A couple of folk clubs I played wouldn't allow the audience to dance, one
promoter got very physically abusive and stroppy with someone who was dancing, which upset me, some of the people were asking me why I was playing in such an unfriendly place like this. I found that I was playing to both a folk club listening crowd and a younger more Punky or "alternative" crowd that I'd attracted from playing at Glastonbury Festival and / or, miners benefits, or who I'd reached when supporting Michelle Shocked. Some clubs were very small, but they let everyone in, so that it was big crowd, and it started getting uncomfortable for people, especially those who felt their folk club had suddenly been overrun and changed ambience for a night. They were great steamy gigs, sweaty and the magic was created because they were so very intimate and acoustic, no mikes. (Some clubs I remember enjoying were The Bacca Pipes, Empress Of Russia, Jolly Collier) I was happy, also believing this was the only way to change Folk clubs atmosphere was from inside, by playing in them, not by turning your back on them! But it started to get ridiculous, people sitting on floors, folks at the back trying to see and hear.
I love all kinds of music, from English to Galician music from Spain to China.
Singing is my favorite kind of music, from Gospel to Waulking songs to Sardinian polyphony singing and Mongolian, and I adore the Big Band music of Duke Ellington all those instruments and musicians that he had playing live around one microphone. He used instruments for their color, texture and voices. He got all that individual expressiveness from each instruments voice out and playing together in an ensemble, those orchestras, and those arrangements, what a vision! You can hear all that life, no overdubs, life! That's how it should be, recording, trying to capture a moment. Not falsify a moment. I like simple tunes, songs that have a pure strength. Sincerity of heart. Honest, not pretentious!
I don't find drug induced music interesting. Except for Jimmy Hendrix and some Captain Beefheart marimba-and horn rhythms, I never appreciated the psychedelic pretentious experiments in public that took place in the sixties, all that unintelligible mysticism. It was a bit like the emperors new clothes for me. I preferred Muddy Waters and Blind Willie Johnson, The Humble-bums and Otis Redding, an eccentric song writer called Dory Previn etc… Jazz. John Prine, Stevie Wonder, Clash, Chuck Berry. Bert Lloyd, some Ewan Macoll songs. I love ballads, story songs, love songs, topical, George Jones, music that takes me on a journey, makes me cry or laugh, music that moves me!
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