A Green Man Review

I danced in the morning
When the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon
And the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven
And I danced on the earth,
At Bethlehem
I had my birth.

“Lord of The Dance”

The tulips such as the one in the vase on my desk here in the Estate Library are the predominant flowers this time of year as every Estate Gardener for the past three centuries has had a rather keen interest in them. The more recent ones are acquired by Gus, our Estate Head Gardener for three decades now, in trade with MacGregor, a fellow tulip enthusiast who goes to the Turkish tulip markets to get the much rarer heirloom tulips. Just don’t get Gus talking about tuplips unless you’re planning on being there quite awhile!

If you’re really interested in all things tulips, you can drop by his workshop late this afternoon as he’s giving the Several Annies, my Library Apprentices, a practical exercise in how history really happens, using the Dutch Tulip Mania as his example. And we’ve reviewed a book on their origins in the guise of  Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, which has a nice article on the actual history of the so-called Tulip Period of the Ottoman Empire. Do beware that these papers are dry at times as they’re intended for other scholars.

I’m off to the Kitchen as soon as I get this Edition done and  I suspect you’ll want to join me in heading for the Kitchen after you read and listen to our offering this time as Mrs. Ware and her talented staff are serving up just baked Toll House chocolate chip cookies with glasses of Riverrun Farm whole milk. Yes whole milk — bet you’ve never had that!

Cat starts off our Space Opera reviews with Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven’s The Mote in God’s Eye which he say of that ‘Until the likes of Iain M. Banks with The Culture series and Neal Asher with the Polity series came along, quite possibly the best Space Opera of all time was this forty year-old novel that took the Space Opera novels of the 1930s and 1940s and very, very nicely updated them.’

This novel is what happens when a series, no matter how short-lived, becomes beloved by legions of viewers. Firefly was a one-season space opera created by Joss Whedon that was brilliant. Unfortunately the network didn’t think the ratings were good enough, so they killed it after a single season, though they wrapped it up in a movie called Serenity. Stephen Brust, a writer many of you will know, wrote My Own Kind of Freedom and Cat says it’s quite true to the series.

Elizabeth Bear has two splendid  space operas out now with the third in the White Space series out in May, Ancestral Night and its not quite sequel Machine. Gary reviewed both. He says ‘Ancestral Night is the tale of Haimey Dz, a nominally lesbian engineer on a little salvage tug whose ship mind is named Singer and which is piloted by her friend Connla Kurucz. Both Haimey and Connla live nearly full time in zero gravity, so of course their bodies have been modified in many ways, including replacing their feet with “aft hands.” The three of them make their living in the vastness of interstellar space by going to the rips in spacetime caused by unsuccessful transfers out of white space back into Newtonian space, and salvaging the wrecks they find there … if there’s anything left or worth salvaging.’

In the second one, he says, she ‘is playing a long game in Machine, the second installment in her White Space series with third, Folded Sky, out this June. The series is shaping up to be an exploration of those dark places – not to say dystopian spaces – that are always found around the edges of any apparent utopia. Via that path she’s casting her eye on some of the current ills facing humanity in the 21st century — and tossing out some thoughts about how we might resolve some of those issues before it’s too late.’

Gary also reviews a book of literary criticism about the Culture series. He says Simone Caroti’s The Culture Series ‘is valuable reading for anyone who wants to move into a deeper understanding of what that series is really about, where it stands in the history of SF and literature, and why it’s important.’

Gary reviewed a debut SF novel, Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds. ‘Aside from the adventure and space opera aspects of The Vanished Birds, this is a tale of traumatized persons. Everyone — Fumiko, Nia and her crew, the boy, the farmers exploited on their backwater planets — has been buffeted in some way by the corporate system and the cruelly competitive life it spawns.’

He also reviewed Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars. It’s the first in her Lady Astronaut series, an alternate history in which a planetary disaster in the 1950s hastens the race to the Moon and Mars. ‘Kowal handles the story masterfully, with just enough scientific jargon and facts to keep it feeling authentic but not enough to bog it down; her dialogue is solid and contributes to the believable characters; and especially she conveys the inner reality of a woman of the pre-feminist 1950s and ’60s who believes in her own capabilities and chafes against society’s restrictions, but often doesn’t even recognize many of the sexist assumptions she unwittingly accepts.’

Gary liked Arkady Martine’s j even better than its prequel, A Memory Called Empire, which he reviewed last time. ‘With her first two novels, Arkady Martine has emerged as the author of some of the best military/political science fiction of the era. Her memorable and not always likable characters capture and hold our imaginations as they navigate a host of big meaning-of-life questions in life-or-death situations. This is space opera for the ages. I have high expectations and many questions that I hope are met in the next installment. Like, I wonder if I’m right about the kittens?’

