ETERNAL CIRCLE AWARD

THE NOMINATION FOR THE MONTPELIER STATION AWARD FOR THE BEST LIVE GIG OF 2011 ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Chris Wood 
at Colston Hall, Bristol, Oct 21

Chris Wood is always amazing, but this is the best I've ever heard him, which is to say, about as good as the "one man with a guitar singing ballads" genre ever gets. He praised the acoustics of the room and the sound engineer, and was more than usually under-stated, nuanced, a conversation between guitar and audience. Assume I'd made all the usual remarks about the English not valuing their national treasures. 

Show of Hands 
at Bristol Folk Festival, April 30


I don't like everything Steve Knightley does. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say that the thing which Steve Knightley does doesn't come off every time I see him do it. This time it did. It was Day 2 of Bristol folk festival and local resentment against the seventeenth or eighteenth branch of Tesco being plonked on Stokes Croft had just boiled over into a full scale riot, about half a mile from the stage, and not one single artist had even mentioned it, or seemed to be aware that Bristol was in the news. So Steve Knightley stepped onto the stage and launched straight into "to the cutthroats, crooks and conmen running this gaol: is there anything left in England that's not for sale?" and "I hope some day we'll all be freed from your arrogance, your ignorance, and greed" and "Agri-barons, C.A.P in hand strip this green and pleasant land...." He is, in a way, a demagogue, a revivalist preacher without any single cause, and on this occasion he judged the mood of the hall, he took it into himself, he channelled it back at us.... And then went to the Silent Disco and danced along with Remember Your A Womble. A bona fide folk-god.

Blackbeards Tea Party 
at the Croft Bristol, Nov 26

Stuart Giddens (now positively identified as one of the two morrismen who performed what we all now know are traditional Morris double jigs with the Demon Barber Roadshow at Scarborough) has replaced Paul Young as singer in the band, and added a camp wildness, an awful lot of jumping, but probably not that much subtlety to the act, cranking the live show a notch or two above either of the records. It appeared that a lot of people who had really come for the rocky punky music that the Croft is more famous for drifted into the back room for the Tea Party and stayed until the end. There was singing along; there was dancing; there was jumping in the air...and there was a sense that Blackbeard's Tea Party had just gone from being a really very good busking and celidah outfit to being a major musical force.

WINNER

Back in May, the judge said that the Show of Hands show was the best live gig he'd ever seen, and he isn't going to go back on that now. But he's never seen anything quite like Blackbeard Tea Party either. Obviously, one can't blame the apple for not being as orangey as the orange or or the orange for not being as apply as the apple. So for the first time in their history the 2011 Monty will be awarded jointly to Show of Hands and Blackbeards Tea Party. Fortunately, since it is an imaginary award, there is no problem imagining it being in two places at once, like that puzzle involving an imaginary duck in an imaginary bottle. 

SPECIAL AWARDS

THE META-AWARD FOR PERSON MOST CERTAIN TO BE MADE FOLK SINGER OF THE YEAR AT THE RADIO 2 FOLK AWARDS

The award goes to Jon Boden, for being the only person to have recorded a new folksong every day for 365 days. Some of them deserved to be consigned to oblivious (I am looking at YOU, Big Rock Candy Mountains, and YOU King of Rome) but many of them ( Four Angels, O'Hamlet) were worth repeated listens, and he introduced me to lots of cool songs (e.g The Mistletoe Bough, A Chat With Your Mother) which I didn't know, which was presumably the point of the excercise. 

THE "TAKES OUT AN ONION" AWARD FOR MAKING THE JUDGE CRY

Sean Lakeman and Kathryn Roberts 
for Joe Peel at Bristol Folk Festival

Steve Knightley, Fisherman's Friends and the entire company, but this time chiefly yourselves, 

for Cousin Jack, also at Bristol Folk Festival

Chris Wood 
for Hard, Jersualem, and Hollow Point (duh!) at Colston Hall, 21 Oct 2011

WINNER

That miserable bastard Chris Wood.

