Jean Shy isn’t Shy

Fate can be strange.  Mid-set Jean Shy sang ‘Still got the Blues’, and at evenings end I had an SMS saying the songs writer Gary Moore was dead. The music he loved so much is very much alive though and Shy and her ‘Shy Boys’ band proved it with a shimmering display at The Harmonie on Sunday.

Jean Shy was born in Chicago and at only twelve years old was signed up to the legendary Chess Record label.   She’s written four childrens books, had her own U.S. TV programme and as recently as 2009 she was a Blues Music Awards Nominee from the renowned ‘Blues Foundation’.  How can it be then that most of the Blues fans I’ve spoken to at other shows had never heard her name? In the words of RUF Records Managing Director Thomas Ruf “People forget quickly”.  Promoter Manuel Banha saw her some fifteen years ago in Bonn and didn’t forget though.

The reward for Banha’s good memory and taste was a mesmerising evening. Back to the roots of the Blues in tracks like ‘Boom Boom’ and the Etta James classic ‘Wang dang doodle’ but also showing the flowers those roots have produced: modern classics like Cockers ‘Unchain my Heart’, ‘Whitesnakes ‘Aint no Love’ and Gary Moore’s ‘Still got the Blues’.

Further proof of where those roots have taken hold was physically on hand in the shape of teenager Alex Walker from California band ‘Nine Door Empire’ who joined  Shy’s lead guitar duo for a storming ‘Sweet Home Chicago’. His own band is more in the Foo Fighters direction he told me, but he listens to everything and usually the blues is in there somewhere.  Despite Shy having made diverse discs over her long career – with Gospel, Soul and Jazz offerings – tonight Blues is thankfully not just ‘in there somewhere’ but is everywhere. ‘My Girl’, ‘Little Red Rooster’, ‘Rock me all night long’ every one a classic sung and played flawlessly.

You know the band puts music first when the bass player sits on a barstool – automatically there’s a wonderful old fashioned ‘bigband’ feeling. These guys were ‘Erste Sahne’ too as a German colleague later described them (cream of the crop as we Brits would say) They reminded me of the sort of people you’d see behind Elvis or BB King. Musicians who can (and do) play everything fate (and top quality singers) throws at them. They even keep the beat perfectly on ‘Sag mir wo die Blümen sind’. One minute conjuring up a John Lee Hooker rhythm the next a searing Gary Moore solo.

Which brings me back to the sad news of the evening. Jean had a bad cold so after getting a CD signed I wished her ‘Gute Besserung’ and mentioned Gary Moore’s passing. He was a hero of mine I remarked. “Mine too!” she replied. Somehow I think Jean Shy is someone Gazza, with his love for raw Chicago Blues, would treasure hearing that from.

Popularity: 9% [?]

No Frills, Just Rock – Aynsley Lister

Mark Twain’s famous mis-quote “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated” came to mind as Aynsley laughed over a magazines ‘cut n past’ error that claimed he passed away in 2001, but “still offers private guitar tuition”.  In fact both man and career seem in the best of health, as his show at the Harmonie this week proved.

Aynsley Listers  latest CD, ‘Tower Sessions”, is possibly his best to date, despite an odd mix of using a live audience as a springboard for the band whilst excluding their actual presence from the final mix.  But how does the show measure up live and raw?

I remember Aynsley’s last visit to Bonn which began with the acoustic ‘Airplane Blues’,  but much of Thursdays concert was  based around the ‘Tower Sessions’ material.  This time around he hit the ground running with the powerhouse driving rock of ‘Sugar Low’which had the near capacity crowd grooving from the word go.  ‘Soundman’ was also an early favourite – but favourites are hard to pick when each number is a winner.  There’s something of Hugh Grant in Aynsley’s face at times, and when I focus my camera on him from the front stage I get a feeling he’s a bit self-conscious about the whole star thing.  Like he’s thinking “Hey, it’s the music that matters, not me”  That thought is reiterated when he leans into the speaker to get the last ounce of reverb, or in moments when he tweaks the knobs on his amp.  Every note is a new discovery to be enjoyed just as much by the guitarist as by the audience.

When I ask bass player Midas later about the setlist she laughs and  tells me they just shout out what song is next.  I can quite believe it.  Midas herself has been in the band a few years now, but keyboardman Dan Healey has only been onboard since last years ‘Tower Sessions’, whilst drummer Tim Brown is an even newer addition.  They gel together well though, and Brown is very much a showman on drums rolling the sticks around.  He even gets centre stage metaphorically speaking to sing ‘Superstition’.

