Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn - There You Go! (1965)

Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn
There You Go!
Original release 1965 EMI
1999 reissue, Big Beat Records (CDWIKD 186)

1 Sally Free And Easy    (Cyril Tawney) 3:56
2 Single Girl 2:30
3 Ribbon Bow 1:28
4 Cotton Eyed Joe 2:16
5 Mr Tambourine Man  (Bob Dylan) 3:47
6 Mist On The Mountain 1:46
7 The Lag's Song (Ewan MacColl)  2:34
8 American Jail Song 2:42
9 The Water Is Wide 2:42
10 Something Lonesome    (John Renbourn) 2:09
11 Song (Falling Star)   (Lyrics -  John Donne, music - John Renbourn) 2:04
12 Winter Is Gone 2:51
13 Strange Lullaby   (Lyrics -  Judith Piepe, music - John Renbourn) 1:49
14 You'll Need Somebody On Your Bond  (Blind Willie Johnson) 3:17
15 One Morning In May 2:24
16 Darling Corey 3:07
17 Going To Memphis 3:09
18 Hangman 2:32
19 Leaves That Are Green (Paul Simon)  2:18


   Guitar, Backing Vocals  John Renbourn  
   Vocals  Dorris Henderson

Photography By  Brian Shuel

Flabber blabber:

Some very early John Renbourn here, paired with US-born Dorris Henderson.  She sings in a very early-60s trad "folk revival" style heavy on the vibrato, not so bad as to shatter crystal like Joan Baez, but it's still not my thing and often grates on my nerves.  Although this album may be more of historical interest for folk collectors and Renbourn fans, it does have its moments that shine.  The guitar playing, it goes without saying, is fantastic all throughout.  The one vocal duet, Misty Mountain, is lovely, and when Dorris loosens up - as she does on 'Cotton Eyed Joe,' 'American Jail Song' or 'Darling Corey,' I can connect a bit more.  The record would have benefited from more of John's compositions, which even atthis early date had a very characteristic sound.  "Strange Lullaby" is great, and the tune "Something Lonesome" is sort of an earlier version of what would turn into "The Bells" later with Bert Jansch.  And matching poems by Elizabethan poet John Donne or Robert Penn Warren to original music is pretty neat.  Henderson had a good knack for arrangements of traditional tunes too, as 'Winter Is Gone' sounds like she wrote it herself with Renbourn.  A pleasant album, even if not as evocative as it could have been.

Shirley Collins - The Power Of The True Love Knot (1967)

Shirley and Dolly Collins
"The Power of the True Love Knot"
Originally Released 1967 (Polydor)
CD reissue, Wing and a Prayer / Fledg'ling Records 2000 (FLED3028)
Also reissued on vinyl in the 1980s by Hannibal / Rykodisk


1 Bonnie Boy 3:45
2 Richie Story 4:18
3 Lovely Joan 2:30
4 Just as the Tide Was A'Flowing 1:39
5 The Unquiet Grave 3:26
6 Black-Eyed Susan 3:36
7 Seven Yellow Gipsies 1:48
8 Over the Hills and Far Away 2:28
9 Greenwood Laddie 1:45
10 Lady Margaret and Sweet William 5:10
11 The Maydens Came 1:59
12 Polly Vaughan 2:49
13 The Barley Straw 3:51
14 Barbara Allen 3:26



Shirley Collins' music is best heard in the small hours of the day, late evening or early morning, when most of the world is sleeping and your own thoughts aren't quite as loud. Equal parts austerity and warmth, her voice wraps around you like a old quilt on a cold day. And her music is the quilt-work of the British Isles, spun by the hands of laborers destined to anonymity as the "small" people of history but whose melodies and words have outlived most music bound to commercialism. Collins has passed that quilt on to successive generations of folk music lovers with her own indelible stitches. She may not have been the first person to commit these songs to tape but her records are held in high esteem as a reference point by both music nuts and music scholars. The further back you go with music that has fallen into the 'public domain', the more variations on the songs you have, and with Shirley's repertoire we are talking very old indeed. So old that those variations are often subjects of debate, and Shirley wrote some of her own melodies using anonymous pieces of song poetry.

