Entertainment For Lively Minds
Go Mild In The Country - Holiday Playlists
Posted by Mondo on 26 March 2008 - 12:37pm.
I'm off to the Cotswolds next week, the cottage is booked, the itinerary is planned and the CDs are almost sorted. By day it'll be...
XTC, The Beatles, the recent Word CD, Chris Difford, Monty Python, Ronnie Lane and a chance to revisit Steely Dan
By night
John Martyn, Nick Drake, CSNY , Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, Ronnie Lane and possibly Bert Jansch - Avocet (is it any good? )
But I've got some questions...
Does anyone have more recomendations for other country companions?
And what are your travel favourites, playlists and surprises?
Or albums and artists that have been distilled down to 'holiday only listens'?
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First Traffic album
All about *being* in a cottage in the Cotswolds.
I would second that,
...but John Barleycorn may be a more apropos choice, kicking off, naturally into all the other performers of the same song , namely Fairport, Steeleye, (even, unusually for me)Jethro Tull, Oysterband (Big Session), Watersons, Barry Dransfield. sounds a marvellous week. I trust you are going alone. Especially if you were to play that lot.
O, for light relief, Frank Black does a version, of sorts, too: Johnny Barleycorn. It isn't my favourite version.
yes yes yes
"Songs from the wood". Fantastic.
you MUST take
the epic45 album. your trip will be poorer without it...
Pet Rural Sounds
Bo Hansson's "Lord Of The Rings" album - choice pastoral Scandinavian noodlings that chime well in an English landscape.
The Albion Band's excellent "Lark Rise To Candleford" album, set in an Oxon idyll.
The Strawbs' "From The Witchwood" album; rural, English, rousing stuff.
Show Of Hands' "Dark Fields" album for some robust modern songs with occasionally rural themes.
Bo Hansson
Have you listened to it recently? Around age 18 I thought it was fantastic. Some years ago I played it again and wondered what I'd ever heard in it. Off to the charity shop with it.
er,
no.
Not for a while actually.
It always brough to mind rolling hills and broadleaved forests....
(Nervously taps the desk)
Perhaps I should give it a listen tonight....
I'll get back to you.
For the drive there
The Best of Creedence Clearwater revival - Born on the Bayou and Suzie Q turned up load will surely get you in the mood.
Playlists
I don't make many playlists on my MP3 player, preferring albums in order or the joyfully chaotic DJ that is the Shuffle function. However, I always make a playlist of 20 or so songs when I'm going on holiday.
This saves hassle wondering what to play, when really all I want is an hour or so of favourites for occaissional down-time, and, when I get home, I can beat the post-holiday blues by playing the 'Venice' playlist or whatever.
I don't try to find geographically appropriate songs, more ones which I think will match the mood of wherever I am going. (Venice was a diverse list, but united by a hazy, etheral quality to the music).
Anyway - it's Barcelona next week. I've never been there before, or anywhere in Spain come to that, so what does anyone recommend to suit La Ramblas, Picasso and Gaudi?
Hotel Costes series
Mainly French themed, but they're perfect for anywhere in Europe.
And perhaps the first Pink Martini album.
Rumba Argelina
by Radio Tarifa. Outstanding.
If you can find it
I heartily recommend "Blues De La Fronteras" by Pata Negra.
While you're in Barcelona, try finding Radio Tres on the dial - there's a great "classic rock" show on around 8 - 9 pm some weekdays. Sorry I can't be more specific; I found it by accident while laid up with a bad back in Lanzarote last year, with only one of those old-fashioned multi-band radios with analogue tuning and a backlit dial for company. A couple of bottles of local red and it was all I needed!
This sacred day
Tram's second album Frequently Asked Questions has a delicate, pastoral air. The widescreen dynamics of He Walks Alone seem to channel the hottest day of the summer, while the scratchy flute that closes Folk's heat-stoned waltz is evocative of woodlands at dusk.
I'll be needing some more
blank CD's I think.. thanks for all the tips
Has anyone tried Candidate - 'Oxengate'. It looks the part, but I've been duped before.
*Thinks - Wings 'Wild Life'*
Green and pleasant rock
Keep those recommendations coming for music that evokes the British countryside.
