Forever Forwards

And so to the theatre. I have been to see 'Dare Devil Rides to Jarama', a play which speaks not just to my love of theatre, but also to my interest in military history, socialism, walking and speedway. I accept that the last of those might not have featured too much in this blog to date. Indeed it is an interest that might accurately be described as dormant, but nevertheless it's there. Despite (or perhaps because of) mon vrai nom it's the only motor sport that I've ever had any time for and I used to go to watch the Wembley Lions during their brief reappearance in the early 1970s.

The play was put on by Townsend Productions whose 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' and 'We Will Be Free!' - the latter about the Tolpuddle Martyrs - I had both seen and enjoyed. With only a cast of two they recreated everything from dirt track racing, the wall of death and the mass trespass on Kinder Scout through to Franco's advance on Madrid, with the audience providing appropriate sound effects when required through the use of those rattles that one sees in old film of football matches. The one point where the audience participation fell a little flat was when we were invited to jeer at the leader of the blackshirts; I obviously can't have been the only one to find the portrayal more Spode than Mosley.

The story is that of Clem Beckett, champion rider, union organiser, rambler, and anti-fascist who, as member of the British Battalion of the International Brigades, was killed on the first day of the Battle of Jarama. Sadly the telling of it matches up neither to its inspirational subject matter nor the theatrical verve and skill with which it is presented. The play just isn't particularly well-written and despite the acting and the design - both very good - it fails to engage the emotions. Beckett himself came across as rather selfish, which for a man who gave his life for someone else's cause is a real own goal by the author.

However, I'm glad that I went and look forward to their next production, which will be about Grunwicks, something I saw at first hand.

Pot61pouri

"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." - Socrates 

Needless to say, I fully concur with him. Nathanial Hawthorne once wrote that "Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth." Nothing demonstrates that lack of flourishing more than the stunted moral compass of Theresa May and her Little Englander acolytes.

My health continues to improve, although I still get tired very easily. Nevertheless I have managed to get out to a number of things, albeit far fewer than those that I had tickets for and didn't get to. I saw the National Theatre's broadcast of 'The Threepenny Opera', which was excellent. At the risk of repeating myself, these broadcasts really are a great resource for those of us who live in the provinces. I have also seen a touring production of 'A Tale of Two Cities', entertaining enough, but Sidney Carton's actions never get any more plausible. I find the alternative put forward by Keith Laidler in 'The Carton Chronicles' to be much more convincing. Last, but not least, I have been to see Peggy Seeger. Despite being in her eighties she is still in fine voice and is a more than effective multi-instrumentalist. She was strongest on the more personal songs, those written for her by her late brothers or by Ewan MacColl. And the young chap accompanying her did what I thought was impossible; he played a banjo - a fretless banjo in this case - in a way that I actually enjoyed.

And, for the record, I voted for Jeremy Corbyn again.

And everywhere there was song and celebration

It is the Otley Folk Festival this weekend. I became aware that it had started when, having retired not particularly early, I was awoken by someone singing 'Dirty Old Town' very loudly outside my house. I didn't mind that so much, but was somewhat less pleased when upon stepping out of my front door this morning I walked straight into three morris dancers. I was accompanied by the big bouncy woman who, to my astonishment, professed a liking for men prancing around with bells on their trousers and pigs bladders on sticks. Still as Jean-Paul Sartre said "We do not judge the people we love".

On the subject of quotations, it was Winston Churchill who first said "Never let a good crisis go to waste". I'm now feeling slightly better and so I have suspended my no nursing rule; the big bouncy woman was with me because she had been on first shift today.  Always careful of her reputation she is keen that I should point out to readers that the level of any perking up that may have taken place was specially tailored to my invalid status.

After lunch, when I'd also been visited by la seconda infermiera, I felt well enough to step outside to give the folk festival's street entertainment the once over. It was all very pleasant: the sun shone, the streets were busy, there was food and drink (not for Epictetus, who hasn't eaten anything but porridge for some days now), and the Ukulele Orchestra of Otley were just packing up as I arrived. In my brief visit I saw passable covers of songs from artists such as John Martyn and Joni Mitchell plus a Chuck Berry song that I'd never heard before. It wasn't one of his best, but any Chuck Berry song has got to be good right? Except for 'My Dingaling' obviously.

