Parchment play-list

Further research has identified a small collection of Parchment songs on YouTube. Here's a playlist - with some nicely made videos. Enjoy it!
 The tracks are: 

• As long as I can see you - Shamblejam 
• Working Man (Trinity Folk) - Sound Vision in Concert
•  Light of the World - Shamblejam
•  Son of God - Light Up the Fire
•  Love is Come Again - Light Up the Fire 
• Don't Let the Morning Come(tribute) - Shamblejam 
• Light Up the Fire (schools version) - Light Up the Fire

Light Up the Fire - Schools version

Here's a lovely video of a schools version of Light Up the Fire. 


It's the 40th anniversary of the song this year. What are we going to do to mark it? I have some ideas this site may sponsor. Any ideas out there?

More on Reynard

Reynard were Grapevine stars and their albums continue to fetch a premium on the second hand market. They specialised in  electric folk and were a Liverpool band related by blood to Parchment (two members were cousins).

There are now two new downloads of their albums available at The Ancient Star Song, complete with full album art.

They can be found here:
Green Anthem
Fresh From The Earth

Here is our original posting on Reynard, complete with comments from most of the band members.

A Christmas treat

"Upon a frosted winter, upon a frosty morn, at Bethelehem in Israel, the baby boy was born"

Here on YouTube are Trinity Folk performing Working Man on the Sound Vision in Concert album. There are two versions of this song, both acapella - so none of the instruments on the video are actually played during this performance. The second version was the B-side of the single of Where Can I Find You, released by Parchment, as the band was called by this time. I have only just listened to it for the first time and the vocals are quite different to the original (or it may be the 45 speed on my player) - but the harmonies are clearer. It has a slightly different ending - and that's appended. You can see the video reflects the transition from Trinity Folk(some of whose members still remain nameless - anyone?) to Parchment.

Working Man does not appear on the Simply...Parchment CD set, maybe because that second recording was not as good as the original.

* Sometime ago I said there was only one tribute to Parchment on Youtube. I was quite wrong - there are many, many versions of Light Up the Fire, often called "Colours of Day". What is needed is a video of the original, certainly in time for the 40th anniversary. I wonder if Derri Daugherty had heard the original his rendition of the song might have been more lively?

Marie Lacey

Marie Lacey Think Again 1979 Producer: Pete Yates-Round. Grapevine 133. A superbly produced showcase for this Northern Ireland singer. The album fuses pop, gospel, jazz and a bit of rock and roll to create the kind of high quality pop production that often eluded Grapevine and other Christian labels of the era. From the first notes of the first track, 'Perfect Submission', the album maintains its pace through to the end.

There are five songs of Marie's own composition, including the rocking Think Again.As on several other Grapevine albums these were copyrighted to Parchment Music. There are three songs by Danniebelle Hall - not a name I know.

Highlights include the up-tempo gospel 'I Go to the Rock' and the final track, Hall's reflective 'Like a Child'. Lyrically Marie's message is unsubtle. But she's a talented musician as well as being a singer-songwriter and features on the piano and the Fender Rhodes electric piano.

As well as producing, Pete Yates-Round joined Marie in doing the lively, Parchment-style backing vocals. And there are handclaps from folk-rock legends Reynard, who must have been in the studio producing Green Anthem, the album that preceded this on Grapevine.

Other information was difficult to find - and there is not a great deal on the sleeve. She's not in The Archivist but Crossrhythms has a page devoted to Marie Lacey who, apparently continues to be prominent in the region's worship scene.

40th anniversary

Next year is the 40th anniversary of the release of Light Up the Fire. There should be a celebration or an event some kind (John Pac?)

BBC4 is currently showing weekly editions of Top of the Pops from 1976, that is 35 years ago. It would be great if next year they slipped that back to 40 years and it was possible to pick up Parchment's filmed performance of the song - especially as nobody yet has come forward with any film of any kind of the band performing.

* I have done some research and sadly there seems little chance of episodes from September 1972 emerging. According to this site, just two episodes survive from the whole year.

This year's Caedmon gig

If you are near northern England, 70s acid folk gospel band Caedmon have returned to the source of their inspiration, no less than Caedmon Hall, Gateshead, to play a gig on 22nd October 8pm. Tickets available  from the Gateshead Live website.