I know that Aynsley has a very dedicated and knowledgable fanbase in the UK who are itching to hear about new material.  We had a couple of ‘newish’ tracks in ‘the Status Quo styled ‘Sugar’ and the gentle ballad ‘Feeling Good’ but otherwise it was classic Lister – ‘Whats it all about’, ‘Hurricane’, ‘Crosstown Traffic’ ‘Early Morning Dew’ – with my favourite Lister lyric “There’s a man, with a squeegie in his hand” (how many other songs mention a squeegie?).  No gig would be complete without ‘Purple Rain’ of course, and it’s sustained chord solo reminiscent of Gary Moore’s effort on ‘Parisienne Walkways’.

If I’m pedantic I admit I missed an acoustic spot, and particularly the quirky rythm of ‘Crazy’ but I guess you can’t fit everything in, and the title ‘Time is running out on me’ says all that needs to be said on that score.   No smoke bombs, no elaborate light show, no long introductions, as the T-shirts in the foyer say – ‘JUST ROCK!’

FOOTNOTE: As mentioned, Aynsley’s fans are a well clued up bunch and have pointed out an inaccuracy in my review -  ‘Tower Sessions’  was originally recorded before a live audience, partly because so many people loved Aynsley’s version of ‘Purple Rain’.  The song didn’t exist on any records and because Aynsley thought he could only do it justice in a live setting, the band recorded it and other songs before a live audience.  By the recording date however the band had changed and hadn’t been together long enough to do the material real justice, so he returned to the studio with them after the band had settled down to do the album again;   but had no time to re-organize an audience.

Hope that cleared that up, and full marks to Mr Lister for deciding that ‘good’ wasn’t good enough – in the end they made a great record, as said before, probably the best AL disc to date.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Next Folk Club 4th Feb

The next Folk Club takes place on Friday (4 Feb) and it should be a blast literally since one of the featured instruments is the pipes.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Girls with Guitars – Blues Caravan 2011

“Girls with guitars” is the title of this years Blues Caravan. It sounds rather dismissive in words, but how does it sound onstage? A blonde, a brunette and a redhead sounds like the start of a joke but these girls aren’t joking  as they blaze through a high energy set of high quality Bluesrock with youthful enthusiasm and a great deal of musical talent.

A quick intro about this years ‚castlist’ on the Blues Caravan:

The redhead: Regular bassists Roger Innis and Mike Griot get a holiday since all ‘four string’ duties are handled by Cassie Taylor.  Despite her tender years Cassie has been a live musician for some years after ‘helping out’ her father the Blues veteran Otis Taylor went from occasional to regular to permanent.  She is also on the Blues Foundation panel for upcoming musicians.

The blonde: Samantha Fish raised heads in Kansas City with a gutsy and natural raw electric sound  that carried all the way to Thomas Ruf’s ears in Germany.  A debut CD is planned this year and, based  on her live showing, eagerly anticipated.

The brunette: Dani Wilde is the Brit of the bunch, hailing from Brighton.  With two CD’s already under her belt she’s the closest of the three girls to being a ‘veteran’.  Music isn’t all she takes seriously – as my review last year revealed she works hard towards raising funds to help schoolchildren in Africa.  Her composition ‘Abandoned Child’ combines Dani’s two passions.

Females with Frets, Birds with Bridges, Chicks with Chops… I guess the Tour title could have been a lot worse. Thomas Ruf is as aware as anyone that sex sells and if there are more women in the audience than usual it’s maybe wives/girlfriends keeping an eye on their other halves. Certainly Dani Wildes pronouncement mid-set that German men all look great went down well and I don’t think she heard my sniff of British male disdain.  (It’s all just showgirlship I tell myself).  The measure of any Blues Caravan though is it’s music, and these girls delivered high energy blues rock with a level of infectious enthusisam that soon had everyone happily dancing and singing along.

Denis Palatin puts the hammer down from the off with a thundering drum intro to The Stones classic ‘Bitch’ and when Cassie Taylors bass riff joins it we know these gals might be young and petite, but they can ROCK. Taylor continues laying down a solid bassline to the next one up – ‘Move On’ and that’s just what we do, from one song to another with a momentum that suggests the girls have ten albums worth of material to draw on. In fact, when Dani Wilde was in Cologne late last year she hadn’t even been in to record with the others.

