Echo in the Canyon is a lamentably thin documentary about the vibrant folk-rock music scene that flourished in the bohemian Los Angeles neighbourhood of Laurel Canyon from 1965 to 1967.
Music, as the sociologist Simon Frith long ago pointed out, is “an experience of placing: in responding to a song we are drawn, haphazardly, into affective emotional alliances with the performer and with the performer’s other fans”. Music makes you feel things, it’s about shared emotional experiences. And while, since the invention of the Walkman, those experiences are possible in the isolation of one’s own headphones, nothing can begin to touch the communal concert experience.
For better or worse, the lockdown may be easing in the UK but there’s no sign of any gig action, even on the far distant horizon. So it’s back to our screens for all that, and here’s the latest, liveliest selection of concerts, conversations and virtual festival action for the coming week! Dive in!
The Other Songs/Brit School Festival
On Saturday there was a stark choice: BBC TV’s not-the-Eurovision special or Billy Bragg live on Facebook in support of The Leadmill’s campaign to raise vital funds for both the iconic Sheffield venue, 40 years old this year, and the Music Venue Trust Crisis Fund. So no choice at all, the canning of Eurovision being one of the few plus-points of lockdown.
Like his friend the late John Prine, Jason Isbell is a master storyteller. His skill, like Prine’s, is to inhabit the characters he sings about so fully, and with such empathy, that it can be difficult to tell where the songwriter ends and the story begins.
Back in April 2018, English fiddler player and member of BBC Radio 2 Folk Award-nominated folk band Pilgrim’s Way embarked on an 18-month busking tour of England.
As we unwillingly become used to lockdown, most of us are regularly looking for juicy tidbits to pass the time online, so here's another selection that should be well worth a look. Dive in.
Sea Change Goes Online
The latest Sadler’s Wells digital offering is 2019’s The Thread, a luminous collaboration between choreographer Russell Maliphant and Oscar-winning composer Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner) for the Athens-based production company Lavris.
This is the perfect album for these dark and dislocating times, a delicious slice of folk-Americana, 10 beautifully crafted songs (plus a bonus online) that envelop you in the gentle winds and fogs of California’s Monterey peninsula, and the waves on its flotsam-dotted sands.
“My favorite in the place was Karen Dalton. She was a tall white blues singer and guitar player, funky, lanky and sultry. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday’s and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it. I sang with her a couple of times.”