They are joined by a Newcastle-based band  - Let Sleeping Dogs, who are said to be similar in eclectic style to the reformed Caedmon, drawing on a range of instruments and styles.

Where Can I Find You?

I was listening to Where Can I Find You and I misheard the fourth line as "I still can't find what I'm looking for". The line, in fact, goes "'Cause I'm looking for something I can't find". This set me wondering whether it helped inspire the famous and profoundly spiritual U2 song. Maybe there's a clue in the grammar: For both songs start by searching for a "you" - a person. But  the choruses refer to an object a "what", a "something".

It's an entirely reasonable hypothesis. A friend was impressing on me the other day how influential the Light Up the Fire album was on a generation of young church-goers. U2 members, with their background, were most likely familiar with it. And Parchment set out a vision of spiritual life as a journey, of seeking and learning. U2 more than anyone embodied the band's vision of a culture that embraced traditional Christian spirituality - not rejected it - and of Christians having a place in modern culture.

So to Where Can I Find You. It's a beat gospel song with some amazing echo added by John Pantry, creating an ethereal moaning vocal. For some critics it typified the phenomenon of gospel bands playing musical styles years out of date - as beat had died before the Beatles. For others it's a great example of acid folk at its best - and I'm surprised its Heathcliffian vocals haven't been picked up like other tracks on the album. We don't know for sure when it was written - probably long before 1972. It was released as the band's second single in 1973 with the Trinity Folk acapella folk song Working Man as the B-side. I'm guessing it made no impact on the charts. A shame - but I'm also guessing that over the years it has inspired thousands on their journey by one means or another.

And it ends on a different note to the U2 song, whose singer never finds what he's looking for in spite of believing in the cross "of my shame" which "you... carried".

All together now: "you gotta look for me when you don't really want to..."

PS There's another Caedmon gig on the way. Details to follow.

It took some time

Paul and Sharon Take The Time. 1978. Producer Pete Yates-Round. Grapevine 121.
It's taken me some time to get to grips with this quirky, Irish production by Paul and Sharon Reid. I wanted to like it, and have quite liked listening to it. In fact I've heard it quite a few times. 


Eventually it dawned on me. It rocks! It has rock and it has gospel and in many ways is a true blend of rock and gospel - without a great deal in between.  Like so many other Grapevine records, the producers spotted interesting guitar work and it is the guitars that set the pace throughout. Sharon follows, singing along to complex melodies. Sometimes she goes up when she might do better going down.


Once or twice the pace slows. Windsong is a lovely, harmonised Celtic melody and shows another side to the couple.  In the main however it represents, possibly, one of the earliest attempts to use rock, rather than folk, for praise music. Choruses such as "I want to praise you" and "Glory, Power to Jesus Our Lord" abound. It's hard to imagine  congregations managing to sing along to Paul and Sharon's choruses - but maybe, with some mellow arrangement.


The songs are all composed by Paul and Sharon. There are backing vocals from Pete Yates-Round and Sue McClellan and a string synthesiser. I had assumed Paul and Sharon played the electric guitar - but in fact that was provided by the ever-present Mo Witham.


* I have just checked Ken Scott's the Archivist review. "Acceptable but not Grapevine's best" is the verdict. However Ken thinks the album is more 'mellow' than I do -"mostly mellow songs with pop leanings," he says. Well, it's not a band - but it is high-paced and melodically complex.

Love Is Come Again

Two postings for spring and Easter:
http://parchmentmusic.blogspot.com/2009/03/spring-is-sprung.html
http://parchmentmusic.blogspot.com/2011/01/love-is-come-again.html

A huggable chicken

Caedmon. A Chicken to Hug. 2010. CRCD00001
With the first notes the years fall away. We are transported back 35 years to the original sound of Celtic folk-rock, before Runrig, before Big Country, before U2. And we are transported once again another 1,300 years back to the golden age of Celtic mysticism, spirituality and Christianity.

Imagine if they could sustain this for a whole album - as the original Caedmon album almost achieved, becoming a classic once some collector picked up one of the original 500 pressings from the dusty shelves of a second hand music shop.

