Christmas Cheer - 2009

Was tempted to tune into BBC4 (a rare thing in this household) to watch the "Christmas Sessions" and what a session...

The preview blurb states:

BBC Four celebrates merry midwinter in unique style, with an exhilarating blend of folk tradition and burlesque fun. Energetic 11-piece Bellowhead and Mercury-nominated alternative folkies The Unthanks get together with the impressive young singers Thea Gilmore and Lisa Knapp, plus other special guests.

Steered by genial host Paul Sartin [of Belshazzar’s Feast as well as Bellowhead], the assembled artists perform seasonal songs of their own alongside yuletide favourites, ranging from folk ballads and carols to parlour songs and carousing dance numbers, with everyone coming together for a final knees-up.


Filmed at the atmospheric Shoreditch Town Hall [and what a venue that looks], the setting evokes an old music hall combined with a festive Victorian family parlour, bedecked with garlands, period lamps and fireplace. Even the audience are dressed up in old-fashioned finery and prove themselves ready to kick up their heels.

I've been lucky enough to work with many of the acts at the Exeter Phoenix - Bellowhead, Thea and the Unthanks [twice] - and I toured the UK tour with Lisa earlier this year.

I do believe that Thea's "That'll Be Christmas" should be this year's Christmas hit rather than the bland X-Factor rubbish or the "rival" Rage Against The Machines's track "Killing In The Name" which has been championed by an internet campaign as an X Factor protest vote because of its anti-establishment sentiment.

And Lisa's singing of "The Coventry Carol" was sublime and my wife commented she'd liked to have heard more of Lisa [but that was true of many of the acts] - well that at least one of her Christmas wishes will be granted as there are extra songs and features on the show's website including Lisa's version of "The Cherry Tree Carol" (with Gerry Diver), along with a chance to watch the whole show on BBC i-Player for the next 14 days [by my reckoning that takes you to 30 December 2009].

The show is broadcast again at the following times:
Thu 17 Dec 2009 21:00 BBC Four
Thu 17 Dec 2009 23:30 BBC HD
Fri 18 Dec 2009 03:05 BBC Four
Sun 20 Dec 2009 22:30 BBC HD
Thu 24 Dec 2009 17:15 BBC HD
Thu 24 Dec 2009 22:30BBC Four
Fri 25 Dec 2009 03:00BBC Four

Oh and full marks to the sound engineers [Sound Supervisor was Mark Felton, credit where credit's due] working on the show - the sound was outstanding, crisp and crystal clear [even that devil's instrument, the banjo!].

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night - on Ilkla Moor?

A fascinating package on the early part of Today on Radio 4 this morning.

According to hymnologist Jeremy Dibble , the carol ‘While shepherds watched’ was the first to cross over to the Church of England from the secular, folk tradition, and the tune used in most church services today is just one of many variations used over the 300-year history of the carol,.

During his research as Musical Editor of the forthcoming "Dictionary of Hymnology", Prof Dibble found that ‘While shepherds watched’ became a central hymn for English-speaking Protestants following its appearance in 1700 when it was published as one of sixteen hymns in ‘the Supplement’ by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady in the New Version of the Psalms of David.
These versions supplanted the Old Version by Sternhold and Hopkins. Some people refer to the tune as being written by Tate and Brady but there is no evidence that it was actually composed by them.

Prof Dibble said: 'While shepherds watched’ was the first carol to cross over from secular traditions to the church. It was the only Christmas hymn to be approved by the Church of England in the eighteenth century and this allowed it to be disseminated across the country with the Book of Common Prayer. Only at the end of the eighteenth century was it joined by other well-known texts such as ‘Hark the herald angels sing’.'

He said the most surprising and rather forgotten version of ‘While shepherds watched’ is sung to the Methodist hymn tune 'Cranbrook' [Tune V] composed by shoemaker Thomas Clark in 1805. And it was this tune that was appropriated as the unofficial Yorkshire anthem 'On Ilkley Moor Baht ’at'

Unfortunately most of the press surrounding this story seem to present the facts the other way round - that the carol was set to the tune of 'Ilkley Moor'.

A recording of the carol can be found on the BBC News website and a YouTube clip here.

Sterns - RIP

Following yesterdays wonderful experiences in a record shop in Totnes, it was with great sadness that I read in the new issue of Songlines [issue 65 Jan-Feb 2010] of the demise of Sterns, the wonderful record store I originally discovered in the back-streets off Tottenham Court Road and has latterly resided around the corner from Warren Street Tube Station.


Fortunately, the website still remains and is a fantastic source of African - and other world/roots - music. So I will have to continue browse on-line rather than in-store.

But this led me to think of other stores that I miss...

Collets on Charing Cross Road - where I managed to get a copy of the self-same Melodiya LP on Tuvan throat singing that inspired Richard Feynman in his unrealised attempt to reach Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva.

The shop around the back of Green Park Tube Station where I bought several 7" singles of birdong.

The original Virgin record shop [definitely not Megastore] in Plymouth where I bought my copy of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells the Monday lunchtime after a live-in-the-studio performance was shown on BBc the previous Saturday evening. [Wiki article states that this was 01 December 1973, indeed a Saturday!]

Robinson's Records in Manchester, which was a useful source for my early American Sound Effects records.

Drifting in Totnes

There was a time - back in the 1980s when I was Head of Sound at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre - that I used to list among my hobbies "browsing in record shops". Not so in recent years, with the late departed Virgin/Zavvi and HMV [His Master's VIDEO?] relegating music to small corners of the upstairs floors.

So it was a pleasure to take a break from Christmas shopping in Totnes [twinned with Narnia!] today to call into 2 great independent record stores - Backtrax Records and Drift Records.

Drift Records [a record label as well as a record shop] is at the top of the long hill in Totnes and a chance to catch breath.


Today, they had a grand selection of indie bands from Scotland on display, including Le Reno Amps [on their label so to be expected] but more surprisingly Broken Records [usually engineered live by good friend Kas] and Sparrow and The Workshop, who I caught live earlier this year at Bristol's Theka [supporting the aforementioned Broken Records].


In the backgound, rather than sub-standard Christmas pap [no, not a typo error] was an ethereal voice. Enquiries revealed that this was "East of Eden" buy Taken By Trees - and no, a copy wasn't available for sale, the man behind the counter just liked it. Apparently, singer Victoria Bergsman [former lead singer of The Concretes] is heavily featured singing "Sweet Child of Mine" on the new John Lewis Christmas ad, after it was initially used for the the trailer of Wes Craven's remake of "Last House on the Left".