Remembering Folk Legends Issue No:4

Volume 4

Folk

Legends

Gone,

But Not

Forgotten...

SFM

MAGAZINE

folk legends, gone, b

Folk music often features story telling

lyrics, and has been around throughout

the ages all around the world. Some

songs date back to medeival times and even

before those days, for example Greensleeves,

Scarborough Fair, Ave Maria, Song Of

Roland, Foy Porter to name but a few.

The artists and groups I’ve included in this

volume, and those who will feature in future

volumes are folk singers from the early 20th

century and beyond, whom while they are no

longer with us today, their ground breaking

music and songs are available for us to listen to

through recordings of albums and songs made

during their lifetimes.

I have used the majority of links to their music

from Discogs, from where, should you wish

to, you should be able to find copies of their

albums for yourself, also many of them can be

found on Youtube and similar music sites.

Most of the information about artists included

can be found on Wikipedia, should you wish

to discover more about them.

Folk songs address social issues and have

shaped movements like civil rights, antiwar

protests, and cultural change. They are

a vital backbone to our modern day lives,

and it’s wonderful to look back and reflect

on the many talented artists who have made

significant contributions to shaping the folk

music scene as we know it to be today.

Jane Shields - Editor/Producer of SFMM

| 02 janeshieldsmedia@gmail.com

Index

ut not forgotten...

INDEX

04 SINÉAD O’CONNOR

14 EWAN MACCOLL

22 JOHN HARTFORD

28 JUNE CARTER CASH

30 DAVID CROSBY

40 JEFF BUCKLEY

50 MARY MCCASLIN

52 NANCI GRIFFITH

58 RALPH STANLEY

64 RUSTY YOUNG

66 SHANE MACGOWAN

72 HEDY WEST

76 JEAN RITCHIE

82 KATE WOLF

84 BILL CLIFTON

86 BOB ROBERTS

90 BOB SHANE

janeshieldsmedia@gmail.com

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Sinéad O'Connor

Shuhada’ Sadaqata (born Sinéad Marie Bernadette

O’Connor; (8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023)

was an Irish singer-songwriter, record producer

and activist. Her debut studio album, “The Lion

and the Cobra”, was released in 1987 and achieved

international chart success. Her 1990 album, “I Do Not

Want What I Haven’t Got”, was her biggest commercial

success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its

lead single, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, was named the top

world single of the year at the Billboard Music Awards.

O’Connor achieved chart success with “Am I Not Your

Girl?” (1992) and “Universal Mother” (1994), both

certified gold in the UK, as well as “Faith and Courage”

(2000), certified gold in Australia. “Throw Down Your

Arms” (2005) achieved gold status in Ireland. Her

career encompassed songs for films, collaborations with

numerous artists, and appearances at charity fundraising

concerts. O’Connor’s memoir, “Rememberings”, was

released in 2021 and became a bestseller.

O’Connor drew attention to issues such as child abuse,

human rights, racism, and women’s rights. During

a Saturday Night Live performance in 1992, nearly

a decade before the world became fully aware of the

prolific sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church,

she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II to protest

against the abuse, sparking controversy by those who did

not know or who were hiding the truth of the scandal.

Throughout her musical career, she openly discussed her

spiritual journey, activism, socio-political viewpoints,

and her experiences with trauma and struggles with

mental health. Having converted to Islam in 2018, she

adopted the name Shuhada’ Sadaqat while continuing

to perform and record under her birth name. In 2024,

O’Connor was posthumously nominated for induction

into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor was born on 8

December 1966 at the Cascia House Nursing Home

on Baggot Street in Dublin. She was named Sinéad


Sinéad O’Connor

after Sinéad de Valera, the mother of the doctor who

presided over her delivery, Éamon de Valera, Jnr., and

Bernadette in honour of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes.

She was the third of five children; an older brother is

the novelist Joseph O’Connor. Her parents were John

Oliver “Seán” O’Connor, a structural engineer who

later became a barrister and chairperson of the Divorce

Action Group, and Johanna Marie O’Grady (1939–

1985), who married in 1960 at the ‘Church of Our Lady

of Good Counsel’, Drimnagh, Dublin. She attended

Dominican College Sion Hill school in Blackrock,

Dublin.

In her 2021 memoir, “Rememberings”, O’Connor wrote

that she was regularly beaten by her mother, who also

taught her to steal from the collection plate at Mass and

from charity tins. In 1979, at age 13, O’Connor went to

live with her father, who had recently returned to Ireland

after marrying Viola Margaret Suiter (née Cook) in

Alexandria, Virginia, United States, in 1976.

At the age of 15, following her acts of shoplifting and

truancy, O’Connor was placed for 18 months in the

Grianán Training Centre in Drumcondra, which was

run by the ‘Order of Our Lady of Charity’. She thrived in

certain aspects, particularly in the development of her

writing and music, but she chafed under the imposed

conformity of the asylum, despite being given freedoms

not granted to the other girls, such as attending an

outside school and being allowed to listen to music,

write songs, etc. For punishment, O’Connor described

how “if you were bad, they sent you upstairs to sleep in

the old folks’ home. You’re in there in the pitch black,

you can smell the shit and the puke and everything, and

these old women are moaning in their sleep ... I have

never—and probably will never—experience such panic

and terror and agony over anything.” She later attended

Maryfield College in Drumcondra, and Newtown School

in Waterford for fifth and sixth year as a boarder, but did

not sit the Leaving Certificate in 1985.

On 10 February 1985, when O’Connor was 18, her

mother died in a car accident, aged 45, after losing

control of her car on an icy road in Ballybrack and

crashing into a bus. In June 1993, O’Connor wrote a

public letter in ‘The Irish Time’s in which she asked

people to “stop hurting” her: “If only I can fight off the

voices of my parents / and gather a sense of self-esteem /

Then I’ll be able to REALLY sing ...” The letter repeated

accusations of child abuse by her parents as a child

which O’Connor had made in interviews. Her brother

Joseph defended their father to the newspaper but

agreed regarding their mother’s “extreme and violent

abuse, both emotional and physical”. That month,

Sinéad said: “Our family is very messed up. We can’t

communicate with each other. We are all in agony. I for

one am in agony.”

1980’s

One of the volunteers at the Grianán centre was the

sister of Paul Byrne, the drummer for the band In

Tua Nua, who heard O’Connor singing “Evergreen”

by Barbra Streisand. She recorded a song with them

called “Take My Hand” but they felt that at 15, she was

too young to join the band. Through an ad she placed

in Hot Press in mid-1984, she met Colm Farrelly.

Together they recruited a few other members and

formed a band, Ton Ton Macoute. The band moved to

Waterford briefly while O’Connor attended Newtown

School, but she soon dropped out of school and followed

them to Dublin, where their performances received

positive reviews. Their sound was inspired by Farrelly’s

interest in world music, though most observers thought

O’Connor’s singing and stage presence were the band’s

strongest features.

O’Connor’s time with Ton Ton Macoute brought her

to the attention of the music industry, and she was

eventually signed by Ensign Records. She also acquired

an experienced manager, Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh, former

head of U2’s Mother Records. Soon after she was

signed, she embarked on her first major assignment,

providing the vocals for the song “Heroine”, which

she co-wrote with the U2 guitarist the Edge for the

soundtrack to the film “Captive.” Ó Ceallaigh, who

had been fired by U2 for complaining about them in an

interview, was outspoken with his views on music and

politics, and O’Connor adopted the same habits; she

defended the actions of the Provisional IRA and said

U2’s music was “bombastic”. She later retracted her IRA

comments saying “they were based on nonsense, and that

she was “too young to understand the tense situation in

Northern Ireland properly”.

1987–1989: The Lion and the Cobra

O’Connor’s first album, “The Lion and the Cobra”, was

“a sensation” when it was released in 1987 on Chrysalis

Records. O’Connor named Bob Dylan, David Bowie,

Bob Marley, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the

Pretenders as the artists who influenced her on her

debut album. “The Lion and the Cobra” was the first

of a series of albums that she co-produced. The single

“Mandinka” was a college radio hit in the United States,

and “I Want Your (Hands on Me)” received both college

and urban play in a remixed form that featured rapper

MC Lyte. The song “Troy” was also released as a single

in the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands, where it

reached number 5 on the Dutch Top 40 chart.

In her first US network television appearance, O’Connor


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sang “Mandinka” on “Late Night with David Letterman”

in 1988. She was nominated for a Grammy Award for

‘Best Female Rock Vocal Performance’, and performed

“Mandinka” at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards. She

painted the logo of the hip hop group Public Enemy on

her head to protest the first-ever ‘Best Rap Performance

‘award being conferred off-screen.

In 1989, O’Connor provided guest vocals on The The’s

album “Mind Bomb”, on the duet “Kingdom of Rain”.

That same year, she made another foray into cinema,

starring in and writing the music for the Northern Irish

film “Hush-a-Bye-Baby”.

1990–1993: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

O’Connor’s second album, “I Do Not Want What

I Haven’t Got”, was released in 1990. It gained

considerable attention and mostly positive reviews.

NME named it the year’s second-best album. She was

praised for her voice and original songs, while being

noted for her appearance: trademark shaved head, often

angry expression, and sometimes shapeless or unusual

clothing. Her shaved head has been seen as a statement

against traditional views of femininity.

The album featured Marco Pirroni (of Adam and

the Ants fame), Andy Rourke (from the Smiths) and

John Reynolds, her first husband. It contained her

international breakthrough hit “Nothing Compares 2

U”, a song written by Prince and originally recorded

and released by a side project of his, the Family. Hank

Shocklee, producer for Public Enemy, remixed the

album’s next single, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, for a

12-inch that was coupled with another song from the LP,

“I Am Stretched on Your Grave”. Pre-dating but included

on “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”, was “Jump in

the River”, which originally appeared on the “Married to

the Mob” soundtrack; the 12-inch version of the single

had included a remix featuring performance artist Karen

Finley.

O’Connor withdrew from a scheduled appearance on

the American programme “Saturday Night Live” when

she learnt that it was to be hosted by Andrew Dice Clay,

who she said was disrespectful to women. In July 1990,

O’Connor joined other guests for the former Pink Floyd

member Roger Waters’ performance of “The Wall in

Berlin”. She contributed a cover of “You Do Something

to Me” to the Cole Porter tribute/AIDS fundraising

album “Red Hot + Blue” produced by the Red Hot

Organization. “Red Hot + Blue” was followed by the

release of “Am I Not Your Girl?”, an album made of

covers of jazz standards and torch songs she had listened

to while growing up; the album received mixed-to-poor

reviews, and was a commercial disappointment in light

of the success of her previous work. Her take on Elton

John’s “Sacrifice” was acclaimed as one of the best efforts

on the tribute album “Two Rooms: Celebrating the

Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin”.

Also in 1990, O’Connor said she would not perform

if the United States national anthem was played before

one of her concerts, saying she felt the American music

industry was racist. She was attacked as ungrateful and

anti-American, and drew criticism from celebrities

including the singer Frank Sinatra, who threatened

to “kick her in the ass”. When people steamrolled her

albums outside the offices of her record company in New

York City, O’Connor attended in a wig and sunglasses

and gave a television interview pretending to be from

Saratoga.

O’Connor was nominated for four awards at the

33rd Annual Grammy Awards and won for ‘Best

Alternative Music Performance’. She refused to attend

the ceremony or accept her award, and wrote an open

letter to the Recording Academy criticising the industry

for promoting materialistic values over artistic merit.

At the Brit Awards 1991, she won the Brit Award for

‘International Female Solo Artist’, but did not attend

the ceremony. She accepted the Irish IRMA in February

1991.

O’Connor spent the following months studying bel

canto singing with teacher Frank Merriman at the

Parnell School of Music. In an interview with The

Guardian, published in May 1993, she reported that

the lessons were the only therapy she was receiving,

describing Merriman as “the most amazing teacher in

the universe”.

In 1992, O’Connor contributed vocals on the songs

“Come Talk to Me” and “Blood of Eden” from the album

“Us” by Peter Gabriel.

Saturday Night Live protest

On 3 October 1992, O’Connor appeared on the

American television programme ‘Saturday Night Live’

(SNL) and staged a protest against the Roman Catholic

Church. After performing an acappella rendition of

Bob Marley’s 1976 song “War” with new lyrics related

to child abuse, she tore up a photograph of Pope John

Paul II taken from her mother’s bedroom wall eight

years earlier, said “fight the real enemy”, and threw the

pieces to the floor. A month later, O’Connor said she

felt the Catholic Church bore some responsibility for the

physical, sexual and emotional abuse she had suffered

as a child. In describing her actions, she said the church

had destroyed “entire races of people”, and that Catholic

priests had been abusing children for years. Her protest

took place nine years before John Paul II publicly

acknowledged child sexual abuse in the Catholic


Sinéad O’Connor

Church.

The protest triggered hundreds of complaints from

viewers. It attracted criticism from institutions including

the ‘Anti-Defamation League’ and the ‘National Ethnic

Coalition of Organizations’, and celebrities including

Catholic Mezzogiorno Italian Americans Joe Pesci,

Frank Sinatra and Madonna, who mocked the

performance on SNL later that season. Two weeks

after her SNL appearance, O’Connor was booed at

the 30th-anniversary tribute concert for Bob Dylan

at Madison Square Garden in New York City before

Kris Kristofferson came on stage, put his arm around

her and offered words of encouragement. In her 2021

memoir, “Rememberings”, O’Connor wrote that she did

not regret the protest and that it was more important

for her to be a protest singer than a successful pop

star. Time later named O’Connor the most influential

woman of 1992 for her protest.

1993-2000

The 1993 soundtrack to the film “In the Name of the

Father” featured O’Connor’s “You Made Me the Thief of

Your Heart”. Her more conventional “Universal Mother”

album (1994) spawned two music videos for the first

and second singles, “Fire on Babylon” and “Famine”, that

were nominated for a Grammy Award for ‘Best Short

Form Music Video’. She toured with Lollapalooza in

1995, but dropped out when she became pregnant with

her second child. In 1997, she released the “Gospel Oak”

EP.

In 1994, she appeared in “A Celebration: The Music of

Pete Townshend and The Who,” also known as “Daltrey

Sings Townshend”. This was a two-night concert at

Carnegie Hall produced by Roger Daltrey of the Who

in celebration of his 50th birthday. A CD and a VHS

video of the concert were issued in 1994, followed by a

DVD in 1998.

In January 1995, O’Connor appeared on the British

late-night television programme “After Dark” on an

episode titled “Ireland: Sex & Celibacy, Church & State”.

She linked abuse in families to the Catholic Church.

The discussion included a Dominican friar and another

representative of the Roman Catholic Church, along

with former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald. Host Helena

Kennedy described the event: “Sinéad came on and

argued that abuse in families was coded in by the church

because it refused to accept the accounts of women and

children.”

In 1996, O’Connor provided guest vocals on “Broken

China”, a solo album by Richard Wright of Pink Floyd.

She made her final feature film appearance in Neil

Jordan’s “The Butcher Boy” in 1997, playing the Virgin


Mary. Also in 1997, she performed in the Nobel Peace

Prize concert in Oslo, Norway, singing “This is a Rebel

Song” and “He Moved Through the Fair”. In 1998, she

worked again with the ‘Red Hot Organization’ to coproduce

and perform on “Red Hot + Rhapsody.”

2000’s

Faith and Courage was released in 2000, including the

single “No Man’s Woman”, and featured contributions

from Wyclef Jean of the Fugees and Dave Stewart of

Eurythmics.

Her 2002 album, “Sean-Nós Nua”, marked a departure in

that O’Connor interpreted or, in her own words, “sexed

up” traditional Irish folk songs, including several in the

Irish language. In “Sean-Nós Nua”, she covered a wellknown

Canadian folk song, “Peggy Gordon”.

In 2003, she contributed a track to the Dolly Parton

tribute album “Just Because I’m a Woman”, a cover of

Parton’s “Dagger Through the Heart”. That same year,

she also featured on three songs of Massive Attack’s

album “100th Window” before releasing her double

album,” She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most

High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty.”

This compilation contained one disc of demos and

previously unreleased tracks and one disc of a live

concert recording. Directly after the album’s release,

O’Connor announced that she was retiring from

music. “Collaborations”, a compilation album of guest

appearances, was released in 2005—featuring tracks

recorded with Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack, Jah

Wobble, Terry Hall, Moby, Bomb the Bass, the Edge,

U2, and The The.

Ultimately, after a brief period of inactivity and a bout

with fibromyalgia, her retirement proved to be shortlived.

O’Connor stated in an interview with Harp

magazine that she had only intended to retire from

making mainstream pop/rock music, and after dealing

with her fibromyalgia she chose to move into other

musical styles. The reggae album “Throw Down Your

Arms” appeared in late 2005.

On 8 November 2006, O’Connor performed seven songs

from her upcoming album “Theology” at The Sugar Club

in Dublin. Thirty fans were given the opportunity to

win pairs of tickets to attend along with music industry

critics. The performance was released in 2008 as “Live

at the Sugar Club” deluxe CD/DVD package sold

exclusively on her website.

O’Connor released two songs from her album

“Theology” to download for free from her official

website: “If You Had a Vineyard” and “Jeremiah

(Something Beautiful)”. The album, a collection of

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covered and original Rastafari spiritual songs, was

released in June 2007. The first single from the album,

the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber classic “I

Don’t Know How to Love Him”, was released on 30

April 2007. To promote the album, O’Connor toured

extensively in Europe and North America. She also

appeared on two tracks of the Ian Brown album “The

World Is Yours”, including the anti-war single “Illegal

Attacks”.

2010’s

In January 2010, O’Connor performed a duet with

the R&B singer Mary J. Blige produced by former A

Tribe Called Quest member Ali Shaheed Muhammad

of O’Connor’s song “This Is To Mother You” (first

recorded by O’Connor on her 1997 “Gospel Oak” EP).

The proceeds of the song’s sales were donated to the

organisation GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring

Services). In 2012 the song “Lay Your Head Down”,

written by Brian Byrne and Glenn Close for the

soundtrack of the film “Albert Nobbs” and performed

by O’Connor, was nominated for a Golden Globe

Award for ‘Best Original Song’.

In 2011, O’Connor worked on recording a new album,

titled “Home”, to be released in the beginning of 2012,

titled “How About I Be Me (and You Be You)?”, with

the first single being “The Wolf is Getting Married”. She

planned an extensive tour in support of the album but

suffered a serious breakdown between December 2011

and March 2012, resulting in the tour and all her other

musical activities for the rest of 2012 being cancelled.

O’Connor resumed touring in 2013 with “The Crazy

Baldhead Tour”. The second single “4th and Vine” was

released on 18 February 2013.

In February 2014, it was revealed that O’Connor had

been recording a new album of original material, titled

“The Vishnu Room”, consisting of romantic love songs.

In early June 2014, the new album was retitled “I’m Not

Bossy, I’m the Boss”, with an 11 August release date. The

title derives from the “Ban Bossy” campaign that took

place earlier the same year. The album’s first single is

entitled “Take Me to Church”.

In November 2014, O’Connor’s management was taken

over by Simon Napier-Bell and Björn de Water. On

15 November, O’Connor joined the charity supergroup

Band Aid 30 along with other British and Irish pop

acts, recording a new version of the track “Do They

Know It’s Christmas?” at Sarm West Studios in Notting

Hill, London, to raise money for the West African Ebola

virus epidemic.

In 2017, O’Connor changed her legal name to Magda

Davitt, saying she wished to be free of “patriarchal slave

names” and “parental curses”. In September 2019, she

performed live for the first time in five years, singing

“Nothing Compares 2 U” with the Irish Chamber

Orchestra on RTÉ’s “The Late Late Show.”

2020–2023: Memoir and death of son

O’Connor released a cover of Mahalia Jackson’s

“Trouble of the World” in October 2020, with proceeds

from the single to benefit ‘Black Lives Matter’ charities.

O’Connor released the memoir “Rememberings” on

1 June 2021 to positive reviews, listed among the best

books of the year on BBC Culture. The Irish postal

service An Post released a postage stamp on 15 July

2021 bearing an image of O’Connor singing.

O’Connor announced in June 2021 that the album “No

Veteran Dies Alone” would be her last, and that she

was retiring from music. She retracted the statement

days later, describing it as “a knee-jerk reaction” to an

insensitive interview, and announced that her scheduled

2022 tour would go ahead. O’Connor’s son Shane died

by suicide at the age of 17 on 7 January 2022. O’Connor

canceled her tour and “No Veteran Dies Alone” was

postponed indefinitely. According to the producer

David Holmes, by the time of O’Connor’s death in

2023, the album was “emotional and really personal” and

was complete but for one song

In February 2023, O’Connor shared a version of “The

Skye Boat Song”, a 19th-century Scottish adaptation of a

1782 Gaelic song, which is also the theme for the fantasy

drama series “Outlander”. The following month she was

awarded the inaugural ‘Choice Music Prize Classic Irish

Album’ by the Irish broadcaster RTÉ for her 1990 album

“I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”. In September

2023, BBC Television drama series “The Woman in the

Wall”, which focuses on the Irish Magdalene Laundries,

played an unreleased O’Connor song, “The Magdalene

Song”. The song had been given to the series’ producers

by O’Connor shortly before her death.

Marriages and children

O’Connor’s first son, Jake, was born on 16 June 1987.

His father was the music producer John Reynolds, who

co-produced several of O’Connor’s albums, including

“Universal Mother”. O’Connor married Reynolds at

Westminster Register Office in March 1989. She had

an abortion the same year, and later wrote the song

“My Special Child” about the experience. The couple

announced their plan to divorce in November 1991 after

having been separated for some time.

In September 1995, O’Connor announced that she

was pregnant by her friend, the Irish columnist John


Sinéad O’Connor

Waters. Their daughter, Brigidine Roisin Waters,

generally known as Roisin, was born on 6 March 1996.

Soon after the birth, the pair began a long custody

battle that ended in 1999 with O’Connor agreeing to let

Roisin live with Waters in Dublin.

In August 2001, O’Connor married the British

journalist Nick Sommerlad in Wales. Their marriage

ended after 11 months, in July 2002, when they mutually

agreed to part. By February 2003, the marriage was

reportedly over and Sommerlad had moved back home

to the United Kingdom. O’Connor gave birth to her

third child, son Shane, on 10 March 2004; his father was

the Irish musician Dónal Lunny. Her fourth child, son

Yeshua, was born on 19 December 2006, fathered by

Frank Bonadio. The pair remained on good terms after

separating in early 2007.

O’Connor was married a third time on 22 July 2010,

to her longtime friend and collaborator Steve Cooney.

They separated in March 2011. She was married a fourth

time on 9 December 2011, to the Irish therapist Barry

Herridge; they wed in Las Vegas and the marriage

ended after they had “lived together for 7 days only”. On

3 January 2012, O’Connor said that she and Herridge

had reunited. In February 2014, she stated that they had

not divorced and were planning to renew their wedding

vows, but two weeks later they decided not to do so.

O’Connor’s first grandson was born on 18 July 2015, to

her son Jake and his girlfriend.

O’Connor’s 17-year-old son Shane was found dead

from suicide in January 2022. O’Connor, who had lost

custody of Shane in 2013, said he had recently been on

suicide watch at Tallaght Hospital. She criticised the

Health Service Executive (HSE) for their handling of

her son’s case. A week after her son’s death, O’Connor

admitted herself to a hospital to receive help for her own

mental health struggles.

Other relationships

O’Connor stated that she had a relationship with her

manager Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh immediately after her

marriage to John Reynolds and during the tour of “The

Lion and the Cobra”. The extra-conjugal relationship

ended in 1989 when O’Connor discovered that

Ceallaigh was secretly having an affair with another

woman. This experience is reflected in O’Connor’s song

“The Last Day of Our Acquaintance”.

Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers claimed

he had a relationship with O’Connor in 1990 and wrote

the song “I Could Have Lied” about the experience.

O’Connor denied this, saying “I never had a relationship

with him, ever. I hung out with him a few times and the

row we had was because he suggested we might become

involved. I don’t give a shit about the song he wrote.”

Between 1992 and 1993, O’Connor had an affair with

British singer Peter Gabriel, whom she accompanied

on his “Secret World Tour” in May 1993 and at the 1993

MTV Video Music Awards in September. In October

1993, Sinéad O’Connor, at the age of 27, said she had

attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills as

a reaction to Peter Gabriel’s refusal to make their

relationship permanent. This experience inspired her to

write “Thank You for Hearing Me”.

In 2014, O’Connor said she “didn’t get on at all”

with Prince, the writer of “Nothing Compares 2 U”.

According to O’Connor, Prince demanded she visit

him at his home and then chastised her for swearing in

interviews, so she told him to “fuck off”, at which point

Prince became violent and she fled. In her memoir,

O’Connor gave some details of Prince’s behaviour,

which ranged from having his butler serve up soup

despite her repeatedly refusing it, to suggesting a pillow

fight and then hitting her with a hard object placed in

a pillowcase, and stalking her with his car after she had

left the mansion.

Homes

In 2007, O’Connor bought a large Victorian seafront

house in Bray, County Wicklow, near Dublin. She

sold the property in 2021, after moving temporarily

to her holiday home. She later lived at a house in the

Kilglass/Scramogue area, between Strokestown and

Roosky, County Roscommon, and on the main street of

Knockananna, County Wicklow, which she sold in 2022.

She later also had a home in Dalkey, a south-east suburb

of Dublin. In early 2023, she moved to a flat in London

to feel “less lonely”, and said she would soon finish her

new album.

Sexuality

In a 2000 interview in Curve, O’Connor said that she

was a lesbian. She later retracted the statement, and in

2005 told Entertainment Weekly: “I’m three-quarters

heterosexual, a quarter gay”.

In 2013, O’Connor published an open letter on her own

website to American singer and actress Miley Cyrus in

which she warned Cyrus of the treatment of women in

the music industry and stated that sexuality is a factor in

this, which was in response to Cyrus’s music video for

her song “Wrecking Ball”. Cyrus responded by mocking

O’Connor and alluding to her mental health problems.

After O’Connor’s death, Cyrus publicly apologised for

her behaviour.


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Politics

O’Connor was a vocal supporter of a united Ireland,

and called on the left-wing republican Sinn Féin party

to be “braver”. O’Connor called for the “demolition”

of the Republic of Ireland and its replacement with a

new, united country. She also called for key Sinn Féin

politicians like Gerry Adams to step down because “they

remind people of violence”, referring to the Troubles.

In 2014, she refused to play in Israel as an act of protest

against unjust treatment of Palestinians, stating that

“Let’s just say that, on a human level, nobody with

any sanity, including myself, would have anything but

sympathy for the Palestinian plight”.

In a 2015 interview with the BBC, O’Connor said she

wished that Ireland had remained under British rule

(which ended after the Irish War of Independence,

except for Northern Ireland), saying “the church

took over and it was disastrous”. Following the Brexit

referendum in 2016, O’Connor wrote on Facebook

“Ireland is officially no longer owned by Britain”.

Religion

In contradiction with Catholic Church doctrine on the

ordination of women, O’Connor was ordained in 1999

by Michael Cox, bishop of an Independent Catholic

church. The bishop offered her ordination following her

appearance on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, during which

she told presenter Gay Byrne that had she not been a

singer she would have wished to have been a Catholic

priest. O’Connor adopted the religious name Mother

Bernadette Mary

In a July 2007 interview with “Christianity Today”,

O’Connor stated that she considered herself a Christian

and that she believed in core Christian concepts about

the Trinity and Jesus Christ. She said, “I think God saves

everybody whether they want to be saved or not. So when

we die, we’re all going home I don’t think God judges

anybody. He loves everybody equally.” In an October 2002

interview, she credited her Christian faith in giving her

the strength to live through and overcome the effects of

her childhood abuse.

On 26 March 2010, O’Connor appeared on CNN’s

“Anderson Cooper 360°” to speak out about the Catholic

sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. On 28 March 2010, she

had an opinion piece published in the Sunday edition

of The Washington Post in which she wrote about

the scandal and her time in a Magdalene laundry as

a teenager. Writing for the Sunday Independent she

labelled the Vatican as “a nest of devils” and called for

the establishment of an “alternative church”, opining that

“Christ is being murdered by liars” in the Vatican. Shortly

after the election of Pope Francis, she said:

“Well, you know, I guess I wish everyone the best, and I

don’t know anything about the man, so I’m not going to

rush to judge him on one thing or another, but I would say

he has a scientifically impossible task, because all religions,

but certainly the Catholic Church, is really a house built

on sand, and it’s drowning in a sea of conditional love,

and therefore it can’t survive, and actually the office of

Pope itself is an anti-Christian office, the idea that Christ

needs a representative is laughable and blasphemous at

the same time, therefore it is a house built on sand, and

we need to rescue God from religion, all religions, they’ve

become a smokescreen that distracts people from the fact

that there is a holy spirit, and when you study the Gospels

you see the Christ character came to tell us that we only

need to talk directly to God, we never needed Religion ...”

Asked whether from her point of view, it is therefore

irrelevant who is elected to be pope, O’Connor replied:

“Genuinely I don’t mean disrespect to Catholic people

because I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Holy

Spirit, all of those, but I also believe in all of them, I

don’t think it cares if you call it Fred or Daisy, you know?

Religion is a smokescreen, it has everybody talking to the

wall. There is a Holy Spirit who can’t intervene on our

behalf unless we ask it. Religion has us talking to the wall.

The Christ character tells us himself: you must only talk

directly to the Father; you don’t need intermediaries. We

all thought we did, and that’s ok, we’re not bad people, but

let’s wake up. God was there before religion; it’s there today

despite religion; it’ll be there when religion is gone.”

Tatiana Kavelka wrote about O’Connor’s later

Christian work, describing it as “theologically charged

yet unorthodox, oriented toward interfaith dialogue

and those on the margins”. In August 2018, via an open

letter, she asked Pope Francis to issue a certificate of

excommunication to her, as she had also asked Pope

Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II.

In October 2018, O’Connor converted to Islam, calling

it “the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s

journey”. The ceremony was conducted in Ireland by

Sunni Islamic theologian Shaykh Umar Al-Qadri. She

also changed her name to Shuhada’ Davitt. In a message

on Twitter, she thanked fellow Muslims for their support

and uploaded a video of herself reciting the adhan, the

Islamic call to prayer. She also posted photos of herself

wearing a hijab. She later changed her surname from

Davitt to Sadaqat.

After her conversion to Islam, Sadaqat called those who

were not Muslims “disgusting” and criticised Christian

and Jewish theologians on Twitter in November 2018.

She wrote: “What I’m about to say is something so racist I


Sinéad O’Connor

never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never

wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what

non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any

reason. They are disgusting.” Two days later, she tweeted

that anyone who is not Muslim is “mentally ill”. Later

that month, Sadaqat stated that her remarks were made

in an attempt to force Twitter to close down her account.

In September 2019, she apologised for the remarks,

saying “They were not true at the time and they are not

true now. I was triggered as a result of Islamophobia

dumped on me. I apologize for hurt caused. That was one

of many crazy tweets lord knows.”

Health

In the early 2000s, O’Connor revealed that she suffered

from fibromyalgia. The pain and fatigue she experienced

caused her to take a break from music from 2003 to

2005.

On an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” broadcast

on 4 October 2007, O’Connor disclosed that she had

attempted suicide on her 33rd birthday, 8 December

1999, and that she had since been diagnosed with

bipolar disorder.

In August 2015, she announced that she was to undergo

a hysterectomy after suffering gynaecological problems

for over three years. She later blamed the hospital’s

refusal to administer hormone replacement therapy

after the operation as the main reason for her mental

health issues in subsequent years, stating “I was flung

into surgical menopause. Hormones were everywhere. I

became very suicidal. I was a basket case.”

A cannabis smoker for 30 years, O’Connor went to a

rehabilitation centre in 2016, to end her addiction. She

stated in February 2020 that she was agoraphobic. She

had also previously been diagnosed with complex posttraumatic

stress disorder and borderline personality

disorder.

In August 2017, O’Connor posted a 12-minute video on

her Facebook page in which she stated that she had felt

alone since losing custody of her 13-year-old son, Shane,

and that for the previous two years she had wanted

to kill herself, with only her doctor and psychiatrist

“keeping her alive”. The month after her Facebook post,

O’Connor appeared on the 16th-season debut episode of

American television talk show “Dr. Phil.” According to

the show’s host, Phil McGraw, O’Connor wanted to do

the interview because she wished to “destigmatise mental

illness”, noting the prevalence of mental health problems

among musicians. In 2021, O’Connor commented that

she had spent much of the last six years in St Patrick’s

University Hospital in Dublin, and that she was grateful

to them for helping her stay alive.


Death

O’Connor died on 26 July 2023 in her flat in Herne Hill,

south London, at the age of 56. The death certificate

stated her cause of death as “exacerbation of chronic

obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma

together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection”,

and the coroner said that she died of natural causes.

