Another Self Portrait on vinyl

... and the world doesn't need any more publicity for Volume 10 of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series - Another Self Portrait.

The press and the internet has - quite rightly - been full of praise for a well-curated, revelatory and frequently downright beautiful set of songs from the master at his fin-des-sixties crossroads.

But I have so far failed to spot anyone specifically raving about the vinyl version. May I fill that gap?

Sony get some deserved stick for their exploitative 'deluxe' versions of releases like this. The main selling point of the four-CD box set of this set (retailing at around £75) is the inclsusion of the full Isle of Wight 1969 concert. But that is also included on the MP3 version, selling at £10.99. So £64 for hardback versions of the - admittedly very attractive and photo-filled accompanying booklets, plus a remastered version of the original Self Portrait, which this release is designed to make obsolete. Not an obvious bargain.

The vinyl set is rather different. Three heavy and sonically precise records in a very sturdy slipcase. Plus 2 CDs of the main album, plus a 12" softcover version of the booklet. I got mine for under £45 preordering from Amazon, though the price now seems to rising rather sharply. (I tend to distrust record company blurbs about 'limited editions' but I suspect demand will exceed supply with this - it certainly ought to.)

The attention to detail is really nice. Not only do you get three different sleeves for the records which are modelled on picture sleeves for Dylan singles released around the Self Portrait / New Morning era, you even get different inner sleeves, copying plain 7" sleeves of the period from Italy, Uruguay and... where? It's red where the British would have been orange.

The only criticism, I suppose, is that they didn't include the Isle of Wight set - but that would have needed two more discs and a bigger box. I'm happy with a separate download for now. And they can always take some more money off us in the future with a dedicated vinyl release.

I am sure Sony will continue to get flack for their handling of the Dylan back catalogue in the future. (Why no complete Blood On The Tracks sessions yet? What about the Basement Tapes? etc, etc) But for now, with this particular version of a very fine compilation, they should be basking in the warm glow of a job well done.

Leonard Cohen at the Brighton Centre

There's not a lot of point in doing a full review of a Leonard Cohen concert these days. If you're at all interested in the man, you'll know he's been back on the road during the last six years, playing wonderful, warm and lengthy shows to adoring audiences. And if you're not interested, you don't care.

But the consistent quality, wit, sparkle and sheer stamina of rock's most remarkable soon-to-be-79-year-old really has to be acknowledged. He was on stage for the best part of three hours at the Brighton Centre last night: 20 songs in the main set and a final total of eight encores (count 'em and weep, Bruce...), after he couldn't resist trumping the neat trick of following 'Closing Time' with 'I Tried To Leave You' with a sprightly final twirl through The Drifters' 'Save The Last Dance For Me'.

Len and I go back a long way - as far as Manchester's Belle Vue in 1972. I've never seen him play a bad show, but I think yesterday's may well have been the best. Five songs from last year's Old Ideas were seamlessly interwoven with the old classics, with 'Going Home' particularly effective sandwiched between storming versions of 'So Long, Marianne' and 'First We Take Manhattan' in the first batch of encores.

The band are all superb. I missed Dino Soldo, the maestro of 'instruments of wind' who was in the band who played on the Live In London album, but the addition of fiddler Alexandru Bublitchi adds some new and different textures. New guitarist Mitch Watkins (an alumnus of Lyle Lovett's Large Band and sometime tutor at the University of Texas) is also very fine, particularly when he takes up a hollow-bodied Telecaster for some stinging country-tinged licks. And what to say about the wonderful Javier Mas? He is almost certainly the finest exponent of the laud, archilaud and bandurria I have seen, but then I've just had to look up those names. The archilaud is pretty much like an oud and the bandurria like a Spanish mandolin - and Mas is simply glorious on anything with strings. (Check out his contribution to Jackson Browne and David Lindley's Love Is Strange urgently if that classic collection has not yet found a place in your life...)

What else to say? The Webb sisters and Sharon Robinson sing beautifully. Leonard is endearingly humble in the face of adulation. The way he rises effortlessly from his frequent kneelings and skips off-stage Eric Morecambe-like would still have been impressive were he a couple of decades younger. But at the heart of all of it he is still reliably nailing absolute killer songs in peak performances - last night 'Suzanne', 'Chelsea Hotel #2' and 'The Partisan' were all spine-tinglingly good, and I could say the same of more than half a dozen others.

See now, while stocks last: he's promising to start smoking again when he hits 80...

Edmonton Folk Festival, 8-11 August 2013

So, here we are again. My fifth visit to the Edmonton Folk Fest in some 20 years.

The city's Gallagher Park provides an ideal setting, with a natural amphitheatre for the main stage and tree-screens separating off some of the six smaller stages. The setting also keeps it fairly intimate, with a limit of about 13,000 tickets a day. And it's all within half an hour's walk of downtown hotels.

