From a Continuing Series “Out Past My Bedtime”

 

More Fun With Elvish: Black Velvet Elvish Costello

Possession is nine tenths of the law

 

This was a piece I did for a benefit my friend Dianne Holmes helped to organize. The item for bid  was a new piece of artwork by me on the theme of the bidder's choice. Friends from Kenai won the bid and gave me the liberty to create whatever image I liked. Starting without a subject is an intense exercise in head scratching. Once I decided that I would feature a raven, things began to fall in place.

Pete's Pantheon: Martin Carthy, Discovering the Funk Deep in the Soul of British Folk Music.

If Martin Carthy's music never existed, I'm convinced that I would be haunted by a feeling that the world was missing something. His playing seems like a fundamental part of the Universe, like gravity.

Who is Martin Carthy? Only the guy who taught Paul Simon to play "Scarborough Fair".  The guy whom Bob Dylan tapped for his knowledge of British Ballads. The guy from whom Johnny Marr said he cribbed guitar lines,  merely speeding them up. Michael Hedges and Pierre Bensusan have praised him and worked elements of his playing into their approaches.

Carthy has an uncanny ability to carve away everything inessential from a song. His sense of time is exquisite. He plays the silences as well as the notes. His brilliant and bold use of dissonance and modal scales, combined with his unique percussive guitar transfixed me since I first heard him in the late 1970's. Somehow Carthy discovered the funk deep in the soul of British Folk Music.

He applies the same ruthless genius to his accompaniments for other musicians, creating lines that interact and enhance others melodies with subtle invention. He builds in tension and releases it at the last instant, infusing drama where so many others can't even imagine it.

In addition to his playing and singing, he has been a collector and restorer of damaged or fragmented songs. With the fine eye of a diamond carver, he will fit a husk of an old song with a new tune, add carefully chosen words, and bring it alive, widening the repertoire.

I've learned over time that some people just don't get Martin Carthy and are happy to do without his music. I could do that. Right before I give up breathing.

Pete's Pantheon: He Writes! He Teaches! He Honks! He Screeches! Mr. Don Byron!

It would be a sorrier, drabber world without the music smarts of clarinettist Don Byron. Who else could expose "Danke Shoen" as a music industry vaccine against authentic world music, a vaccine made of a dead or weakened strain of real music? Who else would transcribe the complex compositions of Micky Katz, assemble a crack team of downtown noisemakers and reproduce the bygone brilliance of that forgotten Klezmer Dybbuk? Who else would find the link between Raymond Scott, John Kirby and Duke Ellington, and illustrate his point using an episode of the Flintstones? And just to tie things up in a neat bow, Who else has the chops to be a repeat winner as best clarinettist in the Downbeat Reader's Poll? He writes! he teaches! He honks! He screeches! Give it up for Don Byron!

Pete's Pantheon: Richard Thompson, Incandescence in the Dark

Is there anyone out there who can match Richard Thompson stride for stride as a guitarist, singer and songwriter? Neil? Bruce? Tom?... anyone? Richard seems to have been issued a guitar with notes on it that others can't find or are afraid to play. His bends in the studio version of "Calvary Cross" open holes in reality through which you glimpse an abyss. And he's only deepened as a player since then (compare the playing on his score to Herzog's "Grizzly Man" to his younger but still amazing take on the same material on his "Strict Tempo" recording.) As a prolific songwriter he has created a coherent body of work that ranges from the timeless longing of "Dimming of the Day" the poignant specificity of "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" and the reckless high spirits of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" Many find his singing an aquired taste. I suggest you acquire it.
Drawn with Sketchbook Pro on iPad