Robert came up with a series that is quintessential space opera, with a twist: C. J. Cherryh’s The Chanur Saga, including Chanur’s Homecoming, and the sequel, Chanur’s Legacy: ‘C. J. Cherryh’s The Chanur Saga is an almost-omnibus edition of her tetralogy about Pyanfar Chanur and her ship, the interstellar trader The Pride of Chanur. Because of length, the “omnibus” volume contains the first three in the series . . . , and one would be well-advised to be sure that Chanur’s Homecoming, issued separately, is within easy reach, lest one be left hanging off a cliff.’

April was … disappointed is too mild a word … with a hot chocolate mix. ‘ …Hammond’s Double Chocolate Hot Cocoa was quite the disappointment. They may do candy very well, but this mix falls very short for fans of high quality cocoa. Might as well grab some Swiss Miss or Nesquik from your local grocery story rather than plunk down almost $7 for this tin.’

Robert, on the other hand, was pleasantly surprised by some chocolates he tried from Green & Blacks. ‘Maya Gold contains a minimum of 55% cocoa, with orange and spices. Considering my general reaction to what I consider “adulterants” in chocolate, it was with some trepidation that I took my first bite, but I have to admit I was completely captivated.’

So how do you wrap-up up a great SF series? ? Jayme yell us: ‘Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars is a miniseries that never should’ve existed. That’s true on several levels. Firstly, there would never be a need to wrap up the major plot threads with a miniseries had the Sci-Fi Channel honored its commitment to produce a fifth season of the acclaimed space opera. But when Vivendi-Universal — the parent corporation at the time — ran into financial duress, its subsidiaries were ordered to cut costs, and contract or no, Farscape was toast. But TV series that die stay dead, as a rule. Sure, Star Trek had a revival, but that took more than a decade to come about. Battlestar Galactica wandered the syndication galaxy for 24 yahrens before it was brought back — ironically — by the Sci-Fi Channel. But a quirky, sexy, self-aware show populated by spacefaring muppets? Not a chance.

Robert dug into Gail Simone’s Secret Six series, in which a handful of the villains in the DC universe join forces for self-protection. Here he talks about two of them, Six Degrees of Devastation and Unhinged. ‘These two collections are really DC in top form. Gail Simone’s stories are complex and twisty enough to keep us engaged and although they run to formula, they’re fresh enough that we don’t really notice. And, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, the “heroes” of this series aren’t really. They are not good guys, but they are living in that morally murky world that most of us inhabit — although not on their life-or-death scale — and ours is not so sharply defined.’

He enjoyed those two so much that he went back to the origin story, Villains United. ‘The first part of this volume, concerned with the recruitment for the Society, is a little jumpy, being that it consists of scenes lifted from the associated comics. Once Simone takes control of the story line, however, it gains focus and, while it’s still episodic, it’s lot more coherent. Characterizations are key here — we really get the feeling that this is a bunch of not-good-guys who have to work together if they’re going to survive at all.’

Gary here with music. First, I reviewed Chet Baker’s When Sunny Gets Blue, a 1986 record re-released on vinyl. ‘The program consists of five standards and one original, “Two In The Dew” by Lacy, and the best parts of the album are, sad to say, all played by the rhythm section. Never blessed with highly technical chops at his best, Baker wasn’t having his best day in the studio, frequently sounding tentative or just not very focused, and clearly unable to reach some notes.’

I also reviewed Väntenätter, an album by the Swedish/Norwegian trio Mojna, who play guitar, Hardanger fiddle, and bass clarinet — a unique combination. ‘Fans of the Swedish trio/duo Väsen should definitely check out Mojna. This trio follows a somewhat similar template, playing tradition based music with modern arrangements and sensibilities that make it very appealing to contemporary listeners.’

Daryana reviewed a recent nominee to the 2025 Russian World Music Chart by the Buryat band Nuker, which blends traditional songs with traditional and rock instruments and vocal styles. ‘Nuker’s debut Hamta, long-anticipated by some of my Russian musical colleagues and me, in my opinion showcases Nuker’s creative prowess. Their ethno-rock sound, filled with dynamic compositions and rich traditional influences, will captivate fans of ethnic music and rock alike.’

From the Archives, Big Earl loved the music on The Ukrainians’ debut self-titled album and the second, Respublika. ‘After months and months (and months!) of reviewing music that was a little too “pretty” for my tastes, the smack of The Ukrainians is an extremely welcome repast. Although the debut is great, Respublika is definitely in my top five discs of the year. It might be a tad heavy for some listeners, but for Old Man Punks like me, it’s a kick in the World booty.’

John agreed  with Big Earl in his reviews of two more albums from The Ukrainians, Diaspora and Istoriya: The Best Of The Ukrainians. Of the former, he says, ‘Twenty years after guitarist Peter Solowka dragged violinist and singer Len Liggins into John Peel’s studio for what was to be a one-off, Diaspora has hit store shelves. It is the band’s sixth studio album of new material and the first to appear since 2002’s Respublika. It was well worth the wait.’ Regarding the latter, ‘My marketing critique aside, this is a great introduction to this band of Englishmen who play an unholy marriage of Ukrainian folk and punk.’

