Rounding up the Festival - bar one!

 The Morning Star have today rounded up a few of my reviews (and one by FairPley's Stephen Wright) into a compilations piece, here. The review for Canzionere Grecanico Salentino/Complete has already been published on this blog (previous article). Below is the full version of the reviews of Blood and Roses - the excellent Ewan MacColl tribute, and The Music of Craig Armstrong, with the composer and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. Both were at the Royal Concert Hall.
I think that Arthur Johnstone and Friends should have a review to itself and I think the Morning Star is planning that for later this week.

It's a family affair

Ewan MacColl

What’s the best way to celebrate your dad's 100th birthday? Particularly if that dad was a Marxist, actor, singer, songwriter, playwright, folk revivalist and documentary producer? What better way, thought Calum and Neill MacColl, than to gather together the family, friends, and those influenced by their dad, Ewan, and have them sing his songs. On Sunday at Glasgow's Celtic Connections, the city's Royal Concert Hall resounded with the result. Starting with Calum reading a message from his mum and Ewan's widow, Peggy, the night was full of family connections. In addition to sons Neill and Calum, who curated the concert, grandsons, Jamie, Alex, and Tom MacColl and Harry Mead were on hand to play and sing.

Eliza Carthy

Other family connections were provided by a different folk dynasty, Eliza Carthy was joined by her father and mother, Martin Carthy, and Norma Waterson to harmonise strongly on The Moving On Song, and Thirty Foot Trailer.

Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and many other luminaries joined them to demonstrate the breadth and depth of MacColl's talent. From the use of peoples' own testimony to document their working (and travelling lives) - Chaim Tannenbaum on Shoals of Herring, and the Waterson:McCarthy family on Shift Boys, Shift, through to socialist and campaigning songs - Go Down you Murderers, again from the talented Tannenbaum, and the irrepressible Dick Gaughan with the Spanish Civil War song, Jamie Foyers.

Paul Buchanan

But MacColl's talent also ran to the deeply personal yet universal love songs. Calum MacColl and Karine Polwart duetted on Nobody Knew She Was There, his song for his mother, Betsy Miller, and the Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan managed to deliver a deeply felt and poignant version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, a song  covered by so many people the versions were described by Ewan and Peggy as their 'chamber of horrors! Possibly the most personal however, was the ending of the first half by the sons and grandsons gathering to sing the shanties that MacColl sang around the house.

All in all, a tremendous concert and a fitting tribute to a tremendous socialist talent. Where else would you be able to see Jarvis Cocker and Norma Waterson duetting on Dirty Old Town? 

The Music of Craig Armstrong  

Craig Armstrong

This was one of the concerts that Celtic Connections throws into the mix from time to time to broaden its musical appeal, to open ears to something different, and – let’s face it – to stir up controversy! An orchestral concert featuring film scores is guaranteed to get the critics harrumphing ‘it’s not Celtic Connections’.

As it is far from clear what the criteria are (or if there are any), it is probably best to judge concerts on their merits. The Music of Craig Armstrong  was worth a five star rating by this standard. Armstrong is probably not a household name, certainly he gives the impression of being uncomfortable in the limelight, but it is almost certain that you have heard his music.

He has written the music for numerous films; Love Actually, Moulin Rouge, Romeo & Juliet, The Quiet American, Far from the Madding Crowd amongst them. Yet the main enthusiasm he expressed is for his work with fellow-Glaswegian, Peter Mullan – Armstrong wrote the music for both Mullan’s Orphans and The Magdalene Sisters – and played the main theme from Orphans.

The concert covered many of Armstrong’s film scores and his own albums, with particular emphasis on his new album, It’s Nearly Tomorrow. Armstrong has a huge talent to get feeling into his music, and he and the musicians he works with are equally good in getting it back out again!

Lucia Fontaine

The massive concert featured a galaxy of fine musicians – James Grant, and Katie O’Halloran sang particularly fine versions of Nature Boy, and One Day I’ll Fly Away respectively. Amongst other guests were former Scottish Ensemble leader, Clio Gould and cellist Alison Lawrence, but the standout was young singer Lucia Fontainé whose voice on Crash outshone the recorded version.

Referendum shows weren't the highlight.

The Morning Star asked me to review the cultural side of the struggle for 2014. This is what I felt were the key moments of an eventful year. Next year already looks as if it too, is shaping up to be a goody - with a retrospective of Ewan McColl's music, and a celebration of Arthur Johnstone featuring at Celtic Connections 2015.

The 2014 referendum debate inevitably had an impact on this year’s productions. However the domination of pro-Yes sympathies in Scotland’s artistic community didn’t lead to as much important work as anticipated. Successful shows used the debate as a stepping-off point to examine the nature of Scotland, like Rona Munro’s James plays for the National Theatre of Scotland (NToS) at the Edinburgh Festival. 

