MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
The Electric Muse Revisited
Engrossing account of an era when the crossover between folk and rock began
Electric Muse pic: Roy Harper
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
THE ORIGINAL Electric Muse was written by Karl Dallas (Melody Maker), Dave Laing (Let It Rock), Robert Shelton (New York Times) and Robin Denselow (The Guardian) and published in 1975.
It traced British folk music from its mid-1960s revival up till the mid-1970s. Sadly, only Denselow is alive to see its significantly updated publication accompanied by a wonderful 4-CD box set.
Its early chapters compare the 1960s British folk boom with the US, where folk music consisted of Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Hank Williams, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan and The Byrds — not forgetting the 1920s and ‘30s musicians who recorded hillbilly, blues and gospel, music that Rolling Stone columnist Greil Marcus called “old weird America.”
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