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Newsletter 17th July2006 |
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Thea
Gilmore, Ashley
Hutchings’ Rainbow Chasers, Amy
Wadge,
Steve Tilston, Christine
Collister and more to be confirmed, at
a family festival at Victoria park, Haywards Heath over the August Bank
Holiday weekend 26-28 August. Acoustic Sussex is delighted to be
associated with the event – more news to follow! |
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For
more information on Acoustic
Sussex shows including sound samples, click on the artists'
website links below or visit our | |
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Friday 4
August – Joe West returns! Yes, the ‘trailer
park crooner’ from Santa Fe is back in the UK. He did a show for us last
year and went down a storm. A Bob Harris favourite, imagine a cross
between Lou Reed and Loudon Wainwright. Joe can be seen performing in the
garden at The Red Lion, Turners Hill, from about 8.30pm. More on Joe West here. Ø
Saturday
2 September
Looking further ahead, our first event after the summer break is rather
different from our normal music gigs, when Shirley Collins presents her touring
show of the book, ‘America Over the Water’, at East Grinstead’s Chequer
Mead Arts Centre. More details on ‘America Over
the Water’ below. |
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Monday 24
July |
Pete
Atkin is the 'near-legendary'
British singer and songwriter who in the early 1970s made six highly
collectable albums of quirky, original, and always entertaining songs,
told with ironic humour and acute observation. Pete wrote the music, and
Australian satirist, writer and TV personality, Clive James, wrote the words. Unclassifiable at the time, their
work stands as a defining example of what has since become known as
'English Chanson'. The songs earned Pete Atkin the respect of some of
Britain's best rock and jazz session musicians. He was joined in the
studio and on tour by a number of them, notably Chris Spedding, Herbie
Flowers, Alan Parker and Ray Cooper, and though remaining virtually
unknown to the popular record-buying public he built up a huge following
on the UK college circuit. The late DJ, John Peel, was a fan, regularly
playing tracks on his late-night shows. Pete
Atkin made his first recording in 1967 and in 1968 recorded with Julie Covington. Producer Don Paul
was a friend of the DJ Kenny Everett, who regularly played songs such as
Master Of The Revels, from the first album Beware Of The Beautiful
Stranger. Atkin did, and still does, write his own lyrics, but it was the
collaboration with Clive James that produced his most famous songs. After
the sixth album (Live Libel), Pete and Clive's collaboration faltered, and
Pete's musical career entered the "legend" phase. During this time he
wrote for TV and BBC Radio 4, eventually becoming BBC's Head of Network
Radio for the South and West. He subsequently went freelance, still
working mostly in radio production for the BBC, for whom he recently
created the epic series This Sceptred
Isle. Thanks to the internet, after a gap of more than 20 years, it became clear that their early songs were far from forgotten. As a result, the old albums were reissued on CD, and the pair revived their partnership with live performances including the Edinburgh Fringe and a tour of Australia. Getting back on the road led to new material being written, producing new albums every bit as good as those from the early days. This is rare opportunity to catch Pete Atkin, with just guitar and piano. |
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Sharing the bill with Pete
Atkin, Liz Simcock is a
great songwriter and gorgeous singer with a relaxed and endearing stage
presence. Her very ‘English’ songs will be the perfect complement to
Pete's eclectic material.
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Friday
4 August Turners
Hill |
Joe
West is a singer/songwriter from
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Some have dubbed him a "trailer park crooner" and
others say he's a "time-traveling-Mark Twain-gone-punk." Whatever you call
him, Joe West's humorous, beer-drenched tales of twisted love, booze and
UFOs have been winning over crowds from New York City to Austin, Texas.
Joe has earned a huge reputation as one of New Mexico's favourite
singer-songwriters. His wry wit, laconic drawl, and simple yet memorable
country-soaked melodies provide a poignant and usually humorous view of
life in the US. His album "Jamie
Was A Boozer" was rated a Four Star Album by the Austin Chronicle and one
of the Top Texas Albums of the Year. His new CD "The Human Cannonball" is
already winning new fans. "Human
Cannonball" has all the things that make Joe West so good; he's going to
be playing in this country in the autumn, and there's nothing I'm looking
forward to more". John Davey,
NetRyhthms |
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Saturday
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Shirley
Collins, one of the most important
figures on the British folk scene, is touring a show based on her book
America Over the Water, telling how, in 1959, Shirley, a young folk singer
from Hastings, set out across the American South with the legendary
folklorist Alan Lomax, collecting and recording songs from both black and
white communities across six states. Shirley:“It was a journey that started in Virginia, took
us into Parchman Farm, the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary, up
Kentucky mountainsides to record Primitive Baptists’ Open Air Prayer
meetings, to the heart of Alabama for the Sacred Harp Convention, into
tiny hamlets in the tornado belt of rural Arkansas where the pioneering
spirit still existed, and into isolated black communities in Northern
Mississippi…. ending our journey on one of the Georgia Sea Islands that
had been settled by escaped
slaves.” America Over the Water combines the personal story of Shirley’s relationship with Alan Lomax with a unique first-hand account – through the song collecting - of the evolving social history of a racially segregated America on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement. It goes to the roots of Anglo/American traditional music. The American story is interleaved with Shirley’s other journey: that of growing up in Hastings during and just after the Second World War, becoming a folk singer, and so meeting Alan Lomax in London. The show features
readings by Shirley and actor Pip
Barnes, many musical excerpts from the field recordings
themselves, and a visual display incorporating photographs taken on the
trip or derived from contemporaneous sources. |
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For
your future diaries..
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Johnny
Dickenson (11 September, The
Ravenswood); Richard Durrant
(25 September, The Ravenswood); Pierre
Bensusan (6 November, The Ravenswood - support: Matthew Ord);
Bob Fox & Billy Mitchell
(16 Oct, The Ravenswood); Tommy Emmanuel (28 November, Chequer
Mead); John Tams & Barry Coope
(11 December, Chequer Mead);
Acoustic Strawbs (19 January
2007, Chequer Mead). More information on all up-and-coming artists can be found on our website: www.acousticsussex.org.uk. You can also find us on MySpace (with samples from some of the artists appearing) at: www.myspace.com/acoustic_sussex. If you know anyone who you think may enjoy our events, please forward this email to them. |
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