TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Just ordered this new book.

The author goes through every album and talks about each track, up to and including Shuffle And Go, so it's bang up to date. I'm expecting it to be lightweight but enjoyably polemical.

Anybody seen a copy?

I have it and I’ve read it from cover to cover. If I’m being totally honest I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped and that was because I found myself getting annoyed with the author. He has his favourite composers (Ric Sanders who can’t put a foot wrong) and those that he can’t stand (Rob Beattie who can’t put a foot right). He also stated on more than one occasion that Huw & Tony Williams were brothers and I’m 99.9% sure they’re not, so that’s a basic lack of research. I really wanted to like this book and I hope others enjoy it and I’m in the minority of one.

That's poor...they're not brothers.  Things like that really annoy me.  What's he like on the early stuff in relation to the later material?  

Very technical throughout which is not a problem but if you’re not a musician you won’t understand lots of it. I don’t actually mind that because musicians will understand and get a lot out of it. I just wish he wouldn’t let his own particular musical tastes influence his writing. Had a bit of a downer on Trevor Lucas as a composer too and to a lesser degree Chris Leslie. As regards earlier stuff he’s as critical over some of it as he is with the later stuff. I’d be very interested to hear other people’s opinion as it might just be me!

Hmmmm.  I wouldn't mind reading a few pages to see what I think.  The honest truth is I'd probably never read 60% of the book though.

Let me know how you get on, I’d be interested in your opinion.

Huw and Tony Williams even had an album called Unplugged and Unrelated. Pretty big clue there!

Oh well. Doesn't sound hugely promising. I'll see what I think after it arrives and I've had a chance to read a few chapters.

When I saw the title of this book, I thought it would be very short, as 'If I had a Ribbon Bow' was the only one of their records released on Track!

Lol.  Very good  ;D

I've got as far as Tipplers . Its the sort of book you'd read on the toilet. Ie for short explosive sessions. He says at the time of Si Tu Dois Partir that its their only TOTP appearance then goes on to mention the second later on. Interesting but not well written.

 ;D

Seems to true of so many of the books, including those written by themselves!  When will Fairport get the book they deserve?  :(

That's a fair point.

One I've never found at a reasonable price is the Patrick Humphreys biography. Worth shelling out for?

I've not read the original version, which is a bit expensive at £30 and only goes up to 1982. I have the revised version which is currently about £12, which is the better bet, obviously. It depends on your limits of reasonable.

I think the last copy I saw advertised was at about £30. £12 is much more like it. I'll see if I can find it at that price. Thanks for the advice.

Patrick Humphries (apologies for the misspelling above!) seems to be a decent music biographer. Reviews of his work tend to suggest he's solid rather than insightful but after Clinton Heylin's book, which was a page turner but opinionated to the nth degree, that might come as a nice change of pace.

Patrick's book was decent, although personally i think the update is a bit 'by numbers'.  It's an enjoyable introduction to the band, anyway.  But they really do deserve a good solid biographical narrative.  Heylin's book could have been that, if only he'd control his appalling habit of infecting everything with his nasty little subtexts.  An infuriating book, and mostly because it is so close to being a good one.  I do love Judy's book, although that obviously sits outside the bounds of this discussion...

Completely agree about the Heylin book. And Judy's. It's excellent.

The £12 copy I saw was on Amazon. There may be others available.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've just had a look and ordered. Just in time too. There was one a £12, everything else on offer was at least £20 more!

Good stuff. Enjoy ! :)

Down to £9.56 on Amazon now

Cheers!

Full disclosure, I already had the Moody Blues, Genesis and Yes volumes in the series so I knew what to expect.
A potted history of the band, album by album, track by track. So basically a book of opinions - some of which you agree with, some not!
A book to dip in to, to be reminded of some of the great songs, to rediscover some of those you'd forgotten, and revisit some that you wish you could forget (Devil's Work, anyone?).
Nothing earth shattering then, but at less than a tenner well worth a look.

My copy of Patrick Humphries' biog arrived today which was much quicker than expected. Had a quick skim - seems like it might be a good read.

Mine arrived today. Thinking of reading it backwards so it has a happy ending.

First thoughts, he could do with some help with his page formatting, and first factual error on page twenty. Phew, I can relax and enjoy the rest of it now.

I'm almost tempted to view that as a competition.  Come on people, there has to be a factual error in the first 19pp we can find, eh?   ;D

Bring it on! 😁😄

I’m pretty much of an accord with most of the above - it’s a good dipper-in but as with most of these collections, it’s difficult to see who its going to appeal to beyond the group’s core constituency. Although there’s reference to the plethora of live albums I would have preferred it if the ‘canon’ albums - Live Convention and Broughton Castle, say, had been included in the main section of the book. There’s a bit too much “Interesting that it is in the key of B with an unusual transposition to A flat major” malarkey, and he’s certainly kinder to some of the latter albums than I would have been, but it’s worth putting on your stocking list.
I see Sonicbond Publishing are looking for contributors to their On Track series - “Mixing fact with in-depth analysis”. I wonder if anyone’s considered an On Track book about the On Track books..?