A private funeral was held on 8 August in Bray, County

Wicklow. It was attended by the president of Ireland,

Michael D. Higgins, and O’Connor’s family invited

the public to pay their respects at the seafront where

the funeral cortège passed. Thousands attended bearing

signs and tributes; her burial was held privately at Dean’s

Grange Cemetery.

Legacy and reputation

Tributes

Following O’Connor’s death, celebrities including

BP Fallon, MC Lyte, Janelle Monáe, Patton Oswalt,

Jamie Lee Curtis, Tori Amos, Bear McCreary, Massive

Attack, Public Enemy, Amanda Palmer, and Toni

Collette posted tributes on social media. English singer

Morrissey wrote a tribute criticising the reaction from

executives and celebrities, and wrote: “You praise her

now only because it is too late. You hadn’t the guts to

support her when she was alive and she was looking for

you.”

American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers wrote

a tribute to O’Connor in Rolling Stone, praising her

integrity. In November 2023, Boygenius and Irish group

Ye Vagabonds released a cover of the Scottish folk song

“The Parting Glass” as a charity Christmas song and

tribute to O’Connor.

On 9 January 2024, it was announced that a tribute

concert for O’Connor and Shane MacGowan from the

Pogues, who also died in 2023, would take place on 20

March in Carnegie Hall in New York City.

On 4 February 2024, Scottish singer and activist Annie

Lennox paid tribute to O’Connor by performing

“Nothing Compares 2 U” during the “In Memoriam”

segment at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. During

the performance she had a tear painted on her cheek in

homage to a similar scene in the song’s music video. She

was accompanied by Wendy & Lisa. Lennox ended the

performance by calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war

and “peace in the world” which was also seen as a tribute

to O’Connor’s political outspokenness. In March 2024,

a Bratz doll in O’Connor’s likeness, to commemorate

Women’s History Month, was announced.

11 |

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MAGAZINE

Sinéad O’Connor A

THE LION AND

THE COBRA

Ensign/Chrysalis

1987

Discogs link here

UNIVERSAL

MOTHER

Ensign

1994

Discogs link here

I DO NOT

WANT WHAT

I HAVE NOT

GOT

Ensign/Chrysalis

1989

Discogs link here

FAITH AND

COURAGE

Atlantic

2000

Discogs link here

FROM A

WHISPER TO A

SCREAM

Ensign/Chrysalis

1990

Discogs link here

SEAN NOS NUA

Hummingbird

Records

2002

Discogs link here

AM I NOT

YOUR GIRL

Ensign/Chrysalis

1992

Discogs link here

THE LION AND

THE COBRA/

I DO NOT

WANT WHAT I

HAVENT GOT

EMI 2002

Discogs link here


Sinéad O’Connor

lbum Discography

SHE WHO

DWELLS

Hummingbird

Records

2003

Discogs link here

THEOLOGY =

LIVE AT THE

SUGAR CLUB

Rubyworks

2008

Discogs link here

THROW DOWN

YOUR ARMS

That’s Why

There’s Chocolate

& Vanilla

2005

Discogs link here

HOW ABOUT

I BE ME (AND

YOU BE YOU)

One Little Indian

2012

Discogs link here

THEOLOGY

That’s Why

There’s Chocolate

& Vanilla, Rubyworks

2007

Discogs link here

I’M NOT BOSSY,

I’M THE BOSS

Nettwerk

2014

Discogs link here

SOMETHING

BEAUTIFUL

THE SINEAD

O’CONNOR

THEOLOGY

CONVERSA-

TION

Koch Records

2007

Discogs link here

REMEMBER-

INGS

Blackstone

Publishings

2021

Discogs link here


13 |

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MAGAZINE

Ewan MacColl

James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October

1989), better known by his stage name Ewan

MacColl, was a British folk singer-songwriter, folk

song collector, labour activist and actor. Born

in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one

of the instigators of the 1960s folk revival as well as for

writing such songs as “The First Time Ever I Saw Your

Face” and “Dirty Old Town”.

MacColl collected hundreds of traditional folk songs,

including the version of “Scarborough Fair” later

popularised by Simon & Garfunkel, and released

dozens of albums with A.L. Lloyd, Peggy Seeger and

others, mostly of traditional folk songs. He also wrote

many left-wing political songs, remaining a steadfast

communist throughout his life and actively engaging in

political activism.

MacColl was born as James Henry Miller at 4 Andrew

Street, in Broughton, Salford, England, on 25 January

1915 to Scottish parents, William Miller and Betsy

(née Henry), both socialists. William Miller was an

iron moulder and trade unionist who had moved to

Salford with his wife, a charwoman, to look for work

after being blacklisted in almost every foundry in

Scotland. Betsy Miller knew many traditional folk

songs such as “Lord Randall” and “My Bonnie Laddie’s

Lang A-growing”, of which her son later created written

and audio recordings; he later recorded an album of

traditional songs with her.

James Miller was the youngest and only surviving child

in the family of three sons and one daughter (one of

each sex was stillborn and one son died at the age of

four). They lived amongst a group of Scots and Jimmy

was brought up in an atmosphere of fierce political

debate interspersed with the large repertoire of songs

and stories his parents had brought from Scotland.

He was educated at Grecian Street School, Salford,

England. He left school in 1930 after an elementary


Ewan MacColl

education, during the Great Depression and, joining the

ranks of the unemployed, began a lifelong programme

of self-education whilst keeping warm in Manchester

Central Library. During this period he found

intermittent work in a number of jobs and also made

money as a street singer.

He joined the Young Communist League and a

socialist amateur theatre troupe, the Clarion Players.

He began his career as a writer helping produce and

contributing humorous verse and skits to some of the

Communist Party’s factory papers. He was an activist

in the unemployed workers’ campaigns and the mass

trespasses of the early 1930s. One of his best-known

songs, “The Manchester Rambler”, was written just after

mass trespass of Kinder Scout. He was responsible for

publicity in the planning of the trespass.

In 1932 the British intelligence service, MI5, opened a

file on MacColl, after local police asserted that he was “a

communist with very extreme views” who needed “special

attention”. For a time the Special Branch kept a watch

on the Manchester home that he shared with his first

wife, Joan Littlewood. MI5 caused some of MacColl’s

songs to be rejected by the BBC, and prevented

the employment of Littlewood as a BBC children’s

programme presenter.

He was married three times: to theatre director Joan

Littlewood (1914–2002) from 1934 to 1948; to Jean

Mary Newlove (1923–2017) from 1949 to 1974, with

whom he had two children, a son Hamish (1950–2024),

and a daughter, the singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl

(1959–2000); and to American folksinger Peggy Seeger

(b. 1935) from 1977 until his death in 1989, with whom

he had three children, Neill, Calum, and Kitty. He

collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre, and with

Seeger in folk music.

In 1931, with other unemployed members of the

Clarion Players he formed an agit-prop theatre group,

the “Red Megaphones”. During 1934 they changed

the name to “Theatre of Action” and not long after

were introduced to a young actress recently moved up

from London. This was Joan Littlewood who became

MacColl’s wife and work partner. In 1936, after a failed

attempt to move to London, the couple returned to

Manchester, and formed the Theatre Union. In 1940 a

performance of “The Last Edition” – a ‘living newspaper’

– was halted by the police and MacColl and Littlewood

were bound over for two years for breach of the peace.

The necessities of wartime brought an end to Theatre

Union. MacColl enlisted in the British Army during

July 1940, but deserted in December. Why he did so,

and why he was not prosecuted after the war, remain a

mystery. In an interview in June 1987, he said that he

was expelled for “anti-fascist activity”. Allan Moore and

Giovanni Vacca wrote that MacColl had been subject

to Special Observation whilst in the King’s Regiment,

owing to his political views, and that the records show

that, rather than being discharged, he was declared a

deserter on 18 December 1940.

In 1946, members of ‘Theatre Union’ and others formed

‘Theatre Workshop’ and spent the next few years

touring, mostly in the north of England. In 1945, Miller

changed his name to Ewan MacColl (influenced by the

Lallans movement in Scotland).

In the ‘Theatre Union’ roles had been shared, but now,

in ‘Theatre Workshop’, they were more formalised.

Littlewood was the sole producer and MacColl the

dramaturge, art director and resident dramatist. The

techniques that had been developed in the ‘Theatre

Union’ now were refined, producing the distinctive form

of theatre that was the hallmark of Joan Littlewood’s

Theatre Workshop, as the troupe was later known.

They were an impoverished travelling troupe, but were

making a name for themselves.

Traditional music

During this period MacColl’s enthusiasm for folk music

grew. Inspired by the example of Alan Lomax, who had

arrived in Britain and Ireland in 1950, and had done

extensive fieldwork there, MacColl also began to collect

and perform traditional ballads. His long involvement

with Topic Records started in 1950 with his release of

a single, “The Asphalter’s Song”, on that label. When, in

1953 ‘Theatre Workshop’ decided to move to Stratford,

London, MacColl, who had opposed that move, left

the company and changed the focus of his career from

acting and playwriting to singing and composing folk

and topical songs.

In 1947, MacColl visited a retired lead-miner named

Mark Anderson (1874–1953) in Middleton-in-Teesdale,

County Durham, England, who performed to him a

song called “Scarborough Fair”; MacColl recorded the

lyrics and melody in a book of Teesdale folk songs,

and later included it on his and Peggy Seeger’s “The

Singing Island” (1960). Martin Carthy learnt the song

from MacColl’s book, before teaching it to Paul Simon;

Simon & Garfunkel released the song as “Scarborough

Fair/Canticle” on their album “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary

and Thyme”, popularising the obscure and unique folk

tune. Ewan MacColl, a decade after collecting the song,

released his own version accompanied by Peggy Seeger

on guitar in 1957 on the LP “Matching Songs of the

British Isles and America” and an acapella rendition

another decade later on “The Long Harvest” (1967).


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MAGAZINE

Over the years MacColl recorded and produced

upwards of a hundred albums, many with English folk

song collector and singer A. L. Lloyd. The pair released

an ambitious series of eight LP albums of some 70 of the

305 “Child Ballads”. MacColl produced a number of LPs

with Irish singer songwriter Dominic Behan, a brother

of Irish playwright Brendan Behan.

In 1956, MacColl caused a scandal when he fell in love

with 21-year-old Peggy Seeger, who had come to Britain

to transcribe the music for Alan Lomax’s anthology

“Folk Songs of North America” (published in 1961).

At the time MacColl, who was twenty years older than

Peggy, was still married to his second wife.

Singer-songwriter

Seeger and MacColl recorded several albums of searing

political commentary songs. MacColl himself wrote

over 300 songs, some of which have been recorded by

artists (in addition to those mentioned above) such as

Planxty, the Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, Phil Ochs,

the Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley, Weddings Parties

Anything, The Pogues and Johnny Cash. In 2001, “The

Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook” was published,

which includes the words and music to 200 of his songs.

Dick Gaughan, Dave Burland and Tony Capstick

collaborated in “The Songs of Ewan MacColl” (1978;

1985).

Many of MacColl’s best-known songs were written for

the theatre. For example, he wrote “The First Time Ever

I Saw Your Face” very quickly at the request of Seeger,

who needed it for use in a play she was appearing in. He

taught it to her by long-distance telephone while she was

on tour in the United States (from where MacColl had

been barred because of his Communist past). Seeger

said that MacColl used to send her tapes to listen to

whilst they were apart and that the song was on one of

them. This song, which was recorded by Roberta Flack

for her debut album, “First Take”, issued by Atlantic

records in June 1969, became a No. 1 hit in 1972 and

won MacColl a Grammy Award for Song of the Year,

while Flack received a Grammy Award for Record of the

Year.

In 1959, MacColl began releasing LP albums on

Folkways Records, including several collaborative

albums with Peggy Seeger. His song “Dirty Old Town”,

inspired by his home town of Salford in Lancashire,

was written for the play “Landscape with Chimneys”

(1949) produced by Joan Littlewood and ‘Theatre

Workshop’. It went on to become a folk-revival staple

and was recorded by the Spinners (1964), Donovan

(1964), Roger Whittaker (1968), Julie Felix (1968),

the Dubliners (1968), Rod Stewart (1969), the Clancy

Brothers (1970), the Pogues (1985), the Mountain

Goats (2002), Simple Minds (2003), Ted Leo and the

Pharmacists (2003), Frank Black (2006) and Bettye

LaVette (2012).

MacColl’s song “The Shoals of Herring”, based on the

life of Norfolk fisherman and folk singer Sam Larner

was recorded by the Dubliners, the Clancy Brothers,

the Corries and more. Other popular songs written

and performed by MacColl include “The Manchester

Rambler”, “The Moving-On Song” and “The Joy of

Living”.

Ewan has a short biography of his work in the

accompanying book of the Topic Records 70-year

anniversary boxed set “Three Score and Ten”. Five of his

recordings, three of them solo, appear in the boxed set:

on CD #4:

track 2, “Come All Ye Fisher Lads”, with the Fisher

Family, from their album “The Fisher Family”.

on CD #5:

track 4, “Go Down You Murderers”, from Chorus from

the Gallows

on CD #6:

track 9, “To the Begging I Will Go”, from Manchester

Angel

track 14, “Sixteen Tons”, with Brian Daly, from the

single “Sixteen Tons/The Swan Necked Valve”

track 18, “Dirty Old Town”, from the single “Dirty Old

Town/Sheffield Apprentice.”

Political songs

MacColl was one of the main composers of British

protest songs during the folk revival of the 1950s and

1960s. In the early 1950s he penned “The Ballad of Ho

Chi Minh” and “The Ballad of Stalin” for the British

Communist Party.

Joe Stalin was a mighty man and a mighty man was he

He led the Soviet people on the road to victory.

All through the revolution he fought at Lenin’s side,

And they made a combination till the day that Lenin died.

When asked about the song in a 1985 interview, he

said that it was “a very good song” and that “it dealt

with some of the positive things that Stalin did”. In 1992,

after his death, Peggy Seeger included it as an annex

in her “Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook”, saying that

she had originally planned to exclude the song on the

grounds that Ewan would not have wanted it included,

but decided to include it as an example of his work in his

early career. The B-side of the record, “Sovietland (Land

of Freedom)” was not included in the songbook.

MacColl sang and composed numerous protest and

topical songs for the nuclear disarmament movement,


Ewan MacColl

for example “Against the Atom Bomb”, “The Vandals”,

“Nightmare”, and “Nuclear Means Jobs”.

He wrote “The Ballad of Tim Evans” (also known as

“Go Down You Murderer”) a song protesting against

capital punishment, based on an infamous murder

case in which an innocent man, Timothy Evans, was

condemned and executed, before the real culprit was

discovered.

MacColl was very active during the miners’ strike

of 1984–85 in distributing free cassettes of songs

supportive of the National Union of Mineworkers,

entitled “Daddy, what did you do in the strike?” The

title song was unusually aggressive in its language

towards the strikebreakers. This collection was only

released on cassette and remaining copies are rare, but

some of the less aggressive songs have featured on other

compilations.[ At MacColl’s 70th birthday party, he was

presented by Arthur Scargill with a miner’s lamp to

show appreciation for his support.

In his last interview in August 1988, MacColl stated

that he still believed in a socialist revolution and that

the communist parties of the west had become too

moderate. He stated that he had been a member of the

Communist Party but left because he felt that the Soviet

Union was “not communist or socialist enough”.

Radio

MacColl had been a radio actor since 1933. By the late

1930s he was writing scripts as well. In 1957 producer

Charles Parker asked MacColl to collaborate in the

creation of a feature programme about the heroic death

of train driver John Axon. Normal procedure would

have been to use the recorded field interviews only as

source for writing the script. MacColl produced a script

that incorporated the actual voices and so created a new

form that they called the radio ballad.

Between 1957 and 1964, eight of these were broadcast by

the BBC, all created by the team of MacColl and Parker

together with Peggy Seeger who handled musical

direction, conducted a great many field interviews, and

wrote songs, either together with MacColl or alone.

MacColl wrote the scripts and songs, as well as, with the

others, collecting the field recordings which were the

heart of the productions.

Teaching and theatre

In 1965 Ewan and Peggy formed the ‘Critics Group’

from a number of young followers, with Charles

Parker in attendance, frequently recording the group’s

weekly sessions at MacColl and Seeger’s home. The

initial aim of improving musical skills soon broadened

to performing at political events, the ‘Singers’ Club’


where MacColl, Seeger and Lloyd were featured

artists and theatre productions. Members who became

performing folk singers in their own right included

Frankie Armstrong, John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr,

Dennis Turner, Terry Yarnell, Bob Blair, Jim Carroll,

Brian Pearson and Jack Warshaw. Other members,

including Michael Rosen, joined primarily for theatre

productions, the Festival of Fools, a political review of

the previous year.

As the theatre group’s importance grew, members more

interested in singing left. The productions ran until the

winter of 1972–73. Members’ differences with MacColl’s

vision of a full-time touring company led to the group’s

breakup. The offshoot group became Combine Theatre,

with a club of their own mixing traditional and original

folksongs and theatrical performances based on

contemporary events, into the 1980s.

Death and legacy

After many years of poor health (in 1979 he suffered

the first of many heart attacks), MacColl died on

22 October 1989, in the Brompton Hospital, in

London, after complications following heart surgery.

His autobiography “Journeyman” was published the

following year. The lifetime archive of his work with

Peggy Seeger and others was passed on to Ruskin

College in Oxford.

There is a plaque dedicated to MacColl in Russell Square

in London. The inscription includes:

“Presented by his communist friends 25.1.1990 ... Folk

Laureate – Singer – Dramatist – Marxist ... in recognition

of strength and singleness of purpose of this fighter for

Peace and Socialism”.

In 1991 he was awarded a posthumous honorary degree

by the University of Salford.

His daughter from his second marriage, Kirsty MacColl,

followed him into a musical career, albeit in a different

genre. She died in a boating accident in Mexico in

2000. His son with Peggy Seeger, Neill MacColl, is the

long-standing guitarist for Mancunian musician David

Gray. His grandson Jamie MacColl has also developed

a musical career of his own with the band “Bombay

Bicycle Club”.

In 2025, punk band “Dropkick Murphys” along with

guest Billy Bragg covered MacColl’s song “School Days

Are Over” on their album “For the People”. The song is a

favorite of Bragg’s.

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MAGAZINE

Ewan maccoll

bibliography

• Goorney, Howard and MacColl, Ewan (eds.) (1986)

Agit-Prop to Theatre Workshop, Political Playscripts, 1930–1950. Manchester:

Manchester University Press ISBN 0-7190-2211-8

• Harker, Ben (2007) Class Act: the Cultural and Political Life of Ewan MacColl. London:

(chapters: 1. Lower Broughton—2. Red Haze—3. Welcome, Comrade—4. Browned Off—5. A Richer, Fuller

Life—6. Towards a People’s Culture—7. Croydon, Soho, Moscow, Paris—8. Bard of Beckenham—9. Let a

Hundred Flowers Blossom—10. Sanctuary—11. Endgame)

Pluto Press ISBN 978-0-7453-2165-3

• Littlewood, Joan (1994) Joan’s Book: Joan Littlewood’s Peculiar History As She Tells It. London:

”Joan’s Book reissued”. Retrieved 23 April 2009

Methuen ISBN 0-413-77318-3

• MacColl, Ewan (1963) Ewan MacColl- Peggy Seeger Songbook. New York:

Oak Publications, Inc Library of Congress Card Number, 63-14092

• MacColl, Ewan (1990) Journeyman: an Autobiography;

introduction by Peggy Seeger. London:

Sidgwick & Jackson ISBN 0-283-06036-0

• MacColl, Ewan (1998) The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook:

sixty years of songmaking; ed. Peggy Seeger. New York: Oak Publications

• Myer, Michael Grosvenor (1972): The Radio Ballads Revisited, Folk Review magazine, September 1972

O’Brien, Karen (2004) Kirsty MacColl, The One and Only: the definitive biography . London: Andre Deutsch.

ISBN 0-233-00070-4

• Pegg, Carole A. (1999) British Traditional and Folk Musics, in:

British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 7, pp. 193–98

• Samuel, Raphael; MacColl, Ewan; and Cosgrove, Stuart (1985) Theatres of the Left, 1880–1935:

Workers’ Theatre Movements in Britain and America. London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul ISBN 0-7100-0901-1

• Vacca, Giovanni and Moore, Allan F. (2014) Legacies of Ewan MacColl – The Last Interview. Farnham:

Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4094-2431-4


SOLO ALBUMS

Scots Street Songs (1956)

Discogs link here

Shuttle and Cage (1957)

Bandcamp link here

Barrack Room Ballads (1958)

Discogs link here

Still I Love Him (1958)

Discogs link here

Ewan maccoll

discography

Paper Stage 1 (1969)

Discogs link here

Paper Stage 2 (1969)

Discogs link here

Solo Flight (1972)

Discogs link here

Collaboration – Bob and Ron

Copper, Ewan MacColl, Isla

Cameron, Seamus Ennis and

Peter Kennedy

Ewan MacColl

Ballads (The Child Ballads) Vol 1

(1956)

Discogs link here

The English and Scottish Popular


(1956)

Discogs link here



(1956)

Discogs link here

Bad Lads and Hard Cases (1959)

Discogs link here

Songs of Robert Burns (1959)

Discogs link here

Haul on the Bowlin’(1961)

Discogs link here


Ballads

(Child Ballads) (1961)

Discogs link here

Broadside Ballads,

vols 2 (1962)

Discogs link here

Off to Sea Once More (1963)

Discogs link here

Four Pence a Day (1963)

Bandcamp link here

British Industrial Folk songs

(1963)

Discogs link here

Bundook Ballads (1967)

Discogs link here

The Wanton Muse (1968)

Discogs link here


As I Roved Out (1953–54)

(no link found)

Collaboration – A. L. Lloyd,

Ewan MacColl, Louis Killen, Ian

Campbell, Cyril Tawney, Sam

Larner and Harry H. Corbett

Blow the Man Down (EP) (1956)

Discogs link here

Collaboration – with A. L. Lloyd

A Hundred Years Ago (EP) (1956

Discogs link here

The Coast of Peru (EP) (1956)

Discogs link here

The Singing Sailor (1956)

Discogs link here



(1956)

Discogs link here



(1956)

Discogs link here


Gamblers and Sporting Blades

(E.P.) (1962) (accompanied by

Steve Benbow)

Discogs link here

Bold Sportsmen All: Gamblers &

Sporting Blades (1962, with Roy

Harris)

Discogs link here

English and Scottish Folk Ballads

(1964)

Discogs link here

A Sailor’s Garland (1966)

Discogs link here

Blow Boys Blow (1967)

Discogs link here

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger

Matching Songs of the British

Isles and America (1957)

Discogs link here

Second Shift – Industrial Ballads

(1958)

Discogs link here

Chorus From The Gallows (1960)

Discogs link her

18 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Popular Scottish Songs (1960)

Discogs link here

New Briton Gazette, Vol. 1 (1960)

Discogs link here

Songs Against the Bomb (1960)

Discogs link here

Classic Scots Ballads (1961)

Discogs link here

Bothy Ballads of Scotland (1961)

Discogs link here

Two Way Trip (1961)

Discogs link here

New Briton Gazette, Vol. 2 (1962)

Discogs link here

Jacobite Songs – The Two

Rebellions 1715 and 1745 (1962)

Discogs link here

Steam Whistle Ballads (1964)

Discogs link here

Traditional Songs and Ballads

(1964)

Discogs link here

The Amorous Muse (1966)

Discogs link here

The Manchester Angel (1966)

Discogs link here

The Long Harvest 1 (1966)

Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here

The Angry Muse (1968)

Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here

The World Of Ewan MacColl

And Peggy Seeger (1970)

Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here

The World Of Ewan MacColl

And Peggy Seeger Vol. 2 – Songs

from Radio Ballads (1972)

Discogs link here

At The Present Moment (1972)

Discogs link here

Folkways Record of

Contemporary Songs (1973)

Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here

Saturday Night at The Bull

and Mouth (1977)

Discogs link here

Cold Snap (1977)

Discogs link here

Hot Blast (1978)

Discogs link here

Blood and Roses (1979)

Discogs link here

Kilroy Was Here (1980)

Discogs link here

Blood and Roses 2 (1981)

Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here


Discogs link here

Freeborn Man (1983)

[reissued 1989]

Discogs link here

Daddy, What did You Do in The

Strike? (1984)

[cassette mini-album]

Discogs link here

White Wind, Black Tide –

Anti-Apartheid Songs (1986)

[cassette album]

Discogs link here

Items of News (1986)

Discogs link here

Ewan MacColl/The Radio Ballads

(1958–1964)

Ballad of John Axon (1958)

Discogs link here

Song of a Road (1959)

Discogs link here

Singing The Fishing (1960)

Discogs link here

The Big Hewer (1961)

Discogs link here

The Body Blow (1962)

Discogs link here

On The Edge (1963)

Discogs link here

The Fight Game (1964)

Discogs link here

The Travelling People (1964)

Discogs link here


Ewan McColl

janeshieldsmedia@gmail.com 21 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

John Hartford

John Cowan Hartford (December 30, 1937 –

June 4, 2001) was an American folk, country,

and bluegrass composer and musician known

for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as

well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and

extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore. His most

successful song is “Gentle on My Mind”, which won

three Grammy Awards and was listed in “BMI’s Top

100 Songs of the Century”. Hartford performed with

a variety of ensembles throughout his career, and is

perhaps best known for his solo performances where

he would interchange the guitar, banjo, and fiddle

from song to song. He also invented his own shuffle

tap dance move, and clogged on an amplified piece of

plywood while he played and sang.

He was posthumously inducted into the International

Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

Harford (he changed his name to Hartford later in life

on the advice of Chet Atkins) was born on December

30, 1937, in New York City to parents Carl and Mary

Harford. He spent his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri,

where he was exposed to the influence that shaped

much of his career and music: the Mississippi River.

From the time he got his first job on the river, at age 16,

Hartford was on, around, or singing about the river.

His early musical influences came from the broadcasts

of the 'Grand Ole Opry' and included Earl Scruggs,

nominal inventor of the three-finger bluegrass style of

banjo playing. Hartford said often that the first time

he heard Earl Scruggs pick the banjo, it changed his

life. By age 13, Hartford was an accomplished old-time

fiddler and banjo player, and he soon learned to play

guitar and mandolin as well. Hartford performed with

his first bluegrass band while attending John Burroughs

School, a local private high school.

After high school, he enrolled at Washington University


John Hartford

in St. Louis, completed four years of a commercial arts

program and dropped out to focus on music; however,

he did receive a degree in 1960. He immersed himself in

the local music scene, working as a DJ, playing in bands,

and occasionally recording singles for local labels.

In 1965, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, the center

of the country music industry. In 1966, he signed with

RCA Victor and produced his first album, "Looks at

Life", in the same year.

In 1967, Hartford's second album "Earthwords &

Music" spawned his first major songwriting hit, "Gentle

on My Mind". His recording of the song was only

a modest success, but it caught the notice of Glen

Campbell, who recorded his own version, which gave

the song much wider publication. At the 1968 Grammys,

the song netted four awards, two of which went to

Hartford. It became one of the most widely recorded

country songs of all time, and the royalties it brought

in allowed Hartford great financial independence;

Hartford later said that the song bought his freedom.

As his popularity grew, he moved to the West Coast,

where he became a regular on "The Smothers Brothers

Comedy Hour"; other television appearances followed,

as did recording appearances with several major

country artists. Hartford played banjo and sang the

vocal harmonies on the Guthrie Thomas song "I'll be

Lucky". He also played with The Byrds on their album

"Sweetheart of the Rodeo".

His success on the "Smothers Brothers" series was

enough that Hartford was offered the lead role in a TV

detective series, but he turned it down to move back

to Nashville and concentrate on music. He also was a

regular on "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (as the

banjo picker who would stand up from his seat in the

audience to begin the theme music) and "The Johnny

Cash Show".

In live performances, John Hartford was a true oneman

band; he used several stringed instruments and a

variety of props such as plywood squares and boards

with sand and gravel for flatfoot dancing.

Newgrass

Hartford recorded four more albums for RCA from

1968 to 1970: "The Love Album", "Housing Project",

"John Hartford", and "Iron Mountain Depot". In 1971,

he moved to Warner Bros. Records, where he was given

more freedom to record in his nontraditional style,

fronting a band that included Vassar Clements, Tut

Taylor, and Norman Blake. He recorded several albums

that set the tone of his later career, including "Aereo-

Plain" and "Morning Bugle". Sam Bush said, "Without

Aereo-Plain (and the Aereo-Plain band), there would be

no newgrass music."

He switched to the Flying Fish label several years

later and continued to experiment with nontraditional

country and bluegrass styles. Among his recordings

were two albums in 1977 and 1980 with Doug and

Rodney Dillard from The Dillards, with Sam Bush as

a backing musician and featuring a diversity of songs

that included "Boogie On Reggae Woman" and "Yakety

Yak". Hartford's Grammy-winning "Mark Twang"

features Hartford playing solo, reminiscent of his live

solo performances playing the fiddle, guitar, banjo, and

amplified plywood for tapping his feet. At the same time,

he developed a stage show, which toured in various

forms from the mid 1970s until shortly before his death.

Hartford changed recording labels several more

times during his career; in 1991, he inaugurated his

own Small Dog a'Barkin' label. Later in the 1990s, he

switched again to Rounder Records. He recorded a

number of idiosyncratic records on Rounder, many

of which recalled earlier forms of folk and country

music. Among them was the 1999 album "Retrograss"

recorded with Mike Seeger and David Grisman, with

bluegrass versions of "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay",

"Maybellene", "When I'm Sixty-Four", and "Maggie's

Farm".

He recorded several songs for the soundtrack to the

movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," winning another

Grammy for his performance. He made his final tour

in 2000 with the "Down from the Mountain" tour that

grew out of that movie and its accompanying album.

While performing in Texas in April, he found that he

could no longer control his hands due to non-Hodgkin

lymphoma, which ended his life two months later.

Hartford is considered a co-founder of the newgrass

movement, although he remained deeply attached to

traditional music as well. His last band and last few

albums reflect his love for pre-bluegrass old-time music.

Steamboating

The culture of the Mississippi River and its steamboats

captivated Hartford from an early age. He said that it

would have been his life's work "but music got in the

way", so he intertwined them whenever possible. In

the '70s, Hartford earned his steamboat pilot's license,

which he used to keep close to the river he loved for

many years, he worked as a pilot on the steamboat "Julia

Belle Swain" during the summers. He also worked as a

towboat pilot on the Mississippi, Illinois, and Tennessee

Rivers.


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MAGAZINE

During his later years, he came back to the river every

summer. "Working as a pilot is a labor of love", he said.

"After a while, it becomes a metaphor for a whole lot of

things, and I find for some mysterious reason that if I

stay in touch with it, things seem to work out all right".

His home in Madison, Tennessee, was situated on a

bend of the Cumberland River and built to simulate

the view from a steamboat deck. He used to talk to the

boat captains by radio as their barges crawled along the

river. That bend of the Cumberland River, known as

"Hartford's Bend" or "John Hartford Point", is denoted

on official navigational charts with the "John Hartford

Light".

An accomplished fiddler and banjo player, Hartford

was simultaneously an innovative voice on the country

scene and a reminder of a vanished era. Along with his

own compositions, such as "Long Hot Summer Days"

and "Kentucky Pool", Hartford was a repository of old

river songs, calls, and stories. His song "Let Him Go

on Mama" from "Mark Twang" was inspired by retired

Streckfus Steamers musician (and later chief engineer of

the Delta Queen) Mike O'Leary. Hartford was also the

author of "Steamboat in a Cornfield", a children's book

that recounts the true story of the Ohio River steamboat

The Virginia and its beaching in a cornfield.

Final years and legacy

Between 1995 and 2001, Brandon Ray Kirk and he

co-authored a biography of blind fiddler Ed Haley.

Hartford's album "The Speed of the Old Longbow"

is a collection of Haley's tunes. Writer and arts

administrator Art Menius profiled Hartford in the

Academia journal article, "John Hartford as I Knew

Him", saying "John connected not just words to music,

but the old days of Nashville to its present, tradition to

innovation, new grass to bluegrass to old-time, television

to radio, river to shore, aging musicians to hippies.

Goethe may have been the last person to know everything

worth knowing, but John Hartford tried." Hartford also

provided voice acting for the Ken Burns' documentary

series "Baseball and The Civil War".

From the 1980s onwards, Hartford had non-Hodgkin

lymphoma. He died of the disease at Centennial Medical

Center in Nashville, on June 4, 2001, at age 63. He is

interred at Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.

Hartford was given a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame

in honor of his work. He also was given a posthumous

president's award by the "Americana Music Association"

in September 2005. The annual "John Hartford

Memorial Festival" was held in southern Indiana from

2011 to 2019 and in 2022.