Yet here they were trading solo riffs and vocals as if they had been around as long as Status Quo. As the ‘veteran’ of the show (courtesy of two studio albums) Dani Wilde gets a chance to shine with tracks from the CD of that name but it’s the haunting ‘Abandoned Child’ that steals the show early on as indeed it did in Cologne. There’s a compelling mix of youthful innocence and mature resignation about her phrasing that gets me every time. The same is true when she takes the stage for part two with just an acoustic and a voice –the former sounds as if Robert Johnson was strumming it but the latter is pure Dani Wilde. A heady mixture of both age and youthfulness that is Dani Wildes strength and trademark.

If Dani Wilde’s strengths were already known to me then the girl stage centre was a an unknown quantity to both myself and everyone else. ‘Rory Gallagher is alive, and she’s a woman!’ Well, not quite. But Samantha Fish played her telecaster from the heart as Rory did his strat, and she wasn’t afraid to be caught pulling a face as she did so. The playing was what mattered and that’s what impressed me most about her. Oh, and she also plays a mean blues guitar too! Thomas Ruf ‘discovered’ Samantha Fish in the Windy City and she is certainly a breath of fresh air on the blues scene. The press notes say she’s 21 but I know for a fact she’s 22 now because this concert is also her birthday. Well I for one was glad she was having to work on her birthday. A debut CD is planned – and I will definitely buy it!

The girls really don’t run out of steam during their show – it’s fun from start to finish. On as well as off stage. If I say that two of the late highlights were a hard rocking ‘Highway to Hell’ and an almost acapello version of ‘Little Help from my Friends’ then you’ll have some idea of the ground covered. I heard the plan was that they would gradually develop the material whilst on the road. If you’re reading this Thomas Ruf then please book back at the Harmonie at years end because I’ll be interested to hear how they can improve on this for sheer energy and enthusiasm!

Footnote:  Denis Palatin assures me the ‘Loud Bitch’ logo on his bass drum refers to him and NOT to the wonderful girls out front.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

A whole lotta Folk

How many people would turn up with a kazoo? Indeed how many would turn up at all? The answer was ‘A lot!’ and it seemed pretty well each of them wanted to play something too. It seemed as if the wide grin on John Harrisons face was limited only by the amount of space he had to grin into  as Bonn Folk Club had its busiest evening yet.

It had all started so differently. When I arrived at 6.40pm the door wasn’t even open. I was wondering if the rain and cold weather had led to people prefering a warm house and a TV screen – or were they terrified at the thought of mass kazoo blowing? In my case they had nothing to fear. In the preceding days I barely got a whimper out of my instrument and quickly abandoned all hope of doing an impromptu ‘God Save the Queen’ floorspot.
But then the people started coming in, and coming in and coming in…

Barry got the evening started ‘Down in the Valley’ with the tune of that name on piano and a quick blast of the kazoo (to remind me of the noise mine wouldn’t make). After that it seemed as if there was as much movement onstage as there was movement of people coming in through the door.

I really couldn’t name all the people who floorspotted. Partly because I could no longer get back to the coat-rack where I’d left my notebook, and partly because, when I finally tried to crib the names from John’s running list later it was like trying to read a London Underground map printed on the back of a matchbox.

I think an early act was named ‘Ich und Ich’ only as there were three of them (Andreas, Sabine & Gaby) I could be wrong. I enjoyed hearing ‘If I were a Carpenter’ and indeed I also enjoyed the lively discussion over the exact lyrics beforehand: Is it “Would you be my baby” or “Would you have my baby”? There is actually a female version by Joan Baez called ‘If You Were a Carpenter’ to further complicate matters so I think we’ll let that argument go.  By the way Barry, your guess was wrong, it wasn’t Peter, Paul & Mary but Bobby Darin who made the song famous.  Being before your or my time I had to ‘Wiki’ for the answer!

Whilst everyone was worth their spot and added to an enjoyable evening some were particularly special.
An early runner for most memorable act was Thomas Steffens.   Well how can you not like a German taking on ‘Donald where’s your trousers’? I haven’t heard that one since Ed ‘Stewpot’ used to spin it on radio 1’s ‘Junior Choice’.

Apologies to Thomas but after he’d stolen the show it was again stolen from him, by a diminutive girl with a divine voice – Greta Larsen on guitar/vocal with Paulo on harmonica(s). Relying on memory I think she did ‘Once I had a sweetheart’ and certainly did Donavans ‘Catch the Wind’. Both with an energetic style and relaxed stage presence that (I hope) had John writing “Invite back again” on his notepad.

Nadine with David on Piano were also a surefire hit and, like Greta, Nadine seemed born to be in the spotlight. Her act was a very pleasant journey into jazz vocalist territory. I won’t reveal her setlist, other than to say she had amazing grace and left me thinking what a wonderful world this is.

