by chrismanners | 21 May 2022 | News
This album lived only in memory until I was lucky enough to reacquire it last year. It’s long been out of print, and has never been released on CD but, fortunately, it’s available on YouTube and elsewhere on-line. It doesn’t disappoint. Here are some of...
by chrismanners | 28 Jan 2022 | News
It might be urban myth, or it might be a genuine quote from Paderewski the pianist. He claimed, ‘If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it.’ I’m no Paderewski; I’ll never be a...
by chrismanners | 20 Nov 2021 | News
The very estimable Piers Cawley runs an on-line song swap on Friday evenings. Huge fun, either to watch and listen or as a participant: chat that might amuse, enlighten or just meander, studded with half a dozen songs each. Here are edited highlights of my session...
by chrismanners | 20 Nov 2021 | News
The voice is true enough but not a thing of beauty. Harsh, even. The guitar playing is clumsy, staccato, full of snaps and rattles. The whistle playing, on the other hand, is supple and deft. The material’s a rag-bag: the album opens and closes with contemporary...
by chrismanners | 22 May 2021 | News
An occasional series on buried treasure for the ears The memory haunts me still. 1979, a Friday evening, at The General Elliot in South Hinksey — a folk club that, in the few years I loitered there, foster-parented Jumpleads, Magpie Lane, The Mellstock Band, and...