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A good Golowan is being had by all this week, with Mazey Day as giddy and chaotic as ever yesterday. Here’s the beginning of the morning parade for those who missed Mazey or who enjoyed it so much they already want to relive it. Quay Fair Day is cranking into action today on the prom – check website below for events.
Today I’m sending out the stirring, sincere sounds of James Findlay, who was the starring guest at Penzance Folk Club last night upstairs at the Benbow.
It’s been a couple of years since Findlay won the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award but the early twentysomething must still have felt pretty fresh-faced when looking out over PZ folk club’s mature crowd. I am a big fan of traditional folk music – indeed the name of this blog is a tribute to mighty Cornish folkie Brenda Wootton – and it was a treat to have this rising star in our midst. I live in hope of a revival of a 1960s Count House-style folk music scene in West Cornwall… anyone fancy kicking things off?
Click through for another vid from last night… Read the rest of this entry »
Some smooth, Friday afternoon tones for you from rising folky Kezia, Cornwall’s answer to Ellie Goulding (she is going to get sick of that one but it has to be said). She’s playing at the ridiculously nice new Lime Tree Cafe at Tremenheere Sculpture Garden tomorrow evening – free entry.
Shocking-quality phone vid for you of Dartmoor dweller Seth Lakeman’s sell-out show at the St Ives September Festival last night. You know you can rely on me for plenty of distortion on the sound, and erratic framing. Still, hopefully this snippet conveys something of his electric performance of eerie, insistent ‘Kitty Jay’ – in my view his finest song.
Btw, if you missed Botallack O Clock the other night, fret not: the excellent Third Man Theatre are performing their ambulatory show ‘The One that Got Away’ this week, meeting at the Guildhall: details here. Am hearing great, often surreal things.
PS I feel duty-bound to point you to the full version of Kitty Jay with crystal-clear sound.
I’m loving the story in the news today about the Cornish shanty singers from Port Isaac called Fisherman’s Friends, who randomly landed a £1 million recording contract with Universal (same label as Lady Gaga) after a music producer happened to be drinking in their local pub.
There is a long tradition of acapella shanty singing in Cornish pubs on a Friday night – it typically involves a group of bearded men with deep voices, a lot of warm ale and much swaying (the pub at Cadgwith even has handles on the ceiling for this purpose).
Inevitably, the lads (aged 50-70) have cleaned up their act a bit for the video (you know, washed the salt out of their hair) but I can’t get enough of the low-key reactions from the singers in interviews.
I heard one interviewed on Radio Cornwall this morning whose expectations seemed nothing if not grounded: ‘If I get a nice family holiday out of it, well, I’d be thrilled.’
And from another:
‘We don’t really know what to expect, to be honest – we’re just making it up as we go along. We are booked in for a few festivals, we’ve got a slot at Glastonbury, but I don’t really know too much about it. We might just be playing behind the bar.’
I’m posting two videos, first the tidied up new Universal video (do I hear a touch of Mumford & Sons?) and the second: shakier, low-definition footage of them singing classic shanty ‘South Australia’ on the beach at Port Isaac.
portico quartet - isla
I was mesmerised by the Portico Quartet when they played a sell-out date the Acorn last year – in fact, it was probably my gig of the year. I could try and describe their music – modern jazz-classical crossover? instrumental folk meets world music? four outrageously talented blokes? – but nothing really works, so I’ll just say: don’t miss it.
They are playing the Acorn again on Saturday 27th March on the final date of their Isla tour. Considering how close you get to the artists at the Acorn, £12 seems like a steal.
Here’s a taster – the upturned barbecue is the hang by the way, the instrument that gives the group their uniquely mellow sound.
brenda wootton - pasties and cream
Crucial though pasties and Rodda’s are, I don’t intend to blog solely about Cornish delicacies. The name of my blog in fact comes from the seminal 1971 west Cornish folk album by Brenda Wootton and John the Fish. (Penwith dwellers, check out the broadsheet-format Cornishman newspaper on the table.)
Among the salty classics on the album is the title song, a patriotic number bathed in old-time Cornish pride. ‘Pilchard and herring that sparkle and gleam’, Wootton trills, ‘Though we may roam, Cornwall’s our home’. And I suppose that seemed like a fitting start to my blog: I moved back to Cornwall 18 months ago and fancied blogging (and maybe even a bit of flogging and vlogging) about life in the far west.
The song in question seems to have slipped through the holes in the Net, so I’ll direct you instead to this crackly old footage of Brenda Wootton and her bird-like tones for now.
ismay atkins
pasties & cream cornwall blog 