…and I haven’t mentioned all the acts that made it such an enjoyable night, particularly the pure blues of Mr Harrison and Paulo. But I will mention ‘Nobody Knows You’ with it’s lead vocal switch that sounded well rehearsed but John insists “No, we just got up and did it”. Similarly, Paulo had only agreed to back Greta with his bluesharps when they met that evening. I’ve said it before I know, but that’s the secret of the Folk Clubs growing success in my book: no-one knows exactly what will happen, even the artists themselves. All they DO know is they intend to have a good time.

John Harrison had his work cut out counting heads and ‘guesstimated’ about eighty people. Of all shapes, sizes, ages and denominations. Having had time to see the available chairs before the evening started, I would recommend getting there before eight. I think the popularity took the new owners of the venue a little by surprise, but visitors to this site know better. Folk is great, beer is good and people like a good time…

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS

Official Bonn Folk Club Website:
http://folk-club-bonn.blogspot.com/

Popularity: 11% [?]

BEN Music Awards 2011

Movie fans have their Oscars whilst for musicians it’s always cold initials: like the MTV or NME Awards.  Not anymore – Now anyone who makes a musical noise in Bonn stands to win a ‘BEN’ (Bonn English Network).  So here is the result of the grand jury (of John, John and hmmm – John!) based on concerts attended in 2011.

GIG OF THE YEAR

The 3 J’s at Museumsplatz.

The day started with me running after an interview with young Canadian guitarslinger Jimmy Bowskill.  I missed him before the show at the luxurious Kameha Grand Hotel and finally pinned him down for a few words in his rather less luxurious trailer/dressing room after a fantastic show with the marvelous Joe Bonamassa and the incredible Jeff Beck.

BEST LIVE GIG

1 Julian Sas – Was always good, this year he just got even better!

2 Dr Feelgood – Those songs were made to be played live in a smallish sweaty venue.  Feelgoods and Harmonie = perfect harmony.

3 Dana Fuchs – Turned both the Harmonie and Museumsplatz (supporting Joe Cocker)  into her ‘Church of Rock n Roll’.  Now signed to RUF Records she’s set to conquer Europe in 2011.

GUITARIST

1 Jeff Beck – A Guitargod

2 Julian Sas – Why isn’t he a Guitargod?

3 Jason Barwick – seems quite shy until he picks up his guitar and then he’s Hendrix, Plant and Townsend in one

BASSIST

1 Ronald Jonker – Ana Popovic’ bassman just keeps getting better – and jumping higher!

2 Rhonda Smith -  With Jeff Beck she still managed to shine.  Do all those years with Prince make her a Princess?

3 Roger Innis  (Blues Caravan/Oli Brown) -    Don’t be fooled by that relaxed grin – he’s just making it LOOK easy!

DRUMS

1 Denis Palatin – Every year he plays behind three different musicians and every year he plays a blinder

2 Kurtis Smith  – The Brews sticksman has power aplenty  – and I have half a drumstick to prove it

3 Rob Heijne – I would not want to be ‘The Animals’ snaredrum.  Julian Sas’ drummer always looks happy as a schoolboy with a new toy – that’s about to be played with EXTENSIVELY!

NEWCOMER

1 The Brew – All that gigging must pay off lads!

2 Oli Brown – Deserves a bigger crowd for his show in 2011 – Will his new CD and new haircut find him even more fans?

3 Jimmy Bowskill – impressed me as someone who not only can play storming Blues but cares about where it comes from.

Congratulations to all the winners.   I’ll be awarding the genuine golden ‘Haribo’ fruitbears at your next Bonn concerts ladies and gentlemen.   Please keep your thank you speeches short.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Bonn Folk Club is Ten

Hard to believe but The Bonn Folk Club in Gaststätte zum Schützenhaus is now into double figures and growing in reputation with every guitar, cello and uilleann Pipe that stands before it’s double bulbed floorlamp. Friday saw ‘Silversigh’ make a large audience glad they had braved the sub-zero temperatures for a ‘pint and a song’ As the song goes – ‘The weather outside is frightful, but inside it’s quite delightful’ I was certainly delighted to get out of the cold and into the pub. I also felt a bit guilty about mentioning Barry arriving late last time I was there. It was 8pm and this time I was the one arriving late…

