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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

Damien Dempsey: earthily classy singer-songwriter, utterly classy life-saver

We knew Damien Dempsey was a powerful, gutsy songwriter and song interpreter (see Pete Sixsmith's pieceon his gripping version of Ewan MacColl's Schooldays Over.) We did not know he was also a life-saver. After a show in the Irish town... Continue reading

Posted Apr 28, 2023 at Salut! Live

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'Can I please be Linda Thompson?' Rachel Unthank's dream

What a heroine and what a tribute. Moonlighting from her band, Rachel Unthank joined another North-eastern artist, Paul Smith, for a short tour, which our Andrew Curry caught at the Bush Theatre in London. The heroine? Linda Thompson, once famously... Continue reading

Posted Apr 10, 2023 at Salut! Live

5

Elephants in the room. Leon Rosselson’s life of song and protest

Here's one for the media studies class. How do you get a complimentary piece about a radical leftwing enemy of the capitalist system into a newspaper nicknamed the house journal of the Conservative party? Do you damn with faint praise,... Continue reading

Posted Apr 6, 2023 at Salut! Live

3

Hammersmith bound: T with the Maggies, four astonishing female Irish talents

On St Patrick’s night, I was privileged to be present (as Gerry Logue's guest) at an excellent and enthusiastically received performance by Three Men and a Dog at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, west London. There is more on... Continue reading

Posted Apr 1, 2023 at Salut! Live

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Celtic Connections: the curtain comes down with Bonny Light Horseman and dreams of Elvis

Salut! Live is immensely grateful to Andrew Curry for his series of outstanding reports from the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. See all instalments by clicking that link. It has clearly been a tremendous event and Andrew has found some... Continue reading

Posted Mar 18, 2023 at Salut! Live

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Celtic Connections: young blood and lesser-spotted folk talent

For the fourth part in his superb series looking back at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, Andrew Curry considers the important role played by performers whose names and music may be less familiar than the event's headliners …. Herkja:... Continue reading

Posted Mar 9, 2023 at Salut! Live

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Celtic Connections: honouring Jim McLean, a man of principle in the mould of Ed Pickford and Alex Glagsow

Andrew Curry's retrospective reports from the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow have been much appreciated and widely read. I am glad to say there is more to come after this look at the work of Jim McLean ... THE SONGS... Continue reading

Posted Feb 27, 2023 at Salut! Live

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Celtic Connections: Transatlantic Sessions on the road again

Celtic Connections, a really absorbing Glasgow festival, is over for another year. But Andrew Curry is still feeding on recent memory. For his second look at the 2023 event, he offers his thoughts on Transatlantic Sessions ... The Transatlantic Sessions... Continue reading

Posted Feb 21, 2023 at Salut! Live

1

Celtic Connections: Duncan Chisholm gives musical life to Scottish hills

Andrew Curry is a neglectful music website editor's dream. He comes up with ideas for which gigs he should review, pays his own way there and into the venue and files his articles as promptly, cleanly and engagingly as if... Continue reading

Posted Feb 12, 2023 at Salut! Live

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When the call of the black crow - and the clanging of Sunderland's shipyards - go still

As 'Jake', John Clark was an inspired member of the little team that made Salut! Sunderland a half-decent site for fans of Sunderland AFC, also respected by many supporters of other football clubs. At the end of 2019, repeated technical... Continue reading

Posted Jan 18, 2023 at Salut! Live

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On Sandy Denny’s birthday, we choose our favourite songs

Rolling Stone magazine, as I read online yesterday, places Sandy Denny 164th in its list of 200 “greatest singers of all time”. If that seems insultingly low, as it initially did to me though it was hardly any surprise, imagine... Continue reading

Posted Jan 6, 2023 at Salut! Live

10

At last: the Pitmen Poets singing The Workers’ Song. And how to resolve the winter of discontent

Just when I thought I had one solution to the failure of my attempts to showcase Ed Pickford's noble anthem in appreciations of ordinary people, The Workers’ Song, as sung by the Pitmen Poets, a much better one popped along.... Continue reading