Hartford acknowledged that the royalties he earned

from "Gentle" allowed him to live the life he wanted

as a musician, author, folklorist and steamboat pilot.

The Financial Times commented that "his song about

freedom ensured his own freedom."

Personal life

Hartford was initially married to Betty and later to

Marie, who survived him. He has a son and daughter.

Works

Hartford recorded more than 30 albums, ranging

across a broad spectrum of styles, from the traditional

country of his early RCA recordings, to the new and

experimental sound of his early newgrass recordings,

to the traditional folk style to which he often returned

later in his life. Hartford's albums also vary widely in

formality, from the stately and orderly "Annual Waltz" to

the rougher and less cut recordings that typified many of

his later albums.

"Aereo-Plain" and "Morning Bugle" are often considered

to be Hartford's most influential works, coming as they

did at the beginning of a period in which artists such as

Hartford and the New Grass Revival, led by Sam Bush,

would create a new form of country music, blending

their country backgrounds with influences from a

number of other sources. His later years had a number

of live albums, as well as recordings that explored the

repertoire of old-time folk music. He sketched the cover

art for some of his midcareer albums, drawing with both

hands simultaneously.

Hartford is also a published author, including 1971's

collection of poetry "Word Movies" and 1986's

"Steamboat in a Cornfield", a poetic retelling of a

steamboat running aground along the Ohio River.

In popular culture

His song "This Eve of Parting", from the 1968 album

"The Love Album", was featured in the 2017 movie

"Lady Bird", portions being heard at two different points

in the film.

Cartoonist Jim Scancarelli was a fan, and mentioned

Hartford several times in his strip "Gasoline Alley". In

1991, a flood washes up a steamboat carrying Hartford;

in 1998, he played at Rufus and Melba's wedding

reception; and in 2002, when Skeezix and Slim are lost

in a cemetery, Hartford's gravestone is seen.

The third track on the album "A Tear in the Eye Is a

Wound in the Heart" by the band Black Prairie, of

Portland, Oregon, is entitled "For the Love of John

Hartford", an instrumental.


JOHN HARTFORD

ALBUM discography

John Hartford

EARTHWOODS & MUSIC

RCA Victor 1967

Discogs link

JOHN HARTFORD LOOKS

AT LIFE

RCA Victor 1967

Discogs link

HOUSING PROJECT

RCA Victor 1968

Discogs link

THE LOVE ALBUM

RCA Victor 1968

Discogs link

JOHN HARTFORD

RCA Victor 1969

Discogs link

IRON MOUNTAIN DEPOT

RCA Victor 1970

Discogs link

AERO-PLAIN

Warner Bros Records 1971

Discogs link

MORNING BUGLE

Warner Bros Records 1972

Discogs link

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT

YOU DO

Flying Fish 1976

Discogs link

MARK TWANG

Flying Fish 1976

Discogs link

GLITTER GRASS FROM THE

NASHVILLE HOLLYVILLE

STRINGS

Flying Fish 1977

Discogs link

ALL IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Flying Fish 1977

Discogs link

HEADIN' DOWN INTO THE

MYSTERY BELOW

Flying Fish 1978

Discogs link

SLUMBERING ON THE

CUMBERLAND

Flying Fish 1979

Discogs link

PERMANENT WAVE

Flying Fish 1980

Discogs link

YOU AND ME AT HOME

Flying Fish 1980

Discogs link

CATALOGUE

Flying Fish 1980

Diuscogs link

A COLLECTORS TREASURY

Vassellie Productions

Discogs link

GUM TREE CANOE

Flying Fish 1984

Discogs link

HOLLAND

Rounder Records 1985

Discogs link

ANNUAL WALTZ

Dot Records 1987

Discogs link

DOWN ON THE RIVER

Flying Fish 1989

Discogs link

HARTFORD & HARTFORD

Flying Fish 1991

Diuscogs link

GOIN' BACK TO DIXIE

Small Dog A Barkin' 1992

Discogs link

CADILLAC RAG


Discogs link

THE WALLS WE BOUNCE OFF


Discogs link

OLD SPORT


Discogs link

THE FUN OF OPEN

DISCUSSION


Discogs link

LIVE AT COLLEGE STATION

PENNSYLVANIA


Discogs link

WILD HOG IN THE RED

BRUSH


Discogs link

NO END OF LOVE


Discogs link

THE SPEED OF THE OLD

LONG BOW

Rounder records 1998

Discogs link

THE BULLIES HAVE ALL

GONE TO REST

Whippoorwill Records 1998

Discogs Link


SFM

MAGAZINE

RETROGRASS

Acoustic Disc 1999

Discogs link

GOOD OLD BOYS

Rounder Select 1999

Discogs link

LIVE FROM MOUNTAIN

STAGE

Blue Plate Music

Discogs link

HAMILTON IRONWORKS

Rounder Select

Discogs link

STEAM POWERED

AERO-TAKES


Discogs link

HARTFORD, RICE &

CLEMENTS

Small Dog A Barkin'

Discogs link

PILOT OF A STEAM

POWERED AERO-PLAIN

Self Released 2013

Discogs link

HOME MADE SUGAR AND A

PUNCHEON FLOOR

Spring Fed Records 2016

Discogs link

STEAMBOAT WHISTLE BLUES

MIG 2021

Discogs link

COUNTRY ANGEL

CHRISTMAS

Childrens Book Of The Month

Club

Discogs link

HEADIN' DOWN INTO THE

MYSTERY BELOW

Flying Fish

Discogs link

SINGLES & EP'S

BIG BLUE BALLOON 1967

Discogs link

GENTLE ON MY MIND 1967

Discogs link

A SIMPLE THING AS LOVE/

LANDSCAPE GROWN COLD

Discogs link

GENTLE ON MY MIND/

CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE

Discogs link

GENTLE ON MY MIND

Discogs link

SHINY RAILS OF STEEL

Discogs link

THE CATEGORY STOMP

Discogs link

NATURAL TO BE GONE/

LIKE UNTO A MOCKINGBIRD

Discogs link

I DIDN'T KNOW THE WORLD

WOULD LAST THIS LONG

Discogs link

ONE TOO MANY MORNINGS/

SOLITARY SANCTUARY

Discogs link

GENTLE ON MY MIND

Discogs link

PIECE OF MY HEART/

NO EXPECTATIONS

Discogs link

I'M STILL HERE/

GUM TREE CANOE

Discogs link

LOVE WROTE THIS SONG

Discogs link

MOUTH TO MOUTH

RESUSSICATION

Discogds link

JACK'S IN THE SACK

Discogs link

COMPILATIONS

GENTLE ON MY MIND &

OTHER ORIGINALS

Discogs link

SOPHISTICATION IN STEREO

Discogs link

ME OH MY, HOW THE TIME

DOES FLY

Discogs link

GLITTER GRASS FROM THE

NASHVILLE HOLLYVILLE

STRINGS & PERMANENT

WAVE

Discogs link

RCA COUNTRY LEGENDS

Discogs link

NATURAL TO BE GONE

Discogs link

JOHN HARTFORD/IRON

MOUNTAIN DEPOT/

RADIO JOHN

Discogs link

LOOKS AT LIFE/

EARTHWORDS & MUSIC

Discogs link

THE LOVE ALBUM

Discogs link

IRON MOUNTAIN DEPOT/

RADIO JOHN/

BONUS TRACK DVD

Discogs link

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

GOOD 'LE DAYS

Discogs link


SFM

MAGAZINE

June Carter Cash

Valerie June Carter

Cash (June 23, 1929

– May 15, 2003 was

an American country

singer and songwriter. A fivetime

Grammy Award–winner,

she was a member of the Carter

Family and the second wife of

singer Johnny Cash. Prior to

her marriage to Cash, she was

known as June Carter, and she

continued to be credited as such

even after her marriage (as well as

on songwriting credits predating

it).

She played guitar, banjo,

harmonica, and autoharp,

and acted in several films and

television shows. Carter Cash

was inducted into the Christian

Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

Early life

June Carter Cash was born

Valerie June Carter in Maces

Spring, Virginia, to Maybelle

(née Addington) and Ezra

Carter. Her mother was a

country music performer with

June's aunt Sara and uncle A. P.

Carter. June began performing

with the Carter Family from

the age of 10, in 1939. In

March 1943, when the Carter

Family trio stopped recording

together at the end of the WBT

contract, Maybelle Carter, with

encouragement from her husband

Ezra, formed "The Carter Sisters

and Mother Maybelle" with her

daughters, Helen on accordion,

Anita Carter on bass fiddle and

June on autoharp and as front

person and comedian. The new

group first aired on radio station

WRNL in Richmond, Virginia,

on June 1. Doc (Addington) and

Carl (McConnell)—Maybelle's

brother and cousin, respectively,

known as "The Virginia Boys",


June Carter Cash

joined them in late 1945. June, then 16, was a coannouncer

with Ken Allyn and did the commercials

on the radio shows for Red Star Flour, Martha

White, and Thalhimers Department Store, just to

name a few For the next year (1946), the Carters

and Doc and Carl did show dates within driving

range of Richmond, through Virginia, Maryland,

Delaware, and Pennsylvania. She attended John

Marshall High School during this period. June later

said she had to work harder at her music than her

sisters, but she had her own special talent —comedy.

A highlight of the road shows was her "Aunt Polly"

comedy routine. With her thin and lanky frame, June

Carter often played a comedic foil during the group's

performances alongside other Opry stars Faron

Young and Webb Pierce. Carl McConnell wrote in

his memoirs that June was "a natural-born clown,

if there ever was one". Decades later, Carter revived

"Aunt Polly" for the 1976 TV series "Johnny Cash &

Friends".

After Doc and Carl dropped out of the music

business in late 1946, Maybelle and her daughters

moved to Sunshine Sue Workman's "Old Dominion

Barn Dance" on the WRVA Richmond station. After

a while there, they moved to WNOX in Knoxville,

Tennessee, where they met Chet Atkins with Homer

and Jethro.

In 1949, the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle,

with their lead guitarist, Atkins, were living in

Springfield, Missouri, and performing regularly at

KWTO. Ezra "Eck" Carter, Maybelle's husband

and manager of the group, declined numerous

offers from the Grand Ole Opry to move the act to

Nashville, Tennessee, because the Opry would not

permit Atkins to accompany the group onstage.

Atkins' reputation as a guitar player had begun to

spread, and studio musicians were fearful that he

would displace them as a 'first-call' player if he came

to Nashville. Finally, in 1950, Opry management

relented and the group, along with Atkins, became

part of the Opry company. Here the family

befriended Hank Williams and Elvis Presley (to

whom they were distantly related), and June met

Johnny Cash.

Carter and her sisters, with their mother Maybelle

and aunt Sara joining in from time to time,

reclaimed the name "The Carter Family" for their act

during the 1960s and 1970s.


While Carter may be best known for singing and

songwriting, she was also an author, dancer, actress,

comedian, philanthropist, and humanitarian.

Director Elia Kazan saw her perform at the Grand

Ole Opry in 1955 and encouraged her to study

acting. She studied with Lee Strasberg and Sanford

Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of

the Theatre in New York. Her acting roles included

Mrs. "Momma" Dewey in Robert Duvall's 1998

movie "The Apostle", Sister Ruth, wife to Johnny

Cash's character Kid Cole, on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine

Woman" (1993–97), and Clarise on "Gunsmoke"

in 1957. She was notable as Mayhayley Lancaster

playing alongside husband Cash in the 1983

television movie "Murder in Coweta County."

June was also Momma James in "The Last Days of

Frank and Jesse James". She also acted in occasional

comedy skits for various Johnny Cash TV programs.

As a singer, she had both a solo career and a career

singing with first her family and later her husband.

As a solo artist, she became somewhat successful

with upbeat country tunes of the 1950s, such as

"Jukebox Blues" and the comedic hit "No Swallerin'

Place" by Frank Loesser. Carter also recorded "The

Heel" in the 1960s along with many other songs.

In the early 1960s, Carter wrote the song "Ring of

Fire", which later went on to be a hit for her future

husband, Johnny Cash. She co-wrote the song with

fellow songwriter Merle Kilgore. Carter wrote the

lyrics about her relationship with Cash and she

offered the song to her sister, Anita Carter, who was

the first singer to record the song. In 1963, Cash

recorded the song with the Carter Family singing

backup and added mariachi horns. The song became

a number-one hit and went on to become one of the

most recognizable songs in the world of country

music. In her autobiography, "I Walked the Line",

Cash's first wife Vivian Cash disputes the myth

that Carter co-wrote the song "Ring of Fire". Vivian

relates the story that Cash told her in 1963: he wrote

the song with Kilgore and Curly Lewis while fishing

and he was going to give Carter half credit because

"she needs the money. And I feel sorry for her."

Carter's first notable studio performance with

Johnny Cash occurred in 1964 when she duetted

with Cash on "It Ain't Me Babe", a Bob Dylan

composition, that was released as a single and on

Cash's album "Orange Blossom Special". In 1967,

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the two found more substantial success with their

recording of "Jackson", which was followed by a

collaboration album, "Carryin' On" with Johnny

Cash and June Carter. All these releases predated

her marriage to Cash, after which she changed

her professional name to June Carter Cash. She

continued to work with Cash on recordings and on

stage for the rest of her life, recording a number of

duets with Cash for his various albums and being

a regular on "The Johnny Cash Show" from 1969 to

1971 and on Cash's annual Christmas specials. After

"Carryin' On", Carter recorded one more direct

collaboration album, "Johnny Cash and His Woman",

released in 1973, and, along with her daughters, was

a featured vocalist on Cash's 1974 album "The Junkie

and the Juicehead Minus Me". She also shared sleeve

credit with her husband on a 2000 small-label gospel

release, "Return to the Promised Land".

Although she provided vocals on many recordings

and shared the billing with Cash on several album

releases, June Carter Cash only recorded three solo

albums during her lifetime: the first, "Appalachian

Pride", released in 1975, "Press On" (1999), and

"Wildwood Flower", released posthumously in

2003 and produced by her son, John Carter Cash.

"Appalachian Pride" is the only one of the three on

which Johnny Cash does not perform, while "Press

On" is notable for featuring Carter singing her

original arrangement of "Ring of Fire".

One of her final appearances was a non-speaking/

non-singing appearance in the music video for

her husband's 2003 single, "Hurt", filmed a few

months before her death. One of her last known

public appearances was on April 7, 2003, just over a

month before her death, when she appeared on the

CMT "Flameworthy Awards" program to accept an

achievement award on behalf of her husband, who

was too ill to attend.

She won a Grammy award in 1999 for, "Press

On". Her last album, "Wildwood Flower", won

two additional Grammys. It contains bonus video

enhancements showing extracts from the film of the

recording sessions, which took place at the Carter

Family estate in Hiltons, Virginia, on September

18–20, 2002. The songs on the album include "Big

Yellow Peaches", "Sinking in the Lonesome Sea",

"Temptation", and the trademark staple "Wildwood

Flower". Due to her involvement in providing

backing vocals on many of her husband's recordings,

a further posthumous release occurred in 2014, when

"Out Among the Stars" was released under Johnny

Cash's name. The album consists of previously

unreleased recordings from the early 1980s,

including two on which June Carter Cash provides

duet vocals.

Her autobiography was published in 1979, and she

wrote a memoir, "From the Heart", almost 10 years

later.

PERSONAL LIFE

Carter was married three times and had one child

with each husband. All three of her children went

on to have successful careers in country music. She

was married first to country singer Carl Smith from

July 9, 1952, until their divorce in 1956. Together,

they wrote "Time's A-Wastin". They had a daughter,

Rebecca Carlene Smith, known professionally as

Carlene Carter, a country musician. Carter's second

marriage was to Edwin "Rip" Nix, a former football

player and police officer, on November 11, 1957.

They had a daughter, Rosie Nix Adams, on July 13,

1958, who became a country/rock singer. The couple

divorced in 1966. Their daughter died in 2003, at

the age of 45, from accidental carbon monoxide

poisoning in a school bus that had been converted

into a campervan.

Carter and the entire Carter Family had performed

with Johnny Cash for a number of years. In 1968,

Cash proposed to Carter during a live performance

at the London Ice House in London, Ontario. They

married on March 1 in Franklin, Kentucky. They

had one son, John Carter Cash, who is a musician,

songwriter, and producer. The couple remained

married until her death in May 2003, four months

before Cash died.

She also gained four stepdaughters from her third

husband's previous marriage to Vivian Liberto,

including Cindy and Rosanne.

Carter's distant cousin, the 39th U.S. president

Jimmy Carter, became closely acquainted with

Cash and Carter and maintained their friendship

throughout their lifetimes. In a June 1977 speech,

Jimmy Carter acknowledged that June Carter was

his distant cousin.

Carter was a longtime supporter of SOS Children's

Villages. In 1974, the Cashes donated money to help


June Carter Cash

build a village near their home in Barrett Town,

Jamaica, which they visited frequently, playing

the guitar and singing songs to the children in the

village.

Carter also had close relationships with a number

of entertainers, including Audrey Williams, James

Dean, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Jessi Colter, Kris

Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Robert

Duvall, and Roy Orbison.

At the end of her life, she and her husband attended

the First Baptist Church in Hendersonville,

Tennessee.

Death

In April 2003, Carter was diagnosed with a

leaky heart valve, and doctors told her that valve

replacement surgery was the only solution for her

issue. She had the surgery on May 7; however,

complications arose, and her health deteriorated

rapidly over the next few days. She died on May 15,

2003, at the age of 73. She was surrounded by her

family, including her husband of 35 years, Johnny

Cash. Public funeral services were held at the First

Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. At

Carter's funeral, her stepdaughter Rosanne Cash

stated, "If being a wife were a corporation, June would

have been a CEO. It was her most treasured role."

Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes on

September 12. Carter's daughter Rosie Nix Adams

died on October 24. All three are buried at the

Hendersonville Memory Gardens near their home in

Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Awards

Carter and her then-future husband, Johnny Cash,

reached number 2 on the U.S. Country charts with

their 1967 duet of "Jackson". Their performance

won the 1968 Grammy Award for Best Country &

Western Performance Duet, Trio or Group. The two

won the 1971 Grammy Award, for Best Country

Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, for their 1970

duet "If I Were a Carpenter".

Carter Cash won the 2000 Grammy Award, for

"Best Traditional Folk Album", for her 1999 album

"Press On". The album was a top-15 success on

the Americana chart. Carter Cash's last album,

"Wildwood Flower," was released posthumously in

2003. Carter Cash won the 2004 Grammy Award

for ""Best Traditional Folk Album, and she also won


the 2004 Grammy Award for "Best Female Country

Vocal Performance" for the single "Keep on the

Sunny Side".

Philanthropy

Carter Cash, along with her husband, Johnny

Cash, worked with and gave money to the group,

SOS Children's Villages, throughout their lives.

They began this involvement in 1973 when they

donated $12,000 ($75,351 in 2022 terms) to build an

orphanage in a Jamaican village close to their home

in that country. They would visit the nearby village

during their time spent in Jamaica and play with the

children and sing songs to them. When Cash died

in 2003, their family asked that donations be made

to the SOS Children's Villages due to the couple's

involvement. In a quote from a representative of the

Prime Minister of Jamaica at the time, P. J. Patterson,

talks about their charitable works in the country,

"A philanthropist extraordinaire, Mrs. Cash made

Jamaica her second home and loved and cared deeply

for the people of her adopted country. A gifted and

talented singer, she and her husband, Johnny Cash,

used the very talents for the benefit of many charities

in and around Montego Bay."

Legacy

In 2003, Carter was included by Country Music

Television on their list of the "40 Greatest Women of

Country Music".

Carter was played by Reese Witherspoon in "Walk

the Line", a 2005 biographical film of Johnny Cash

(played by Joaquin Phoenix). The film largely

focused on the development of their relationship

over the course of 13 years, from their first meeting

to her final acceptance of his proposal of marriage.

Witherspoon performed all vocals for the role,

singing many of Carter's famous songs, including

"Juke Box Blues" and "Jackson" with Phoenix.

Witherspoon won an Academy Award, Golden

Globe, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award for

Best Actress in the role.

Musician and actress Jewel portrayed Carter in the

Lifetime television movie "Ring of Fire", which aired

on May 27, 2013. The film is based on John Carter

Cash's memoir "Anchored in Love": An Intimate

Portrait of June Carter Cash.

Carter was played by Erin Beute in the 2019

television movie "Patsy & Loretta".

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David Crosby

David Van Cortlandt Crosby (August 14, 1941

– January 18, 2023) was an American singer,

songwriter, and guitarist. He first found fame

as a member of the Byrds, with whom he

helped pioneer the genres of folk rock and psychedelia

in the mid-1960s, and later as part of the supergroup

Crosby, Stills & Nash, who helped popularize the

California sound of the 1970s. In addition to his music,

Crosby was known for his outspoken personality, politics,

and personal troubles; he was sometimes depicted as

emblematic of the counterculture of the 1960s.

After a short time performing in the folk music scene,

Crosby co-founded the Byrds in 1964. They scored their

first number-one hit in 1965 with a cover of Bob Dylan's

"Mr. Tambourine Man". Crosby appeared on the Byrds'

first five albums and the original lineup's 1973 reunion

album. In 1968, he formed Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN)

with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. After the release

of their debut album, CSN won the Grammy Award for

'Best New Artist of 1969'. The group later occasionally

included Neil Young. The core trio of CSN remained

active from 1976 until 2016, and the duo of Crosby

& Nash also recorded three gold albums in the 1970s.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) reunions were held

in each decade from the 1970s through the 2000s.

Crosby released eight solo albums, albeit sporadically,

over the course of his career. His solo debut was 1971's

"If I Could Only Remember My Name". The last five of

his solo albums, beginning with "Croz" (2014), came

in the last decade of his life. Additionally, he formed a

jazz-influenced trio with his son James Raymond and

guitarist Jeff Pevar in CPR. He also appeared frequently

on recordings by other artists, including Joni Mitchell,

Jefferson Airplane, Jackson Browne, James Taylor,


David Crosby

Elton John and David Gilmour.

Crosby's combined work with the Byrds and CSNY has

sold over 35 million albums.[7] He was inducted into the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: once for his work in the

Byrds and again for his work with CSN. Five albums to

which he contributed are included in Rolling Stone's list

of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", three with the

Byrds and two with CSN(Y).

He was also an occasional actor, appearing as a member of

Captain Hook's pirate crew in "Hook" (1991).

Early years

David Van Cortlandt Crosby was born on August

14, 1941, in Los Angeles, California, the second son

of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd

Crosby, who formerly worked on Wall Street, and Aliph

Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a salesperson at Macy's

department store. His father was a relative of the Van

Rensselaer family, and his mother—granddaughter of

Bishop of Pittsburgh Cortlandt Whitehead—descended

from the prominent Van Cortlandt family; they "regularly

inhabited the New York society pages before their wedding".

Crosby’s older brother was musician Ethan Crosby.

His brother inspired his early love of jazz, particularly

John Coltrane and Miles Davis; the latter would later

recommend that Columbia Records sign the Byrds, and

then cover the Crosby composition "Guinnevere." Their

parents divorced in 1960, and his father then married

Betty Cormack Andrews.

Growing up in California, he attended several schools,

including the University Elementary School in Los

Angeles, the Crane Country Day School in Montecito,

and Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara for the

rest of his elementary school and junior high years.

At Crane, he starred in "H.M.S. Pinafore" and other

musicals but he flunked out. Crosby finished high school

via correspondence courses from the Cate School in

Carpinteria. He briefly attended Carpinteria Union High

School in 1958. Ethan ('Chip') had been at CUHS before

David. At CUHS David was given the lead in the "Junior

Class Play."

THE BYRDS

Crosby briefly studied drama at Santa Barbara City

College before dropping out to pursue a career in music.

He performed with singer Terry Callier in Chicago

and Greenwich Village, but the duo failed to obtain a

recording contract. He also performed with Les Baxter's

Balladeers in 1964/1965 and published four singles in

1965, including a cover of the Beatles's song, "Michelle".

With the help of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby recorded

his first solo session in 1963, with a cover of a song

by Ray Charles. Miriam Makeba was on tour and in


Chicago at the time with her band, which included Jim

McGuinn, a multi-instrumentalist who later dropped his

first name and began to go by his middle name, Roger

McGuinn. Callier introduced Crosby to McGuinn and

Gene Clark, who were then performing by the name the

Jet Set. Crosby joined them, and they were augmented

by drummer Michael Clarke, at which point Crosby

attempted, unsuccessfully, to play bass. Late in 1964, Chris

Hillman joined the band as bassist, and Crosby relieved

Gene Clark of rhythm guitar duties.

Through connections that Jim Dickson (The Byrds'

manager) had with Bob Dylan's music publisher, the band

obtained a demo acetate disc of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine

Man" and recorded a version of the song, featuring

McGuinn's twelve-string guitar as well as McGuinn,

Crosby, and Clark's vocal harmonies. The song was a

massive hit, reaching No. 1 in the charts in the United

States and the United Kingdom during 1965. While

McGuinn originated the Byrds' trademark 12-string

guitar sound, Crosby was responsible for the soaring

harmonies and often unusual phrasing of their songs.

While he did not sing lead vocals on either of the first two

albums, he sang lead on the bridge in their second single

"All I Really Want to Do".

In 1966, Clark, who then was the band's primary

songwriter, left the group because of stress and this placed

all the group's songwriting responsibilities in the hands

of McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman. Crosby took the

opportunity to hone his craft and soon became a relatively

prolific songwriter, collaborating with McGuinn on

the up-tempo "I See You" (covered by Yes on their 1969

debut) and penning the ruminative "What's Happening".

His early Byrds efforts also included the 1966 hit "Eight

Miles High" (to which he contributed one line, according

to Clark, while Clark and McGuinn wrote the rest), and

its flip side "Why", co-written with McGuinn.

Because Crosby felt responsible for and was widely

credited with popularizing the song "Hey Joe", he

persuaded the other members of the Byrds to record it

on ""Fifth Dimension. By "Younger Than Yesterday," the

Byrds' 1967 album, Crosby began to find his trademark

style on songs such as "Renaissance Fair" (co-written

with McGuinn), "Mind Gardens", and "It Happens Each

Day"; however, the latter song was omitted from the final

album and ultimately restored as a bonus track on the

1996 remastered edition. The album also contained a

rerecording of "Why" and "Everybody's Been Burned", a

jazzy torch song from Crosby's pre-Byrds repertoire that

was initially demoed in 1963.

Friction between Crosby and the other Byrds came to

a head in early to mid-1967. Tensions were high after

the Monterey International Pop Festival in June when

Crosby's onstage political diatribes and support of various

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John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

between songs outraged McGuinn. He further annoyed

his bandmates when, at the invitation of Stephen Stills,

he sat in with Buffalo Springfield's set the following

night, after Young had quit the band and was replaced by

guitarist Doug Hastings. The internal conflict boiled over

during the initial recording sessions for The Notorious

Byrd Brothers (1968) that summer, where differences

over song selections led to intra-band arguments.

In particular, Crosby was adamant that the band

should record only original material despite the recent

commercial failure of "Lady Friend", a Crosby-penned

single that stalled at No. 82 on the American charts

following its release. McGuinn and Hillman dismissed

Crosby in October after he refused to countenance the

recording of a cover of Goffin and King's "Goin' Back".

While Crosby contributed to three compositions and five

recordings on the final album, his controversial ménage à

trois ode "Triad" was omitted. Jefferson Airplane released

a Grace Slick-sung cover on "Crown of Creation" (1968),

and three years later, Crosby released a solo acoustic

version on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's double live

album "4 Way Street" (1971). The Byrds' version appeared

decades later on the 1987 Never Before release and later

on the 1997 re-release of "The Notorious Byrd Brothers."

In 1973, Crosby reunited with the original Byrds for

the album "Byrds", with Crosby acting as the album's

producer. The album charted well (at No. 20, their best

album showing since their second album) but was

generally not perceived to be a critical success. It marked

the final artistic collaboration of the original band.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Around the time of Crosby's departure from the Byrds in

1968, he met Stephen Stills at Laurel Canyon in California

through Cass Elliot (of the Mamas & the Papas), and the

two started meeting informally and jamming together.

They were soon joined by Graham Nash, who would leave

his commercially successful group the Hollies to play with

Crosby and Stills. Their appearance at the Woodstock

Music and Art Fair in August 1969 constituted only their

second live performance.

Their first album, "Crosby, Stills & Nash" (1969), was

an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and

receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format, in its

early days populated by unfettered disc jockeys who then

had the option of playing entire albums at once.

The songs Crosby wrote while in CSN include

"Guinnevere", "Almost Cut My Hair", "Long Time Gone",

and "Delta". He also co-wrote "Wooden Ships" with Paul

Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Stills.

In 1969, Neil Young joined the group, and with him, they

recorded the album "Déjà Vu", which peaked at No. 1 on

the Billboard 200 and the ARIA Charts. On September 30,

1969, Crosby's longtime girlfriend Christine Hinton was

killed in a car accident only days after Hinton, Crosby,

and Debbie Donovan moved from Los Angeles to the

San Francisco Bay Area. Crosby was devastated, and he

began abusing drugs more severely than he had before.

Nevertheless, he still managed to contribute "Almost Cut

My Hair" and the album's title track. After the release of

the double live album "4 Way Street", the group went on a

four-year hiatus to focus on their respective solo careers.

In December 1969, Crosby appeared with CSNY at the

Altamont Free Concert, increasing his visibility after also

having performed at the Monterey International Pop

Festival and Woodstock. At the beginning of 1970, he

briefly joined with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Mickey

Hart from Grateful Dead, billed as "David and the

Dorks", and making a live recording at The Matrix on

December 15, 1970.

CSNY reunited in the summer of 1973 for unsuccessful

recording sessions in Maui and Los Angeles. Despite

lingering acrimony, they reconvened at a Stills concert

at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in October.

This served as a prelude to their highly successful stadium

tour in the summer of 1974. Following the tour, the

foursome attempted once again to record a new album,

provisionally entitled "Human Highway". The recording

sessions, which took place at the Record Plant in Sausalito,

were very unpleasant, marked by constant bickering. The

acrimonious atmosphere was too much for Neil Young,

who deserted the sessions and the album was never

completed.

In rehearsals for the 1974 tour, CSNY recorded a thenunreleased

Crosby song, "Little Blind Fish". A different

version of the song would appear on the second CPR

album more than two decades later. The 1974 tour was

also affected by bickering, though they managed to

finish it without interruption. A greatest hits compilation

entitled So Far was released in 1974 to capitalize on the

foursome's reunion tour.

In 1976, as separate duos, Crosby & Nash and Stills &

Young were both working on respective albums and

contemplated retooling their work to produce a CSNY

album. This attempt ended bitterly as Stills and Young

deleted Crosby and Nash's vocals from their album "Long

May You Run".

CSNY did not perform together again as a foursome until

Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985, and then performed

only sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s (mainly at the

annual Bridge School Benefit organized by Young's wife

Pegi). Without Young, however, Crosby, Stills & Nash

performed much more consistently after its reformation

in 1977. The trio toured in support of their 1977 and 1982


David Crosby

albums "CSN" and "Daylight Again" and then, starting in

the late 1980s, toured regularly year after year. The group

continued to perform live, and since 1982 released four

albums of new material: "American Dream" (1988, with

Young), "Live It Up" (1990), "After the Storm" (1994),

and "Looking Forward" (1999, with Young). In addition,

Crosby & Nash released the self-titled album "Crosby &

Nash" in 2004.

Full-scale CSNY tours took place in 2000, 2002, and

2006.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash appeared together on a 2008

episode of "The Colbert Report", with Colbert filling in

for Young in the fourth harmony part on "Teach Your

Children".

Following a November 2015 interview in which he stated

he still hoped the band had a future, Nash announced on

March 6, 2016, that Crosby, Stills & Nash would never

perform again because of his poor relationship with

Crosby.

1971–2022: Solo career and Crosby & Nash

In 1971, Crosby released his first solo album, "If I Could

Only Remember My Name", featuring contributions by

Nash, Young, Joni Mitchell, and members of Jefferson

Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Santana. Panned on

release by Rolling Stone magazine, it has been reappraised

amid the emergence of the freak folk and New Weird

America movements and remains in print. In a 2010

list of the Best Albums published by the Vatican City

newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, "If I Could Only

Remember My Name" came in second to the Beatles'

"Revolver".

As a duo, Crosby & Nash (C&N) released four studio

albums and two live albums, including "Another Stoney

Evening", which features the duo in a 1971 acoustic

performance with no supporting band. Crosby songs

recorded by C&N in the 1970s include "Whole Cloth",

"Where Will I Be?", "Page 43", "Games", "The Wall Song",

"Carry Me", "Bittersweet", "Naked in the Rain" (cowritten

with Nash), "Low Down Payment", "Homeward

Through the Haze", "Time After Time", "Dancer", "Taken

at All" (also co-written with Nash), and "Foolish Man".