There's a special atmosphere, with what seems like a peculiarly Canadian combination of rules and relaxation which can occasionally rankle but - overall - does the trick. Alcohol is confined to a single beer garden, with long queues at busy times both to get in and then get served. The territory of the hill is geometrically staked out with blue tarps (or groundsheets, for UK readers). Dancing is confined to areas at the sides of stages. And yet, particularly around the side stages, there's a real sense of relaxed, appreciation of the music and of a shared experience between performers and audience. You often see musicians wandering between stages, available to chat, but not being unreasonably hassled.

We weren't particularly interested in the headliners this year - Feist, Bruce Cockburn, Loreena McKennit - so tended to leave early, but didn't feel at all short-changed, having seen a host of magical concerts and workshop combinations on the small stages. That approach also meant we missed the torrential thunderstorms which closed proceedings early on Sunday evening, after four dry days with lots of sun...

A hard call, but I think my star performer was Lisa Hannigan, whose music I already knew, playing alongside John Smith, a new discovery for me.

Lisa's pictured here recording a live session in local radio station CKUA's tent - and it's typical of this festival that I and maybe 20 others could sit and watch that the morning after she'd drawn a standing ovation on the main stage. I don't think most of the audience had heard her before and at the start her sometimes delicate and understated songs, in sparse arrangements, were competing with the chatter of the settling crowd. But she, John Smith and Ross Turner won them over, with some excellent dynamics, powerful singing and beguiling chat.

By the time of 'Safe Travels (Don't Die)', which Lisa nicely dedicated to herself, given the travails of a travelling musician, the audience were hanging on every word. And, of course, her words are well worth hanging on:

Don't swallow bleach

Out on Sandymount Beach

I'm not sure I'd reach

You in time...

Then, grouped around a single microphone to close the set, the trio topped that with a beautifully sung cover of 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down', having just met Amy Helm backstage. Lisa told CKUA next day that she had wanted to be an opera singer, spending her youth listening to Maria Callas, before finding that her voice was 'too small'. When you hear the power she can unleash when she chooses to it's difficult to imagine what a 'big' version might have sounded like...

As well, as backing Hannigan, John Smith gave an excellent account of himself in a solo concert on Sunday and on a range of workshop stages. He's a lovely guitarist with a strong clear voice, reminiscent of a young John Martyn. He also showed both taste and confidence by covering Richard Thompson's 'Beeswing' in one session.

It's funny how fashions in cover versions seem to go. I was surprised and pleased to hear Del Barber tackle Thompson's '1952 Vincent Black Lightning' in Canmore, then up pops the redoubtable Dick Gaughan in Edmonton to do the same song a week later. Dick was just the same as I've seen him before, both in Edmonton and back in the UK - and that is a compliment. His distinctive Scots voice is matched by a strong percussive guitar style and the fire in his belly is clearly burning just as strongly as ever. Introducing 'Lemmings', a song about Tony Blair and other politicians of that ilk, he explained it was

'an attempt to express in music the sound of sheep following headless chickens'

before recounting with relish a friend's description of him as someone who'd

'stopped being an angry young man and become a bad-tempered old bastard'.

Well, old bastardhood suits him. He's a compelling solo performer and a warm and engaged workshop participant.

The other fashion to note in covers is the rise of Jackson Browne. Lisa Hannigan and John Smith have been supporting him (or 'Jackson Bro', as Smith joked - 'he's everybody's brother') and turned in a lovely version of 'These Days' to set beside the rather different one I'd heard from Braden Gates at Canmore a week before.

Sara Watkins has been touring with The Man too and has become

attached to his songs and his Jacksonness...

She and her brother Sean played 'Your Bright Baby Blues' beautifully, bringing out all the strengths of one of Browne's finest sets of lyrics. It's amazing to think that Sara, now just 32, played with Sean in Nickel Creek for all of 18 years. She continues to play the fiddle extraordinarily well and there is a real assurance in her solo performances, with a rasp coming into her her voice for angry songs like 'When It Pleases You', as she shakes her bow for emphasis.

Sara was also a participant in one of my three contenders for session of the festival. She turned up at one on Saturday afternoon somewhat oddly titled 'Great Expectations' by the festival organisers ('Anyone got a rhyme for Pip?' guitarist Steve Briggs enquired), along with Country swing specialist Russell deCarle, bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers, and a young harmony-singing duo The Milk Carton Kids. It all blended beautifully, with a very strong set of musicians able quickly to join in on each others' songs and playing up a storm.

