Background

In appreciation of Paul Brady...




I first heard Paul Brady's music about ten years ago while visiting my friend Peter Stone Brown in Philadelphia. One night up in his office-come-music-treasure-trove he said, "you have to hear this" and proceded to play me Brady's interpretation of Arthur McBride. I can't be sure, but I believe the version I was hearing for the first time was the recording from Nobody Knows: The Best of Paul Brady. The room buzzed for a moment as new sounds provoked new sensations. Apart from the acoustic songs on Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks it was probably my first real conscious exposure to open tunings. The first thing that struck was not necessarilly these beautiful passing and picked double-toned chords pulsing through the narrative of that soldier who always is decent and clean, but the voice. Paul Brady is one hell of a singer. 


Arthur McBride

At this point my knowledge of folk was pretty slim, and certainly still is. Music is a lifetime  auto-didactic accumulation and anyone who invests in a love of music listening and music making like I try to spends periods of time being amazed and shocked by the profundity of new music and new combinations of sounds and sometimes conversely periods of equal disillusionment. This was before I discovered Nic Jones, another great guitar player, who I would discover bending the notes in his open-c tunings, something unheard of in folk apparently. 

In a way Bob Dylan brought me to both Brady and Jones, through his good nowhere-near-as-great interpretations of Arthur McBride and Canadee-io, which were more than just a nod to the musicianship and influence both Brady and Jones obviously had on him. I still remember the night I heard Arthur McBride as being one of the best examples of those magical moments of exposure to something new. 

Andy Irvine & Paul Brady - Streets of Derry

 Soon after I heard The Lakes of Ponchartrain and would go on to discover the album Paul recorded with Andy Irvine, which included Arthur McBride and Mary and the Soldier (also recorded by Bob Dylan and intended for inclusion on World Gone Wrong). Another highlight of that record is Andy Irvine's rendition of Streets of Derry, which opens with a mystic melodic hurdy gurdy drone and slips into a simply beautiful juxtaposition of morning, evening and 'another day' against the passing of 'false love' and the coming of 'true love'.

The Lakes of Ponchartrain

Some years after this initial discovery I met an old school friend - who's family were of Irish descent - on a train, and I happened to be listening to a song called The Island by Brady. He was stunned that I knew of the song and told me how much that song meant to him. We never connected at school, and never will again, but at that moment we had something in common, that Brady was like a great secret, one of the best kept secrets in music and we were one of those who had heard him and knew how great his stuff was.



We both agreed it was a song, that even before it really kicks off, can bring on a storm of tears. He talked admiringly of Brady's music as he knew it from growing up in a household of musicians and I was envious  wishing that I had been brought up in a family of musicians. I learned guitar only at 17, but luckily Brady was one of my first influences.

Crazy Dreams - Live on Jools Holland (1996)

My next hallelujah moment with Brady's music came from seeing a performance of Crazy Dreams on Later... with Jools Holland. I had heard the original, but even though I knew it was a great song and in so many words a kind of hit song for Brady, it wasnt till this performance that I realised how great a song it was. Again, it was Brady's voice that cut through. His sharp cluster of chord inversions shooting up the guitar neck was like the 'blizzard blowin' in from off the river' as he fires the verse at the studio audience. The power and panache of Liam Genockey's crazy beard and crazy drums, the tap dance of the late Kenny Craddock's piano and the steadfast bass of John Illsley make this song and performance a classic. I must have played that performance on repeat countless times over the past year or so since I discovered it.

My next shock and awe moment came at the Transatlantic Session's at the Sage in Gateshead last year, with a beautiful meeting of celtic music, bluegrass and what I guess was Appalachian folk featuring who I would later discover more of, the Shetland fiddler Ally Bain. At some point during the night, Brady took the stage and I didnt even realise it was him at first, but as soon as I heard that voice I couldnt help myself. I kept saying to those around me, 'that's Paul Brady up there'. The audience roared after his performance and although this was not the place where musicians compete, Brady really did grab the audience. If I remember correctly they all rounded off the evening with a tribute to Gerry Rafferty.

Anyway, Paul Brady is one of those great performers and songwriters that you sometimes accidentally come across and  who never fails to take you by surprise with his effortless talent and craft.

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Van Morrison



Alongside Dylan there are not many contemporaries who still stand up even now as a live performer or songwriter. I know some might dispute that, but I can tell you now, Dylan is still a formidable force when you see him perform. Leonard Cohen's initial 2008 concerts were a revelation for those who saw them, but again every night is a reproduction of the same stage patter and the endless band introductions and same arrangements without any real variation. As everyone probably knows Paul Mccarteney delivers a slick set with his rather bland yet sophisticated session players, but it's all essentially tribute.

