Seeing A Star

Photo by JACK PASCO

One of the highlights of the recent Unison Bends album sessions in Brighton was getting out into the city after 10-hour days in the studio and checking out the local music scene.

A night out at the Greys pub proved revelatory. Four singer/songwriters were on the bill, and each of them was excellent: interesting songs, great voices and out-of-the-ordinary instrumentation.

But one stood out so far ahead of the others that it was almost unreal. Alex KP sings her truly original material accompanied by her own immaculate guitar and the beautiful playing of her cellist. But what stunned the place into complete attentive silence was her voice, an instrument of passion that leaps from sweet to gruffly bluesy in an instant or two.

She is in the same league as John Martyn and Joni Mitchell (while not being a copy of either one). In short: she is a star.

Between Rock And A Small Place

Talking of Bob Dylan… and there are often not many more interesting things to do… I've been reading 'Small Town Talk' the irresistible account by Barney Hoskins of Woodstock (the town, not the festival) in the era of Dylan and The Band.

The book has, inevitably, a lot of drugs and a reasonable amount of sex… but not so much rock 'n' roll. Hoskins emphasises the point that Dylan, The Band, The Basement Tapes and the music that flowed on from them had little to do with the loud excesses of rock and the prevailing spirit of the time.

They were hip, not hippie, and they were artists, not rock stars. The same applied to Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and John Martyn, who also had their Woodstock moments and inspirations.

Every one of these great creative artists gets a flaws-and-all portrait from Hoskins, as does the awesome/awful svengali Albert Grossman, and also the town of Woodstock itself – which went the way of all Edens and ended up as a tourist attraction.