This CD released at the end of last year merits a mention because it is remarkable for its very existence. Caedmon in the 1970s, a Scottish student band, has been classified by some with Parchment in the very narrow category of Christian acid folk. On the whole, the bands did not sound similar - but they did create unique and wonderful sounds. That was recognised when the limited press Caedmon album because a collector's album, routinely changing hands for £1,000 or more. Some 30 years later - with the lead vocalist a vet in the Midlands, they managed to reunite, play some reunion gigs and then produce a CD.

 Well, second albums don't have to be the same and bands are allowed to mature and move on. In Caedmon's case they had more than three decades to forge individual lives  - and the miracle was that they re-formed, played together and have given us an album of songs that bridge the gap of decades.

In A Chicken to Hug (the source of the album's title is revealed in the bonus track at the end), the instrumentation is a little more sophisticated and the singing a little hoarser than in 1978. So while in 1978, the band did calypso Celtic-prog-folk style, now they do African music (Ouagadougou) in African style. But the cello is still there, there's some mandolin and there are Jim Bisset's electric break-outs from folky melodies. And I don't remember the accordion from the first album.

In fact there is an extensive list on instruments on this album, including a mbira, a fretless bass, a ukelin, a djembe and a bhodran.

The obessions are middle-aged, reflections on lives that have been difficult, joyful and varied - and as a band that have drifted apart in some ways yet remained, Still Here, faithful to youthful aspirations. It's a similar mixture in lyrical content to Sue McClellan's band River, a rare attempt to reflect the real passage of real lives.

So once you pass that first track, don't expect youthful nostalgia. We had that at the live gig - but even more welcome is a band recognising that great music, and especially spiritual music, should be timeless in speaking to the seven ages of humanity.

My only criticism: the original Caedmon album was a classic. The discovery of a live recording was a massive bonus because this is a band that likes to play its instruments and play them well and creatively. It would be good to hear more jamming, more of them letting rip.

Let's hope for more in the near future!

Link to the album's Facebook page

Fish Co - Beneath the Laughter

Fish Co. Beneath the Laughter. 1977. Producer John Pac. Grapevine 114.
Last time I discussed this classic Grapevine album it was on the basis of a couple of sample tracks.

Now a full download has become available on the web at Electric Psalms. I think the download is legitimate - in that there's no effort under way to market CDs or paid downloads from Fish Co, so far as I can tell. And the tribute site, fairnie.net, links to downloads of later incarnations of this band, such as Writz and Famous Names.

At the time I commented that Grapevine picked up a band that was undergoing rapid evolution. Having heard the full album now, I can report that the combination of Fish Co, Steve Fairnie and John Pac indeed produced something utterly remarkable.

The album morphs from acid folk to something that only be described as punk folk. The title track, Beneath the Laughter and much of the album have a lush electric folk sound, reminiscent of Shamblejam. But Fish Co were heading in a different direction to Parchment, who returned to a more acoustic, rootsy sound in Rehearsal for a Reunion, while Steve Fairnie and his bandmate Steve Rowles stayed close to the rapidly changing tastes of the late 70s and early 80s.

With the exception of John Pac's production there was no cross over in performers - and in fact the album features Pete Banks, of After the Fire on keyboards. So by the end, the band is experimenting with funk and then, in the song Super Heroes, with the new sound of punk - yet still overlaid with the lush female backing vocals of Bev Sage (Mrs Fairnie).

As with many Grapevine albums, copyright was attributed to Parchment Ltd.

Full tracklisting:
Beneath the Laughter
Never Feel Alone
Two on the Street
Across the Table
Miss Esther Lauden
Seventies Children (funk)
Harbour Mouth
Sail Away
Super Heroes (punk)

Pack Up Your Sorrows - Ruthanna

This gives me an excuse to talk about the New England folk singer Ruthanna who began releasing albums in the mid-1970s. I've been stalking her work on ebay for some time and was able to spend some Christmas money to pick up her second album, the live recording Radiant Circle.

There is surprisingly little about her on the web, possibly because she is very much around and the music-sharing web-sites are reluctant to share her albums. On e-bay she's sold as 'weird folk' and much of her stuff is gospel influenced - although her own MySpace website hints at a bit of a spiritual journey, possibly away from the church. Her first album sells for 50 dollars.

If  you collected the Ancient Star Song site's Christmas albums you would have picked up her collaboration with the Catholic priest Richard Ho-Lung - the astonishing Star Lullaby.


I would say she's somewhere between Joan Baez and an Appalachian singer and fits neatly into the genre of remarkable New England musicians that includes Dana Lee Price and more recently the Innocence Mission.