Then there is Van Morrison, who manages to deliver astoundingly passionate invigorating performances of his material.There is ample evidence of this on youtube, even if Van's management love to remove these videos frequently and even though on the later performances Van is prone to slip into what less obsessive fans might see as a scat-sing-mumbling.

A testament to his brilliance as a live performer can be witnessed in the emotional rendition of Celtic New Year as performed on Later with Jools Holland in 2005. The performance complete with string section is deeply moving and is a performance I return to. See below for the video.

As a tribute to Van, who the press have been hounding a lot recently, I figured I should put up some of his best performances on youtube, starting first with a very rare video of him performing - during his Veedon Fleece period - Dylan's Just Like A Woman, at the Winterland, San Francisco, February 2nd 1974, which is sublime aside from the homophobic utterence of "this queer in here" during the bridge..



Van's performance in Montreux 1980 contains some of his best captured performances. Unfortunately not all of it is online anymore. But here is an absolutely superb rendition of Wavelength:


 Here is a t.t.t.t.tongue-tied stutteringly grand version of Cypress Avenue from the Filmore, 1970:


My person favourite however, for whatever inexplicable reason is later-period Van performing Celtic New Year in 2005. Something about the build up in the performance, when he gets to the last 'come back home my dear' to his hum and riff guitar parts at the close of the song make it special and raises a shy tear.



And obviously, we can't leave it without Van's 'electric light' moment during the Last Waltz:


Here's to Van Morrison! Can't wait to see you play live this year you old grumpus.

My favourite album of Van Morrison's without a doubt is Veedon Fleece:

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The blind search for 'Kid Future'...




If you like your John Fahey's, your Dave Van Ronk's and your Leo Koettke's and even further down the line you like your Derek Bailey's, Jim O'Rourkes' and David Grubbs', then you should listen to this guy - Stefan Grossman.

 Grossman plays superb 'fingerstyle' guitar and spent the weekends of his youth with gospel singer/guitarist Rev. Gary Davis learning guitar. The man is a historian of great guitar music and an indexing point for all of the acoustic guitar greats, as well as a truly great talent in his own right.

In the video below he also wears a fantastic beard:



Grossman got to play and study under other seminal figures, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and Mississippi Fred McDowell and in the sixties formed the Even Dozen Jug Band, of which several members went on to forge successful careers of their own, where Grossman remained relatively outside of the limelight. Although, he has the privilege of his own Martin Custom Edition guitar, the HJ-38 Stefan Grossman Custom Signature Edition and according to his Wikipedia entry is a market leader in instrument instruction. He resumed touring in 2006 and frequently visits the UK which is good news for me, as I will without a doubt attend one of his guitar workshops.

Here he is performing the 'Assassination of John Fahey':



Thanks to the online radio Pandora, (which I use daily) my listening tastes can be channelled through a particular style or artist, in this case Jim O' Rourke, leading me off into a world of good music that I may be hearing for the first time. Because of Pandora, I got to hear this guy for the first time and found myself in a familiar and comfortable world of guitar rags and guitar drones both traditional and experimental.

Although some may mourn the death in some cases - depending on geography - of hearing this music live, or swapping vinyls and tapes with avid collectors. This process is still occurring, if even on another level. Sites like Pandora or Spotify, although they don't allow us the opportunity to hold the album in our hands and run our fingers over the artwork or the vinyl, they do give us a window into a world, which was once governed by who you knew and where you lived at a certain point in history.

Playing Mississippi Blues in 1981 (great little back story as well):



Playing 'God Moves on The Water' (1972):


Access to this material at one time may have taken a music listener years to achieve and depend on a friend of a friend to provide a record and after much searching result in nights of bliss in front of their record player smoking pot reading the album sleeves. In my case as clinical as it may be, drinking coffee in the house on an afternoon with my laptop humming low I stumble upon Stefan Grossman. The hunt is not as majestic for the music, and beauty and yearning of the search may have died, but the beauty of the music is immediate and most importantly available.

Some who read this may already be aware of Stefan Grossman, and have discovered him in other ways perhaps more interesting, but the important point is discoveries are still personal, whether online, or in the real world.

Recommended link - http://www.guitarvideos.com/ 
Recommend listening - Yazoo Basin Boogie (album)


Others will far more knowledge than I could probably expand on this in the comments section...
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