“So what actually happened before you launched into your spirited rendition of ‘Blaydon Races?” I asked John Harrison rather sheepishly. John does have something of a schoolmasterly air about him sometimes. “Well, boy, if you have two hundred lines saying ‘I must arrive at the folk club on time’ on my desk by 9am tommorow, I’ll tell you” he replied. Well actually, he didn’t – but I felt guilty enough to have done them if he had. You see a lot can happen, and usually does, in five minutes where Bonn Folk Club is concerned. This Friday was no exception: I’d missed a political demonstration for starters. John had got things going innocently enough with Willie Dixon’s ‘Little Red Rooster’ (okay, I know there are some double entendres in there but I’m sure John’s a gentleman)
Edgar Allen Guest’s poem ‘Spirit of Buffalo County’ though is all about “tackling the thing that cannot be done, and do it” and then Arlo Guthrie’s defiant anthem to the FBI ‘The pause of Mr Clause’ with its chorus of “Why do police guys beat on peace guys?” I can almost see a lookout spotting me coming up the path and calling out “Okay, the english network guy is here, better halt the demo John. Time for ‘Blaydon Races’”.

There were a lot of youngsters in the hall as well I noticed. Several of them made up the band that were the first ‘Floor spot’ of the evening – ‘Mulled Claret’. The torn trouser leg of their singer suggested anarchy and I prepared myself for cries of ‘bring back the Deutschmark’ and ‘Angela go home’. But do anarchist bands include a female cellist? Phew! Time to relax. No cries of outrage, just a band of enthusiastic young people enjoying playing their music. Maybe not the best band in the world, but without the nervousness they might be on to something good – and time, as the great philosopher Jagger once said, is on their side.

After the break Barry Roshto was on hand to remind us it was Christmas. Well two hands and a piano to be exact and some Festive songs in English. As we’ve only just staggered into December I wasn’t too keen on the Festive folkitudes (yes, I made that word up!) but forgave Barry as soon as son David joined him with his cello. Even the gifted Sol Gabetta has never tried ‘Slide cello’ to my knowledge so it was great that guest musician from Silversigh, guitar maestro Berndt Heunemann, joined them literally on left foot – expertly wedged in front of Davids cello which decided it didn’t like the waxed floor tiles. Several melancholy cello/piano pieces later I was relaxed enough to enjoy more songs about Christmas – this time with Ingrid on vocals, and in German. I remember the one chorusing with ‘And mother was hard at work again’ brought particular applause, especially from the women in the audience. Great sing along stuff and the perfect counterpoint to the ‘hearalong’ set that followed from Silversigh.

Well, who could even try to match a voice like Esther Oberles? She took a couple of numbers to really warm up and ‘Bird on a Wire’ sounds oddly better spoken by Leonard Cohen than sung by anybody else irrespective of their voice but from KT Tunstall’s ‘Black Horse & The Cherry Tree’ on we were in for a treat. Whoever said you don’t get something for nothing would have taken it back had they been at the Bonn Folk Club and heard Silversigh perform Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’. I was finally happy to accept the first line: “It’s coming on Christmas”. Heavenly guitar by Berndt and angelic vocals by Esther and Helga Lukas. Yes people, Christmas is a coming!

John Harrison whispered in my ear after the applause had died down “A big audience all sitting in complete silence as someone plays super music. Isn’t that wonderful?!” and with that John had described the evenings Folk Club in one sentence.

A word of warning however – next Folk Club will not be so relaxed. ‘Special instrument of the evening’ is the kazoo. If you live in Grauerheindorf you have been warned!

MORE ABOUT BONN FOLK CLUB

Popularity: 13% [?]

Summer Concerts!

To warm us up during the cold Winter the Solar World Summer Stage has announced it’s first shows for the Museumsplatz in 2011. Grammy Nominee Till Brönner (9 July) and ever popular Blackfööss (18 July) are early favourites as is comedian Kaya Yanar (6 August).

Business Manager of events Martin Nötzel promises more concerts than in the previous two years – with around 20 in the planning stage. For full details and further updates check the Museumsplatz Website

Popularity: 22% [?]

Folk Invasion? Andy Irvine

Could it be that Folk Music Clubs are entrenching themselves in Germany at last? Barely has the dust settled on the last Bonn bash and there’s news of another Club just a bit up the road in “Feurschlößchen” Bad Honnef. John Harrison sent us this report on a great evening in the company of Irish Folk legend Andy Irvine.

Andy Irvine is an enigma, indeed he has even been described as a legend in himself. With Andy nothing is as it should be, but everything is as it is. It is nearly half a century of stage experience and fretboard virtuosity, a songwriter of immense talent and fastidious research, a good harmonica player and sweet tenor tones to sing the sometimes incredulous, but always tantalising, tales above his musical quilt work, and yet still a man with the sprightly gait and smile of a young mischievous leprechaun.