Anyway Radiant Circle, which I am still playing on continuous loop, includes a version of 'Pack Up Your Sorrows'. It's  more derived from the jingle-jangle Joan Baez version than the Parchment rendering - which, like so many Parchment interpretations, seems to have been utterly unique and was a deeply moving adaptation of the song.

Ruthanna uses an instrument called the lute-guitar and that may be responsible for some of the tingly backing music on the album.

Here's our last report on Pack Up Your Sorrows

Love Is Come Again

 There was I watching BBC Alba's Alleluia! (It's a Gaelic channel) and up comes a report on Love is Come Again, the classic track from the Light Up the Fire album.

It seems it could be a Gaelic melody, rather than an English one, as the writer John Macleod Campbell Crum was the son of a Gaelic speaking wealthy Scottish business family. Crum himself spent his adult life in England as a Church of England clergyman, according to the programme.

The programme, number 11, features a stunningly beautiful acapella Gaelic version of the song, known as Èirigh Bileag Ur Ghorm. You may be able to find it on the BBC iPlayer if you're quick. Failing that Alba's website has another, equally glorious, rendition of the Gaelic version of the song, performed by a band, and you may find it by following this link and selecting the song title.

Parchment's high acid folk version of the song has attracted the interest of collectors in recent years as we recorded some six years ago.

* I have just spotted that an anonymous poster on this site last year suggested the melody was very similar to a French carol.  The band always recorded the song as "traditional" as I recall. So did Crum borrow from a French carol - or did a French carol composer borrow from Crum?

Electric Eden?

Santa dropped a copy of Rob Young's 600-page monster Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music into my stocking this Christmas. It's a very readable account of the development of progressive folk in the 1960s - a sorry saga of death and self-destruction among many of the brilliant young musicians who created a new genre from traditional British folk. Quite a lot of time is devoted to the big names, such as the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Pentangle but there are also revelations about many of the more obscure names that crop up on compilation CDs.

There's two pages devoted to Parchment et al. The pages feel like a bit of an afterthought, probably culled from blogs like this one. Rob, I think correctly, suggests that acoustic folk music was an "ideal idiom" for rewriting the hymn book in a modern, gentle image. He names some 14 bands as having made music of "lasting value", including Parchment, Trinity Folk, Caedmon, Water into Wine Band, Presence and 11:59 and a mention of Grapevine Records. And there's some intriguing speculation about Reflection Records A quick check suggests that quite a bit more information has surfaced about Reflection in the last year - including a tribute blog.

Rob Young sets all this in the context of some 60s musicians embarking on spiritual journeys of their own. However, unlike in the USA, in Britain there was very little cross-over to the Christian bands mentioned above. They were mainly fresh-faced youngsters, making their own way in the music scene. The big exception was John Pantry, who brought his talent and production skills to bands such as Parchment.

* Additional note: if you read the Amazon reviews you will see many writers highly critical of Rob Young's efforts to trace a succession to 'Electric Eden' through the 80s and 90s via Kate Bush and new romantics Talk Talk. I'm stuck on those rather tedious closing chapters too. It raises again the question of what on earth happened in the 1980s. Young tries to link the music to a particular view of England. In fact he succeeds in highlighting just how few musicians were playing progressive folk in the 60s and 70s because they thought it was an interesting genre and how many were involved just because it was there. The same comment applies to the Christian scene. Some were in Christian bands because it was a way of making music, others because it was a way of worshipping God or evangelising. In fact those who failed to adopt the latest musical styles were mocked mercilessly, especially at the Greenbelt festival (see the 1979 Greenbelt video) In spite of some deep thinking at the time by  the likes of Os Guinness, very few saw the creation and celebration of excellent music as potentially an act of worship in itself, rather than having some other purpose. In my personal view, this is reflected in the continued dumbing down of church worship music (often there is a fear that worshippers might admire the musicians - just as in the days when many churches banned musical instruments). The history of Parchment and the tensions, both artistic and within the Christian community, really highlight this. Is this a talking point for some of those who were around at the time? Comments welcome!

Wintry music

I made the mistake of going out in the snow with Parchment albums loaded on my mp3 player. 'Summer's coming'? It's not snow music! River's Shadow and Flame would be a better choice. Rehearsal for a Reunion's Angel Voices possibly.

