Influences

A few months ago I came across pandora.com and thought I would use it to trace some of the influences on Parchment.

This set me off on a musical journey - exactly as the inventers of pandora.com hope.

Parchment should be located somewhere in the folk/rock area.

Pandora don't have Parchment yet. They could do - they like to have slightly obscure musicians.

This led me to Sandy Denny, who was originally the mainstay of Fairport Convention before going her own way and dying tragically in the late 70s.

I bought her collected songs CD and enjoyed it. There is a late song called Listen, Listen which relies heavily on the mandolin and may possibly be offering a perspective on the life of Christ. It is about a traveller who has an astonishing impact on the villages he visits. In the song Sandy's voice harmonises amazingly with the surging sound of the mandolin.

I think it is likely to have been written after Parchment emerged and may be a kind of response.

The thing about Parchment is that they were embedded in the folk music scene and in some ways hi-jacked by gospel music. So in way they never gained mainstream folk recognition although they were highly innovative and creative - especially through the production partnership with John Pantry.

As a result of pandora.com, I'm also enjoying The Innocence Mission who are contemporary American band with Catholic roots.

I've been trying to find a way to create a link to my channel on pandora but am not sure it can be done.