Posted Dec 26, 2022 at Salut! Live

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For Christmas present, greetings from Salut! Live and a tracklist without hits

Salut! Live wishes as a happy Christmas and prosperous a new year as our masters will allow. It's been a strange year for this site, exhilaration at some astonishing statistics recording many hundreds and sometimes even thousands of daily visitors... Continue reading

Posted Dec 24, 2022 at Salut! Live

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Song and performance of the year: Pitmen Poets and Ed Pickford's Workers' Song

I do not always nominate a best-of- year album or other piece of work. This year, I feel bound to do so. I have heard nothing better all year than the Pitmen Poets' rousing and timely rendering of one of... Continue reading

Posted Dec 19, 2022 at Salut! Live

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Linda Thompson: giving that fabulous voice back to its owner

In praise of Linda Thompson. It'll take just a little while to get there unless you scroll down ... One of the perks of working for the arts desks of the bigger newspapers was, in happier times for journalism, the... Continue reading

Posted Dec 15, 2022 at Salut! Live

11

Christmas folk: seasonal antidotes to corporate festive jollity

Colin Randall writes: into my e-mail inbox popped a seasonal offering from the Albion Band, one of the most important evolving musical projects from decades of British folk and folk-rock. I am not the world's greatest fan of Christmas songs,... Continue reading

Posted Dec 12, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

Loft Vinyl: (9) Fairport Convention and Heyday

This article was devised and started before Sunderland vs Millwall. And then updated at half time and finished after the final whistle on a heartening 3-0 home win ... Long neglected, Salut! Live's Loft Vinyl series - the product of... Continue reading

Posted Dec 3, 2022 at Salut! Live

3

Christine McVie RIP: born Perfect

This website, or rather its grumpy old owner, has a chequered history when it comes to Fleetwood Mac. I absolutely loved them in their original incarnation as a British blues band. Albatross was a departure of sorts but such a... Continue reading

Posted Dec 1, 2022 at Salut! Live

2

Kris Drever: from holding off Womad mud to mocking lying politicians

Kris Drever is another of Salut! Live's neglected artists, a man I have long admired but all too rarely written about. Barbara Dickson gave him a little shout-out when she was interviewed for these pages in 2020 and, much more... Continue reading

Posted Nov 23, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

Lindisfarne: remnants, rags and reminders

I've been meaning to post something about Lindisfarne for some time. They've had mentions, for sure, but their achievements deserve more. My first encounter with this brilliant Newcastle band was, appropriately since my childhood beat was County Durham and my... Continue reading

Posted Nov 21, 2022 at Salut! Live

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Ain’t Nothing But … a great British blues bar

To reach the little music venue I love most of all from, say, Piccadilly Circus, there’s a choice to be made. It’s a short walk but this part of central London is invariably busy. Accept that reality and just weave... Continue reading

Posted Nov 13, 2022 at Salut! Live

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Rab Noakes RIP: news of his death 'hit me like a heavy ton of bricks'

As years go by, acquaintance with death is unavoidable. Friends, relatives, former colleagues and people you know a little or a lot succumb to nature's way of doing things. The certainty of mortality hardly makes it easier when loved or... Continue reading

Posted Nov 12, 2022 at Salut! Live

1

The Unthanks: cast sorrows away and relish an outstanding musical triumph

It is hard to think that it was as long ago as 2009 that I sat in front of my laptop in Abu Dhabi - where I was then working - and sent Rachel Unthank a stream of questions which... Continue reading

Posted Nov 10, 2022 at Salut! Live

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The other, superior Folk Colin has left us. RIP Colin Irwin

As I struggle to digest news of the death of Colin Irwin, an outstanding journalist but more importantly a man it was impossible to dislike, images of that kind, intelligent, impish and slightly quizzical face of his stream into my... Continue reading

Posted Nov 4, 2022 at Salut! Live

10

Steve Ashley: no audience with the Queen (having a special day)

For most professional musicians, some gigs stick in the memory and for all sorts of reasons. In the final year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and life, Steve Ashley turned up, as long planned, for a performance in Kent. It... Continue reading

Posted Nov 2, 2022 at Salut! Live

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