However if you're looking for Christmas music of this era, the Ancient Star Song has gone to the trouble of creating a mega-collection of seasonal tracks. I haven't listened to it yet but it's currently loading to my mp3 player.

The return of acid folk?

Today has been World Aids Day but has also marked another momentous event - the launch of a new album by 70s acid folk legends Caedmon. A Chicken to Hug is their second only studio album. Many of the songs will be familiar to those of us who attended their reunion gig. In nearly 40 years they've all had different life stories but have managed to work together successfully. Sadly Amazon's dispatching seems to have got mixed up with the Christmas rush - so no idea when my copy will arrive, perhaps in Santa's sack? You can find much of the back story at the Amazon page. Also at their own site where there are samples and a link to a new Youtube video.

From the City to the Sea

John Neill. From the City to the Sea. 1976. Producers Sue McClellan and Pete Yates-Round. GRV 107.
This was another of the Grapevine label's early releases, put out directly after the last Parchment album Rehearsal for a Reunion. It's now available as a download on the Ancient Star Song site.

The label liked neat work on the acoustic guitar and this album is one of the best. Like quite a few Grapevine and Pilgrim artists, John Neill came from Ireland - and is a talented song-writer. In fact this album is so good it may find its way on to my mp3.

There's harmonica and, according to The Archivist, also dulcimer. I haven't heard it yet but I shall be listening again to find it. Does anyone have a sleeve shot?

Looking at our Grapevine discography, I see there are still one or  two albums that haven't been identified. What was GRV117 in 1978 or numbers 127 and 130 in 1979?

New songs on Pandora

If you're in the USA, and you're allowed to listen to the World of Parchment Radio Station we set up on Pandora you can now hear the following tracks:
•'The Dangling Conversation' by Simon & Garfunkel
•'Go Your Way' by Anne Briggs
•'High Low And In Between' by Townes Van Zandt
•'Soldier Of The Heart (Live)' by Judee Sill
•'Tomorrow Is A Long Time' by Judy Collins

They sound like interesting tracks. Sadly here in the UK, we're blocked from listening to the Pandora service and haven't been able to hear how the station's developing for a long time. Originally, it proved a great way of exploring the influences and legacy that led to some great music!

Caedmon live in 2010!

Not since discovering River six years ago has there been such an event. Caedmon were a lost legend, known to a hardcore of folkies and one-time fans. When I first heard their work, on an illicit down-load, I was blown away.

At the weekend the band, with all its members, played together in public for the first time in 32 years, gathering in the centre of Edinburgh. And there is even a new album in the pipeline.

As they re-created the sound of their legendary album, it became possible to see how it was done: a cello played like a fiddle; a folk ensemble playing in harmony with a rock guitarist; members with the talent and versatility able to magic up a mandolin, ukelele or accordion as the moment required; and those amazing Gaelic folk-rock melodies.

They were forgotten for a period of 12 years after the members packed up their student life in Edinburgh and set off for real jobs. In 1978 that folk-rock was not fashionable, especially acid folk as it came to be called. They have been of interest here because some analysts classify them together with Parchment as having been the only two Christian acid folk bands, both playing in the 70s, mixing electric guitar, acoustic, mandolin and more.

Watching them live, you could see a band that enjoyed doing what it did, not quite recognising the unique sound and corps of songs they had created. And don't forget in 1978 Celtic rock was only two years away. U2 were about to emerge as were Big Country.

As they played there were few signs of that 32 year gap. The extra performers on the stage - their children - indicated the passage of time. We saw musicians playing together, enjoying re-creating their former sound but also enjoying trying out new songs, adding the experiences of life to their one-time youthful exuberance.

So from our party these were the favourites:
Aslan - 2 votes
Old Kings (new song) - 1
Give Me Jesus - 1.
The last is my choice - even though it's not their composition and is a traditional spiritual. The rendition was  anthemic with vocalist Angela Webb (Naylor) joined on stage by her daughter.

Of the new songs I might have voted for Four Winds, performed by electric guitarist Jim Bisset, and telling, I think, a moving story in powerful lyrics. I'm sorry they didn't play Second Mile, my all-time favourite. Another time?

I hope they continue to play together. I hope some folk festival - Cambridge? - gives them the starring role they deserve.