CD Review - "Americana" by Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Americana - the new Neil Young & Crazy Horse album

Neil Young doing an album of traditional American folk songs? Not too surprising, eh? Some nice, laid-back arrangements, presumably, dominated by acoustic guitars – similar to the easy-going vibe of Comes a Time (1978)?

 

Well, that’s not what this is at all. This is Neil Young and Crazy Horse. This is garage-band, rough-at-the-edges, crunchy rock, reminiscent of Ragged Glory (1990) - what Rolling Stone magazine refers to as “one of those fraternal freak-guitar slopfests”. I don’t know, is that meant as a compliment?

Traditions - yes,  Americana is an album of traditional folk, but it's done in the traditional Neil Young & Crazy Horse style: rough and loose, nearly all recorded live off the floor without overdubs – the way they like it. And the way I like it too.

There’s 57 minutes of music, here – 11 tracks with fairly tight arrangements - for these guys, anyway. They only really stretch out on “Tom Dula” (their version of “Tom Dooley”), which clocks in at 8:13. The sequencing of the tracks is artful. The less-interesting-because-overly-familiar songs (Stephen Foster’s “Oh Susannah”, for example, or “Clementine”) come early. But then the album presents some more intriguing choices and moves through several changes of pace towards a barn-storming finish.

Americana has been getting very mixed reviews, since its release just over two weeks ago. I reckon some critics have judged it too quickly – jaded by some of its content and alienated, perhaps, by its apparently slap-dash approach and incongruous (for some listeners) arrangements. Some seem to detect an arch and cynical attitude to some of the material, but I don’t hear that at all.

Neil Young - guitar hero

I don’t know about you, but I find I usually stick with my initial impression of a new album. But I will listen to it at least half-a-dozen times before attempting to write about it - even more times, if I find my response is particularly ambivalent. Americana begins with a very ragged intro: Neil picking out a few notes on guitar, then shifting around with some tentative chords – before Ralph Molina starts banging on the drums, and they slide into their groove after half a minute. Immediately it sounds like a jam session – and that ambience is emphasised at the end of the track when the band erupts into laughter off-mic and you hear Neil exclaim to the band: “It’s funky … it’s good … it gets into a good groove.” Indeed. My initial impression? Oh, yeah. Nice!

It may be ragged and hard, but it sounds good. Neil Young has always been concerned about the audio quality of his albums; and he has been a long-term critic of digital sound because of its limited frequency response – especially in the early days of CDs. No surprise, then, to see that this album is an A-A-D production: it was recorded on an Audio Tube console to 2” 8-track analogue tape; then mixed to ½” 2-track analogue tape; before finally being transferred to digital. Yes, it may be ragged, but it sounds good – especially the tone on Neil’s electric guitar!

Neil Young and Crazy Horse - back in the early days.

Americana was produced by Neil Young and John Hanlon. Crazy Horse features Ralph Molina on drums and vocals, Billy Talbot on bass and vocals, and Frank “Poncho” Sampedro on guitar, organ and vocals. Neil, of course, plays lead guitar and sings – with the rest of the band providing a kind of “Greek chorus” style of backing vocals. One of the secrets to the appeal of this long-standing relationship between Neil and Crazy Horse (which goes all the way back to 1968, and was first featured – memorably - on disc with Neil’s second album Everybody Knows This Nowhere in 1969) is the distinctive mixture of hard and smooth in their sound. And that shows here: they thrash away as a hard-rock band, but the vocal backing is sweet and harmonious - if a little ragged. But it's honest and real, instead of slick and air-brushed with auto-tuner.

What we have here, primarily, is a set of campfire songs done in the style of heavy, garage-band rock. There’s Foster’s “Oh Susannah”, the traditional folk pieces “Clementine”, “Tom Dula”,  “Gallow’s Pole”, “Travel On”, “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” (called “Jesus’ Chariot” here), and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”. And, despite the grunge-styled approach, the campfire mood is retained, and I find myself bursting out into song throughout.

Neil Young’s detailed liner notes for each song reveal an interesting aesthetic throughout. Although nearly all the material is traditional folk, they deliberately choose arrangements that pay tribute to pop and folk-rock versions of the songs from the fifties and sixties. “Gallows Pole”, for example, is based on the Odetta version from the ‘60s. And the group’s rendition of “Travel On” is based on a Paul Clayton arrangement - which is itself based on a 1958 version done by Billy Grammer. Reading the notes, then, heightens the sense of the historical continuity the band brings to these old songs. 

Neil - still rockin' out!

And there are some surprises. They do a very sloppy version of the doo-wop classic “Get a Job” – using the original arrangement by The Silhouettes. Neil claims this is a folk song – because of its proletarian subject matter. Hmm …  And one of the highlights of the disc, for me, is a bluesy rendition of “High Flyin’ Bird”, a song written by Billy Edd Wheeler for The Company. Neil and band copy the arrangement recorded by The Squires in 1964, which had Neil’s colleague Stephen Stills on lead vocals. This is a moving song:

“There’s a high flyin’ bird way up in the sky;

And I wonder if she looks down as she flies on by,

Just floating so free and easy in the sky;

But look at me here, I’m just rooted like a tree here,

I got them sit down, can’t fly, oh Lord, I’m gonna die blues.”

Oh, and if you are looking for a folky acoustic guitar piece - there is one that Neil does: it’s a lovely version of “Wayfarin’ Stranger”, based on Burl Ives’ 1944 recording.

