Roots men make rebel connection in Glasgow

Much has been written about the links between British folk music and American roots music, much less so between British folk and Jamaican reggae. But that is the area that  Scottish Canadian musician Jason Wilson, and his band have been exploring in the last few years, with the help of English fiddle player Dave Swarbrick, and Scottish troubadour, Dick Gaughan. Last night's Rebel Musics concert at Oran Mor, as part of Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival showcased the results of that work, and previewed (it was designed to launch!) the collaborative album Lion Rampant, that Wilson's Band have recorded along with a multinational galaxy of guests

Dave Swarbrick

The links between the music are certainly more evident now than they were two years ago, when I last saw them - Swarbrick's Spanish Ladies dance tune works suprisingly well with a heavy reggae bass beat behind the fiddle! And Gaughan was clearly 'dancing in the oldest boots he owned' as he delivered Tom Paine's Bones! I hope it isn't heresy to suggest however that sometimes the link looks too contrived? I'm not sure adding Marley's No Woman, No Cry, on to the end of Burns' My luve is like a red, red rose adds much to our appreciation of either, despite Gaughan's inimitable delivery.

To add to the international mix, Pee Wee Ellis, past member of both the James Brown and Van Morrison bands, provided an excellent example of funk sax playing on a version of And it Stoned Me.

Earlier, singer-songwriter, Fraser Anderson (think early John Martyn meets a quiet Loudon Wainwright) played a laid-back set mixing his own material with Bob Dylan, Peter Sarstedt and an interesting Woody Guthrie poem, Sweetest Angel, that Anderson had set to music.

Dick Gaughan

Links between national musical traditions, as this concert showed, can come up with excellent new takes on old standards. They also demonstrate that links between peoples, are often much more important than national divisions. Gaughan's traditional finish of Hamish Henderson's international anthem, the Freedom Come-All Ye,  demonstrated that.

This is my Morning Star review of the Celtic Connections concert, Rebel Musics, starring Jason Wilson, Dick Gaughan, Dave Swarbrick and Pee Wee Ellis.  It took place at Oran Mor on Thursday 23 January 2014. It is as written, as I think the para on Pee Wee Ellis, works better linked to the set in which he played. I've appropriated the Star's headline however, as it is much better than mine! The piece as published is here.

Far, far from Ypres, and not yet close to a target

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If producing a show that deals with a cataclysmic event, such as a war. especially a war that consumed so many lives for so little purpose, it is useful to have an aim in view. What was the impact of it? Did people die in vain, or for a purpose? If there were disasters, why did they happen? Unfortunately the lack of such an aim or target in Friday's (17) First World War concert at Glasgow's Celtic Connections (Far, far from Ypres) in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ultimately meant that it lost its way.

The material itself was often excellent, and the artists - including Barbara Dickson, Dick Gaughan and rising folk star, Siobhan Miller - more than did it justice. But the confusion about what the show set out to do, ultimately meant that it failed.

Billed as the music, songs and poetry of World War One from a Scottish perspective, the show used contemporary songs - music hall and troops own - in a similar vein to (and using much the same material from) theatre workshop's 'Oh, What a lovely War!'. However lacking the clear political perspective of that show, meant that we were also subjected to trite jingoistic material with no sense of irony or sarcasm. And of course, troops' songs in a major conflict such as the First World War don’t tend to fit into a Scottish, or any national perspective.

Ian McCalman, who directed the musical show, also mixed in some later material such as Eric Bogle's The Band played 'Waltzing Matilda' which, while a superb song, is about ANZAC troops in Gallipoli. I’m not sure Bogle’s Scottish birth was sufficient link.

The device of using ‘Jimmy McDonald’, an ‘everyman’ figure, could also have worked, if he hadn’t been introduced and then forgotten about for most of the show! Even when he had to be dispatched, he went via the Spanish ‘flu outbreak of 1919, rather than in the war itself. Ian Anderson’s narration, while clear, reinforced the view that this was intended to be a journey. But not knowing whether we were tracking the impact on the squaddies, history, the battles, or Scotland meant that we didn't really know where we were going.

It was a disappointment, that after such a successful opening venture as McCalman’s Spanish Civil War songs last year, this one didn’t gel. It wouldn’t take much to get it right. Perhaps it should be regarded as a ‘work in progress’?