At the time of his death on April 4th 1992, Arthur Russell could barely get arrested. There’s a moving scene near the end of the Wild Combination documentary on his life, which was filmed at one of Russell’s last ever gigs before he passed away. It’s a beautiful performance made all the more moving by the short time he has left, but painfully sad as it is obvious from the weak cheers that not many people are there. 

However, twenty years later things could not be more different. Today Arthur Russell is widely recognised as being one of the most important composers and performers of his generation, and one of the most influential artists of the past two decades. From house to hip-hop to folk, dub, ambient and jazz, there are not many acts about today who could claim not to have been touched by his skewed genius.

Buddhist, cellist, cruiser, prodigious pot smoker - Arthur Russell was a genuine outsider artist, but without the usual negative, cynical connotations that term brings to mind. He didn’t—couldn’t—play the industry game as his muse was too strong, and he was known to obsessively re-record his signature compositions and melodies, often in wildly different styles. His music was genuinely years ahead of the curve and accordingly it took the world a while to catch up to his unique talents.

Russell’s music touched on many genres, but he is still best known for his work in the field of disco (and later what would go on to be called “house”.) The man pretty much invented “alternative disco” (“post-disco” is perhaps a better phrase) and the Larry Levan remix of his Loose Joints track “Is It All Over My Face” is one of the most influential—and sampled—tracks of all time. If anyone one artist could be said to have given the maligned genre of disco some credibility and kudos, then it is Arthur Russell.

I vividly remember the first time I heard “Is It All Over My Face” and simply being blown away. After a couple of years of casually liking disco as a sunny, kitsch reaction to the overbearing, vapid gloom of 90s alternative rock and Britpop, I had started to pick up bits and bobs on vinyl to play around with on my newly-purchased turntables. The track was near the end of a disco compilation on Strut records called Jumpin’, that featured uptempo, funked-fuelled productions by the likes of Patrick Adams and August Darnell. Great tracks for sure but this was something else completely. It was breath-taking.

Here was a track as heavy and funky as anything by Daft Punk but whose bizarre vocal and chattering arrangement marked it as coming resolutely from the left field. It sounded like nothing else I had ever heard, yet felt like a record I had been waiting my whole life to hear. Instantly house music made a lot more sense, and disco became a real proposition, a serious genre that demanded more respect and closer inspection. To anyone who still insists on disco being plastic/shallow/conformist/blah blah blah, simply put this track on and warm yourselves up a nice big cup of STFU.

But there is a lot more to Arthur Russell than just four-to-the-floor avant funk. His music has a genuine other-worldiness that can only be a product of a singular imagination. Where his disco productions were propulsive and off-kilter, his folk and acoustic tracks have a delicate beauty to rival the tenderness of Nick Drake. The minimalist cello-and-vocal compositions on his World Of Echo album may have faint traces of Terry Riley and the Velvet Underground, but they still sound like nothing else. In a world where music seems to be going in ever more decreasing circles, and where careers are getting shorter and shorter, it’s not hard to see why Arthur Russell now commands such serious respect.

If you are new to the man and would like a crash course in his music, then the Soul Jazz compilation The World of Arthur Russell is the place to start, and once you are done there, move on the album re-issues on the Audika label. If you have the music but want to know more about the man himself, then Tim Lawrence’s biography Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973- 92 is recommended, as is the previously mentioned documentary Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (whose trailer you can see here.)

But for now here are two of my favourite Arthur Russell songs. Two to show the many sides of this incredible talent—the first is a short ballad, the second a full-blown psychedelic epic—and two to mark the two decades since this extraordinary artist left our sphere:

Arthur Russell “A Little Lost” (fan video)
 

 
Arthur Russell “In The Light Of The Miracle”
 

 
Thanks to Kris Wasabi for the reminder!

 
Scottish folk musician, Bert Jansch, one of the most influential and revered acoustic guitar players in the world, has died from cancer at the age of 67.

Jansch passed away in the early hours of October 5 at a hospice in Hampstead, north London. Though he had been ill for some time, Jansch continued to tour and perform, most recently appearing at Glastonbury earlier this year.

Born in Glasgow in 1943, Jansch was a leading figure in sixties folk music, releasing his first album, the self-titled, Bert Jansch, in 1965, which has been hailed as one of the greatest folk albums ever recorded. Jansch’s influence as a musician has streched across several musical genres and generations, from Paul Simon to Graham Coxon.

The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr has said that “You hear him in Nick Drake, Pete Townshend, Donovan, The Beatles, Jimmy Page and Neil Young.”

While Neil Young called Jansch “As much of a great guitar player as Jimi Hendrix.”

