DAVY GRAHAM
LARGE AS LIFE AND TWICE AS NATURAL (1968)
ZEROSOUNDS- Davy Graham Large as Life here . . . .
As I have said before (somewhere!?) any would be guitarist worth their salt in their youth learned how to play Davy Graham's 'Anji' and yet he proved impossible to pigeonhole and Zero G Sounds has posted a vinyl trip of this extraordinary 3rd album from '68. Give it a listen and let it sink in, you won't be disappointed. In lesser hands these arrangements would crash and burn but with the wonderful Danny Thompson on bass Jon Hiseman on drums and Dick Heckstall Smith on sax and Harold McNair on Flute they pull this back from period piece disaster IMHO. The version of Joni Mitchells 'Both Sides Now' is extraordinary and starts off with Graham's clear Indian raga influences before it takes hold and takes on the classic folk song at break neck speed. Thompson makes this song and redeems Graham's 'eccentric' ambition for the arrangement
Zero says:
"This is Davy Graham's third adventure on an LP …and along roads that are folk, blues, jazz, Arabic, Indian - and one or two more things. Travelling with a guitar and also Danny Thompson - bass, Jon Hiseman - drums, Harold McNair - flutes, and Dick Heckstall-Smtih on saxophones. Travelling like Baudelaire's travellers; 'who move simply to move'. The man himself is equally at home in Edinburgh ('a stately city'); Glasgow ('such warm acid'); or in Athens ('gold and purple in the evening. Smooth as marble hollow solid eyes of panthers. So exhausting for strangers.') But he is never at home in any one place for very long. And this seems to be in exact parallel with his music. For he cannot be pigeonholed: fortunately.
He is a life-member on the roundabout of alteration. Like his deep-down blues, and you have to accept his setting of a 1000 year old Romeo and Juliet story. Go with him on a musical flight to Morocco ('Jenra' : pavilion'd in splendour) and the return journey will be via an extended raga. But always-I should add-in the company of originality. For after introducing North African music to Western guitar, he has now done the same for India. It's a bit like Dr Bannister running his 4-minute mile and then going off in search of another distance. All of which is quiet disparate, but also very thorough and exciting and satisfying. In the past few years Davy has played his folk at the Edinburgh Festival, his jazz in some of the best clubs in London, his Arabic interpretations in Tangier and his ragas to people who know Ravi Shankar's records. (Unlike those who have gone to India for a 3-week Sitar course, he has investigated the form of ragas.) So far nobody who has listened has found his music a disappointment. And certainly not the many who have brought his two previous LPs.
Following this later collection I know have no idea where his next stop will be. He might take a bicycle to Mexico or slip inside a carrier pigeon's message to Senegal. Or it could be Canterbury. At least I know it will be fascination though as his producer of records, apart from supervising the sessions, I have found myself becoming more and more an editor of the ideas, which zoom out from him like flying saucers, with there origins just as mysterious. He will sometimes break off in the middle of a 'take' that another guitarist might become a Faust for, to tell me about three points of recording and it is preserved there for everyone to buy-he rarely performs it before an audience again. "I have to avoid the cliche," he says. "I want to keep them on the move…"
Well on behalf of those of us who have done our best to keep up with him. I hope he does."
Tracklist:
01. Both Sides Now (Mitchell)
02. Bad Boy Blues (Trad.; Arr. Graham)
03. Tristano (Graham)
04. Babe, It Ain't No Lie (Trad.; Arr Graham)
05. Bruton Town (Trad.;Arr Graham)
06. Sunshine Raga (Graham)
07. Freight Train Blues (McDowell)
08. Jenra (Graham)
09. Electric Chair (Unknown)
10. Good Moring Blues (Trad.; Arr. Ledbetter)
11. Blue Raga (Graham)
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