I won't hold up pretenses - I came to Shirley Collins music by way of tracing the influences of my influences when I was thinking of myself as a songwriter. It's a practice I've kept up even though I'm no longer actively writing / composing -- I believe it's called "research" by those music conservatory types of people. For me it meant listening to certain records very deeply and often, paying close attention to writing credits and liner notes. THIS was my (informal) music education, and I would trace genealogies of musicians and writers to arrive at mutual fonts of inspiration. This was in the days before music blogs and the instant-gratification of internet sharing communities (before long after listening to music on wax cylinders, lest any readers think that I am absolutely ancient). The days when you had to literally hunt down music by haunting used record and CD shops, making real-life-flesh-and-blood friends with similar interests, or even visiting a public library or two. For music from my own home continent, North America, that's meant going back to some of the earliest material available thanks to dedicated and largely independent labels interested in divulging it. For English music, my interests started with Fairport Convention and sprouted like a weed to Pentangle, Steeleye Span, Davy Graham, and eventually landing at the foot of the Great Mother of them all, Shirley Collins. And there it more or less stops. I could dig deeper some day, I suppose. (Incidentally I discovered the records of Nick Drake and The Incredible String Band along the course of this musical sojourn, rather than the river flowing in the other direction -- I just had to put that in there to show "I was there before it was HIP!" thanks to the neo-freak-folk phonies or whatever they are calling themselves, if they still exist at all).

Although she has recorded with permutations of a number of people involved in the aforementioned ensembles (particularly her famous "Folk Roots, New Routes" with Graham), my favorite records of Shirley are those she made with her sister Dolly Collins accompanying her, and this is one of them, in spite of her being left off co-billing credit on the front album cover as she did on several others. While Dolly was the family pianist of the household, here she plays the spell-weaving miniature pipe-organ, a variation on a hand-pumped instrument whose timbre falls somewhere between a flute and a harmonium. Alongside Shirley`s multinstrumental prowess on dulcimer, guitar, and banjo, the organ brings the music a reedy, ancient quality encapsulated in that cliché standby of music-writing words, "timeless."

Historians have made quite a bit of noise (noisy in so much as anyone reads history at all) about the relatively recent provenance of our modern notions of romantic love. Shirley knows the intricacies of those arguments without having to have go the circuitous route of a PhD - by meticulously close attention to the truly "popular culture" of her own people. The selections of this record are all love songs, many of them so robust with stark tragedy as to make most radio-friendly `sad` love songs (even those ones you like) sound positively silly. Shirley provides paragraphs on each song on the record in the notes; there is nothing capricious here, everything was chosen with deliberation. I was about to write more of my own reflections on the tracks here when I looked again at the album and read again the liner notes written by Shirley herself for the original back cover of the LP, thankfully reproduced fully by reissue label Fledg'ling Records. Rather than give my own hackneyed plagiarism, I figured it would better serve Shirley's honor by reproducing her own words below. It is obvious that on top of her stunning musicianship she also possesses a penetrating mind and ability to contextualize her work in a very sophisticated way. So, I will leave the rest to her, other than pointing out that a few of my absolute favorites on this particular album are "The Unquiet Grave," "Lady Margaret and Sweet William" from where she took the album's title" and the incomparable "Polly Vaughn." The album also features Robin Williamson from the ISB on one tune, incidentally.



in 320 kbs em pe tree

in FLAC LAWLESS AUDIO

not sure if there is a password on this one, honestly, but check the comments here

Richard and Linda Thompson - In Concert, November 1975 (2007) VBR

I wrote this little piece sometime in March and then sort of forgot about it. Here it is, with the music as well... here



The whirling dervish of Richard and Linda Thompson



Listening to anything by Richard and Linda Thompson is an experience that must strike you at the right time – the right time of the day or the week, the right time in your life – or you just might miss everything that made them so great. A winter’s night, the first snowfall, sitting by a blazing fire in a bar by an old train station. Only there are no trains tonight. Tonight, you can hear a pin drop. Voices on stage entwined together like the lovers they belong to, meshing and mixing with concertina and a rhythm section so tuned in you could almost forget they are there until they remind you. It’s that kind of performance, in a small space that feels like home, home enough to close your eyes and simply listen. You can hear so many moments in this performance where the audience is hanging on every last note, literally, holding back their applause, barely breathing, until they are sure the spell is really over. Eyes closed, but not asleep. I used to wonder about Richard and Linda’s conversion to Islam and the influence of Sufism they claimed had changed everything for them. To my ears, at first, I could only hear the sadness in these songs, a deep and terrible longing, and wondered how it was any surprise to anyone that their relationship dissolved in the early 80s. Where was the joyful dance of Rumi in these tunes? Sure, they also played upbeat tunes, and their love for American music – old country and rock and roll mostly – really comes out on those early records, making it even more obvious why Richard had to leave Fairport to keep his creative muse alive. But, one day after a particularly long night awake with myself, I think I finally understood.

I am not the first to point out when the silences and spaces between the notes is what’s important. The two of them danced together with their voices, with the interplay between Linda’s voice and Richard’s understated playing. And only Richard Thompson could take a five-minute guitar solo and still come off as humble, self-effacing even. There are no heroics here, from anyone.