Chuck reviewed The Tannahill Weavers’ 14th album, Epona. ‘As for the music, happily, the Tannahill Weavers are on top of their game with none of the tracks faltering. There appears to be a certain pairing of themes among the songs with lyrics — “The Great Ships” and “Rich Man’s Silver” are a pair of economic case studies from the pen of Mr. Gullane that are a heck of a lot clearer than most anything found in college texts.

Long a fan of Linda Thompson, I enthusiastically reviewed her third post-hiatus solo album. ‘Won’t Be Long Now is an intimate recording featuring many members of her family that masterfully mixes dark and light, sadness and humor, all sung in the remarkable instrument that is Thompson’s voice, somehow equally fragile and durable.’

I did some raving about Easy, Kelly Willis’s second album for Ryko. ‘Willis also has a good grasp of many sides of the country-folk idiom, plus she can write her own songs, and she has an excellent ear for others’ songs to cover. Witness her deliciously catchy take on the late Kirsty MacColl’s “Don’t Come the Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim!” her bluegrass-gospel cover of Paul Kelly’s “You Can’t Take it With You,” and the torchy “Find Another Fool” by Marcia Ball.’

I also spoke highly of what turned out to be John Prine’s final album, The Tree of Forgiveness. ‘Like any longtime musician he’s had his ups and downs, but the high points are really high with Prine. That includes that incredible debut album, and 1978’s Bruised Orange, then a real comeback with 1991’s The Missing Years. And I’ll go on record predicting that The Tree of Forgiveness will join that pantheon of great John Prine albums.’

Mia fell in love with the music of S.J. Tucker at a live show, and took home a CD, as one does. Turns out she liked the recording nearly as much as the live show. ‘Haphazard is an exciting piece of work from an exciting singer: pagan/blues/folk rock full of fire.’

Michelle reviewed singer-songwriter David Celia’s Organica. ‘The lyrics, which range from corny to hilarious, work best when Celia doesn’t force Big Folk Themes about brotherhood and truth, but uses his wit to get the message across. Though this is a solo debut, it’s nostalgic in both theme and sound — the most memorable songs have the spirit of ’60s pop-folk with newer instruments.’

Patrick had kind words for Susan McKeown and Lorin Sklamberg’s Saints & Tzadiks. ‘McKeown, who practically reinvented traditional Celtic music, and Sklamberg, lead singer of the genre-bending group The Klezmatics, meld songs with themes common to almost any culture on earth: love, desire, betrayal, pride, war, drink, life and death. And by doing so, they prove that music really does transcend language: soul speaking to soul.’

Our What Not is from Kage Baker who was a  storyteller beyond compare, be it in emails as Cat can well attest, at Ren Faires with her sister Kathleen serving up ale, lovingly critiquing quite old films, writing stories of chocolate quaffing cyborgs, whores who decidedly didn’t have hearts of gold,  or space raptors who are actually parrots now. So it won’t surprise you that was a master narrator of her own stories as you hear as when she reads for us ‘The Empress of Mars’, a novella she wrote.

In Roger Zelazny’s To Die in Italbar, there’s a character frozen at the edge of death who has no heartbeat but instead always has classical music playing as a sort of substitute for the silence in his chest.

If you visit me in the Estate Library, you’ll always find something playing and recently I’ve been listening to a lot of music by a Scottish neo-trad band called The Iron Horse who were active starting some thirty five years ago. I’ve got two cuts from them performing live at the Gosport Easter Festival, April  of  ’96,  ‘The 8-Step Waltz’ and ‘The Sleeping Warrior’.

A girl could feel special on any such like.
Said James to Red Molly, my hat’s off to you
It’s a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I’ve seen you at the corners and cafés it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Boxhill they did ride

Richard Thompson’s ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’

It’s almost  Spring today and we’re getting one of those rare days where the temperature is over twenty Celsius, there’s full sun and not a hint of a cooling breeze, so Ingrid, our Steward, has declared there shall be an outside feast under the stars followed by a contradance in the evening with fires going to keep everyone warm in the slate-covered Courtyard with Chasing Fireflies being the band and Gus the caller.

My staff has set up the outdoor taps — there’s a cask of Spring Peeper Ale, another cask of the Shut Up and Dance IPA and yet another of a three-year aged cider Bjorn, our Brewmaster, calls Cheddar Cider as its got a nice sharp bite like an aged cheddar. Join us if you can as it’ll be a lovely evening!

First is a Tenth Doctor Who story, ‘The Unicorn & The Wasp’ which Cat reviews: ‘One of my favourite episodes of the newer episodes of this series was a country house mystery featuring a number of murders and, to add an aspect of metanarrative to the story, writer Agatha Christie at the beginning of her career. It would riff off her disappearance for ten days which occurred just after she found her husband in bed with another woman. Her disappearance is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily answered to this day.’