Andy starts the first set with the song “When the boys are on parade” by the New Zealand songwriter Marcus Turner. An up tempo marching “anti-recruitment” song, which won’t be the last such song of the evening. With many artists “what you see is what you get”, but with Andy it’s somewhat different, what you think you see is often not what you’re actually getting, but more often than not what you are getting is so much more. In this song to the uninitiated it looks like he’s playing a guitar with eight strings, two more than a guitar has, but what you are actually seeing and hearing is a guitar-bodied bouzouki made by the English luthier Stefan Sobell. This has eight strings but in four courses of double strings, so really it has if anything, two strings less than a guitar, rather than two more. Furthermore, although it looks like a guitar it is not tuned in sevenths like a guitar, but in fifths like a bouzouki, like a mandolin, and like a violin. Just to make it easier Andy puts a harmonica in a rack to add yet another dimension to the song.

The second song is Reynardine an old traditional song in 5/8 time about a creature which is half man and half fox, a “Werefox ” that tries to seduce a fair maiden in the mountains. Bert Jansch made a popular guitar arrangement of this song, Andy couldn’t play it on the guitar as well as Bert Jansch, but would certainly give Bert a run for his money on the bouzouki and Andy does sing it better. Perhaps thinking the audience might now be bored after getting used to the musical accompaniment on the last song, Andy removes his harmonica rack and picks up his bass bouzouki, made for him by Davy Stuart in New Zealand. This doesn’t look like a guitar, but it does look like a bouzouki-shaped bouzouki, a big one! Now a normal violin or mandolin is tuned to GDAE, but if you’ve been getting the gist of things, you can probably imagine that Andy perhaps uses another tuning ? and quite right you would be too. Andy tunes the two top (thinnest) E strings down two frets, a full tone, to D, thus giving a tuning of GDAD. This gives a drone like effect, not unakin to a dropped D tuning on a guitar, where the lower E string is tuned down to D, only in this case on the mandolin, it is the highest course of strings which is tuned down to allow a constant open accompaniment to whatever melody is being played on the other strings, a little reminiscent of the bagpipes. So Andy tunes his bass bouzouki initially down four frets, before deciding it could probably stand five frets, and finally tunes it down to CGDG. This gives it a really big rich fat bass sound. ( I am reminded of speaking with a young Canadian guitarist in Bonn recently who also got a rich bass sound by tuning his Telecaster to an open E minor chord and then sinking it down 4 frets to open C minor and then playing “Summertime” with a bottle neck. Well one more fret to go Jimmy Bowskill, thicker strings and then, one more to go! Needless to say Reynardine is a masterpiece of unexpectedly deep sounds, from a man who was in earlier years a mere mandolin genius.

For the third song the harp rack returns and plays a melancholy tangent to the “Brays of Moneymore” an emigration song about a ship leaving Loch Foyle to New York. For this number he plays the smallest stringed instrument in his travelling armoury, and as it’s Andy it’s not a normal mandoline, but a mandola, which is a bit like what a viola is to a violin, somewhat larger and with an extra two frets. Slowly I’m beginning to think this guy is a genius, at an age when many men are getting into their pipes and slippers, here’s Andy with his first CD in more than a decade, released in September this year, with the name of “Abocurragh” his home hamlet in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, and since then he’s barely seen home as he’s been constantly touring, promoting it.

Finally we have the first song from Andy’s new CD, the harmonica rack is off again, the guitar bodied Bouzouki is in his arms as Andy leaps into Bob Bickerton’s “A Close Shave” an antipodean take on “New York Girls ” and “Patrick Street” but this time the sailor awakes to find no money and no clothes, but a blond wig and a shaving kit!
We stay in the southern hemisphere and on the CD but move from New Zealand to New South Wales in Australia for George Papavgeris’s song ‘Empty Handed’ about an ex convict Australian settler who’s bank loan to work his apportioned land after serving his sentence in full, is not renewed due to drought. A little known fact is that there are so many Greeks in Australia. After Athens and Thessaloniki, Melbourne has the world’s third largest Greek-speaking population.
The sixth song of the evening is one of Andy’s and dedicated to Ronnie Drew who played with the Dubliners. Andy is back on the guitar bodied bouzouki to tell us about his varsity days between 1962 and 1968 where he partook of the university of musical life, a bowl of soup and a pint of stout, in “O’Donoghues” bar in Dublin. A man born in England, and therefore automatically an Englishman, albeit of Irish and Scottish parentage, goes to Dublin to find his roots. He went initially as a stage actor, like his mother before him. However, meeting all the musicians in O’Donohues was to change the course of his life and he left the stage to become a musician.

