colin randall's Profile | Typepad

This is colin randall's Typepad Profile.

Join Typepad and start following colin randall's activity

Join Now!

Already a member? Sign In

colin randall

London/France

Salut! Live reflects my passion for folk and related music - I'm a journalist and lifelong Sunderland supporter, based in France and London, from where I write about most things under the sun and the rain

Interests: film, football, france, badminton, folk music

Recent Activity

Cover Story: (69) Bay of Fundy by the Unthanks, its composer Gordon Bok or Someone Else

CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS PARAGRAPH TO EXPLORE THE FULL COVER STORY SERIES - COMPARING DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME SONGS AND SOMETIMES TUNES Among the certainties of human existence, death and tax rank fairly high. So, a cynic might say,... Continue reading

Posted May 5, 2022 at Salut! Live

8

Frankie Gavin: a colossus of Irish music, in need of life-or-death help

Salut! Live, as I explained when responding to this appeal, has no income (beyond the very occasional and usually out-of-the-blue online donation). Yet I had no hesitation in coming up with a small contribution to this worthiest of causes: finding... Continue reading

Posted Apr 26, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Imany wows Sainte-Maxime, which promptly goes out and votes Le Pen. Expliquez-vous Sainte-Maxime!

Politics invade this site from time to time. I am writing from France which has again resisted the best efforts of the extreme right to take power. It got closer than ever this time - Emmanuel Macron's comfortable 17-point majority... Continue reading

Posted Apr 25, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Cover Story: (67) Death Comes Easy. Harvey Andrews, Ian Campbell and a superior anti-war song

CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS PARAGRAPH TO EXPLORE THE FULL COVER STORY SERIES - COMPARING DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME SONGS AND SOMETIMES TUNES Bill Taylor revives Salut! Live's popular but neglected Cover Story series with another look at songs of... Continue reading

Posted Apr 14, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Cats on Trees: seriously good French music

This originally appeared at Salut! Live's parent site, Salut! but belongs here, too ... I have chosen different images Concert debout, it said on the printout of the ticket. I saw that only after I had booked. The realisation that... Continue reading

Posted Apr 12, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Remembering John Prine: London assembles family and star friends

John Prine was a compelling, combative, heart-in-the-right-place American singer-songwriter who died two years ago next Thursday at the age of 73. He had successfully fought two cancers but succumbed to the wretched Covid. This is how I recorded his passing... Continue reading

Posted Apr 1, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Doreen Henderson RIP: the sad loss of a fixture of the the Elliotts of Birtley

It was impossible to grow up in the North East of England, love folk music and not know of the immense role of the Elliotts of Birtley in performing, nurturing and spreading that musical form. To my immense regret, I... Continue reading

Posted Mar 26, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Reporting the Troubles and sneakily catching some wonderful Irish music

As we recoil in horror from the evil of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and feel disgust at the hard-of-thinking whataboutery of Putin apologists in the UK, let us not forget conflict at home. Even what Mo Mowlam called, when Secretary... Continue reading

Posted Mar 9, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Ukraine, Tom Paxton, Eric Bogle and songs of war

Time will tell whether Putin's evil aggression in Ukraine, and perhaps beyond if observers are right about his further ambitions, produces great songs of war. Conflict and adversity often do inspire musicians and composers as well as artists, writers and,... Continue reading

Posted Mar 2, 2022 at Salut! Live

4

Loft vinyl: (8) which LPs to pack for France. McGarrigles, June Tabor and Nanci Griffith in, Cream and Chopin out

SEE THE FULL LOFT VINYL SERIES at https://www.salutlive.com/loft-vinyl/ The loss of a cat freed up a lot of space in the car for the grand return to France. With Monette to transport, room had to be found for her cage,... Continue reading

Posted Feb 26, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Loft vinyl: (7) a further embarrassment of Steeleye Span riches (and rogues)

I knew there was more. When I retrieved and photographed the Steeleye Span vinyl albums featured here in a previous edition of the Loft vinyl series, I was aware my search though the attic - floorboarded but unconverted so on... Continue reading

Posted Feb 16, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Loft vinyl: (6) Stefan Grossman and Kenny Ball

When I started my Loft Vinyl series after my elder daughter gave me a turntable for Christmas, one of the first old LPs retrieved from the loft was instrumental (1940s boogie woogie from the piano-playing of Albert Ammons). Over the... Continue reading