But the two epics here are the Woody Guthrie piece and a clever version of “God Save the Queen” – no, not The Sex Pistols classic, but the British national anthem. For Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land”, Neil adds a choir and brings in Stephen Stills and wife Pegi to help with the vocals. A real campfire feel here. Good to see, too, that Young goes back to the original Guthrie lyrics. Most people are probably only familiar with the adapted lyrics of Peter, Paul and Mary – where the song became a kind of paen to the beauty of the America landscape. Guthrie’s song is political protest – it’s actually about the tyranny of private property – how it separates the people from land that is rightfully theirs to enjoy.

“As I went walking, I saw a sign there,

And on the sign it said ‘No Trespassing’,

But on the other side, it didn’t say nothing -

That side was made for you and me.”

Neil Young

The album closes with an intriguing version of “God Save The Queen” – not designed, as some might think, or hope, as a tribute to Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee! No, it’s a folklorist’s approach – arranged as  a clever medley. The track starts with the first two verses of the British national anthem; and then morphs seamlessly into the American song “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, which shares the same tune. The transition, Neil writes, is “in recognition of the War of Independence and America’s transition to freedom.” An interesting way to finish the album – for a former Commonwealth citizen, and now long-term resident of the United States.

So, this is probably the most interesting album that Neil Young and Crazy Horse have put together since 1996’s  Broken Arrow. And it’s not just grunge-rock renditions of old folk songs. There’s a lot more going on than that. And a few real gems. If you dig the Neil Young with Crazy Horse brand, you’re likely to enjoy their latest album. I did – but as a long-term folky and Neil Young fan, that’s really no surprise, is it?

Book Review: Charles Dickens 6 - "Barnaby Rudge"

Dickens in 1841 - lithograph from a lost portrait

Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens’s fifth novel, could very well have been his first. He conceived of it early in his writing career. Twice he contracted himself to writing it, but then twice he delayed. The novel had the longest and most convoluted gestation of all his books.

In early May 1836, the 24-year-old author signed an agreement with publisher John Macrone to write an historical novel to be called Gabriel Varden, The Locksmith of London. Macrone had published Dickens’s first book, Sketches by Boz, only a couple of months earlier. The up-and-coming writer was now planning a novel. In return for his commitment, Macrone gave Dickens an advance payment of £200. 

But Dickens had already begun writing a serialized novel for Chapman & Hall, and the first installment of The Pickwick Papers was printed at the end of March, 1836. Work began to pile up for the ambitious author. Before long he had too much on his plate, and he asked to be released from his agreement with Macrone later that year.

About a year later, in the autumn of 1837, as The Pickwick Papers neared the completion of its monthly serialisation, Dickens began to think again of Gabriel Varden. But his plans for the novel were diverted again – this time by the writing of Nicholas Nickleby for Chapman & Hall. Dickens had also taken on the job of editing a monthly magazine back in late 1836 for a third publisher, Richard Bentley. He promised Bentley that he would eventually deliver a new novel, the long-delayed Gabriel Varden, in October of 1838. But these plans were also postponed. 

In 1839, after the Dickens household had moved from Doughty Street to Devonshire Terrace, Dickens began writing the novel in earnest. He had two chapters completed, but then suddenly broke off, annoyed and offended by certain business disagreements with Bentley. He weaseled his way out of his contract with Bentley – exerting the power he had developed now over publishers, because of his enormous commercial success.

Finally, Dickens got serious about the novel, after he had finished publication of The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey’s Clock – a weekly periodical he was editing for publishers Chapman & Hall. He knew from experience that his magazine would only flourish if he included the serialisation of one of his own novels. A new one was required after the incredible success of the story of Little Nell. So, the long-delayed historical novel finally emerged. He began writing on January 29, 1840 – only eight days after completing The Old Curiosity Shop. He quickly had a third chapter finished – to add to those he’d completed the previous year.

Cover wrapper of Barnaby Rudge

Barnaby Rudge was written and published in 88 weekly parts between February 1840 and November 1841. It was illustrated by George Cattermole and Hablot Knight Browne (‘Phiz’). Once he got into it, Dickens wrote rapidly. At the beginning of June, for example, he wrote four chapters in only six days, averaging about 2,300 words a day!  And in July he knocked off six chapters in twelve days. But this was a different kind of book than that with which his audience was familiar. At the height of the frenzy for The Old Curiosity Shop it was selling 100,000 copies. Barnaby Rudge managed about 30,000.

If Barnaby Rudge had been Charles Dickens’s first novel, and a success to boot, his career might have turned out dramatically different. The Pickwick Papers –  after a slow start – became a huge hit. And it established the young author as a comic novelist recognised more for his brilliance in the creation of characters, than his ability to create well-structured plots. Even when he turned his hand to more melodramatic novels like Oliver Twist, Dickens used characterisation – exaggerated and often grotesque – to advance his story. His novels worked best when based on satire, rather than plot. Barnaby Rudge, however, ran counter to that mold. It was an historical novel, written in the style of Walter Scott.

Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (to give it its full title) has a more carefully-structured plot than is usual for Charles Dickens. And that may be the result of his having delayed it so long, but thought about it, therefore, for nearly five years. It tells the story of the Gordon Riots of 1780 – a series of anti-Catholic protests. In 1778, the English government had enacted the Papists Act. This act eliminated some of the harshest penalties that had been imposed on Roman Catholics in England by the Popery Act of 1698 – such as the need to swear an oath of loyalty when entering the armed forces. Lord George Gordon became President of the Protestant Association in 1779 and he fomented vigorous opposition to the legislation. He and his followers achieved some success in Scotland, but things turned out differently in England. On June 2, 1780, a huge crowd of about 50,000 people marched on the Houses of Parliament in London, in support of Gordon’s political initiative at Westminster. But Parliament voted against Gordon’s motion 192-6. An initial peaceful protest turned into widespread rioting, looting, and destruction. The army was finally called out on June 7^th. 285 people were shot dead; about 200 were wounded. Lord Gordon was arrested and charged with high treason, but later acquitted.