During the mid-1970s, Crosby and Nash enjoyed

careers as session musicians, contributing harmonies and

background vocals to albums by Joni Mitchell, Jackson

Browne (whom Crosby had initially championed as an

emerging songwriter), Dave Mason, Rick Roberts, James

Taylor (most notably "Lighthouse" and "Mexico"), Art

Garfunkel, Carole King, Elton John, JD Souther, and

Gary Wright.

Renewing his ties to the San Francisco milieu that had

abetted so well on his solo album, Crosby sang backup


vocals on several Paul Kantner and Grace Slick albums

from 1971 through 1974 and the "Hot Tuna" album

"Burgers" in 1972. He also participated in composer Ned

Lagin's proto-ambient project "Seastones" along with

members of the Grateful Dead and of Jefferson Starship.

Crosby worked with Phil Collins occasionally from

the late 1980s to the early 1990s. He sang backup to

Collins in "That's Just the Way It Is" and "Another Day in

Paradise", and, on his own 1993 song, "Hero", from his

album "Thousand Roads," Collins sang backup. In 1992,

Crosby sang backup on the album "Rites of Passage" with

the Indigo Girls on the tracks "Galileo" and "Let it Be

Me". In 1999, he appeared on "Return of the Grievous

Angel": A Tribute to Gram Parsons, singing a duet of the

title track with Lucinda Williams.

In 2006, Crosby and Nash worked with David Gilmour

as backing vocalists on the latter's third solo album, "On

an Island". The album was released in March 2006 and

reached No. 1 on the UK charts. They also performed

live with Gilmour in his concert at the Royal Albert

Hall in London in May 2006 and toured together in the

United States, as can be seen on Gilmour's 2007 DVD

"Remember That Night". They also sang backup on the

title track of John Mayer's 2012 album "Born and Raised".

In January 2014, Crosby released his first solo album in

20 years, "Croz", recorded in close collaboration with his

son James Raymond (of the CPR band) at the latter's

home studio.

On July 14, 2016, Crosby announced a new solo album

named "Lighthouse", which was released on October 21,

2016, and shared a new track from it titled "Things We Do

for Love". The album was produced by Michael League

of the big band "Snarky Puppy", whom he met on Twitter,

and also featured contributions by future collaborators

Becca Stevens and Michelle Willis. On August 26,

2016, Crosby announced a U.S. tour, an 18-date trek to

launch on November 18, 2016, in Atlanta, Georgia, and to

conclude on December 16, 2016, in Ithaca, New York. He

also spoke out against Donald Trump during the latter's

presidential campaign.

In September 2017, Crosby announced a solo album (his

third one of original material in four years and his sixth

in total) entitled "Sky Trails", again with Raymond, to be

released on September 29, 2017, on BMG.

In April 2018, Crosby appeared on "NPR's Live from

Here", playing duets with host Chris Thile.

On October 26, 2018, Crosby released "Here If You

Listen"

on BMG, his first collaborative album with League,

Stevens, and Willis, all members of the Lighthouse

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band. The band also toured from November to December

of that same year.

Crosby was the subject of the documentary film "David

Crosby: Remember My Name" which premiered at the

2019 Sundance Film Festival. Crosby mentioned that

Cameron Crowe, who asked the interview questions for

the film, knew "where the bones are buried." Following the

premiere of the film, Crosby toured as David Crosby &

Friends from May to September 2019.[63]

In July 2021, Crosby released what would become his

final studio album, For Free.[64] This was followed by

the release of the 50th-anniversary expanded version of

"If I Could Only Remember My Name" on October 15.

It contains remastered songs as well as demos from the

original recording sessions. During promotion for the

rerelease, Crosby said that his second collaborative album

with League, Stevens, and Willis was in the works. The

result, Crosby's final release, was a live album recorded

during the band's tour, "Live at the Capitol Theatre",

released October 4, 2022.

1996–2004: CPR

In 1996, Crosby formed CPR or Crosby, Pevar &

Raymond with session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and pianist

James Raymond, Crosby's son. The group released two

studio albums and two live albums before disbanding in

2004.[67]

The first song that Crosby and Raymond co-wrote,

"Morrison", was performed live for the first time in

January 1997.[68] The song recalled Crosby's feelings

about the portrayal of Jim Morrison in the movie The

Doors.[69] The success of the 1997 tour spawned a record

project, Live at Cuesta College, released in March 1998.

There is a second CPR studio record, Just Like Gravity,

and another live recording, "Live at the Wiltern", recorded

at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, which also features

Phil Collins and Graham Nash.

In 2012 David Crosby worked in Italy with saxophonist

Enzo Avitabile

After the group split, Raymond continued to perform

with Crosby as part of the touring bands for C&N and

CSN, as well as on solo Crosby projects, including 2014's

"Croz" and the subsequent tour. Pevar has toured with

many artists over his productive career, including CSN,

Ray Charles, Rickie Lee Jones, and Marc Cohn. Pevar

has a solo record, "From the Core", which was improvised

and recorded in the Oregon Caves and features the

vocalist from Yes, Jon Anderson.

podcast for the Osiris music network with his friend,

journalist Steve Silberman.

Personal life and death

Family

Crosby and Celia Crawford Ferguson had a son, James

Raymond, in 1962. James was placed for adoption and

later reunited with Crosby as an adult. Beginning in 1997,

Raymond performed with Crosby on stage and in the

studio, as a member of CPR, and as part of the touring

bands Crosby & Nash and Crosby, plus Stills & Nash.

Crosby had three other children: daughter Erika, with

Jackie Guthrie, daughter Donovan Crosby, with former

girlfriend Debbie Donovan, and son Django Crosby,

conceived with wife Jan Dance after extensive fertility

treatments while Crosby's liver was failing.

Crosby, then 45, married Jan Dance, then 35, in May

1987 at the Hollywood Church of Religious Science in

Los Angeles. His bandmate Stephen Stills gave away the

bride.

Crosby's brother Ethan, who taught him to play guitar

and started his musical career with him, died by suicide

in late 1997 or early 1998; the date is unknown because

Ethan left a note not to search for his body but to let him

return to the earth. His body was found months later in

May 1998.

In January 2000, Melissa Etheridge announced that

Crosby was the biological father of two children with her

partner Julie Cypher by means of artificial insemination.

On May 13, 2020, Etheridge announced on her Twitter

account that her and Cypher's son Beckett had died of

causes related to opioid addiction at the age of 21.

Cannabis brand

Crosby, in partnership with longtime friend and

entrepreneur Steven Sponder, developed a craft cannabis

brand called "MIGHTY CROZ". Crosby, a 50-plus-year

cannabis advocate and connoisseur, credited cannabis

with contributing to his creative process of songwriting

stating, "All those hit songs, every one of them, I wrote

them all on cannabis." Crosby also credited cannabis and

cannabidiol (CBD) with alleviating his chronic shoulder

pain, allowing him to continue touring and making

new music well into his seventies. Crosby and Sponder

intended to work with licensed cultivators throughout the

U.S. and beyond and to also extend the brand to include

CBD and hemp products. In 2018, Crosby was invited

to join the National Organization for the Reform of

Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board.

Crosby reunited with the other two members of CPR in

2018 as David Crosby & Friends, performing a series

of shows in support of Crosby's new album "Skytrails".

During the global pandemic, Crosby also hosted a

Sailing

Having had a transformative sailing experience when

he was eleven, in 1967 Crosby purchased a 59-foot (18

m) John Alden–designed schooner named Mayan with


David Crosby

his Byrds settlement. On Twitter in 2019, Crosby said

that the late Peter Tork of the Monkees loaned him the

money to buy the Mayan. In the decades before he sold

the boat in 2014, Crosby sailed it thousands of miles in

the Pacific and Caribbean. He credited the Mayan as being

a songwriting muse; he wrote some of his best-known

songs aboard the boat, including "Wooden Ships," "The

Lee Shore," "Page 43," and "Carry Me."

Politics

Crosby was politically active throughout his professional

career. He publicly questioned the report of the Warren

Commission covering the assassination of John F.

Kennedy onstage during the Byrds's appearance at the

Monterey Festival in 1967, to the anger of his bandmates.

He identified as a pacifist and was a well-known opponent

of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War, although he

defended the right to own guns.

Crosby strongly criticized the presidency of Donald

Trump, declaring him to be "a dangerous guy who's got

a big ego". For the 2020 presidential election, he said in

an interview that Mayor Pete Buttigieg was his favorite

candidate for president and was smarter than all the

others combined; however, he eventually voted for Bernie

Sanders.

Although Crosby was against Joe Biden's candidacy

during the 2020 presidential primaries, he voiced a

more positive assessment following Biden's general

election victory in November. Describing him as a

"decent guy", Crosby noted that the personal tragedies

Biden experienced with the deaths of his first wife and

daughter in 1972 and his oldest son, Beau, in 2015, made

him a better human being. "He has humanity and he has

compassion for other human beings because he's seen a lot

of rough stuff himself. I don't generally trust most politicians

but I trust Biden to be who he is and I think he's going to

do a good job." In May 2022, Crosby wrote in response

to a pro-union tweet from Biden that "most Unions are

useless and totally dishonest."

Acting career

During the early 1990s, Crosby appeared as a guest star

in several episodes of "The John Larroquette Show,"

where he played the part of Larroquette's Alcoholics

Anonymous (AA) sponsor. He appeared on a TV episode

of "Roseanne" as the singer–husband of one of Roseanne's

co-workers, who was played by Bonnie Bramlett. He sang

the Danny Sheridan composition "Roll On Down" on

that episode. He was on an episode of "Ellen" called "Ellen

Unplugged", in which he was helping out at the "Rock and

Roll Fantasy Camp". He also appeared as a pirate in the

1991 film

"Hook", as a 1970s hippie in the 1991 film "Backdraft", and

as a bartender in the 1992 film "Thunderheart". Crosby

also voiced himself on two episodes of "The Simpsons",

"Marge in Chains" and "Homer's Barbershop Quartet".

Drugs, alcohol, and arrests

Crosby spent nine months in a Texas state prison after

being convicted of several drugs and weapons offenses

in 1985. The drug charges were related to possession of

heroin and cocaine.

Later in 1985, Crosby was arrested in California for

drunken driving, a hit-and-run driving accident, and

possession of a concealed pistol and drug paraphernalia.

He was arrested after driving into a fence in a Marin

County suburb, where officers found a .45-caliber pistol

and cocaine in his car.

On March 7, 2004, Crosby was charged with criminal

possession of a weapon in the third degree, illegal

possession of a hunting knife, illegal possession of

ammunition, and illegal possession of about one ounce of

marijuana. He left the items behind in his New York City

hotel room. Authorities said a "hotel employee searched

the suitcase for identification and found about an ounce

of marijuana, rolling papers, two knives, and a .45-caliber

pistol. Mr. Crosby was arrested when he returned to the

hotel to pick up his bag." After spending 12 hours in jail,

he was released on $3,500 bail. Crosby pleaded guilty in

New York State Supreme Court to attempted criminal

possession of a weapon on July 4, 2004; he was fined

$5,000 and received no jail time. Prosecutors did not seek

a more severe penalty on the weapons charge because the

pistol was registered in California and was stowed safely

in his luggage when it was found. A charge of unlawful

possession of marijuana was dismissed. Crosby was

discharged by the court on condition that he pay his fine

and not get arrested again.

Health issues and death

Crosby died in Santa Ynez, California, on January 18,

2023, at the age of 81. Believing he was "probably going

to die fairly soon", Crosby had planned his funeral at

least three years prior to his death. It was to be held at his

horse ranch in Santa Ynez, in the hope that he would be

reconciled with his former Byrds and CSN bandmates so

that they would attend. A statement from his family said

that he died "after a long illness". However, friends and

colleagues described his death as "sudden", saying that

Crosby had remained active until the day of his death,

working on plans for a tour and a new album. Rumors

circulated that his death was due to complications from

COVID-19 and on January 23, Stephen Stills's exwife

Véronique Sanson appeared on French television

and stated that Crosby had died in his sleep from

complications from the virus. "He was on his fifth day,

went to take a nap, and never woke up again." Her son

Chris Stills was due to undertake a tour with Crosby in

February.


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PREFLYTE

1969

Discogs

LINK

DAVID CRO

ALBUM DISC

IF I COULD

ONLY

REMEMBER

MY NAME

1971

Discogs

LINK

OH YES

I CAN

1989

Discogs

LINK

KING

BISCUIT

HOUR

1989

Discogs

LINK

THOUSAND

ROADS

1993

Discogs

LINK

IT'S ALL

COMING

BACK TO

ME NOW

1994

Discogs

LINK

AMERICAN

COME HOME

INTERVIEWS

2012

Discogs

LINK


David Crosby

SBY SOLO

OGRAPHY

CROZ

2014

Discogs

LINK

LIGHTHOUSE

2016

Discogs

LINK

HERE

IF YOU

LISTEN

2018

Discogs

LINK

KING

BISCUIT

FLOWER

HOUR

PRESENTS

1996

Discogs

LINK

LIVE

2000

Discogs

LINK

SKY

TRAILS

2017

Discogs

LINK

FOR FREE

2021

Discogs

LINK


39 |

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MAGAZINE

Jeff Buckley

Jeffrey Scott Buckley (raised as Scott Moorhead;

November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997) was an

American musician. After a decade as a session

guitarist in Los Angeles, he attracted

a cult following in the early 1990s performing

at venues in the East Village, Manhattan. He signed

with Columbia, recruited a band, and released his

only studio album, "Grace", in 1994. Buckley toured

extensively to promote "Grace", with concerts in the

U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia.

In 1996, Buckley worked on his second album with

the working title "My Sweetheart the Drunk in New

York City" with Tom Verlaine as the producer. In

February 1997, he resumed work after moving to

Memphis, Tennessee. On May 29, while awaiting

the arrival of his band from New York, Buckley

drowned while swimming in the Wolf River, a

tributary of the Mississippi. Posthumous releases

include a collection of four-track demos and studio

recordings for "My Sweetheart the Drunk", and

reissues of "Grace and the "Live at Sin-é" EP.

After Buckley's death, his critical standing grew,

and he has been cited as an influence by singers

such as Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Matt

Bellamy of Muse. Rolling Stone included "Grace"

in three of its lists of the 500 greatest albums and

named Buckley's version of the Leonard Cohen

song "Hallelujah" one of the 500 greatest songs.

In 2014, Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" was

inducted into the American Library of Congress'

National Recording Registry.

Born in Anaheim, California, Buckley was the

only son of Mary (née Guibert) and the singer-


Jeff Buckley

songwriter Tim Buckley. His mother was a Zonian

of Greek, English, French and Panamanian descent,

while his father was the son of an Irish American

father and an Italian American mother. Buckley

was raised by his mother and stepfather, Ron

Moorhead, in Southern California, and had a halfbrother,

Corey Moorhead. Buckley moved many

times in and around Orange County while growing

up, an upbringing he called "rootless trailer trash".

As a child, Buckley was known as Scott "Scottie"

Moorhead, based on his middle name and his

stepfather's surname.

Buckley's biological father, Tim Buckley, released a

series of folk and jazz albums in the late 1960s and

early 1970s. Jeff said they met only once, when he

was eight. After Tim died of a drug overdose in 1975,

Jeff chose to go by Buckley and his given name, Jeff,

which he found on his birth certificate. To members

of his family he remained "Scottie".

Buckley was brought up around music; his mother

was a classically trained pianist and cellist, and his

stepfather introduced him to Led Zeppelin, Queen,

Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and Pink Floyd at an early

age. Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" was the first

album he owned, and said the hard rock band Kiss

was an early favorite. He grew up singing around

the house and in harmony with his mother, and

said all his family sang. He began playing guitar at

the age of five after discovering an acoustic guitar

in his grandmother's closet. At age 12, he decided

to become a musician and received his first electric

guitar, a black Les Paul, at age 13. He attended

Loara High School and played in the school jazz

band; during this time, he developed an affinity for

progressive rock bands Rush, Genesis, and Yes,

and the jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola.He told

MuchMusic about the era that inspired him: "I grew

up late '60s, early '70s, '80s, so I observed Joni Mitchell,

I observed the Smiths and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

That turns me on completely".

After graduating from high school, Buckley moved

to Hollywood to attend the Musicians Institute,

completing a one-year course at age 19. Buckley later

said the school was "the biggest waste of time", but

said in another interview that he had appreciated

studying music theory: "I was attracted to really

interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in

Ravel, Ellington, Bartók."


Career

In Los Angeles, Buckley spent six years working in

a hotel and playing guitar in various bands, playing

in styles from jazz, reggae, and roots rock to heavy

metal. He toured with the dancehall reggae artist

Shinehead and played occasional funk and R&B

studio sessions, collaborating with the fledgling

producer Michael J. Clouse to form X-Factor

Productions. From 1988 to 1989, Buckley played in

a band, the Wild Blue Yonder, that included John

Humphrey and future Tool member Danny Carey.

Buckley limited his singing to backing vocals.

Buckley moved to New York City in February 1990

but found few opportunities to work as a musician.

He was introduced to Qawwali, the Sufi devotional

music of Pakistan, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,

one of its best-known singers. Buckley was an

impassioned fan of Khan, and during what he called

his "café days", he often covered Khan's songs. In

January 1996, he invited Khan for Interview and

wrote liner notes for "Khan's Supreme Collection,

Vol. 1" compilation. He also became interested in the

blues musician Robert Johnson and the hardcore

punk band Bad Brains during this time.

Buckley moved back to Los Angeles in September

when his father's former manager, Herb Cohen,

offered to help him record his first demo of original

songs. Buckley completed "Babylon Dungeon

Sessions", a four-song cassette that included the

songs "Eternal Life", "Last Goodbye", "Strawberry

Street" and punk screamer "Radio". Cohen and

Buckley hoped to attract industry attention with the

demo tape.

Buckley flew back to New York early the following

year to make his public singing debut at a tribute

concert for his father, "Greetings from Tim Buckley".

The event, produced by Hal Willner, was held at St.

Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991. Buckley

rejected the idea of the concert as a springboard to

his career, instead citing personal reasons regarding

his decision to sing at the tribute.

Accompanied by the experimental rock guitarist

Gary Lucas, Buckley performed "I Never Asked To

Be Your Mountain", a song Tim Buckley wrote about

the infant Jeff and his mother. He returned to play

"Sefronia – The King's Chain", "Phantasmagoria in

Two", and concluded with "Once I Was" performed

acoustically with an impromptu a cappella ending,

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due to a snapped guitar string. Willner, the show's

organizer, recalled that Buckley made a strong

impression. Buckley's performance was counter

to his desire to distance himself musically from his

father; he later said: "It wasn't my work, it wasn't

my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his

funeral, that I'd never been able to tell him anything.

I used that show to pay my last respects." The concert

proved to be Buckley's first step into the music

industry that had eluded him for years.

On subsequent trips to New York in mid-1991,

Buckley began co-writing with Gary Lucas,

resulting in the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin". In

late 1991, he began performing with Lucas's band

Gods and Monsters in New York City. After being

offered a development deal as a member of Gods

and Monsters at Imago Records, Buckley moved to

the Lower East Side, Manhattan, at the end of 1991.

The day after Gods and Monsters officially debuted

in March 1992, he decided to leave the band.

Buckley began performing at several clubs and cafés

around Lower Manhattan, and Sin-é became his

main venue. He first appeared at Sin-é in April 1992

and quickly earned a regular Monday night slot

there. His repertoire consisted of a diverse range of

folk, rock, R&B, blues, and jazz cover songs, much

of which he had newly learned. During this period,

he discovered singers such as Nina Simone, Billie

Holiday, Van Morrison, and Judy Garland.Buckley

performed an eclectic selection of covers by artist

including Led Zeppelin's "Night Flight", Nusrat

Fateh Ali Khan's "Ye Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hae".

Bob Dylan's "Mama, You've Been On My Mind",

Édith Piaf 's "Je ne Connais Pas La Fin", the Smiths'

"I Know It's Over", Bad Brains' "I Against I", and

Siouxsie Sioux's "Killing Time". Original songs

from the "Babylon Dungeon Sessions" and the songs

he had written with Lucas were also included in his

set lists. He performed solo, accompanying himself

on a Fender Telecaster he borrowed from his friend

Janine Nichols. Buckley said he learned how to

perform onstage by playing to small audiences.

Over the next few months, Buckley attracted

admiring crowds and attention from record label

executives, including industry maven Clive Davis

dropping by to see him. By mid-1992, limos from

executives eager to sign him lined the street outside

Sin-é. Buckley signed with Columbia Records,

home of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, for a

three-album deal for nearly $1 million in October

1992. He spent three days in February 1993 in a

studio with the engineer Steve Addabbo and the

Columbia A&R representative Steve Berkowitz

recording much of his solo repertoire. Buckley sang

a cappella and accompanied himself on acoustic

and electric guitars, Wurlitzer electric piano, and

harmonium. The tapes remain unreleased, but

much of the material appeared on Buckley's debut

album, "Grace". Recording dates were set for July

and August 1993 for what would become Buckley's

recording debut, an EP of four songs, including a

cover of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers

Do". The live EP "Live at Sin-é" was released on

November 23, 1993.

Grace

Columbia

Records

1994

Discogs link

In mid-1993, Buckley began working on his first

album, "Grace", with the producer Andy Wallace.

Buckley assembled a band, composed of the bassist

Mick Grøndahl and the drummer Matt Johnson,

and spent several weeks rehearsing. In September,

the trio headed to Bearsville Studios in Woodstock,

New York, to spend six weeks recording basic

tracks. Buckley invited ex-bandmate Lucas to play

guitar on the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", and

the Woodstock-based jazz musician Karl Berger

wrote and conducted string arrangements with

Buckley assisting at times. Buckley returned home

for overdubbing at studios in Manhattan and New

Jersey, where he performed take after take to capture

the perfect vocals and experimented with ideas for

additional instruments and added textures to the

songs.

In January 1994, Buckley departed on his first solo

North American tour in support of "Live at Sin-é",

followed by a 10-day European tour in March.

Buckley played clubs and coffeehouses and made

in-store appearances. After returning, Buckley

invited guitarist Michael Tighe to join the band and


Jeff Buckley

a collaboration between the two resulted in "So Real",

a song recorded with producer/engineer Clif Norrell

as a late addition to the album. In June, Buckley

began his first full band tour, called the "Peyote

Radio Theatre Tour", which lasted into August. The

Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, Soundgarden's Chris

Cornell, and the Edge from U2 were among the

attendees of these early shows.

"Grace" was released on August 23, 1994. In addition

to seven original songs, the album included three

covers: "Lilac Wine", based on the version by Nina

Simone and made famous by Elkie Brooks; "Corpus

Christi Carol", from Benjamin Britten's "A Boy

was Born, Op.3", a composition that Buckley was

introduced to in high school, based on a 15thcentury

hymn; and "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen,

based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen

tribute album "I'm Your Fan". His rendition of

"Hallelujah" has been called "Buckley's best" and

"one of the great songs" by Time, and is included

on Happy Mag's list of "The 10 Best Covers Of All

Time", and Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest

Songs of All Time".

Sales of Grace were slow, and it garnered little radio

airplay despite critical acclaim. The Sydney Morning

Herald proclaimed it "a romantic masterpiece" and

a "pivotal, defining work". Despite slow initial sales,

the album went gold in France and Australia over

the next two years, achieved gold status in the U.S. in

2002, and sold over six times platinum in Australia

in 2006.

Grace won appreciation from a number of revered

musicians and artists, including members of

Buckley's biggest influence, Led Zeppelin. Jimmy

Page considered "Grace" close to being his "favorite

album of the decade". Robert Plant was also

complimentary, as was Brad Pitt, saying of Buckley's

work, "There's an undercurrent to his music, there's

something you can't pinpoint. Like the best of films, or

the best of art, there's something going on underneath,

and there's a truth there. And I find his stuff absolutely

haunting. It just ... it's under my skin." Others who

had influenced Buckley's music lauded him: Bob

Dylan named Buckley "one of the great songwriters

of this decade", and, in an interview with The Village

Voice, David Bowie named Grace one of 10 albums

he would bring with him to a desert island. In 2010,

the Smiths singer Morrissey, one of Buckley's

influences, named "Grace" one of his favorite albums.


Concert tours

Buckley spent much of the next year and a half

touring internationally to promote "Grace".

Following Buckley's Peyote Radio Theater tour, the

band began a European tour on August 23, 1994,

starting with performances in the UK and Ireland.

The tour continued in Scandinavia and, throughout

September, numerous concerts in Germany were

played. The tour ended on September 22 with a

concert in Paris. A gig on September 24 in New York

dovetailed with the end of the European tour and

Buckley and band spent the next month relaxing and

rehearsing.

A tour of Canada and the U.S. began on October

19, 1994, at CBGB. The tour was far reaching with

concerts held on both East and West Coasts of the

U.S. and a number of performances in central and

southern states. The tour ended two months later

on December 18 at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New

Jersey. After another month of rest and rehearsal, the

band commenced a second European tour, this time

mainly for promotion purposes. The band began the

tour in Dublin. The short tour largely consisted of

promotional work in London and Paris.

In late January, the band did their first tour of Japan,

playing concerts and appearing for promotion of

the album and newly released Japanese single "Last

Goodbye". The band returned to Europe on February

6. He toured various Western European countries

before returning to the U.S. on March 6. Among

the gigs performed during this period, Buckley and

his band performed at a 19th-century-built French

venue, the Bataclan, and material from the concert

was recorded and later released in October of that

year as a four track EP, "Live from the Bataclan".

Songs from a performance on February 25, at the

venue Nighttown in Rotterdam, were released as a

promotional-only CD, "So Real".

Touring recommenced in April with dates across

the U.S. and Canada. During this period, Buckley

and the band played Metro in Chicago, which was

recorded on video and later released as "Live in

Chicago" on VHS and later on DVD. In addition,

on June 4 they played at Sony Music Studios for

the Sony Music radio hour. Following this was a

month-long European tour between June 20 and

July 18 in which they played many summer music

festivals, including the Glastonbury Festival and

the 1995 Meltdown Festival (at which Buckley sang

43 |

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MAGAZINE

Henry Purcell's "Dido's Lament" at the invitation

of Elvis Costello). During the tour, Buckley played

two concerts at the Paris Olympia, a venue made

famous by the French vocalist Édith Piaf. Although

he had failed to fill out smaller American venues

at that point of his career, both nights at the large

Paris Olympia venue were sold out. Shortly after this

Buckley attended the Festival de la Musique Sacrée

(Festival of Sacred Music), also held in France, and

performed "What Will You Say" as a duet with Alim

Qasimov, an Azerbaijani mugham singer. Sony

BMG has since released a live album, 2001's "Live à

L'Olympia", which has a selection of songs from both

Olympia performances and the collaboration with

Qasimov.

Buckley's "Mystery White Boy" tour, playing

concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne, Australia,

lasted between August 28 and September 6 and

recordings of these performances were compiled

and released on the live album "Mystery White Boy".

Buckley was so well received during these concerts

that his album "Grace" went gold in Australia, selling

over 35,000 copies, and taking this into account he

decided a longer tour was needed and returned for a

tour of New Zealand and Australia in February the

following year.

Between the two Oceanian tours, Buckley and the

band took a break from touring. Buckley played

solo in the meantime with concerts at Sin-é and a

New Year's Eve concert at Mercury Lounge in New

York. After the break, the band spent the majority

of February on the "Hard Luck Tour" in Australia

and New Zealand, but tensions had risen between

the group and drummer Matt Johnson. The concert

on March 1, 1996, was the last gig he played with

Buckley and his band.

Much of the material from the tours of 1995

and 1996 was recorded and released on either

promotional EPs, such as the "Grace EP," or

posthumously on albums, such as "Mystery White

Boy" (a reference to Buckley not using his real name)

and "Live à L'Olympia". Many of the other concerts

Buckley played during this period have surfaced on

bootleg recordings.

Following Johnson's departure, the band, now

without a drummer, was put on hold and did not

perform live again until February 12, 1997. Due

to the pressure from extensive touring, Buckley

spent the majority of the year away from the stage.

However, from May 2 to 5, he played a short stint as

bass guitarist with Mind Science of the Mind, with

friend Nathan Larson, then guitarist of Shudder

to Think. Buckley returned to playing live concerts

when he went on his "phantom solo tour" of cafés

in the northeast U.S. in December 1996, appearing

under a series of aliases: the Crackrobats, Possessed

by Elves, Father Demo, Smackrobiotic, the

Halfspeeds, Crit-Club, Topless America, Martha

& the Nicotines, and A Puppet Show Named Julio.

By way of justification, Buckley posted a note stating

he missed the anonymity of playing in cafés and local

bars:

"There was a time in my life not too long ago when I

could show up in a café and simply do what I do, make

music, learn from performing my music, explore what

it means to me, i.e., have fun while I irritate and/or

entertain an audience who don't know me or what I

am about. In this situation I have that precious and

irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender.

I worked very hard to get this kind of thing together,

this work forum. I loved it and then I missed it when it

disappeared. All I am doing is reclaiming."

My sweetheart the drunk

In 1996, Buckley started writing a new album with

the working title "My Sweetheart the Drunk". While

working with Patti Smith on her 1996 album "Gone

Again", he met Tom Verlaine, lead singer of the

punk-new wave band Television. Buckley asked

Verlaine to be producer on the new album and he

agreed. In mid-1996, Buckley and his band began

recording sessions in Manhattan with Verlaine,

recording "Sky Is a Landfill", "Vancouver", "Morning

Theft", and "You and I". Eric Eidel played the

drums through these sessions as a stop-gap after

Matt Johnson's departure, before Parker Kindred

joined as full-time drummer. Around this time,

Buckley met Inger Lorre of the Nymphs in an East

Village bar and struck up a fast and close friendship.

Together, they contributed a track to "Kerouac:

Kicks Joy Darkness, a Jack Kerouac tribute album.

After Lorre's backup guitarist for an upcoming

album quit the project, Buckley offered to fill in. He

became attached to one of the songs from the album,

"Yard of Blonde Girls" and recorded a cover. Another

recording session in Manhattan followed in early

1997, but Buckley and the band were unsatisfied

with the material.


Sketches for my sweetheart the drunk

Columbia

1998

Discogs link

Jeff Bucley

the demos were sent to his band in New York, who

listened to them enthusiastically and were excited

to resume work on the album. However, Buckley

was not entirely happy with the results and sent his

band back to New York while he stayed behind to

work on the songs. The band was scheduled to return

to Memphis for rehearsals and recording on May

29. After Buckley's death, the Verlaine-produced

recordings and Buckley's demos were released as

Sketches for "My Sweetheart the Drunk" in May

1998.

On February 4, 1997, Buckley played a short set

at the Knitting Factory's tenth anniversary concert

featuring a selection of his new songs: "Jewel Box",

"Morning Theft", "Everybody Here Wants You", "The

Sky is a Landfill" and "Yard of Blonde Girls". Lou

Reed was in attendance and expressed interest in

working with Buckley. The band played their first

gig with Parker Kindred, their new drummer, at

Arlene's Grocery in New York on February 9. The

set featured much of Buckley's new material that

would appear on "Sketches for My Sweetheart the

Drunk" and a recording that has become one of

Buckley's most widely distributed bootlegs. Later

that month, Buckley recorded a spoken word

reading of the Edgar Allan Poe poem "Ulalume" for

the album "Closed on Account of Rabies". It was his

last recording in New York; shortly after, he moved to

Memphis, Tennessee.

Buckley became interested in recording at Easley

McCain Recording in Memphis, at the suggestion

of friend Dave Shouse from the Grifters. He

rented a shotgun house there, of which he was so

fond he contacted the owner about purchasing

it. From February 12 to May 26, 1997, Buckley

played at Barristers', a bar located in downtown

Memphis, underneath a parking garage. He played

there numerous times in order to work through

the new material in a live atmosphere, at first with

the band, then solo as part of a Monday night

residency. In early February, Buckley and the band

did a third recording session with Verlaine in

Memphis, where they recorded "Everybody Here

Wants You", "Nightmares by the Sea", "Witches'

Rave" and "Opened Once", but Buckley expressed

his dissatisfaction with the sessions and contacted

"Grace" producer Andy Wallace to step in as

Verlaine's replacement. Buckley started recording

demos on his own 4-track recorder in preparation

for a forthcoming session with Wallace; some of


Musical style

Buckley possessed a tenor vocal range. He cited

singers including Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone,

Billie Holiday, Patti Smith and Siouxsie Sioux as

influences. He said: "Siouxsie, I have much of her

influence in my voice". Buckley made full use of this

range in his performances, particularly in the songs

from "Grace", and reached peaks of high G in the

tenor range at the culmination of "Grace". "Corpus

Christi Carol" was sung nearly entirely in a high

falsetto. The pitch and volume of his singing was

also highly variable, showcased in songs "Mojo Pin"

and "Dream Brother", which began with mid-range

quieter vocals, before reaching louder, higher peaks

near the ending of the songs.

