Team meeting cancelled after a 2 hour fucking drive to Bath, so you’re in luck.
From the other side of the 70’s, the fluffy, motherly, folky, velvety, songs that came from Mam Cymru‘s records and tapes. Some of these are the better renditions available online.
Black Rock Sands, wispy half remembered summers from around 75/77 onwards, a stunning part of the British isles. Wind-breaker awnings, my Nan in her rubber, all element sandals, Gramps cleaning his pipe in a deck chair complaining about English interlopers. Flares everywhere. My sister’s NHS, brown-rimmed specs held together by a plaster (“oh, owl ‘ead”). Massive collars, dungarees and brown buckled sandals from the shoe shop, the place with a mechanised size measurer. Beige hues galore, purple coloured sofas and a red Austin Maxi we’d drive down in.
This tune has haunted me for decades because I first heard it during one of these holidays courtesy of my Mum. The scaling, Mixolydian? It enchanted my sister and I from day one, plus they were Scottish. Pure envy at the pixie kids on the sleeve (who probably weren’t forced to attend mass). I think one of the girls in this band subsequently disappeared in America which added to its mystique over time, a living time capsule from a decade that was already haemorrhaging in on itself
Same period, different band. I can take or leave Fairport Convention, but this tune is on a different plane. A tune my sister stumbled on first on the only Fotheringay lp (thanks again Mum). Sandy Denny at her peak and a rare live vid that’s even better than the lp version. If you like twangy lead guitars (Mixolydian too?) with a sublime drummer, this for you
Gram Parsons, a singer my Dad could frown at and appreciate in equal measure depending on the song, but whom my Mum absolutely adores to this day. She had this as a hissy, multi-generation tape copy, badly weathered, which then got lost during a home move to her horror. Turns out Owsley Stanley recorded it as a soundboard, which is the reason I suspect my Dad was onboard for it too. Then the internet got rolled out and behold the songs returned to the family nest. The first 3 tracks (all ten minutes) are my own picks, incredible pedal steel from Sneaky Pete, what a player
Last but possibly the best pick of this post, a hymn that defines sublime. My gog north Walian relatives could sneer a bit at their Hwntws kinfolk, but bond over chapel. Fucking parochials. This is music for anyone with a soul