SPECIAL "WELL HE OUGHT TO BE MORE CAREFUL WITH HIS BOATS" AWARD FOR BEST FAMOUS DEAD CANADIAN SINGER SONGWRITER WHO EVERYONE ELSE HAD HEARD OF BUT THE JUDGE ONLY STARTED LISTENING TO THIS YEAR

Chris Ricketts 
for Stan Rogers' Northwest Passage (on Port of Escape)

Blackbeards Tea Party 
for Stan Rogers' Barret's Privateers (on Tomorrow We'll Be Sober)

Jon Boden 
for Stan Rogers' Loch Keeper (on a Folksong A Day)

WINNER

Stan Rogers for Stan Rogers' Mary Ellen Carter, which, in a rare show of unanimity, the readers of this blog voted "single best song ever written by anyone about anything ever".

SPECIAL AWARD FOR THE JUDGE'S COOLEST MUSIC-RELATED MOMENT OF 2011

* Lustily and tuneless singing along with Fishemen's Friends singing Cousin Jack in the mud at the Pyramd Stage at Glastonbury, and noticing that Steve Knightley was standing next to him

* Standing on York station, desperately hoping that the old gentleman with the guitar case to whom he has just said "We really enjoyed your set, sir, such a shame you were so far from the audience" really had been Martin Carthy. (Or if, indeed, he had dreamt the whole incident.)

* Hearing the astonishing Emily Portman singing wonderful mysterious whispy ethereal fairy tale ballads in the upstairs room of the Louisiana Bristol, and realising that the audience consisted of eleven people, including the judge, Bristol's Leading Citizen Folk Journalist, Peter Lord and Jim Moray. 

* The aforemetnioned Martin Carthy singing Bob Dylan's Dream on the Radio 2 tribute programme. (Bob Dylan having originally based the song on Martin Carthy's version of Lord Franklin's Lament.)

* Hearing The Pentangle doing a set consisting entirely of traddy classics at Glastonbury, unaware that this was the last but one performance Bert Jansch would give.

WINNER

No award. You can't give an award for something sad.

THE JUDAS AWARD FOR BEST LIVE PERFORMANCE OF A BOB DYLAN SONG

Phil Beer 
for Seven Curses at Bristol Folk Festival 

June Tabor and the Oyster Band 
for Seven Curses at St Georges Hall Bristol, Nov 1

Martin Simpson 
for North Country Blues at Chapel Arts, Bath, Oct 22

Ralph McTell 
for Girl from the Noth Country at St Georges, Bristol, 29 Sep

Bob Dylan 
for Man in the Long Black Coat at Cardiff Arena, Oct 13

 WINNER

Martin Simpson.

It's shame Dylan didn't sing Seven Curses, so I could have had an award for "the best live performance of Dylan's Seven Curses."


THE GELDOF AWARD FOR THE BEST LIVE PERFORMANCE BY AN ARTIST NAMED BOB

The judge unanimously gave the award to Bob Dylan's show in Cardiff Arena.

The first night of an opera is generally judged a failure unless a sizable proportion of the audience boo; similarly, the Poet Laureate of Rock and Roll wouldn't have done a show unless some people claimed to have walked out of it. It is widely believed that Bob's promoters fill the back rows with an anti-claque who are only there so they can leave after the opening number. 

It must be admitted that, in order to understand Dylan's current approach to his muse (a.k.a "whatever the hell it is he thinks he's doing nowadays") you need to 

a: have heard at least three albums since MTV Unplugged

b: Be reasonably familiar with his lessor known material (NOTE: Knowing some of the words to Like a Rolling Stone doesn't count) 

c: Be sitting or standing in the front five rows. 

If you fulfil all those criteria, than you will be treated to a Robert Zimmerman becoming in his autumn years the artist I am convinced he has always wanted to be – the bluesy, rock-a-billy song and dance man, grinning and mincing and riffing and colluding with the audience. 

In short: this was the gig I am most likely to tell my non-existent grandchildren about.

"But Andrew, would you have praised this very strange show so highly if you had never heard of Bob Dylan?"