Between 1967 and 1973, Jansch co-founder and guitarist with the legendary folk group Pentangle, playing alongside John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox. Pentangle were known for their innovative mix of folk, rock and jazz, as seen through their seminal albums, The Pentangle, Sweet Child and Basket of Light. Their biggest hit single was “Light Flight”, which was used as the theme to the hit TV series Take Three Girls.

In 2007, Pentangle received a Life-time Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, where producer John Leonard said

“Pentangle were one of the most influential groups of the late 20th century and it would be wrong for the awards not to recognise what an impact they had on the music scene.”

Jansch continued to record, tour (supporting Neil Young in 2010) and producing solo material, which led to a major resurgence in his popularity over the past decade. His most recent album Black Swan was released in 2006, of which All Music said:

For the past ten years Jansch has been undergoing a creative renaissance akin to Bob Dylan’s and people are slowly but surely finding what he has on offer. Black Swan proves that the guitarist and songwriter has a bounty at his disposal. He is writing and recording music that is profound, funny, topical, worldly, and ultimately, necessary.

R.I.P. Bert Jansch 1943-2011
 

Pentangle - “Light Flight”
 

 
The Deep Six were a 6-piece (5m 1f) psychedelic folk band from San Diego, who achieved minor success in the mid-sixties with one single and their first and last, eponymous album:

Between late 1965 and early 1966 Deep Six were riding the crest of a wave and when their first single came out, “Rising Sun”, it was a huge hit - but it was a hit in Southern California and almost nowhere else. They toured relentlessly and got lots of good press and good crowds. But when their first (and only) album came out, it failed to show up anywhere on the charts and The Deep Six, badly bruised by the lack of enthusiasm, soldiered on a bit more before calling it a day and splintering into different careers.

Such is the fickle nature of pop, but listening to the album today, there are a few fab jewels tucked away in this album and some interesting things going on here, from the arrangements (some by David Gates), to the stellar list of session musicians (Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, Mike Deasy, Al Casey, Larry Knechtel, Ray Pohlman, and Barney Kessel) that makes The Deep Six an album well worth re-visiting.

Opening with an amazing cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”, which sets a standard the album tries to maintain. While songs such as “When Morning Breaks”, and covers of “A Groovy Kind of Love” and “Solitary Man” make the mark, there are others, including the single “Rising Sun” - which isn’t as good as one would expect - and the cheesy “Somewhere My Love” (aka “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago) that hint at why The Deep Six didn’t make it beyond 1967. A shame, for the potential was certainly there.

Here is the whole album as it was originally relased, upload EarpJohn, who has a damn fine channel on YouTube.
 

01.  “Paint it Black”  2:42
 
More from The Deep Six, after the jump…
 

 
The Finnish artist M. A. Numminen has been a pioneer of avant-garde, underground and electronic music for almost fifty years. He first came to prominence at the Jyväskylä Summer Festival, in 1966, when he performed a series of provocative songs including Nuoren aviomiehen on syytä muistaa (“What a Young Husband Should Remember”), which used lyrics taken directly from guides to newly-married couples and legislative texts concerning the distribution of pornography.

Numminen followed this with his controversial interpretations of Franz Schubert’s lieds, before moving on to writing a series of musical compositions based on the philosophical writings of Wittgenstein.  During this time he also devised a singing machine, and became a pioneer of electronic music - something he returned to with his Techno album in the 1990s. 

Numminen is currently touring Finland, and to get an idea of his work, here’s his interpretation of Baccara’s No. 1 Euro hit ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’.
 

 
With thanks to Paul Darling
 
More from M. A. Numminen and the original Euro hit by Baccara after the jump…
 

Continuing on from yesterdays’ Lucifer’s Friend post, why it’s, it’s… the greatest folk album of the 1970s! Why has nobody heard of this one? Is it the tremendously unexciting cover art? The lack of any kind of pandering to any audience or demographic? The, um, name of the album? Regardless, there’s no good reason why this album remains buried, lost in the annals of history. It’s like an hour of Johnny Appleseed blowing up your head with the sheer awesomeness of his guitar magic, then planting a tree in your head cavity that immediately grows into a 80 foot tall cedar that unleashes 17 red doves from its branches that fly off to establish 200 years of peace in the world.

Uh, Wikipedia has this to say:

Stormcock is a 1971 album by English folk/rock singer-songwriter Roy Harper, commonly acknowledged to be his “best record”.

What? That’s it? That’s like saying that the existence of the universe is god’s “best idea.”

Witness the miracle below.

(Roy Harper: Stormcock)