As nice and even wonderful as the records Richard and Linda made together were (I am partial to ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ and ‘Pour Down Like Silver’ myself), I can’t help thinking that THIS is how these songs were meant to be heard, at least the songs in this particular set list. We don’t get the acoustic majesty along the lines of “Beat the Retreat”, for example, that were always transcendent minutes for me on those records. But these electric numbers, with the sparse and tight backing of Fairport friends Dave Mattacks and Dave Pegg, with John Fitzpatrick on accordion and concertina, they just, well, BREATH better than the studio versions. On “Now Be Thankful,” Linda sings the definitive version of the song Richard had been trying to get right for some time. It has appeared on the Fairport’s “Full House” album, and – as we now know from the outtakes – had been attempted with Sandy Denny before she quit the band. Neither of those versions come anywhere close to this one, although the all-male harmonies on Full House are also stirring and very well executed. Richard’s voice has been criticized as being rather restricted in range. Rubbish. It’s what he does what the range he has, a sense of spot-on economy of phrasing that is of a piece with his guitar playing. Again, those magisterial solos on the long, dirge-like pieces (Night Comes In, For Shame of Doing Wrong, Calvary Cross) have confirmed me in my often-held belief that Thompson is the greatest electric guitarist to ever come out of England. His style has strong roots both in the acoustic folk traditions of his mother country and also a reverence for styles coming from across the ocean. When he stretches out, it´s with modal variations on the chord changes, using his whole instrument and rarely playing single-note runs up or down the neck. In a rock setting, even when more of a roots setting like this one, it is very rare for an ensemble with a single guitarist to be able to let that guitarist stretch out like that without feeling a gap in the center somewhere where the rhythm should be, which is why so many of the ‘power trios’ relied on instrumental pyrotechnics to overcome that handicap. But the way Richard plays makes the rock distinction between “rhythm” and “lead” guitars seem utterly beside the point, the plaything of adolescents. Like the best of the English guitarist like Ralph McTell or Bert Jansch, or the best American fingerpickers like Mississippi John Hurt or Fred McDowell, who are a one-man-bands without ever showing off, just graceful. It’s why you can bring someone who finds most guitar solos tedious and self-indulgent to see Richard play, even to this day, and they will walk away astounded at the man’s mastery – and not just of “his instrument”, but of his own musicality. The reason I have often felt he is perhaps the best electric guitarist out there (I’m moving beyond the UK now..), is because he always, ALWAYS, plays to the song. It’s not just that he knows when to hold back and let a stunning voice like Linda’s command the stage – it’s also that what he is doing in those moments is still so nuanced and complex, even when minimal or understated. That’s what has always made him a “musician’s musician” with a cult following, rather than an Eric Clapton who can wow football stadiums with his wankery and blues clichés.

The recording is remarkably warm and fresh sounding, not sure why it took so long for this to be released as an official album since there was obviously care taken in the recording of it.


1. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (3:15)
2. Hard Luck Stories (3:51)
3. Night Comes In (10:48)
4. Morris Medley: Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket / Shepherd's Hey / Bean Setting / Shooting (5:20)
5. A Heart Needs a Home (4:20)
6. Why Don't You Love Me? (2:40)
7. Now Be Thankful (2:57)
8. Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair (2:56)
9. Streets of Paradise (4:27)
10. For Shame of Doing Wrong (8:16)
11. Calvary Cross (14:01)
12. Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Song) (4:13)
13. Things You Gave Me (2:33)
14. It'll Be Me (4:51)
15. Together Again (3:23)

Bridget St. John - Songs for the Gentle Man (1971)

1. Day Away 2. City Crazy 3. Early Morning Song 4. Back to Stay 5. Seagull-Sunday 6. If You'd Been There 7. Songs For the Laird of Connaught Hall Pt. 2 8. Making Losing Better 9. Lady & The Gentle Man 10. Downderry Daze 11. Pebble & The Man 12. It Seems Very Strange
This record simultaneously haunts and soothes, a well-crafted piece of baroque psychedelic folk whose understatedness perhaps accounts for why Bridget has been unjustly ignored by the so-called "freak folk" revival of recent years. Her voice draws comparisons to Nico, except that Bridget sings on pitch, and unfortunately that comparison may have kept some from taking in her singular and unique vision. All of Bridget's records are wonderful but this one is a particular favorite of mine. I can, and have, written all manner of overwrought graduate-student prose about this album but I will hold my tongue and let it speak for itself. Often people stumble across her work via her associations with John Peel, Kevin Ayers, or Nick Drake. I found out about her through the personal recommendation of a friend many years ago, and for me that's the best way to discover something as special as this record is to me. If you like it, buy the reissue from Cherry Red. Bridget is still around, living in NYC, and occasionally performing.Songs for the Gentle Man (1971) {Dandelion/Cherry Red} baixar aqui!