The second on my list was the School of Song stage at Sunday lunchtime. I'd headed there primarily to catch some more of fiddler/guitarist/singer/songwriter prodigy Braden Gates, who I've already written about in my review of the Canmore Festival. He was just as good in Edmonton as the week before, and his 'Gator's Gym Girl' is definitely the song of this year's trip to Canada:

The stage is too big for one

The stage is too small for three

The stage is too big for one, for one

There's room for just you and me

The other School folks - including Cayley Thomas-Haug, Alex Vissia and Jordan Norman - all go for it strongly and there's a real warmth and sense of mutual support as they back each others' songs. They closed a fine session with Neil Young's 'Helpless' and managed to get School organiser Rhea March up to join in with them. A well-deserved standing ovation followed: this seems to be an admirable project, helping some talented young Albertans develop.

My third session to note is the Ron Hynes, Fatoumata Diawara, Cold Specks, Lisa Hannigan, John Smith collaboration late on Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure that gnarled Newfoundlander Ron was an ideal fit for this, but he had to leave early to catch a plane after a couple of songs. There were then some great groove-based jams led by the Malian Diawara, with Hannigan and Cold Specks' Al Spx coaxed into improvising vocal lines over some lovely textures featuring sax and bass clarinet and three percussionists.

Immediately, before that I'd caught a concert by Galician piper Carlos Nuñez. I'd gone with a slight sense that it was the worthy thing to do and that I would be ethnomusicologically educated by the experience... Well, I might have been but I was also blasted and entertained by a high-energy set featuring Canadian fiddler and step dancer Jon Pilatzke, Carlos's brother Xurxo on percussion (anything from a couple of shells to a bodhran)... and a guest appearance from the Edmonton and District Pipe Band. Amazing.

Two more acts to commend to you.

I hadn't seen Dave Alvin before and didn't know his music. I was conscious that he'd co-written the beautiful 'California Snow' with Tom Russell and was vaguely expecting something in similar style.

Then three unsmiling Fender-slinging cowboys strode onto the stage, behind heavy shades and in front of a similarly sun-glassed drummer Lisa Pankratz, unleashing the solid groove and stinging licks of some sort of Platonic ideal of a roadhouse band, while daring you to find anything even faintly ridiculous about second guitarist Chris Miller's neat grey pigtails...

They soon lightened up and broad smiles broke out as Dave struck guitar-slinger poses, while the power and attack of the music continued. Great songs like 'Harlan County Line', '4th of July', 'Long White Cadillac' - all failed romance, bruised hearts and the dust of the road

...she gives me her cheek

But I want her lips.

Great stuff: there's clearly a back catalogue I need to catch up with and I feel a record-buying binge coming on.

I have belatedly realised that I failed to write about strong performances from Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac  at Canmore. They also brought the Gaelic songs and airs of Cape Breton Island to the Edmonton Festival to similar effect. Ably supported by guitarist Seph Peters and percussionist/accordionist Kath Porter they made some beautiful music. It's always good to have some more traditional sounds in amongst the modern stylings and they do it with both assurance and warmth.

I should also squeeze in one of the best jokes of the festival, from a session they played at. Host Tony McManus announced there were just two minutes left and mused about what to play. He got an initial laugh by launching into a Led Zeppelin epic but then asked if we knew the Scottish version and shifted into a folkified rendition of the chord progression - 'Strathspey to Heaven'. Boom boom.

I'll leave Edmonton at that point, recognising that there was a lot more fine music that I haven't mentioned.

For those of you who have not been to the Folk Fest, it's well worth a trip - though getting tickets is not a straightforward process.

For those who have attended and are contemplating returning, rest assured that, amongst other familiar certainties, the green onion cakes are just as good as they were 20 years ago, and the queues to get them just as long.

Edmonton & the joy of record shops

And so to Edmonton.

Not many mountains here - there are few straighter lines than the prairie horizon I'm tracking from my hotel window - but the downtown skyline still gives a dramatic backdrop to the festival site in Gallagher Park.

The music starts in earnest this evening, with the first batch of workshop sessions spread over six small stages. More on that later.

For now, let's celebrate the eternally welcoming sight of a decent record store, wherever in the world you happen to find it.

I've spent a pleasant couple of hours with the vinyl racks at Freecloud followed by a nice chat with owner Richard Liukko and visiting CKUA disc jockey Tom Coxworth, fresh from his emceeing duties in Canmore and now following up here. I got some good recommendations from Tom for the Folk Fest and, in return, encouraged him to make the acquaintance of Hiss Golden Messenger...

A nice chat and a very nice copy of an old Alice Coltrane record I haven't heard before. Result.

Now for the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dave Swarbrick and many more...

Canmore Folk Music Festival, 3-5 August 2013

Nobody wants a blow-by-blow account of three days packed with music. The two questions about a festival are 'should I go there?' and 'who was good?'.

