JULY 2012 PLAYLIST

This months playlist came together shortly before I undertook a bumper armchair Folk Festival weekend bonanza. With the Sky Arts TV Channel giving the Cambridge Folk Festival massively comprehensive coverage (and not having quite the same headliner transmission difficulty they endured with Isle Of Wight) I also discovered that the Newport Folk Festival in America was being streamed in live chunks on the internet. Wow, what a rare opportunity this was to compare and contrast the two premier folk events from the UK and the US.

America’s Newport Folk Festival was the scene of perhaps the pivotal cultural moment in 20^th Century traditional based music when, in 1965, Bob Dylan come up against a brick wall of musically-conservative resistance by trying to introduce the crowd to his electric sound. I’m not sure Cambridge ever had such a high profile moment of collision (but anyone present at Cambridge about twelve years ago when Nick Cave played the main stage might disagree) and anyway, since Dylan let the cat out of the bag there’s been a gradual shift to electric instruments being treated as the norm and the umbrella encompassing any musical form that’s got a few roots showing and veers away from the mainstream.  In the end though, it’s clear to me that Newport wins the battle of the folk festivals hands down.

You find yourself sitting watching someone like Seth Lakeman at Cambridge and, he’s good. He’s an upbeat, amiable sort of fellow playing alongside his studious looking brother but for me, the jigs and reels based folksy ditties just don’t weave any magic. Here’s a performer giving you dexterous proficiency but very little in the way of actual passion. Then glance over at the internet and it’s Conor Oberst on Newports main stage, a musician of markedly less technical skill than Seth, not even a particularly great voice but still he captures your attention; there’s an effortless charisma and a certain angst in his performance that takes it away from mere track and field work out and into actual art. Then he’ll pull Jim James and Jonathan Wilson out onto the stage thus elevating proceedings into a serious musical happening. This really must be the place to be right now! This happens quite a few times across the weekend; I mean with headliners like Newports Wilco and Jackson Browne set against The Proclaimers and Clannad it might look an unfair contest but the US event just seemed to have far more emphasis on music of the modern world as opposed to combos whose sole purpose is a preservation of the past. I just don’t see Cambridge booking acts like My Morning Jacket and Of Monsters And Men and if they ever put Sharon Van Etten on the main stage there she’d surely get removed under a barrage of rolled up copies of the Daily Mail.

Therein lies my problem with Cambridge Folk Festival, the overbearing devotion routinely showered on polite yet dull workhorses like Show Of Hands and Kate Rusby (neither present this year from what I could tell) and nowhere near enough kudos given to some of the exciting young folk talent that’s arisen over the past decade. Indeed bands like Vetiver or Fleet Foxes haven’t had so much as an invite because annually the rotation of the Karine Polwarts and Jim Morays has to be maintained so inevitably there’s no room. It’s a shame because the festival gets it so spectacularly right in spurts; this year the Unthanks with Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band looked like a spellbinding combination whilst other acts such as June Tabor & Oysterband, Anais Mitchell, Ruthie Foster and Lau sounded absolutely vital. For now though it looks like it’s the US that has the (cutting) edge, it’s the one that’s screams ‘relevant’ and seems to offer an open minded inclusiveness. Cambridge comes across like an exclusive little private club that’d prefer it if you didn’t try and join in and pollute the safe mix. Ironically, in 2012 it is the Cambridge Folk Festival that needs a Newport ‘65 style storm to shake the audience out of its comfort zone and take the event on into a new golden era.

While we’re waiting, why not enjoy a nice eclectic mix of tunes and styles with our July 2012 playlist:

Water – Nigel Kennedy

I Don’t Need You – Ral Donner

She Brings The Sunlight – Richard Hawley

I Bought My Eyes – Ty Segall Band

Weep Themselves To Sleep – Jack White

The Real World – The Bangles

Josephine – Billy Joel

Imagination – The Quotations

Then The Heartaches Begin – The Hollies

Blackeye – Love Inks

After You – Chastity Brown

Take It Back – Norah Jones

Don’t Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas) – Regina Spektor

Gimme Some – Nina Simone

Back In Love Again – Donna Summer

Let’s Stay Together – Al Green

Grandma’s Hands – Bill Withers

Goodbye – Melody Gardot

This Land Is Your Land – Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Judas (Was A Red Headed Man) – June Tabor

Looking For A Home – Bert Jansch

Let Me Know – Smoke Fairies

Elder Tree – Tarantella

Lipstick Traces – Benny Spellman

Shut Eye – Stealing Sheep

I’m Writing A Novel  - Father John Misty

Why She’s Acting This Way – Townes Van Zandt

Trying To Get To You – The Eagles

I (Who Have Nothing) – Ben E.King

Oh My Love – Inara George

Strange Mercy – St. Vincent

Forever In Blue – Ren Harvieu

Miroirs: III Une Barque Sur L’ocean – Anna Vinnitskaya

Eclectic Warrior July 2012