Next we are taken with the guitar bodied bouzouki and the harmonica rack off to southern Mexico before WW I with a chorus song by Andy called “Viva Zapata” about the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapato, a man who would rather die standing than living on his knees.  “Kellswater” follows, with his voice and haunting lyrics accompanied only by the bass bouzouki, with a wicked choice for a daughter to contemplate. What a voice. The following song is “Come to the bower” and is dedicated to the late Luke Kelly of the Dubliners and another frequenter of O’Donohues bar.
A break is scheduled…..and Andy has certainly deserved having his whistle wetted!

After the raffle has been drawn and refreshments taken Andy kicks off the second half with another song from his new CD, his own composition entitled “The Spirit of Mother Jones” about the life and times of Mary Harris, the miners’ angel, who emigrated from County Cork to the USA and became very active for the rights of working men and women and organising a coalminers’ union at the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.
There are lots of old gems in the second half including the ultimate anti-recruiting song “Aurthur Mcbride” and the classic Sweeney’s Men song, “My Heart’s Tonight in Ireland”, ” The Blacksmith” on the mandola as well as more new ones from the “Abocurragh” CD like the “Three Huntsmen” and “Willy of Winsbury” and towards the end some of the musical fruits of Andy’s tours of eastern Europe, particularly Bulgaria in the late 1960′s but I won’t go into too much detail and “spoil” it for you, for reasons which will become clear later.

For an Irish folkie Andy plays much better harmonica than most people and accompanies himself with a racked harp in over a third of his songs and uses the more traditional for folk “first position” as well as the more traditional for blues “second or cross position” to good effect, but he’s getting some notes too effortless for my liking, especially with having the harp in a rack. My comrade this evening was Paolo an Italian forester and a very gifted blues harp player, who has not played often enough at the Folk Club in Graurheindorf. His take is that Andy is sometimes using some harmonicas in “country tuning” and upon talking to Andy afterwards, this was indeed the case. Country tuning only involves changing one note from a standard Richter major diatonic tuning- the 5 draw note is raised a semitone, from F to F# on a C harmonica, thus allowing him to play melodies with more ease in the rack than would otherwise be the case. Yet another musical quirk is that he plays the harmonica ” upside down” which some left handed harp players do, but Andy isn’t left handed. Andy plays it “upside down” because that’s the way that Woody used to play it!
You can’t really say much about Andy Irvine without touching on his teenage hero, the great American folk singer Woody Guthrie. I first found the father through the son, Arlo Guthrie, famous for his 20 minute long witty rant “Alice’s Restaurant” but Andy was totally devoted to Arlo’s father Woody who was a shining beacon of common sense in the USA during the infamous McCarthy witch-hunts. Perhaps this was why Woody didn’t like fascists and even had a sticker on his guitar which read, “This machine kills fascists” . Andy has inherited Woody’s hate of fascists and in his wonderful song tribute to Woody ” Never Tire of the Road” Andy attaches the chorus of one of Woody’s own most famous choruses to the end of his own song ” All of you fascists bound to lose” resounded as a chorus around the room, and one could feel Woody himself grinning in the wings at the irony of hearing these words in a building which was once commandeered for a short time as the local headquarters of the secret state police.

Another great follower in the Woody Guthrie tradition is the New York “Cowboy” singer and guitarist who now lives in California, “Rambling Jack Elliot”. Andy Irvine first met Jack in London in 1959 and still keeps in touch with him on the phone occasionally. Woody Guthrie once “accused” Rambling Jack Elliot of sounding ” more like Woody Guthrie than I do!”, and much later Jack paid Andy a similar compliment by telling Andy that ” you sound more like Woody Guthrie now than I do!” As if to demonstrate how small the world is sometimes, Paolo had been working in California three weeks earlier and on account of having a mutual friend, visited Rambling Jack at his home there, as was able to relate to Andy that his fellow Woody Guthrie admirer was in fine fettle.  Apart from Woody’s influence Andy was influenced in his formative years also by Lonnie Donegan and the skiffle craze. In Ireland he played with Sweeney’s Men and the legendary Planxty, but afterwards never enjoyed the mainstream success of Christy Moore. Like Dick Gaughan and Richard Thompson and Vin Garbutt with Andy Irvine you can be assured of a unique rich evening’s entertainment and more than a few lessons in history, music and song writing, and at the end of the evening wonder why such genius is not more widely known. Perhaps ours is not to reason why….but to just rejoice that in these even in these pecuniary times a few people lay more value on their musical integrity, than merely aspiring to commercial success.
So all’s well that ends well, but Andy wouldn’t be Andy if he didn’t have at least one more trick up his sleeve, and true to form he does. It’s sometimes disappointing reading a review of a concert because sadly it’s now gone, non-retrievable. One can buy a CD (and I can certainly recommend Andy’s “Abocurragh”) but somehow it’s not quite the same. However, in this particular case, thanks to Jutta’s prior arrangements even if we can’t see again, we can at least hear again, the sounds of the man with an impish twinkle in his eye and the sprightly gait.