"If I had never heard of Bob Dylan then I would never have heard any of Bob Dylan's songs. Under those circumstances, if this grizzled old man in a sweaty cowboy hat had snarled into a small venue and started growling, I would have said 'What marvellous songs...get me a pen and paper, these may be the greatest lyrics that have ever been written...what fantastic tunes...what a weird-arse way of singing them." 

Which is precisely what everyone has been saying about Dylan since approximately 1959 

THE MUDDY WELLINGTON BOOT AWARD FOR THE MOST IDIOSYNCRATIC VENUE

The Canteen, Stokes Croft

The Canteen, a sort of perfectly legal squat in a disused open plan office, is allegedly the creative hub of the coolest, most creative street in England, or, if you believe the Bristol Evening Post, the place where crusty hippy commies hang out who ought to get a job and be forced to eat Tescos sandwiches and Banksy ought to be flogged like they did to that kid who painted graffiti on Singapore. I digress. One of the Canteens U.S.Ps, apart from real ale and very decent food at very reasonable prices (you get a free bowl of soup with a meal, which is a really civilised touch) is live music -- I've heard both the aforementioned Pilgrims' Way and the not yet mentioned Hoddamadoddery there. 

Well, "heard" is a slight overstatement: it's a bar. People are right up near the stage trying to finish designing their websites on the Macbooks, or with their course work on Brecht spread out in front of them; or else they are drinking and trying to have a conversation with their mates, wondering when the distracting noise at the front is going to stop. This probably works very well with that loud electrical rhythm stuff that the young people allegedly like but which no-one actually wants to listen to in the first place, but it's really not the environment in which to hear Pilgrims' Way telling you about the hand weaver who fell in love with the factory maid. Not sure what the solution is. Shame.

Scarborough Open Air Theatre

Plastic, football stadium style seating. Numbered seats, although this didn't make much difference, because the arena was about ¼ full. A river, possibly the river Derwent, running through the complex, separating the audience from the stage. The impact of Bellowhead is slightly numbed when they are several miles away from you, and with the best will in the world, its hard to get the nuances of the aforementioned Jim Moray doing the aforementioned Lord Douglas in that environment. During the Demon Barber's set, a man with a guitar ambled through the audience who were, by this time, standing on the tarmac near the rail. He turned out to be Martin Carthy.

Green Note Cafe, Camden Town

About 100 yards from Cecil Sharp House itself. Fits 50, of whom about 20 can sit down. Admission only granted to people who know a special hand shake (I made that up). If you want to sit, you need to buy a ticket AND book a table and eat. If you want a table near the stage, you have to form a queue at 6, and take you seat at 7, in plenty of time for the music at 9. In return, you get to hear Martin Carthy, Alasdair Roberts, Robin Williamson in surroundings that redefine the word "intimate". I love this place to bits. 

AND THE WINNER IS: 

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. .

CHAINS OF THE SEA AWARD

THE NOMINATIONS FOR THE MONTPELIER STATION AWARD FOR BEST NEW SONG OF 2011 ARE AS FOLLOWS

The Reckoning

by Steve Tilston

There are a limited number of performers who would use the word "misbegotten" in a song. But then there are a limited number of performers who combine a gift for melody, poetry and actual thinking in the way that Steve does. (He is in the category of "you may not have heard of him but you have probably heard some of his songs".) The Reckoning is a deeply reflective piece about the kind of world that we are leaving to the next generation. Refreshingly free from obvious target hunting or jerking knees, it has a melody which manages to be memorable without actually being catchy. 

"I offer you this toast should these troubles come to roost / for we ate the golden goose and left the reckoning to you."

Never Buy the Sun

by Billy Bragg

Thank God for Billy Bragg. Literally, thank God for Billy Bragg. I may or may not have mentioned before that Tony Blair became the the godfather of Rupert Murdoch's baby, in a ceremony which took place on the banks of the River Jordan. The nauseating -- literally nauseating -- hypocrisy of both teams -- the "socialist" politician in bed with an empire that is committed to destroying everything he stands for, the empire cultivating the personal friendships of politicians they pretend to "hold to account" -- more of less guarantees that nothing honest or indeed coherent can ever be said in any parliamentary debate, op ed columns or media talk show. So it is left to people like Billy Bragg to use music and plain speach to tell it how it is. Or how they think it is. It hardly matters if you agree with him: it's enough that he uses words to to convey meaning, instead of to obscure it. He eschews triumphalism at the wounding of the Murdoch empire, and instead offers a lament. How did we let it come to this? 