An English country house murder mystery also gets reviewed by David: ‘As traditional as the genres he chose might have been, in Altman’s hand they were turned upside-down, and sideways. Warren Beatty and Julie Christie became anti-hero and opium addict in Altman’s “western” McCabe & Mrs. Miller, set to the music of Leonard Cohen! A laconic Elliott Gould became Raymond Chandler’s private dick Phillip Marlowe in an updated LA for Altman’s “detective” classic The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman has been the most American of directors, and now, in Gosford Park, he takes on the English country house murder mystery. Altman’s Agatha Christie film? What could this mean?’

Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in  Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.

Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’

Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.”

Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’

Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’

Kelly had a splendid experience in Paris at Chapon Chocolatier, sampling their Chocolate Mousse made with a 100% Venezuelan chocolate bar. ‘For €5, a generous but not too large portion is served in a paper cone. The price is well worth the effects, not the least of which is taste.’

Debbie has a review of the four issue self-published The Book of Ballads and Sagas: ‘How do you add a new dimension to (and perhaps the enthusiasm of a new generation for) the wonderful world of folk ballads and sagas? One solution is to use an art form that is not usually associated with such things. In this case, I speak of the comic book, or as it is more usually known these days, the graphic novel.’

Gary here. This time I start my reviews with The Edinburgh Rollick, a delightful set by the American period music ensemble Ruckus, with Scottish American fiddler Keir GoGwilt. ‘The Edinburgh Rollick is highly recommended for fans of Scottish fiddling and Celtic songs and dance music in general. The combination of GoGwilt’s modern fiddle with the period instruments and superb arrangements is consistently appealing.’

The Denmark-based jazz label Steeplechase recently signed with a publicist who provides GMR with a lot of jazz and world music. Said publicist provided a big tranche of late 2024 releases, from which I selected four albums of modern straight ahead music to review: Kirk Knuffke’s Super Blonde, Steve Johns’s Mythology, David Janeway’s Forward Motion, and Alex Norris’s Table For Three.

Word came this week that Cuban American pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz is one of two “composers of extraordinary gifts” awarded with the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. By coincidence, I had just pulled from the archives my review of his 2012 release Orbiting, and you can read it here. ‘Ortiz, a native of Santiago, the second-largest city in Cuba, is equally inspired by the diverse sounds found there and the explorations of American and European 20th century classical composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Aaron Copland, plus the late 20th century funk of James Brown, Sly Stone and the like. Mix it all together in a big, hot pot and you get this Orbiting jazz fusion.’

From the Archives, here’s a random grab bag of fine music reviews.

David liked a CD re-release of the first solo album from Texas Americana legend Doug Sahm, simply titled Doug Sahm And Band, with contributors that included Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David Bromberg and more. ‘Throughout the album the songs echo the kind of material he had done with the Sir Douglas Quintet (think “Mendocino”) and they foreshadow the work he would do with the Texas Tornados ’til his untimely passing. There’s blues, and Tex-Mex, a touch of folk and some ragged harmony singing to top it all off.’

I reviewed Laurie Lewis’s One Evening In May. ‘This live disc recorded in May 2013 at the famous Freight and Salvage venue in her hometown of Berkeley, Calif., is a good reminder why Lewis is so special as an entertainer. A big part of that is her band members, the superb Tom Rozum on mandolins and guitar and vocals, Nina Gerber on guitars, and Lewis herself on banjo, fiddle and guitar.’

Judith found the music on De Amsterdam Klezmer Band’s Limonchiki pretty zippy! ‘Looking for a spicy klezmer band? From Holland, De Amsterdam Klezmer Band might be the band for you. Assigned to Knitting Factory’s alternative sub-label, their music is at times so spiced up with Eastern European ingredients that it’s almost not klez.’

She also reviewed a couple of world music releases, Kristi Stassinopoulou’s Echotropia, and Ziroq’s Ziroq. ‘Both these discs are fun, but not quite the same. The production that makes Echotropia so effective weakens some of its ties with reality; the album is not so much centered on Stassinopoulou’s voice as it is on the atmosphere it helps create. On the other hand, though Ziroq seems thinner and lighter, the “American” music can be a little irritating.’

Mike went outdoors in January to review the Swedish folk band JP Nyströms’ Stockholm 1313 Km. ‘The tunes are great out of the gate, and I actually became nostalgic upon hearing the fourth and fifth selections, “Pojkarna pa landsvagen” and “Hambomazurka efter Blomqvistarn,” respectively. They recall ethnic music from the roadhouses of the American Midwest of the 1920s and ’30s, the kind of stuff that until relatively recently could be found only on 78 rpm records.’

No’am was pleased to be able to review Dave Evans’s The Words In Between, a beloved record from the Sixties, when it was reissued. ‘This is basic, almost unadorned contemporary folk — excellent guitar picking, slightly odd tunes with meaningful lyrics sung by a voice which is well-worn and can carry a tune, but would never find itself at the top of the hit parade. Think of the classic sixties British folk guitarists such as Bert Jansch or Davey Graham, and you have an idea of what this album sounds like. Probably because of the paucity of instrumentation, the songs don’t sound dated at all, even though hardly anybody plays in this style any more.’