The Gordon Riots - a painting by Charles Green

Barnaby Rudge provides a gripping account of the riots in London, which begin about half-way through the book. Beforehand, though, he establishes a set of characters in the village of Chigwell, north-east of London: there are working people centred around the Maypole Inn and aristocrats living in a mansion nearby called The Warren. These characters intersect with some Londoners: the family of Gabriel Varden, a locksmith, and Barnaby and Mary Rudge, whose history is tied to the residents of The Warren. In a series of typically Dickensian coincidences, all of these characters are drawn into the events of the Gordon Riots, a few taking on prominent roles in the protests and riots.

Barnaby Rudge is one of the least-known and least-admired of Dickens’s novels. It has only been adapted for TV and film twice – a silent film made in 1915 and a BBC production back in 1960. It is easy to understand why. It is one of only two historical novels that he wrote (the other being A Tale of Two Cities). Dickens was at his best writing social satire full of broad and humorous characterisation. And that is not what this book is about. But he does employ some familiar techniques.

Simon Tappertit, the locksmith's apprentice (left), Gabriel Varden and Dolly Varden - by 'Phiz'

There are some comic characters – the usual puffed-up and pompous types typical in Dickens: there’s Simon Tappertit, an apprentice of the locksmith Gabriel Varden, and captain of the ‘Prentice Knights; and the shrewish Miss Miggs, the domestic servant of Mrs. Varden. There are some villains: the loathsome aristocrat Sir John Chester; and the devious Mr. Gashford, secretary to Lord Gordon. And there are some innocent and ineffectual young women, of the usual Dickensian-type, providing love-interest: Dolly Vardon and Emma Haredale.



The Maypole's sinister ostler Hugh - engraving by 'Phiz'



But there are some more interesting and ambivalent characters, too. There’s John Grueby, a servant to Lord Gordon, who turns against the immorality of Gashford and the mob. There’s Geoffrey Haredale, a country gentleman, who can be harsh and abrupt, but is also honest and unselfish. And then there’s Hugh, the wild and rugged ostler at the Maypole Inn, who becomes a leader of the rioters. In the early part of the book he is nothing more than a bestial thug. During the riots, however, he becomes an unlikely leader – almost heroic in his manic energy, a Joan-of-Arc figure who mounts the barricades. And, later, unlike most of the other rioters, he shows a lack of cant, and real sympathy for Barnaby, the innocent young man condemned to die for his role in the riots.



Barnaby Rudge and Grip, the raven - by Fred Barnard



The character of Barnaby Rudge is another intriguing innovation from Charles Dickens. In Oliver Twist, he made a young child the centre of his novel – something, apparently, never done before. And in Barnaby Rudge, he has a title-character who is mentally-handicapped. He is referred to occasionally as the “idiot boy”. William Wordsworth had a poem called “The Idiot Boy” in his Lyrical Ballads (1798). It tells the story of his mother, Betty Foy, struggling to protect her child. The idea of the simpleton representing a kind of naïve and uncorrupted innocence in contrast to the evils found in the world is a theme of the Romantics in the early-half of the nineteenth century. Just as Oliver Twist serves, in his innocence, as a contrast to the depravity of London low-life, so Barnaby Rudge contrasts with the machinations and deceits of the world around him. And his long-suffering mother, Mary Rudge, is the Betty Foy of the book.

Barnaby Rudge was originally titled Gabriel Varden, the Locksmith of London. And one can see why. Varden is introduced as a benevolent, hen-pecked, Pickwickian-type. But he becomes heroic in the climactic section of the book with his open defiance of the mob. They come to his house and ransack the place. They drag him off, with a bag of his own locksmith tools, and try to force him to open Newgate Prison, so they can free all the prisoners and destroy it. He refuses to help them. They drag him off and you fear the worst.

And then there is Grip, the talking Raven – a fascinating character. Grip was a Dickens family pet. It wasn’t their first pet raven, either. Just after Dickens had begun working on Barnaby Rudge, Grip died (from eating too much lead paint, apparently). He had always been fascinated by the bird, and he wrote some facetious letters to friends announcing Grip’s untimely demise. To his artist-friend Daniel Maclise, for example, he wrote:

“You will be greatly shocked and grieved to hear that the Raven is no more. … On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed “Halloa old girl!” (his favorite expression) and died.”

Grip, the raven

Despite the fact that the raven liked to bite everyone’s ankles, the children loved the bird and begged their father to make the animal a character in his new book. And he did. Grip is portrayed as the faithful and much-loved pet of Barnaby, who carries him around in a wicker basket. After Grip's death, Dickens had him taxidermied. When Dickens himself died, the stuffed raven was sold at auction. It eventually came into the hands of American collector Colonel Richard Gimbel, who donated it to the Free Library in Philadelphia in 1971.

But the story doesn’t end there. The American poet and short-story writer Edgar Allen Poe reviewed Barnaby Rudge in 1841 for Graham’s Magazine. He thought that the raven could have been given a more symbolic and prophetic role. He focused on the incident in Chapter Five when a character hears a noise, and asks: “What was that? Him tapping at the door?” referring to Grip. “ ’Tis some one knocking softly at the shutter,” says Mary Rudge, “Who can it be!” Poe met Dickens a year later, during his 1842 speaking tour of the United States. They got on well, and commiserated with each other about the lack of copyright protection for authors of their day. In early 1845 Poe published “The Raven”, his poem about a talking raven, and its ominous refrain of “Nevermore”.