Tune your radio (or your computer) into WDR (Westdeutsche Rundfunk/ West German Radio) Radio 3 at 20:05 hours on January 18th 2011 and you can listen to Andy Irvine’s concert again.
Thinking about it, it’s probably more relaxing just listening, rather than looking and listening, because then you are not always trying to solve the enigma that your brain is hearing things which your eyes are telling it should sound differently and certainly not as good as they do.

Andy Irvine is certainly “a man you don’t meet everyday.”

- John Harrison
Sendung: WDR 3 Konzert, 18. Januar 2011, 20:05 Uhr

More information available here:FIF Website

Feuerschlößchen
Rommerstdorfer Straße 78
53604 Bad Honnef
(Auf dem Gelände Siebengebirgsgymnasium)
FIF-Folk im Feuerschlößchen e.V.

Popularity: 18% [?]

The Brew live from Saturn

A Live gig from Saturn will look good on their CV, we in Germany though know that Brit Rockband ‘The Brew’ weren’t playing where no band has played before, but in fact in a German Megastore.  Since the band came complete for a full blooded show with amplifiers and electric guitars though, this might seem almost as odd as a Galactic Gig – but not so far to travel of course.

If you’ve read my previous reviews of the rockers from Grimsby you will know that A- The Brew are pretty loud and B – They jump a lot.  My first thoughts when I walk into the Hansa Ring Megastore are related to this:  A – The Classical Music section is on the floor right above the stage set up and B – The said  stage looks to be constructed by a toddler from a Christmas Edition Meccano building set.   Spectatorwise, the Classical Department actually provides a perfect ‘balcony’ to watch the band from.  Even better,  it’s also deserted before the first song is over.  An elderly gentleman flicking through the Beethoven concertos either headed downstairs to headbang frontstage or more likely, headed for the exit to avoid having his head banged involuntarily.  Either way it suits me fine. Just me, the soundman and the house photographer are left to survey the throng of music fans jostling for a good view below.

Young guitar wizard Jason Barwick is clearly enjoying himself, under the watchful eye of John Lennon (courtesy of a half dozen Greatest Hits posters) and I think the late Beatle would forgive the wry commercialism of an in-store gig and smile if he could see the enthusiasm on Barwick’s face.  As it is, the posters are to the young guitarists back and Lennon’s face remains deadpan.

The Saturn Manager told me that there have been a few such shows in the past, including OMD.  Musically, considering the location is a very big room filled with CD’s and DVD’s,  the sound is actually very reasonable and,  With the possible exception of  the dust on a few Count Basie CD’s in the Jazz Basement below, there is nothing and no-one to be disturbed.  Certainly any dust on the stage is getting a good beating from the band – bassist Tim (father of drummer Kurtis) has even joined Jason in the odd ‘air-jump’.  From my position now immediately above and behind the Band I can actually see the stage bend under the jumpers like a circus  trampoline.  Fortunately they both land at separate times and avoid a plunge into the Jazz special offer box immediately below.  Both stage and non Rock music lovers get a brief respite from the high energy with the plaintive  ‘Kam’ but volume is restored – along with stage jumping, for the album title track ‘A Million Dead Stars’.

So, six songs, a thank you from Tim to ‘Saturn’ for helping to promote Live music  and it’s autograph time.  Question time too – “Why the instore gig?” I ask Tim afterwards.  “Well we thought we needed a bit of practice.  We haven’t played in, oh, maybe three weeks now” he smiles.  Of course it’s also useful advertising for their November 25 gig at The Kantine in Cologne.  Last year the band played the much smaller Yardclub’ next door, so things are falling into place for total world domination and Arena tours in a year or so.  If you’re reading this Bonn promoters – book The Brew again while you still can.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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