Naomi was moved by the women’s vocal group Libana’s two albums A Circle Is Cast and Night Passage. ‘With Libana’s first release A Circle is Cast we are treated to music from France to Russia, from Renaissance England to pre-colonization America. It is a fascinating journey on many levels, that instilled a sense of wonder and awe in me.’

Stephen was pleased with Dick Gaughan’s Outlaws & Dreamers. ‘This is the 11th solo album from Dick Gaughan and to my mind it’s his best in years. I should perhaps qualify that statement by pointing out that there’s absolutely no such thing as a poor Dick Gaughan album. I’m just one of many who think that he sounds best “in the raw,” just voice and acoustic guitar, which in the main, is exactly what’s on offer here.’

Scott began his review of the American band Romashka’s debut self-titled album with a little background on the group. ‘In a little over a year, Romashka have built a reputation as one of the most exciting and energetic bands in New York City’s world music scene. Before converging on Brooklyn, the band’s eight members cut their musical teeth in different locations, including a number of Ivy League institutions. Lithuanian-born singer Inna Barmash co-founded the Princeton-based outfit the Klez Dispensers, wind player Jeff Perlman spent four years with the Yale Klezmer Band, and guitarist Joey Weisenberg served as musical director of the Columbia Klezmer Band.’

Lets finish off with ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’, a Richard Thompson penned song as covered by the all female Red Molly band. It was assumed when this song was released by them as there’s a red haired Molly in the song  that they’d named the band after this song but instead it’s because there’s a red headed Molly in the band. We’ve reviewed several of their recordings including Love and Other Tragedies.

The working title of “Hotel California” was “Mexican Reggae. — According to Don Feldrr in a Rolling Stones article

So have I mentioned that we get some of our nastiest weather this time of year? Thus it is this weekend with sleet, freezing rain and high winds keeping all save the staff that tend to our livestock inside. Which is why I’m in the Robert Graves Memorial Room sitting next to a roaring fire writing this update up for you. I’ve got a pot of Darjeeling first blush which needs no cream, so I’m as content as Hamish, one of our resident hedgehogs, who’s sleeping in a quilted basket near the fire. So let’s see what we’ve got for you this week…

But before we start, some words from one of our favourite people, Ellen Datlow, on why she likes Spring better than any other season: ‘I love spring in New York–even if it only lasts a few short weeks. I celebrate spring by trying to view the very few magnolia trees in bloom around my neighborhood (they’re in full bloom for only a few days so it’s quite easy to miss them completely).’ The rest of her reasoning for this choice is thisaway.

Just things of a haunted nature this time, some you decide wouldn’t want tomeet.

Andrea looks at an Appalachian set tale for you: ‘Ghost Rider is the latest novel in Sharyn McCrumb’s “Ballad Series.” Ghost Riders is different from the others in the series in that there is no mystery (in the “mystery novel” sense of the word) to be solved. In the other books, the storyline goes back and forth between past and present, the stories linked sometimes obviously and sometimes tenuously. Usually in the “modern” story there is a mystery which the story in the past fleshes out or provides with a new insight. In Ghost Riders there are two separate tales from the past and a storyline set in the present. The narratives set in the past are linked by a chance meeting but still remain separate tales. One of these stories has a direct influence on the present. There are various characters, past and present, whose lives intertwine briefly in interesting and occasionally surprising ways.’

Cat looks at the urban legend retold yet again of a ghost girl asking for a ride home on the anniversary of her death: ‘Seanan McGuire decided to tell her own ghost story in Sparrow Hill Road which, like her novel Indexing, was originally a series of short stories published through The Edge of Propinquity, starting in January of 2010 and ending in December of that year. It appears they’ve been somewhat revised for this telling of her ghostly narrator’s tale but I can’t say how much as I’ve not read the original versions.’

Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas’ Haunted Legends anthology, says Gereg, is ‘something of a paradox: As a collection I found this volume kind of weak, but there are a lot of very fine stories in it. So many, in fact, that on going back over the anthology a second time, I wondered why I’d thought it was weak in the first place. As a reader, I’d probably just leave it at that; but as reviewer, I feel I owe it to my adoring public to tell you precisely why I feel the overall effect is weak. So I dove back into the book for a third time. Such travails are how I earn my fabulously high salary here.’

A woman who sees ghosts is the central character in a novel that Kathleen reviews for us: ‘Cherie Priest is a first time novelist. However, she writes with ease and a deceptive power, like the flow of the Tennessee River through her home city of Chattanooga. Four and Twenty Blackbirds is a Southern Gothic with a hint of hard boiled mystery: there’s grit in the magnolia honey and in the heroine as well.’

