Andy Bell has a new single out to further promote his solo album Flicker, much played round these parts since it came out earlier this year. The B-side to Lifeline is a cover of Light Flight by Pentangle.
Light Flight has some lovely cascading guitar riffs and a sweetly sung lyric about getting away from it all, getting your head together in the countryside, 'Let's get away... find a better place/Miles and miles away from the city's race'. Andy throws in a superb little backwards guitar part in the middle before the pace picks up again in the second half, the jazzy time signatures and acid- folk pastoralism collapsing the timespan of the half century between Pentangle's original recording and Andy's cover. Along with his recent cover of Arthur Russell's Our Last Night Together Andy is putting some superb and unexpected cover versions out into the world.
I'm not an expert on late 60s folk rock by any means and find some of it an acquired taste I've not fully acquired- I've got Nick Drake's LPs, a smattering of Bert Jansch albums, a Sandy Denny compilation, Vashti Bunyan's Another Diamond Day, some Fairport Convention and a Bob Stanley compiled CD called Gather In The Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968- 1974. That album has this Pentangle song on it...
An eerie, traditional English folk song, choral voices and a picked acoustic guitar. A dirge is a funeral song and a wake, obviously, is a ceremony for the dead. The song describes a soul's journey from earth to purgatory and the hazards faced making that trip. It features lots of Christian references but some think it pre- dates Christianity. Pentangle were a five piece, fusing folk, jazz and folk rock- Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Danny Thompson, Jacqui McShee and Terry Cox. Jansch and Renbourn shared a house and were the rising stars of British folk rock, their guitar parts interlocking and complex. I have to be in the right mood for this and maybe I appreciate it more than I enjoy it.
It reminds me though that I did and do really enjoy this record, also out earlier this year- Richard Norris' superb Lore Of The Land album, recorded by the Lewes, West Sussex based acid- folk trio he formed called The Order Of The 12. This is the title track...
Ah, I love Light Flight! The original is indelibly imprinted on my mind from being a young girl and watching the TV series 'Take Three Girls' which used this song as its theme, so the song is imbued with memories of that whole atmosphere, of those young women who seemed to live the life I thought I'd have too when I got to their age. Love this version of it, Andy Bell has such good taste!
ReplyDeleteStrangely too, this morning we were watching the wonderful 'UFO', currently being re-run on the Horror (now 'Legend') channel, and this morning's episode featured an actress we both instantly recognised..."Oh yes - she's from 'Take Three Girls'!" I exclaimed as soon as I placed her face. A nice little moment of serendipity then to read/hear this just now.
Whilst not normally my bag, I think there's some marvellous folky stuff from the late '60s that's worth investigating, if you want something really atmospheric, dark and eerie too, check out The Scarecrow by June Tabor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QQEdgEe0AU
Andy Bell has exquisite taste - that's a very nice cover indeed. I also enjoyed the Order of the 12 track, a band I've been meaning to delve deeper into since the first time you featured them.
ReplyDeleteThat June Tabor song is very good C- creepy, dark and weird.
ReplyDeleteThere will have be to be some great stuff released in the second half of the year to beat Lore Of The Land as track of the year for me.
ReplyDeleteI've really enjoyed Andy Bell's cover versions accompanying the singles from Flicker; an honorable mention for first single Something Like Love, which featured an equally wonderful version of The Kinks' 1971 song The Way Love Used To Be.
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