Vinyl, 2000)
• Trouble in Paradise: BJ Cole (Cooking Vinyl, 2004)
• Lushlife: BJ Cole, Roger Beaujolais, Simon Thorpe (UntiedArtists, 2009)
• The Gnossienne Suite: BJ Cole and Emily Burridge (Academy Recordings, 2011)
A group of five music fans and makers, film takers, image makers, some-time tour managers, ex band managers, music journalists, archaeologists, banjo players, prize drinkers, sharp thinkers, festival tinkers and a whole host of other things too numerous to go into here. We'd like to share what we love about the Folk|Country|Blues we are lucky to be surrounded by here in London and give you access to some of the talent we see and hear. Use us to keep up to date with what's on, who's playing, what's coming whether you live here or are just passing through.
Contact us at: info @ notesfrommtpleasant.com
October 19, 2011
Kathy Magee
Leave a comment
Notes from Mt. Pleasant 