Possibly the earliest example of the American ghost story gets reviewed by Kestrell: ‘It is difficult to think of an American ghost story more well-known than that of Washington Irving’s short story ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. Though Irving’s original sources for the stories may have been local folklore based on the same stories which the Grimm Brothers would collect and publish back in the Old World, Irving’s tale would emerge as one of America’s first and most familiar stories until, like the best stories, it seeped into the American consciousness the way well water rises from some hidden source deep underground.’

And one  of my favourite literary treats with ghostly presences for Autumn evening nights is reviewed by Robert: ‘Peter S. Beagle’s Tamsin first saw the light of day as a story idea for a Disney animated feature. Disney never followed through. Beagle did, finally, for which I think we can all be grateful.’

In new music, Gary reviews the latest from one of his favorite musicians, Anouar Brahem’s After The Last Sky. ‘The album as a whole has a somber feel, due to the influence of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war as these works were being composed and recorded. The title is the same as that of Edward Said’s influential book, a searing examination of Palestinian identity; the penultimate track is a haunting duet between Bates and Lechner entitled “Edward Said’s Meditation”; and the opening track “Remembering Hind” is a similar duet in memory of a victim of the Gaza war.’

For a change in tone, he reviews an album by La Baula, a new folk group from Catalonia. ‘Cançons a l’ombra is a good introduction to Catalan roots music with its lovely vocals and a wide variety of traditional instruments on updated arrangements of traditional songs.’

He also reviews the new album from the Finnish retro group Uusikuu. ‘Four of the twelve tracks on Piknik are Uusikuu originals, and the rest are a blend of humorous humppas (a peppy, jazz-adjacent dance music rather like a fast foxtrot), tangos, ballads, and iconic swing tunes. Among the latter is “Sä kaunehin oot,” better known here by its German title of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” as sung by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald.’

Balkan music had a moment back around the turn of the century. We reviewed a lot of it then, and we still do so, as the music continues even though its casual fans have long turned elsewhere. From the archives, here is just a smattering of our Balkan coverage over the years, including some of the more obscure titles.

Big Earl had strong opinions about three Balkan related discs he reviewed: Los Niños de Sara’s Gipsyolé, Jony Iliev & Band’s Ma Maren Ma, and Besh o droM’s Nekemtenemmutogatol! (Can’t Make Me!) ‘… Besh o droM ups the stakes considerably. Hailing from Hungary, this group takes the tradition and moshes it into the modern era. Fast playing and tight arrangements make Can’t Make Me! the standout here.

Brendan Foreman reviewed one of the discs that brought Balkan music to the attention of Americans, the benefit compilation Balkans Without Borders. ‘This CD cuts across the spectrum of Balkan music from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea, from the Ural River to the Ruhr, and stretching even beyond those boundaries. Taken as a whole, it clearly shows the shared musical and cultural heritage that all of the people of the Balkans share, a heritage that, given the current violence of the region, is that much more heartbreaking to witness.’

Gary raved about Choban Elektrik’s Choban Elektrik. ‘Choban Elektrik’s music is billed as Balkan psychedelic jazz-rock, and that’s a pretty good description. The band is Jordan Shapiro on keyboards and guitar, Dave Johnsen on electric bass and Phil Kester on drums and percussion with Jesse Kotansky and Eva Salina Primack providing violin and vocals respectively on some tracks.’

He also enjoyed Cosmic Voices of Bulgaria’s Mechmetio. ‘This is powerful stuff, but never overly solemn. Its moods range from raucous to tender, playful to pensive, but it never feels like it’s done merely to impress. If you think you’ve heard all you need of Bulgarian women’s choirs, think again.’

And he reviewed Drumovi, a hybrid American Balkan recording from Zabe i Babe, a similarly hybrid band led by American folkie Tim Eriksen. ‘The group’s name, Zabe i Babe, translates as “grandmothers and frogs,” and is roughly the equivalent of the American idiom “apples and oranges,” used for comparing non-comparable items. But the elements go together better than that, at least most of the time.’

Judith enjoyed Adam Good’s Dances Of Macedonia and the Balkans. ‘Good includes traditional dances as well as his own compositions, which are played on the tambura, the four string lute used in Macedonia. On some of the tunes he is accompanied by a variety of village flute called a kaval and by drumming on tupan or dumbek, mostly by his bandmates in the American-Canadian group 9 Olives.’

Naomi reviewed Ciganine by the Pennsylvania based trio Sviraj. ‘This CD has 17 tracks, filled with a music containing so much passion it is impossible not to let it work its magic upon you. The lyrics are in both their original tongue and in English, allowing for a complete understanding of the song.’

Robert was favorably impressed by Boban Marković Orkestar’s Boban i Marko, which, he noted …”features a group of mostly traditional songs from the south of Serbia, fourteen tunes that range from the rollicking opener, “Balkan Fest,” complete with its marked “oom-pah-pah” rhythm, through “Southern Comfort,” a mellow, fluid piece with surprises in tempo and melody. There is even a samba, Serbian style.’

