A Lark Ascending

The slow movement of Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony!

Summer nights when you can have the living room door open all day! In the UK this is only really possible from about June to early September. Sometimes a bit earlier!

The Watersons I know...they look like Yorkshire farmers whose sheep have all just expired from foot and mouth but they are one of the jewels of English music. I've been playing them alot whilst slowly turning my garden from the Somme into something acceptable.

My Dad has always had an instinctive love of popular music - light opera, well known classics, the popular stuff of the 30s, 40s, 50s - but absolutely no curiosity outside of that. To my Mum music is a pleasant background. She hates traditional Irish music (or revival stuff) dismissing it as 'Them old come-all-yees'. I think it reminds her of what she was escaping from back in 1944 when she first came to England. So if it is hereditary it would appear to skip generations.

Well yesterday... That's Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill. A fiddle, a guitar. Everything played sloooooow!!!!! Breathtaking. From County Clare but Hayes lives in Seattle. Track him down Seattlers. Yer man with 6 CDs of private recordings. One I've been curious about for years. I've seen him live twice, both times electrifying. Never found a disc that came close. Could this be it?

I think it might be time to create a 'tongue-in-cheek' smiley!

And I almost forgot...

Or even...

Or this:

Or this... [That's June Tabor - Abyssinians, 1983]

Or this...

And how did they miss this...

Just don't make it only available from a US wine shop on purchasing two bottles of the stuff!

How can any list of the 1980s omit: A Spaghetti Western with Uilleann Pipes! Jigs and reels arranged to perfection. Andy Irvine at his heartbreaking best! And Christy Moore in excelsis on the astounding 'Little Musgrave' - the same long ballad better known as 'Matty Groves' but done with a gentleness and deftness of touch (and a different melody) that makes it a very different animal to the Fairport barnstormer. Oh, and then there's the last minute of the record that contains the greatest piece of flute playing ever put to record. Thank you Matt Molloy!

I've never been much of a film goer or TV watcher so I've missed most of the vital films of the last 49 years (I have seen Lawrence of Arabia!). Too much music to listen to! I'll look out for it on the TV! I know it by reputation but that's it! (I'm not sure I have a political outlook, Dan. Just a bundle of contradictory prejudices!)

Ah! I've never seen it! Thanks!

Take a look here for lots of enthusiastic approval: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...andy%20bey&st=0 Someone I'd travel a way to see (though not as far as Switzerland!).

"We'll Meet Again" as recorded by Vera Lynn is an iconic record in the UK alongside "The White Cliffs of Dover", summing up the WWII years. But by the 60s it was something your parents listened to with misty eyed memories. So why on earth did The Byrds and The Turtles record it in the mid-60s? I'm bewildered!

I'd not worry. I seem to recall reading that Munch painted a number of Screams! Probably did the T-shirts too!

Hmm! The word 'Celtic' in the world of folk music brings on the same apoplexy from folk enthusiasts that 'Smooth Jazz' does in jazz circles. A catch-all marketing term these days. I never explored Horslips - they were always much rockier, though I'm intrigued by the idea of 'The Tain'. Planxty had their roots in the Irish tradition but had a Woody Guthrie/Dylan obsession too that made them sound relevant to the youth of the 70s (like me!). They helped provide a gateway back into Irish music for a generation and were soon followed by a wave of great contemporary bands like The Bothy Band, De Danann and others, drawn from the vibrant live tradition in Ireland. I suppose they'd equate to a group like The Dillards.

POSTSCRIPT: Re: my suggestion for a Winwood/Santana get together. The September Jazzwise carries a review of a Carlos concert at Montreux where he played with McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Ravi Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and...wait for it...a vocal appearance by one Steve Winwood! Very enthusiastic review - one set of Marley, Lennon, Gaye, Mayfield etc covers (the reviewer calls the material 'inspirational' for the players!); a second set of tunes in the 'Love, Devotion and Surrender' vein. Shorter was on fine form according to the reviewer. Well, that's one step nearer. Maybe we'll get a CD!

You're not Carlos Santana in disguise are you?

Is there a vaccine? (my bank manager told me to ask that!)

Excuse the current blarney but I'm still overwhelmed by my trip across the water... Anyway, last Saturday I was in Athlone, bang in the centre of Ireland where my Mum comes from. Sent her off with an old school friend to chew the fat and wandered around. Eventually found a bookshop. Inside I found a nice book - 'Athlone in Old Photographs' - with lots of photos from the first half of the last century when my Mum was growing up. So I bought it for her. Whilst waiting in the car I was flicking through it and was taken by a picture of 'THE ATHLONE JAZZ MANIACS' from sometime in the 30s. And there in the picture was my grandfather, Stephen Croghan, holding a euphonium. I'd known he'd been a amateur musician but thought it was brass bands. My Mum later told me his first instrument was saxophone! So there you are! I'm now convinced I've inherited what I always thought was a piece of fine selection by my own ears!

There always has to be one...