Posted Feb 14, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Loft vinyl: (5) Steeleye Span and an embarrassment of riches

When I began my Loft vinyl series - see previous entries here - the harvest from ploughing through a vast but long-neglected collection of old LPs stored haphazardly in the loft, I expected to find albums by Steeleye Span. I... Continue reading

Posted Feb 11, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

Cover Story: (68) Mary from Dungloe. The Johnstons, Christy Moore and Daniel O'Donnell or A N Other

When I wrote about Clannad in a recent instalment of Salut! Live's Loft Vinyl series, I recalled a hitchhiking trip to Ireland towards the end of the 1960s. Yes, I'm that old. The itinerary was mostly unplanned but one stop... Continue reading

Posted Feb 9, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Norma Waterson: further thoughts on the passing of a great folk character

At two of my favourite Facebook groups, Uncharted Jukebox and 60s 70s Folk Music, I have been banging on about Norma Waterson, who died on Jan 30 aged 82. And why not? She was a great and versatile singer and... Continue reading

Posted Feb 3, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

Norma Waterson: a distinctive voice of English folk

Back in the 1960s, British music was awash with groups of fashionable-looking young people, usually though not exclusively all-male, who belted out the Mersey Sound and its Manchester, Tyneside, Scottish, Irish and London equivalents. But folkies had their special band,... Continue reading

Posted Jan 31, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Norma Waterson RIP: the passing of a towering figure of folk music

I was shocked and saddened to hear today of the death of Norma Waterson, wife of Martin Carthy, mother of Eliza and a wonderful woman who has been so prominent in British folk music for so many decades. She was... Continue reading

Posted Jan 31, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

The Trimdon Grange Disaster: the deadly cost of coalmining and a fitting musical testament

CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS PARAGRAPH TO EXPLORE THE FULL COVER STORY SERIES - COMPARING DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME SONGS AND SOMETIMES TUNES My Sunderland AFC losing 6-0 today will be labelled a disaster. It is nothing of the sort.... Continue reading

Posted Jan 29, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Loft vinyl: (4) Clannad and a night, drive and band to remember

In the last edition of my Loft vinyl series I mentioned Clannad unfavourably. Someone who has newly followed me at Twitter shared my view as you can see below, but felt like me that pre-Harry's Game, and even included that... Continue reading

Posted Jan 21, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

Loft vinyl: (2) how Moving Hearts moved hearts

The second item in my new series, featuring music rediscovered in the loft on vinyl after my elder daughter gave me a turntable for Christmas, celebrates a truly remarkable Irish supergroup, Moving Hearts, and their classic album The Storm... The... Continue reading

Posted Jan 13, 2022 at Salut! Live

3

Loft vinyl: (1) wartime boogie woogie from Albert Ammons

Another series: Loft Vinyl For Christmas, my elder daughter Christelle bought me a turntable which I picked up from her home in Lewes. The excellent Union vinyl record shop around the corner was closed so first purchases had to wait... Continue reading

Posted Jan 9, 2022 at Salut! Live

0

Byrd song: when California dreaming embraced Britfolk

Lots of us loved the Byrds in rock mode or when their Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger covers made them sound like entirely different songs. Eight Miles High and 5th Dimension, as well as Mr Tambourine Man and Turn Turn... Continue reading

Posted Jan 3, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Salut! Live's Christmas message, enriched by Amelia Coburn's Perfect Storm

Salut! Live began life in May 2007, one of the offshoots of Salut!, launched the previous year as a sort of privatised version of the blog I contributed to The Daily Telegraph website when that paper's Paris correspondent. I am... Continue reading

Posted Dec 25, 2021 at Salut! Live

1

Folk: a dirty four-letter word?

What is it about folk music that makes some folk or folksy artists want to disown it and smug rockers want to sneer? Think how many acoustic musicians and people associated historically with folk have sought to create distance. Briefly... Continue reading

Posted Dec 16, 2021 at Salut! Live

15

Best Christmas songs? Dylan just Must Be Santa and Fairytale doesn't have to be the Pogues

The cynic in me - and cynicism occupies a large part of my soul - says "best Christmas song" is a bit like "best trainspotter" or, worse, "best thing about medieval dentistry". But I'm not entirely Scrooge. I like John... Continue reading

Posted Dec 13, 2021 at Salut! Live

6

More...

Subscribe to colin randall’s Recent Activity