The Eagles penned a song, but not just any song. It was ‘ Hotel California ‘ and pretty much of all of the band in the form of Don Felder, Don Henley and Glenn Frey are credit is writing it. Released in February 19 77, it is truly magnificent with its never to be forgotten refrain as Glen Frey performing it

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the Hotel California

Any time of year (any time of year)

Here it is as performed thirty years in Burbank, California.

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears,
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
“Hard Times,” Stephen Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864)

Gary here. After writing up my impressions of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown for our last outing, I set off to see what else the Archives contained of a Dylan nature, and came up with some superb book, film, and music reviews from our staff and contributors.

David was very enthusiastic about Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Volume One: ‘What a book! I could hardly believe the voice he chose to tell his stories. Warm, countrified, a sort of a “gosh-a-golly-gee” tone which continues from page one to the end. It’s almost as though Bobby was sitting there across from you, with a fire going, telling you his tales.’

He gave a thumbs up to a couple of books about Dylan, Robert Shelton’s No Direction Home: The Life And Music Of Bob Dylan, and Howard Sounes’s Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan. ‘Where does one begin talking about the life and work of Bob Dylan? Arguably the most influential songwriter of the second half of the last century, he is largely a mystery. A cipher. A surreal muse floating through the pop charts, influencing others but never fully accepted by the marketplace. Both of these volumes seek to find the man behind the masks. They both provide a glimpse behind the facade, but Dylan remains a mystery throughout.’

David also reviewed four other books about Dylan, his life and art, Carl Benson’s The Bob Dylan Companion: Four Decades Of Commentary; Clinton Heylin’s Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments, Day By Day 1941-1995; and Paul Williams’s Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, The Early Years 1960-1973, and The Middle Years 1974-1986. Unusually, he did so mostly in verse, and concluded, ‘ … I’d hafta say… / nobody knows the mystery tramp / but if ya wanta catch a glimpse of him / skippin’ like a stone / across the waters of time / here’s a few books that might, / no, definitely will, help ya on yer way.’

I enjoyed a book about one of my favorite Dylan albums, Andy Gill & Kevin Odegard’s A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the making of Blood on the Tracks. ‘A Simple Twist of Fate tells the story of the making of this watershed work. In language that is remarkably disciplined for a book about a major rock ‘n’ roll celebrity, Gill and Odegard lay out a tale that is surprisingly complex. And it’s a sad and sordid tale, indeed …’

I gave mixed reviews to a couple of other Dylan books, C.P. Lee’s Like the Night (Revisited): Bob Dylan and the road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall; and Derek Barker’s Isis: A Bob Dylan Anthology. He has some minor quibbles with the former book, whose author was a journalist but also attended the legendary “Judas” concert: ‘Lee seems to be of the common school of British music writing; which is to say, sometimes more concerned with an enthusiastic style than with the rules of the Queen’s English.’ Of the latter, he notes that it’s a collection of articles from an old fanzine, with the good and bad that implies: ‘All in all, Isis is an uneven read. Completists probably already have all the issues of the ‘zine, and hardly anybody but a completist will want to slog through the whole book.’

But I gave quite high marks to David Hajdu’s Positively 4th Street, which delves into the lives and times of Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joan’s sister and brother-in-law, Richard and Mimi Fariña. ‘True Dylanologists probably won’t find anything new here, but that’s not what Hajdu is trying to provide. He gives an insider’s look at four young people who were caught up in the explosion of youth culture in the 1960s, and who also helped shape it to some extent.’

David was fascinated by the historic video called Dylan Speaks: The Legendary 1965 Press Conference In San Francisco, when it was released on DVD. ‘Bob Dylan speaks to the press. He looks so young. His face… fresh, almost glowing, topped by a curly mop of hair; his mouth sometimes smirking always expressive, lips pursed as he ponders his next one word response. There is not a bit of music, no songs, no guitar, no harmonica rack… just Bob Dylan in tweedy jacket sitting at a desk behind a motley set of microphones  …’

As part of a review of some Dylan tribute CDs, David covered a performance DVD of Bryan Ferry’s Dylanesque Live: The London Sessions, (which was also released on CD). ‘It’s not the most visually interesting ovideo I’ve ever seen. Everyone basically stands there doing their thing, while Ferry sits on the stool, lyrics on a music stand in front of him. OK, he moves his shoulders in time with the beat. He plays a bit of harmonica, he smiles, he adds a touch on the Farfisa. The musicians, though, play well. The arrangements are creative, using the Dylan songs as a jumping- off point. There is no slavish copying here. Ferry finds the melody in Dylan’s songs which are sometimes obscured by Bob’s own voice. He doesn’t oversing anything. There’s no American Idol warbling, just the songs and the odd sizzling guitar solo arising from the mix.’

I reviewed The Traveling Wilburys’ Collection, which brought together the rock supergroup’s two CDs plus a DVD with videos, interviews, and a short documentary film. ‘One of the best parts of the package is that documentary, which captures the Wilburys, otherwise known as George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, in the process of recording Traveling Wilburys Volume 1. If like me you love peering behind the curtain of the recording process, this is a real treat.’