Ronnie Lane's already been mentioned, and he's my favourite for curing the city blues. (Who else falls into this "neckerchief rock" category? "My Friend the Sun" by Family has a similar feel. Any other candidates?).
The new Goldfrapp album is very rural, evoking the Cocteau Twins re-enacting The Wicker Man (come to think of it, that's two more recommendations right there).
My problem when I go for a rural jaunt is that I furnish myself with "Five Leaves Left" but find when I get there that I'm wanting a blast of "Fear of a Black Planet".
Try standing on top of a good hill
and tickling your eardrums with "Fear Of A Blank Planet" instead.
Goldfrapp's New Trip pop - Good Point
And Eno's 'Another Green World' in a similar clinky clanky sort of way
The Small Faces - 'Autumn Stone', and Weller's 'Wildwood' are variations on the 'Plonk' theme
Family
No Mule's Fool has a lovely pastoral feel to it too.
Surely you have to take...
this.
Why isn't the Stig wearing a crochet bikini?
In 30 years time this'll be a collector's item like those "Top Of The Pops" albums on MFP.
Very nice thread...
...I agree with a lot of the folky albums nominated here. Anything Fairport Convention put out from 'What We Did On Our Holidays' through to 'Fairport Nine' fits the bill, I feel. Maybe XTC's 'Skylarking' (one of my all time favourites) too- it even starts with suitably rustic sound effects.
Don't know if there are any fans around here but Barclay James Harvest's earliest albums have a lovely rustic quality to them that was sadly sacrificed in the 80s for cheap sounding synths and Chicago-style ballads. I heartily recommend 'And Other Short Stories' and 'Everyone Is Everybody Else' (was actually playing this one whilst walking through a nearby park today, perfect soundtrack).
Agree with Traffic, I nominate 'John Barleycorn Must Die' though. Also check out Wishbone Ash's 'Pilgrimage'- the tracks 'Lullaby' and 'Valediction' are really gorgeous and very English. Turn it off before the really turgid, drawn out boogie 'Where Were You Tomorrow' though.
Also, try some of Genesis' acoustic moments. Tracks like 'White Mountain', 'Dusk', 'Harlequin', 'For Absent Friends' (Colin Blunstone sang this on Steve Hackett's 'Genesis Revisited' album and it sounds like an 'Odessey and Oracle' outtake- seriously gorgeous version), 'Timetable', 'Entangled', 'Ripples' and 'Blood On The Rooftops'.
Top man
for mentioning the early BJH stuff. I'm reaching for my copy of Short Stories right now.
Anything but silent Gs
I used to like BJH many many moons ago, when I were nobbut a lad o'15 summers. I listened to some recently, namely Mockingbird, an erstwhile favourite. Now I have lived in Brum for 25 years I can tell where one of the singers clearly came from, as one of them emphasises the G in the word Mockingbird ever so loudly, whilst the other doesn't. God, how that grates......
A few more...
...Anthony Phillips, ex-guitarist of Genesis, has made an entire career out of that sort of pastoral acoustic sound. My favourite track of his is probably one called 'Treganna Afternoons' which is a purely instrumental acoustic track that runs for about 8 minutes but I find it riveting and really beautiful.
I think Led Zeppelin had many a rustic moment too- see 'The Rain Song', 'That's The Way', 'Tangerine', 'The Battle Of Evermore', 'Going To California', 'Over The Hills And Far Away', 'Bron-Y-Aur' and 'Down By The Seaside'.
And...
...forgot early Pink Floyd- 'Cirrus Minor', 'Cymbaline', 'If', 'Fat Old Sun', 'Summer '68', 'A Pillow Of Winds' and 'Grantchester Meadows'.
That's it from me (you'll all be pleased to hear)!
All this has put me in mind...
..of the first 2 Lightning Seeds records, mid period Ian McNabb and some of Kevin Ayers' more whimsical moments. Hold that moment till I get home and open up a brown bottle of barleycorn juice!
Kevin Ayers is definitely going in the hamper ..
The Floyd tracks, Led Zep Three and Strangely Strange - But Oddly Normal (The Island Anthology)
Welsh Rare Beat came with me to Wales and was the perfect soundtrack to sitting and sipping by the river
Bums! I've only got one day left. Not enough time to fit all these recommended goodies onto blanks