Buckley played guitar in a variety of styles, ranging

from the distorted rock of "Sky Is a Landfill", the

jazz of "Strange Fruit", the country styling of "Lost

Highway", and the guitar fingerpicking style in

"Hallelujah". He occasionally used a slide guitar in

live performances as a solo act, as well as for the

introduction of "Last Goodbye", when playing with

a full band. His songs were written in various guitar

tunings which, apart from the EADGBE standard

tuning, included drop D tuning and an open G

tuning. His guitar playing style varied from highly

melodic songs, such as "The Twelfth of Never", to

more percussive ones, such as "New Year's Prayer".

Equipment

Buckley mainly played a blonde 1983 Fender

Telecaster, which he had re-fretted and modded with

a Seymour Duncan Hot Lead Stack in the bridge and

a mirror pick guard. In 2020, Matt Bellamy of Muse

purchased the Telecaster and said it "has a sound like

nothing I've ever heard".

Buckley also played a Rickenbacker 360/12 along

with several other guitars, including a black Gibson

45 |

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MAGAZINE

Les Paul Custom and a 1967 Guild F-50 acoustic.

When on tour with his band, he used Fender

amplifiers for a clean sound and Mesa Boogie amps

for overdriven tones. While he was primarily a singer

and guitarist, he also played other instruments on

various studio recordings and sessions, including

bass, dobro, mandolin, harmonium (heard on the

intro to "Lover, You Should've Come Over"), organ,

dulcimer ("Dream Brother" intro), tabla, esraj, and

harmonica.

Personal life

Buckley was roommates with actress Brooke Smith

from 1990 to 1991. During a tribute concert to his

father, Tim Buckley, in April 1991, Buckley met

artist Rebecca Moore, and the pair dated until

1993. This relationship became the inspiration for

his record "Grace" and provoked his permanent

move to New York. From 1994 to 1995, Buckley

had an intense relationship with Elizabeth Fraser

of Cocteau Twins. They wrote and recorded a duet

together, "All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the

Sun", which has never been released commercially.

In 1996, Buckley began a relationship with musician

Joan Wasser, known professionally as Joan as Police

Woman. He reportedly proposed marriage to her

shortly before his death.

Death

On the evening of May 29, 1997, Buckley's band

flew to Memphis to join him in his studio to work

on his new material. Later that evening, Buckley

spontaneously went swimming fully dressed in

the Wolf River Harbor, a slack water channel of

the Mississippi River, singing the chorus of Led

Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" under the Memphis

Suspension Railway.

Keith Foti, a roadie in Buckley's band, remained

on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of

reach from the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti

looked up to see Buckley had vanished; the wake

of the tugboat had swept him away from shore

and under water. A rescue effort that night and

the next morning by scuba teams and police was

unsuccessful. On June 4, passengers on the American

Queen riverboat spotted Buckley's body in the Wolf

River, caught in branches.

Buckley's autopsy showed no signs of drugs or

alcohol, and the death was ruled an accidental

drowning. The official Jeff Buckley website published

a statement saying his death was neither mysterious

nor a suicide.

Legacy

After Buckley's death, a collection of demo

recordings and a full-length album he had been

reworking for his second album were released as a

compilation album, "Sketches for My Sweetheart

the Drunk". It was overseen by his mother, Mary

Guibert, band members and his friend Michael J.

Clouse, as well as Chris Cornell. It was certified gold

in Australia in 1998. Three other albums composed

of live recordings have also been released, along

with a live DVD of a performance in Chicago. A

previously unreleased 1992 recording of "I Shall Be

Released", sung by Buckley over the phone on live

radio, was released on the album "For New Orleans".

Since his death, Buckley has been the subject of

numerous documentaries: "Fall in Light", a 1999

production for French TV; "Goodbye and Hello",

a program about Buckley and his father produced

for Netherlands TV in 2000; and "Everybody Here

Wants You", a documentary made in 2002 by the

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). An hourlong

documentary about Buckley called "Amazing

Grace": Jeff Buckley has been shown at various film

festivals to critical acclaim. The film was released

worldwide in 2009 by Sony BMG Legacy as part of

the "Grace Around The World Deluxe Edition". In

spring 2009, it was revealed that Ryan Jaffe, best

known for scripting the movie "The Rocker", had

replaced Brian Jun as screenwriter for the upcoming

film "Mystery White Boy". Orion Williams is also set

to co-produce the film with Michelle Sy. A separate

project involving the book "Dream Brother" was

allegedly cancelled.

In May and June 2007, Buckley's life and music

were celebrated globally with tributes in Australia,

Canada, UK, France, Iceland, Israel, Ireland,

Macedonia, Portugal, and the U.S. Many of Buckley's

family members attended various tribute concerts

across the globe, some of which they helped organize.

There are three annual Jeff Buckley tribute events:

the Chicago-based "Uncommon Ground", featuring

a three-day concert schedule (Uncommon Ground

hosted their 25th anniversary tribute in November

2022 ); "An Evening With Jeff Buckley", an annual

New York City tribute; and the Australia-based "Fall

In Light". The latter event is run by the Fall In Light

Foundation, which in addition to the concerts, runs

a "Guitars for Schools" program; the name of the

foundation is taken from lyrics of Buckley's "New


Jeff Buckley

Year's Prayer".

On 2 April 2013, it was announced that Buckley's

version of "Hallelujah" would be inducted into the

Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. In

2015, tapes of a 1993 recording session for Columbia

Records were discovered by Sony executives doing

research for the 20th anniversary of "Grace". The

recordings were released on the album "You and I" in

March 2016, featuring mostly covers of songs.

In 2012, "Greetings from Tim Buckley" premiered

at the Toronto International Film Festival; the

film explores Jeff Buckley's relationship with his

father. At a tribute concert honoring the deceased

Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022,

Foo Fighters lead singer David Grohl's daughter

Violet performed "Last Goodbye" and "Grace", with

Dave Grohl, Alain Johannes, Greg Kurstin, Chris

Chaney, and Jason Falkner.

Resurgence

In 2002, Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" was used in

the "Posse Comitatus" episode of "The West Wing",

for which the audio team received an Emmy Award.

On March 7, 2008, Buckley's version of "Hallelujah"

was number one on the iTunes chart, selling 178,000

downloads for the week, after being performed by

Jason Castro on the seventh season of "American

Idol". The song also debuted at number one on

Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart, giving Buckley

his first number one hit on any Billboard chart.

The 2008 UK "X Factor" winner Alexandra Burke

released a cover of "Hallelujah", with the intent to

top the UK Singles Chart as the Christmas number

one single. Buckley fans countered this, launching

a campaign with the aim of propelling Buckley's

version to the number one spot; despite this, Burke's

version eventually reached the Christmas number

one position on the UK charts in December 2008.

Buckley's version of the song entered the UK charts

at number 49 on November 30, and by December

21, it had reached number 2, even though it had not

been rereleased in a physical format.

Influence

Radiohead recorded their 1995 song "Fake Plastic

Trees" after being inspired by Buckley's performance

at the Garage, London. The bassist, Colin

Greenwood, said, "He just had a Telecaster and a pint

of Guinness. And it was just fucking amazing, really


inspirational." The singer, Thom Yorke, said Buckley

gave him the confidence to sing in falsetto. The singer

and guitarist Matt Bellamy of Muse said he did not

believe his singing would be suitable for rock music

until he heard Grace, which made him confident that

"a high-pitched, softer voice can work very well". The

Coldplay singer Chris Martin described the 2000

Coldplay single "Shiver" as a Buckley "ripoff". Other

musicians influenced by Buckley include Adele,

Bat For Lashes, Lana Del Rey, Anna Calvi, Kiesza,

Ben Folds, Jonny Lang, Eddie Vedder, Fran Healy,

Chris Cornell, and Nelly Furtado.

Awards and nominations

The Académie Charles Cros awarded Buckley the "Grand

Prix International Du Disque" on April 13, 1995, in honor

of his debut album Grace.

MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best New Artist

in a Video for "Last Goodbye", 1995

Rolling Stone magazine nomination for Best New Artist,

1995

Triple J Hottest 100 awarded number 14 best song for that

year in the world's largest voting competition for "Last

Goodbye", 1995

Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal

Performance for "Everybody Here Wants You", 1998

Grace was ranked number 303 of the 500 Greatest Albums

by Rolling Stone in 2003.

Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" was ranked number 259 of

the 500 Greatest Songs by Rolling Stone in 2004.

MOJO Awards nomination for Catalogue Release of the

Year for Grace, 2005

In 2006, Mojo named Grace the number one Modern

Rock Classic of all Time. It was also rated as Australia's

second favorite album on My Favourite Album, a

television special aired by the Australian Broadcasting

Corporation, on December 3, 2006.

Rolling Stone ranked Buckley number 39 in its 2008 list,

The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

On the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time, 2009,

Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" was voted third place;

"Last Goodbye" was seventh, "Lover, You Should've Come

Over" was 56th, and "Grace" 69th.

On the Triple J Hottest 100 of the Past 20 Years, 2013, Last

Goodbye voted third place and "Hallelujah" number 36.

47 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

LIVE FROM

THE

BATACLAN

1995

Discogs

link

MYSTERY

WHITE

BOY

2000

Discogs

link

LIVE A

L'OLYMPIA

2001

Discogs

link

SONGS TO

NO ONE

2002

Discogs

link

Jeff Bu

ALBUM DISC

THE

GRACE EP's

6 TRACK

SAMPLER

2002

Discogs

link

LIVE AT

SIN E

2003

Discogs

link

GRACE

AROUND

THE

WORLD

2009

Discogs

link


Jeff Buckley

ckley

OGRAPHY

GRACE

AROUND

THE

WORLD

RADIO

EDIT

2009

Discogs

link

GRACE +

EP'S

2009

Discogs

link

YOU

AND I

2016

Discogs

link

IN

TRANSITION

2019

Discogs

link

LIVE AT

CABARET

METRO

2019

Discogs

link

COLUMBIA

RECORDS

RADIO

HOUR

2019

Discogs

link

LIVE

FROM

SEATTLE

WA

2019

Discogs

link


49 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Mary McCaslin

Mary McCaslin (December 22, 1946 –

October 2, 2022) was an American

folk singer who wrote, recorded, and

performed contemporary folk music.

McCaslin was born in Indianapolis on December 22,

1946, and was raised in Southern California.

McCaslin got her start in the mid-1960s at the

Troubadour club, performing at its Monday Night Hoots,

as the club’s open-mic nights were known.

She recorded primarily for Philo Records, and traveled

and performed with her husband, Arkansas folk singer

Jim Ringer. Her music ranged from ballads of the old

west to her own songs of the new west and modern

times. She was regarded as a pioneer of open guitar

tunings, and known for her distinctive vocal style.

Her influences can be heard in many younger folk

performers, and she set the path for future folk-pop stars

Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

In 1969, she released a cover version of the Supremes’

hit “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.” According to New York

Times: “transforms the tune from an urban teen-oriented

lament into a mountain-flavored folk song of quiet, adult

desperation.”

Her musical development was influenced by the

western ballads of Marty Robbins, the guitar playing

of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, the singing and banjo

playing of Hedy West, and the vocal inflections of the

Beatles and the Bee Gees. Writing of McCaslin's "Way

Out West" LP, Robert Christgau said in "Christgau's

Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies" (1981),

"Without self-dramatization—she favors plain melodies

and commonplace imagery and her singing is gamely

unhistrionic—this woman explores Joni Mitchell's territory

with equal intelligence, more charm, and no drums."

Her songs have been recorded by Tom Russell, Bill

Staines, Gretchen Peters, David Bromberg, Kate Wolf,

Stan Rogers, and Còig. The Grand Canyon Railroad


Mary McCaslin

used her song "Last Cannonball" for its promotional

television ad.

for a retrospective album of his songs: "The Best of Jim

Ringer".

Personal life

McCaslin met singer-songwriter Jim Ringer in 1972, and

began performing with him. They married in 1978, and

as a duo released the album "The Bramble & the Rose".

They moved to San Bernardino, California. McCaslin

separated from him in 1989. Ringer died in 1992 after

a long illness, and McCaslin provided the liner notes

McCaslin was busy with family matters for most of the

1980s, finally releasing a new album, "Broken Promises",

in 1994. She suffered from progressive supranuclear

palsy (PSP), a rare neurological condition that can cause

problems with balance, movement, vision, speech and

swallowing. She died from PSP in Hemet, California on

October 2, 2022, at the age of 75.

mary mccaskill Discography

GOODNIGHT

EVERYBODY

1969

Discogs link

THE BRAMBLE & THE

ROSE (Repress)

1979

Discogs link

WAY OUT WEST

1973

Discogs link

A LIFE & TIME

1981

Discogs link

PRAIRIE IN THE SKY

1975

Discogs link

A LIFE & TIME

Promo Copy

1981

Discogs link

OLD FRIENDS

1977

Discogs link

BROKEN PROMISES

1994

Discogs link

THE BRAMBLE & THE

ROSE

1978

Discogs link

RAIN (The lost album)

1999

Discogs link

SUNNY

CALIFORNIA

1979

Discogs link

BETTER LATE THAN

NEVER

2006

discogs link


51 |

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MAGAZINE

Nanci Griffith

Nanci Caroline Griffith (July 6, 1953 – August

13, 2021) was an American singer, guitarist,

and songwriter. She often appeared on the

PBS music program "Austin City Limits", starting

in 1985 during season 10. In 1994, Griffith won a

Grammy Award for the album "Other Voices, Other

Rooms".

Griffith's career spanned a variety of musical

genres, predominantly country, folk, and what she

termed "folkabilly." She won a Grammy for Best

Contemporary Folk Album in 1994 for her 1993

recording, "Other Voices, Other Rooms". The album

features Griffith covering the songs of artists who

were her major influences. One of her better-known

songs is "From a Distance," which was written and

composed by Julie Gold. Similarly, other artists have

occasionally achieved greater success than Griffith

herself with songs that she wrote or co-wrote. For

example, Kathy Mattea had a country music top-five

hit with a 1986 cover of Griffith's "Love at the Five

and Dime" and Suzy Bogguss had one of her largest

hits with Griffith (and Tom Russell)'s "Outbound

Plane".

Griffith toured with various other artists, including

Buddy Holly's band - the Crickets, John Prine,

Iris DeMent, Suzy Bogguss, Judy Collins, and

the Everly Brothers. Griffith recorded duets with

many artists, among them Prine, Emmylou Harris,

Mary Black, Don McLean, Jimmy Buffett, Dolores

Keane, Willie Nelson, Adam Duritz (of Counting

Crows), the Chieftains, John Stewart, and Darius

Rucker. Griffith referred to her backing band as the

"Blue Moon Orchestra".

EARLY LIFE

Griffith, the youngest of three siblings, was born

in Seguin, Texas, and grew up in Austin, where her

family moved shortly after her birth. Her mother


Nanci Griffith

Ruelene was a real estate agent and amateur actress;

her father, Marlin Griffith, was a graphic artist and

barbershop quartet singer. Griffith began her music

career at age 12, singing in a local coffeehouse.

When she was a teenager, her father took her to

see Townes Van Zandt. At 14, she performed her

first professional gig at the Red Lion Cabaret in

downtown Austin.

Griffith went to the University of Texas at Austin and

got a degree in education. She taught kindergarten

and first grade for a couple of years, before fully

dedicating to music.

Career

Independent labels (1978-1986)

Her debut album, "There's a Light Beyond These

Woods", was released in 1978; the cover was

designed by her father. The second album, "Poet in

My Window", was released in 1982. Both albums

were folk-oriented and released on small labels.

Griffith attracted attention of record producer

Jimmy Rooney and recorded the third album, "Once

in a Very Blue Moon" in 1984, in Nashville, with

musicians such as Béla Fleck, Mark O'Connor and

Lloyd Green. In the same year, she performed on

PBS music program "Austin City Limits". In the next

year, she, with mostly the same musicians, recorded

the album The Last of the True Believers, which won

her first Grammy nomination. The album included

songs "Love at the Five and Dime" and "Goin' Gone"

which became hits for Kathy Mattea.

MCA Years (1987-1991)

Griffith signed to MCA Records and moved to

Nashville; the first album for MCA was countryoriented

"Lone Star State of Mind", which included

two songs, "Trouble in the Fields", co-written by

Griffith, and "From a Distance", written by then

unknown songwriter Julie Gold. These songs became

popular in Ireland, and both have been covered by

many singers. It was followed by "Little Love Affairs",

featuring "Outbound Plane" which later became a hit

for Suzy Bogguss. In 1988, Griffith released "One

Fair Summer Evening", a live album recorded in

Anderson Fair in Houston.

Griffith transferred to the MCA pop division and

recorded "Storms", which included a song she

considered the most important she wrote, "It's a Hard

Life Wherever You Go", about conflict in Northern


Ireland and racism in the US.

In 1990, Griffith appeared on the Channel 4 program

"Town & Country" with John Prine in a segment

entitled "White Pants", where she wore white pants

at the Bluebird Café in Nashville, Tennessee, along

with Buddy Mondlock, Barry "Byrd" Burton, and

Robert Earl Keen.

Griffith released "Late Night Grande Hotel" in 1991,

and then left MCA Records.

Other Voices, Other Rooms and later works

In 1993, Griffith released the album "Other Voices,

Other Rooms", which won her first and only

Grammy award. The album featured songs by various

folk and country songwriters, and a large group of

musicians, from Bob Dylan to Odetta. The album

was certified gold by RIAA in 2005, more than a

decade after it was released.

In 1994, she released the album "Flyer", which

received another Grammy nomination.

In the same year, Griffith teamed with Jimmy

Webb to contribute the song "If These Old Walls

Could Speak" to the AIDS benefit album "Red Hot

+ Country" produced by the Red Hot Organization.

She survived breast cancer which was diagnosed in

1996, and thyroid cancer in 1998.

Christine Lavin, a singer and songwriter, remembers

the first time she saw Griffith perform:

"I was struck by how perfect everything was about

her singing, her playing, her talking. I realized from

the get-go that this was someone who was a complete

professional. Obviously she had worked a long time to

get to be that good."

In late 1990's she wrote a letter to a number of Texas

media, frustrated with reviews.

Griffith contributed background vocals on many

other recordings.

Griffith performed four songs, "The Day the Earth

Stopped Cold", "Gravity of the Situation", "So

Strange", and "Hold My Hand" with Hootie & the

Blowfish during their MTV Unplugged performance

in 1996 in Columbia, South Carolina, to raise

awareness for Sweet Relief Musicians Fund.

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MAGAZINE

Griffith suffered from severe writer's block after

2004, lasting until the 2009 release of her "The

Loving Kind" album, which contained nine selections

that she had written and composed either entirely

by herself or as collaborations. After several months

of limited touring in 2011, Griffith's bandmates the

Kennedys (Pete & Maura Kennedy) packed up their

professional Manhattan recording studio and moved

it to Nashville, installing it in Griffith's home. There

with her backing group including the Kennedys

and Pat McInerney, she co-produced her album

Intersection over the summer. The album included

several new original songs and was released in

April 2012 on Proper Records. Her website lists live

performances through 2013.

Awards

Griffith won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best

Contemporary Folk Album for "Other Voices, Other

Rooms". She was inducted into the Austin Music

Hall of Fame in 1995. Griffith was awarded the Kate

Wolf Memorial Award by the World Folk Music

Association in 1995. In 2008, the Americana Music

Association awarded her its Lifetime Americana

Trailblazer Award. Lyle Lovett, who contributed

backing vocals to her third album, "Once in a Very

Blue Moon", had won it before her. In 2010, Griffith

received a Lifetime Achievement Award at BBC

Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Griffith was posthumously inducted into the Texas

Heritage Songwriters Association's Hall of Fame in

February 2022 at the Paramount Theatre in Austin.

The Blue Moon Orchestra

Griffith called her backing band the Blue Moon

Orchestra. With regard to the chosen stage name,

she wrote:

"During the Christmas holidays of 1986, I organized a

band of musicians to work this road of touring and to

pass effortlessly through mine fields of studio sessions.

They chose their name, the Blue Moon Orchestra,

from my third album, "Once in a Very Blue Moon".

Some of them I had recorded and toured with prior to

1986: and some simply wandered into "the Blue Moon

Orchestra" through this revolving open door of the

road." — Nanci Griffith in 1997

The title selection of the "Once in a Very Blue

Moon" album reached number 85 on the Billboard

Hot Country Songs chart in 1986. In 1986, Griffith

showcased tracks from her Lone Star State of Mind

album on The Nashville Network TV show, New

Country.

Final members

Nanci Griffith – lead vocals, guitar

Pat McInerney – drums, percussion

Maura Kennedy – vocals, guitar

Pete Kennedy – guitar, vocals

Previous members

James Hooker – piano, B-3, keyboards, vocals

Byrd Burton – guitar

Frank Christian – guitar

Philip Donnelly – guitar

Danny Flowers – guitar

Clive Gregson – guitar, vocals

Thomm Jutz – guitar, vocals

Doug Lancio – electric guitar

Lee Satterfield – vocals, rhythm guitar, mandolin

Denny Bixby – bass, harmony vocals

Ron De La Vega – bass, cello

Le Ann Etheridge – vocals, bass guitar, rhythm guitar

Pete Gordon – bass

Pete Gorisch – bass, cello

Danny Milliner – bass

J. T. Thomas – bass, vocals

Fran Breen – drums

Liam Genockey – drums

Steve Smith – drums

Guest backing vocalists

Emmylou Harris

Iris DeMent

Lyle Lovett

Denice Franke

Personal life

Griffith's high-school boyfriend, John, died in a

motorcycle accident shortly after taking her to the

senior prom. He inspired many of her later songs.

She was married to singer-songwriter Eric Taylor

from 1976 to 1982. In the early 1990s, she was

engaged to singer-songwriter Tom Kimmel.

Political views and activism

Griffith was outspoken in her political views,

supporting liberal, pacifist and left policies. She was

"a total abolitionist on the death penalty" and wrote

a song, "Not Innocent Enough", which appeared on

her album "The Loving Kind" in 2009.


Nanci Griffith

Her song "It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go"

addressed the Troubles in Northern Ireland and

racism in the United States.

Together with Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell

and other artists, she was a member of Music Row

Democrats, an organization promoting Democratic

Party candidates in Nashville. She also supported

Barack Obama and said, after he was elected: "the

election of Barack Obama brought out the acceptance

of hope and a new direction. When I went to Europe, I

wasn't embarrassed about my country."

For years, Griffith wore buttons with political

messages on her guitar strap, most often buttons

from the Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign.

Griffith visited Vietnam, Cambodia, Kosovo and

Angola in 2000's, supporting Campaign for a

Landmine Free World.

She considered herself a non-practicing Catholic.

Death

Griffith died in Nashville on August 13, 2021, at the

age of 68. The exact cause of death was not reported,

but her management company attributed it to

natural causes.

Tribute albums

The first tribute album, "Trouble In The Fields: An

Artists' Tribute To Nanci Griffith" was released by

Paradiddle Records in 2012, including covers of

Griffith's songs by the Kennedys, Jerry Jeff Walker,

Tom Russell, Julie Gold, Red Molly, Carolyn

Hester, John Stewart, Amy Rigby and others,

mostly Griffith's collaborators and folk singerssongwriters.

On September 22, 2023, another tribute album,

"More than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music

of Nanci Griffith", was released by Rounder and

Concord Records. The compilation featured covers

of Griffith's songs by her friends and fans, including

Sarah Jarosz, John Prine, Kelsey Waldon, Billy

Strings, Molly Tuttle, Emmylou Harris, Lyle

Lovett, Kathy Mattea, Brandy Clark, Shawn

Colvin, Ida Mae, Steve Earle, Aaron Lee Tasjan,

Todd Snider, Iris DeMent, Mary Gauthier, and The

War and Treaty.


55 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

nancI g

ALBUM DIS

B F DEAL SAMPLER

VOL 1

1977

Discogs link

LONE STAR STATE

OF MIND

1987

Discogs link

THERE'S A LIGHT

BEHIND THESE

WOODS

1978

Discogs link

ONE FAIR SUMMER

EVENING

1988

Discogs link

POET IN MY

WINDOW

1982

Discogs link

LITTLE LOVE

AFFAIRS

1988

Discogs link

ONCE IN A VERY

BLUE MOON

1984

Discogs link

IN CONCERT-441

1988

Discogs link

LAST OF THE TRUE

BELIEVERS

1986

Discogs link

STORMS

1989

Discogs link


Nanci Griffith

riffith

COGRAPHY

LATE NIGHT

GRANDE HOTEL

1991

Discogs link

BLUE ROSES FROM

THE MOONS

1997

Discogs link

WINTER

MARQUEE

2002

Discogs link

THE CHIEFTAINS -

AN IRISH EVENING

1992

Discogs link

OTHER VOICES

TOO

1998

Discogs link

HEARTS IN MIND

2004

Discogs link

OTHER VOICES/

OTHER ROOMS

1993

Discogs link

THE DUST BOWL

SYMPHANY

1999

Discogs link

RUBY'S TORCH

2006

Discogs link

FLYER

1994

Discogs link

REVISITED

1999

Discogs link

THE LOVING KIND

2006

Discogs link

THE CRICKETTS 2

TOO MUCH

MONDAY

MORNING

1996

Discogs link

CLOCK WITHOUT

HANDS

2001

Discogs link

THE LOVING KIND

RADIO SPECIAL

2009

Discogs link


57 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Ralph Stanley

Ralph Edmund Stanley (February 25, 1927 –

June 23, 2016) was an American bluegrass

artist, known for his distinctive singing

and banjo playing. He began playing music

in 1946, originally with his older brother Carter

Stanley as part of The Stanley Brothers, and most

often as the leader of his band, The Clinch Mountain

Boys. Ralph was also known as Dr. Ralph Stanley.

He was part of the first generation of bluegrass

musicians and was inducted into both the

International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor and the

Grand Ole Opry.

Stanley was born, grew up, and lived in rural

Southwest Virginia—"in a little town called McClure

at a place called Big Spraddle Creek, just up the

holler" from where he moved in 1936. Before that he

lived in another part of Dickenson County. The son

of Lee and Lucy Smith Stanley, Ralph did not grow

up around a lot of music in his home. As he said, his

"daddy didn't play an instrument, but sometimes he

would sing church music... I'd hear him sing songs like

'Man of Constant Sorrow,' 'Pretty Polly' and 'Omie

Wise.'"

" I got my first banjo when I was a teenager. I guess

I was 15, 16 years old. My aunt had this old banjo,

and Mother bought it for me ... paid $5 for it, which

back then was probably like $5,000. My parents had

a little store, and I remember my aunt took it out in

groceries."

He learned to play the banjo, clawhammer style,

from his mother:

She had 11 brothers and sisters, and all of them could

play the five-string banjo. She played gatherings

around the neighborhood, like bean stringin's. She

tuned it up for me and played this tune, "Shout Little


Ralph Stanley

Luly," and I tried to play it like she did. But I think I

developed my own style of the banjo."

He graduated from high school on May 2, 1945,

and was inducted into the Army on May 16, serving

for "little more than a year." When he got home he

immediately began performing:

"... my daddy and Carter picked me up from the

(station), and Carter was playing with another group,

Roy Sykes and the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, and

they had a personal appearance that night. So I sung a

song with Carter on the radio before I even got home."

Clinch Mountain Boys

After considering a course in "veterinary", he

decided instead to join his older guitar-playing

brother Carter Stanley (1925–1966) to form the

Clinch Mountain Boys in 1946. Drawing heavily on

the musical traditions of the area, which included

the unique singing style of the Primitive Baptist

Universalist church and the sweet down-home family

harmonies of the Carter Family, the two Stanley

brothers began playing on local radio stations. They

first performed at Norton, Virginia's WNVA, but

did not stay long there, moving on instead to Bristol,

Virginia, and WCYB to start the show Farm and Fun

Time, where they stayed "off and on for 12 years"

At first they covered "a lot of Bill Monroe music" (one

of the first groups to pick up the new "bluegrass"

format). They soon "found out that didn't pay off—we

needed something of our own. So we started writing

songs in 1947, 1948. I guess I wrote 20 or so banjo

tunes, but Carter was a better writer than me." When

Columbia Records signed them as The Stanley

Brothers, Monroe left in protest joining Decca

Records. Later, Carter went back to sing for the

"Father of Bluegrass", Monroe.

Ralph Stanley gave his opinion on Bill Monroe's

apparent change of heart: "He [Monroe] knew Carter

would make him a good singer... Bill Monroe loved

our music and loved our singing."

The Stanley Brothers joined King Records in the late

1950s, a record company which was so eclectic that

it included James Brown at the time. In fact, James

Brown and his band were in the studio when the

Stanley Brothers recorded "Finger Poppin' Time".

""James and his band were poppin' their fingers on

that" according to Ralph. At King Records, they

"went to a more 'Stanley style', the sound that people

most know today."

Ralph and Carter performed as The Stanley

Brothers with their band, The Clinch Mountain

Boys, from 1946 to 1966. Ralph kept the band name

when he continued as a solo act after Carter's death,

from 1967 until his own death in 2016.

Solo

After Carter died of complications of cirrhosis in

1966, after ailing for "a year or so", Ralph Stanley

faced a hard decision on whether to continue

performing on his own. "I was worried, I didn't know

if I could do it by myself. But boy, I got letters, 3,000 of

'em, and phone calls... I went to Syd Nathan at King

and asked him if he wanted me to go on, and he said,

'Hell yes! You might be better than both of them.'"

He decided to go it alone, eventually reviving

The Clinch Mountain Boys. Larry Sparks, Roy

Lee Centers, and Charlie Sizemore were among

those with whom he played in the revived band.

He encountered Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley

arriving late to his own show, "They were about 16 or

17, and they were holding the crowd 'til we got there...

They sounded just exactly like the Stanley Brothers."

Seeing their potential, he hired them "to give 'em a

chance", though that meant a seven-member band.

Eventually, his son, Ralph Stanley II, took over as

lead singer and rhythm guitarist for The Clinch

Mountain Boys. His grandson Nathan Stanley

became the last lead singer and band leader for The

Clinch Mountain Boys.

Clinch mountain boys members

• Ralph Stanley (Lead vocalist, banjo)

• Jack Cooke (bass)

• Curly Ray Cline (fiddle)

• George Shuffler (guitar, bass)

• Melvin Goins (bass, guitar)

• Larry Sparks (Lead vocalist, guitar)

• Roy Lee Centers (Lead vocalist, guitar)

• Ricky Skaggs (mandolin, fiddle)

• Keith Whitley (Lead vocalist, guitar)

• Charlie Sizemore (Lead vocalist, guitar)

• Hook n Beans (Buddy Moore) lead singer- guitar

• Ricky Lee (guitar)

• Junior Blankenship (guitar)

• Kenneth Davis (guitar)

• Renfro Proffit (guitar)

• Ron Thomason (mandolin)


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MAGAZINE

• Steve Sparkman (banjo)

• James Alan Shelton (guitar)

• Sammy Adkins (Lead vocalist, guitar)

• Todd Meade (fiddle)

• Ralph 'Hank' Smith (Lead guitar)

• Ernie Thacker (Lead vocalist, guitar, mandolin)

• John Rigsby (mandolin)

• Dewey Brown (fiddle),(Vocals)

• Jimmy Cameron (Bass), (Vocals)

• Audey Ratliff (bass)

• Ralph Stanley II (Lead vocalist, guitar)

• Nathan Stanley (mandolin, Lead vocalist, guitar)

• James Price (fiddle)

• Randall Hibbitts (bass)

• Mitchell Van Dyke (banjo)

• Jarrod Church (banjo)

• Alex Hibbitts (Mandolin)

• Jimmie Vaughan (Rhythm Guitar, Vocals)

Political career

About 1970, Ralph Stanley ran for Clerk of Court

and Commissioner of Revenue in Dickenson County

and said:

"What happened is, somebody traded me off—they

used my popularity and money to elect somebody else.

I was done dirty. And I'm so proud that I was done

dirty, because if I had been elected ... I woulda had a

job to do ... maybe woulda finally quit. So that's one

time I was done dirty and I want to thank them for it

now."

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Stanley's work was featured in the very popular 2000

film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", in which he sings

the Appalachian dirge "O Death". The soundtrack's

producer was T-Bone Burnett. Stanley said the

following about working with Burnett:

"T-Bone Burnett had several auditions for that song.

He wanted it in the Dock Boggs style. So I got my

banjo and learned it the way he did it. You see, I had

recorded "O Death" three times, done it with Carter.

So I went down with my banjo to Nashville and I said,

"T-Bone, let me sing it the way I want to sing it," and

I laid my banjo down and sung it a cappella. After two

or three verses, he stopped me and said, "That's it."

With that song, Stanley won a 2002 Grammy

Award in the category of "Best Male Country Vocal

Performance". "That put the icing on the cake for me,"

he said. "It put me in a different category."

