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side the likes of Paul Robeson, Richard Thomp-
son, Bob Davenport and Waterson:Carthy.
Elsewhere we get Eliza Carthy sandwiched
between Scan Tester and Rambling Jack Elliott;
and Billy Pigg leading into June Tabor, Roza
Tsetkova and Tim Van Eyken. It must have
involved endless hours of meticulous planning
but the reward is a selection of albums that
forcibly demonstrate this is decidedly not a
museum exhibit or a self-promotional indul-
gence, it’s a vibrant aural panorama of a music
that has spent much of its life being cruelly
maligned or, worse, ignored, in its own land
but still carries an urgent resonance and most-
ly sounds completely timeless.
Even the less typical, left-field Topic
material shines in this context – music hall
comedian Billy Bennett, The Flanagan Broth-
ers’ My Irish Molly O, Bob Smith’s Ideal Band’s
The Red Flag and Oldham Tinkers’ The Lan-
cashire Toreadors; while some tracks just
make you want to jump on the table and
scream with pleasure – Margaret Barry’s The
Factory Girl, Ron Kavana’s Reconciliation,
Louie Fuller’s Hopping Down In Kent, Willie
Clancy’s The Choice Wife, Mike Waterson’s
Tamlyn, Davy Graham’s Anji, Andrew Cron-
shaw’s Wasps In The Woodpile…
It’s an amazing effort. They’d best start
cooking up something special now for the
Photo: Alessandro Carpentieri
80th birthday… www.topicrecords.co.uk
Mike Cooper
Colin Irwin
Americana. And with love and respect it does Normally I say ‘leave the biog out’ when
indeed relate the joys and trials of life as it comes to record reviews, but Mike’s is
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III
Charlie Poole – his days working in a mill, rather pertinent to this one (go check his
making moonshine, rabble-rousing through Wikipedia page!). I first heard him play his
High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie
the roaring twenties, his voyage of discovery steel National tri-cone in a Bristol folk club
Poole Project Proper Records PRPCD052
to New York for a recording session for which around 1966, and in those days he was chan-
he and his two colleagues in the North Caroli-
Honeymooning in
nelling Blind Boy Fuller’s raggy East Coast
na Ramblers were paid $75 to make a record
London with Kate
blues and beginning to investigate the slide
(Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Blues) that
McGarrigle in anoth-
playing he was soon to get heavily into.
sold over 100,000 copies with all the fame
er century, Loudon
There turned out to be two distinct courses
and glory that followed. There are also his
Wainwright took to
back then for English people who had taken
forlorn attempts to get back on the straight
the streets busking and quickly discovered,
that strangely illogical swerve into species
and narrow – a terrific version of Goodbye
among other things, that his hat would magi-
change: you could stay living the blues and
Booze – while Maggie Roche all but steals the
cally start jingling with coins whenever he
take permanent root (as did the wonderful Jo
album as his long-suffering wife telling her
launched into a Charlie Poole song. He’s
Ann Kelly) or you could have a series of light-
side of the story before his ultimate demise
retained a fascinated affection since then for
bulb moments and use the techniques you’d
during the Great Depression.
Poole, an old-time singer and banjo player
learned in the blues trenches to head off at
from North Carolina who drank himself to
Deliciously incorrigible in his telling, musical tangents. Cooper did the latter more
death in 1931 at 38 after an outrageously
Wainwright is the perfect tour guide for the than most: the statutory singer/ songwriter
colourful life that puts Loudon’s own penchant
story… delivering his lines with enough natu- cul-de-sac, then working off to one side in
for rogueishness into the monk category.
ral relish to offer plenty of clues about the what even the practitioners call ‘squeaky
major influence Poole has had on his own bonky music’ (notably the Recedents with Lol
At one point Wainwright was keen to
mode of performance. It’s not the sombre art Coxhill), free jazz and electronica. All the
make a biographical movie about the reck-
house study you might imagine whenever while he was also travelling the world from
less and feckless Poole (guess who he’d ear-
you see the word ‘Project’ in a title, this is a his now long-time base in Rome in search of
marked to play the lead?) but instead he’s
romp. No banjos died in the making of this feral slide guitars, mutated Hawaiians and
teamed up with producer/ songwriter Dick
record, though plenty got a good thrashing. blues relatives like rembetika. Indeed, let’s
Connette (himself a bit of a cult hero from
his albums with Last Forever) to salute Poole
www.lwiii.com, www.properuk.com
give some correct historical credit where it’s
with this double album, which Loudon
due: it was Mike Cooper who first pointed
Colin Irwin
describes as a “sonic biopic”. Mostly it’s
this magazine at Ali Farka Toure in the mid
reinterpretations of Poole’s old-timey songs
’80s, resulting in one of Ali’s early French-
(though Poole himself was a song inter-
released albums getting reviewed in these
preter not a writer) from the twenties and MIKE COOPER, LEILA
pages a while before that young Kershaw
thirties with Poole himself making a cameo
ADU, FABRIZIO SPERA
stumbled across a copy and put it on the air.
appearance singing I Ain’t Got Nobody –
What’s remarkable about this new
with nine new songs in Wainwright and
Truth In The Abstract Blues Tracce/ Rai album is how all that has finally come togeth-
Connette’s own words to help the narrative
Trade RTPJ 0017 er in one place. On songs like Blind Boy
along. More homage than role playing, they
Fuller’s Walking My Troubles Away and Skip
make a determined bid to capture the spirit
It starts with a squawl
James’ Hard Time Killing Floor it’s very recog-
of the man as they document the maverick
of electronic noise
nisably the Mike Cooper who first appeared
edges of his dramatic life. It’s quite an
and a flurry of per-
on The Inverted World and Oh Really! more
effort, with Loudon drawing support from
cussion, some guitar
than 40 years ago, but clothed in startlingly
various strands of his illustrious family to
and scribbled piano
inventive and surprisingly different robes to
provide additional characterisation –
buried in the mix behind Cooper’s straight-
anything you’ve encountered before. In Adu
Martha, Rufus and Sloan are among assort-
forward singing of Robert Johnson’s If I Had
and Spera he seems to have found two
ed Wainwrights co-opted into the action,
Possession Over Judgement Day, almost
instinctive collaborators who have helped
alongside several Roches, while other trav-
sounding like some lost Alan Lomax field-
him to join up those different and previously
elling companions range from his old muck-
recorded sample floated over a free improvi-
exclusive strands of his performance interests,
er Chaim Tannenbaum to young mandolin
sation groove. And then it’s straight into a
particularly on Holler’s ’n’ Drones, the second
god Chris Thile.
15-minute blues and gospel medley kicked
and wilder of the two big blues/ improv
off with slide guitar textures and cymbal
melanges. The result is probably the best
Not sure how authentic it sounds – that’s waves, Leila Adu’s mellifluous vocal swoops
record of Cooper’s long and varied career and
not really the point – but it’s good fun, joining Cooper as Bessie Smith, Skip James
one of the most original, uncategorisable and
encompassing a wide range of styles, from and Blind Boy Fuller songs bracket a couple of
jazz, vaudeville and prototype bluegrass and
inventive albums you’ll hear in quite a while.
originals. Yer bog standard white boy with
thus offers a sub-plot about the disparate tin guitar doing the flogging-soul-at-cross-
www.cargorecords.co.uk/release/8550
strands that have contributed to modern roads routine this definitely ain’t!
Ian Anderson
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