The first is easily answered: hell, yes - you definitely should go.

Canmore has a a beautiful, almost ridiculously spectacular, setting. Just one of the Rocky peaks which surround it could be the basis for a pretty decent tourist industry but they've got dozens, coming at you from all angles. Centennial Park, the festival site, is gorgeous, with lots of trees to shelter you from the (frequently) hot sun and (equally frequently) sharp storms. Plus it's in the middle of town, with easy parking and bars and restaurants 5 minutes walk away should you tire of festival food...

It's intimate: a crowd of about 5000, who seem open and appreciative of different styles. You can always find a decent view and the sound is generally excellent - with a standard quibble about bleed between the small stages and a particular one for the main stage that the first few rows are in front of the PA speakers and so you're subject to the vagaries of the on-stage mix if you get too close. 

I went to Canmore already expecting good things from Del Barber, having heard a couple of things from him at Brighton's Great Escape and then catching up with his excellent Headwaters album. He did not disappoint: three fine sessions in different combinations, before an hour on the main stage on Monday which drew a standing ovation. 'By their covers shall ye know them...' and Del ranged from John Prine to a lovely, slow take on Neil Young's 'Harvest Moon' and a brave but utterly convincing version of Richard Thompson's '1952 Vincent Black Lightning'.

He has a clear strong voice, good finger-picking chops and his songs have both strong melodies and some striking lines: try his sympathetic portrait of 'The Waitress' who

...traded her twenties for a job that never promised more
Her dreams fell asleep on the top bunk and woke up on the floor.

He also has an engaging stage manner and tells a good story - some several times, between workshops and main stage. But when they're as funny as his intro to the sweet (and as yet unrecorded) 'Peter and Jenny Lee', you'll forgive that. And have some confidence that, three albums in, this is a musical career with plenty more to come.

There's less evidence as yet, but I'd say exactly the same about Braden Gates. Just 21, he's a fine fiddler and guitarist from Fort Saskatchewan, emerging from Alberta's School of Song educational outreach programme. There's a slight look of the New York Dolls' David Johansen about him - and a similar insouciance. We came upon him by chance when he played a confident and entertaining set at the festival pub and then sought him out at various workshops.

His covers test provided reference points ranging from Bruce ('I'm On Fire'), through Jackson Browne (a beautiful, reflective 'These Days') all the way to a folkified Beastie Boys' 'Fight For Your Right (To Party)' (and, yes, it worked). Then there's a track on his debut album, Break It To Me Gently, called 'We Sing The Beatles' about passing a guitar around which also name checks Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. He's successfully building his own strong songwriting on some good foundations. Add in a beautifully fluid-wristed fiddle technique and the confidence to tackle testing tunes like 'Hangman's Reel', and you're on to something very special.

I was reminded several times of a young Loudon Wainwright: by some similar gurning and grimacing as he hits the notes, but also for the sharpness of his observation and sly humour - he's another born raconteur, in both his songwriting and his on-stage introductions. I can still see - and almost smell - Chicago Bob, the retired bank-robber Braden encountered in the Commercial Hotel in Old Strathcona and who inspired 'Life's A Picture'...

So, a very strong Eden On The Line recommendation that you check out young Braden at your earliest opportunity, live, on record, or indeed here on YouTube.

I'm not sure that I'd want to sit at home and listen to their recordings, but on stage Denmark's rambunctious Habadekuk are an irresistible force. A 9-piece featuring fiddle, accordion and a glorious brass section they churn jazz and folk and all sorts into a tidal wave of sound - and seem, infectiously, to be having the time of their lives. If you get the opportunity to see them, do take it.

I would give the same advice about fiddler Jaron Freeman-Fox - and am also looking forward to listening to him on record. His main gig at the festival was as a guest member of Oliver Swain's Big Machine, but he cropped up all over the place in workshops and guest slots, adding real magic wherever he went.

He plays a 5-string fiddle and deploys its extra range to great effect, at home in a wide range of styles: his own compositions use looping to set up atmospheric soundscapes; he seems equally at home rocking out or blending in to more traditional tunes.

Band leader Oliver Swain seems to have a real knack for gathering excellent musicians around him and bringing out the best from them.

My award for the very best session from a fine set of musical encounters in Canmore has to go to a Big Machine/Ben Sollee/Del Barber jam on Monday afternoon. The combination of Freeman-Fox's fiddle with Sollee's cello and Swain's double bass - with added percussion, Emily Braden's beautiful jazz-inflected vocals and Adam Dobres' fine guitar - set up a rolling beast of a sound which seemed to surprise and delight its creators just as much as their audience. Everything from straight country to 'Kentucky calypso' to chaingang hollers was grist to a very fine mill...

Thank you, Canmore. Next stop, Edmonton.