Charles de Lint gave a mixed review to a batch of reissues from 2009, New Morning, Dylan & the Dead, Before the Flood, and The Basement Tapes: ‘I’m a big fan of the remastered series of Bob Dylan’s catalogue that Columbia’s been piecing out to us over the years. I don’t think they sound as good as pristine copies of the original vinyl, but for digital versions, they’re very warm and rich, with lots of detail. But I’m not one hundred percent delighted with this new batch. I suppose it’s not really Columbia’s fault. They’ve pretty much released everything by this point and now they’re just filling holes. But still.’

Charles liked one new Dylan album, Together Through Life, better than the critics initially did. ‘The lyrics, mostly in collaboration with The Grateful Dead’s Robert Hunter, are sharp and to the point, telling stories of love and heartache and the mess of the world, using those smart turns of phrase which we always associate with Dylan. And there’s still room for humour, albeit dark, as in “My Wife’s Hometown” (which is Hell, in case you were wondering).’

David and I teamed up to review a small handful of Dylan albums from the batch that Columbia remastered in 2003, including Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Nashville Skyline, and Blood On the Tracks. Of one of them, David noted: ‘ “Nashville Skyline Rag” was the first instrumental to grace a Dylan album, and on this new version the guitars of Norman Blake and Charlie Daniels, Kenny Buttrey’s drums, Charlie McCoy’s bass, and Pete Drake’s pedal steel are so warm that it feels like you’re right in the middle of the session. This was the second album to feature Dylan’s post-motorcycle accident vocals. No longer the scruffy Woody Guthrie wannabe, the kid had developed a chesty croon to sell these new country songs with. The hybrid Super Audio sound adds depth to the recording.’

David reviewed a small handful of Dylan tribute and cover albums including Highway 61 Revisited’s The World’s Only Bob Dylan Tribute Band, Jackie Greene & Sal Valentino’s Positively 12th & K, and Howard Fishman’s Performs Bob Dylan & The Band’s ‘Basement Tapes’ Live At Joe’s Pub (plus a Bryan Ferry DVD, which we discuss in the Film section above). ‘It’s something every guitar picker out there has done,’ he says. ‘It didn’t matter if you were a great player, or a great singer, you would sit down with your Yamaha FG-180 on your lap and play through the Bob Dylan songbook. Three chord progressions, maybe a relative minor, and you were away. Over the years there have been dozens if not hundreds of albums (or at least songs) performed in interpretive versions by artists all over the world.’

David loved another Dylan tribute album, Caught in the Convent by The Dylan Project, a group of top-notch UK folk-rockers. What’s it all about: ’20 of Mr Zimmerman’s songs, both the well and some lesser known played with the expertise of musicians who have been in the business for almost 50 years and who really know their Dylan. Do not expect any copies of His Bobness’sown performances; the Dylan Project play the songs their own way, not straying to far from the original but adapting it to their own style.’

And I turned in a newly written review of Dylan’s 1992 album: ‘Good As I Been To You at the time was seen as a return to the acoustic folk music of his early career, but with hindsight it also pointed the way to many of his later, very popular albums that have continued to explore the riches of the folk tradition — both Black and Anglo-European — of the United States of America.’

Gary here again. Of course, music goes on here in the present, and I have a review or two of new releases to share with you.

I’m enjoying a new collection of Finnish folk music called Nouse Luonto: Lauluja Monimuotoisuudestat (which means “Songs About Diversity,” as in the diversity of the natural world). ‘As with any collection, some listeners will be drawn more to some songs than to others. It begins with something anybody who knows Finnish music will recognize, a lovely dance tune “Vid Stormyren” from Frigg. And … it ends with a group sing-along on a song titled “Vaskilintu,” the multiple voices accompanied by lots of violins, some accordions, woodwinds and more; it’s lovely and very moving.’

Another winner is Mathias Eick Quartet’s Lullaby, featuring the warm, often melancholy tones of this Norwegian trumpet player and composer. ‘This is such a strong and appealing album from beginning to end, I think it’s going to figure prominently in my listening for some time to come. Whether playing in ballad mode or more upbeat and rhythmic numbers, this quartet truly shines, with the expert touch of Manfred Eicher producing.’

Finally, I found a lot to like on Folk and Great Tunes from Belarus. ‘The collection is two discs, each with songs by the same 10 bands, plus a bonus by an eleventh band on Disc 1. There’s plenty of variety within that framework. One thing that surprised me was the presence of bagpipes in at least a couple of the bands. Turns out the use of pipes in Belarus apparently goes back at least to the 15th century.’

So let’s finish Bob with Dylan and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Al Kooper at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 performing ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. This was the second of the three songs in the ‘Bob Dylan goes electric’ controversy there, played right after ‘Maggie’s Farm’ and before ‘Phantom Engineer’. He then left the stage and came back to play two more songs on an acoustic guitar. Some folkies still are angry at him.