Most of Dickens's novels, we've learned by now, have an essential mystery at the heart of the story - there is invariably a mysterious stranger hovering on the edges of the scene, usually having something to do with the identity of someone's child, or someone's parent. Barnaby Rudge is no exception: there is a mysterious figure who enters the plot early as a kind of ominous highwayman. He regularly reappears - harassing Barnaby's mother, Mary Rudge, who holds some dark secret about his past history. It's all tied up with the fate of Geoffrey Haredale and his niece Emma.

Sir John Chester and son Edward - wood engraving by 'Phiz'

Just before Dickens began to write Barnaby Rudge he had another set-to with his father, John Dickens. Dickens Senior had been running up debts again, and charging things to his son Charles's accounts. This had been happening almost constantly since Charles had become not just financially independent, but actually, at times, quite wealthy - although he had many people, institutions and artistic enterprises that he continued to support. Suffice it to say that he earned a lot of money, but his lifestyle involved very high expenses. The situation with his father got to the point where Charles felt obliged to publish an announcement in several of London's daily newspapers disavowing himself of any charges made against his name through his father. He went so far as to encourage his parents to move abroad. Eventually, he bought a house for them in the south-west of England, where they lived for several unhappy years, before coming back to the capital. Conflict between father and son emerges early as a theme in the new book. The young gentleman Edward Chester is thwarted at every turn by his malevolent father Sir John Chester. And young Joe Willet is thwarted and condescended to by his tyrannical father, the innkeeper John Willet. Not surprising that the older Willet and the older Chester share the same name as Dickens's own father - John. Presumably, Charles's father made note of the fact.

Eighteen years were to pass before Charles Dickens wrote another historical novel (his second) in 1859 - A Tale of Two Cities. It also had as its theme rebellion and revolution. As a progressive, Dickens had sympathies for the vast urban underclass of his era. He disliked unearned wealth and inherited privilege. He admired men of energy and ambition, like himself, but he did not support unfettered capitalism. He was a social reformer – he understood the dangers of revolution. His graphic and gripping depictions of the mayhem wrought by ‘His Majesty King Mob’ during the Gordon Riots of 1780 are reminders of what an unruly crowd can do. The account makes the novel worthwhile to those with an interest in the London of that period. But if it’s the comic characterisations and social satire you appreciate in Dickens’s work, this is one of his novels you might want to skip.



Simon Tappertit, the captain of the 'Prentice Knights - engraving by 'Phiz'



[2012 is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Lots of special events and activities are planned in England this year. Back in 2009, my good friend Tony Grant (in Wimbledon, UK) and I did a pilgrimage to three key Charles Dickens destinations - his birthplace in Portsmouth (the house is a Museum), the house he lived at on Doughty Street in London (now the chief Dickens' museum), and the town he lived in as a child on the north-coast of Kent (Rochester). 

These visits inspired me to begin reading through all Dickens's novels. By last summer I had done six, but stalled in the middle of Dombey and Son. I thought what I could do to mark this special year of Charles Dickens was to start again, read through all 14 of his novels inside the year, and blog about them. I'll give it a try, anyway! So this is the sixth of a series.]

Next: Martin Chuzzlewit

[Resources used: "Introduction" to Barnaby Rudge by Peter Ackroyd  (2005); Dickens by Peter Ackroyd (1990); "Portraits of Charles Dickens (1812-1870)", an excellent web-page collection of Dickens pictures.  Dickens Portraits ]

CD Review: "Locked Down" by Dr. John (Mac Rebennack)

Front cover of Locked Down, the new album

I don’t get it. Don’t the sound engineers listen to the things they’re recording anymore? Or maybe the producers insist that this is actually the sound they want. Why would any musician, or producer, or – especially – engineer, want their record to sound so thin and murky? Why compress all the high-fidelity out of the sound of the music? Maybe they don't listen back to the music in decent sounding speakers? Maybe they only hear the tracks as MP3 files through cheap headphones. [It makes me think of an amusing review that Pete Townshend wrote for Rolling Stone magazine back in the early 70s - a review of The Who's new compilation LP, Meaty Beaty, Big and Bouncy. In an apologia for the poor sound-quality of Shel Talmy's production work, Pete wrote that the singles sounded tinny back then because they were made to be played on tinny-sounding car radios, or tinny-sounding, dinky record players. Very, very few people back then (mid-60s) had high-fidelity sound systems. Are we regressing, then?]

I first noticed this sort of thing back in the mid-eighties, when Richard Thompson began a five-record run of collaborations with producer Mitchell Froom and his engineer Tchad Blake. Their weird notion of how a disc should sound was most evident on Thompson’s Mirror Blue and its follow-up You? Me? Us?. The drumming, for example, sounded like thumping on cardboard boxes. I’m not sure technically what it is exactly that they do – just sounds like they compress and squeeze the frequency response, so that there’s very little low-end and top-end. To me it just sounds flat and muddy.

I mentioned this issue recently in my review of Norah Jones’s new release Little Broken Hearts, produced by Brian Burton (“Danger Mouse”). It featured the same compressed sort of sound. And here we are again, the same phenomenon with Dr. John’s new album, Locked Down. The producer of Locked Down is Dan Auerbach; the engineer is Collin Dupuis. Who is to blame for how bad this sounds? The one … the other … or both? It really is a shame, because this could have been a great album: it’s got a good set of songs, quirky but interesting arrangements, and a committed – often acerbic – point of view. Why does the sound have to be so poor?

Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John

Musician, songwriter and producer Dan Auerbach formed the rock duo The Black Keys back in 2001. Since then, they have released seven studio albums. When they go on the road to perform live, they have a small group of colleagues to fill out the band. Two of those musicians are on this Dr. John album: keyboard-player Leon Michels (also on woodwinds) and bassist Nick Movshon. The rest of the band accompanying Dr. John (who sticks to keyboards here, although he is an accomplished guitarist, too) are Max Weissenfeldt on drums, Brian Olive on guitar and woodwinds, and Dan Auerbach – who, in addition to his work as producer, is also featrured prominently as lead guitarist. All the songs on Locked Down are credited to the entire band. Listening to it, it seems evident that Dr. John is the lyricist; the music, presumably, was worked out collectively in the studio by the entire group. The McCrary Sisters provide soulful background vocals.

Locked Down is an intriguing mixture: in some ways it evokes the psychedelic swamp sound of Mac Rebennack’s late-60s period, when his stage-act was dominated by his Dr. John, the Night Tripper persona (check out the Night Tripper-styled head-dress on the CD's cover photo). But the riff-laden, swamp groove is delivered in a more modern, detached style. That detached, alienated approach is emphasised – perhaps not consciously – by the four pages of photos in the CD’s booklet. Most of the pictures are long-shots. In the close-ups, the musicians are turned away from the camera’s gaze. The one portrait-shot of Rebennack has the top-half of his face hidden by a floppy cap. Nobody smiling; everyone turned away. The message?

Speaking of the message - the lyrics are hard to hear because of the production’s sound and mixing. You have to read the songs in the booklet to make out what Dr. John is singing. These songs are mostly full of political comment – talking mostly about corruption and the abuse of power. “The world is lost,” he croaks, in his inimitable vocal style, “it’s everybody’s business in the kingdom of izzness.” The overall gloom is lightened somewhat at the end of the CD by a couple of more up-beat selections: a tender song addressed to his children – My Children, My Angels, an affecting ballad with a catchy chorus  – and a hymn-like song in praise of the divine – God’s Sure Good, which also features a catchy refrain from the McCrary Sisters.

My photo of Dr. John at the Festival of Friends in Aug., 2010

Musically, the CD is dominated by R&B-styled riffing – usually featuring Dr. John on keyboards, Auerbach on guitar and Michels and Olive on some very bassy woodwinds. And, despite the fact that Rebennack is an excellent keyboard player, he doesn’t take too many solos (there’s a nice one at the end of Revolution, and another in the middle of Ice Age). There are more prominent solos given to Auerbach on guitar – and he favours either a dirty, blues-rock style, or a distinctive, electronic-sounding tone. For me, the highlights are two songs in the middle of the disc: Ice Age and Getaway, which both feature funky poly-rhythms, doubled-up riffing from guitar and keyboards, and some interesting solo-work.

This is a good album. It’s heartening to see an experienced veteran working in full collaboration with a much younger musician, one who is clearly in-synch with the older master. What they’ve come up with is interesting and enjoyable, but – oh my, how disappointing – it could have been so much better, if they’d made it sound good. To my analogue-trained ears, anyway!

Essay: A Canadian's Death on Everest

Shriya Shah-Klorfine died on Mt. Everest (May 19, 2012)

Four people – I’m not so sure it’s appropriate to call them climbers – died on Mt. Everest this past Saturday, 19 May. One of them was a thirty-three-year old Canadian woman; so the incident has received prominent coverage and comment here in the Canadian media.

It was a long-standing dream of Mississauga-resident Shriya Shah-Klorfine to conquer Everest. She was born close to the mountain - in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital. She grew up in Mumbai, India, and emigrated to Canada in 2000. Unfortunately, that dream of hers – not to mention her $65,000 investment in the adventure – pushed her to ignore the advice of experienced Sherpa guides, who advised her to turn back from her summit-attempt, while she still had a chance to get down to safety. She insisted on continuing – reportedly mentioning the money she had spent to get there. She did reach the summit, but died only a hundred metres or so from it, as she collapsed of exhaustion and high-altitude sickness near the beginning of her trek down.

The southern approach to Everest via Nepal

Although Ms. Shah-Klorfine must take the ultimate blame for her unfortunate fate – and I say that with all due respect to her memory, and with commiserations for her family and friends – what happened on Everest last week was a fiasco and a moral disgrace. Four deaths in one day – not because of an avalanche, or a plummet down a deep crevasse, but because of a preventable traffic jam. No controls; no regulations. Free-enterprise adventurism gone terribly wrong.

The whole Mt. Everest scene has morphed away from what used to be the ultimate climbing challenge for highly-experienced mountaineers into the ultimate tourist-destination for those seeking a glamorous and impressive adventure. These days, for $2,000-$5,000 you can sail to the Galapagos Islands; for $10,000-$30,000 you can take a cruise to Antarctica; and for $60,000 you can join an expedition that will guide you all the way to the summit of Everest. No experience required. Ms. Shah-Klorfine was not a climber: she had done no mountaineering; she had no high-altitude experience at all. Her only preparation was fitness conditioning – for about 18 months she ran, or walked, 17 km a day with 20 kg on her back. 

The Hillary Step - the last major obstacle before the summit

This phenomenon of small, private companies guiding tourists willing to pay the high fees has dominated the climbing of Everest for many years. It’s all an economy of scale. These expeditions usually consist of two or three leaders with high-altitude experience, and familiarity with Everest, and a crew of about ten Sherpa guides. The companies finance their expeditions with the $50,000 fee from each individual participating. They are often not too choosy in the candidates they accept. Shah-Klorfine was with the Utmost Adventure Trekking Pvt. Ltd. The last major disaster on this scale goes back to 1996, when 8 people died on the mountain - five of them were with two companies similar to the one Shah-Klorfine went with. The cause of those deaths in '96 was, primarily, bad weather. But too many people going for the summit at the same time was a contributing factor back then, too. This year it was definitely sheer numbers that led to this calamity – there were about 205 “climbers” who attempted to reach the peak on the same day. Why?