Later life

He was known in the world of bluegrass music

by the popular title "Dr. Ralph Stanley", having

been awarded an honorary doctorate in music

from Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate,

Tennessee in 1976. Stanley was inducted into the

International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in

1992 and in 2000; he became the first person to

be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in the third

millennium.

He joined producers Randall Franks and Alan

Autry for the "In the Heat of the Night" cast

CD "Christmas Time's A Comin'", performing

"Christmas Time's A Comin'" with the cast on the

CD released on Sonlite and MGM/UA; it was one

of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and

1992 with Southern retailers.

He was featured in the Josh Turner hit song "Me and

God" released in 2006, the same year he was awarded

the National Medal of Arts.

On November 10, 2007, Stanley and the Clinch

Mountain Boys performed at a rally for presidential

candidate John Edwards in Des Moines, Iowa, just

before the Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-

Jackson Day Dinner. Between renditions of "Man

of Constant Sorrow" and "Orange Blossom Special",

Stanley told the crowd that he had cast his first vote

for Harry S. Truman in 1948 and would cast his

next for John Edwards in 2008. In October 2008,

he performed in a radio advertisement for Barack

Obama's presidential campaign.

Country singer Dwight Yoakam said that Stanley is

one of his "musical heroes".

In 2012, Stanley was featured on several tracks of

the soundtrack for Nick Cave's film "Lawless, with

music" by Cave and Warren Ellis. His solo track

"White Light/White Heat" is prominent in several

scenes of the movie.

Stanley maintained an active touring schedule;

appearances in his later years included the 2012

Muddy Roots Music Festival in Cookeville,

Tennessee and the 2013 FreshGrass Festival in North

Adams, Massachusetts. In June 2013, he announced

a farewell tour, scheduled to begin in Rocky Mount,

North Carolina on October 18 and extending to

December 2014. However, upon notification of being


Ralph Stanley

elected as a fellow of the American Academy of

Arts and Sciences (awarded on October 11, 2014) a

statement on his own website appeared saying that he

would not be retiring.

Personal life and death

After two previous marriages ended in divorce,

Stanley married his wife, Jimmie, in 1968; he had

four children.

Stanley's autobiography, "Man of Constant Sorrow"

which was coauthored with the music journalist

Eddie Dean, was released by Gotham Books on

October 15, 2009. On June 23, 2016, Stanley died

from skin cancer at his home in Sandy Ridge in

Dickenson County, Virginia; he was 89.

Musical style

Stanley created a unique style of banjo playing,

sometimes called "Stanley style". It evolved from the

Wade Mainer style two-finger technique and was

later influenced by the Scruggs style, which is a threefinger

technique. "Stanley style" is distinguished

by incredibly fast "forward rolls", led by the index

finger (instead of the thumb, as in Scruggs style),

sometimes in the higher registers using a capo. In

"Stanley style", the rolls of the banjo are continuous,

while being picked fairly close to the bridge on the

banjo, giving the tone of the instrument a very crisp,

articulate snap to the strings as the player plays them.

Honors, awards, distinctions

• Stanley was widely known in the world of bluegrass

music by the popular title, "Dr. Ralph Stanley,"

after being awarded an honorary Doctor of Music

from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate,

Tennessee, in 1976.

• He was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage

Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for

the Arts, which is the United States government's

highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

• He was inducted into the International Bluegrass

Music Hall of Honor in 1992 and in 2000.

• Between 1993 and 2015, Stanley was nominated for

15 Grammy Awards in various categories.

• His work was featured in the 2000 film "O

Brother, Where Art Thou?", in which he sings the

Appalachian dirge "O Death". That song won him a

2002 Grammy Award in the category of Best Male

Country Vocal Performance.

• His 2002 collaborative recording with Jim

Lauderdale titled "Lost in the Lonesome Pines" won

the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album at the

45th Annual Grammy Awards.

• The Virginia Press Association made him their

Distinguished Virginian of the Year in 2004.

• "The Ralph Stanley Museum and Traditional

Mountain Music Center" opened in Clintwood,

Virginia in 2004.

• He was awarded the National Medal of Arts

in 2006, the nation's highest honor for artistic

excellence.

• The Virginia legislature designated him the

Outstanding Virginian of 2008.

• He was awarded the Key to the City of Garner,

North Carolina on November 15, 2008.

• He was named a Library of Congress Living

Legend in April 2000.

• He was inducted into the Virginia Musical

Museum & Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2013.

• He received a second honorary Doctor of Music

degree from Yale University on May 19, 2014.

• He became an elected fellow of the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences on October 11, 2014.

• From the January 2, 2015 death of Little Jimmy

Dickens until his own death, Stanley was the oldest

living member of the Grand Ole Opry.

• In 2024, Stanley was inducted into the American

Banjo Museum Hall of Fame in the Historical

category.

• He became the first person to be inducted into the

Grand Ole Opry in the third millennium.


61 |

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MAGAZINE

Ralph S

ALBUM DIS

Stanley Brothers* And The Clinch

Mountain Boys

Featuring Ralph Stanley –

Hard Times

1963

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley And The Clinch

Mountain Boys –

Old Time Music

1967

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Over The Sunset Hill

1968

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Bluegrass Sound

1968

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Brand New Country Songs

1968

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Hills Of Home

1969

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Live In Japan

1971

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Sing Michigan Bluegrass

1971

Discogs link

Something Old, Something New

& Some Of Katy's Mountain Dew

1971

Discogs link

Keith Whitley And Ricky Skaggs –

Tribute To The Stanley Brothers

1971

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Cry From The Cross

1971

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley & The Clinch

Mountain Boys –

John Henry

1971

Discogs link


Mountain Boys* –

Play Requests

1972

Discogs link

Old Country Church

1972

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

The Stanley Sound Around The World

1973

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

I Want To Preach The Gospel

1973

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Sing The Gospel Echoes

Of The Stanley Brothers

1973

Discogs link

A Man and His Music

1974

Discogs link

Let Me Rest On A Peaceful Mountain

(Hills Of Home)

1975

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley & the Clinch

Mountain Boys* Featuring

Bill Monroe, Reno-Harrell*,

Jimmy Martin, Larry Sparks,

Country Gentlemen*, Goins

Bros*, Outdoor Plumbing

Company*, Raymond Fairchild,

Sullivan Family*, Marshall

Family*, Leslie Keith –

Live! At McClure, Virginia

1976

Discogs link

Old Home Place

1976

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Clinch Mountain Gospel

1977

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Down Where The River Bends

1978

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

I'll Wear A White Robe

1980

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Snow Covered Mound

1980

Discogs link

Jimmy Martin And Ralph Stanley –

First Time Together

1980

Discogs link

Curly Ray Cline With Ralph Stanley

And The Clinch Mountain Boys –

Boar Hog

1980

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley And The Clinch Mountain

Boys* – Hymn Time - 1980

Discogs link


Ralph Stanley

tanley

COGRAPHY


Mountain Boys –

The Stanley Sound Today

1981

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Memory Of Your Smile

1982

Discogs link


Mountain Boys Including Ricky

Skaggs And Keith Whitley –

Gospel Echoes Of The Stanley Brothers

1983

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

Child Of The King

1983

Discogs link

Curly Ray Cline With Ralph Stanley

And The Clinch Mountain Boys –

The Old Kentucky Fox Hunter

Plays Gospel

1983

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley And Friends* –

Live At The Old Home Place

1983

Discogs link


Mountain Boys Including Ricky

Skaggs & Keith Whitley –

Sing Bluegrass

1983

Discogs link


Mountain Boys Including

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley –

All American Bluegrass

1984

Discogs link


Mountain Boys –

I Can Tell You The Time

1985 Discogs link



Mountain Boys – Lonesome And Blue

1986

Discogs link


Mountain Boys Introducing James King

(12) – Introducing James King

1986

Discogs link


Mountain Boys With Ricky Skaggs

And Keith Whitley – Bluegrass

1986

Discogs link

I'll Answer The Call

1986

Discogs link

Various –

Christmas Time Back Home

1988

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley And Sam Wilson –

What About You

1988

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley, Curly Ray Cline,

The Clinch Mountain Boys –

"Curly Ray Cline The Deputy"

1988

Discogs link

Like Father Like Son

1989

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley & Raymond Fairchild –

Ralph Stanley & Raymond Fairchild

1989

Discogs link


Mountain Boys – Pray For The Boys

1991

Discogs link

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning

1992

Discogs link


Mountain Boys – Almost Home

1992

Discogs link


Mountain Boys – Back To The Cross

1992

Discogs link

Rickey Lee With Ralph Stanley

And The Clinch Mountain Boys

And The Late Roy Lee Centers* –

Live At The Smithsonian

1992

Discogs link here

Sunday Morning

1992

Discogs link

Christmas Time With Ralph Stanley

1993

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley And Joe Issacs* –

A Gospel Gathering

1995

Discogs link


Mountain Boys – Sixteen Years

1995

Discogs link

Short Of Trouble: Songs of

Grayson & Whitter

1996

Discogs link

My All And All

1997

Discogs link

Ralph Stanley & Friends* –

Clinch Mountain Country

1998

Discogs link

*** There are a further 31 albums listed

on Discogs, you can discover them all

from this link ***

https://www.discogs.com/artist/448037-Ralph-Stanley

63 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Rusty Young

Norman Russell Young (February 23,

1946 – April 14, 2021) was an American

guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, best

known as one of the frontmen in the

influential country rock and Americana band Poco.

A virtuoso on pedal steel guitar, he was celebrated for

the ability to get a Hammond B3 organ sound out of

the instrument by playing it through a Leslie speaker

cabinet and as an innovator of producing other rock

sounds from the instrument.

Early Life

Young was born in Long Beach, California and raised

in Colorado. He began playing lap steel guitar at age

6, and taught guitar and steel guitar lessons during

his high school years at Jefferson High School,

Lakewood, Colorado with George Grantham.

During that time, he also played country music in

late night bars. Young played in a well known Denver

psychedelic rock band "Boenzee Cryque".

Career - Poco

In the late 1960s, an acquaintance of Young's, Miles

Thomas, became the road manager for Buffalo

Springfield. Richie Furay and Jim Messina needed

a steel guitarist for the Furay ballad "Kind Woman"

on their final album "Last Time Around" and after

Thomas told Young about the opportunity, Young

was hired. Along with Furay and Messina, Young

became a founding member of Poco in 1968 upon

the former band's demise. Drummer George

Grantham and bass player Randy Meisner rounded

out the original Poco lineup. The band's membership

fluctuated over the years. After Furay left the group,

Young took on more song writing responsibility,

along with Paul Cotton and Timothy B. Schmit.

Young is best known for writing the Poco songs

"Rose of Cimarron" and "Crazy Love". In 2013,

Young was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of

Fame. At the end of 2013, Young announced his,

what turned out to be a short-lived, retirement


A few shows were booked into 2014 including three farewell

shows in Florida. One of those shows was a performance

in a recording studio in front of a live audience for

a DVD document of the band's live show.[citation needed]

Young said there could be some one-offs in the future

after that, but the band would not be actively touring as

before.[citation needed] Young and Jack Sundrud wrote

and recorded music for children's story videos as the

"Session Cats".[9] Young continued to do guest performances

with former members of Poco and other country

rock artists. Young released his first solo album in 2017 on

ALBUMS

Buddy Emmons and Jay Dee Maness

and Red Rhodes and Sneaky

Pete* and Rusty Young – Suite

Steel -

The Pedal Steel Guitar Album

1970 - Discogs link

Waitin' for the sun

2016 - Discogs link

JOHN HARTFORD

discography

Red Wanting Blue Feat.

Rusty Young –

Hitchhiker's Lullaby

2019 - Discogs link

Red Wanting Blue Feat.

Rusty Young –

Go And Say Goodbye

2019 - Discogs link

Christmas Medley

2020 - Discogs link

Rusty Young

Blue Élan Records, Waitin' For The Sun. Young released

his first new music since Waitin' for the Sun on March 22,

2019. The new tune, "Listen to Your Heart", was released

digitally and benefited a local Steelville, Missouri animal

charity, Santana's Hope for Paws (Friends of Steelville,

MO Pound) Animal Shelter.

Death

Young died of a heart attack on April 14, 2021. He was 75

years old.

MISCELLANEOUS

Robert Klein Featuring Rusty

Young From Poco (3), Bill

Payne & Paul Barrere From Little

Feat –

The Robert Klein Radio Show

1981 - Discogs link

SINGLES & EP'S

Christmas Every Day

2017 - Discogs link

Colin Devlin & Rusty Young –

Love Is Blindness

2021 - Discogs link

Jack Tempchin Feat.

Jesse Dayton & Rusty Young –

Jesus And Mohammed

2018 - Discogs link

COMPILATIONS

Listen To Your Heart

2019 - Discogs link


65 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Shane MacGowan

Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan

(25 December 1957 – 30

November 2023) was a Britishborn

Irish singer-songwriter

and musician, best known as the lead

vocalist and primary lyricist of Celtic

punk band the Pogues. He won acclaim

for his lyrics, which often focused on

the Irish emigrant experience; he also

received widespread media attention for

his lifestyle, which included decades of

heavy alcohol and drug abuse. A New

York Times obituary noted his "twin

reputations as a titanically destructive

personality and a master songsmith

whose lyrics painted vivid portraits of the

underbelly of Irish immigrant life."

Born in Kent, England, to Irish parents,

MacGowan spent his early childhood

in Tipperary, Ireland, before moving

back to England with his family at age

six. After attending Holmewood House

preparatory school, he won a literary

scholarship to Westminster School

but was expelled in his second year

for drug offences. At age 17 to 18, he

spent six months in psychiatric care at

Bethlem Royal Hospital due to his drug

and alcohol abuse. He became active

on the London punk scene under the

alias Shane O'Hooligan, attending gigs,

working in the Rocks Off record shop,

and writing a punk fanzine. In 1977, he

and his then-girlfriend Shanne Bradley

formed the punk band the Nipple

Erectors (subsequently the Nips). In

1982, with Spider Stacy and Jem Finer,

he co-founded the Pogues—originally

called Pogue Mahone, an anglicisation

of the Irish phrase póg mo thóin,

meaning "kiss my arse"—who fused punk

influences with traditional Irish music.

He was the principal songwriter and lead

vocalist on the band's first five studio

albums, including "Rum Sodomy & the

Lash" (1985) and the critically acclaimed

and commercially successful "If I Should

Fall from Grace with God" (1988). With

Finer, he co-wrote the Christmas hit

single "Fairytale of New York" (1987),

which he recorded as a duet with

Kirsty MacColl. A perennial Christmas

favourite in Ireland and the UK, the song

was certified sextuple platinum in the

UK in 2023.

During a 1991 tour of Japan, the

Pogues dismissed MacGowan due

to the impact of his drug and alcohol

dependency on their live shows. He

formed a new band, Shane MacGowan

and The Popes, with which he released

two further studio albums, including

the singles "The Church of the Holy

Spook" (1994) and "That Woman's Got

Me Drinking" (featuring Johnny Depp,

1994). His solo projects after leaving

the Pogues included the singles "What

a Wonderful World" (a duet with Nick

Cave, 1992), "Haunted" (a duet with

Sinéad O'Connor, 1995) and "My Way"

(1996); he also collaborated with artists

including the Jesus and Mary Chain,

Dropkick Murphys and Cruachan.


Shane MacGowan

In 2001, he rejoined the Pogues for

reunion shows and continued to tour

with the group until it dissolved in

2014. At a January 2018 gala concert to

celebrate MacGowan's 60th birthday,

the president of Ireland, Michael D.

Higgins, presented him with a lifetime

achievement award for outstanding

contributions to Irish life, music and

culture. Later that year, he married his

long-term partner, journalist and writer

Victoria Mary Clarke. Following years

of deteriorating health, he died from

pneumonia in Dublin in November

2023, aged 65.

Early life

MacGowan was born on 25 December

1957 in Pembury, Kent, the son of Irish

parents who were visiting relatives

in England at the time of his birth.

MacGowan spent his early childhood in

Tipperary, Ireland. His younger sister,

Siobhan MacGowan, was born in 1963;

she later became a journalist, writer, and

songwriter. MacGowan and his family

moved to England when he was aged

six and a half. His father, Maurice, from

a middle-class background in Dublin,

worked in the offices of department

store C&A; his mother, Therese, from

Tipperary, worked as a typist at a

convent, having previously been a singer,

traditional Irish dancer, and model.

MacGowan lived in many parts of

southeast England such as Brighton,

London, and the home counties, and

attended an English public school. His

father encouraged his precocious interest

in literature; by age 11, MacGowan

was reading authors including Fyodor

Dostoyevsky, John Steinbeck, and

James Joyce. At 13, he was among the

winners of a literary contest sponsored

by the Daily Mirror. In 1971, he left

Holmewood House preparatory school

in Langton Green, Kent, with a literature

scholarship for Westminster School.

Found in possession of drugs, he was

expelled in his second year. At age 17, he

spent six months in a psychiatric hospital

due to drug addiction; while there, he

was also diagnosed with acute situational

anxiety. Briefly enrolled at St Martin's

School of Art, he worked at the Rocks

Off record shop in central London,

and started a punk fanzine under the

pseudonym Shane O'Hooligan. He was

first publicly noted in 1976 at a concert

by London punk rock band the Clash,

where his earlobe was damaged by future

Mo-dettes bassist Jane Crockford. A

photographer took a picture of him

covered in blood, which was reported in

the music paper NME with the headline

"Cannibalism at Clash Gig". Shortly after

this, he and bassist Shanne Bradley

formed the punk band the Nipple

Erectors (later known as the Nips).

Career

1982–1991: Leading the Pogues

MacGowan drew upon his Irish

heritage when founding the Pogues and

changed his early punk style for a more

traditional sound with tutoring from

his extended family. Many of his songs

were influenced by Irish nationalism,

Irish history, the experiences of the

Irish diaspora (particularly in England

and the United States), and London

life in general. These influences were

documented in the biography "Rake

at the Gates of Hell: Shane MacGowan

in Context". He often cited the 19thcentury

Irish poet James Clarence

Mangan and playwright Brendan Behan

as influences.

The Pogues' most critically acclaimed

album was "If I Should Fall from Grace

with God" (1988), which also marked

the high point of the band's commercial

success. Between 1985 and 1987,

MacGowan co-wrote "Fairytale of New

York", which he performed with Kirsty

MacColl, and remains a perennial

Christmas favourite; in 2004, 2005 and

2006, it was voted favourite Christmas

song in a poll by music video channel

VH1. Other notable songs he performed

with the Pogues include "Dirty Old

Town", "Sally MacLennane" and "The

Irish Rover" (featuring the Dubliners).

In the following years MacGowan and

the Pogues released several albums. In

1988, he co-wrote "Streets of Sorrow/

Birmingham Six", a song by the Pogues

which proved highly controversial

due to its support of the Birmingham

Six – six men wrongly convicted of the

1974 Birmingham pub bombings, but

still serving prison sentences for the

bombings at the time – and was banned

on British commercial TV and radio.

In Yokohama, Japan, during a 1991 tour,

the Pogues dismissed MacGowan for

unprofessional behaviour.The band's

performances had been affected by

MacGowan's drug and alcohol problems,

and his bandmates parted ways with him

following "a string of no-shows, including

when the Pogues were opening for Dylan".

1992–2005: Shane MacGowan and the

Popes

After MacGowan had been dismissed

from the Pogues, he formed a new band,

Shane MacGowan and The Popes. The

new band recorded two studio albums,

a live album, three tracks on "the Popes

Outlaw Heaven" (2010) and a live DVD;

the band also toured internationally.

In 1997, MacGowan appeared on

Lou Reed's "Perfect Day", covered by

numerous artists in aid of Children

in Need. It was the UK's number one

single for three weeks, in two separate

spells. Selling over a million copies, the

record contributed £2,125,000 to the

charity's highest fundraising total in six

years. From December 2003 up to May

2005, Shane MacGowan and the Popes

toured extensively in the UK, Ireland and

Europe.

2001–2014: Return to the Pogues

The Pogues and MacGowan reformed

for a sell-out tour in 2001 and each

year from 2004 to 2009 for further

tours, including headline slots at

Guilfest in England and the Azkena

Rock Festival in the Basque Country.

In May 2005, MacGowan rejoined the

Pogues permanently. That same year,

the Pogues re-released "Fairytale of

New York" to raise funds for the "Justice

For Kirsty Campaign" and "Crisis at

Christmas". The single was the bestselling

Christmas-themed single of 2005,

reaching number 3 in the UK Charts that

year.

In 2006, he was seen many times with

the Libertines and Babyshambles singer

Pete Doherty; on occasions MacGowan

joined Babyshambles on stage. Other

famous friends included Johnny Depp,

who appeared in the video for "That

Woman's Got Me Drinking", and Joe

Strummer, who referred to MacGowan

as "one of the best writers of the century"

in an interview featured on the

videogram release "Live at the Town and

Country Club" from 1988. Strummer

occasionally joined MacGowan and the

Pogues on stage (and briefly replaced

MacGowan as lead vocalist after his

sacking from the band). He also worked

with Nick Cave and joined him on stage.

About his future with the Pogues, in

a 24 December 2015 interview with

Vice magazine, when the interviewer


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MAGAZINE

asked whether the band were still active,

MacGowan said: "We're not, no", saying

that, since their 2001 reunion happened,

"I went back with the Pogues and we grew

to hate each other all over again", adding:

"I don't hate the band at all – they're

friends. I like them a lot. We were friends

for years before we joined the band. We

just got a bit sick of each other. We're

friends as long as we don't tour together.

I've done a hell of a lot of touring. I've had

enough of it."

2010–2011: The Shane Gang

In 2010, MacGowan played impromptu

shows in Dublin with a new fivepiece

backing band, the Shane Gang,

including In Tua Nua rhythm section

Paul Byrne (drums) and Jack Dublin

(bass), with manager Joey Cashman

on whistle. In November 2010, this

line-up went to Lanzarote to record a

new album. MacGowan and the Shane

Gang performed at the Red Hand Rocks

music festival in the Patrician Hall,

Carrickmore County Tyrone in June

2011.

2014–2023: Later career

MacGowan made a return to the stage

on 13 June 2019 at the RDS Arena in

Dublin as a guest of Chrissie Hynde and

the Pretenders.

Following on from the success of Feis

Liverpool 2018's finale, in which he was

joined by artists such as Imelda May,

Paddy Moloney, Albert Hammond

Jr and many more, MacGowan was

announced to appear on 7 July alongside

a host of guests for the Feis Liverpool

2019's finale. The event was ultimately

cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales and

funding issues. Feis Liverpool is the UK's

largest celebration of Irish music and

culture.

In 2020, MacGowan reportedly returned

to the studio to record several new songs

with the Irish indie band Cronin.

Media and charity work

MacGowan appeared in an episode of

"Fair City", shown on 28 December 2008.

In 2009, he starred in the RTÉ reality

show "Victoria and Shane Grow Their

Own", as he and his future wife, Victoria

Mary Clarke, endeavoured to grow their

food in their own garden.

In 2010, MacGowan offered a piece

of unusual art to the "Irish Society for

the Prevention of Cruelty to Children"

(ISPCC) to auction off to support their

services to children: a drawing on a

living room door. It earned €1,602 for

the charity.

Personal life

On 26 November 2018, after a decadeslong

relationship and subsequent 11-year

engagement, MacGowan married

Irish journalist Victoria Mary Clarke

in Copenhagen. They lived in Dublin.

MacGowan was a Roman Catholic,

calling himself "a free-thinking religious

fanatic" who also prayed to the Buddha.

As an adolescent, he considered the

priesthood.

Politics

In 2015, MacGowan stated that he had

grown up in an Irish republican family

and that he regretted not joining the

IRA. In a filmed interview he said, "I was

ashamed I didn't have the guts to join

the IRA, and the Pogues was my way of

overcoming that". The central figure in

his 1997 song "Paddy Public Enemy No.

1" is based on ex-INLA leader Dominic

McGlinchey. Asked his opinion of

McGlinchey, MacGowan said "he was a

great man". He also counted former Sinn

Féin leader Gerry Adams as a friend,

according to his most recent biography.

In a 1997 interview with The Irish World,

MacGowan said that he wished for "the

peace process" to succeed, but believed

it would "be a long, drawn-out process".

He added that he wished for a quicker

resolution that led to "the English" giving

up all control of Irish lands, and that

Ireland be made into a "socialist republic".

Health and addictions

MacGowan "battled longstanding health

issues, compounded by well-documented

struggles with substance abuse". He was

"a famously voracious consumer of drugs

and prone to physical trauma".

MacGowan began drinking alcohol

at age five, when his family gave him

Guinness to help him sleep. His father

frequently took him to the local pub

while he drank with his friends. He

suffered physically from years of binge

drinking. MacGowan also used LSD,

and he developed a heroin addiction

during his tenure with the Pogues. In

the 1980s, he "was repeatedly injured

in falls and struck by moving vehicles".

While in New Zealand during a 1988

Pogues tour, MacGowan "painted his

hotel room, face and chest blue, apparently

because 'the Maoris were talking to me'".

Problems arising from his alcohol and

drug abuse led to his firing from the

Pogues in 1991, and he experienced

stomach ulcers and alcoholic hepatitis in

the 1990s. MacGowan often performed

onstage and gave interviews while

drunk. In 2004, on the BBC TV political

magazine programme "This Week", he

gave incoherent and slurred answers to

questions from Janet Street-Porter about

the public smoking ban in Ireland.

In November 1999, MacGowan was

arrested in London after Sinéad

O'Connor found him passed out on his

floor, and called emergency services.

MacGowan was charged with heroin

possession in January 2000. When

police formally cautioned MacGowan

(a process that "requires the accused to

admit their guilt"), MacGowan accepted

the caution and the criminal case against

him was terminated in March 2000.

O'Connor said she took this action

in an attempt to discourage him from

using heroin. Although he was furious

with O'Connor at first, MacGowan later

expressed gratitude to her and said that

the incident helped him kick his heroin

habit.

MacGowan experienced years of ill

health toward the end of his life. In

mid-2015, as he was leaving a Dublin

studio, he fell and fractured his pelvis.

After that, he used a wheelchair. Later

that year, MacGowan said: "It was a fall,

and I fell the wrong way. I broke my pelvis,

which is the worst thing you can do. I'm

lame in one leg, I can't walk around the

room without a crutch. I am getting better,

but it's taking a very long time. It's the

longest I've ever taken to recover from an

injury. And I've had a lot of injuries". He

continued to use a wheelchair until his

death.

In 2016, Clarke told the press that

MacGowan was sober "for the first

time in years". She indicated that

MacGowan's drinking had "not just been

a recreational activity", but that "his whole

career has revolved around it and, indeed,

been both enhanced and simultaneously

inhibited by it". She said that his drinking

problem was made much worse by the

introduction of hard drugs such as

heroin. Clarke added that a serious bout

with pneumonia—compounded by his


2015 hip injury, which required a long

hospital stay—was ultimately responsible

for his sobriety. The hospital stay

required a total detox, and MacGowan's

sobriety continued after he returned

home.

MacGowan was long known for having

very bad teeth. He lost the last of his

natural teeth around 2008. In 2015,

he had a new set of teeth—including

one gold tooth—fitted in a nine-hour

procedure. The new set of teeth was

secured by eight titanium dental

implants. The procedure was the subject

of the hour-long television programme

£Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn."

In early February 2021, MacGowan

broke his knee in a fall at his home. This

left him bed-ridden for a short time.

MacGowan was hospitalised for an

infection on 6 December 2022. He was

diagnosed with viral encephalitis. Days

after MacGowan had entered hospital,

Clarke told the Irish Independent that he

"seems perfectly normal now – he is pissed

off because he can't have a drink in the

hospital". Clarke reportedly added that

she had urged MacGowan to "ditch his

hard-living lifestyle", but that her efforts

had not been met with success.

Death

It was reported on 23 July 2023 that

MacGowan was hospitalised in an

intensive care unit. Following treatment

for an infection, he was visited by many

celebrities while in hospital. He was

discharged from St. Vincent's University

Hospital on 23 November 2023 after four

months of treatment, but was shortly

thereafter re-admitted with another

infection. At 3:30 a.m. on 30 November

2023, as he was receiving last rites,

MacGowan died from pneumonia with

his wife and sister-in-law by his side;

he was 65. He left an estate of €849,733,

which he willed to his wife.

On 8 December, MacGowan's coffin

was borne through the streets of Dublin

on a horse-drawn carriage as fans lined

the streets for his funeral procession.

Later, hundreds gathered inside and

outside Saint Mary of the Rosary

Church in Nenagh, County Tipperary,

including celebrities Nick Cave, Johnny

Depp, BP Fallon, Bob Geldof, Aidan

Gillen, President of Ireland Michael

D. Higgins and former Sinn Féin leader

Gerry Adams. There was dancing inside

the church as "Fairytale of New York"

was performed by the Pogues with

Glen Hansard, Lisa O'Neill and John

Sheahan from the Dubliners.

"Fairytale of New York" went to

No. 1 in Ireland on the weekend of

MacGowan's funeral. On 13 December

2023, the Pogues reissued the song as

a charity seven-inch single in tribute to

MacGowan and to benefit the Dublin

Simon Community, an anti-homelessness

organisation that MacGowan had

supported.

A pair of posthumous portraits,

following MacGowan’s last London

visit by artist Dan Llywelyn Hall, were

unveiled in London to support the

Encephalitis Society.

Legacy

Following MacGowan's death, Michael

D. Higgins, the President of Ireland,

said: "Shane will be remembered as one of

music's greatest lyricists. So many of his

songs would be perfectly crafted poems,

if that would not have deprived us of the

opportunity to hear him sing them. The

genius of Shane's contribution includes

the fact that his songs capture within

them, as Shane would put it, the measure

of our dreams—of so many worlds, and

particularly those of love, of the emigrant

experience and of facing the challenges

of that experience with authenticity and

courage, and of living and seeing the sides

of life that so many turn away from."

The New York Times described

MacGowan as "a master songsmith

whose lyrics painted vivid portraits of the

underbelly of Irish immigrant life."

Following MacGowan's death, Tom

Waits wrote on X: "Shane MacGowan's

torrid and mighty voice is mud and roses

punched out with swaggering stagger,

ancient longing that is blasted all to hell. A

Bard's bard, may he cast his spell upon us

all forevermore."

Nick Cave called MacGowan "the

greatest songwriter of his generation, with

the most terrifyingly beautiful of voices".

Bruce Springsteen said the "passion and

deep intensity of MacGowan's music and

lyrics is unmatched by all but the very best

in the rock and roll canon... I don't know

about the rest of us, but they'll be singing

Shane's songs 100 years from now."

When Bob Dylan performed a concert

Shane MacGowan

in Dublin in 2022, he paid tribute to

MacGowan while onstage, describing the

former Pogues frontman as one of his

"favourite artists".

Paul Simon said MacGowan was "that

kind of artist that needed to burn very

brightly and intensely. Some artists are like

that. They produce work that we treasure

but they pay for it with their health – their

bodily health and their mental health.

That was Shane."

The twelfth track on the 2025 Dropkick

Murphys album, "For the People", “One

Last Goodbye (Tribute to Shane)” is a

tribute to MacGowan.

Autobiography and biographies

In 2001, MacGowan coauthored the

autobiographical book "A Drink with

Shane MacGowan" with his future wife,

Victoria Mary Clarke. The book was

published by Pan Macmillan.

Aside from "Rake at the Gates of Hell:

Shane MacGowan in Context", which

covered a portion of his musical career,

MacGowan was the subject of a 2015

biography, "A Furious Devotion: The

Life of Shane MacGowan", published by

Omnibus Press. He was also the subject

of several books and paintings. In 2000,

Tim Bradford used the title "Is Shane

MacGowan Still Alive?" for a humorous

book about Ireland and Irish culture.

"Shaman Shane: The Wounded Healer"

by Stephan Martin brands Shane as

a latter-day London-Irish spirit-raiser

and exorcist. This commentary is

found in the book "Myth of Return:

The Paintings of Brian Whelan and

Collected Commentaries". London

Irish artist Brian Whelan has painted

MacGowan (for example "Boy from the

County Hell"); his works are featured on

MacGowan's official website, and he is

also the illustrator of "The Popes' Outlaw

Heaven" cover.

Honours and awards

In 2006, MacGowan was voted 50th in

the NME Rock Heroes List. In January

2018, MacGowan was honoured with

a concert gala to celebrate his 60th

birthday at the National Concert Hall in

Dublin, where Irish president Michael

D. Higgins presented him with a lifetime

achievement award for his outstanding

contribution to Irish life, music and

culture. He also won the 2018 Ivor

Novello Inspiration Award.