I Guess A Man's Got To Do What He's Best At

A couple of posts ago I noted that I had some hot wargaming action to report on, but I can't for the life of me imagine to what I was referring, so we're back to music again. I have been to see Ian Siegal and Jimbo Mathus play some acoustic blues. I've seen the former before when he was backed by the Mississippi Mudbloods featuring the rather excellent Cody and Luther Dickinson, but not on that occasion Alvin Youngblood Hart. It was only three years ago or so but I don't seem to have written it up in this blog at the time. For the record: the band were excellent; I was accompanied by a rather delightful French lady that I used to knock about with (inexplicably only now making her first appearance in the blog); and the council/police closed the venue down almost immediately afterwards. It was through the Dickinson brothers that Siegal met Mathus, himself from Mississippi and a man with strong connections to the history of the blues. Indeed his childhood nanny was Rosetta Patton, daughter of Charley Patton, the man who taught Robert Johnson to play and Chester Burnett to sing. Siegal, who does a nice Howlin' Wolf type vocal tribute, comes from the deep south of Hampshire rather than the delta and tells the story of how the locals in the Mississippi hill country, having trouble pronouncing his first name, gave him a nickname based on his place of origin: 'Overseas' Siegal. Knowledge of the rest of the world has never been a strength among Americans in my experience.

Musically, they covered a wider range than strictly the blues, indeed they equalled Tom Russell's record of playing two songs referencing Pancho Villa in the lyrics; these being Russell's own 'Gallo del Cielo' and Steve Earle's 'Mercenary Song'. From the folk canon they gave us 'Casey Jones' and, of all things, 'Dirty Old Town'.

The Manchester Rambler

One hundred years ago today Ewan MacColl (né Jimmie Miller), the Grammy-winning social activist, was born in Salford. A complex man, with plenty of negatives, one must nevertheless stand back and admire the achievements. As a keen walker I've always enjoyed his song about the mass trespass at Kinder Scout:

And who could resist a song called 'Ballad of Accounting'?

Farewell to you, my love, my time is almost done
Lie in my arms once more until the darkness comes
You filled all my days, held the night at bay, dearest companion
Years pass by and they're gone with the speed of birds in flight
Our lives like the verse of a song heard in the mountains
Give me your hand and love and join your voice with mine
And we'll sing of the hurt and the pain and the joy of living

- from 'The Joy of Living'

Ain't that mud in your eye

There seems to be a brief hiatus in the sequence of tours by bands whom I haven't seen play for forty years. I have therefore embarked on a brief diversion into watching acts whom I wished that I had seen forty years ago, but for some reason didn't. First up was Nils Lofgren, who on his last visit to Leeds played alongside Bruce Springsteen in front of twenty thousand people at the opening of the arena. On this occasion he had to make do with a capacity crowd of seven hundred and fifty at the City Varieties, but it didn't seem to affect his enthusiasm or energy.

It was an excellent gig, indeed an early contender for the hotly contested and prestigious 'Discourses on Wargaming' concert of the year title. Lofgren of course has not just been a member of the E-Street Band, but also of Crazy Horse and the highlight for me, being as you know somewhat of a pseud, was his explanation of how he had come up with the piano part on 'Southern Man' whilst playing on the sessions for 'After the Goldrush'. The speeding up of the piano during Neil Young's guitar solos apparently owes a debt to the accordion lessons that his parents made him take as a child in Chicago.

Lofgren is as good a guitarist as I have ever seen. Certainly he knocked spots off Clapton's concert last year (and was immensely more personable), and I'd put him up there with Catfish Keith; high praise indeed. He also played keyboards, a harp (I don't mean a harmonica, I mean a real harp) and tapdanced. Sadly a double hip replacement meant that the trampoline has been retired.

Song of the set - not yet a blog award, but I'm considering it - was final encore 'Shine Silently', but he naturally also performed favourites such as 'Keith Don't Go', 'I Came to Dance', etc.

The last song is also by way of a lead in to tomorrow's post.