The government of Nepal collects a $10,000 fee for every individual license granted for those who want to climb Everest – at 8,848 metres, the highest mountain in the World. This year they sold about 340 permits. But there are no controls on the number of permits sold, or the actual time when the climbs will happen. The permit is good for any time during the short climbing season. It all depends on the weather - and the weather dictates that the annual climbing season in the Himalayas runs from late-March to the end of May – just before the monsoon in June makes climbing impossible. Invariably, by the time all the preparations are made, and the expeditions complete their treks to Everest base camp, and the climbers acclimatise themselves to the high altitude, it is early-to-mid-May before they reach the higher camps and are perched on the upper slopes, waiting for the appropriate weather that will allow them to make their final push for the top.

205 "climbers" attached to a single fixed rope challenge for the summit on May 19, 2012

This year, the weekend of May 19-20 was the first opening of clear weather for the season. Everyone who had been waiting impatiently on the mountain’s upper slopes seized the opportunity. 205 people hooked onto a line of fixed ropes running all the way from Camp 4, on the South Col, to the summit. The only problem was the final significant climbing obstacle – the rather tricky Hillary Step, named after the famed New Zealander, Edmund Hillary, who - along with the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - was the first climber to get to the top of Mt. Everest, on 29 May, 1953. There was a huge bottleneck at the Step, a 12-metre rock face. Scores and scores of people had to wait up to two hours to get their turn to climb up and over. By the time they got to the summit, and then encountered the same traffic jam on the way down, they had spent almost six hours close to the summit.

Camp 4 sits just below 8,000 metres above sea level. Above that, climbers are into the so-called “Death Zone”. At this height, the air is so thin that they are at a very high risk of altitude sickness. The body starts to deteriorate rapidly. Normally, when numbers are small, climbers leave Camp 4 at dawn and reach the top in about 5-6 hours. They descend to Camp 2 and the more comfortable altitude of 6,500 metres by dusk on the same day. These days, with so many people on the mountain, climbers leave the previous night, arrive at the summit some 12-14 hours later, and often do not get back to Camp 4 until late the following night. People are exposed to the dangers of the Death Zone for two to three times longer than they ought to be.

The Balcony

Ms. Shah-Klorfine’s Sherpa guides knew she was in trouble long before they arrived at the Hillary Step (8,780 metres). She was on The Balcony, a small platform at 8,400 metres, where climbers can take a brief rest and gaze at the impressive Himalayan peaks to the south and east. Her outfitter, Ganesh Thakuri, asked her to turn around. “Please, sister,” he said to her, “don’t push yourself. If you feel weak, please go back. You can come next year. Don’t push yourself, it might kill you.” 

“I really want to go. I really want to reach the top,” she replied. 

Mr. Thakuri reported that he could not persuade Ms. Shah-Klorfine to give up her climb. “She was telling me: ‘I spent a lot of money to come over here. It’s my dream’ ".

With two guides beside her all the way, she got to the summit at about 2:15 p.m. Coming down, however, she succumbed to complete exhaustion. On the way down, as often happens, the weather changed. It was reported that strong winds hit the mountainside and she became disconnected from her oxygen supply. Or, perhaps, she had run out of oxygen bottles because of the long delays caused by the traffic jams. Two Sherpas were with her. It was very slow walking. They tried to support her. And then she couldn’t walk anymore. It was very late. She collapsed.

“Save me,” she pleaded. But it was too late. Those were her last words.

Something must be done. The government of Nepal should establish some basic regulations about the number of permits available each season. The companies organizing expeditions need to demand rudimentary experience. Some of the “climbers” (inexperienced tourists, really) didn’t even know how to attach crampons to their climbing boots. Some had no experience rappelling, and required Sherpas to help them get down the Hillary Step. They should have at least a few years minimum of serious mountain climbing on rock and ice; they ought to have some experience with high-altitude ascents. And these amateurs need to show some humility and recognise that they are in over their heads. Their hubris, after all, doesn’t only put their own lives at risk – they endanger the safety of other climbers on the slopes. And put the lives of their Sherpa guides in jeopardy. 

Mt. Everest is an awesome challenge - the ultimate thrill for the experienced climber. But it is an unforgiving place. Nobody on the mountain can take anything for granted. Rank-amateurs should not apply.

May Ms. Shriya Shah-Klorfine rest in peace. 

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On the topic of climbing Mt. Everest, see also:

Film Review: The Wildest Dream 

Book Review: Into The Silence by Wade Davis

[Resources: reports from The Globe & Mail and The Toronto Star}

How to add Comments to this Blog!

Several people have told me in person, or mentioned on the phone, or in an email, that they have tried to post a comment on this blog but been unsuccessful.

My apologies. I have checked things out in the settings section, and have re-set the blog-site so that anyone can comment. Before it was set so that you had to be registered before being able to post.

But there are a couple of good security protections. To avoid automated spam, potential commentators have to type the words seen printed in very wonky lettering. And I retain moderator's control so that I can pre-screen each comment. Because anyone on the web can now comment, I need to be able to keep off nonsense, irrational thoughts, silly opinions, or anything that is inappropriate or embarrassing to me. Not anything that you would write, anyway - eh?

To comment about a particular post, go down to the bottom of it. On the left side of the first line of text it will read "Posted by Clive Baugh at ..." - giving the time. Then it will say "0 Comments", or "2 Comments". That Comment label is a hot-link; if you click on it you will go to an opened box in the comments area where you can enter a comment by typing a message.