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MAGAZINE

SHANE MACGOWA

THE POPES

FEATURING SHANE

MACGOWAN

Outlaw Heaven

2009

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

& MAIRE BRENNAN

You're The One

1995

Discogs link

NICK CAVE & SHANE

MACGOWAN

What A Wonderful

World

1992

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

My Way

1996

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

& THE POPES

That Woman's Got

Me Drinking

1994

Discogs link

CRAUCHAN FEAT.

SHANE MACGOWAN

Ride On

2001

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

& SINEAD

O'CONNOR

Haunted

1995

Discogs link

NA COMHARSANA

SHANE MACGOWAN

The Sons Of

Knocknagow

2001

Discogs link


Shane MacGowan

N DISCOGRAPHY

THE LISBON LIONS

MARTIN O'NEIL

THE CELTIC

CHORUS

SHANE MACGOWAN

The Best Day Of Our

Lives - 2002

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

Sampler

1994

Discogs link

SIMPLE MINDS

JIMMY JOHNSTONE

SHANE MACGOWAN

The Bhoys From

Paradise

2004

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

Rakes, Rats, Pricks &

Kicks - An Anthology

2011

Discogs link

THE PRIESTS FEAT.

SHANE MACGOWAN

Little Drummer Boy/

Peace On Earth

2010

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

If I Should Fall From

Grace

2003

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

THE AFTERMATH &

FRIENDS

The Rockier Road To

Poland

2012

Discogs link

SHANE MACGOWAN

JULIEN TEMPLE

Crock Of Gold - A Few

Rounds With Shane

Macgowan

2020

Discogs link


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MAGAZINE

Hedy West

Hedwig Grace "Hedy" West (April 6, 1938 –

July 3, 2005) was an American folksinger,

songwriter and song catcher. She belonged

to the same generation of folk revivalists

as Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Carolyn Hester. Her

most famous song "500 Miles" is one of America's

most popular folk songs. English folk musician A. L.

Lloyd declared West to be "far and away the best of the

American girl singers in the folk revival."

Hedy West played the guitar and the banjo. On banjo,

she played both clawhammer style and a unique type of

three-finger picking that showed influences beyond oldtime

and bluegrass such as blues and jazz. She is a 2022

inductee to the Georgia Women of Achievement.

Early life & family influences

West was born in Cartersville in the mountains of

northern Georgia in 1938.Her father, Don West, was

a Southern poet and coal mine labor organizer in the

1930s; his bitter experiences included a friend killed. He

co-founded the Highlander Folk School in New Market,

Tennessee, and later ran the Appalachian South Folklife

Center in Pipestem, West Virginia.

West's great-uncle Augustus Mulkey played the

fiddle. Her paternal grandmother Lillie Mulkey West

played the banjo. By her teens, West was singing at folk

festivals, both locally and in neighboring states. In the

mid-50s, she won a prize for ballad-singing in Nashville,

TN. Many of her songs, including the raw materials for

"500 Miles", came from Lillie West, who passed on the

songs she had learned as a child. She used her father's

poetry in several songs, such as "Anger in the Land".

Her family's politics were also a lifelong influence.

West's liner notes for 1967's "Old Times and Hard

Times", written from self-imposed exile in London,

are a personal statement on the corrosive effect of

the Vietnam War, claiming, "We'll be controlled by

manipulated fear". While living in Stony Brook, New

York, in the late 1970s, she donated her time and talents

to numerous benefit concerts for unfashionable causes

— as did her fellow Appalachian-on-Long-Island, Jean


Hedy West

Ritchie.

West's songs were rarely overt, topical protests. Her

working-class mountain roots were in her voice,

however, and ran through everything she sang,

highlighting the lives of marginalized blue-collar

workers including factory girls, servants, struggling

farmers, coal miners, and single mothers.

Education, career and later life

Hedy West graduated from Murphy High School in

1955 and attended Western Carolina College. In 1959,

she moved to New York City to study music at Mannes

College and drama at Columbia University. When

she arrived and saw the folk revival taking place, she

realized that the music the Northerners were playing

was in fact music she had heard every day growing up.

She embraced her folk side and started performing it

around New York City. She later attributed some of

her ability to get 'inside' her songs to her early training

as an actress. She was embraced by the Greenwich

Village folk scene (most likely in no small part due

to the fact that she actually came from the tradition

they were reviving), and was invited by Pete Seeger

to sing alongside him at a Carnegie Hall concert.

Manny Solomon signed her to Vanguard Records after

an appearance at the May 6, 1961, Indian Neck Folk

Festival. After being included on the 1961 compilation

album "New Folks for Vanguard", she soon made two

eponymous solo records for the company, enjoying

critical praise.

West moved to Los Angeles in 1960, where she

continued singing and married her first husband,

aerospace engineer Karl Ludloff. The marriage did not

last. While living in California she appeared at the 1962

Stanford Folk Festival. West performed at the Newport

Folk Festival in 1964. In 1966, she appeared on Pete

Seeger's Public Television series "Rainbow Quest", in

an episode headlined by Mississippi John Hurt. By this

time, she was making regular visits to England. She then

lived in London for several years, making tours of the

country's folk clubs, and appearing at the Cambridge

festival and the first Keele folk festival as well as regular

visits to Europe, especially Germany. She recorded three

albums for Bill Leader and A.L. Lloyd at Topic Records

– "Old Times and Hard Times" (1965), "Pretty Saro"

(1966) and "Ballads" (1967) – together with another for

Fontana, entitled "Serves 'em Fine" (1967).

For a few months in 1962 she had been engaged to

Roger Zelazny, who became a well-known science

fiction writer. In 1968, in London, she married

broadcaster Pete Myers, one of the founding presenters

of BBC Radio 1's "Late Night Extra". It was a marriage

of convenience, as Myers was gay, while the marriage


allowed West to spend as much time as she liked

on either side of the Atlantic. West and Myers later

divorced.

West developed a close working relationship at the time

with the painter Gertrude Degenhardt, who illustrated

a German-published collection of West's songs. In

the autumn of 1970, West moved from Great Britain

to West Germany, where she learned German and

made two further recordings. The first, "Getting Folk

Out of the Country" (1974), was recorded in London

with fellow American Bill Clifton and released by FV

Schallplatten. The second, "Love, Hell and Biscuits"

(also entitled "Whores, Hell and Biscuits"), was released

by Bear Family Records in 1976. In Germany, she met

philosophy and psychology professor Joseph Katz

(1920–88) who became her third husband in 1980

when they moved to Stony Brook, New York. West

picked her elderly grandparents' brains for scraps of

musical memory. She studied composition with David

Lewin at Stony Brook University, living nearby with

her husband, with whom she had a daughter, Talitha

(b. 1980). She was an adjunct professor at Stony Brook,

teaching two courses in folk music. One of her students,

singer-songwriter Robin Greenstein, worked with

West cataloging her record and tape collection. From

Long Island, she moved with her husband and daughter

to Princeton, NJ. Then in the early 1990s, following

Katz's 1988 death, she moved to Lower Merion

Township in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, suburbs,

where she spent most of her final years. One of her last

performances was at the Eisteddfod Festival, sponsored

by the Folk Music Society of New York at Polytechnic

University in 2004.

West's most famous song was "500 Miles", put together

from fragments of a melody she had heard her uncle

sing to her back in Georgia. She copyrighted the

resulting song. "500 Miles" has been recorded by

Bobby Bare (a Billboard Top 10 hit in 1963), The

Highwaymen, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and

Mary, Peter & Gordon, Rosanne Cash, and many

others. Another well-known song that she wrote and

copyrighted (but which borrows heavily from existing

traditional folk material) is "Cotton Mill Girl".

Cancer ruined her voice in her last years. A fine musical

legacy is in unreleased recordings, such as a live concert

from the 1978 University of Chicago Folk Festival,

broadcast in her memory by "The Midnight Special"

program of local radio station WFMT.

Hedy West died of cancer on July 3, 2005, at a hospital

in Philadelphia.

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MAGAZINE

hedy west D

THE GREENBRIAR BOYS,

JACKIE WASHINGTON,

HEDY WEST,

DAVE GUDE –

New Folks

1961 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Accompanying Herself On

The Five String Banjo

1963 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Volume 2

1965 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Old Times &

Hard Times

1965 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Pretty Saro

1966 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link


Hedy West

ISCOGRAPHY

HEDY WEST

Ballads

1967 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Untitled

2018 - (CD, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Serves 'Em Fine

1967 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

The New Restaurant

1967 - (7" Mono)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

BILL CLIFTON

Getting Folk Out Of

The Country

1974 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Ballads & Songs From

The Appalachians

2011 - (2xCD, Comp. RM)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Whores, Hell & Biscuits

1976 - (LP, Album)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Plus Hedy West

Volume 2

2012 - (CD, Comp, RE)

Discogs link

HEDY WEST

Granmaw And Me

2017 - (CD, Album)

Discogs link

SONNY TERRY

BROWNIE MCGHEE

MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT

HEDY WEST

PAUL CADWELL

Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest

2005 - (DVD, DVD-Video)

Discogs link


75 |

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MAGAZINE

Jean Ritchie

Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1,

2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter,

and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some

the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she

learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional

way (orally, from her family and community), many

of which were Appalachian variants of centuries old

British and Irish songs, including dozens of Child

Ballads. In adulthood, she shared these songs with wide

audiences, as well as writing some of her own songs using

traditional foundations.

She is ultimately responsible for the revival of the

Appalachian dulcimer, the traditional instrument of

her community, which she popularized by playing the

instrument on her albums and writing tutorial books.

She also spent time collecting folk music in the United

States and in Britain and Ireland, in order to research the

origins of her family songs and help preserve traditional

music.

She inspired a wide array of musicians, including Bob

Dylan, Joan Baez, Shirley Collins, Joni Mitchell,

Emmylou Harris and Judy Collins.

Out Of Kennedy

Family

Jean Ritchie was born to Abigail (née Hall) Ritchie

(1877–1972) and Balis Wilmar Ritchie (1869–1958) of

Viper, an unincorporated community in Perry County

in the Cumberland Mountains of southeastern Kentucky.

Along with the Combs family of adjacent Knott County,

the Ritchies of Perry County were one of the two "great

ballad-singing families" of Kentucky celebrated among

folk song scholars. Jean's father Balis had printed up a

book of old songs entitled "Lovers' Melodies" in 1910

or 1911, which contained the most popular songs in

Hindman at that time, including "Jackaro", "Lord Thomas

and Fair Ellender", "False Sir John and May Colvin" and

"The Lyttle Musgrave". However, Balis preferred playing

the Appalachian dulcimer to singing, often singing entire

ballads in his head along with his dulcimer playing. In

1917, the folk music collector Cecil Sharp collected

songs from Jean's older sisters May (1896–1982) and

Una (1900–1989), whilst her sister Edna (1910–1997)


Jean Ritchie

also learnt the old ballads, much later releasing her own

album of traditional songs with dulcimer accompaniment.

Most of the Ritchie siblings seemed dedicated to

performing and preserving traditional music. Many of

the Ritchies attended the Hindman Settlement School,

a folk school where students were encouraged to cherish

their own backgrounds and where Sharp found many of

his songs. It is possible that many of the Ritchies' songs

were absorbed from neighbors, relatives, friends, school

mates and even books, as well as being passed through the

family.

The paternal ancestors of the Ritchie family, Alexander

Ritchie (1725–1787) and his son James Ritchie Sr.

(1757–1818) of Stewarton, East Ayrshire, Scotland,

emigrated to the United States. James Ritchie Sr. fought

in the Revolutionary War in 1776 (including at the Siege

of Yorktown), and lived in Virginia before settling on

Carr Creek Lake in what is now Knott County, Kentucky,

with his family. When he drowned in the lake in 1818, his

family moved back to Virginia except his son Alexander

Crockett Ritchie Sr. (1778–1878), Jean Ritchie's greatgreat-grandfather.

Most of the Ritchies later fought on the Confederate

side in the Civil War, including Jean's paternal

grandfather Justice Austin Ritchie (1834–1899), who

was 2nd Lieutenant of Company C of the 13th Kentucky

Confederate Cavalry.

Alan Lomax wrote that:

They were quiet, thoughtful folks, who went in for

ballads, big families and educating their children. Jean's

grandmother was a prime mover in the Old Regular Baptist

Church, and all the traditional hymn tunes came from her.

Jean's Uncle Jason was a lawyer, who remembers the big

ballads like "Lord Barnard". Jean's father taught school,

printed a newspaper, fitted specs, farmed and sent ten of his

fourteen children to college.

Her "uncle" Jason (1860–1959), who was actually her

father's cousin, practiced law while owning a farm in

Talcum, Knott County, Kentucky. He was the source of

several of Jean Ritchie's songs and Cecil Sharp narrowly

missed meeting him in 1917, stating in his diary that "they

couldn't get hold of him".

Early life

As the youngest of 14 siblings, Ritchie was one of ten girls

who slept in one room of the farming family's farm house.

Ritchie and her family sang for entertainment, but also to

accompany their manual work. When the family gathered

to sing songs, they chose from a repertoire of over 300

songs including hymns, old ballads, and popular songs

by composers such as Stephen Foster, which were mostly

learnt orally and sung unaccompanied. The Ritchies


would sing improvised harmonies to accompany some of

their songs, including "Pretty Saro".

Ritchie graduated from high school in Viper and

enrolled in Cumberland Junior College (now a fouryear

University of the Cumberlands) in Williamsburg,

Kentucky, and from there graduated Phi Beta Kappa with

a B.A. in social work from the University of Kentucky in

Lexington in 1946. At college she participated in the 'glee

club' and choir as well as learning the piano. According

to Ritchie, Maud Karpeles later said "Ritchie cannot be

termed a folksinger, because she has been to college," which

she took as a compliment.

During World War II, she taught in an elementary school.

Meanwhile, in 1946, whilst still in Kentucky, Ritchie was

recorded performing traditional songs with her sisters

Edna, Kitty, and Pauline by Mary Elizabeth Barnicle

and by Artus Moser.

New York

After graduating she got a job as a social worker at the

Henry Street Settlement in New York, where she taught

her Appalachian songs and traditions to local children.

This caught the attention of folk singers, scholars, and

enthusiasts based in New York, and she befriended

Woody Guthrie, Oscar Brand, Pete Seeger, and Alan

Lomax. To many, Ritchie represented the ideal traditional

musician, due to her rural upbringing, dulcimer playing,

and the fact her songs came from within her family.

In 1948, Ritchie shared a stage with The Weavers,

Woody Guthrie, and Betty Sanders at the Spring Fever

Hootenanny. By October 1949, she was a regular guest on

Oscar Brand's Folksong Festival radio show on WNYC.

In 1949 and 1950, she recorded several hours of songs,

stories, and oral history for Lomax in New York City.

All of Lomax's recordings of Ritchie are available online

courtesy of the 'Lomax Digital Archive'. She was recorded

extensively for the Library of Congress in 1951.

By 1951, Ritchie became a full-time singer, folksong

collector, and songwriter. Elektra records signed her and

she released her first album of family songs, Singing the

Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family

(1952), which included family versions of such songs as

"Gypsum Davy", "The Cuckoo", and "The Little Devils", a

song which had particularly fascinated Cecil Sharp when

he heard it from Una and Sabrina Ritchie in 1917.

The Fulbright expedition

In 1952, Ritchie was awarded a Fulbright scholarship

to trace the links between American ballads and the

songs from England, Scotland, and Ireland. As a songcollector,

she began by setting down the 300 songs that

she already knew from her mother's knee. Ritchie and

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SFM

MAGAZINE

her husband, George Pickow, then spent 18 months

tape recording, interviewing and photographing singers,

including Elizabeth Cronin, Tommy and Sarah Makem,

Leo Rowsome, and Seamus Ennis in Ireland; Jeannie

Robertson and Jimmy MacBeath in Scotland; and Harry

Cox and Bob Roberts in England. When people asked

what sort of songs they were looking for, Ritchie would

sometimes ask them if they knew "Barbara Allen" and

sing a few verses for them. In 1954, Ritchie released

some of the British and Irish recordings on the album

"Field Trip", side by side with Ritchie family versions

of the same songs. A broader selection was issued by

"Folkways" on the two LPs "Field Trip–England" (1959)

and "As I Roved Out (Field Trip–Ireland)" (1960). Some

transcriptions and photographs were later published in

Ritchie's book "From Fair to Fair: Folksongs of the British

Isles" (1966).

While in Britain, Ritchie sang at concerts for the English

Folk Dance and Song Society, including its annual

Royal Albert Hall festival, and presented several BBC

radio programmes, appearing on "The Ballad-Hunter"

which was presented by her friend Alan Lomax. On one

occasion, Maud Karpeles took Ritchie and Pickow to

visit Ralph Vaughan Williams and his wife Ursula, for

whom she sang "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies";

Pickow photographed the four of them together.

Musical achievements

In 1955, Ritchie wrote a book about her family called

"Singing Family of the Cumberlands". The book

documented the role of the family songs in everyday life,

such as accompanying everyday tasks on the farm and in

the home, or being sung when gathered on the porch in

the evening to "sing the moon up." "Singing Family of the

Cumberlands" is widely regarded as an American classic,

and continues to be used in American schools.

As well as work songs and ballads, Ritchie knew hymns

from the "Old Regular Baptist" church she attended in

Jeff, Kentucky. These were sung as "lining out" songs, in

a lingering soulful way, including the song "Amazing

Grace,"[ which she helped popularize. Family versions of

"Amazing Grace" and the hymn "Brightest And Best" were

released on the 1959 album "Jean Ritchie Interviews Her

Family, With Documentary Recordings".

Ritchie directed and sang at the first Newport Folk

Festival in 1959, and served on the first folklore panel for

the National Endowment for the Arts.

Her album "Ballads from Her Appalachian Family

Tradition" (1961) compiled many traditional Ritchie

family versions of "Child Ballads", including "False Sir

John," "Hangman," "Lord Bateman," "Barbary Allen,"

"There Lived an Old Lord (Two Sisters)," "The Cherry-

Tree Carol" and "Edward."

Her traditional version of "My Dear Companion" (Roud

411) appeared on the album "Trio" recorded by Linda

Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris. Judy

Collins recorded some of Ritchie's traditional songs,

"Tender Ladies" and "Pretty Saro," and also used a

photograph by George Pickow on the front of her album

"Golden Apples of the Sun" (1962).

In 1963, Ritchie recorded an album with Doc Watson

entitled "Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson Live at Folk City"

(1963). The traditional Appalachian song "Shady Grove"

was popularized by Doc Watson after he most likely

learnt it from Jean Ritchie, who in turn learned it from

her father Balis Ritchie.

As folk music became more popular in the 1960s, new

political songs overshadowed the traditional ballads.

Whilst Ritchie largely stuck to the traditional songs, she

wrote and recorded Kentucky-themed songs with wider

implications, such as the destruction of the environment

by loggers and the strip-mining techniques of coal firms.

These songs included "Blue Diamond Mines," "Black

Waters," and "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore," which

Johnny Cash covered after he heard June Carter Cash

sing it. Ritchie had written numerous songs about mining

under the pseudonym "'Than Hall," to avoid troubling her

non-political mother, and believing they might be better

received if attributed to a man.

"Nottamun Town" (which Ritchie had learned from

her uncle Jason and performed in 1954 on "Kentucky

Mountains Songs" and in 1965 on" A Time For Singin"

was covered by Shirley Collins (1964), Bert Jansch

(1966), and Fairport Convention (1969). Bob Dylan

used the tune for his 1963 song "Masters of War" on the

album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan".

From her "uncle" Jason, Ritchie had learned to alter

tunes and lyrics from verse to verse and performance

to performance, viewing elements of improvisation

and variation as a natural part of traditional music. Her

versions of family songs and original compositions vary

slightly between performances, and she often created

new songs by using bits of material from existing ones

or adding newly composed verses to flesh out song

fragments she recalled from her childhood.

Her record "None but One" (1977), which won the 1977

critics' award in Rolling Stone, introduced her music to a

younger audience and secured her place in mainstream

folk music.

Her 50th anniversary album was "Mountain Born" (1995),

which features her sons Peter and Jonathan.

Ritchie was the subject of the 1996 documentary

"Mountain Born: The Jean Ritchie Story," which was made


Jean Ritchie

for Kentucky Educational Television.

The dulcimer revival

Ritchie is credited with bringing national and

international attention to the Appalachian dulcimer as

the main initiator of the "dulcimer revival." Distinct from

the hammer dulcimer, the Appalachian dulcimer (or

"mountain dulcimer") is an intimate indoor instrument

with a soft, ethereal sound, probably first played by

Appalachian Scotch-Irish immigrants in the early half

of the nineteenth century. The Ritchies strummed their

dulcimers with a goose-feather quill.

Her father Balis (1869–1958) had played the Appalachian

dulcimer but forbade his children to touch it. At age

five or six, Ritchie defied this prohibition and covertly

played the instrument. By the time Balis decided to

teach her how to play, Jean was already accustomed to

the instrument, so father labeled her as a "natural born

musician". By 1949, Jeans dulcimer playing had become

a hallmark of her style. After Jean's husband George

Pickow made her one as a present, the couple decided

there might be a potential market for them. Morris

Pickow, Pickow's uncle, set up an instrument workshop

for them under the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn.

At first, they were shipped to New York in an unfinished

state by Ritchie's Kentucky relative, Jethro Amburgey,

then back to the woodworking instructor at the Hindman

Settlement School. George placed a finish and Jean tuned

the dulcimers, and soon they had sold 300 dulcimers.

Later, the couple manufactured the dulcimers from start

to finish themselves.

In early December 2009, Ritchie was hospitalized

after suffering a stroke which impaired her ability to

communicate. She recovered to some degree then

returned to her home in Berea, Kentucky. A friend

reported on her 90th birthday, "Jean has been living quietly

in Berea for the last few years, in good spirits and well cared

for by neighbors and family." She died at home in Berea on

June 1, 2015, aged 92.

Published works

• Ritchie, Jean (1955). Singing Family of the

Cumberlands. Illustrated by Maurice Sendak. New York:

Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8131-0186-6. LCCN

55005554.

• Ritchie, Jean (1963). The Dulcimer Book; Being a

Book about the Three-stringed Appalachian Dulcimer,

Including Some Ways of Tuning and Playing; Some

Recollections in its Local History in Perry and Knott

Counties, Kentucky. New York: Oak Music. LCCN

63020754.

• Ritchie, Jean (1965). Apple Seeds and Soda Straws.

illustrated by Don Bolognese. New York: H.Z. Walck.

LCCN 65013223.

• Ritchie, Jean (1965/1997) Folk Songs of the Southern

Appalachians ISBN 978-0-8131-0927-5. The original

1965 edition was issued by Oak Publications, the 1997

expanded version by University Press of Kentucky. The

task of transcribing Ritchie's sung music into musical

notation was carried out (1965) by Melinda Zacuto and

Jerry Silverman.

• Jean Ritchie's Swapping Song Book ISBN 978-0-8131-

0973-2

• Jean Ritchie's Dulcimer People (1975)

Ritchie's use of the dulcimer and her tutorial, "The

Dulcimer Book" (1974), inspired folk revival musicians

both in the US and Britain to record songs using the

instrument. Because fans kept asking her "Which album

has the most dulcimer?", she finally recorded an album

called "The Most Dulcimer" in 1984, which included the

dulcimer on every song.

Personal life & death

Ritchie was married to photographer George Pickow

from 1950 until his death in 2010, with whom she had

two sons, Peter (1954–) and Jonathan (1958–2020). She

lived in Baxter Estates, New York, and was inducted into

the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008.


• Ritchie, Jean, ed. (1953). A Garland of Mountain Song;

Songs from the Repertoire of the Ritchie family of Viper,

Kentucky (New ed.). New York: Broadcast Music. LCCN

m53001732.

• Ritchie, Jean (1971). Celebration of Life: Her songs,

Her poems. Port Washington: Geordie Music Publishing.

ISBN 0-8256-9676-3.

• Ritchie, Jean; Brumfield, Susan (2015). Jean Ritchie's

Kentucky Mother Goose: Songs and Stories from My

Childhood. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Books. ISBN

978-1-4950-0788-0.

79 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Jean ritchie

THE LIBRARY OF

CONGRESS, BILL

NICHOLSON (3),

MAUD LONG, L. D.

SMITH, CHARLES

INGENTHRON,

I. G. GREER, PAUL

RODGERS (2), PLEAZ

MOBLEY, JEAN

RITCHIE – Folk Music

of the United States:

Album 14- Anglo-

American Songs and

Ballads From the Archive

of American Folk Song

- 1947

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE – Jean

Ritchie Singing The

Traditional Songs Of

Her Kentucky Mountain

Family - 1952

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Kentucky Mountain

Songs - 1954

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE, OSCAR

BRAND - Courting

Songs

1954

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE, OSCAR

BRAND, TOM PALEY,

HARRY & JEANNIE

RICH -

Shivareel - 1955

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Songs From Kentucky -

1956

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Saturday Night & Sunday

Too

1956

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Singing Family Of The

Cumberlands - 1957

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

PAUL CLAYTON,

RICHARD CHASE -

American Folk Tales &

Songs - 1957

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

OSCAR BRAND, -

Riddle Me This -

1957

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

OSCAR BRAND,

DAVID SEAR -

A Folk Concert In Town

Hall, New York

1959

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Cards For All Seasons

1959

Discogs link

THE RITCHIE

FAMILY OF

KENTUCKY WITH

JEAN RITCHIE -

Jean Ritchie Interviews

Her Family With

Documentary

Recordings - 1959

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

TONY KRABER -

Ballads In Colonial

America - 1959

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

THE MANHATTEN

RECORDER

CONSORT -

Music For A Childs

World - 1959

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

GEARGO PICKOW -

As I Roved Out

(Field Trip Ireland) -

1960

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE

British Traditional

Ballads

In The Southern

Mountains - 1961

Volume 1

Discogs link

Volume 2

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

The Best Of Jean

Ritchie - 1961

Discogs link

OSCAR BRAND,

JEAN RITCHIE,

GEORGE BRITTON,

TOM PASLE,

CASEY ANDERSON

CHARLIE BYRD

CYNTHIA GOODING

MIKE HALL -

Folk Festival - 1962

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Precious Memories -

1962

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

The Appalachian

Dulcimer - An

Instructional

Record - 1963

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

DOC WATSON -

Jean Ritchie & Doc

Watson At Folk City

1963

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

A Time For Singing -

1965

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Marching Across The

Green Grass And Other

American Children

Game Songs - 1968

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Clear Waters

Remembered -

1971

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE

Jean Ritchie At Home

1975

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

None But One -

1977

Discogs link


Jean Ritchie

DISCOGRAPHY

JEAN RITCHIE -

High Hills &

Mountains - 1979

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Sweet Rivers - 1981

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

The Most Dulcimer -

1984

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

FAMILY & FRIENDS -

Kentucky Christmas

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Childhood Songs - 1991

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE

Mountain Born - 1991

Discogs link

JOHN LANGSTAFF,

JEAN RITCHIE,

ROBERT J LURTSEMA

Wassail, Wassail, (Early

American Christmas

Music) -

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Childrens songs &

Games From The

Southern Mountains

Discogs link

ED MCCURDY,

OSCAR BRAND,

JEAN RITCHIE

BOB GIBSON -

Introduction To Folk

Music & Folk Lore

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

In Concert

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Appalachian

Mountain Songs

1953 - Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE

Field Trip - 1954

Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE

Songs From Kentucky

1955 - Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE,

OSCAR BRAND,

TOM PALEY

Courtin's A Pleasure

1957 - Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

None But One/

High Hills & Mountains

1992 - Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE -

Ballads (From her

appalachian family)

2003 - Discogs link

JEAN RITCHIE

Mountain Hearth &

Home - Jean Sings The

Songs Of Her Kentucky

Mountain Family - 2004

Discogs link

OSCAR BRAND,

KINGSTON TRIO,

JEAN RITCHIE,

JOSH WHITE,

The Noteworthies -

The World Of Folk Music

Starring Oscar Brand

Discogs link


81 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Kate Wolf

Kate Wolf (born Kathryn Louise Allen;

January 27, 1942 – December 10,

1986) was an American folk singer

and songwriter. Though her career was

relatively short, she had a significant impact on the

folk music scene. Her best-known compositions

include "Here in California", "Love Still Remains",

"Across the Great Divide", "Unfinished Life", “Green

Eyes” and "Give Yourself to Love". She recorded six

albums as a solo artist. She was elected to the NAIRD

Independent Music Hall of Fame in 1987. Her songs

have since been recorded by Nanci Griffith and

Emmylou Harris (whose recording of "Love Still

Remains" was nominated for a Grammy Award in

1999.

Biography

Wolf was born in San Francisco to John Fred

Allen (1915-1991) and Ernestine Ruth Allen, née

Endicott (1918−1996). She began studying piano

at 4 but quit at 16 because of her shyness. During

their senior year (1959–60) at Berkeley High School,

Kathy Allen and her friend Marian Auerbach (now

Shapiro) sang folk songs at the Berkeley High School

Talent Shows (1957 and 1960). At age 19 she first met

Saul Wolf, an architecture student at UC Berkeley;

they married two years later. They had two children,

born in 1964 and 1967.

In 1969 she became part of the Big Sur music

community and developed rapidly as a guitarist

and songwriter, influenced by such friends as Gil

"Jellyroll" Turner and George Schroder. In 1971,

she parted from Saul Wolf on good terms and moved

to Sonoma County. There she formed her first band,

The Wildwood Flower, with Don Coffin, whom she

later married.

Her first album, "Back Roads", released in 1976 on

her own label, Owl Records, was recorded in a living

room with the band Wildwood Flower, and was

"remarkably well done." An important mentor, friend


Kate Wolf

and touring companion was Utah Phillips. In 1979,

she separated from Don Coffin, and the Wildwood

Flower folded, but guitarist and mandolin player

Nina Gerber became her accompanist for the rest of

her career.

She was married to Terry Fowler from 1982 until her

death on December 10, 1986, at age 44, after a long

battle with leukemia. She is buried at a small church

cemetery in Goodyears Bar, California. In 1987, the

World Folk Music Association established the Kate

Wolf Award to honor her memory.

Music Festival

Wolf 's music was celebrated each year toward the

end of June at the "Kate Wolf Memorial Music

Festival" held at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville,

California. Several thousand guests attended this

outdoor festival, which was regularly headlined by

popular folk musicians such as Nina Gerber and

Greg Brown. The festival traditionally closed with

Wolf 's song "Give Yourself to Love".

The 25th annual Kate Wolf Music Festival was

scheduled for June 2020, then postponed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic. It took place 2 years later, as

a 4-day festival, rescheduled to June 23–26, 2022.

According to the promoters, Back Road Productions,

2022 was the final Kate Wolf Music Festival.

Tributes and covers

• American folk duo Buskin and Batteau

wrot "Never Cry Wolf " as a tribute to Wolf.

• Scottish-born Australian singer-songwriter

Eric Bogle wrote "Katie and the Dreamtime

Land" as a tribute to Wolf.

• Greg Brown wrote and performed "Kate's Guitar"

which is on his 2004 album In the Hills of California,

recorded live at the Kate Wolf Memorial Music

Festival.

• 'Gaelic Americana' singer Kyle Carey covered

Wolf 's song "Across the Great Divide" which is on

her 2014 album North Star.

• "Across the Great Divide" is the first track on Nanci

Griffith's 1993 cover album called Other Voices,

Other Rooms. She is accompanied by Emmylou

Harris.

• Klezmer revival folk musicians Daniel Kahn and

Sarah Mina Gordon premiered a Yiddish-language

cover of Wolf 's "Telluride" at the Yiddish Book

Center's YidStock Klezmer Festival in July 2019.

Songwriter, Joel Koosed, upon hearing on the radio

of Wolf 's death, wrote "Goodbye, Kate Wolf."

• In 1998, a tribute album titled Treasures Left

Behind: Remembering Kate Wolf was released by

Red House Records. The album contains Wolf songs

performed by various artists and the booklet contains

tributes and remembrances about her.

Discography

Back Roads (1976) (billed as Kate Wolf and the

Wildwood Flower) - Discogs link

Lines on the Paper (1977) (billed as Kate Wolf and

the Wildwood Flower) - Discogs link

Safe at Anchor (1979)

Discogs link

Close to You (1980)

Discogs link

Give Yourself to Love (1982)

Discogs link

Poet's Heart (1985)

Discogs link

Gold in California – A Retrospective of Recordings

(1986) - Discogs link

The Wind Blows Wild (1988)

Discogs link

An Evening in Austin (1988)

Discogs link

Looking Back at You (1994

Discogs link

Carry It On (1996)

Discogs link

Weaver of Visions – The Kate Wolf Anthology (2000)

Discogs link

Live in Mendocino (2018)

Discogs link


83 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Bill Clifton

Bill Clifton (born William August Marburg;

April 5, 1931) is an American folk & bluegrass

musician and singer who is credited with having

organized one of the first bluegrass festivals in

the United States in 1961.