Front looked at the 1WW from both sides

 

However it is a production in that festival that addressed a different political issue that gets my vote as outstanding. Front, a Flemish production from a German company about the first world war in Flemish, German, French and English was outstanding. Using both Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Henri Barbusse’s Under Fire as source material, this was a shocking, emotional and political view from both sides of the line. 

For those who said that the referendum was too close to allow that perspective, NToS also produced the Yes, No, Don’t Know Show, a series of short pieces curated by David Greig and the late and much-missed Dave MacLennan, which was vibrant and humorous. 

Celtic Connections was referendum-lite. Rebel Musics saw Dick Gaughan and Dave Swarbrick  explore the connections between reggae and Scottish music, the Roaming Roots Review’s look at West Coast US music sparkled and the powerful Imelda May rocked out.

Fraser Speirs on the moothy. Rab Noakes on Guitar

Glasgow’s MayDay Cabaret delivered a sell-out concert for the second year in the city’s Oran Mor, with stand-out performances from Bruce Morton and Rab Noakes.

Pro-Yes productions dominated the Edinburgh Festival fringe. Much was poor but David Hayman (pictured) in a A Pitiless Storm rose above the herd. Bravely, Phil Differ’s MacBraveheart had a pop at all sides and crackled with language gags, while Mark Thomas’s history of betrayal, Cuckooed, delivered a thoughtful story. 

 

We lost both 7:84/Wildcat/Play, Pie & Pint founder Dave MacLennan and politician Tony Benn this

The late, and much-missed Dave Maclennan

year. With typical Glasgow resolve, both became the subjects of excellent celebratory concerts, with a galaxy of stars marking the passing of two major talents.

Film of the year for me must go to Pride, the story of the LGBT community and their support for the striking miners in 1984-5. Although flawed by the failure to recognise the politics of a main character — Mark Ashton became general secretary of the Young Communist League — it still highlighted the strong links built between different communities under attack. 

Also heartening was the increasing use of cultural events by campaigns. A series of workers’ films is planned by a local GMB branch and  a range of talks and films was staged by Hope Not Hate in Glasgow around the anti-racist St Andrews Day rally. And of course the Morning Star’s own Our Class, Our Culture series continued its success.

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

-->

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’?

Celtic Connections - politics and herding cats

Celtic Connections is now over half way done, and it is looking like another successful year. The mix of folk, world, rock, blues and Americana is proving to attract wide audiences, and the off-the-wall events too, are bringing ‘em in.

Amongst the early events that I saw, was Shamrock City’a concert (on 18 Jan) built around a new music and film project about to be launched by well-known Irish-American band Solas. The project is based on the history of Irish immigrants to America, especially the large number of them who travelled to Butte, Montana to work in the booming copper mines at the turn of the 20^th century. 

Mines in Uptown Butte

Among them was the great- great-uncle of Seamus Egan, ‘Solas’ founder. Working together, the hugely talented group of musicians in the band have produced a superb history/celebration of the impact that the Irish had on Butte, and the impact that Butte had on them. It is surely no accident that Butte is one of the few cities in the USA which has had a Mayor elected (twice!) on a Socialist ticket! 

The concert itself was a great success. The projections complemented the mix of ballad, jig and political song that made up the musical side to the project, and the appearance of Dick Gaughan to sing the miner’s union song was well received by the large audience. 

The appearance of the Co-operative Funeralcare Brass Band was also an unexpected treat. Drafted in at short notice, they successfully added depth to some of the material. 

It was maybe even more appropriate to preview this album in Scotland just now. An unexpected, and very welcome addition to the debate over immigration, nationality, borders and working people, it added a further element to the political strand that forms a core part of Celtic Connections.

All together now!

Levon Helm. The Band's drummer

Another successful development that has distinguished Celtic Connections recently is the ‘Review Concert’. Best done around in tribute to a particular musician or style, one of this years successes was the Roamin’ Roots Review (20 January). 

Based on the contribution of Levon Helm (who died last year), and the Band, this was a fitting tribute to a seminal musician. Curated by Roddy Hart, with his band The Lonesome Fire producing a unifiying rock backing, the concert brought together, Levon’s daughter Amy; Scottish folk trio, Lau; Rachel Sermanni; Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit); talented singer-songwriter Beerjacket; Admiral Fallow's Louis Abbott and Ben Knox Miller

of The Low Anthem. 

Two additional guests who both delivered cracking short sets, were Irish singer Gemma Hayes, and top English folkie, Beth Orton. Finishing off the evening with The Weight, and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, this demonstrated how good it is when someone (in this case Roddy Hart) can successfully bring groups of diverse musicians together and park their egos at the stage door. Another Celtic Connections success story!