The comment will be posted to the page after being moderated. This might happen almost immediately. It may take a few hours - or a whole day. I should get to it soon.

So, please comment. And thanks for your responses!

CD Review: "Slipstream" by Bonnie Raitt

Front cover of Bonnie Raitt's new album

What a year for music this has been. Another rock veteran puts out a great album. This is Bonnie Raitt’s first release in seven years. It was worth the wait. This is as good as the best stuff Raitt has ever done. And under her full creative control this time.

Bonnie Raitt emerged as a prominent figure in the blues-rock scene in the seventies. She plays a mean slide guitar and is a superb vocalist. But, somehow, she never broke through to the big time in those early days. She recorded a string of seven albums for Warner Brothers in the 70s – almost one a year. They were moderately successful, but no big hit. Nonetheless, she was admired and respected by those who knew her work. 

After being dropped by Warners in the mid-80s, she signed to Capitol Records and did eight albums with them – beginning with a trio of grammy-award winning and chart-topping albums: Nick of Time (’89), Luck of the Draw (’91) and Longing in Their Hearts (’94) . The new album is not only self-produced – it’s also self-released, the debut album for her own label, Redwing Records.   

Bonnie Raitt

This new release is her nineteenth studio album. It's the first for seven years - she took an extended break following the deaths of both parents, her sister and a very close friend. Slipstream is an amalgam of two sets of recording sessions: eight of the tracks feature Raitt’s own road-band and were produced by her at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood; four of the tracks were recorded and produced by Joe Henry at his own Garfield House studios – selected from ten tracks they recorded together in just three days. The released album is all of a piece – a wonderful set of songs done in a retro, guitar-dominated rock format.

The four tracks produced by Joe Henry include two Bob Dylan covers – “Million Miles” and “Standing In the Doorway”, both originally on his 1997 album Time Out of Mind. Henry uses a band of his own colleagues – featuring Bill Frissell on electric lead guitar. There is some nice interplay between his understated, subtle electric lead style and Raitt’s familiar slide guitar playing. The other Garfield House tracks feature two songs written by Joe Henry: the ballad “You Can’t Fail Me Now” (co-written with Loudon Wainwright) and the piano-accompanied and hymn-like ballad “God Only Knows”, which finishes the album on a contemplative note.

The eight tracks produced by Bonnie Raitt feature her own road-band: Ricky Fataar on drums, James Hutchinson on bass, Mike Finnigan on keyboards, and George Marinelli on electric guitar. It’s Marinelli and Raitt who give her production its guitar-dominant sound: sometimes they take turns with solos; other times they provide good counterpoint to each other – he on electric, she on slide.

The album kicks off with the funky rock piece “Used to Rule the World”, a sardonic look at boomers who seem to have lost track of the times. It’s a great arrangement – three guitar parts and Hammond B3 organ. It sets the scene for what is to follow, and is sure to delight those familiar with the bluesy and R&B groove of Raitt’s guitar-rock.

The retro-feel continues with the second track – a version of Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line”, the chart-topping single from his hugely-successful 1978 album City to City. Raitt takes the familiar tune and gives it a fresh approach – thanks to an upbeat reggae arrangement.

... gorgeous vocals

Bonnie Raitt has good taste in material. She picks songs from some of her favourite well-known contemporaries, but also favours songs from lesser-known friends and colleagues. On this album she turns to Randall Bramblett, Bonnie Bramlett (from Delaney and Bonnie), Al Anderson, Paul Brady, Joe Henry and Bob Dylan.

But, when all is said and done, it is her exquisite vocals that make Bonnie Raitt’s albums such a delightful listen. She can give her voice a slight edge of raspiness on the up-tempo bluesy pieces. And then does the slow ballads with a gorgeous, velvety smooth tone. Not just the sound of the voice, though – it’s that phrasing of hers, which delivers a lyric with intimate detail and perfect timing.

Another superb album, then, from Bonnie Raitt. It’s the complete package: good songs, great vocals, bluesy and funky rock arrangements featuring a two or three-guitar attack. What more could the discriminating fan require? If you know and like her work, rush out buy Bonnie Raitt’s Slipstream. Oh, and turn it up loud.

Book Review: Simon Callow's - "Charles Dickens And the Great Theatre of the World"

Cover of Callow's book about Dickens

There are a lot of books and other projects concerning Charles Dickens being released in 2012 to tie in with the bicentenary of his birth on February 12^th, 1812. This one is a book by Simon Callow; it focuses on Dickens as a man of the theatre and, more generally, a public performer - a man happiest when up on the stage mesmerising an audience.

The author, Simon Callow, is an English actor, writer and stage director. I’m familiar with him primarily from three films: he played Mr. Beebe in the Merchant-Ivory film of A Room with a View. He was also did a cameo in Howards End (the Music and Meaning lecturer), another Merchant-Ivory film of an E.M. Forster book. The majority of people, though, would probably know him best from his role as Gareth in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Callow, as actor, has played the part of Charles Dickens several times: on BBC TV’s An Audience with Charles Dickens (1996); in the film Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale (2003); in two episodes of TV’s Doctor Who (in 2005 and 2011); and in a one-man stage show written by the Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd, The Mystery of Charles Dickens (2000).

Simon Callow is also an excellent and quite prolific writer. He has written some ten books - including biographies of Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Orson Welles, and several works about the craft of acting. He also writes occasional pieces of journalism on literature, theatre and cultural history for the UK newspapers.

So, having played the great Victorian author, and performed selections of his work on stage – as Dickens did himself at Readings in the latter half of his life – it is no surprise that Simon Callow would eventually write a book about Charles Dickens, focused on his interests in the theatre and in public performance.