"No-one comes out looking good when all is said and done / And the Scousers never buy the Sun."

What If, No Matter

by Tom Paxton

Joe Hill is supposed to have said that a leaflet, however well written, will be read once and thrown away, but a song will sung, and passed on, and repeated, and remembered. Tom Paxton's instant response to the Arizona shootings are a case in point. There were acres of newsprint and hand wringing and speculation, but Tom said all that  really needed to be said in five verses.

THE WINNER

Billy Bragg and Steve Tilston are cleverer and more complicated, but the judge has no hesitation in giving the prize to Tom Paxton. Songs like this are the reason I started to listen to this stuff in the first place. (There is still absolutely no excuse for the Marvellous Toy.)

FINGER IN THE EAR AWARD (LIVE)

THE NOMINATIONS FOR THE MONTPELIER STATION AWARD FOR  BEST LIVE PERFORMANCE OF AN OLD SONG ARE AS FOLLOWS

The Two Sisters

The Emily Portman Trio (at the Louisiana, Bristol, Nov 8th)

Oh, there are lot of things to say about this song. That it's a truly beautiful, rounded fairy tale. That the sound the trio created in an upstairs room in a pub was astonishingly close to what is on the CD. That the song runs to something like 20 verses, and the group use that space to create a small epic; full of different musical textures; more a symphony than a ballad. That Emily has made a tiny surgical change to the traditional lyrics (changing "yonder sits my father the king" to "yonder sits my lover the king") which gives the tale a tragic logic and inevitability that it never had before. I found I had eight different versions of this song (Child Ballad 10, I looked it up) on my I-Pod. This is by far my favourite. A person on Youtube says it makes them imagine themselves "in the middle of an elvin forest, morning dew kissing greenery". Well, quite.

Little Sally Racket

Bellowhead (at the Scarborough folk festival, 8 Aug)

Understand this: if you have only heard Bellowhead on CDs, then you haven't heard Bellowhead. They aren't only about music; they're about musical theater. You have to be there. One of my Folkbuddies, who hadn't heard them before, said Jon Boden was like a musical John Cleese. I see him more as a swaggering musical Captain Jack Sparrow. The CDs don't really convey how tall he is. Little Sally Racket is an infinitely long sea-shanty about local prostitutes, with the obligatory "haul away" refrain. Boden turns in a passable impersonation of the Johnny Rotten (or some fella of that kind) producing a sort of folk-punk hybrid with a hymn embedded in the middle. There are better Bellowhead songs. There are better Bellowhead songs about prostitutes. But this is always one of the highlights of their live act. The performance could scarcely be more over the top (and Bellowhead know about over the top) and coming in between two more restrained, or at any rate sane, pieces, it never fails to bring the house down, even when, as in this case, the stage was three quarters of a mile away from the audience.

Lord Douglas

Jim Moray (at Chapel Arts Bath, June 10th)

Jim diffidently presented this astonishing piece as work in progress. (There are more polished versions on the Cecil Sharp Project CD and on his new album, Skunk, to which we are likely to be returning at some point.) It's one of those traditional ballads (Child 7, I looked it up) which exists in dozens of different versions. Man elopes with girl; someone betrays them; they are chased by the girls family; man is killed; girl dies of sorrow; foliage grows out of their respective graves, as is more or less obligatory for lovers in folk songs. I can't imagine how Jim went about combining, and rewriting, the different versions, and apparently incorporating a sub plot from a similar Icelandic saga. It's a complicated story that I've had to listen to several times to get the hang of;  one of those sagas which you always seem to be lost in the middle of with feuds and love affairs and curses taken for granted before the story starts. And the tune seems to have drifted in from another world.

THE WINNER

The Two Sisters, by the merest wisp of thistledown.