In April of this year we heard of the news that Levon Helm,
the troubadour at the heart of The Band had passed away. I wrote an article on
his autobiography This Wheel’s on Fire
however I wanted to offer another piece along the same lines, but this time on the revival of folk
music in Britain.
For me, the style of American folk which I love (that of
place names, historic struggles and battles, ditties about carpenters,
fishermen and the sunny side of life) has never managed to come to the fore in
British popular music. Apart from listening to Bob Harris’s country broadcast
on BBC Radio 2, access to British folk for me has been limited. That is until
Mumford and Sons arose a few years ago. For me, Mumford and Sons epitomise that
early folk sound of the Band; a rip-roaring cacophony of instruments and
harmonic voices creating a spine tingling moment. For a modern Rag Mama Rag check out I Will Wait or Little Lion Man. They may start slow but soon get going.
Lyrics-wise, Mumford are generally emotion-centric, like
many artists of the current generation. Personally, I have found the most
liberating piece of new folk music to be Two
Fingers by Jake Bugg. Biased I may be. I don’t profess to have championed
Bugg’s early musical life. To be honest, I only discovered him in the summer
but I cannot stop listening to the Nottingham-born boy now.
Jake Bugg refers to Clifton in his Two Fingers. Not referring to a desolate outpost in Mississippi,
no. Clifton is a suburb of Nottingham. For someone who re-wrote Dylan’s Oxford Town with lyrics about Ilson Town I find myself optimistic to
this public acceptance of English place names. Perhaps Ralph McTell shares this
too?
Now I don’t pretend I’m a
wordsmith. I received a shit shit shit thesaurus for Christmas. I do know,
however, what words sound good, and I know that some place names sound more
Romantic than others. For example Memphis, Tennessee sounds nicer than Leeds,
West Yorkshire. Folsom Prison feels like a dirtier establishment than Dover
Immigration Removal Centre. Rock Island Line has a greater ring to it than
Midland Mainline.
The Americans go a further step
by using places in their names. I am unsure why this is the case, but perhaps
it gave them a greater prominence when trying to market records. The Tennessee
Two, Mississippi John Hurt, Bull City Red, Alger Texas Alexander, Louisiana
Red, Memphis Slim, Memphis Minnie, St Louis Jimmy Oden, the great Kokomo Arnold
and, finally my favourite, Lafayette Thomas. I doubt we will ever see the likes
of Nottingham Norris, Camden Chris, Headingley Harry, Richmond Ritchie and the
Thames Two but for now, a little mention of a UK town in a song will do for me.
Happy New Year!