Simon Callow portraying Charles Dickens

Callow’s book, Charles Dickens and The Great Theatre of the World, was released about a month ago. It is a very readable and modest account (354 pages) of the life of the great Victorian novelist. Callow focuses primarily on the major biographical incidents – especially in his childhood – that stoked his enormous ambition and prompted the unending need he had of proving himself in front of others. It also documents his life-long interest in attending professional theatre in London and in mounting his own amateur theatrical productions in front of family, friends and invited celebrities of the age. It becomes clear that his novel-writing was fuelled by his interest and knowledge of the stage, and that his focus on creating interesting and unusual characters was the result of his need to dramatise and perform. Throughout his literary career, his weakness in creating coherent plots and tight narrative structures was often offset by his brilliance in creating fascinating characters – some highly sympathetic and some quite repulsive and grotesque.

Callow focuses on Dickens’s early-teenage experience working at the Warren’s Blacking factory in Charing Cross, when his father and family were living in the Marshalsea Debtors Prison. Dickens was deeply humiliated and shaped by this event. He kept the pain hidden – only revealing it in middle-age to his best friend and future-biographer John Forster. It fuelled his need to compete, to act, and to perform. To prove that he was better than he seemed.

The other key formative experience was an unhappy love-affair with Maria Beadnell. He was ardent, romantic and infatuated. She eventually rejected him. He was - that word again - humiliated. He learned to bury the hurt and put up a façade. He began to write and to perform.

In his late-teenage years Dickens’s was a regular – almost daily – attendant of the London theatre. He learned to love the melodrama and the showy style of acting. He often attended theatres in the Strand and Vauxhall, where you could pay a small fee to participate in the performances – a sort of thespian Karaoke, Callow dubs it. He was trying it out and experimenting - considering acting and theatrics a possible avocation.

Not too long after establishing himself as a successful writer, Charles Dickens began a life-long involvement with ‘amateur’ theatricals. He would create an acting-company from family and friends, and work for weeks – sometimes months – preparing a play that would be performed in their own house. It soon became apparent that Dickens didn’t want to just act and perform – he wanted to be the ultimate theatre impresario. He tended to do it all: casting, staging, stage-managing, starring, setting the music, arranging the set, checking the props, directing, producing, and advertising. He drove himself relentlessly. He was a good actor and he loved being on stage. As Callow puts it: “dressing up and disguising himself was as natural to him as breathing.”

Simon Callow

One aspect of Dickens’s theatrical career that Callow is emphatic on is his inability to write anything good for the stage. He was a great novelist, but his plays were flops. They suffered, Callow argues, “from his abject adoration of the theatre of his day, which he dutifully reproduced … you will search the plays in vain for a single Dickensian turn of phrase.” He stuck to melodrama, and relied on coincidence and contrivance to drive the plot, rather than character development.

Almost from the very beginning of Charles Dickens’s success, London theatres began to do bootleg stage versions on his novels. First there was The Perigrinations of Pickwick; then came Moncrieff’s Sam Weller. It was flattering to Dickens to see the spreading success of his work, but then he began to resent the fact that others were making money using his creations, and he was getting nothing in return. This concern for copyright and “intellectual property” continued throughout Dickens’s career. He spoke out forthrightly against American bootlegging of his novels, during his U.S. tour of 1842, and suffered a noticeable backlash from the local newspapers and public opinion. It would still be quite a time before Dickens’s view was generally accepted. Yet he continued to promote “the financial rewards and the status of his fellow professionals.”

One of Charles Dickens’s notable nods to theatre and the theatrical spirit, says Callow, was the long episode in Nicholas Nickleby dealing with the Vincent Crummles acting troupe. He calls it Dickens’s “love letter to the profession”. He makes fun of the motley crew, with stock stereotypes – like the ‘The Infant Phenomenon’, but shows that he likes their camaraderie. He viewed the theatre, and theatre groups, as an entire world, says Callow. “He finds a kindness and warmth and inclusiveness in the theatre that contrasts favourably with almost every other strata of society”.

Dickens skills as performer also showed up in his oratorical skills – his ability to deliver ex tempore speeches for the many public occasions he was obliged to attend and participate in. Actually, the speeches were not really ex tempore; they may have been delivered without notes, but, as Dickens explained once to his writer-friend Wilkie Collins, he would prepare these speeches in his head during extended walks in the country. He would establish the various headings for the topics he’d be covering, than arrange them in his mind’s eye on a cart wheel. As he delivered the oration, he could be seen to gesture as though he were checking off each spoke of the wheel as he progressed.

Simon Callow as Charles Dickens

The final phase of Dickens’s life was dominated by his public Readings. He would perform selected scenes from his most popular and best-loved books. Dramatic scenes and scenes of strong pathos. No other great writer had ever done this before. It all began with a few presentations of A Christmas Carol  for charity. Dickens must have noticed how much money came in. He realised speaking tours could be a major new source of income. 

These presentations were not straight reading; Dickens gave dramatic performances. As Callow emphasises, every one of these performances – and he ended up doing hundreds of them – took a significant physical and emotional toll out of him. Callow suggests they accelerated his early death. But these Readings allowed Dickens to connect directly with his audience, his reading public. He loved doing them, and thrived off the adulation he received. They were cathartic for him, and he filled them with both passion and playfulness. The audiences were mesmerised.

As Simon Callow shows in this excellent book, Dickens was more than just a writer; he was also a born performer. He liked to play games. And mimic his friends and teachers. He told stories and jokes in public. Gave long, formal speeches. Acted in his own theatrical productions. And gave impassioned and dramatic presentations of his books in hundreds of public Readings. He was always on a stage – performing, competing, entertaining, and story-telling.