And it’s Happy New Year once again as we hop into 2009 with a new CD cover design (maintained throughout the year but in varying shades of welcoming colours). Not so happy is the fact that the Wayback Machine, our source for much of the archived material we’ve unearthed in previous Back Pages, seems to think that 2009 never happened. There are a couple of entries for the first few months but after that, zip all. Nevertheless, we plough on.
In January AUK unveiled the winners of our annual Readers Poll alongside a top 10 album list compiled from AUK writers’ personal top 10s of the year. Here’s the writer’s top 10 and you can check out all of the writers’ personal lists here.
- Fleet Foxes – “Fleet Foxes”
- Nick Cave – “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!”
- Bon Iver – “For Emma, Forever Ago”
- The Felice Brothers – “The Felice Brothers”
- The Miserable Rich – “Twelve Ways To Count”
- Anna Kashfi – “Procurement”
- Miracle Mile – “Coffee and Stars”
- Martin Stephenson and the Daintees – “Western Eagle”
- Steve Earle – “Live in Austin TX”
- Lambchop – “(OH)Ohio”
As for the Readers’ Poll, here are the winners in the various categories. As you can see in the Artist of the year section, our readers seem to be definitely old school.
Album of the year: The Felice Brothers – “The Felice Brothers”, Bon Iver – “For Emma, Forever Ago”, Fleet Foxes – “Fleet Foxes”
Artist of the Year: Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen
Best TV Show: Later …. with Jools Holland
Best Movie: “No Country For Old Men
Best Radio Show: Bob Harris Saturday Night (BBC Radio 2)
Best Magazine of 2008: Word
Hero of the Year: Barack Obama
Villain of the Year: The Banks
In a prescient manner, we mention Sarah Palin, the then Tea Party candidate for vice president of the USA, a precursor to the MAGA madness we see today as we include her in the Readers Poll … “A (dis)honourable mention to Sarah Palin, a woman so disturbing, bizarre and just plain wrong that it’s hard to think of a single positive thing to say about her, except that if she runs in 2012 it should improve Obama’s chances of a second term.”
The archives show that, at least in the early months of the year, our intrepid reviewers were out and about. Jonathan Aird has a busy January as he attends a two-day event, The Folk America Festival at the Barbican. Tied in with a BBC4 season of the same name, the two back-to-back concerts were titled “Hollerers, Stompers & Old Time Ramblers” and “Greenwich Village Revisited” and featured acts such as The Wiyos, Seasick Steve, C W Stoneking, The Long Ryders, Billy Bragg, Roger McGuinn and Judy Collins. You can read Jonathan’s review here. A few weeks earlier, Jonathan captured Richard Thompson, also at The Barbican, playing selections from his Playboy-inspired album “1000 Years Of Popular Music”, not a regular Thompson gig, but Mr Aird seems to have enjoyed it. Elsewhere we review Mary Gauthier and James McMurtry at Celtic Connections, Judy Collins at the Jazz Café, The Felice Brothers and Arlo Guthrie in London while, out in the boondocks, AUK captured a rare gig from Crosby Tyler. That was part of a tour which should have been headlined by Peter Case but Case, as we reported, had to have emergency cardiac surgery and had to cancel.
On the interview front, we chat to James McMurtry, Rodney Crowell and author John Einarson on his latest book which detailed the story of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Sadly, the archives fail to deliver any of the body of these interviews. Meanwhile, the archived news section is quite bare. The hugely missed Dave Berman (of The Silver Jews) was slated to release a book of his cartoons, while another live album from Leonard Cohen, ‘Live In London’, was mooted for a March release. Of most import is the news that John Martyn died in January of 2009, a much loved and much-troubled artist, only 60 years old when he passed on.
In the absence of archived material we have to turn to the discs which were sent to the friends of Americana UK each month. As always, they’re a great little time capsule of what was getting thrown our way back then. It’s probably a reflection of the record labels’ timelines, but most of the big hitters here turn up on the April disc. It features songs by The Felice Brothers, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Eef Barzeley, The Handsome Family, Bill Callahan, Calexico and Steve Forbert. March is not too far behind, with songs from Mark Olson & Gary Louris, Great Lake Swimmers, Buddy and Julie Miller, Clem Snide, JJ Cale, Charlie Parr and Blackie & The Rodeo Kings (sounding especially good on ‘Stoned’). Elsewhere, The Gourds open the January disc, and they’re joined by Israel Nash, not so cosmic back then as he huckles down for a fine low-key number. February does include a fine song from Chris Eckman along with a magnificent song from Neal Casal (‘Hereby The Sea’), which serves to remind us what a sad loss he is. It’s interesting to note that Glasgow’s hip poster Franz Ferdinand also appear on the February disc. Are they Americana? Answers on a postcard, please.
It’s become our wont to seek out some of the better songs from the lesser-known acts featured on the AUK discs, so our heads up goes to the following. MV & EE with The Golden Road offer up a fine slice of freaky country Americana on their song ‘The Hungry Stones‘, and The Crook Family delve into REM territory on the rather fine ‘To Do, For You’. Whispertown 2000 are quite spooky on their song ‘Done With Love’ while AC Newman’s ‘Young Atlantis’ is a big production number which is both elegiac and uplifting.
Our regular delve into where our editor Mark’s head was at back in the day is revealed again via his choice of the “hidden” tracks appended to each of the discs. January features Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s song ‘Happiness’, taken from their 2003 album “Sleep/Holiday”. The brilliant Aimee Mann features in February singing ‘Mr. Harris’, taken from her 1993 album “Whatever”. It’s, of course, quite gorgeous. March’s offering is Dar Williams singing ‘When Sal’s Burned Down’, and April’s mystery guest is the late Nick Drake with ‘Day Is Done’ from his debut album “Five Leaves Left”.
You can still be a friend of Americana UK in this digital age, and amazingly, it’s now cheaper to do so than it was in 2009. All details here.
Vintage screenshots grabbed via The Wayback Machine.
And, just in case you’re not aware of the late Neal Casal, here he is…