Early life

Born and raised on a farm in Riderwood, Maryland,

United States, Clifton's family prospered in the tobacco

trade during the nineteenth century. From an early age, he

discovered his love for country music through the radio

and records. Clifton began singing and playing the guitar

by age 12.

Early music career

His education spans private schools from New England

to Florida. Eventually, he enrolled at the University

of Virginia in 1949 where his love for country music

expanded to folk music through fellow students, Paul

Clayton and Dave Sadler. While still in college, Clifton,

Clayton, and Sadler formed the Dixie Mountain Boys

together and began playing professionally at small radio

stations in central Virginia. Because his family was

opposed to his musical activities, he took the stage name

"Bill Clifton". With the help of his friends and bandmates,

Clifton produced his first recording in 1952 that included

an array of old-time, bluegrass, and folk revival repertoire.

Clifton met banjo player Johnny Clark through Sadler

and soon formed a band that began playing on many local

radio stations (including WWVA).

In 1953, the band signed with Blue Ridge Records and

began playing traditional bluegrass. They soon appeared

on the 'Wheeling Jamboree' radio barn dance show on

AM station WWVA. Clifton published a songbook in

1955 called "150 Old Time Folk and Gospel Songs", which

soon became one of the most influential songbooks of its

time. His songbook included many songs such as "Little

Maggie", "I'll Be All Smiles Tonight", "Long Journey

Home", and "Little Whitewashed Chimney". Because

of the popularity of Clifton's songbook, these songs

quickly became recognizable standards in the bluegrass

world. During this time, Clifton met and played music

with artists such as A.P. Carter, The Stanley Brothers,

and Woody Guthrie, to name just a few. He had many

connections throughout old-time, bluegrass, country,


Bill Clifton

and folk music - which reflected his unique repertoire

and sound. His singing style was deemed to have more of

a folk revivalist influence rather than a "hillbilly" sound

- which was the popular sound of the previous years.

Because the instrumental style of his band had more of

a "contemporary bluegrass" sound along with his "folk

revivalist" vocals, he was deemed one of the first "citybillies"

in bluegrass music.

Later music career

After enlisting for two years in the Marine Corps, in

1956, Clifton re-entered the music business. The Stanley

Brothers introduced Clifton to Dee Kilpatrick, who was

Mercury's A&R man located in Nashville, and he invited

Clifton to record for Mercury Records. However, by the

time Clifton was ready to record, Kilpatrick had moved

on from Mercury Records in order to take over WSM

Artists' Service Bureau manager position. Therefore, he

referred Clifton to Pierce who was interested, but said

that Mercury-Starday would not finance the recording.

With the help of Ralph Stanley and two of the Clinch

Mountain Boys, Clifton put together his own studio

band. In 1956, Clifton paid for the recording time in

RCA studios to cut four songs with this band. In 1957,

Clifton released two of these songs to Starday, who issued

them on a "trial basis". The overall record sold very well

and received a lot of exposure from WWVA. The success

of his release helped Clifton to be moved to Mercury-

Starday for his next session in Nashville of April 1957.

On July 4, 1961, Clifton organized one of the first

bluegrass festivals at Oak Leaf Park in Luray, Virginia (an

earlier one-day event had taken place at Watermelon Park

near Berryville, Virginia on August 14, 1960). The festival

featured many of the biggest acts of the day in bluegrass

music including Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Jim

& Jesse, Red Allen, Frank Wakefield & The Kentuckians,

Mac Wiseman and the Country Gentlemen. In 1963,

Clifton's family moved to England and he toured all

over Europe playing in local folk clubs. In 1963 while in

London, he recorded 1 song in front of a live television

audience for the UK regional television folk and blues

music series "Hullabaloo", presented by the Scottish

folksinger Rory McEwen; these sessions were released on

DVD in 2020. In 1967, he joined the Peace Corps, serving

three years in the Philippines. Meanwhile, he recorded

with a local New Zealand band, The Hamilton County

Bluegrass Band. In later years, he recorded both in

Europe and in the United States. In the 1970s, he signed

with County Records and formed the First Generation

band, consisting of Clifton on guitar, Red Rector on

mandolin and Don Stover on banjo. Clifton and his

family returned to the United States in 1978 and settled

down in Virginia. In 1980, he began recording for his

own label Elf Records. In 2008 he was inducted into the

International Bluegrass Music Association's Hall of Fame.

BILL CLIFTON DISCOGRAPHY

Bill Clifton Accompanied By The Dixie Mountain Boys –

Soldier, Sing Me A Song - 1963 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton And The Country Gentlemen – Bill Clifton

Meets The Country Gentlemen - 1966 - Discogs link

Mountain Ramblings - 1967 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton And His Dixie Mountain Boys – Carter Family

Memorial Album - 1968 - Discogs link

Wanderin' - 1969 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton & The Hamilton County Bluegrass Band* – Two

Shades Of Bluegrass - 1971 - Discogs link

Happy Days - 1971 - Discogs link

Norris, Bill Clifton, The Kentucky Mountaineers, Rini

Schilders – Folk & Bluegrass At Neusuedende Part 2 - 1972 -

Discogs link

Hedy West And Bill Clifton – Getting Folk Out Of The

Country - 1974 - Discogs link

Come By The Hills - 1975 - Discogs link

Going Back To Dixie - 1975 - Discogs link

Mountain Folk Songs - 1975 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton & Paul Clayton – The First Recordings - 1975 -

Discogs link

Bill Clifton & Red Rector - The First Recordings - 1975 -

Discogs link

Bill Clifton & Red Rector - Another Happy Day - 1975

Discogs link

Bill Clifton & Red Rector In Europe - 1976 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton & Red Rector - Are You From Dixie? - 1976 -

Discogs link

Clifton & Company - 1977 - Discogs link

Autoharp Centennial Celebration - 1991 - Discogs link

Beatle Crazy - 1983 - Discogs link

Carter Family Album - 1990 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton With The Pick Of The Crop* – Where The

Rainbow Finds Its End - 1991 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton & Jimmy Gaudreau – River Of Memories - 1994

Discogs link

Red Rector & Bill Clifton - Alive - 2001 - Discogs link

JB's Band with special guest Bill Clifton – JB's Band Album

Vol. I & II - 2007 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton, Red Rector & Art Stamper – Live in Holland

1987 - 2023 - Discogs link

Norris*, Bill Clifton, Rini Schilders, The Rusty String

Pickers, The Kentucky Mountaineers – Folk & Bluegrass At

Neusuedende, 1971/2 Part 1 - Discogs link

Jim Eanes, Bill Clifton – Blue River Hoedown - 1959 -

Discogs link

Beatle Crazy - 1963 - Discogs link

Wonderful West - 1963 - Discogs link

Slaes Tax On The Woman - Discogs link

The Bluegrass Sounds Of Bill Clifton - 1962 - Discogs link

Walkin' In My Sleep - 1969 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton - 1972 - Discogs link

Early Years (1957-1958) - 1992 - Discogs link

Around The World To Poor Alley - 2001 - Discogs link

Bill Clifton & The Hamilton County Bluegrass Band - Two

Shades Of Bluegrass - 2013 - Discogs link


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MAGAZINE

Bob Roberts

Alfred William "Bob" Roberts (1907–1982) was

a British folk singer, songwriter, storyteller,

bargeman, author, and journalist. He was the

last captain of a British commercial vessel

operating under sail, and brought to an end a centuriesold

tradition.

Life

Alfred William Roberts was born in the village of

Hampreston, Dorset where his parents taught in the

village school. Roberts's father, who was brought up in

North Wales, ran the church choir as well as playing the

piano, church organ, melodeon, concertina and fiddle

for village dances. These musical interests led Ralph

Vaughan Williams to visit him at the village.

Roberts attended Wimborne Grammar School on

a choral scholarship. After leaving school at 17, he

eventually became a journalist at the Orpington Gazette,

before moving to work as a sports reporter for the

Daily Mail on Fleet Street. Roberts found it difficult to

settle at his job at the Mail, and twice took off on long

sea voyages. Finally he left the newspaper to work on a

Thames sailing barge. Apart from a short stint as a subeditor

at the East Anglian Daily Times in the late forties,

Roberts would work on eight barges over the next 35

years, initially as a mate and on his final five boats, as

skipper. His other voyages at sea would take him to the

West Indies, Ascension Island, West Africa and Brazil.

In 1940 Roberts married his wife, Amelia or ‘Toni’,

whom he had first met in the late 1920s, and in 1949 they

moved to Pin Mill, on the River Orwell. And it was while

working at East Anglian Times that F.T. Everard and

Sons offered Roberts the captaincy of the Cambria, the

Thames sailing barge he was to make famous.

Working as a bargeman allowed Roberts to collect

songs from bargemen and others he met along the East

Anglian coast, which he added to his repertoire of his

own songs. Working on barges also affected Roberts

literary output, because even as a skipper his wages didn’t

support his family, which included two daughters. So, he

supplemented his income by writing books and articles,

often while waiting for good seagoing conditions.


Roberts had a good selection of songs by the 1950s,

when he met the folklorist Peter Kennedy. Kennedy was

making field recordings for the English Folk Dance and

Song Society and the BBC, and together they recorded

some of Robert’s folk singing contacts for the BBC folk

programme "As I Roved Out" and the folk music radio

programme "Song Hunter," produced by a young David

Attenborough and presented by the American folk

musicologist Alan Lomax, as well as being recorded by

the BBC Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme that

was led by Kennedy.

From the 1950s onwards, Roberts appeared in folk clubs

and festivals. He gained the reputation as a great story

teller, distinctive singer and charismatic personality. In

1966, Roberts read five seafaring stories on the BBC

children's programme Jackanory.

Bob Roberts

As Thames Barges became increasingly economically

unfeasible, Everards offered to sell Roberts the Cambria,

which he ran as owner-skipper between 1966 and 1970,

when it was finally sold to the Maritime Trust. He then

bought a replacement, a small motor coaster called the

"Vectis Isle," in which he carried various cargoes (china

clay from Cornwall, coke, soya beans, grain, scrap metal,

etc.) around the UK and over to the Continent.

In the 1970s Roberts and his wife moved to live on the

Isle of Wight, where he made his last two records, as well

as joining in sing-alongs. After Toni died in 1978, Roberts

married his second wife Sheila (née Blackburn).

Bob Roberts died in 1982 at the age of 74.

Bob Roberts books

BREEZE FOR A BARGEMAN

An exciting sailing narrative evoking a vivid picture of Bob Robert's time in the

Thames sailing barge Cambria. In this book he introduces some of the colourful characters

that he met over the years in those trading days. Then he became part owner of

the Whitstable fishing vessel Quartette and made passage to Rio de Janeiro encountering

various adventures on the voyage. Quartette was sold in Port of Spain and Bob, out

of funds, was employed as mate in a rum schooner. He returned to continue carrying

cargoes be barge with the rigours of the 'big freeze' in 1963.

Amazon link

LAST OF THE SAILORMEN

by Bob Roberts (Author)

This work brings to life the last days of carrying cargo under sail, written in Bob Roberts'

lively and evocative style.

Amazon link

COASTING BARGEMASTER

This account gives a vivid picture of the romance and realism of coastal trade, initially

in a schooner, then in Thames spiritsail sailing barges before and during the war. The

author tells of the havoc wrought by barges caught out in severe gales and the hazards

of plying trade in wartime.

Amazon link


87 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Bob Roberts books

ROUGH AND TUMBLE

Bob Roberts and his friend Bully worked nights and saved every penny they could

make to buy Thelma, a 27-foot Looe smack, and fit her out for her epic voyage. After

testing her out in the North Sea, they headed for Panama, by way of Madeira and the

Azores. Australia was in their minds, as times were hard in England. Their plans fell

apart in the Cocos islands, where they were shipwrecked, and soon found themselves

on a hair-raising voyage with treasure hunters aboard the bluenose schooner, "Franklin

Barnet".

Amazon link

A SLICE OF SUFFOLK

A well known local character in Suffolk, England, Bob Roberts, a captain on theThames

sailing barges, gives a personal account of his home county.

Amazon link

THE LAST SAILORMAN

Publisher Terence Dalton 1989 ed no d/j H/b edition some chippings to spine clean

endpapers illustrated frontis Vg copy Very Interesting Read A DELIGHT

Amazon link

Bob Roberts MUSIC

SONGS FROM THE

SAILING BARGES

1978

Vinyl LP

Discogs link

BREEZE FOR A

BARGEMAN

1981

Vinyl LP Album

Discogs link


Bob Roberts MUSIC

Bob Roberts

CHANTS DE MA-

RINS 4 : BALLADES,

COMPLAINTES

ET SHANTIES

DES MATELOTS

ANGLAIS

2 X Vinyl Lp

Discogs Link

HIDDEN ENGLISH:

A CELEBRATION OF

ENGLISH

TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

CD Compilation

Discogs link

SEA SONGS &

SHANTIES:

TRADITIONAL

ENGLISH SEA

SONGS & SHANTIES

FROM THE LAST

DAYS OF SAIL

CD Compilation

Discogs link

MY SHIP SHALL

SAIL THE OCEAN.

SONGS OF TEMPEST

AND SEA BATTLES,

SAILOR LADS AND

FISHERMEN.

CD Compilation

Discogs link

TO CATCH A FINE

BUCK WAS MY

DELIGHT. SONGS

OF HUNTING AND

POACHING.

CD Compilation

Discogs link

Bob Roberts Playing The

Melodian February 1961


89 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

Bob Shane

Robert Castle Schoen (February 1, 1934 – January

26, 2020), known professionally as Bob Shane,

was an American singer and guitarist who was a

founding member of The Kingston Trio. In that

capacity, Shane became a seminal figure in the revival of

folk and other acoustic music as a popular art form in the

United States in the late 1950s through the mid-1960s.

The success of the Kingston Trio in its heyday had

repercussions far beyond its voluminous album sales

(including four albums simultaneously in the Top 10 in

1959), its host of imitators, and the relatively short-lived

pop-folk boom it created. For the Kingston Trio's success

took acoustic folk-based music out of the niche market it

had occupied prior to the Trio's arrival and moved it into

the mainstream of American popular music, opening the

door for major record labels to record and market both

more traditional folk musicians and singer-songwriters as

well.

Early life

Shane was born on February 1, 1934, in Hilo on the Big

Island of Hawaii, the son of Margaret (Schaufelberger)

and Arthur Castle Schoen, a wholesale distributor of toys

and sporting goods. His mother was from Salt Lake City,

and his father was a Hawaiian of German descent. Shane

was in his own words "a fourth-generation islander".

He attended local schools, including the prestigious

Punahou School for his junior high and high school

years. Punahou's curriculum emphasized native Hawaiian

culture, complementing Shane's already developing

interest in music in general and Hawaiian music in

particular.

During these years, Shane (the phonetic spelling he began

using in 1957) taught himself to play first ukulele and

then guitar, influenced especially by Hawaiian slack key

guitarists like Gabby Pahinui. It was also during these

years that Shane met Punahou classmate Dave Guard and

began performing with him at parties and school variety

shows.

Formation of The Kingston Trio

Following graduation in 1952, Shane attended Menlo

College in Menlo Park, California, while Guard

matriculated at nearby Stanford University. At Menlo,


Bob Shane

Shane met and became fast friends with Nick Reynolds,

originally from the San Diego area and also a musician

and singer with a broad knowledge of folk and popular

songs, due in part to Reynolds's music-loving father,

a captain in the Navy. Shane introduced Reynolds to

Guard, and in 1956, the three began performing together

as part of an informal aggregation that could, according

to Reynolds, expand to as large as six or seven members.

The group went under different names, most often as

"Dave Guard and the Calypsonians". They made little

more than beer money and had no formal professional

aspirations. Shane dropped out of college in his senior

year and returned to Hawaii to work in the family

business.

However, Shane had discovered a natural affinity for

entertaining and at night pursued a solo career in Hawaii,

including engagements at some of Waikiki's major hotels.

Shane's act consisted of an eclectic mix of songs from

Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Harry Belafonte, and

Broadway shows. During this period of several months

he also met acoustic blues legend Josh White, who

helped Shane refine his guitar style and influenced him

to support his vocals with a Martin "Dreadnought" guitar,

significant in that it led to Shane's lifelong association

with that guitar maker. The company reciprocated by

issuing a number of "signature" models honoring Shane

and the Kingston Trio in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

At the same time back in California, Guard and Reynolds

had organized themselves somewhat more formally

into an act named "The Kingston Quartet" with bassist

Joe Gannon and his fiancée, vocalist Barbara Bogue.

This group appeared for a one-night engagement at a

restaurant called the Italian Village in San Francisco,

to which they invited publicist Frank Werber, who

had caught the Calypsonians' act with Shane some

months earlier at the Cracked Pot beer garden in Palo

Alto. Werber was impressed by the natural talent of

and synergy between Guard and Reynolds; he was

less impressed with Gannon and Bogue and suggested

to Reynolds and Guard that they would be better off

as a trio without Gannon - easier to book and better

musically. When Guard and Reynolds let Gannon go

and Bogue followed, Reynolds, Guard and Werber all

considered Shane the logical third member and asked

him to return to California, which he did in spring

1957. Shane's baritone vocals and guitar work were the

foundation of the Kingston Trio's sound.

Shane, Guard, Reynolds, and Werber drew up an

informal agreement (on a paper napkin, according to

a legend that Werber has debunked) that morphed

into a legal partnership. They decided on the name

"Kingston Trio" because it evoked, they thought, both

the then-popular calypso music that emanated from

Kingston, Jamaica as well as the kind of "collegiate"


ambiance suggested by their quickly adopted stage outfit

of matching button-down collared three-quarter length

sleeved striped shirts.

The Kingston Trio: The peak years (1957-1967)

Under Werber's rigorous tutelage, Shane, Guard, and

Reynolds began almost daily rehearsals for several

months, including instruction from prominent San

Francisco vocal coach Judy Davis. The group's first

significant break came in the summer of 1957 when

comedian Phyllis Diller had to cancel an engagement

at The Purple Onion, a small San Francisco night club,

and Werber talked the management into hiring the

untested trio for a week. The trio's close harmonies,

varied repertoire, and carefully rehearsed but apparently

spontaneous on stage humor made them an instant

success with the club's patrons, and the engagement

stretched to six months.

During this stint, Werber used the Kingston Trio's

local popularity to try to generate interest from record

companies. After several false starts, the group landed a

contract with Capitol Records, recording their first album

in three days in February 1958.[15] The producer was

the already legendary Voyle Gilmore, who made two

immediate and fateful decisions. Gilmore insisted that the

trio's acoustic sound have more of a "bottom" and added

a bass player to the recordings. He also decided that the

group should be recorded without additional orchestral

instrumentation, unusual for the time; both decisions

came to characterize nearly all of the Kingston Trio's

subsequent recordings and live performances.

The album "The Kingston Trio" was released in June 1958

at the same time that the group was beginning a long

engagement at San Francisco's more prominent Hungry i

night club. The album included the number that became

Shane's signature song, "Scotch and Soda," powerful and

rhythmic guitar work from Shane throughout, and an

obscure North Carolina murder ballad, "Tom Dooley" on

which Shane sang the lead.

In the summer of 1958, while Shane and the Trio were

performing at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu,

disc jockey Paul Colburn in Salt Lake City began playing

the "Tom Dooley" cut from the album on the air, and DJs

in Miami and nationally followed suit. Popular response

forced a reluctant Capitol Records marketing department

to release the song as a single on August 8, 1958. It

shot to #1 on the Billboard and Variety charts, selling a

million copies before Christmas of 1958 and earning the

Kingston Trio both its first of eight gold records and of

two Grammys.

This ushered in an era of remarkable success as both a

recording and performing act for Shane and the Trio.

In 1959 alone, the group released four albums, three of

91 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

which attained #1 status and all four of which were in

Billboard's Top Ten in December 1959, a feat equaled

only by the Beatles. Thirteen of their albums placed in

Billboard's Top Ten, with five going to #1 and the first

album remaining on the charts for 195 weeks. A half

dozen singles charted in the Top 100 as well. The group

played over two hundred dates per year for several years,

pioneering the college concert circuit and appearing

at most of the country's top night clubs, festivals, and

amphitheaters as well.

It was during this period, however, that conflict began to

simmer between high school friends Shane and Guard.

Disputes over the musical direction of the Kingston Trio

and disagreement over finances and copyrights are the

causes most frequently cited in Guard's decision in the

spring of 1961 to leave what was at the time the most

popular group in American music. Shane, Reynolds, and

Werber bought out Guard's interest in the partnership

and moved quickly to find a replacement, settling on

John Stewart, a young folk performer and composer who

had written a number of songs that the Trio had already

recorded. The Shane, Reynolds, and Stewart Kingston

Trio remained together for another six years, releasing

nine more albums on Capitol and scoring a number of

Top 40 hit singles until diminishing record sales resulting

from the passing of the popular folk boom and the rise

of Capitol's other major acts the Beach Boys and the

Beatles prompted the group to move to Decca Records.

They released four more albums before disbanding as an

act following a final engagement at the Hungry i in June

1967.

Solo efforts and The New Kingston Trio (1969-1976)

Shane had not been in favor of the break-up of the

Kingston Trio, both because he felt that the Trio could

adapt to changing musical tastes and because he had by

then become a thoroughly accomplished entertainer and

a canny marketer. Deciding to stay in the entertainment

business, Shane experimented both with solo work (he

| 92

recorded several singles, including the original version

of the song "Honey" that later became a million-seller for

Bobby Goldsboro) and with different configurations with

other folk-oriented performers.

In 1969, he asked permission of Reynolds and Werber,

still his partners, to lease the group's name. They

assented with the provisos that Shane assemble a group

of comparable musical quality to the two original

configurations and that "New" be appended to the name.

Shane organized two troupes under the name of "The

New Kingston Trio". The first consisted of guitarist Pat

Horine and banjoist Jim Connor in addition to Shane

and lasted from 1969 to 1973, the second including

guitarist Roger Gambill and banjoist Bill Zorn from

1973 until 1976. Shane tried to create a repertoire for

these groups that included both expected Kingston Trio

standards like "Tom Dooley" and "M.T.A." but also more

contemporary songs, including country and novelty

tunes. The attempt did not meet with any significant

success. Though both of these groups made a limited

number of recordings and television appearances, neither

generated very much interest from fans or the public at

large.

Another Kingston Trio, reunion and retirement:

1976-2004

At the end of 1976, Bill Zorn wanted to pursue a solo

career and left the group under amicable circumstances.

To replace him, Shane found a younger performer named

George Grove, an instrumentalist and singer. Shane

realized that the group's greatest asset in addition to his

vocals and his presence as a founding member was the

name itself. Consequently, he purchased the rights to

the Kingston Trio name outright from Reynolds and

Werber, and all subsequent iterations of Shane's troupe

since late 1976 have been known simply as the Kingston

Trio.

In 1981, PBS producers JoAnn Young and Paul Surratt

pitched an idea to Shane: a reunion concert that the

network could use as a fund raiser and that would include

not only Shane's current group but also on stage reunions

of the two original Kingston Trio lineups with Guard

and Stewart. Shane and the other principals assented,

and the concert was staged and taped at the Magic

Mountain amusement park in Valencia, California in

November 1981; it was broadcast over PBS stations in

March 1982.

Despite some residual tension between Guard and

Shane, part of which surfaced in a Wall Street Journal

article by Roy Harris about the event and which

resulted from public comments made by Guard that

Shane felt disparaged both him and his current group,

the concert was moderately successful and became a

landmark in Kingston Trio history. Over the next nine


Bob Shane

years, Shane and Guard reconciled to a large degree.

Guard was suffering from cancer though apparently

in remission when Shane and Reynolds visited him in

New Hampshire in the summer of 1990, and the three

discussed the possibility of a reunion tour that would

again feature Shane's current troupe (which by this

time included a re-invigorated Nick Reynolds) as well

as Guard and Stewart. Guard's lymphoma returned,

however, and he died in March 1991. Shane was the only

member of any configuration of the Kingston Trio to sing

at Guard's memorial service.

Personal life

Shane was married for 23 years to the former Louise

Brandon; they had 5 children and 8 grandchildren. The

marriage ended in divorce and he remarried in 2000 to

Bobbi Childress.

He died on January 26, 2020, at a hospice facility in

Phoenix, Arizona. He was six days short of his 86th

birthday.

Through the years following Shane's acquisition of

the Kingston Trio name in 1976, the personnel in the

group changed several times, though Shane and Grove

remained constants. Shane guided the group to a success

that, if never the equivalent of the group's first decade,

was nonetheless steady and consistent. Shane's Kingston

Trio relied heavily on a "greatest hits formula" augmented

by a number of other songs acquired through the years

that fans had accepted as part of the group's repertoire.

In March 2004, a month after his 70th birthday, Shane

suffered a debilitating heart attack that forced him into

retirement from touring and performing after 47 years

with the act. Though Shane had initially planned to

return to the group after convalescing, the attack was

severe enough to warrant Shane's permanent withdrawal

from performing with the group that he still owned. He

was replaced by former New Kingston Trio member Bill

Zorn.

THE kingston trio

discography

THE KINGSTON TRIO

AT LARGE

1958

Discogs link

1959

Discogs link

HERE WE GO AGAIN

1959

Discogs link

FROM THE "HUNGRY I"

1959

Discogs link

STEREO CONCERT

1959

Discogs link

THE LAST MONTH OF THE

YEAR

1960

Discogs link


SFM

MAGAZINE

STRING ALONG

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

THE kings

discog

SOLD OUT

1960

Capitol Records

Discogs link

CLOSE UP

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

MAKE WAY!

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

THE BEST OF

KINGSTON TRIO

Capitol Records

1962

Discogs link

THE KINGSTON

TRIO #16

Capitol Records

1963

Discogs link

SUNNY SIDE!

Capitol Records

1963

Discogs link

GOIN' PLACES

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

NEW FRONTIER

Capitol Records

1962

Discogs link

SING A SONG WITH

THE KINGSTON

Capitol Records

TRIO - 1963

Discogs link

FOR CHRISTMAS

SEALS

NTA - 1964

Discogs link

COLLEGE CON-

CERT

Capitol Records

1962

Discogs link

NICK BOB JOHN

Decca

1964

Discogs link

SOMETHING SPE-

CIAL

Capitol Records

1962

Discogs link

TIME TO THINK

Capitol Records

1964

Discogs link


The Kingston Trio

ton trio

raphy

EVERYBODY'S

TALKING

MTA Productions

1989

Discogs link

BACK IN TOWN

Capitol Records

1964

Discogs link

WHERE HAVE

ALL

THE FLOWERS

GONE

Pickwick 1965

Discogs link

SOMETHIN' ELSE

Decca

1965

Discogs link

STAY AWHILE

Decca

1965

Discogs link

CHILDREN OF

THE MORNING

Decca - 1966

Discogs link

ONCE UPON A

TIME

Tetragrammatron

1969

Discogs link

ASPEN GOLD

Nautilus

1979

Discogs link

IN ONCERT

Stach-O-Hits

1981

Discogs link

THE BROTHERS

FOUR

Realm Records

1981

Discogs link

25 YEARS NON-

STOP

Xeres Records

1982

Discogs link

LOOKING FOR THE

SUNSHINE

Xeres Records

1983

Discogs link

TIJUANA JAIL

Golden Circle Inc.

1987

Discogs link

EVENING WITH

THE KINGSTON

TRIO

Folk Era Records

1988

Discogs link

THE KINGSTON

TRIO TUNE UP!

Folk Era Records

1988

Discogs link

AT LARGE/HERE

WE GO AGAIN

Capitol Records

1991

Discogs link

LIVE AT THE

CRAZY HORSE

Xeres Records

1993

Discogs link

LIVE AT NEWPORT

Vanguard

1994

Discogs link

FLASHBACK 1963

Folk Era

2000

Discogs link

LIVE IN RENO '76

GZS Productions

2000

Discogs link

BOTH SIDES OF

THE KINGSTON

VOLUME II

Silverwolf

2000

Discogs link

KINGSTON TRIO

TOM DOOLEY

Newsound 2000

2001

Discogs link


95 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

45th ANNIVERSA-

RY TRIBUTE

WFMA

2003

Discogs link

LIVE

Fabulous

2005

Discogs link

THE kings

LIVE IN CONCERT

1965

Folk Era 2012

Discogs link

discog

THE FINAL

CONCERT

Collectors Choice

2007

Discogs link

THE FIRST 50

YEARS

Kingston Trio

2007

Discogs link

GLAD TIDINGS

Kingston Trio

2009

Discogs link

TWICE UPON A

TIME

Collectors Choice

2010

Discogs link

LIVE AT SANTA

MONICA

2010

Collectors Choice

Discogs link

BORN AT THE

RIGHT TIME

Collectors Choice

2012

Discogs link

KINGSTON TRIO

HOLIDAY CONCERT

Silverwolf 2014

Discogs link

KINGSTON TRIO

Oldays Records

2014

Discogs link

BLOODLINES HOLD

THE KEY

CD BABY

2017

Discogs link

HOLIDAY CHEERS

Holiday Productions

2017

Discogs link

IN CONCERT

Castle Pulse

(Unknown date)

Discogs link

WE WISH YOU A

MERRY CHRISTMAS

CFMA Special

(Unknown date)

Discogs link


The Kingston Trio

ton trio

raphy

HERE WE GO

AGAIN (part 2)

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

BOTH SIDES OF

THE KINGSTON

TRIO

Silverwolf

Discogs link

RENDEZ-VOUS

WITH KINGSTON

Capitol Records

(Unknown date)

Discogs link

SLOOP JOHN B/

FAST FREIGHT

Capitol Records

1957

Discogs link

TOM DOOLEY/

RUBY RED

Capitol Records

1958

Discogs link

TOM DOOLEY

Capitol Records

1958

Discogs link

SCARLET

RIBBONS

Capitol Records

1958

Discogs link

THE KINGSTON

TRIO

Capitol Records

1958

Discogs link

SALLY/

RASPBERRIES

STRAWBERRIES

Capitol - 1958

Discogs link

THE TIJUANSA

JAIL

Capitol Records

1959

Diuscogs link

MTA/ALL MY

SORROWS

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

THE TIJUANA

JAIL

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

NEW MARCH OF

DIMES

Capitol Custom

1959

Discogs link

COO-COO U

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

HERE WE GO

AGAIN

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

A TRIP WITH THE

KINGSTON TRIO

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

KINGSTON TRIO

AT LARGE part1

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

TIC, TIC, TIC,

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

KINGSTON TRIO

AT LARGE part 3

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

RASPBERRIES

STRAWBERRIES

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

A WORRIED MAN

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

USAF MUSIC IN

THE AIR

US Air Force

1959

Discogs link


97 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

SELECTION

FROM THE

HUNGRY I

Capitol 1959

Discogs link

TRIO AT LARGE

Part 2

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

HERE WE GO

AGAIN! Part 3

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

M.T.A.

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

THE kings

EL MATADOR

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

BAD MAN

BLUNDER

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

EVERGLADES

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

discog

ACROSS THE

WILD MISSOURI

Capitol Records

1969

Discogs link

A WORRIED MAN

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

GOODNIGHT MY

BABY

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

SOLD OUT part 2

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

THE TIJUANA

JAIL

Capitol Records

1959

Discogs link

COOL CARGO

Capitol Cargo

1960

Discogs link

LAST MONTH OF

THE YEAR part 1

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

LAST MONTH OF

THE YEAR part 2

Capitol Records

Discog link


The Kingston Trio

ton trio

raphy

CLOSE UP part 2

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

STRING ALONG

part 3

Capitol Records

1990

Discogs link

SOLD OUT part 1

Capitol Records

part 1

1960

Discogs link

EL MATADOR

USAF

1960

Discogs link

EL MATADOR

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

FAREWELL

ADELITA

Capitol Custom

1960

Discogs link

SOLD OUT part 3

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

STRING ALONG

part 2

Capitol Records

Discogs link

STRING ALONG

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

CLOSE UP part 3

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

COMING FROM

THE MOUNTAINS

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

ACROSS THE WIDE

MISSOURI

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

COMO SE VIENE

Capitola Records

1961

Discogs link

A WORRIED MAN

Capitol Records

1960

Discogs link

STRING ALONG

Capitol Recods

1960

Discogs link

LAST MONTH OF

THE YEAR part 3

Capitol Records

Discogs link

WHERE HAVE ALL

THE FLOWERS

GONE - 1961

Capitol Records

Discogs link

YOU'RE GONNA'

MISS ME

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

LEMON TREE

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

THE KINGSTON

TRIO

Capitol Records

1961

Discogs link

WHERE HAVE ALL

THE FLOWERS

GONE - 1961

Capitol Records

Discogs link

https://www.

discogs.com/artist/326125-Kingston-Trio


99 |

Remembering Folk Legends Issue No:4

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